AWalkDownMemoryLane

Fabulous Friday Finds

Have you been on an internet treasure hunt lately??  One of the HOTTEST NEW PRODUCTS from CHA this winter was the Fiskars Treading Water Border Punch.  Well, guess what...we've got our 2nd batch in this afternoon and have added them back into the store!!  This is a popular punch shape, because the scallops are HOT right now!  Plus, with the little holes, it's easy to thread your favorite ribbon or floss inside too!

You can find the punch HERE at the store at A Walk Down Memory Lane.

Other hot new products like the Scrapworks Acrylic Albums, WeR Memory Keepers Big Bite tool, and Love Elsie Forrest lines are all in the store already! 

We just received about a dozen boxes through the week with more new goodies including Prima, Heidi Grace, Daisy D's, and Doodlebug.  We'll be working hard this weekend to get all the new goodies uploaded over the weekend for your shopping pleasure!

Meet our June kits!

It's the 15th of the month...know what that means???

Yup, you guessed it!  It's time to meet our JUNE kits!!

We have 2 very pretty, colorful and really unique kits this month.  This first one has brand-spankin' new October Afternoon Detours papers, journaling cards, diecuts and alphabet stickers along with some new Rouge d'Garance Urbaine papers.  Other little extras we've added are some Maya Road Office Sheers, American Crafts slick writer, KI Memories lace cardstock, Cloud 9 Rain dots and a few other cool goodies!

Our other choice this month contains Fancy Pants Simplicity and Heidi Swapp Carefree papers along with some awesome new embellishments!  New American Crafts vinyl alphabets, Kaiser Crafts rhinestones, Heidi Swapp mask, and American Crafts Elements stickers.

Remember, if you are a club member, you can get your kits for 10% off (along with any other purchase you make at the store) and if you are a PREPAID subscriber you get free shipping too!!

I'm excited to see what the Design Team comes up with using these great new kits!!

Free Online classes

I've posted a bit about the new online class blog in a few other posts, but wanted to dedicate an entire post to it, just in case you missed it!  :)

We have started a new online class blog that is FREE for you to download instructions and supply lists for a variety of different paper crafts projects.  You can see the project and get links to the supplies you can buy right from the store.  Sometimes we have a class kit all put together for you in the store, and other times we'll just have links to the products used so you can make your own! 

We post a new project every Monday (with a few bonus classes every once in a while).   These classes will have a downloadable .pdf so you can always save the class to your computer and print it out yourself.  That way you can finish the class when you have time, or if you want to take the directions along to a crop with you, you can!

If you make a project using the classes found on the blog, we'd love to see a link to your project!  You can link it in the comments section under the class post.

Are you looking for a specific class?  Want to learn a new technique?  Email us and we'd be happy to put together a tutorial for you!

Beautiful Colorado

In October, my hubby and I flew out to Colorado for a long weekend.  The Pittsburgh Steelers were in town to play the Broncos, and beings we are such big Steeler fans, we couldn't pass up the trip!  We have friends that live in Denver and have season tickets, and they gave up 2 tickets for us to go watch the game.  We stayed with them for the weekend as well, and one day, we drove up to Rocky Mountain National park.  The day started really sunny, but it was snowing in the higher elevations of the park, which you can see behind us in the photo.

Onto the layout...I started with the Tried and True kit for May.  I used the kraft and red robin cardstocks along with Basic Grey Boxer papers.  I cut out the red flower from one sheet, and the strip from another.  The button, brads, and bling circle frame are all from the kit as well.  I ended up adding a Maya Road sheer for the journaling and used an American Crafts Slick Writer. I also added a Making Memories noteworthy glitter chipboard flower, and some Basic Grey Boxer rubons.  I also took a bit of stickles on the big red flower, but that never scans well.

Monday Member Highlight

It's another Monday...so that means 2 GREAT things for you, readers!!

First off is the Monday Member Highlight section of my blog.  Every Monday I highlight a member or two who has uploaded some BEAUTIFUL layouts, cards or projects to the GALLERY.  Your work can be highlighted here too if you upload your paper craft projects and use products available at the STORE at A Walk Down Memory Lane.

