Month: May 2011

{fresh seeds} grow with Love: letters edition {june}

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Well goodness another month is drawing to a close and many of us find ourselves saying goodbyes to school years and hellos to summer.  And as this season of travels and staycations draws near, Crystal and I were inspired by journeys, getaways.  And we threw in a little taste of fatherhood too (since June *is* the month o’ Dads here in the U.S.) as we created June’s Grow With Love: Letters templates and prompts.

Meet Grow With Love: Letters Edition {June} — a set of four layered templates created in the spirit of journeys, adventures, getaways and vacations.  As always, these Grow With Love templates are accompanied by a series of thoughtful story-driven journaling prompts which are borne from the hope of helping you tell your stories and put pen to page.

We hope you’ll have fun getting inspired with these!  You can use the templates and prompts together or separately to suit your own story and pages.

And here’s a touch of inspiration:

Grow With Love: Letters Edition {June} is available at The Lilypad for 20% off through Sunday May 29.

As always I looove to see your stories and art too, so please feel free to share with me anytime.  Really!  Just shoot me a mail or share them on my facebook page.  And if you haven’t signed up the newsletter yet you may want to do that so you can be the first to hear the latest news and get the latest exclusive savings.

There are quite a few fun goings on on the horizon including fresh collaborations, a wonderfully fun summer Grow With Love experience, and more giveaways!

Speaking of giveaways.  There is still time to check out and participate in the ongoing Scrap Your Theme song giveaway sponsored by the amazing Kristin Cronin-Barrow.  Not only will you walk away having created a fun page, the winner of this one will receive a $25 gift certificate to her store!!!  Which is pretty WOW, right?!!

{fresh seeds} Preserved

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It probably goes without saying that one of my most favorite things about scrapbooking and memory keeping is The Story.  Okay, it’s the most fulfilling, challenging, heartfelt, emotional, beautiful reason I love it so much.  And so when I have the opportunity to work on a project that is rooted in the inspiration of storytelling my heart does a little happy dance.  Which is just what it did last summer when I collaborated with my dear friend Sandra to create Preserved.  And it remains the one set of templates that I receive inquiries about: when will you bring this to The Pad?  Or seriously, woman why haven’t you brought Preserved to The Pad yet?!  So I’m really happy to say that today is the day!

My Preserved templates have landed at The Pad:

These templates can be used in myriad ways really from any themed page to all about me pages and any story centric pages.  You can make use of the journaling spots in the designs or you can scrap without them.  And if you love pages with quite a lot of room for journaling…these really make it easy to focus on The Story.

Here’s some fresh Preserved inspiration from the girls and the Pollys:

You can grab Preserved at The Lilypad for 20% off through Sunday May 22.

So hope you like them!  Happy Scrapping!  Happy Preserving!!

{grow with love: letters} Day Eighteen

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Hope everyone has had a beautiful week!  I’m filling in for Crystal who is up-to-her-eyeballs in vacation preparations…can’t think of a better thing to be busy with really and I know she’s super excited to be getting away for a spell…to the beach!

So here we are with the second prompt for May, which is Day 18 of our letter writing adventure.  This month we are honoring family and celebrating legacy and history with our prompts and pages.

Here’s a peek at today’s prompt:

You may take a peek at this prompt and feel, like me, that you need to take a pause and a deep breath.  One way or another, this is a kind of nudge to write and reflect about something emotional.  And that can be challenging or convicting or a little scary or overwhelming or even empowering.  It’s prompts like these that encourage us to tell the WHOLE story.  Even the emotional or difficult chapters…because these do shape us so.  And many times, reflecting on the goodbyes and the legacies (good or bad) can help close a door or facilitate the letting go or even reaffirm a person’s importance in our lives.

We hope that you feel inspired in this way today.  And we hope you will find some inspiration in these pages by the Storytellers.  They are so heartfelt and emotive and so beautiful.

Coila:

Nicole:

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Grow With Love is a story-centric scrapbooking and journaling project.  We hope it will inspire you to document your stories in a meaningful way that helps you live life more meaningfully too.  Please remember anyone is welcome to join in and follow along at any time.  You can access the complete Grow With Love archive and hop in to any past Grow With Love project or follow along with the Letters project which will be highlighted here every Wednesday.

Grow With Love Archive

and the {Jacque Larsen} giveaway goes to…

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Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the giveaway sponsored by the ever fabulous Jacque Larsen!!  I loved seeing all your picks!  She really is a wonderfully creative designer isn’t she?!  I sat down for a few moments this morning with Mr. Random (of Random.org) and he has selected our lucky winner!

Congratulations to post # 13…Trina!!  Trina, I will be emailing you shortly with your gift certificate!  And thanks again to everyone for playing along!

There are more opportunities to win too!  Right now the Scrap Your Theme song giveaway is in progress and it runs through the end of the month, so you still have a chance to win a $25 gift certificate to Kristin Cronin Barrow‘s store!  Plus be on the look out for more fabulous giveaways in the weeks to come!

Happy {inter}National Scrapbooking Day

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Happy Happy {i}NSD!!  I hope that everyone is well and enjoying a happy and scrappy day today enjoying all the fun on blogs, and in the stores and forums!!  And I hope that you get to enjoy some time scrapping your stories this weekend too!

