Like many of you, I’m obsessed with papercrafts, and I spend almost all of my free time involved in it in some capacity or another.  I do for my own personal pleasure, and this year, I’ve chosen to turn a passionate hobby of mine into a business.   It’s always a goal of mine to add new skills and techniques to my repetoir, but my experiences allow me to share that knowledge with my Stampin’ Up! customers.  I ALWAYS learn something new from other people, and then I pass it on! 

Because of the internet, there is just an amazing amount of information and resources available for those that have the time to find it or use it.  I have too many resources for scrapbooking and cardmaking to mention.  Dare I try to mention even a few?  I don’t do this to brag, but I always want to share with you information I’ve learned, and will continue to pass on through my blog, or at my stamp-a-stack and scrapbook classes, or pretty much anywhere I meet a fellow stamper or scrapbooker.

I subscribe to about five or six monthly magazines regarding the Paper Crafts Industry.  I also attend several conventions per year to take classes at them (as well as shop).  I’ll be sharing my first experience at the Stampin’ Up! Convention in Utah, in just a couple of weeks.  I can’t wait to go and tell you about that, so stay tuned for that soon.  I also browse the Split Coast Stampers Gallery.  I’m a member of SUDSOL and other organizations for this art and paper crafts industry.  I watch tutorials and videos not only created by other fellow Stampin’ Up! demonstrators, but places like TV weekly, or the Craft Lounge.  I subscribe to numerous blogs, yahoo groups, and newsfeeds which are all about scrapbooking, rubberstamping, and crafts in general, like Craft Critique, Scor-Pal, CHA, etc. 

Today. I’ll share with you one of my newsletters, called Page Maps, which just sent out their July 2008 newsletter.  Page Maps offer a collection of sketches for album pages of different sizes, as well as interesting shapes and dimensions, and traditional card making .  Think of it as a template, for when you get stuck in a rut, or simply want to save time, which is exactly why I love them.  With all of these resources, why reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to?  So PageMaps are more of a blank canvas, with gives the design layout, and you take it from there, as opposed to seeing a finished product, and trying to match colors and embellishments to somehow adapt the original artist’s work to what you have in available product.  I do this too, but for some people, it could be easier to look at a blank sketch and run with it.  For myself, I find this more true of scrapbooking sketches for 12×12 pages.  I absolutely LOVE to use Becky Higgin’s (Creating Keepsakes) sketches, and since I met her years ago, I now keep my own sketch book handy.  When my magazines come every month, I draw my favorites as a sketch, without getting cluttered with all the descriptive details and supply lists, and use them frequently.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy Page Maps, and that they help you out.  The newsletter is sent out in email form, and the page maps themselves are in PDF format for Adobe, which you can download/save to your computer. 

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Page Maps, templates

Short post today, but wanted to notify you readers, that my Stampin’ Up! website is temporarily disabled by the company, therefore, some of the links and tabs on the blog site will not work until the problem is fixed.

Remember my post about my PayPal escapades?  Well, not to bore you with the gory details, but they still have not been resolved, and my business account which was robbed, is still in a large deficit.  Today, my Stamin’ Up! website was disabled because the company couldn’t receive their monthly payment.     So, since this is a weekend and neither the bank nor the SU company can effect any positive changes, this will be fixed Monday.  Thanks for your patience.

Tonights post is for a card I made for my upline’s upline’s (we’ve just got to come up with a better word for this) monthly competition.  I’m always too busy and forget the deadlines, and there’s only so much time in a day.  However, entering all of the team monthly contests as well as the ones that Stampin’ Up! publishes in Stampin’ Success Monthly newsletter is on my list of New Year’s Resolutions!    Yes, it’s New Years already for us Stampin’ Up! demonstrators, since the new year clock starts July 1st.  Anyway, I have a lot of goals on my list, and it would be a pretty tenacious undertaking to accomplish them all, but I’m up for it! 

The requirements were to use 2 stamp sets that will be retiring August 10th, and a 3rd if it’s a word/phrase set.  Also, could only use 3 colors and one neutral.  Everything else was game.  I just love Artfully Asian, so I used that as the main image, and the 2nd set is the Circle of Friendship set.  I did throw in the 3rd with the outside AND the inside sentiment coming from the It’s Your Birthday set.  Of course the Pretties Kit and the Hodgepodge Hardware Kits were also used.  Since tomorrow is the deadline anyway,  I’ll share this card.  Good luck to everyone!  Bring it! 

  Don’t forget these sets are going away August 10th, so email me to place an order.

Technorati Tags: Artfully Asian, Cards, Circle of Friendship, Hodgepodge Hardware, It's Your Birthday, Pretties Kit, Retired stamps

Recently I stumbled upon a new website that I thought I’d share with you.  It’s called "Sheetload of Cards".  You can get to their blog and the July issue published here.  Coincedently (no really) I was trying to fit in a theme of Christmas in July, into my calendar.  Now that I’ve finished unpacking and laundering everything from our vacation last week, there are less than 2 weeks of July left, and convention in Utah at the end of the month, so what am I thinking?  lol

I used the previous newsletter to make this card.  I used Stampin’ Up!’s Berry Bliss Designer Series Paper and some felt flowers from our Flower Fusion Accents and Elements.  The stamp set is Friendship Blooms, a retiring hostess set.

 Thanks for looking!

Technorati Tags: Accents and Elements, Cards, Flower Fusion Accents and Elements, Friendship Blooms, Sheetload of Cards, templates