I always love Crate Paper, and Lisa (the owner) is just such an awesome lady.  The two new lines this show have got to be some of my absolute FAVORITE of anything Crate Paper has ever done. Just love the colors and style:

I’m not normally into the Pebbles style, but I just LOVED this cute display

I also loved the new October Afternoon lines. The cute secretary paper is to die for!

I seriously fell in love with this adorable line from Websters Pages. I’m not sure what it’s called, but it’s kind of a storybook/fairytale line and the colors are so gorgeous, it’s definitely one to see in person.

And for all you party-throwing ladies, Clearbags.com has the cutest little boxes that fit gumballs. I’m so excited to create some cute party favors for my next party!

Jillibean soup had some super cute lines including an adorable typewriter paper. I loved this cake that they made:

I also liked the styling of the new Heidi Swapp stuff, and her booth was really cute too.

She had two of these cases and the contents and wording changed each day!

I have so many other pics, so I’ll post more when I get a chance. Tomorrow is a travel day so It might take a day or two.

Hey Everyone! I’m at CHA having fun but missing my little guy and of course Mr. Project too.  Saturday was set-up and these are pictures from set-up day.  My new line is Miss Caroline and it has 4 different color sets:Dolled Up

Dilly Dally

Howdy Doody

Fiddlesticks

There are lots of cute accessories including these cute button & pin cards, twine, stamps, brads, pearls, and even rub-ons which look amazing rubbed-on to wood background paper! I’ll just have to make some layouts or cards to show you!

here is the booth set up. The little flags and paper chandelier are made with Rhonna Farrer’s new “follow your heart” line. Which I don’t have a picture of, but I’ll get one today.

Miss Caroline paper is mod podged on that suitcase! And the lunchbox! Plus a smattering of layered stickers made a fast and easy altered project.

And there is this cute antique type-writer that is adorable and best of all it’s “The Oliver Typewriter Co.” I am seriously going to take it when MME is done using it!

I have tons more pictures from my favorite booths, and I’ll take more of the other MME releases today. What are you wanting to see at CHA? And who are you wanting to meet? Yestereday I met Elizabeth Kartchner, Noell Hyman, Kelly Purkey, Paige Evans, Margie Aslett-Romney, and the adorable Teresa Collins.

So this morning I had a lightbulb moment… I don’t have to do any of those lined-up blog posts, I can post whatever I want! Yeah simple I know, but sometimes it’s hard to get there. So in the shower I had a fun idea for a post: things that I’ve been thinking about lately.

1. Politics

We’ve been talking about politics, watching every (stupid) debate, discussing back and forth our issues with each candidate, and generally groaning about how crazy people are. I really like Mitt Romney, he’s handsome (hey we have to look at the guy a lot!), and hard working, is an honorable human being, and a lot of his ideals fit into my moderate perspective. Newt on the other hand I want to poke my eyes out every time I see him, and he has an ego the size of… well bigger than Texas (been there, done that). I actually like the sitting president though I feel his hands have been tied on so many things both by congress and his inexperience, as well as his desire to make everyone happy. If it were between Newt and Obama I would surely vote for Obama, but for now I’ll keep dreaming and hoping that Romney gets the bid.

2. Oliver and playdates

I’m always obsessed with my little guy, he’s the BEST! He started walking a few days after Christmas (at 9 months!) and is pretty good at it now. We also started play dates – I actually had 2 this week which is crazy! I have found that he loves to poke other babies  in the eyes, and he loves swings. It was a great week! There was also a huge sale at Baby Gap, and I got him a ton of cute new clothes which was sorely needed since he decided to GROW out of pretty much everything else we had. So now he’s in between his old jammies making him look like a stuffed sausage and his new jammies which bunch up on his feet when he walks around. He had his 10 month dr. visit and he’s 21lbs and 30″ tall. that’s 50th percentile weight and 75th percentile height. What a big kiddo!

3. CHA

layouts by Amber Packer

I’m on my way to CHA in the morning. For those not in “the know” it’s the Craft and Hobby Association trade show. My new scrapbooking line (that I haven’t talked about here yet) Miss Caroline is debuting and so I’m going to go and have some fun and see some folks I haven’t seen in awhile and generally just get some inspiration and time away from home (I’m sure I’ll miss Ollie like crazy).  I am PLANNING on doing some good blog updates while at CHA so if you’re into that type of thing visit often!