This weekend is one that not only celebrates this hobby and storytelling journey I love so much, it is also the anniversary of my design debut!  This time last year marked the beginning of Zinnias and Swallowtails and I am SO very grateful for all the support and inspiration I have received from all of you along the way!  Thank you!

There is SO much to share today so I’ll dive right in!!  I have some {fresh seeds} share and some blog hoppy {free seed} goodness too!

You may have found your way here from Laura’s blog as you travel the fabulous DSA iNSD blog train but if you’ve missed a spot or lost your way, you can head to the DigiScrapAddicts forum to find the complete list and start fresh.

Or you may be visiting today as part of the amazing hoppity hop-ness of The Lilypad blog hop.  In which case you probably found your way here after visiting Krista’s blog.  If you get missed a stop on the TLP hop or have lost your way you can find a complete list {HERE}.

Either way there are a bevvy of amazing freebies to snag today and I’m so happy to share a little something with you too!

I was inspired by all things fresh and sunny and celebratory to create something fun and versatile.  I so hope you like it!  You can {download here} or click on the image below.

Your next stop on The DSA {i}NSD train is Live Your Stories which is home to my dear Crystal where she has a couple fabulous somethings for you today! Don’t forget if you’ve missed a spot or lost your way on the DSA train, you can head to the DigiScrapAddicts forum to find the complete list and start fresh.

Your next stop on The Lilypad hop is Rebecca’s blog.  I know you’ll love what she has to share too!  And remember if you get missed a stop on the TLP hop or have lost your way you can find a complete list {HERE}.

And now on to even more {i}NSD fantasticness…

I have two, nay three amazing collaborations coming to The Lilypad today!  And I hope that you will find they are just what you need to help you scrap all the amazing goodies you are snagging this weekend!

One year ago, NSD marked my designing debut and I celebrated with the support and cooperation of my dear friend Crystal as we released a special template-only grab bag together.  And we thought it would be fun to revisit the grab baggy spirit and fun!  So I’m happy to present the 2nd Annual {i}NSD Grab Bag collaboration from Zinnias and Swallowtails and Crystal Livesay.  This is a versatile set of 8 layered templates inspired by layers and a play with paper.

And here is a full reveal of what you will find inside this fun little grab bag:

You can grab this bag o’ templatey goodness in my store for $3 throughout the weekend.  After this time it will return to it’s original price of $9.

Here is a spot of grab bag inspiration:

I have also teamed up with the ever amazing Amy Martin to create a set of templates inspired by the process of moving, packing and unpacking.  We always have fun collaborating together and this set was no exception.

Meet Packed, a set of 10 layered templates created in the spirit of  tighter, layery, stacky compositions:

And Unpacked, a complementing set of 10 templates created in the spirit of  airier, looser compositions in mind:

You can also grab the bundle, Packed and Unpacked to enjoy the full set of 20 templates.

And here’s some amazing Packed and Unpacked inspiration:

And lastly, Amy and I have created this fun set of Thankful cards, which are perfect for creating heartfelt custom thank{full} greetings for those people in your lives whom you’d like to shower with thanks!

And don’t forget to check out all the fresh goodness at the Pad for this month’s BYOC.

As always I looove to see your stories and art too, so please feel free to share with me anytime.  Just shoot me a mail or share them on my facebook page.  And if you haven’t signed up  the newsletter yet you may want to do that so you can be the first to hear the latest news and get the latest exclusive savings.

There are also two giveaways happening now.

Be sure to check out:

Brought To You By the Letter J for your chance to win a gift certificate provided by Jacque Larsen

Scrap Your Theme Song for your chance to win a gift certificate provided by Kristin Cronin-Barrow

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And with that, I shall send you on your way with wishes for a beautiful weekend full of all things scrappy!

self portrait {detailed}

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Happy Friday and Happy {i}NSD weekend!!

Today marks the final day of registration for Grow With Love: Self Portrait.  The response so far has been really exciting and Crystal and I cannot wait to get started with the class next Monday 9 May.

If you haven’t registered yet, there is still time to join us and we would love to have you!

We are getting really excited for the start of class!  We’ve started to see some beautiful pages in the gallery using the prompts and templates and the exclusive kit too!  And I’m feeling SO inspired!

Here’s a closer look at some of the basic course materials in action:

And today I’m happy to publicly share some details about exclusive content that will be available only to class participants!!

As you probably know, Krista Sahlin of Sahlin Studio has contributed an exclusive kit for the class and I must say it’s completely fabulous in every way.  Here is, My Happiness:

This kit is only available to registrants of the class and after the registration period it will no longer be available as part of the course materials.

I’m so excited to announce publicly some other exciting exclusives for class participants including exclusive coupons or contributions from a wide range of amazing talents in the scrapbooking community including:  Shabby Miss Jenn, Kristin Cronin-Barrow, Kay Miller, Designs by Lili, Valorie Wibbens, Jacque Larsen, Persnickety Prints, Emily Merritt, Heather Hess, Tickled Pink Studio, Fizzy Pop Designs, and My Four Hens Photography.

In addition, class participants will receive enhanced class content including video tutorials, sketches, articles and expanded inspiration all the while having fun growing and learning together in the private Grow With Love forum and gallery!  We so hope you’ll join us in this adventure of planting ourselves into our stories!

Feel free to learn more about Self Portrait {HERE} and in the Q & A.  Registration closes at midnight (PST) tonight.  You can register in the shoppe HERE.

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