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{fresh seeds} Gladiolus

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It’s August.  It’s Warm.  Scratch that, it’s HOT.  Scratch that too, it’s Crazy Hot.  But it’s sunny and  it’s time for a Fresh BYOC and I’m feeling inspired by it’s classic and sometimes retro-y feel.  It feels cozy and homey and warm in a warm fuzzy kind of way.  And I so hope you like it!

I was inspired by this warm palette, summer’s end, and a touch of vintage to create these papery designs.  Meet Gladiolus:

I’m also happy to introduce Gladiolus {story seeds}.  These fun postage date frames and vintagey stamps (in .png + .abr formats) are inspired by old school postage stamps and are perfect for adorning any page or creatively adding dates to layouts and blog posts.:

Gladiolus {story seeds} includes 31 days of dated postage stamp frames (in .png format) that can be recolored or used as a clipping template and customized with papers. Frames come with a clipping mask for your photos or papers and are sized big at 4×5 for easy resizing. Accompanied by month (Jan – Dec) and year (2066-2016) vintagey post stamps (in .png and .abr formats). Use the brushes or re-color the .pngs to create a custom look.

And here’s a spot of Gladiolus inspiration:

Gladiolus and Gladiolus {story seeds} are available in my shoppe at The Lilypad through Sunday for 20% off!

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.

And don’t forget there is still time to check out and comment for your chance to win in the ongoing Grow With Love: One Year Later giveaway!  In celebration of one year of storytelling, three lucky commenters will receive our very first project Grow With Love: Marriage Edition or a gift certificate to shop my store!  So pop over for your chance to win. ♥

Grow With Love: One Year Later

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July of 2010 marked the beginning of something special.

One year ago, Crystal and I introduced our storytelling concept Grow With Love.  It was fresh, it was a little challenging, and we were a little terrified but hugely excited about it.  Grow With Love was and remains our vision for our personal storytelling and it also reflected our philosophy and heart for encouraging others in their own storytelling.  We hoped to create story-and-prompt driven projects that would challenge and encourage scrapbookers and storytellers to document their personal stories in a more meaningful way.  And more importantly, in a way that would have a tangible impact on their lives beyond the page.  In the year since we first put ourselves and this heartsong “out there” we have been so amazed and inspired by the beautiful pages and stories we have seen shared.  And it was Grow With Love that gave me the personal nudge of confidence to really surrender to my love of Story and develop Plant Your Story.

So reflecting on this adventure, one year later, has me feeling a little nostalgic and ooey and gooey.

And Crystal and I both agree that our first project, Grow With Love: Marriage, holds a special place in our hearts (and in our albums)…and not just because it was our “first” but because of the impact it had on both of us personally.  To this day, the pages that I created during the GWL: Marriage process remain some of my most favorite because they are full of my heart and they document the most important relationship in my life.  It was transformative.  It was empowering.  It was challenging.  But it was worth it.  So so worth it.

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So today, in honor of our One Year Grow With Love “anniversary”, Crystal and I would like to offer three Plant Your Story readers with the chance to take part in this storytelling journey as well.

Grow With Love: Marriage was inspired by deep reflection of our own loves and relationships.  It is a series of templates and journaling prompts that we hope will inspire you to share your own stories and create beautiful pages from the heart that you will love.   Includes twenty layered templates and twenty printable thoughtful journaling prompts that we hope will encourage you to step out of your comfort zone a little bit, reflect on your relationships and loves, and love a little more deeply and truly.  And as you scrap, at your own pace, you can review the process and get inspiration and encouragement that was posted here on the blog.

To enter this giveaway, simply comment here by next Friday 5 August at midnight (PST) for your chance to win Grow With Love: Marriage Edition.  To increase your chances of winning, you can tweet (or retweet with a visible link) or blog or share news of this contest — be sure to share a separate comment with the link to your tweet or post.

If you have already scrapped Grow With Love: Marriage Edition, you can still win something special!  Simply share one of your pages on the Plant Your Story FB page  (For a “how to” see this link) and comment here for your chance to win $20 to shop my store!

Lots of luck!  And thank you for one year of growing with love!  ♥

{fresh seeds} Letters and Redwood

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Well goodness it seems like mere moments ago I was sending a newsletter that was full of ohmygoodness-it’s-summertime-wooooot!!!! sentiments and now we find ourselves at the end of July and that period of time where the summer sets too quickly and I am clinging to that sunshineyness trying to squeeze every last drop of fun out of it before my little girl goes to her first day of school (!) in two weeks time.  How did that time fly by so fast? Seriously.  Both the summer and her growing up.

