Belle Papier {pretty paper}

I love using Creative Impressions brads. For quite a few reasons actually. They have a great variety, beautiful shapes and finishes and I know this may seem like a really strange reason…but I love the prongs on these brads! The prongs are long, slim and easy to bend. I hate getting stabbed with ornery prongs that will not bend! The Creative Impressions brads are so easy to insert and so easy to bend back so that they aren’t hard on your hands.

The Creative Impressions brads come in a variety of shapes and sizes. From really mini brads to larger embossed snowflake brads, you are sure to find ones to fit your style. I do have a few favorites! If you look on their site…you want to look under the heading paper fasteners. My absolute favorite that I would use for almost every application is the Antique Bronze or Pewter Rounds. They are a beautiful size and are great for adding to the centers of flowers, or paired up at the edge of a layer.

The Creative Impressions shaped brads are also fabulous. I particularly love their snowflakes. Elegant and a beautiful shape and size, these brads come in different finishes such as Pewter, Silver, Pearl, White and Winter. If you are interested in more Christmas…try out the bulbs, stars or Trees. For masculine designs, I love using the Screwtop brads. With a family working in construction…these are particularly useful for me.

Price: Most of the Creative Impressions shaped brads retail at approximately $3.00 for 50. The plain rounds are 50 for $2.00 and the fun glitter rounds are 25 for $3.00

Where to Buy:

• Creative Impressions - you can buy your brads and other CI embellishments direct on-line
• Scrapbook and Stamping Stores - many local stores will carry this product

Some Samples….

O Come Let Us Adore

This design uses the beautiful pearl snowflakes brads by Creative Impressions. I just love this aqua color! Paired up with the blues, greens and browns of the Basic Grey Fruitcake paper and some very elegant Three Wise Men , this was a fun Christmas Card to make. The brads hold down one end of the Clear Card Sheet strip that is stamped with the sentiment.

Hope you enjoyed this {C’est Bon} entry! If you have questions about this product, I’ll try to answer them for you the best I can by editing in this post.

Happy Christmas in July!
Julia

Here’s a fun quick summery card! When you want to be outside enjoying the beautiful weather, this design will take no time at all. I just love all this fun ribbon. KI Memories puts together this darling ribbon package. Don’t the colors look like summer? They just make me want to smile.

Laugh Ribbon Card

How to do…simply fold your white cardstock into a card and use an adhesive to adhere lengths of ribbon. A big bold rub-on adds in a sentiment. For a special touch, add a rub-on to the middle of a jumbo brad to hold your flower embellishments on.

Enjoy your weekend!

Julia

Anyone love glitter?! I’ve been having so much fun playing around with it recently! Perfect for feminine and holiday designs I’ve been experimenting with different ways to use it. Starting today…Art Institute Glitter is the product spotlight at Cornish Heritage Farms. Pair it up with the Christmas in July theme and you have a great head-start on those holiday cards. Today’s design mixes up glitter, a glue pad and some liquid applique with some new CHF releases.

Merry and Bright

I’ve always been a huge fan of solid rubber images. They are so flexible, work with a myriad of techniques and can be really quick to use it you wish….a real plus when making holiday designs! I’ve featured two of the new releases from CHF today, Family Tree and Joyeux Noel (snowflakes). You can check out all the images on this release here.

To create the glitter background, I first stamped my snowflakes with glue from my Essential Glue Pad before sprinkling with my Sea Shell glitter. The central image is super easy to stamp and I then added some Liquid Applique. While wet…I sprinkled my glitter on top and then lightly heated my liquid applique to puff it up. I love the sparkly, snowy look! Sorry its so difficult to see the sparkle on this applique in this photo.

Take care and have a great weekend!
Julia

Supply List:

Stamps:
-Family Tree by Cornish Heritage Farms
-Joyeux noel by Cornish Heritage Farms

Ink:
-Essential Glue Pad by Tsukineko
-Latte Adirondack ink by Ranger

Paper:
Simply Smooth White, Kraft by Prism

Other:
Sea Shell Glitter - Art Institute Glitter
Liquid Applique
edge distresser
ribbon and paper clip by Creative Impressions
button by AUtumn leaves

Seriously… if you love Kim Hughes…you’re going to scream….

A Kim Hughes 8×8 paper pad in the most yummy prints and colors! Here’s one…

MangoFrappy

Check out Kim’s Blog for a peek at them all. Want more close-ups? Check them out by clicking on names from the CHF DT in my right side bar.

