Special Guest at the Playground

I am excited to introduce Fisk-a-teer Cheryl Waters from Fiskars!

Cheryl will be coming to the store on Saturday, November 12th to do a FREE make and take! She will be showing us how to make this mixed media card using various Fiskars punches and Smooch Spritz.

.

It is an honor to have Cheryl coming all the way from California to share some of her creative fun with us!  Let's give her a BIG Rapid City Welcome! Stop by and say Hi and get a chance to play with some great products and have some fun! 

TIME: 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

COST: FREE!!!!

RSVP: No need....just come on in!

We will try to accommodate as many as we can, come in early to make sure you get in on the fun!

Get to know a little more about Cheryl HERE.

Be there or be square!! (you really don't want to miss this!)

See you on the 12th!!

TP Mini Books

Here is a look at the mini books we will be making from Toilet Paper rolls in this Saturday's class (October 29th).

We will be putting this together using the Authentique GLOWING 6x6 papers and die cut sheets. I will provide other embellishments. If you are attending the class you will need to bring 4 empty toilet paper rolls, scissors, paper trimmer and adhesive.

Class Cost: $15 (you take lots of extra's home with you)

Class Time: 10 AM and 2 PM

See you there!

November Magazines are here!

Yes, they are here and full of fun and inspiration as usual!

Scrapbook Trends has a great section about using Spray Mist, Paint and Ink. If you've been a little intimidated by using any of these items, this might be the issue to get you going. I thought it was refreshing to see a section dedicated to Teens. Sometimes those are the hardest pages to do, so it's always great to get some new ideas and inspiration. Also great ideas how to use stamps in your scrapbooking...it's nice to have multiple uses for those stamps! Remember....you can stamp on just about anything that doesn't move...or bribe them with chocolate if they do!

Cards is full of felt, twine, lace and chipboard. The Baby cards are beautiful, I can't wait to make one! The tutorial in this month's issue is for a Simple Quartered Flower. Looks fun to me! Oh! Do you still have all those decorative scissors we all had to have "back in the day"? They have great examples on how to put them to use. (mine have been sitting unloved and unused for a very long time...maybe they will have to come out and play someday soon.

Simply Handmade has it's Holiday issue out and it has ideas for cards, decorations, and gift ideas. There is a Woven Ribbon Mini Album that really caught my eye. They use a combination of ribbon and burlap string and I love the way it looks! There are great wreath ideas and the most adorable little mitten to use for your tree, or decorating or a gift tag...I like that idea, too.

The Create issue is all about Christmas Cards. Lots and lots of inspiration here, if you are stuck and don't know what to for your Christmas cards this year, this is the place to get motivated! I love the non-traditional Christmas colors that they use to really spice up a card. What I love most is that there are so many cards that are easy to make...but they don't LOOK that way. Gotta love that!

This month's Cricut Magazine  features a lot of Thanksgiving and Fall ideas...and LOTS of baby ideas. (Is this the time of year for babies, and I never knew?) Again...fun and full of color and inspiration.

I don't think there is any way to look through these magazines and not come away with ideas and inspiration to create something fun and wonderful. When I am in a rut...this is where I always go for inspiration.

So, enough talk....here is a look at the front covers of these great publications.

Stop on by and say Hi, and pick up your monthly dose of inspiration!

See you soon!

Class on Saturday, October 22

I promised photos of the upcoming class this weekend.

The first class at the Playground is going to be a "smooshing" class. We are going to add inks using a foam blender to add some drama and some fun to 3 cards. We will be doing a Fall, Halloween and Christmas card.
I have photos of the first two to show you. The Christmas card is going to have to be a surprise since I am still waiting for the stamps to get here. (cross your fingers and toes that they are here by Friday...I have mine crossed!)
The cost is $10. There will be a morning class at 10 AM and an afternoon class at 1 PM. Bring a good pair of scissors to do just a little bit of fussy cutting, a paper trimmer just in case and some adhesive. A non-stick craft mat works really well with the smooshing, so bring one if you have it. (I have them available here at the Playground if you need one)
Call  605-721-PLAY (7529)  or email scrapandplay@rushmore.com if you want to come play with us!


Here's a sampling of what we will be doing Saturday.

I'd love to see you there! We'll have a smooshing good time. ;o)

Attention Embossing Folder lovers!

Do I have something fun for you!
First I want to thank Donna Degan for coming in and telling me about this great little product. I had never heard of them before. I'm a big embossing folder fan and this looked like more fun than I could pass up!

They are called Easy Folder Frames. There are 7 frames in a pack, so that means fun X 7 for nearly every embossing folder you own!


