Technique - Customize chipboard

I believe we love chipboard......... and we do have stash of them at home.

Today i want to share 1 way to customize your chipboard - the shabby chic style.

Here is what you need:

1) a chipboard piece (here I use a tree)

2) White paint

3) Paint brush

4) Distress ink (Walnut colour) + sponge

5) Word stamps (here I use a MM magnetic mini word stamps)

6) Brown ink for stamping

First, you pick up some paint with your brush.

Tip: Because we want to use just a little bit, tap your brush (with paint) onto tissue or a piece of paper. We dont want blops of paint... but very little dots of it on our chipboard.

Now, using up and down movement, dab onto your chipboard.

Try not to use 'brushing' strokes... we want specks of paints... not stripes/paint lines.

See, you get little specks on the chipboard. Build up little by little till you like it.

I like it random so I see some raw chipboard colour while some other parts gets the paint.

Next, ink the sides and edges with distress ink. This will give it some definition. Brush it lightly and build from there.

Lastly, stamp the trunk of the tree with word stamps. Whatever words you like.

And to give it a finished look - tie a ribbon with a metal charm.

And I use this on the LO here:

New week ramblings

First off, Monday Markdown.

My Minds Eye Be Merry is now 25% off. Remember, all coupon codes can be used with the sale prices. With your 15% off Spring Fling Shuffle coupon, you save 40% off these papers! Wow!

Tomorrow there will be a new tutorial posted. Looking forward to seeing the new ideas!

Keep posting your thoughts on the thread below for a chance to win. Comments close 3/31/09 at midnight. Let us know what kind of tutorials you want to see!

Also, tomorrow is the last day to upload your projects for the April Guest Designer. Anything submitted later than midnight will be considered for May.

Prima Mommy and Me papers are in! I know some of you were asking about these.

Also, we added something fun to the store. 4x8 inch tags!

These are great for mini albums, cards, journaling on layouts or whatever you can think of!

Weekend Sketch

We wanted to get you scrapping this weekend so to get you inspired we thought a sketch would be fun. You can flip it, shrink it, stretch it, use multiple small photos or a big one, make a card, project or layout, whatever works for you . We would love to see what you can do. Upload your finished project/layout to your gallery and post a comment here so we can be sure to check it out. Happy scrapping this weekend!

The Sketch:


My example:

Newsletter Link and a giveaway

Here is the link to the latest Newsletter. LINKY

And as promised, a giveaway. We have tidbits of some freebies from CHA to giveaway. Leave a comment on THIS post for a chance to win. Comments will close on 3/31/09.

Let us know what kind of tutorials you want to see here. Every Tuesday, we'll provide you with a new technique or tip.

Happy Stashing!

Catching up....

So much to catch-up on this week. This poor blog is going to be chock full of good stuff by the end of the week! I had posts scheduled to post while I was out of town on Monday and Tuesday but Blogger ate them!!

Our Newsletter will be going out tonight so be on the lookout! Just a few things we'll cover is the last week of the Spring Fling Shop Hop, a giveaway, Basic Grey contest recap, Guest Designer info, Cards for Heroes and so much more!

To make things a little easier to find, we added tags to the sidebar. You can search easier while you're here.

Here is a quick recap:

New Product this week - MORE Prima! We just can't resist their awesome products. You can see everything in the NEW section of the store. And don't forget the Monday Markdown this week - My Minds Eye Snowed in is now 25% off!

March Guest Designer Jaz Lee uploaded some fun things to her gallery - see them all here. She worked with some of the new Jenni Bowlin Farmers Wife products.

March Design Team Galleries are starting to fill up! Lots of great ideas using the latest releases from CHA.

Basic Grey Contest winners were announced!

Cool tutorial here and here. Look for more ideas each Tuesday.

Cards For Heroes - send your Mothers Day/Fathers Day cards to myself or CFH directly. My box will be mailed out on March 31st to them. To date, I have over 300 cards from our shoppers and my own efforts! I don't make cards but I've been forcing myself too! Email me at admin@yourscrapbookstash.com to let me know if you'll be sending some cards. The next box will be mailed on April 15th.

Wendy was featured on the Prima Blog this week - how cool!

Free Prima Bling - click here to find out more! We've just stocked up on almost all of the new Prima so now's your chance!

Spring Fling - this is the last week to save 15% off your order. Register your email here.

