Have You Seen Them Glue Lines!

While perusing the CKC-Nashville convention a few weeks ago I stumbled across something called Glue Lines from the Glue Dots company. They looked like a promising new adhesive so I bought a box.



At the crop night the convention was holding, I pulled out my new Glue Lines to have a look at them. They are exactly what they sound like: a line of adhesive (1 inch long to be exact) that work just like Glue Dots.

I gave them a whirl on the mini album I was working on and instantly fell in love! There is no way anything on my projects are going anywhere if I use these Glue Lines on them!

It just so happened that one of the vendors from the fair had stuck around to sell the last of their product at the crop and had a few Glue Lines boxes left (and on sale!) so I was able to buy 2 more boxes!

Now you can see from the picture that each box of Glue Lines comes with 200 strips of adhesive, so why do I need 600 strips? Well, honestly when I find a good product I tend to stock up on it because you never know when you'll find it again. I swear I haven't seen Glue Lines available at my local crafts stores before so my thought was that these 600 Glue Lines would tide me over until they show up in stores!

And if you read Let's Talk Scissors! on Sunday, you'll remember that I like to cut my dry adhesives in half on ocassion, and these Glue Lines would be super easy to cut in half. Then I would have 1200 pieces of adhesive! Now you may think I'm just being cheap, but my Scottish heritage tells me I'm just being frugal. ;)

T-Shirt Tuesday - Scrapbooking Burns Calories

This week's T-Shirt Tuesday design is a motto we scrapbookers like to tell each other: Scrapbooking Burns Calories!

But if you think about it, it could be true! Think about the energy you exert using that old QuicKutz Squeeze, or punching out a bunch of flowers for a layout, or even lugging your scrapbook tote around to go to a crop. It may not be a lot of calories, but scrapbooking definitely burns some calories!



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Don't forget our $9.99 t-shirt sale ends tomorrow!

Let's Talk Scissors!

You may recall my post two weeks ago Back to Basics where I discussed basic supplies in today's scrapbook world. At the end of that post I shared my basic supplies.

Did you notice anything odd in the pictures I showed you of the supplies I keep on my desk?

Go ahead, hit the link and look again. I'll wait...

Still don't spot anything odd?

Take a look at this picture in particular...



Did you spot the 3, yes THREE, pairs of scissors??

Okay, you may think I'm a little freakish for this, but I *must* have 3 pairs of scissors available when I scrapbook or craft in general. Why 3? Let me tell you!



The pair on the left are my "adhesive" scissors. I use them anytime I need to cut anything I've used a glue stick or glue dots on. Sometimes I even cut my glue dots in half... crazy, I know. I also use these scissors on cardboard and thicker papers.

The middle pair of scissors are what I consider to be my "good" scissors. No one in my house is allowed to touch them except me. They are for cutting thin papers, thread, and ribbon. Nothing else! LOL!

The third pair are pretty standard for most scrapbookers. The Cutter Bees have a micro tip that is great for cutting small things and sharp enough to cut thread and ribbon.

So, you see, I *have* to have all 3 pairs of scissors since they are all for different projects! :)

What's HOT this Halloween

I don't know about you, but I've gone a little wild over Halloween scrapbook supplies this year. I think I have enough Halloween paper and embellishments to last me until my son turns 10! {For reference, he is currently 1!}

Here are some of the HOT new Halloween lines available this fall...

Pink Paislee - Twilight Collection

This collection has some fun papers, and I just love the 12x12 die cut paper. Also included are clear border stickers, punch out die cuts, and postcards. Not shown but also in this collection are canvas tags, clear stamps, brads, and rub ons. I personally love the shades of color as well as the grunged look in this collection.

Making Memories - Spook Alley Collection

Making Memories always puts a large assortment of product in their collections, and Spook Alley is no exception! Besides the papers, deco pins, trims and treats embellishment kit, velvet frames, looking glass stickers, and journaling pages shown above, the Spook Alley collection also features clear stamps, brads, vinyl tape (vinyl tape is so fun! I just used some in one of my classes at CKC), rub ons, stickers, alphabet sets, metal charms, mini book kit, and a Slice cartridge. Shwew! What else could you possibly need?!

Little Yellow Bicycle - Trick or Treat Collection

If Making Memories didn't have everything you needed for Halloween, then look no further than LYB! As if their papers aren't cute enough (do you just love the 12x12 lace cut paper in black with the tree and graveyard?) they also offer transparent overlays {with foil!}, their signature clear cuts, fabric tags, canvas stickers, a journal tablet, vinyl stickers, lace die cuts, chipboard buttons, a chipboard haunted house mini album, rub ons, bling, and a paper banner kit.