Second is the Monday class/tutorial post over at the FREE ONLINE CLASS BLOG that we started last week.  You can see a new class each and every Monday to help you do a home decor project, or a technique on a card, or lots of other things are in store!  Check it out!

For today's Monday Member highlight layout, I chose this one  by Amy, that was uploaded last week.  I love this layout.  I love the composition, the photo, and the little snippets of Making Memories new Noteworthy and Animal Crackers lines along with some Little Yellow Bicycle background pattern paper.  Do you see how GREAT they coordinate together??  Even though they are completely different lines, they work so great together.

Fabulous Friday Finds

Before strolling down the aisles of the store, I thought I'd show you a quick card that I made using some of the leftovers from yesterday's Kittens layout.  I actually have 2 cards that a are finished like this, and I still have a bit more of the 2 pattern paper left for another couple of cards!

I like making my cards after I finish a layout, because I have all of my tools and embellishments sitting out on my table, AND I have stuff I know already coordinates together!  Plus, who can bear to throw away that pretty paper?  Or, how many of us save those scraps for a future layout, only to never dig back through those scraps because, let's face it...we have so many full NEW sheets of pretty paper to play with!!

This card uses the same Bazzill cardstock, Prima Harmony and Pink Paislee Office Lingo papers from yesterday.  I added an O'Scrap felt flower and used a few more chipboard buttons from Making Memories to finish it off.   I left this one blank to keep it as a multi-purpose card.  I can quick add a sentiment I need when I need a quick card.

Today, for our FABULOUS Friday Finds, we'll be taking a stroll down the album aisle.  You will notice there aren't a terrible lot of albums in the store...know why?  Because there are so many albums to choose from, along with their coordinating page protectors, that I just can't carry them all.  So....I choose a few small gift-sized albums, or  some small acrylic albums for mini albums for you.  HOWEVER....and this is the GREAT part...I can special order just about any album out there in any color you want.   For Instance...American Crafts albums are 20% off this month, and I am offering that on any special-order as well.  If you love American Crafts albums, you can choose your size, finish, and color of American Crafts albums you need, and I'll get them ordered for you!!  This sale is through May 29 so you'll want to get your order in ASAP!

You can click on the American Crafts albums link above to be taken directly to the American Crafts album section.  There you can find all of the various sizes and colors available to choose from!

Kittens for show and tell

I think this is the longest I've ever worked on one layout!!  I started with a sketch from PageMaps for the left page and then just spread it out a little farther for the right page.

I started with brown Bazzill cardstock.  Then I cut the Pink Paislee Office Lingo paper for the bottom strip.  Then I cut a strip of Prima Harmony paper for the other 2 strips.  I took my handy-dandy large corner rounder and scalloped those two Prima strips.  Can you tell I LOVE that technique?  Then I mounted the larger picture onto some more Bazzill cardstock and took my Tim Holtz Design ruler to pierce holes in the cardstock.  I then stitched around the photo mat.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Tim Holtz Design ruler!!  This thing is so awesome!  It has a centering ruler, a regular ruler, one side has a metal edge for using a craft knife with it.  It also has holes along one side for piercing perfectly spaced holes for stitching!!  (sorry girls, I know it's currently sold out, but I have more on order and I'm hoping it should be back in stock within the next two weeks)

OK, back to the layout...I then dug through my 1,001 packages of flowers and started layering and stitching them to my layout.  I used American Crafts felt, plastic and chipboard flowers.  I used Making Memories epoxy chipboard flowers.  I used Imaginisce crocheted flowers.  I used Maya Road velvet flowers.  I used O'Scrap felt flowers.  I also used a few Making Memories velvet and shimmer brads to adhere a few of the flowers that I didn't stitch to the page.

The right side of the layout contains more Pink Paislee and Prima papers, and of course another layered flower.  I used an American Crafts roller rink glitter thicker sticker number and a Luxe Jotters for my journaling block.  I love those Luxe Jotters too.  Very easy to use for a quick journaling block and a lot of them are designed just a bit on the edges to make them look not so plain as a piece of cardstock.