Guest Designer Spot - Its almost March 31st. Thats the deadline to be the guest designer for April! Upload your layouts, cards and altered projects to the special gallery before midnight 3/31 for a chance to be considered. If you upload after that, you will be considered for May. We do not delete the work uploaded - unless you delete it! We'll keep rolling your work over from month to month so if you aren't chosen this month, it could be your turn next month!

OLW - One Little Word is a special inspirational site that starts with a word each week to jump start your journaling and ideas for layouts. YSS.com is the sponsor for their word this week. Jump over there and check out their DT ideas and for a chance to win some goodies donated by us!

Inspiration and sketches

I have this long list in a Favorites folder on my PC - it contains blogs that I love to visit on a daily basis, sketch sites and inspiration sites.

Every week, I head over to One Little Word or OLW to see what the word is. I may not produce a layout with that word, but I keep a running list of the words I like and sometime down the road, I DO use them.

We were lucky enough to be a sponsor for their great site this week. So head on over there to check them out, create a layout and see what all the great design team came up with! You'll be inspired - I promise!

I'm a little behind, so coming later this week will be some massive blog update(s) from me.

Monday Markdown

This week we've added My Minds Eye Snowed in to the SALE section. All papers and embellishments at 25% off!

Stash Faves

Welcome to the new Thursday feature on the blog. Each week, I'm going to highlight some of the favorite product combos in the store with you. Just some things that I notice as I fill orders.

Maya Road Suitcase album and Sheer travel tags.

How cute would they be hanging from the handle of the suitcase? Perfect travel album!

That 'Property Of' tag would be perfect!

And who else sees the perfect tropical travel album using the SEI Bridgeport/Mimosa papers with this suitcase?

Just arrived this week - the new Prima Spring papers. So FUN! I just made myself a little kit of papers and embellishments today using some of the following items:

Prima Papers

Prima Fiesta Flowers

Prima Felt

And another favorite from Prima - their new Stamp kits. In each set, you get a small stamp, an ink pad in a coordinating color and 2-3 little journaling cards. I see a lot of cards made with these in the near future!

Brads - after seeing what mrsmeek did with them in the Basic Grey Contest, I'm totally hoarding brads to lift her idea somehow. Ideas are forming in my brain right now. And with the new textured brads available, the sky is the limit. Fabric brads, epoxy brads, metal brads, glittered brads....

And what layout or card is complete without American Crafts Thickers? So many varieties. Different textures and colors!

Basic Grey Winners and a few other things....

So, I know you are all wondering who won the BG contest.....

mrsmeek with 76 Brads..... (I just love the fact that she used Brads. And 76 of them! I can remember Donna Downey posting about brads last year and she sang it to the tune of a Justin Timberlake song. Must find a link to that post.)

Michelle with Dad + Me - lovely layering!

and the runner up (so hard to choose!)

luv2scrap with Dreamfields and Relax - Basic Grey papers are already distressed but I must say - distressing them further adds to their flair!

I can't believe the awesome details on the layouts in this gallery! You guys really love working with Basic Grey!

Don't forget to upload your Guest Design layouts/cards/minis/altered projects before March 31st. We'll chose one person to Guest Design for us next month and it could be you!!

I know a lot of you are huge Ali Edwards fans and you're probably familiar with her 3 things articles. I've noticed a lot of the new items in the store that go together so well that its almost like the manufacturers teamed up this year to coordinate everything!

As I pull orders, I start to really look at the papers and products I get in the store. Not that I have that much time to actually sit and scrap these days. I tend to hoard it all - just like you!

BUT, I've noticed in all of my stacks of product on my desks right now, are these perfect little page kits or a small group of items that go so well together. By accident or by careful planning.

I'll post my picks for this week later today.

Ribbon Flowers

I recently learned this new technique to make my own flowers from my ribbon stash and thought I would share it with you. I used my flower on a card but they would be great for layouts, mini books or projects of all kinds. You can make them as big or small as you like and with as many petals as you wish.

The first step is to gather your supplies. I used a card a made from Bazzill cardstock and some of the new stickers and ribbon from the Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday line.

Next cut your ribbon into strips. The size of the strips depends on how big you want your petals to be. Then you are going to fold the ribbon in half and glue the 2 ends together. (I just used my tape runner to stick them together for now.) You will want to glue the same side of the two ends to each other so it gives it that great loopy look. Cut another strip for your stem. You can even make leaves for your stem in the same way as the petals. See example:

The next step is to attach your stem to your project. You can do this in many ways; sewing, tape runner, tacky tape, glue dots, brads, staples....whatever look you are going for. For mine I lightly tacked it down with my tape runner then zig zag stitched over it. Make sure you tuck your leaves under the stem before sewing to make sure the cut ends don't show.