BTW…you may want to get your morning beverage of choice first. Enjoy!

Anyone want another sneak peek?! I think you’re going to flip!

Would these not make the greatest Christmas projects or what???!
Check out the rest of the designs on Becky Olsen’s blog.

Thanks for stopping by!
Julia

Some of the most fun products to work with when designing are miniature elements. Tiny little scaled down products that are so easy to tuck into small spaces. I tend to liken them tiny treasures waiting to be discovered when you look into the details. Today’s challenge is all about using those mini products to make a great project. Need some ideas? Tiny buttons, mini safety pinks, mini brads, mini clothespegs, mini stamps….even things mini albums or an altered mini-clipboard like my project below. However you’re inspired…I hope you join us and have some fun with mini-madness!

I also just wanted to thank everyone who voted for my layout in the Ultimate Summer Challenge. I didn’t win but came in second by a large margin. While I would have loved to have won the challenge….As it was my first layout that I submitted to anything…I’m pleased with the results.

Princess Mini-Clipboard

I started off working on this design by adhering patterned paper to my white mini-clipboard that I picked up at Michael’s a few months ago. I decided it would make a totally fun frame for a special princess. Simply embellish then clip in a photo to make this frame. There is a little standup support that makes this sit perfectly on a desk or hang in some small nook on a wall. The patterned paper is stamped with a soon to be released (Tuesday) Backgrounder from Cornish Heritage Farms…Writer’s Block. I know you saw this here yesterday on my layout but I’m just having so much fun with it, I can’t put it down. Stay tuned as I’ve been busy creating more designs with it as well! At the bottom of my design, I stamped some flowers from Kim Hughes’ Nature’s Silhouettes set and then added some mini words from Mona Lisa’s Sassy Petites set.

At the top of my project, I tied on another Sassy Petites word…Princess. This is the theme of my frame. I went for a pink shabby look with lots of flowers and buttons. Distress Crackle paint covers the top of my design as well as the small chipboard circle. I clipped my princess word to the crown with a mini safety pin from Creative Impressions. Some CI ribbon is tied to the top of the clip to finish it off.

Hope you have fun with the challenge!
Julia

Supply List:

Stamps:
-Writer’s Block Backgrounder by Cornish Heritage Farms
- Nature’s Silhouettes (Kim Hughes line) By Cornish Heritage Farms
-Sassy Petites (Mona Lisa Moments line) By Cornish Heritage Farms

Paper:
-Simply Smooth Cardstock by Prism
-Tea and Silk patterned paper from Prima

Ink:
Burnt Umber Palette ink by Stewart Superior
-Worn Lipstick Distress ink by Ranger

Other:
-mini clipboard - Provocraft
-felt bird and crown chipboard - Maya Road
-ribbon, cord and mini safety pin by Creative Impressions
-buttons by Autumn Leaves
-flowers by Prima
-rhinestones by Doodlebug Designs

Now’s your chance!  Cornish Heritage Farms is once again opening up a position on their highly successful Design Team to someone new.  Unlike our ‘Fresh Face’ call last year that was restricted to designers that had not served on another design team, this call is open to everyone!Cornish Heritage Farms is looking for a new Design Team Member to work specifically with our more detailed art lines - Thomas Kinkade, Sandra Kuck, etc.  The emphasis for this position is on coloring, but overall appeal of the project is still important.  The successful applicant will become part of a great team that is constantly being challenged and improving their artistic talent.

To apply please send a project sample that you have colored using either a Thomas Kinkade or a Sandra Kuck rubber stamp. Any choice of medium is fine (Copics, watercolors, chalks, colored pencils, etc). A photo or scan of the project needs to be sent to designer@cornishheritagefarms.com. The Image should be 72 DPI and at least 750 pixels wide in JPG format. Along with the card please also include your full name, address, phone number. email, blog, online gallery and publication resume, if applicable. All information will be kept confidential and destroyed once our search is over. We reserve the right to request the actual project if we are interested in pursuing your application further.This Design Team call is open to all designers, but the following rules apply:

