Brownie Institute Blog Train !!!

For the month of October I've been attending the Brownie Institute over at Brownie Scraps. It's a month-long class for scrappers who'd like to learn about the digiscrap design process. While I really don't have any plans of ever designing kits, I hoped that what I learned would help my day-to-day scrapping. Each week we had assignments to complete, with the end result that now, at the end of the class, each student has completed a mini kit to do with as they wish. And what did most of us wish to do? Why, give away our projects as FREEBIES!

So, hop on board this Brownie Institute Blog Train! As you visit each stop on the train you can see what each of us (including our instructors!) accomplished, with a link for a freebie download. Here are the stops for you:

March 

Ramona 

Bethany

Charly

Natalee

Becky

Angie >>>You are here!

Eileen

Shelly

Kathi

Ashley

Michelle

Here's a look at my final product. The download link is below, and if you like it, I'd love to hear your comments!

Get this freebie HERE!

Battle of the Creative Teams! We need your vote!

Week 3 voting is up over at the Battle of the Creative Teams at DigiScrapAddicts. Here's a little rundown of this week's challenge:

"For Challenge 3, you will be doing a monochromatic layout. Your team will need to pick a color and that color will be the main focus of your layout. You will all need to pick the SAME color. I will allow acrylic and metal as additional elements but other than that, you will need to focus on the color you have picked. You will be allowed to recolor as you need/want in order to fit the needs of this challenge. You will also need to pick 2 corners of your page to scrap on. It could be any 2 corners that you choose but your layout needs to be mainly in these 2 corners.

You have two options as your additional requirement for this challenge. You will either swap photos with your teammates (this could be just one teammate, you don't have to use 4 different photos from 4 different people) OR you will scrap about yourself. Your team has to pick 1 of these options and everyone has to do the same thing."

So, after some discussion, Mara's Minions chose to scrap with the color brown and to scrap photos of ourselves (which caused some anxiety since many of us aren't used to photographing ourselves, much less scrapping about ourselves, lol!)

Here is the page I came up with:

To see the rest of Mara's Minions' pages, check out our team thread HERE, and then hop on over to the poll HERE to cast your vote for Scraps by Mara!

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for a Halloween treat!

Love Is You

Who's up for some serious romantic girly-ness? You? Well, lucky for you, Scraps by Mara has this brand new kit out today called Love Is You. Its light, bright pinks and purples are so refreshing! You can pick it up HERE at Brownie Scraps for 25% off:


I thought one of Jen's graduation photos was perfect with this kit:

In other news, I'm still working on P365, but I'm a little behind on creating my pages. There is SO MUCH going on in my digi scrapping world! Stay tuned in the next few days for this week's Battle of the Creative Teams layout, a Halloween treat, and some exciting news, all leading up to Digital Scrapbooking Day next week!

Battle of the Creative Teams week 2! We need your vote!

Polls are open for week 2 voting in DigiscrapAddicts Battle of the Creative Teams, so I'm here asking all my loyal followers and everyone they know (LOL!) to go to the designer team poll HERE and vote for Scraps by Mara. We didn't finish in the top 3 for the first week, but neither did about 40 other teams, so we're okay with that! Votes are cumulative over the four weeks, so there's still hope!
This week's challenge was far easier than last week's:

"PART ONE - It's a scraplift train! A double scraplift train that is.

YOU need to take the members of your team and place them in list format. Each person will lift the person ahead AND behind them.

for example:
the members of the Scrap Orchard team are
Bec
jennamy82
CaroB71
SamaraGugler
daisydil

In this example, Bec would lift both jennamy82 AND daisydil, jennamy82 would lift CaroB71 AND Bec, Caro would lift jennamy and Samara, Samara would lift Caro and daisy and daisy would lift samara and Bec.

You will each make *1* layout but draw inspiration from 2 layouts. The order of your member list does not matter as long as you state who is lifting who.
Each member of the team will need to include the list of members in their credits as well as who they lifted, a link to the layouts lifted and what you used as inspiration from each layout.

PART TWO - YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW

You must choose ONE of these three words. The word you choose must be in the TITLE of your layout. YOUR ENTIRE TEAM MUST USE THE SAME WORD IN THE EXACT SAME FORMAT."

For the uninitiated, a scraplift is taking ideas from another scrapper's page and using that inspiration in your own page. I was scraplifting my team members Shelly and Melody. Here is a look at my entry for this week, and if you want to see the pages that inspired me, click HERE to go to my page in the DSA gallery which will in turn link you to the pages that I lifted (look in the credits):


Polls are only open until 11:59pm EST Sunday night, so vote soon!

Autumn Goodies!

Autumn brings warm colors and fun themes for kits, like this new offering from Dylabel Designs called Owl Fall For You. Isn't it cute? You can pick it up HERE at Elemental Scraps as a Bonus Buy for 25% off!


And here's a non-owl-ey page I did with it to show you how versatile it is:

Also coming up is more autumn fun over at Brownie Scraps; it's the second annual Harvest Festival!


We have PLENTY of FUN activities for you to join in, and Awesome prizes to be given away! We look forward to having you join us!
Oct. 25th- 29th

Battle of the Creative Teams! We need your vote!

