The Christmas bug is buzzing

This week I got to play with the new holiday Card Word Art sets from ScrapNfonts and boy were they fun! They come with simple holiday words, phrases and some designs inspired by DoodleBats, Brushes and existing fonts in really nice color palettes. I just printed out everything from each set and started mixing it up. There are so many options.

The colors are just right so that they blend well with paper I already had. For the Holiday Spirit Card Word Art, I matched it up with my Cosmo Cricket Early Bird paper and some red card stock I had on hand. The circles in the set are exactly 1.5" so if you have a circle paper punch at that size, cutting these are a cinch. Almost everything else is straight edged so it's really easy to mass produce with a scissors or paper cutter if you're making all your Holiday cards this year.

There's something about circles and pop dots that just go together in my mind. It's like peanut butter and jelly. They just are better together.

The second set I played with was Fa la la Card Word Art. Ok, so I just want to say that to me the holidays = Christmas music. This set totally gets that. Most of the word art in this set is inspired by Christmas music and I LOVE that.

Me and those circles with pop dots should make a club. Does anything do better to flatter a circle? I don't think so. Pop dots, you're my hero.

I was going to add this little guy below to my Fa la la la la card, but I ended up really liking the look of the striped paper, so I left him off. The paper from these cards is from Basic Grey's Lemonade, except when I used the strips provided in the word art kit and the one light blue strip is from random blue cardstock scraps I had laying around.
Can you believe it's already time to make Christmas cards? I'm so excited!

SNF on BBTB

The lovely Regina Easter, whose delicious projects you might recognize from our design team, hosts her own blog, Bitten By the Bug, with challenges for cricut fans. The projects on that blog are stunning! Well, recently she had her design team incorporate DB Mulberry Lane into one of the challenges. They were fantastic! Check them out here.

ScrapNfonts has also offered to host her next contest, to be announced later this week. Stay tuned to find out more!

November Challenge

We're trying something a little different with this monthly challenge. I am a big paper lover, and I think there are a lot of paper lovers out there. Am I right? Sometimes the paper is so pure and lovely that I dare not cut it, but cut away! The prize of this challenge is more paper!

So here's the challenge: Create a card or a layout featuring a single word sentiment. You can have other words on the project, but one word should be the primary point of focus. Please use a scrapNfonts product in the layout and submit photos of your project to the SNF idea gallery by Monday, November 23rd. (P.S. If you don't have any SNF product, shame on you, we always have free stuff to choose from, so get at it.) The winner of this challenge will get this paper crafting kit:

image from cosmocricket.com

Here are some ideas to get you started.

Button, button, who wants a button?

The sincerest compliment to all of us at ScrapNfonts.com is the kind referrals that our loyal customers pass on to their friends. Please, share your love of our fonts by posting a button on your blog!


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That magic photo

Disclaimer: I am not a professional photographer... but sometimes I like to fake it.

I take a lot of photos. Most of my photos are "meh" and I think, gosh, I can do better than that. Every once in awhile I get a magic photo. Sometimes I don't even know I've taken it until I'm reviewing my photos on my computer. It was REALLY exciting to get a magic photo before the digital era, when you had no idea what your photos looked like until they were developed and processed... I'm so glad for digital.

Magic photos are photos I've taken that take my breath away. It's almost unbelievable that I took that photo! They come every once in awhile, I've had maybe 10 magic photos in my life. I took a magic photo last week and I can't stop staring at it. So I thought I'd add to it with a little scrapNfont magic.


Using SNF Jasper Hand and LD Woodland in white font color, I typed over my photo. I added a slight drop shadow then I made the typed layer transparent to 40% to keep most of the focus on the photo.

Here is Britta faking that she is a professional photographer with her magic photo (notice the watermark):

Gosh I love that photo.

Frightening Food

Do you ever have times when your mind thinks of randomly absurd things and you do a double-take on your thoughts?

"Where in the world did that thought come from?"

Guess what? During the Halloween season you can let those thoughts fly and no one bats an eye. Like eating witch's fingers? On Halloween people say "oh cool!" Any other day, people say "huh?"
I made these fun "petrified mice" for a Halloween party last weekend. They were a hit.

One of the best parts about it was the name tags. They were so easy to make with DB Halloween Little Notes for the frames, SNF Dracula's Typewriter for the spooky name and LD Gregarious for the actual food name (in case anyone was worried they were really eating petrified mice. I know, they're so realistic).

I had labels for all my food. It was a blast!

Let's get a closer look at those absurd witch's fingers, shall we?

