Sometimes all you need to boost your creative energy is a push in the right direction. Introducing our posse of pleasantly pushy 2012 Spring Training Coaches! With useful tips, doable exercises, and fresh perspectives, we'll help you limber up those creative muscles and liberate your scrapbooking mojo.

If you’re a registered “Craft-lete,” you’ll get all of this and much, much more  Read more »

“A book is a gift you can open again and again.” –Garrison Keillor

Scrapbooking and reading are both hobbies I am passionate about, and I am always looking for an opportunity to combine the two. Not only do my favorite books offer me hours of entertainment within the pages of their stories, but the various books that line my bookshelves also provide me with endless design inspiration.

While it’s easy to take your design cues Read more »

I am a cardmaker at heart—and thank-you cards are certainly at the heart of my arsenal. If you take a look at my stamps, you’ll find tons of “Thank You” sentiments that are well loved and heavily inked!

It’s a great idea to have a stash of thank you cards on hand and if possible, it’s nice to have a selection of styles and layouts to fit the occasion or the recipient.

Today, I’m sharing several simple thank you cards ranging from elegant to whimsical. With these cards as inspiration and a few helpful hints along the way, I’m hoping today’s article will jump start your card-making mojo!

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Just as in the worlds of fashion and décor, the scrapbooking world ebbs and flows with various trends—some last for several years, and others seem to be over as soon as they start. Each year I love to trend watch as I browse manufacturers’ blogs and online scrapbooking layout galleries, and attend the industry trade shows.

As a result, I identified three fun scrapbooking trends picked up by several manufacturers, Read more »

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Some of the hottest embellishments out there right now are small—small flowers, small die cuts, small letter stickers, and more. These undersized accents made me think small, design-wise, as well. How could I take some of the ordinary parts of a page and shrink them down? After all, almost everything is cuter in miniature size. But what would it do to the overall design if only some parts of my page were tiny? I wanted to find out, so I played around with Read more »

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 “They are definitely boys.” Yep, that’s a comment I hear from complete strangers as I’m breaking up a wrestling match in the middle of the produce aisle in the grocery store, as I’m dumping out half the sand pile from their shoes at the park, or as I'm trailing behind them when they decide to have a race in the church hallway. Read more »

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If you have daughters or other girls in your life, you probably create a fair number of girly scrapbook pages. My guess is you have no trouble finding products to help you do the job. In fact, your scrap space is probably overflowing with products that fit the bill. But, with so many options to choose from, Read more »

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When I first started scrapbooking, I learned about design by copying (or very closely following) other scrapbookers' placement of photos, titles, and journaling on their pages. These days, when I look at layouts online or in magazines, I'm inspired not just by the structure of the page, Read more »

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With summer here and day trips and vacations so abundant, I often find myself in a quandary when it comes to scrapbooking these outings. With multiple photos to fit in and so many stories to tell, I sometimes forget to have fun with embellishments. So I challenged myself to explore ideas Read more »

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Have you seen the new Ella Publishing eBook Eight is Enough? Five designers from the Studio Calico kit club were challenged to gather eight products from their stashes and create four unique layouts with those items. Staples like fonts, pens, machine-stitching, cardstock, and Read more »