Fancy Pants Designs - Trick or Treat Collection

This collection from Fancy Pants is just waiting for you to make a layout of your little goblin. Its very kid friendly with its fun monster faces. Besides the paper, notebook journal, ribbon, and stickers shown here, the collection also offers a variety of glitter cut transparencies, 12x12 transparent overlays, rub ons, and a wide selection of papers.

Creative Imaginations - Ghoulies, Boo, & Wicked Collections

Creative Imaginations is offering 3 Halloween lines this fall with a limited quantity in each collection. First up is Ghoulies which is another very kid friendly collection with little kids dressed up for Halloween. Next is the Boo collection which has gorgeous die cut papers. And finally we have the Wicked collection which, to me, feels more like traditional Halloween, but the papers and embellishments have a handpainted feel to them which makes them unique.

Bo Bunny Press - Boo Crew Collection

The Boo Crew collectin from Bo Bunny is definitely catering to our kiddie layouts with its ghosts and goblins. Bo Bunny is another company starting to have more products available in their collections. Besides the papers, flowers, jewels, and brads shown here, they also offer rub ons, stickers, buttons, even more paper, stamps, and a treat boxes bags and cards kit. I don't think any of the other collections offer flowers in their Halloween kits, but Bo Bunny knows how some of us feel the need to put flowers on every layout. ;)

Basic Grey - Eerie Collection

I must say that I *love* the Eerie Halloween collection from Basic Grey. The papers really appeal to me with their muted colors and vintage feel. Besides the papers, die cut paper, stickers, buttons, rub ons, journaling cards, and stamps shown above, there are also alphabets stickers, more stamps, chipboard shapes, brads, more rub ons, a large assortment of papers, stickers, a greeting card kit, and a party favor kit. Too cute!

American Crafts - Halloween Collection

This American Crafts collection is full of bright oranges, purples, blues, and blacks. Very vibrant and fun! This Halloween lines offers an assortment of papers, chipboard pieces, flair, rub ons, and stickers.

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And these are all the Halloween goodies I picked up at CKC a couple of weekends ago. If you look close you'll see that I have mixed and matched from several of the above collections.


I also *had* to buy this Halloween accordian album in a tin kit from The Button Farm. It was too cute to pass up and looks full of Pink Paislee Twilight fun!

T-Shirt Tuesday - Scrapbook Junkie

This week's T-Shirt Tuesday features a polular design that pretty much describes all of us absorbed in the scrapbook world. We're all Scrapbook Junkies!


Got a little bit of an addiction to scrapbooking? Don't we all! You're a scrapbook junkie! Have pride in your habit, er, we mean hobby, with our Scrapbook Junkie apparel.


And a similar design of ours in honor of the Twilight saga... Twilight Junkie!

Why am I showing of this design? Keep reading to find out!



If you visit The Scrap Shoppe (and I hope you do!), you may notice this banner on the left in our sidebar. With the next chapter of the Twilight saga coming out in November, we felt the need to advertise the t-shirts in our sister store, MM Custom Creations, devoted to all things Twilight! We even found a New Moon countdown poster that we have placed in our sister store! Score!

Be sure you have your Twilight t-shirt on hand for the opening of New Moon. We'd be happy to customize any shirt for you if you have design ideas. Visit our Custom Designs section in either of our stores for our contact information.

Staining Wood with Distress Ink

Need to stain some wood for a quick project, but don't have any wood stain on hand? Or maybe you just don't want to buy all that stain for one little project. No problem! Just use distress ink from your scrapbook stash!


You definitely want to test your inks on a scrap piece of wood before attempting to stain your project. I used a paint stirrer which is free from most hardware stores.


Be sure to label each ink spot so you can refer to it for later projects.



I needed to stain this wooden "dream" sign that I picked up at my local craft store. I wanted it to match the already stained picture frame (the cute photo of my son yawning is courtesy of the uber fabulous Lotus Blossom Photography). It just so happened that *Vintage Photo* distress ink was an exact match! I used my sponge dauber to ink the entire surface and sides and a q-tip to get in the nooks and crannies.


Not completely satisfied with the outcome? You can always add a second coat to make the stained look darker!

I wouldn't recommend trying to stain anything as large as a piece of furniture. Save those projects for some real wood stain!


You can also use your distress ink to touch up scratches on your furniture. Be sure you have your pre-stained piece of scrap wood handy to match the stain colors.

I hope you enjoyed these tips!

Etsy & Scrapbooking

Love all the stuff you see in the picture collage? You can find it all on Etsy!

Unless you live under a rock, you've probably heard of Etsy. Its a community of crafty people selling their handmade products. Sounds like a dream!

