Be Inspired by TSR s February Sketch: Created exclusively for The ScrapRoom by Julie Bonner

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1 January and February are exciting and chaotic months for us at The ScrapRoom, as this is Trade Show time of year for us. During the Trade Show, we get to see all of the newest releases from our favorite scrapbooking manufacturers, and it is during these 3-4 days that we begin the process of putting together our ScrapRoom kits for the next six months. It is exciting, energizing and still manages to be exhausting at the same time. The 2010 Winter CHA show proved to be a very hopeful show. After the downturn in the economy during the last 18 months, I was encouraged to see so many wonderful manufacturers still going strong and continuing to move forward with fresh and innovative product releases. So, while the economy might be making a slow recovery in 2010, your scrapbooks will not suffer! Our kit line-up for the next six months promises to be full of beautiful and inspiring papers and fun and innovative embellishments. I feel confident that you are going to love what we ve got in store for you! Below is the list of paper lines (in alphabetical order) that will be featured in our next six months of kits. We will be adding to this list throughout the spring, and you can keep up with all of the updates on our message board in the Flavors of the Month Kits forum, where we keep the list pinned at the top of the forum. (For a direct link to the list, please copy and paste the following link into your browser bar and hit enter: ) Tammy FLAVORS OF THE MONTH KITS: American Crafts Dear Lizzy Basic Grey Green At Heart Basic Grey Origins Bella Boulevard Man of the House BoBunny Sophie Cosmo Cricket Material Girl Crate Paper Brook Fancy Pants My Family Fancy Pants Road Show Girls Paperie On Holiday Girls Paperie Paper Girl Jillibean Soup Old World Cabbage Stew KI Memories Groovy My Mind s Eye Quite Contrary Little Boy Blue My Mind s Eye Quite Contrary Little Miss Muffet October Afternoon Fly A Kite October Afternoon Thrift Shop Pebbles Tree House Pink Paislee 365 Degrees Sassafras Lass Cherry Delicious Webster s Pages Lullaby Lane (not Baby ) WRMK 72 Degrees & Sunny DOUBLESHOT & BONUS KITS: Basic Grey Sugar Rush Bella Boulevard Estate Sale Crate Paper Paper Doll Crate Paper Pink Plum Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety Jenni Bowlin Red/Black Extension II Pebbles Twitterpated Pink Paislee Queen Bee SEI Happy Day WRMK Retro Glam (**MORE paper lines will be added throughout the next few months to all of the line-ups. Check the Flavors of the Month Kits forum on our message board for the most up-to-date list!)

2 Be Inspired by TSR s February Sketch: Created exclusively for The ScrapRoom by Julie Bonner Inspiration from our Baristas: Deb Wisinski Lan Amphone Jenny Moore Shawnna Samples

3 Be Inspired to Organize Chaos to Creativity: Organize Your Scrap Space Alphabets By Shawnna Samples This month our focus is on alphabets. We all have them, right? Sometimes I think I collect them. Do you have that same problem? It is almost as if I am saving them up for something special.. I am not sure what, but I will let you know when I figure that out. Whether they are stickers, die-cuts, chipboard, etc. this month we will find a way to organize them that will work for you. The first step, as always, is assessing. Assess the amount of alphas you have, along with the different types: 3D Stickers (ex: Thickers) Stickers Die-Cuts Rub-ons Metal Fabric Chipboard Once you have looked at what you have, you can decide how you want to sort your alphas. You can choose to sort by color, type, manufacturer, or a combination of these. For my personal stash, I sort first by type and then by color. For example, my chipboard letters are all together in one container and within that container they are sorted by color in typical ROYGBIV fashion. Once you decide how you want to categorize your alphas, you need to decide how you will store them. Please review last month s article for information on open, closed, or hybrid storage. Some ideas for storage include: Hang them on a Clip-It-Up: The Clip It Up is a great storage device. It allows you to hang several items while keeping them all visible and within reach. I use my Clip It Up to store my Thickers as they are my go to item for titles. The photos (from the Pink Paislee blog) below are a great example of organized alphabets using a Clip-It-Up Wall system. Store in Plastic Sterilite drawer units or other multi-unit drawers, organized by letter (Ikea): Smaller drawer units, such as Sterilite drawers or the wooden drawers pictured from Ikea,

4 are perfect for sorting letters either by type or by specific letter. The Ikea drawers can also be painted to accent your scrap room décor. In a large storage binder (Cropper Hopper): For stickers or rub-ons, Cropper Hopper s binder is a great storage solution. This allows you to easily flip page by page to find the perfect sheet of alphas for the job. Baskets: Baskets are a cheap and easily available storage option. You could sort alphas by color or type and arrange them for display in a basket. This is a great example of an open storage option. File box with lid: File boxes with lids are a great example of a closed storage option. I love to use this option when I want to keep something out of site and neatly stored. Colorful file boxes can an extra punch to the room as well. Drawer with hanging folders (for stickers/rub-ons): If you already have a file cabinet, hanging files may work for you. These are great for storing flat sticker letters and Thickers as well. I hope this article has been helpful and has encouraged you to make your alpha storage functional for your specific scrapbooking style. Be sure to join me next month when we discuss our scrapbooking tools. TSR MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: While perusing the January Kits Member Gallery, the following layout and project caught my eye for this month s Member Spotlight! Nice Work! Layout by TSR Member, Clare Purse Album by TSR Member, charlotte_sauvage