Have you seen these before? They're just shortbread cookies with almonds and red decorating gel. They are sooooo creepy, but SO cool for Halloween. You don't have to make creepy looking cookies to get the same "cool" response from your family or guests. Think of spooky and absurd names for all your food! I promise, it's one of the rare times that your random thoughts will get rewarded. Here are some I thought up:

Dragon skin or Dragon scales (for chips)

Bat Wings (BBQ chicken wings)

Zombie slime (Avocado dip)

Bird Brains (popcorn)

Werewolf droppings (whoppers)

It's fun! Give it a try!

October Challenge Winner

Congratulations to Hannah of Germany! She was the winner of this month's layout challenge. Here is her layout:

October Challenge

We have another template challenge for you this month!

You can either download this template as a photoshop file or a png file and work with the layers in a graphics program you're familiar with, OR you can use the image of the template as a sketch to base a paper project off of. All scrapbook pages or cards based off this template are welcome! You must ALSO use at least one product from ScrapNfonts in your layout. If you don't have any ScrapNfonts products, you are welcome to check out their free fonts.
Click here to download the Photoshop file template
Click here to download the PNG file template
Upload your finished project to the ScrapNfonts idea gallery by October 26th. The winner will receive a coupon code for free product at ScrapNfonts. Here is a layout I made with this template, to get you started.

Calendar Girl

Are you all singing "I love, I love, I love my calendar girl..." in your head now? I am.

Ever since the Calendar Super Bundle with the 2010 Calendar brush set was released I've been on a calendar kick!

"Anonymous" commented in my last calendar post asking for some direction on making calendars. Well, I am happy to share! Follow along to find out how I made the above adorable calendar. There are three parts to this: The making of the booklet, Creating the calendar and Putting it all together.

The Making of the Booklet

Ok, so this is a fun way to put together a little booklet. I started with double-sided 12" x 12" scrapbook paper. For my calendar I needed 7 pieces of 6" x 10.5" paper. So all I needed was three and a half scrapbook papers cut like I pictured below.

Since it's double sided, it's like I had seven different papers.

But it's even better than that! Since we're making a booklet, I made sure to flip matching pieces of paper to face each other. I especially wanted February to have the red polka dotted paper.

Next I needed to fold each paper in half. I wanted to be precise about it, so I measured exactly 5.25" and penciled in a light line with the help of a ruler.

Then I lined the ruler up exactly along the line I drew, held the ruler down firmly with one hand and gently pressed the paper up against the ruler with the other. I folded it exactly along the edge of the ruler so I would have a crisp fold. Once the fold was dented, I removed the ruler and firmly pressed the crease.

I did that with all seven of my papers, then I arranged them in the order I wanted them for my calendar.

Let's see... cover, January, February...

Perfect. There are my cute little polka dots for February.

If you happen to have an industrial strength stapler, binding these pages together would be quick and easy. Since I do not have an industrial strength stapler (and I rather think I wouldn't use it if I had one because I think the alternative is much cuter and more personable), I'm going to sew the papers together!

To start, I will draw five little dots, one inch apart, right along the middle crease of the middle paper. After I draw the dots, I'll use a needle and gently push it through all seven papers on the dots to make holes. Watch out for fingers!

Carefully holding all the papers together, I then take a needle and thread it through one way, then back over itself the other way. With five holes I know I'm going to end up with the two thread ends in the same place.

And so I will tie a knot. ("Right over left and left over right makes a knot sturdy and tight" ...no matter how many times I tie a knot, that always goes through my head.)

Isn't this so fun! It's at this point where I get giddy and excited for the possibilities. I play with my little booklet and dream of it's future and think, "When you grow up, you could be a scrapbook or a storybook or an extended greeting card...." Oh right. I'm making a calendar. February, you still there?

Check.

Creating the Calendar

I used Photoshop to make my calendar. If you don't have Photoshop, follow along and you might be able to figure out how to do something similar in a program you have. OR you could just print out the pre-made calendar pngs in the 2010 Calendar Brush set and skip this whole section.

Here we go. First I opened a new file and sized it to size to 5.5" x 4.75" which is the size I want my calendars to be. Then I copied and pasted the blank month calendar template png in the 2010 Calendar brush set and scaled it to fit in my file. Hint: hold the shift key down while scaling the image to keep the proportions consistent.

Second, I typed a 1 and made several copies of it so each number was on a new layer. Then I changed the numbers to be in chronological order. To align and evenly space out the numbers, I put the far right and far left numbers approximately where I wanted them, selected all the numbers, hit the "align bottom edges" button, then hit the "distribute horizontal centers" button. (If these buttons are not visible, go to Layer > Align > and you will see these options.)

I did that with numbers 3-9 below. Then, after they were evenly distributed, I selected the whole row and while holding the Alt key down, I dragged the whole row down to the next calendar week. Holding the Alt key makes copies. I repeated this until all the rows were filled.