On everyone’s minds this week is the Battle of the Creative Teams that is being hosted over at DigiscrapAddicts, which kicked off its first of four weekly challenges this past Sunday. It’s a popular event, with 5-person creative teams competing in one of two categories…Store Teams (13 teams competing) and Designer Teams (a whopping 47 teams!). Scraps by Mara is well represented in this event, with Debbie, Shelly, Michelle, Melody, and I creating layouts using Mara's products. Scoring of the team layouts is done each weekend by popular vote…so make sure you visit the site each weekend and vote for your favorite team---Mara's Minions!! Here is the link for the thread our team will be posting our layouts in:

Scraps by Mara: Mara's Minions

More important, here is the link to the poll where you can vote for the Minions:

Look for the name Scraps by Mara!.

Each IP address is only allowed one vote, so make sure you cast your vote properly! *winks* Voting is open Sunday and Monday, Oct. 17 and 18.

Here's the page I submitted for this weeks challenge. It was a reworking of a page I had done a few weeks ago. These are the rules we had to follow:

CHALLENGE ONE
your first challenge as a team will be a 'simple' recipe challenge.

you need to decide on 1 of the 3 recipes that follows. your whole team has to decide on *one* of these recipes. you will all use the same recipe. (we decided on recipe 2, which was:)

10 hearts
9 flowers
8 stitches
7 buttons
6 frames
5 ribbons
4 papers
3 photos
2 alphas
1 font

***in addition to using one of the recipes, you need to use an equation of some sort. your team needs to decide on one equation and everyone has to use the SAME equation.***

you can only use YOUR designer's products. you can use fonts by whoever you like.

all layouts MUST be posted by midnight EST on friday.

And here is my page:

Wish us luck! Make sure you vote!

He Loves Me

New in the shop at Brownie Scraps today is this fun kit from Scraps by Mara called He Loves Me. It's full of all sorts of doodled daisies in case you need to do that fateful countdown, and don't you just love those letter beads? You can pick it up HERE on sale for 25% off for the first week!


A page I did:

Smiling

What can be more fun than scrapping smiles? And what better kit to commemorate those smiles than this fun kit from Jacabean Designs called, what else, Smiling? It's got a base of neutrals sparked with a dose of pink for all sorts of pages. Take a look, then pick it up HERE at Brownie Scraps:


Here's my page, done for a challenge at Brownie Scraps:

P365 weeks 39 and 40

Well, folks, it had to happen sooner or later. Whether it was because of apathy, a serious lack of imagination, or just forgetfulness, I did NOT take a photo every day the week of Sept. 24! Usually, if nothing noteworthy is happening in my day (which happens more often than not, I really DO have a boring life, lol!), I find something that captures my interest enough for a photo. Not during week 39, though! So, that week's page looks a little skimpy, but as you can see, I jumped right back into the saddle for week 40, and I hope to keep going strong for the rest of the year!

Week 39:

Week 40:
I used a template by Simply You, Simply Me and the kit Sunny Meadow by Laitha Designs, both available at GoDigitalScrapbooking.

Also, here's that sneak peek I told you about yesterday. It's the newest kit from Scraps by Mara, and it will revealed on October 15, so stay tuned!

Haunted!

The latest offering from genia Beana Scraps is this dark and mysterious little number called Haunted. It's perfect, of course, for those spooky Hallowwen layouts or any page that could use a gothic feel. You can pick up the bundle HERE at ScrapMatters, or, if you prefer, you can get the pieces individually:


If you do purchase the bundle, you get this cardstock pack free with purchase:



AND, if you hop over to Val's blog HERE, you can snag this coordinating freebie alpha:


Here's a spooky page I did with the kit:


I'll be back soon with some P365 goodness and a sneak peek from Scraps by Mara!

Antique Cocoa

Cold, rain, clouds, wind...that's what we've been having here in Michigan. So how about some Antique Cocoa? That's the name of this cozy kit by Flutterbye Faery Designs. You can pick it up HERE at Brownie Scraps!


And here's a yummy page I did with it, my first project as a Brownie Supreme:


More goodness coming your way, so stay tuned!

Are You Afraid? and Time for Fall!

As promised, I have a couple of new kits to show you today! First up is Dylabel Designs' contribution to the Color Play collection at Elemental Scraps. It's a yummy autumn-themed kit called Time for Fall. You can pick up the papers and elements separately at Belinda's store HERE for $1 each for the first week! Here's a peek at the full kit:


And a page I did with this kit:


And, here is the reveal of the new collection I gave you a peek of last time...a set of eight mini kits from Scraps by Mara called Are You Afraid?! Each mini features a different adorable little monster living in its own color world. You can pick up each monster on its own for 25% off or the whole group for a whopping 58% off at Mara's Brownie Scraps store HERE! And, if you do purchase the collection, Mara will throw in a free alpha! Here's a look at all the little monsters:


I took the time to work with 4 of the 8 minis:

Platalapoo

Hippado

Whipplestack

Catamadat

Aren't they fun?!
Also, I have a bit of news! In September I entered a scrapping contest at Brownie Scraps. While I didn't win the grand prizes of a Wacom tablet or the Persnickety Prints gift certificate, I was offered (and accepted) a 3-month guest spot on the Brownie Scraps Creative Team! So in addition to showing you goodies from Scraps by Mara, I'll have all sorts of fun things to play with from the other great designers there!
I also enrolled in the Brownie Institute, which is geared towards teaching participants how to design their own papers and elements. While I have no intention of selling, I'm hoping that what I learn will help me be a better scrapper. And for you guys, that means I'll soon have some freebies to give away of my own work! So stay tuned!