But there is still a lot of time to treasure and make beautiful memories and I hope that this week’s releases will help you scrap yours!

I am happy to share two (yay!) fresh releases with you this week both of which were inspired by the beauty of nature, the designs and pattern and foundational strength that lives in our natural world.

“There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough to pay attention to the story. ”. — ~Linda Hogan, Native American poet

Crystal and I were inspired by the stories that live in nature and all things beautiful for the August installment in our Grow With Love: Letters series. Meet Grow With Love: Letters {August}:

Grow With Love: Letters {August} is available in my shoppe at The Lilypad through Sunday for 20% off!  Garden Report subscribers receive an additional 10% off. ♥

Here’s a spot of August Letters inspiration from the team:

Annnd…In response to many requests for a fresh set of photo-less design templates, I am happy to introduce Redwood.  The Redwood templates are designed in the spirit of story-centric and story-driven pages…inspired by my own photo-less layouts. This set is perfect for anyone who enjoys scrapping without photos, anyone who loves story-centered scrapping, or anyone who loves the look of a photo-less page, but needs a little outline to get started. As always, Redwood is verstile enough to be adapted to scrap any general page and gives you room to “play” and modify each page to suit your personal scrapping sensibilities.


Redwood is available in my guest shoppe at Ninth and Bloom through Sunday for 20% off!

And here’s a bit of Redwood inspiration:

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.

Hope everyone has a beautiful and sunshiney weekend!

{fresh seeds} Bluebonnet, Mayflower, Shasta

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I hope everyone is enjoying this first day of July!!   Besides the fact that I can hardly believe I typed that sentence just now, I do hope that those of you in the midst of summer have been enjoying the sunshine and the playfulness of these weeks!  We have fled the Oven Heat for a short trip back “home” and so this post comes to you from the shores of Lake Michigan where I can see actual water and actual green trees and where I send happy hellos with a happy belly full of real pizza.  And by “real” I mean Chicago pizza.

Speaking of full…this week is FULL of fresh releases!!

(did you like that segue?  Punny, right?).

So let’s dive in to this deep dish of goodies.

(oooh see that? I did it again..).

And yes, forgive me, I may or may totally be a little gooped up on the gop to be back home visiting with my family which means the goofy is a little more obvious than usual.  But in all seriousness, I am really excited to share this week’s new releases.

It’s BYOC and quarterly storewide sale time at The Lilypad!  Which means YAY for savings!

I was inspired by the fabulous and fun, the sunny and nautical-y, the patriotic, and the playfulness of summer when creating my contributions to this month’s amazing BYOC.

Meet Bluebonnet.

The Bluebonnet templates are designed in the spirit of the every day, of fun, sunshine, summer, nautical, and play…with varied design styles ranging from a “fuller” page, richer in layers with many little details and a little more depth to cleaner and more linear designs. This set is perfect for any summer or vacation page, everyday page, all about me, or event page and gives you room to “play” and modify each page to suit your personal scrapping sensibilities.

And then, since it is Independence Day weekend here in the States and the 4th is one of my most favorite holidays I was inspired to create Mayflower.  I just love the family time, the fireworks, the warm, the patriotism, the remembrance and all the red, white, and blue.  And all of those happy things pulled me to create this patriotic collection of layered templates, clipping mask templates, and stamps/brushes.

Here’s a more detailed look at the components.

The Mayflower {templates} are designed in the spirit of love for country, of fun and family, celebrating the 4th of July…This set is perfect for any independence day or patriotic page but can easily be modified to suit any everyday page and the designs give you room to “play” and modify each page to suit your personal scrapping sensibilities

he Mayflower {clipped} clipping masks includes 11 different clipping mask templates for photos and papers (in .png format). They are sized BIG so you can easily resize and customize the look to your page designs and color schemes. The photo {clipped} masks are sized 4×6 in portrait and landscape orientations. The patriotic phrase and word art sentiments include “fourth”, “my country tis of thee”, “america the beautiful”, “home of the brave”, “land of the free”, “from sea to shining sea”. Also includes a fun sliced star clipping template. Inspired by Independence Day Mayflower {clipped} is the perfect touch of fresh whimsy for any patriotic page! Also wonderful for cards and notes and blog posts.