5 Be Inspired by Plain Chipboard: How to Dress It Up for your layouts! By Tammy Harp I have always loved the dimension of chipboard on a layout, but I ve always thought that plain chipboard is well, plain. It seems as though it is the rare layout that calls for plain cardboard-colored chipboard all by itself. So, scrapbookers the world over have taken to dressing up their plain chipboard to make it really zing up their pages. I m going to share three quick techniques for dressing up your plain chipboard. 1.) Painting with Acrylic Paint: Painting plain chipboard with acrylic paint seems like an obvious choice for adding color and making your chipboard element pop. This is a very easy technique and fairly quick to do, but the mess involved almost invariably makes me look for other options. However, if you want an easy an inexpensive solution, then this technique is for you. Begin by setting out a large scrap piece of paper to hold all of the paint mess. You will need your chipboard piece, a foam paintbrush and your acrylic paint. Squeeze a dab of acrylic pain on your scrap paper. Begin by applying the paint to the sides of the chipboard piece. Let dry. I did the same with the cupcake top using white paint. For a bit of added flair, I added some Stickles (glitter glue) on the top of the frosting part of the cupcake and topped with a rhinestone cherry. 2.) Painting with Maya Mist (or another spray-type paint): This spray-painting technique has become popular more recently with introduction easy-to-use products by Tim Holtz, Tattered Angels, and Maya Road. I used (2) different Maya Mists in my example below. The cupcake base was sprayed with a Metallic Bronze ink, and the top was sprayed with an Iridescent White ink. The iridescent ink wasn t as opaque as I was hoping for when starting this project, but my personal stash of Maya Mists is limited to a few colors, none of which was right for cupcake icing. (You ll get the idea )

6 This technique is super-easy and requires no clean-up (which I like). You will need to have a little box that you can use to spray in, and if you just keep this in a corner of your craft space, you can pull it out and use it over and over. Just place your chipboard into the box, shake up your Maya Mist until it is well-mixed, and simply spray the mist on your chipboard. Let it dry for a few minutes, and you re done! Since I used Metallic inks, my chipboard has a fun metallic sheen to it. I topped it off with a rhinestone cherry. 3.) Covering with Patterned Paper: Since I am a patterned paper junkie, my favorite way to use plain chipboard is to cover it with patterned paper. This involves no messy paints and no messy clean-up, and the only special tools that you ll need are a good craft knife and a sanding tool. First, choose your patterned paper. Turn your chosen side over and apply adhesive to the TOP of your chipboard piece. Adhere the chipboard piece upside down on top of the back-side of the patterned paper. On a cutting surface, use your craft knife to trim around the chipboard piece. Take your sander and sand around all of the edges. You want to sand off the rough edges of the chipboard and patterned paper, and as you do this, you ll see that the patterned paper will start to look like it is bonded to the chipboard. The best sanding tools I have found is the Basic Grey sanding kit. It comes with several different shapes of sanding tools to get into all of the nooks and crannies of your chipboard.

7 I added patterned paper and sanded all of the edges both pieces of the cupcake, creating a cute little layered chipboard element for my page. The red rhinestone cherry really makes it pop with an extra bit of dimension. These three techniques for covering plain chipboard are just the tip of the creative iceberg. By playing around with your supplies, you ll be able to uncover all sorts of fun and creative ways to bring new life to your stash of plain and inspiring brown chipboard!

8 PINK PAISLEE CUPID 8X8 *BONUS* RECIPE CARD The ScrapRoom 2/10 Designed by Tammy Harp (inspired by a Becky Fleck Sketch) February Kits Used: Pink Paislee Cupid Flavors of the Month Layout Kit CUTTING INSTRUCTIONS: Striped Paper (striped side): Striped Paper (blue heart side): (1) 7 x 7 (matted with 7¼ x 7¼ brown cardstock mat) (1) 2 circle (matted with 2¼ brown cardstock mat) Red Scroll Paper (white heart side): (1) 7¾ x 7¾ Red Scroll Paper (red side): (1) 3¼ circle (matted with 3½ brown cardstock mat) Photos Needed: (1) 4 x 6 horizontal photo (matted with narrow brown cardstock mat) (1) 2¾ x 4 horizontal photo (matted with narrow brown cardstock mat) PAGE ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Use 8 x 8 piece brown cardstock as the base. 2. Adhere the 7¾ x 7¾ piece of white hearts paper to the center of the brown cardstock. 3. Adhere the matted piece of striped paper on top of the white hearts paper, centered vertically and just slightly to the left of center horizontally. 4. Adhere matted 4 x 6 photo to the top left of the striped paper, leaving a ¼ striped paper margin along the top and left edges. (Make sure that you only apply adhesive to the bottom edges of the photo so that you can slide the red scroll circle underneath the bottom edge of the photo.) 5. Adhere small matted photo to page, overlapping the lower right edge of the larger photo and overlapping the edge of the striped paper so that the photo ends on the white hearts paper. (Do not adhere the lower left edge of this photo so that you can slide the red scroll circle underneath the left edge of the photo.) 6. Slide the matted red circle underneath the bottom of the large photo and underneath the left side of the small photo. Make sure that the bottom of the red circle extends into the white squares portion of the page, as shown. 7. Adhere matted blue hearts circle to the bottom center of the page, overlapping the red circle, the small photo, and the white hearts portion of the page, as shown. 8. Add title** to the red circle. 9. Add layered chipboard cupcake to the center of the blue hearts circle. (For directions on creating layered chipboard embellishments, see the article in this month s newsletter above.) 10. Add (3) large red rhinestones in a vertical line to the right of the upper right corner of the large photos. 11. Add red rhinestones to the title** and chipboard cupcake as desired.

9 **Alphabets and other items used for Titles and Journaling are not always included in the monthly kit. Substitute something suitable from your own stash or print something up on your computer! Our Recipe Card layouts and directions also sometimes include common scrapbooking staple items such as brads, buttons, mounting cardstock and ribbon that can be easily substituted with something from your stash for that little extra zing on your pages if desired.