Then I went back and fixed the numbers so they would be right for January.

I used LD Little Fishie for my font, but this is totally cute with any of the fonts in the Date It Calendar Super Bundle. I know. I tried them all. It's so hard to decide on a font when you love them ALL. Next I added the month and year.

Whoops! Let's get the year right, shall we? And while I'm at it, I'll add a little color and some holidays and all those birthdays I don't want to forget.

After I save this (as a psd file and a jpg, just to be safe), it's easy to do the rest of the months just by shifting the columns of numbers. There are always seven days in a week, so the columns of numbers never change, just their order in the rows. To print, I opened two months of jpgs in a new document so I could print two on one page. You know, save paper, I'm all economical like that.

Putting it all together

Yay! So exciting! Here is what I have now:

It's time to cut out the calendars and glue them in place.

Oooo. Some of these papers are so pretty, I could almost leave the calendar just like this.

Almost. But gosh darn it, I just love those little DoodleBats, don't you? I put them on all birthdays and holidays and I still don't have enough. I think my calendar needs more. And bigger.

Awesome. Now my calendar is perfect.

Thanks for getting all the way to the end. I hope this helps you get started with you own calendars! (I'm talking to you, Anonymous!)

Calendar Inspiration

Calendar ideas using the Date It Calendar Super Bundle and the new 2010 Calendar Brushes.

This calendar uses DB Chill Out to make the main top image, the 2010 Calendar brushes for the blank month template and the little months in the bottom right corner (Dec 2009 and Feb 2010), DoodleBats for Holidays and a birthday, and LD Demure for the name of the month and the numbers on the dates.
This calendar uses DB Calendar Doodles for the Pumpkin (colored in separately) and the Calendar Brushes for the month of October.

This calendar uses DB Circles - Be Mine for the circle stamp and the calendar brushes for the February month.

Silly Face

This uses the new Wild Things bundle (including LD Kracken - "Silly Face" and "winner", LD Wild Child - "Contest" and DB Mutant Trait Doodles - monster after title, labels under photos), DB Forest Friends - journaling arrow, DB Dainty Swirl and LD Soccer Mom. Whew! That's a mouthful.

Other credits: paper is In Living Color from all things visual, ribbon is from Shabby Princess Happy Go Lucky.

A scrappy quilt

Check out this fabulous baby quilt I received as a gift from my sister-in-law.

Is that not one of the cutest blankets you've ever seen? The fabrics are adorable and the quilt is a work of art.

I've noticed there are a lot of similarities in trends for quilt fabric and craft paper. It inspired me to try to blur the lines a little with a layout inspired by this quilt. It was really fun and I used the fonts from the new Jillustration Sweet Nothings bundle.

The title font, LDJ Mac n Cheese, is really neat! Have you ever seen an outline script font like that? Jill, the artist behind Jillustration, really takes the cake with that font. The lowercase letters are the connecting ones, the capital letters are capped on the left side so they can start the word, and you need to type the right bracket ] to cap off the end of the word. So to type the title, I had to type: No], Thanks]. But seriously, it's such a cool result!

Other credits: "I prefer my fingers" in LDJ Jillberish, journaling around the outside in Scrap Casual, Papers from Lettering Delights Denim and Blue Jeans Paper Pack.

Where do you find inspiration for your scrapbook pages and cards?

Christmas in September Winner

Congratulations to Amber from Maryland for this submission to the September challenge!

Christmas in September

Ah, September... the lovely crisp air in the mornings, the ring of the school bell sounds down the street and autumn is fast on it's way. It's the last full month before the beginning of what I call the holiday time warp. You see, once September is over then October is suffused with Halloween, November is building up to Thanksgiving, and BAM, it's already time for holiday decorating, company and neighborhood parties, gift buying, cookie baking and what can be the most time consuming: sending out the holiday greetings.

Which brings me to this month's challenge: Christmas in September (or Hannukah or Kwanzaa or even New Year's). Here's to being ahead of the holiday time warp. Bring on the holiday spirit in cards, scrapbook layouts or other craft projects that use scrapNfonts products. This is a challenge to those of us procrastinators out there.... Post your project in the scrapNfonts idea gallery by September 20th for a chance to win a coupon code for free scrapNfonts product.

Luckily, we have some inspiration from the lovely and inspiring Regina Easter, who is on top of things with this delightful Christmas Card.

For this card Regina used the new SNF Marmalade to write the "Happy Holidays" in the background and Y from DB Retro Noel for the main image.

Fortunately, disorganization can come in handy for this challenge, too. Do you have any old Christmas photos you want to add to your scrapbooking history? Now's your chance. Have at it!

Happy scrapping.