• The successful applicant must be willing to start immediately once chosen and contractual issues have been finalized.
• The designer will be required to be an exclusive Design Team member of Cornish Heritage Farms.  This means that while under contract with us, you will not work on/for any other design team/rubber stamp/scrapbook company.  Aw shucks, you say, that’s kinda unfair. We don’t believe this to be the case, as it allows you to focus on the several CHF stamp lines you will be working with, rather than be pulled in different directions. We also make sure that you are well taken care of.  :)  
• The designer must be willing to use products that can be found in retail stores.  In other words, products that are available for retailers to purchase wholesale.
• The deadline for this call is 12:00am Mountain Standard Time,  August 1st, 2008  

 This is not a competition; instead it is simply a great way for us to find fantastic talent that we may not normally see.  Please note that although we cannot personally reply to every application, you will receive an automatic reply from us which will let you know that we have received your application.  Also note that we will be calling finalists to talk with you further before making our final decision.We wish you all the best & look forward to hearing from you soon.   If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Julia, our Design Team Coordinator, at julia@cornishheritagefarms.com.

Good morning! I have a layout challenge here for you today. It’s an easy layout using five small photos so it is perfect for getting quite a few shots on a page. I think we all have those photos that aren’t as close up as we’d like. If you don’t photograph digitally…crop those prints down to 2.5″ square and zero in on what’s important. As you can see…this layout can be super clean and simple or add as much of your own touches as you wish. I hope you can play along…check out the challenge details here.

Lesley and Kristine have also created sample layouts for this challenge. Have fun checking them out!

Quick Digital Tip: When cropping photos in Photoshop Elements…the tool bar at the top has custom cropping options. Type in the measurements you want for perfect sized cropping and printing each time.

{Friends}

This is a fun layout I created of my daughter and niece. It’s been wonderful to watch their friendship grow. I actually didn’t use any cardstock on this layout…just one sheet of patterned paper. Two Backgrounder stamps help anchor and add interest to the design…The AlphaNumber backgrounder is stamped on the left side and the new Writer’s Block Backgrounder is stamped on the right side for my journaling. Writer’s Block will be released on Tuesday along with two other background stamps at CHF. This stamp is going quickly up my list of favorite stamps. I actually just inked 3/4 of the stamp for this project, then stamped it before adding in my photos on top.

Quick Tip: Stamping chipboard is one of the fastest ways I’ve found to embellish chipboard. My chipboard flourish is stamped with the Daisy Chain Scrapblock™ for a fun design.

While I’m not usually much of a glitter girl…I think I may be hooked! I’ve been adding in small touches of it to some designs. Actually…my teenagers are rolling their eyes as I’ve been covered with it. Why DOES it get everywhere?! In this design, I added some double sided adhesive to the back of my butterfly chipboard and filled in the negative space with white glitter. On the crown chipboard, I covered the crown section with some liquid adhesive and then covered it with a blue glitter.

Want an additional challenge? Create a layout of your best friend and take time to cherish friendship!

Thanks for stopping by!

Julia

Supply List:

Stamps:
AlphaNumber Backgrounder by CHF
Writer’s Block Backgrounder by CHF
Daisy Chain Scrapblock™ by CHF

Ink: Burnt Umber by Stewart Superior
Worn Lipstick Distress ink by Ranger

Paper: Pink Paislee

Other:
chipboard flourish and circles by Maya Road
foam letters by American Crafts
ribbon by Creative Impressions
Glitter by Art Institute
sewing machine
stapler
rhinestones by Doodlebug Designs
Distress Crackle paint by Ranger

Cornish Heritage Farms is kicking off a Week of Sneak Peeks! We have 7 announcements to share with you leading up to CHA Summer and Lisa Strahl of Mona Lisa Moments has a HUGE announcement to share. I have a little taste for you…

Anyone excited?!!! I can hardly stand it!

Julia

I love color! Pops of color, funky combos, monochromatic…color is a fabulous way to express yourself. Paper Crafts Magazine has a great new issue hitting the stands (August/September 2008 issue) and its all about color. I have a few projects in this issue and I’m allowed to share one with you here.

Thinking of You Bird Card

I decided to share this design because its a little different in style from what I’ve been designing lately. Ultra clean and simple.  I like to mix things up a little. This quick card uses a Heidi Swapp Mask and the Copic Airbrush System… both products I really want to find time to play around more!

You can purchase single issues or subscribe to Paper Crafts Magazine 0n-line at their site. Also at PC Mag…voting for the PC Idol starts this afternoon. Have fun voting for your favorite design!

Thanks also for supporting me by voting for my layout on the Ultimate Summer Challenge.

Have a fabulous day!

Julia