In last Thursday's post about scrapbook kits I mentioned looking to Etsy to find kits. After thoroughly perusing the site and entering numerous keywords, I'm convinced you can find absolutely anything you are looking for there!


For scrapbookers there is just about any kind of embellishment you could wish for available on Etsy. From simple buttons to handcrafted journaling tags. If you are trying to find the perfect *something* to go on your scrapbook layout or project, don't forget to use Etsy as a resource.


Now you might be thinking, "Hey, I'm pretty crafty. Can I sell things on Etsy?" Absolutely! Anybody (over the age of 18 unless under supervision) can sell on Etsy as long as your product is handcrafted, vintage (over 20 years old), or a collection of pieces for a project (like those scrapbook kits we were talking about before). You could make and sell cards, flowers (such as the ones in the photo collage at the top), mini albums, altered products... I could go on and on!

Now let's look at those cute calendar tags in the photo collage at the top of the post. They would be easy to make if you have access to a computer, printer, and a large round punch. But not everybody does! Or, not everybody wants to take the time to do that. That's where you come in with your crafty self and offer these for sale on Etsy!

Do you have a Cricut, Cuttlebug, or some other die cut machine? A lot of people out there don't, so you could, let's say, make several die cuts and offer them for sale.

Are you getting the idea? :)


And, of course, I jumped on the bandwagon and opened my own store, but you'll have to wait a bit for me to fill it up. So bookmark it and check back later! The Scrap Shoppe on Etsy

T-Shirt Tuesday - Hello. My Name Is...

A quick note before we get to T-Shirt Tuesday to announce that we are having a big sale in the store right now. All value tees have been reduced to $9.99! That's half off the regular price!



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This week's T-Shirt Tuesday is going to feature the t-shirt I wore to CKC-Nashville over the weekend. It was interesting wearing this t-shirt. Why? Because it had my name on it! I had vendors calling me by my first name, and I'm pretty sure Angela from The Button Farm remembered me from her morning class when I stopped by her booth hours later because of the shirt.


This Hello. My Name Is... t-shirt is one of the earliest shirts designed in The Scrap Shoppe and has always been one of my favorites.


This shirt is totally customizable. We can add your name to the faux sticker for you with one of our handwriting fonts or you can personalize it yourself at home with a fabric pen or Sharpie. Its up to you! Just remember that we always offer FREE customization!

Here are myself and the girls at the end of the crop on Saturday night. It was a looooong day. We all had a class that started at 8:30 that morning and this photo was taken around 11:30 that night. We were pretty scrapped out!


Other shirts worn by the girls include:
I Scrapbook Therefore I'm Broke
Scrapbook Mentality #452
Paper, Epoxy, Scissors
Scrapbook Mentality #374
Scrapbook Chick
I Need More Balance In My Life {Scrapbooking & Chocolate}

And can I just brag for a minute and say that I saw a couple of girls wearing my shirts at the crop that night??? How exciting!! Thank you Michele and friend from FL!!

Back to Basics

These days when you take a class at your LSS (local scrapbook store) or at a scrapbook convention you may notice something is a little different than it used to be. Your basic supplies list has grown tremendously from what it was just a couple of years ago! Its like everyone expects people just getting into scrapbooking to be more advanced than we were when we started out.

I noticed this when I was gathering my supplies for the CKC-Nashville convention this weekend. The last time I took a scrapbook class was when CKC came to town in 2007. To the best of my recollection, these were the only supplies I needed...


* paper trimmer
* a corner rounder
* scissors
* black journaling pen
* pencil
* glue stick
* black ink (not even distressing ink, just plain old black ink)
* hole punch

Sounds like all you need, right?

Wrong!

Here are the supplies I had to pack for this year...


Add to the previous mix
* a stapler
* paper piercer and mat
* rub-on tool
* glue dots
* brown and black distressing ink
* sponge daubers

Scrapbooking has really moved our beginners along in the last two years!

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After showing you all those *basic* supplies, I feel like I must share my personal list of basic supplies.

Now these are the things I must have out on my desk when I scrapbook and absolutely must take with me when I crop...





It looks like a ridiculous amount of stuff (and it is, I admit it!), but with scrapbooking the way it is today, I just can't function without these things!

Added to the basic supplies of '09 are
* a scorer for my paper trimmer
* a paper towel for inking (and I obviously use the same paper towel over and over -> my dirty little secret is revealed!)
* 3 different pairs of scissors (each pair has a slightly different use)
* brown and navy blue journaling pens
* white Signo pen
* sandpaper distress kit
* sticker maker
* X-acto knifes (regular and swivel head)
* ruler
* Scotch tape

A little sad, huh? What are your must haves when you scrapbook?