After that the next step is to tack down your petals. Once again this can be done in a variety of ways. You can lightly tack them down then sew over them when you attach your center or tack them down well and glue dot your center down later. I choose to lightly tack them down with my taper runner then use my sewing machine to stitch over them in a few spots to be sure they wouldn't move.

Now it's time for your finishing touches. I added a button with a glue dot for a center, a best friends sticker, and doodled around the edges a little.
I hope you will try this technique at home. There are all sorts of flowers out there that you could make!

Happy St. Pattys Day!

TODAY ONLY

Save 17% off your order when you enter GREEN during checkout. Today only.



See below for Newsletter news and other information.



Go Green!

Buried.....

under new product. It seems like I've been sitting in front of the computer for the last couple of days. That or filling orders! man, you guys are fast! We took time out to send a newsletter before it got crazy again. If you aren't signed up or haven't received it, here's the link - Newsletter

Lets cover the new product first.....

In the last few days we've received orders from:

Fiskars Border punches. We were lucky enough to get a small portion of our order. These are POP-U-LAR. They went fast! I think we have a few left. If you missed out, we WILL be getting more in stock soon.

Sassafras Lass Anthem, Vintage Yummy and Bungle Jungle. Again, you guys are fast! Reorder shipped today so we should have it by the end of the week.

My Little Shoebox - I still remember how excited I was to see the tiny alphas in so many awesome colors at CHA. 12 colors to be exact. And then we saw their adorable papers, diecuts and overlays. So we had to order those too! They are a new manufacturer for us, so please let me know what you think!

Prima - We never can say enough good things about Prima. They always amaze me with the products they come up with. I'm not a flower person, but I'm still amazed at how many different flowers they can come up with! And their new paper lines are too cute! Don't worry, we still have a LOT more to come from Prima. More stamps, more papers and those fabulous canvas goodies from Donna Downey! (But thats their April release!)

Make sure you bookmark these important posts from the last week:

Junes Tutorial

Cards For Heroes

Basic Grey winners will be announced tomorrow.

Monday Markdown - Older Sassafras papers are now 40-60% off. October Afternoon Sticker Letters are now 25% off

Happy Stashing!

Cards For Heroes

Last year, we ran a small card drive for Cards For Heroes, a non-profit card making effort for the troops overseas.

You can see more about their efforts on their site cardsforheros.org and their blog.

With Mothers and Fathers Day so close, we thought we'd initiate another card drive for them through the store. You can either send the cards or your donation to us and we will forward it to the CFH group or you can mail them directly to one of their many Shipping Addresses.

They can always use cards with other themes, so please do your best to create whatever themed cards you desire. We just thought Mothers and Fathers would like to receive handmade cards from their soldiers.

Have more questions? Email me at admin@yourscrapbookstash.com or you can view the FAQ's on the CFH site here. The only restriction is glitter - anything else goes!

We hope you'll participate in this little venture. Use up some of those scraps you've been saving, test out those stamps you purchased and haven't used yet.

I donated a lot of product last year to this cause and we will be donating again this year. I've been busy working on cards as well as a donation of paper to the group. We will be mailing a box to them on March 31st and again on April 15th. We will arrange more shipments at a later date.

Again, if you have any questions, please email me.

Contest Ending today

Don't forget to upload any Basic Grey layouts today. They must be uploaded by midnight PST today to the gallery.

The Guest Designer contest runs through the end of the month.

June's Tip/Technique

I've asked the Design Team to come up with some Techniques to help you use the products you have or make you think outside the box.

Here is June's tip. Check back for more tips throughout March.

Here's a really simple ways to make a flower to coordinate with the colors of your layout. If you, like me have tons of scrap papers lying around, you can give them a new lease of life using this fun technique.

Pick 2 pieces of pattern paper.
Colors can either complement or contrast one another.



Draw 1 large and 1 small circle on 1 piece of paper
and draw a medium circle on the pther sheet of paper.
The circles do not have to be perfect. Ovals are really OK.



You should now have 3 circles of descending sizes.



Taking the largest circle, use your fingers to
roll the edges over. Do not be afraid, just get in
there and do it.



Do the same of the rest of the circles.



Next stack all 3 circles together.



Add a button, chipboard or even a brad in the
center and your flower is ready for your layout.
Make sure you glue all the flowers layers down
unless you are using a brad to hold them together.



Here is an example of how you can make use of the
flower we just made. I just love all that texture it added
to the page.

Have fun.
- June -