4. Blog Re-design

Up until this point in blog-dom I have had Mr. Project do the majority of the programming of my blog, but I wanted a few specialty things so we’ve turned it over to a good friend who is also an awesome programmer. We are going full-speed ahead on a new look for the blog, and more important better functionality via search and tags etc. Hopefully that will be up sometime in March. I need to get it in gear as far as working on all the new graphics etc.

5. Young Women’s

I just got called in our ward as the Personal Progress Leader. Or something like that. I’m basically in charge of keeping track of and motivating the young women in the ward to keep up with their Personal Progress Program. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything YW related so this should be very interesting. I’m super excited in some ways, and completely terrified in others. But I’m mostly happy to be able to use some of my talents. For me that is so important when I accept a church calling.

6. Pinterest

Who is NOT obsessed with pinterest?

7. Decorating

I spent some time and money getting some empty parts of the house filled thanks in part to these awesome (and cheap) lamps at target. Now to take pictures…

8.  iPhone 4S Camera

It takes awesome pictures and I always have it on me which allows me to get quick shots of Ollie and his daddy. ALL of my January pics have been taken with it, which means that I really need to dust off the SLR. It also means that I’ve gotten a lot of cute video too. Love my phone!

First, how about giving your photos a unique finish by using the digital paper files as an overlay? Most photo editing programs have a layering option. Simply open up your original photo as well as your desired paper choice and then drop and drag. Adjust the layer style and opacity to achieve a new look!

Here’s a look at the unique photo finishes using Linen, Newsprint and Damask papers from the Vintage Findings: All Hallow’s Eve digital kit. (Gosh, aren’t those boys ca-hute? This technique works well with still objects too!)

So after you’ve had your fun adjusting the images, use your new photo on a layout! The image will coordinate perfectly with the other elements in the digital kit. I decided upon the Damask print to use in the following layout.

And if you aren’t really a layout person, digital kits are perfect for card makers too! For a quick and easy card, use a portion of the spec sheet provided with the digital kit as the main image in your card! Crop and print, then score lines and adhere to your card base. Embellish with a coordinating button and twine and you have a fabulous masculine card!

I’m really excited about these techniques and I think it will take my scrapbooking and cardmaking to a new level. I have a bunch of tips and tricks up my sleeve and I can’t wait to show them to you! Thanks!

So I finally got a hold of all my new My Mind’s Eye releases. I actually laid everything out and took a bunch of photos, but that’s a whole other post! Just looking and touching it made me really really want to play with it. So I rearranged some stuff and made some time to just get my hands dirty. First I had to unpack all my craft supplies. As I was doing that I found these three 5×6 pieces of foam core board and it got me thinking of what I could do with them.

I knew I wanted to play with all my pink goodies… if you could see how gorgeous they are, you would want to play with them too!

To make my Home Sweet Home wall hanging, I used pretty much all of the Lost & Found 2 Blush set not including the titles, and definitely including the 6×6 paper pack. I did cut some of the 6×6 papers on my cricut. For the Home Sweet Home lettering I used the Freak Show font (with SCAL) to cut it on my cricut. For the Bracket shape, I made a quick .SVG File that you can download for free.

The first thing I did was cut and mount this glittered dance paper on my foam core:

Then I used this Creamy Brown chalk ink to make the edges look a little edged.

So then I just played around with all the supplies and made these cute rectangles:

To get the striped ribbon to have those pleats, I just cut a strip of card stock a little more narrow than the ribbon, and ran the glue runner over it. Then I adhered the ribbon, and toward the end, I just made 3 loops. Then I ran the whole thing through my sewing machine – looped side first with a contrasting ribbon.

Then to put the brad on, I just took my crop-a-dile and punched a hole through the whole thing and dropped in the brad.

The other fun thing I did with this rectangle was use the coordinating stamps to stamp that cute but still subtle banner.

With this crocheted ribbon, I gathered it with my sewing machine with my very technical method of shoving it through the sewing machine quicker than it can feed itself.

One of the fun things I did with this rectangle was take the pearl swirls and cut them up to fit the bottom of the rectangle instead of using them as a full set. It worked so well and was a super easy way of customizing the pearls.