Kindergarten...coming to a close

Well, we are a little over 2 weeks left of school here.  :(  Then a long summer of "I'm bored" or "Can someone come over to play?"  or "I don't have anyone to play with."  Which will then start a myriad of little playdates with neighbors or kids from school, and where I'll feel a tad bit guilty because we could only have 1 child.  Uggh.  :)

OK, so about the layout...I started with Bazzill Bling cardstock from the Silly Pea kit (also available in individual sheets).  I love this paper as it gives off just a little bit of sheen.  It's not too glittery, but just adds a bit of sheen and sparkle.  I added the scallop circle diecut paper from Making Memories Garden Party.  Then I added a white photo mat.  I used my small EK Success corner rounder to make the scalloped edge.  I'll do a little tutorial about that sometime on the new class/tutorial blog.  Anyway, I added Me and My Big Idea sticker gems to the scallops and added a bit of Garden Party ribbon to the photo mat.

Then I started working on the flourish on the corner.  I started with Bo Bunny double dot chipboard.  This is way cool stuff as it's already sticky!!  I added various sizes of Imaginisce flowers, and layered some of those flowers with Making Memories Garden Party dimensional stickers.  I finished off the flourish with a few more gem stickers.

NSD layouts

Here are a few of the layouts that I created on National Scrapbook Day.  Some of them are a little plain, but others took a LONG time to finish!  LOL

This one is using the Gadgets and Gizmo kit for May.  Everything used on this layout is from that kit.  Bazzill cardstock, Paper Trunk 1974 pattern paper, Lollipop Ribbon, plastic American Crafts flowers, Moxxie button, Cosmo Cricket journaling card and alphabet letters, and the Memory Mist.

I used repositionable adhesive to stick the title to my cardstock.  Then I shook up my Memory Mist and sprayed the copper colored glimmer spray over the letters.  I then took the letters off of the cardstock to reveal the clean cardstock underneath, basically using my alphabet letters as a mask.  I also sprayed the journaling card to make it look glittery as well.  It has big splotches in some areas that I did on purpose, and it kinda looks like the insides of pumpkins spilled onto the page.  :)

This layout uses pattern papers, cardstock and brads from the Tried and True kit.  I added some Imaginisce flowers, Making Memories felt flowers, Fancy Pants felt flourish, Making Memories mini tabs, and Stickles.  This layout is based on a sketch challenge from the NSD crop on the message board.

NSD Classes and Challenges Review

We had a great National Scrapbook Day crop at The Scrapbook Site!  We had a lot of members play along with us doing challenges, playing games, and learning new tips and tricks for their cards and scrapbooks!  Here are a few samples of the work our members posted over the weekend.

gale posted this little French Fry container on the left, that she learned how to make during the NSD crop.  DT member Lucy posted this class on the bulletin board during the NSD crop, and we had a bunch of variations on the unique little gift box!

LadybugChristine made this variation of the same class.

Other classes that were taught at the board were:

*  A clear cover mini album
*  Exploding box album
*  Altered Checkbook cover
*  Altered Canvas frame
*  Tea Bag Folding

These classes and challenges will be kept up on the board, but you will also be able to find them online soon, on our online class and tutorial blog.  We are working on a new blog where you can get a new class or tutorial every week! We have our first class posted HERE and will update each week!

Just a little update about the tornado damage...there were a few farms that had buildings destroyed, windows blown out in houses, and LOTS and LOTS of stories from people!  LOL  Everyone at church on Sunday morning was chattering away about where they were, what they saw, and other stories they heard.  One man from our church was out in the fields when he noticed the cattle acting strange.  He looked around and thought, "oh boy, that's a tornado!"  So, he ran to a little low spot in the field next to a fence, and covered his head.  He said, "I'm ready, Lord".  But, the Lord didn't take him that day.  He said the tornado passed extremely close to him, and he even had a pack of cigarettes sucked out of his pockets when it passed by.  CRAZY huh?  They categorized this tornado as an EF2 at it's worst, but most of the time it was an EF1.  It was on the ground for 13 miles and 25 minutes.  I always said I wanted to see a tornado up close, when I knew no one was getting hurt.  Well, I got my wish.  Now, I hope to NEVER see one again!