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{fresh seeds} sunflower

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Happy Friday!  I hope this finds everyone happy and healthy and enjoying the day!  Spring is just around the corner for many of us and I’ve been happily busy working on fresh projects.

This week I’ve brought one of the bestsellers to The Pad — Fresh Cut: Sunflower.  I really love the mix of little details and clean lines in these templates and I love how they can be used for a variety of pages from themey, to full and clustery, to crisp and clean, to artsy and funky.

And here’s a peek at some of the amazing fresh inspiration from the girls and Pollys:

and more still:

Sunflower is available at The Lilypad for 20% off through Sunday 13 March.

If you are a newsletter subscriber you will have received your regular exclusive coupon for additional savings.  If you are not yet a subscriber but would like to receive exclusive news, savings and goodies too, feel free to subscribe {HERE}.

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.

Hope you have a fabulous weekend!

{grow with love: letters} Day Nine

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Welcome to the first post of the Grow With Love: Letters Edition {March}!  As I outlined in our first post of the Letters series in January…Grow With Love: Letters is a series of templates and journaling prompts inspired by letter writing that will be featured in the Artisan Notebook throughout 2011.

In January, we put pen to paper writing letters to ourselves: letters of encouragement, of determination and compass setting.  We built a kind of foundation for the year with our pages.  And last month, we were inspired by the mood of the month: LOVE.  We considered our own love stories and those the relationships and loves that have impacted us and shaped our personal stories.

This month, we find ourselves pondering “gifts”.  Gifts received, gifts given, gifts of character, gifts of talent.

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gift – noun

1. something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; present.

2. the act of giving.

3. something bestowed or acquired without any particular effort by the recipient or without its being earned: Those extra points he got in the game were a total gift.

4. a special ability or capacity; natural endowment; talent: the gift of saying the right thing at the right time.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Let’s take a peek at the first prompt of the month.  This is Day Nine:

There are so many options for where this prompt can guide you.  Do your thoughts immediately land on a tangible gift you’ve received?  Or do you think of gifts of moments, gifts of trust, gifts of blessing?  Do you find yourself drawn to scrapping a photoless page?  One that shines the spotlight on a “thing”?  One that focuses on people and relationships? A little of everything?

Let’s take a look at some of the amazing inspiration from the Storytellers…

Coila:

Lex:

Mandi:

Mel:

 

I love how each “gift” highlighted set the mood of the page, from the photo selections to the element and color choices.  The meaning and the emotion of each just jumps from the page.  What gift will you scrap?  We can’t wait to see!

Be sure to join Crystal on her blog next Wednesday 16 March for the next prompt.

{fresh seeds} crocus

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I have to say this month’s BYOC is one of my all time favorites in all the days I’ve scrapped with them and called TLP home.  There is something so cheerful about the colors and it just oozed into the products in such a happy way.  And so in the spirit of *cheerful* and wishes of good health, comes Crocus.

The Crocus templates are designed with all things sunny and fresh in mind.  This set is perfect for any everyday page, all about me, or event page and gives you room to “play” and modify each page to suit your personal scrapping sensibilities.


I positively LOVED what the girls created with these.  I always love to see how the same sketch design can evolve into such beautifully different pages and stories.  I hope you feel inspired too:

Crocus is available at The Lilypad for 20% off through Sunday 6 March.

If you are a newsletter subscriber you will have received your regular exclusive coupon for additional savings.  If you are not yet a subscriber but would like to receive exclusive news, savings and goodies too, feel free to subscribe {HERE}.

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.

I am happily busy putting together something really dear to my heart and it will be planted later this month..I can’t wait to show you!!

Hope you have a beautiful and *cheerful* weekend!

{grow with love: letters edition} March

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Welcome to the {march} Grow With Love: Letters project!  “Grow With Love” is a collaboration of templates and story-driven journaling prompts presented by Crystal Livesay and Sara Gleason.  The Letters edition is rooted in and inspired by letter writing.  Letters to loved ones, letters to ourselves.

