I grew up near the ocean...not right on it...but about a 45 minute drive over the Santa Cruz mountains from San Jose. I loved that drive...making my way over the top of those ridges and then around a few bends...my heart would thump as I would see a glimpse of the ocean in the distance and know that I'd be on the beach with sand in my toes in just a short while. We spent many a happy occasion with friends or family at beaches along the Northern California coast.We built many a sand castle with our beach pails and shovels. We collected sand crabs by chasing their bubbles in the sand. We also enjoyed going to "the Boardwalk" in Santa Cruz...a beach side amusement park with retro carnavel flair. I loved the rickety wooden roller coaster "the giant dipper", and the smell of cotton candy and kettle pop corn.  All those memories always invoke a smile on my face. 

Those are the kinds of memories that inspired me to create the Nautical collection. The red white and blue colors remind me of the colors at the Boardwalk amusment park which was infused with these colors.  The Dipper was a white roller coaster with red accents. The deep navy blue ocean along the northern coast with the bright blue skies was also inspiration for the coloring in this line. I took artistic license and added lighthouse icons to this collection to give it a "dual coastal" feeling...I know that lighthouses and lobster are indicative of the East coast. 

Here are a few fabulous projects created by the Creative Imaginations Design Team with the new Samantha Walker Nautical collection for Creative Imaginations.

Above layout created by DT member, Lynn Kopas

Above layout created by DT member, Tanisha Long

Above card created by DT member, Jenn Shurkus

To read more about the Nautical collection, pop on over to Samantha Walker's blog.

One of my favorite stories to tell from when I was little, is when one of my cousins engaged my Grandmother in a proper tea party. I thought it looked like so much fun. Grandma put her pinky in the air and sipped her tea very politely with my young cousin.  I was slightly jealous of this interaction and how much fun they seemed to be having...until Grandma asked my cousin, "you are so short, where have you been getting your water for the tea? It tastes so sweet!" Then my cousin proceeded to take my Grandmother into the bathroom to show her where she had been getting the water, and she dipped a tea cup into the toilet and offered my Grandmother another cup of "tea."

I wasn't so jealous of that tea party any more...but having a tea party did pique my interests. The following Christmas, I got my very own tea set.  I cherished that set.  It had pink roses on the little plastic cups, and I knew where to get my water for the tea...not like my cousin. I made many happy memories with that tea set and my stuffed animals.

 I think we all can think of a time where we enjoyed a "tea party" with a friend, doll or stuffed animal when we were little. As adults, drinking tea is associated with friends, and chatting, and enjoying the passing of time together.

 That's why I'm so excited to introduce to you, my new collection, Tea Party, for Creative Imaginations.

Through the iconography of tea party elements, it celebrates friendship and the warm feelings associated with the ones we love. I hope this collection warms your heart, and inspires you to create projects for and about those friends and the people you love.

This lovely project was designed by Eva Dobilas with papers stickers and embellishments from the Samantha Walker Tea Party collection.

This card was also designed by Eva Dobilas.

Layout created by DT member, Lynn Kopas

I hope you have many more Tea Parties (or hot chocolate parties, or soda pop parties, or your favorite friendly beverage of choice) celebrating friendship in your life...and when you do...you now have the perfect collection of products to document all about it.

To read more about the Tea Party collection, visit the Samantha Walker blog.

Hi!  My name is Allie from Well Trained Paper and I am visiting you from the Twin Cities in Minnesota, home of the Mall of America, and Archiver's Annual ScrapFest where I spent some time recently with Cheryl Mezzetti - I helped out in her class, you know - offering assistance, answering questions, giving pointers, and translating those classic Cherylisms only Bostonians can deciper ("paypuh" is paper, "scawlups" is scallops - you get the idea), and the best part - passing out the prizes. Cheryl is a fabulous teacher, and a lot of fun as a shopping pal, and the Mall of America is a great place if you love shopping! Anyway, Cheryl was kind enough to have some goodies sent to me from Creative Imaginations, and invite me to share a project with you, so I am here to share a gift idea. Gift giving certainly doesn't stop after Christmas, so I thought I would share a birthday project.  

If you are crafty, you probably know someone who is not. I have friends, family and neighbors who love my crafts, but let's just say they don't enjoy the process the way I do. They do however, love it when I make things for them that they can give, or share.

I moved to a condominium last year, and it was quite the change of pace. Here, we all chip in and do some of the jobs that our wonderful caretaker does not include in his list of to-do's like decorating, arranging parties, and essentially ... prettifying the place.

