This Week's Classes...

Transparent Planning Board
Monday, May 5th
6:00 - 8:30
$20
Taught by Jenn


Wedding Planner
Tuesday, May 6th
6:00 - 9:00
$40
Taught by Peggy



Wedding Pages
Thursday, May 8th
6:00 - 9:00
$20
Taught by Susan Beth

April Book Club

by Susan Beth

Last Monday night was our monthly meeting, and we were a crowd again - what fun! However, we were short on members who had actually completed their projects - oh well. Fortunately for us, one member provided so much inspiration that the rest of us just know we'll do better next month!

You may remember that this month we were reading and working from "Designing with Recipes" and Autumn Leaves publication. Everyone agreed, it is a very nice book. In fact, one of our members actually purchased the book three times - that got us off to a start with a laugh as to how she could look at it, not recognize it, and like it enough to buy it three separate times.

Let's start with Rosie's project. It is based on one of the sketches in the "3 Photo Layout" section of our book.

These women in the photos are friends of hers from way back and were taken during a recent trip to the town where she grew up. Rosie used stamps to make the flowers and the flourish stems. Beautiful job Rosie!
Barb provided this wonderful "out of the box" example inspired by the canvas on page 27 of the book, but Barb went way over the top with her techniques. She used a gel medium transfer technique to transfer the photo to the canvas. The metal piece in the corner is a real sickle from the combine on her family's farm Very unique and wonderful project. Thank you Barb!

The rest of the projects were from Jennifer Claar, who found many items of inspiration in this book.

These photos are of a page she did inspired by the Star layout on page 12 of the book. The details are wonderful!

There are supposed to be three of these layouts using different papers and different title presentations, but the same sketch and photos. Jennifer has four children, and scrapbooks for all of them in separate books, so she painstakingly scraps many events three times. The reason I cannot present the other two layouts is I am having challenges with Blogger uploading, and I'm just out of time to keep fussing with it. So sorry Jennifer!

This is a page Jennifer did based on the layout on page 26 of the book. Lots of yummy details here!

The rest of these pages were inspired by the book, but I did not record where. They are all beautiful pages, don't you think! Time to get this book and enjoy how it can inspire you!

So, that is the report on book club for this month. Next month we are reading and being inspired by "Imperfect Lives" which is a big change in style for us, so it will be exciting to see what kind of projects result from this effort. Join us - the book is available on line from Amazon, but not at Keepsakes this time. The meeting is May 19th at 6 p.m. Hope to see you and your projects there!

March Book Club

by Susan Beth Breuner

We had our official book club meeting for this month last night at Keepsakes by Design. And unfortunately, the gang was not all there. In fact, we were at a little over half force with just six of us making it. Not sure where two of our missing members were, one was flying to California because a relative died, another was just missing in action also, and one lady actually came, but before the group got going she was called home because her husband locked himself out of the house. Ah! Well . . . that's life of scrapbooking ladies!

We were using several years old (but classic) Designing with Texture by Autumn Leaves as our inspiration this week. Before showing you any of the projects, let me just say that this was my first ever scrap booking book, and I loved it. By the time this meeting came around my book had pages falling out from over use. But, I ran out of time this month and did not do any new projects from the book - just brought an album with old (3 or more years) layouts. What a wimp I am - slap me on the wrist with a wet noodle and hang me out to dry!

So, Rosie picked this wonderful book, so we'll show her page first.

These are her parents.

She put a lot of little details into this page - micro beads, rub-ons, corrugated paper, watch parts, buttons, stickers, and some killer letters and stamping. She said she was looking and looking for a watch face that she knows in in her stash someplace, but couldn't find it, so she stamped one onto some fabric instead - definitely a great way to add some texture to her page! Nice Job Rosie!

Next is Christi Small (who I mistakenly called Christi Smith, and she graciously corrected me!) She started her project just two hours before our meeting started. She did a little mini album much like the one featured at the top of p. 39 in the book. Here it is:

As I recall, she's using it as a gift for a family member, and she will decorate it for that purpose. I love the beads! And she said she used the big bite crop-a-dile to get that giant eyelet into the middle of the cover - for those of you wanting one, Keepsakes by Design will be getting those in soon! Supposed to be super cool!

The rest of the projects to show this time around are from Erika. You see, Tamara, who usually doesn't do a project because she is time crunched, but we love her so much we don't care, well, this time she did do a project - a page as I recall. But guess what! SHE LEFT IT AT HOME ACCIDENTALLY! And she lives too far away to run home and get it, especially with the price of gas these days. Bummer, because I was really excited to see it. She said its about her daughter in T-Ball and has denim on it. Now, doesn't that intrigue you?

Also, just a quick comment that Jan, our usually super strong always produces lots of great projects - well, she didn't have anything this month, although she came. She's been focused on other things - like finishing the pages from her trip to Japan. So, we'll forgive her this one time and expect something great next month!

Now, onto Erika's projects - and there are three of them, so she's our super-star by volume this month! First we have a mini album that she is doing for the Faith Sister's/Patter Cross challenge (learn more about that here: http://faith-sisters.blogspot.com/). She gets one word a week and then makes something scripture based using that word for inspiration. This is really cool! I was going to do this challenge, and then life got to me and it fell by the way side! So, without further blabberin on from me, here is her super cool project:

This is a year long project/challenge, so eventually this book will be 52 pages long! Wow! She brought this because it is full of texture! And boy is it ever. I spotted Ranger crackle paint, distressed and inked edges, ribbons, fibers, rub-ons, buttons, and a whole lot more! Super cool! I so wish I had started this challenge the first week in January. Now it seems sort of . . . well, hard to catch up. Maybe if I find an extra day in each week I could manage it!