Let's Talk - Scrapbook Kits!

Let's take a few moments and talk about scrapbook kits! Now I know some of you immediately start to think, "Oh no! I don't want to commit myself to a monthly kit club! I just don't have the time or the money to spare." Fear not! I'm going to share with you a few websites that offer great scrapbook kits without the commitment of joining a club!


Let's start off with a brand new company that is offering their very first kits this month (and they created the adorable album kit seen above -> how yummy is that handmade felt cherry??): Paisleys & Polka Dots. They offer an album kit and/or a 2-page layout kits, each with instructions and photos of how to recreate each project. I would definitely be buying this album if I wasn't going to a scrapbook convention this weekend!


Speaking of upcoming scrapbook conventions... I'm taking a class hosted by The Button Farm at CKC this weekend and will actually be making the album shown above. I'm very excited about it! The Button Farm offers several different album kits on their website, and I think you would have a hard time finding one you didn't want!


Next up I want to talk about Scrap Can Do. Now, unfortunately, I'm not sure if they are still shipping out their kits because their blog hasn't been updated since May and the kits on their website are only as current as April. They have an open Etsy shop that they also have full of kits. My recommendation would be to contact them before ordering (you can find their contact info on their website). But their album and project kits are so cute, I felt the need to share them regardless. How do you like that cupcake album up there? It's one of Scrap Can Do's retired kits, but it gives you an idea of how unique their projects are.

We all have heard of the company Quick Quotes; they are famous for their quotes on vellum. But did you know they offer kits, too? And not just page kits, but album kits and canvas kits also! The canvas kits are my favorite, and I actually own a couple. They are just so innovative! They do have a monthly kit club called Club Q, but most of their kits are available in their online store.


Scrap Attack Scrapbooking is an online scrapbook store that puts together kits with the products they have in stock. They are simply taking the guesswork out of putting products together by doing it for you! And they offer add-ons to each kit if you think you need just a little but more (but look at all the goodies they offer in one kit, and tell me you really need more!). The kit shown above is from July and is chock full of Jenni Bowlin and Basic Grey paper and loads of embellies from brand names like Zva Creative, Maya Road, and Prima.


I am loving the kits available from Scrapbook Doodle. Of course it helps that the above kit (the September kit) is loaded full of Flutter Butter paper from BoBunny (which is very similar to the Abbey Road collection by BoBunny which we all know I'm in love with [see this post and this post]). They offer various-sized kits which can help your pocketbook and also keep some past kits available on the website. And they all are full of scrappy goodness!


If you're looking for something a little more elegant you might check out this month's kit at Little Red Scrapbook. But don't get the wrong impression! Not every month is this formal! In fact, you can expect something very different from each kit they offer month to month. While Little Red Scrapbook does offer monthly subscriptions to their kits, you can also purchase them individually.


The Scrappy Gourmet is quickly becoming one of my favorite scrapbook websites! Not only do they carry Melissa Frances products (love, love, love her stuff!), but they also have a great selection of album kits, cards kits, layout kits, and project kits. The above project includes everything you see here. Yes, EVERYTHING! I love it!


I could not mention scrapbook kits without mentioning Swirlydoos. They offer gorgeous kits which often feature a lot of Prima and Zva Creative products. Now, while you can buy these kits individually online, they are often snatched up very early in the month. Monthly kit club members are guaranteed a kit so sometimes non-club members may get left out in the cold. But if its the first of the month and you think to check the Swirlydoos website, you just might be able snag one of these fabulous kits!


Now this is a kit! And you will pay a hefty price for it over at Bad Girls Kits, but if you look closely at all the products included with each kit, you're getting your money's worth and then some. They offer other kits with slightly smaller price tags, too.


If digi-scrapping is more your style, head over to the Shabby Princess where they offer a FREE new digital kit each month. And, yes, they keep past kits available for download, too!


There are a couple of other places to find fun scrapbook kits that don't require a monthly commitment. Check out the Top 50 Kits website and also look at Etsy. In fact, I think next Thursday we'll talk about Etsy and all the great things available from their community for scrapbookers.

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Now before I end this blog post, I want to share something great I think my friend Amber is doing with her photography business, Lotus Blossom Photography. She is doing a search for REAL brides. You know, not those stick thin model types who (in Amber's words!) you want to tell to "eat a sandwich!" LOL! So if you live in the Nashville area and think you are a REAL bride or know someone with a wedding dress who qualifies as a REAL bride, check out Amber's website and follew her instructions to submit to be a model for her. Hurry!! The photo shoot is Sunday, September 20th!