One of my neighbors volunteered to be in charge of birthdays - making sure they are announced, coordinating quarterly parties - who brings what, when they'll take place, decorating the birthday boy or girl's door, and keeping an updated list of who's having a birthday in our community mail room. She came to me for help with the list in our mail room.  "Allie" she says, innocently, "You're the creative one, right?"  

To make a long story short, I took on the project of making the birthday list in our community mail room a little more creative, and I gave myself an added to do list of including a fun magnet to put on the birthday boys and girls' mailboxes, and a decorative treat to add to the balloons that decorate their doors. I chose the wonderful Art Warehouse Happy Days Collection.  I had the new 6x6 paper pad, which was perfect, with its bright, festive color scheme, and fun designs.  There's a sweet swirl and a fun, woven design - a little like a herringbone pattern.

I took a shadow box frame I purchased at a thrift shop, and set out to decorate it. I also created a rosette magnet, and a sour cream container. The sour cream container is easy to create.  I filled it with sugar free candies!  Start with 5 1/2 x 6" sheet of paper - save the tops for those little rolls in the frame. I place Glue along the 5 1/2" inch edge and then simply roll it into a tube.  I then used Beacon's 3-in-1 glue to seal the bottom, pinched it till it was dry, then filled it and repeated with the other side, making sure to pinch in the opposite direction - so that the treat container is sort of triangle shaped. I then added a handmade cupcake accent and a sentiment with a brad.

I once had severe rosette-a-phobia. I did not enjoy making them. I finally forced myself to practice and hone my technique, and now they come pretty easily to me. I cut two strips that are 1 1/2"  wide and score at every 1/4 inch. I fold them back and forth and attach them together - creating a piece that looks like a cross between a cupcake wrapper and a lamp shade. I like to glue mine down to die cut buttons. The reason I do this is so that looking down when I am gluing - I can see the center and not glue them to the table! I also find that when going from lampshade to rosette, that if you just try turning in one quarter of this piece, instead of trying to flatten the whole thing, that the rosette comes together much easier. I hope these little tips help you! I glue with Beacon's 3-in-1 glue. I hold the rosette down until I can take my hands up and there's no spring action ... about 15 - 30 seconds.  I then place the rosette under a paper pad while I work on the top - just to avoid any latent spring action! On the rosette featured, I have a die cut and embossed scalloped circle that I stenciled - that is, I left the die in place and sponged on some ink. To that I adhered the cupcakes shown (there are more details in the "stuff I used" at the end of the post).

For the frame, I used the tops of the papers I cut for the sour cream containers. I made lots of these little rolls thinking it was a candle like border. Because it's a shadow box, I had plenty of room and I thought it added a nice dimension. I placed a strip of Glue  about an inch in and rolled the paper around a paint brush and cut. I repeated - you can get four out of one strip - avoiding the hole. Waste not - want not - I love to use the entire paper pad. I created the cupcakes and rosettes and sour cream containers in all the colors and just mixed and matched.  You have three sheets of six different colors in two patterns each - for you math lovers, there's no need to count - that's 36 sheets! Lots to work with. I made these candle like rolls and attached them all to piece of cardstock that was premeasured to fit. This made adding the rolls to the finished background piece easier -and I was able to leave a slot for the journaling cards to be changed out. For the journaling card - I stenciled a butterfly on to some white cardstock using one of Creative Imagination's Existencils. I really love the versatility of these stencils - sponge, stipple, spray, etc.! I then stamped the journaling card and cut it out by hand.  Not shown - there are actually 12 of these, and my neighbor is filling in the birthdays and will change them out monthly. The scalloped circle with cupcake are actually on the outside of the frame, along with a die cut sentiment from the Art Warehouse Happy Days collection. These die cuts are really nice because they are double sided - I could have used the blank side and stamped or hand written, but "Someone special is having a birthday" was perfect.

All in all, the project did not take long. I spent a few hours cropping (shopping, and eating, and laughing) with friends and got everything done. Not shown are 60 sour cream containers with an assortment of colors both container and cupcake - because boys don't need pink cupcakes, of course. There are also additional rosettes, also available in boy colors - and in case there are multiple birthdays on one day. With a good plan, you can really get alot out of a single pad of paper! Cost for this project, not including adhesive, buttons or brads (because I know you have oodles of those) was under ten dollars! Just think, you could do this in any theme for a classroom, a Sunday School teacher, the office, etc. Your non-crafty friends, neighbors and family will be very impressed, and super happy with your efforts.