Oh, I almost forgot! Erika order her copy of Designing with Texture on line weeks ago, and it was lost in the mail! =(, Then, suddenly two days ago i showed up in the mail. So, the mini-album book was just partially inspired by the idea of texture, not anything in the book. Then, she got the book and did two pages. So, on to Erika's first page:

This one was inspired by pg. 54 of the book - I think that's what my notes say - and is full of texture even though it is relatively stream lined as to the number of elements. Notice that crackle paint again! Such a cool product! And love how she brought out the texture of those letters by inking them lightly to show the pattern!

And here is her last page, again inspired by a page in the book that had so many stripes! Nice and bright too! Cute little girl is Erika's daughter Zoe - what a smile! And look at that cool hair!

So, since the projects are relatively few this month, I though I'd give you a peek at some of our members.

If you are in the group and weren't able to make it this month, we all missed you so much and hope to see you there in April - especially you, Jenn C. as you have been sick or out of town for way too long! We need you to come back soon and inspire us with your many talents - and make us laugh with your special way of telling a story!

Calling all new comers too! We will next meet on April 21 at 6 p.m. in the back room at Keepsakes by Design. We will be doing projects out of the Designing with Recipe book which is currently in stock at the store, and is a great book. Then, in May we'll be doing a book called Imperfect Lives, which is a big change in style for us - it is just a fluke that we did so many Designing With . . . books in a row. We really do other books. And then, in June we're looking at a home decor book, which will be a real challenge. So, come and join the fun! Remember, except for the cost of the book, its free!

February Book Club: Designing with Details

by Susan Beth

It was a great fun meeting tonight! There was much laughing, some munching, and lots of encouraging and oohing and ahhhing. I managed to lose my notes, so I can't tell you what page inspired each of the projects, but I'll try to remember as much detail as I can. Unfortunately, there was not good lighting in the back room, so my photos do not do any of these projects the justice they deserve. In fact, the photo of my project is completely unusable! Many photos were unusable, but here is what we've got, with comentary below the photos:

Jan was inspired just by the whole concept of details, and she put that all together in a mini-album for her son. It is so beautiful! Remember, the colors are just not right because the lighting was poor!

Barb shared this project from an on-line scrapbook class! It is really cute, even if it isn't from the Designing with Details book.

This is another project from Barb, this time it is inspired by the Designing with Details. It features her daughter Sarah and her dancing experience one year.

Here's the detail on the pull-out from this page.
And one more from Barb, inspired by a layout from Marlette, one of the Autumn Leaves Desinging With authors. Barb commented that making these metal rimmed tags is done with a tool she does not enjoy, and doing this did not change her mind about that. Oh well, glad she went to the trouble for this one!
And, if I remember right, this is a page that Barb really likes because it got her a nice complement from her on line instructor. It is also nice and bright and full of great photos!
This is Rosie's layout, which is not from Designing with Details, but actually from last month when we did Nic Howard's "That's Life." Rosie was not hear that meeting, and brought this to show us this month. It has some moving parts, shown below.

Rosie let us know that doing this detail on the photo did not go as she expected. She was dissatisfied with the way the stamp ink went on, so she went over the image with a black pen. Way to recover Rosie, because it looks great now!

This is from one of our two new members tonight, Christi -sorry, don't know her last name! She says she is a card maker, not a scrapbooker, but then she got a great grand-niece recently, and decided to use this BoBunny book to make a little scrapbook. It isn't finished yet, but it has lots of details.

Here you can see the baby that inspired Christi to step out of cards for this project.


But, fortunately for us, Christi allowed herself to be inspired by the Designing with Details in her card making, and she had this to share with us.
Yes, those are little die cut tags that were alternated to make the closure on this cute card!

It is a wonderful little card!

These next three layouts are by Rachelle, and they are of her with her husband before they got married. The photos are beautiful! The layouts are beautiful! My photos suck! Sorry to say, but you are not able to enjoy the beautiful purple and plum colors that she used because I just can't seem to get them edited in a way that shows them off. My bad!
Rachelle said she loves ribbon, and was inspired by a page in the book that did strips of ribbon as the details to highlight the photos. This is just beautiful!

And this one I remembe was from page 38 of the book. It is a great one! I only wish youcould see the colors as they really are!

So, that does it for this month. There were three people who came who for one reason of another did not have a project to share, and we love them anyway. Oh! And Kristii L. had a great layout that she was finishing up by putting blanket stitching around it with floss. She ran out of floss before the meeting was over, and did not want it photographed without being finished. But trust me, in true Kristii style, it was beautiful and full of oh so many lovely details to look at.

So, for next month we are taking inspiration from Designing with Texture, an old but really great book! Kind of a classic, you might say. That meeting will be on March 17th.Then, on April 21st we will be presenting projects inspired by The Designing With Recipe Book, a new publication that many of us are very excited about. On May 19th we'll be showing work inspired by "Imperfect Lives," a Memory Maker's publication. Then, yes, we know our June book already too. It will be another Memory Maker's publication called "Home Decor." There are so many books to select from! And so much art to be inspired by! Join us if you'd like. There is not cost outside of the cost of the book. We always meet the third Monday of the month, and we have a great time!