When all that was done, I glued the rectangles to a wide ribbon and looped it at the top, and hung it in my guest room (which so does not look like a guest room at all!). Yay for baby steps to decorate the house.

Lost and Found 2:

Rosey

Sunshine:

Blush:

Breeze:

I also released Lost & Found Christmas:

and 6×6 Paper Pads:

Those are all my new goodies. I made a super cute wall hanging today and will post it tomorrow morning!

There are 12 different colors, including an awesome gray (I’m so in love with gray right now), and each card holds 20 yards. That’s just the perfect amount for a set of invitations or some party gifts/favors etc.

Of course there is more than twine in Lime Twist… I love all the pieces and papers too. Here is a  snapshot of some of the diecuts, titles, and stickers in the line.

When I was going through them, all I wanted to do was make a layout with my cute guy… no time for that today, but here is a picture of him in his leg warmers:

He’s 8 weeks old today! Time goes by way way way too fast!

If you are interested in purchasing the Lime Twist Twine, please check with your local scrapbook shop. Here are a few online retailers who also carry the line:

Two Peas in a Bucket

Oh My Crafts

Claudia and Company

]]> http://www.theprojectgirl.com/2011/05/04/lime-twist-twine/feed/ 6 http://www.theprojectgirl.com/2011/04/20/designing-update-sneak-peak/ http://www.theprojectgirl.com/2011/04/20/designing-update-sneak-peak/#comments Thu, 21 Apr 2011 00:50:08 +0000 Jen Allyson http://www.theprojectgirl.com/?p=1744 I thought things might slow down a bit when I had baby… what really happened was that I got 2 days off, and then I had to hit some really tight deadlines! So its a really good thing Ollie is a great napper, because I basically worked every second he was sleeping except for a handful of hours at night (like 4 tops). Its been a few crazy weeks, but I finished the projects I was working on! After all that work, I wanted to share a little sneak peak…

Just a tiny little look at the goodies I’ve been designing for MME, they should be releasing at CHA summer in July and hitting stores soon after… I can’t wait to see them all printed and glittered (yes there is TONS of glitter, much to my husband’s dismay)

If you are a fan of MME you may have already seen the release of my new line Lime Twist:

My two favorite parts of this line are the 6×6 pads and the BAKERS TWINE! There are 12 different colors, all in 20 yard lengths, which is the perfect amount. I have not received any Lime Twist yet, but when I do, I’ll take a few photos and post. Here are the adorable 6×6 pads:

If you prefer scrapbooking digital style, I have a fun new release this week:

I had fun creating this very retro looking kit complete with adorable labels and cards, oh and TONS of papers! This will be available at Design House Digital starting Thursday, April 21st, and will be 30% off on release day only!

And just for your viewing pleasure, a few of my freelance projects:

So now, can you see just how busy I’ve been?? Luckily right now I have just a bit of a respite from it all so I can snuggle my cute cute cute little boy:

Two Peas in a Bucket.

Here are some cards and layouts using Stella & Rose that I’ve spied recently:

Butterfly Card by Life as Lou

Miss You! card by Just Helen

Cousins Layout by Jana Eubank

Carefree Boy – Two Peas Gallery

Pigtails from the Two Peas Gallery

So without further ado… I LOVE cards. I think they are the perfect simple and quick craft. I subscribe to this cute little blog called Note To Self (isn’t that the cutest name??). Lindsay’s cards are adorable but not over-done. She has a great knack for balancing designs and elements but still keeping it simple and sweet.  I’m super inspired by her work, so I’ll share a few quick images with you. Check Note To Self out when you have a chance!

How can you do wrong with a big red bow???

And this one is made with MY Fine & Dandy line from MME. Love the flower!I love anything made with Kraft paper. Add some black and butterflies and you’ve got awesomeness.

I love these Christmas trees. I wonder if she cut them by hand? I definitely see an SVG cut file in my future… good thing Christmas is still a long way off!

Thanks Lindsay for all your beautiful inspiration! I hope the rest of you feel inspired to make some cards, or at least do something crafty today!

If you have a craft blog and are interested in being featured on The Project Girl, please send me a link to your blog by clicking on the “contact” button at the top of the page.