I hope you enjoyed this project. I'm so thrilled that I was invited to join you all. If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact me via my blog - Well Trained Paper.

Stuff I used:

• Art Warehouse Happy Days Collection
• Existencils Butterfly image
• Bazzill White Cardstock
• Baker's Twine
• Basic Grey magnets
• Unity stamps
• Rusty hinge distress ink
• Watermelon Adirondack Ink
• Cupcakes cut from Close to my heart cricut
• Scallop circles ~ Spellbinders

Happy New Year!  What better way to start a new year, but with messages of love and thanks.  Today's cards are all designed using Marah Johnson's Monarch collection.

My first card was created using Monarch Cherish Varnish Paper and Twinking H2O's Basic Rainbow Pack.

Using the Twinkling H2O pack I used ginger peach  and Mallard from the color set. Then I used  Monarch Cherish Varnish Paper which I painted on.  I gave it a slight difference when I painted the patttern since I was using the same paper.  What do you think?

Supplies:

Monarch Cherish Varnish Paper

Monarch Allegro DS Paper

Twinkling H2O Basic Rainbow

Here's a couple of choices for Valentine's.  Instead of using paper that's themed, why not use colors that always carry the messages of love.

I used Monarch Trefoil Foil paper here and decided not to paint it, but to leave it as is.  The Monarch line also carries stickers, Monarch Happenings Chipboard 5x12.  I used these chipboard lietters to add sentiments for my card.

I used Twinkling H2O Basic Rainbow, hot cinnamon.  You'll find this color in the the Twinkling H2o Basic Rainbow Petite set. 

Supplies:

Twinkling H2O Basic Rainbow

Monarch Trefoil Foil paper

Monarch Happenings Chipboard 5x12

My last card was also made with the Monarch collection.

I really want this last card to stand out so I used the Radiant Rain Shimmering Mist, Pearl Gold.  Not sure if you can tell in the photo how shimmering it is, but it really comes up well against a dark color cardstock.

Now that we got some shimmer on the card I wanted to match it up with some Marah Johnson's Foil Embossed Stickers.  The Stickers come in gold and silver.  Don't you just love how the gold pops off the card?

Supplies:

Monarch Brocade Varnish Paper

Monarch Allegro DS Paper

Foil Embossed Stickers

Radiant Rain Shimmering Mist Pearl Gold Mist

Thank you so much for your continued support.  We hope you continue to support us as we open start the new year off with new product and more inspiration coming soon!

Hello everyone, I'm back today to share with you my final layout as a Guest Designer using the fantastic Creative Imaginations Inspired Traveler line from the Art Warehouse collection by Danelle Johnson. As soon as I saw all of the various modes of transportation in this line, I knew that I would be just perfect for a layout about my little guy, Carter. Carter is 3 years old and loves anything that moves!

I added journaling telling how Carter loves everything from cars, to trains, to airplanes and also a couple of other little tidbits about his favorite things at age 3.

I have had a fantastic time as a guest designer creating with the Creative Imaginations collections, and I hope that you have enjoyed my work as much as I've enjoyed creating and sharing it with all of you!    -Sarah

GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!!! Sample new Luminarte products before they hit the market!!!

Want to sample our new Luminarte product before it hits the market? Do you have an idea or opinion you want to share?  Well then head over to the Luminarte blog and answer 7 quick questions!  We are giving you the opportunity to win one of our colorful prizes: Primary Elements Artist Pigments and All-purpose medium, one of the Twinkling H20’s petite sets or Luminarte’s latest release Silks Acrylic Glaze just for sharing your opinion!

Now go tell your creative friends and family to join the fun! Inform your local store to stop by our Creative Imaginations Booth #1657 at the Craft and Hobby Show. They can play with all our products and take home some great Make & Takes! 

Hello everyone! I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday! I'm back today to share my layouts that I created using Creative Imagination's super fun A to Z collection by Samantha Walker. I had a blast creating with the colorful patterns in this line, and it was just perfect not only for school layouts but also creating pages for my little guy, Carter.

The A to Z collection just has so many possibilities, and I love all of the coordinating cardstock stickers and pattern papers that lend themselves to easily be cut up and used for borders and embellishing. I enjoyed guest designing, and I'll be back with one more Creative Imagination project soon. -Sarah