What these little wonders do is keep a section of your card stock from being embossed so you can stamp an image or sentiment in that area. There have been times when I wished I could just stamp an image on that embossed piece, but it was impossible to do after it was embossed and you totally lost the image if you stamped first and then embossed it.  I love that someone came up with great idea!

Here is what they look like:

You get ovals, circles, squares and rectangles. So many options with all of your folders.

I'm pretty excited about them, and had to play as soon as the package came. Here is a quick card I put together using one of the rectangle frames. (you should all be very proud of me...there isn't one ounce of smooshing on this card...and it didn't even hurt! LOL!)

Stop  by the store, I'd love to show you how they work....and you are gonna love how versatile they are. It will be like getting a whole new set of embossing folders. That, my friends, is FUN!

See you soon!!

Late Night Scrapping

....with my husband!

I know...I was just as shocked as you are! AND....it was HIS idea!  Clay woke up one morning and started telling me about this scrapbook he had been dreaming about that night. He had some really great ideas which really impressed me because he doesn't pour over scrapping magazines and websites like I do for inspiration.

Well, last night after we had dinner, we went back to the store so I could work on an album I had started earlier in the day. Next thing I know, Clay is wondering if he could use my other wooden covers to make the South Dakota scrapbook he had been thinking about. So, we spent the evening bouncing ideas back and forth. He helped me make decisions on my work, and I helped him with his. I got to do all the smooshing of ink, since that is what I do best. LOL!  We worked until almost midnight, and boy did we have a mess when we were done...but oh, so much fun!

I'm going to show you Clay's covers first. He wanted to make a scrapbook full of all the cool and fun pictures we have taken of the Black Hills over the years. (He takes some amazing photos...he took the one of the "Peek-ing Duck" layout I posted last month) His thought was to use some of the brochures we have been collecting to embellish the pages. So, the brown trim down the left side and the buffalo photo on the bottom are from travel brochures, he nabbed the South Dakota sticker from my stash (that I had bought from Cathy before I owned the store) and he also begged a piece of my Dusty Attic chipboard off me.  I guess I must really like him.

I smooshed ink on the white parts of the SD sticker, and smooshed some Peeled Paint and Vintage Photo Distress Stain on the Leafy chipboard from Dusty Attic.
I love how he took one of the park  maps to cover the inside of the back cover. We had to use some pattered paper to cover the unsightly and boring white spots...and then, of course, there was more smooshing involved. :o)  Oh...and details....hubby is great at little details...check this out:

Clay wanted to do something to bring attention to and blend in the grass under the buffalo, so he took little strips of left over paper and made it look just like the grass in the picture...and it tied it all together! FUN!
He's got some really fun ideas for this scrapbook, I can't wait for you to see what he's got in store for the back cover...too cute!!

Okay....enough about the man scrapper. LOL!

Here is a look at what I started:

I was dying to use the new Generations line of paper from Simple Stories. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. The flowers are made from the same plaid paper as the inside of the front and back covers. The leaves for the flower were stamped and then....you guessed it.....smooshed with Distressed Ink (Peeled Paint and Spiced Marmalade...I think) I used the other piece of Dusty Attic Chipboard from the package that Clay used, but mine got embossed with Vintage Photo Distress Embossing Powder. A couple of EK Success border punches were used across the bottom and a strip of lace was used and it got a little dark ink smooshed on it, too. I found a random "A" in my stash of alpha's, and used a mix of alpha's for "Dream". I used Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink to smoosh on the bare grey chipboard. The "come true" is the cut with the Cricut Cartridge "Opposites Attract" .
I just have to tell you about one of the products I used on this album...because I was really impressed!
For any of you that have used the ColorBox Chalk Ink Cat's Eye pads...you know how they fall apart when you've used them for a while? Well, these covers are made of wood, and I used this to ink the edges of all 4 covers....they are the new chalk ink pads from Ingvild Bolme....take a look:

These have a nice little handle, and that's neat....but the fact that I used this on all of the edges of these wood covers and it still looks brand new totally impressed me!!  I am pretty certain all of that intense smooshing would have destroyed the other chalk ink pads.
I noticed that these ink pads seem to have some sort of a coating on the top of the pad that looks like it might hold it all together. I had heard from some other scrappers that they had done their best to use and abuse these little guys to see if they would stay together, and they were impressed, too.

I have a few of these in stock if you are interested in trying them out. They sell for the same as the other pads, $1.99. I only have dark colors in stock at the moment, for adding that dark distressed look, but if anyone is interested in other colors, just give me a shout and I will get some other colors in.

Sorry to be so long winded this time around.  I just had to share the fun and excitement of creating!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!!