The Mayflower {seeds} are a fun set of 30 patriotic words (in both plain and scattered versions) and an additional 8 patriotic stamps. Stamped sentiments include: 4th, 4th of July, american boy, american girl, america, america america, bbq, brave, bright stars, broad stripes, family, firecracker, fireworks, founding fathers, freedom, fun fun, God bless, honor, independence, liberty, love for country, monument, never forget, old glory, patriot, proud, red.white.blue., stars & stripes, sparklers, stars, U.S.A.

Mayflower {seeds} are in both .png + .abr brush formats so you can easily customize to your page designs and color schemes. The are the perfect little extra touch and detail for your pages, photos, blog posts or card making projects.

And here’s a little Bluebonnet and Mayflower inspiration from the girls and Pollys!

Bluebonnet and Mayflower are available for 20% off at The Lilypad through Sunday 3 July!  And everything else in my shop is 30% off for the storewide sale!!

And I’m so thrilled to be guesting at Ninth and Bloom too!  And this is Shasta (like the Daisy).  Another set of templates in the Full Bloom series.

The “Full Bloom” series of templates are designed in the spirit of a “fuller” page, richer in layers with many little details and a little more depth, while still affording you room to “play” and modify the page to suit your personal scrapping sensibilities.

Shasta is available for 20% off at Ninth and Bloom through Sunday 3 July.  Woot!

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.

If you haven’t already..take a peek (and a listen) to this fun post about the latest class offering at Plant Your Story.  Crystal and I have a spot of audio for you and some q&a about Staycation.  (you can see the contents and learn more and register HERE).

Hope everyone has a fabulous, FULL, and sparkly weekend!!

{fresh seeds} larkspur + letters {july}

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So it’s official: summer has arrived here in the desert Southwest…we’ve experienced our first “Severe Heat Advisory” warnings of the season which pretty much just means that the heat has evolved from Hot to Ridiculously Hot.  It also means that we spend a lot of time indoors enjoying the blessing of air conditioning (ohhh how grateful I am) daydreaming about if it’s possible to actually fry an egg on the pavement or rapid rise a loaf of bread out on my patio.

But apart from that heat-addled brains kind of daydreaming, I find myself daydreaming about making pretty things and why I love scrapbooking so much.  And it’s both of these…The Pretty and The Crafty…that have inspired this week’s {fresh seeds}.  I’m so happy to share two — yay! — new releases to share this week.

Meet Larkspur.  Larkspur is the latest in the “Full Bloom” series of templates are designed in the spirit of a “fuller” page, richer in layers with many little details and a little more depth.  It’s been awhile since I’ve released a “full bloom” set, and I have to confess I have a soft spot for them.  They are derived from some of my most favorite pages and they can really be so beautiful and well, full while still affording you room to “play” and modify the page to suit your personal scrapping sensibilities.

And here’s a bevvy of beautiful inspiration from the girls and the Pollys:

Annnnnd.  We’re on the precipice of July (yes, seriously.) which means it’s time for the next installment of Grow With Love: Letters Edition with Crystal Livesay.

If you’re not familiar with the Letters Project, Grow With Love: Letters Edition is a fresh regular monthly feature in the Artisan Notebook for the year 2011.   It is a series of templates and journaling prompts rooted in letter writing that we hope will encourage you to step out of your comfort zone a little bit, reflect on your relationships and loves, and love a little more deeply and truly. This is not only a scrap project. This is about changing yourself and your relationships for the better. Still, as ever, these templates can be used apart from the prompts to tell any story and scrap any page tailored to your own scrapping needs and style.

This month’s offering is rooted in our creativity and crafty and scrappy.  It’s fun and happy!

And here’s a spot of inspiration:

Both new releases are available in my store at The Lilypad for 20% off through Sunday 26 June.

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 (and maybe a fun summer freebie soon and very soon!)

Also!!!!

Registration for Grow With Love: Staycation has begun!  Staycation is a fun and relaxed and inspired summer adventure in storytelling.  I encourage you to learn more about it {HERE} and listen to Crystal and I yabber about it in this fun post too.  We so hope you’ll join us in this fun adventure!!!

I hope you have a fabulously pretty and crafty weekend!!

and the {6.24} giveaway goes to….

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Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to comment in the latest {fresh seeds} giveaway featuring the new releases Larkspur and Grow With Love: Letters {July} landing at The Lilypad.  More than that, thank you for all the kind comments!  It is always such a ray of sunny to me, so thank you!

So.  I met with Mr. Random (of Random.org) and he has selected the lucky winner!

Congratulations to post # 43 — Stephanie! Stephanie, I will be emailing you shortly with your coupon code.

And thank you again to everyone who participated!  I so hope you have a beautiful weekend!

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