Why letter writing?

Including letter writing as a means of sharing your story, and in your scrapbooking, can have a transformative impact on your journaling and storytelling.  Your pages will be all the more personal, all the more heart-felt and honest, all the more cherished, all the more YOU.  Here’s why:

–Writing a letter allows you to naturally consider and focus your writing on an particular audience (who are you writing to? How will you speak to them? How does your “voice” sound and your words flow when you think of them?)

— There is something that seems so “common” in letter writing that we become less concerned with being a “good writer” and more concerned with the message and meaning we are sharing in our words.  So in the process of letter writing, you can in fact grow as a writer.  Grow in confidence, and grow in finding your voice in storytelling.

— Letters are usually among the most heartfelt and personal pieces of writing a person could create.  They are full of emotion and full of intent.  And this makes them special.

— When you read a letter or write a letter, an obvious “voice” shines through (the personality and character and all the little things that make you YOU just flow onto and off of the page)

— Letter writing transcends time.  There is something so beautifully timeless in letter writing.  It is something relatable and it bridges the gap of yesterday and today.

In the end, it comes to this: letters are a special brand of communication because really they are MORE than simple communication…they are GIFTS.  Gifts of sharing your heart, sharing the every day, sharing the events, sharing emotion.  And so it is in this spirit of “gifts” that we have created the {march} templates and prompts.

We hope you have enjoyed taking steps with us in this scrapping and storytelling journey so far as we have set our compasses {january} and reflected on loves {february}.  Now, as we step into March, we will reflect on gifts.  As always we will be blogging and expounding upon each prompt, offering inspiration and encouragement once a week — covering all 4 prompts in our third month of the Grow With Love: Letters project.  The schedule for March is as follows:

Week One: Wednesday 9 March – join us on Sara’s blog: http://www.zinniasandswallowtails.com

Week Two: Wednesday 16 March – join us on Crystal’s blog: http://www.liveyourstories.com

Week Three: Wednesday 23 March – join us on Sara’s blog: http://www.zinniasandswallowtails.com

Week Four: Wednesday 30 March – join us on Crystal’s blog: http://www.liveyourstories.com

Each day we will post a prompt and delve into it a bit more, sharing our own inspirations and pages and hopefully giving you a bit of a creative push for your own pages.  We are thrilled to share in this adventure in scrapping and in storytelling with you!

huge happy welcomes!

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Crystal and I wanted to take a moment to again thank everyone who submitted applications to our Grow With Love creative call.  To say we were overwhelmed with awe and impress at the talent and amazing storytelling submitted would be an understatement.  Thank you sincerely to all who put themselves (and their stories) out there to us.  The decision making process was so SO difficult and every.single.application was amazing.

Today, we are very happy to announce with warm welcome these amazing artists and storytellers to our team:

 

We can’t wait for you to see their beautiful work!

{honor and gratitude}

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It is with both {honor and gratitude} that I have contributed to a couple recent charity collaboration efforts in the community.  It was sincerely an honor, to share creatively along side other amazing and inspiring artists and friends for causes that move me.  Causes that remind me of all that really matters.  Of reasons I love scrapbooking and storytelling in the first place: family and friendship and faith of expression and creation all wrapped up in a great big beautiful bow of gratitude.

Please check out these fabulous collaborations which-apart from being an expression of support and love – are really fantastic in all the best scrappy ways.

Brighter Days Ahead available at Sweet Shoppe Designs is full of warm and beautiful tones and benefits one of the community’s own: Zoe Pearn who lost her home in the recent flood disaster in Australia.

Reach for the Sun available at Ninth and Bloom, is packed full of HAPPY and is a fundraiser for a sweet and happy girl who has cerebral palsy.

Both kits are FULL of gorgeous papers.  I mean FULL.  And as a paper lover, this just calls to my creative heart.

Here are the pages I’ve created with both:

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