Open A New Door

Doors are an interesting symbol. To me, doors can be an opening to something new or a closure to something you want to put behind you. Either way, they are beautifully presented in the new Open A New Door Collection from Crafty Button Design. 

Hand-drawn doors and elements and hand-painted art dolls and backgrounds, along with thoughtful quotes, are combined in this soft new collection. Here's a closer look at the packs in this collection.

First, the elements pack, which includes the hand-painted art dolls and hand-drawn doors. The doors in this pack are watercolored, but you can buy the sketched doors in a separate back.

Open A New Door: Elements by Crafty Button Design

The hand-painted backgrounds...

Open A New Door: Backgrounds by Crafty Button Design

 And last, but definitely not least, my favorite part of the collection - the hand-drawn doors.

Open A New Door: Sketched Door Brushes by Crafty Button Design

Finally, to see how you can use all the packs together, here's a little bit of eye candy from the creative team:

By rarou47 for Crafty Button Design

By Erin for Crafty Button Design

By Skinospot for Crafty Button Design

By snowdropz for Crafty Button Design

By Thimbleberrie for Crafty Button Design

I loved the look of this collection so much, I was inspired to create a few things for my planner. I'll share those in another post. In the meantime, the Open A New Door collection is on sale through Thursday! You can purchase the elements and backgrounds as a kit (and get 30% off) or as individual packs. Have fun creating!

The Key to Artsy Papers

This week's release from Pretty Dutch Designs is The Key to Artsy Papers, five artsy papers with paint and gesso in shades of yellow, black, and purple. 

The Key to Artsy Papers by Pretty Dutch Designs

Get artsy in an easy way! Take a look at our CT creations:

by Chantal for Pretty Dutch Designs

by Geraldine for Pretty Dutch Designs

by Sharon for Pretty Dutch Designs

Artsy papers make art journaling pages so easy. Add The Key to Artsy papers to your stash for 40% off this week. And don't forget - Oscraps is celebrating its 10th Birthday, so most of the store is 40% off!

In Lovers Eyes

Valentine's Day was last weekend, but In Lovers Eyes by Crafty Button Design is going to inspire you to continue the love all year long!

This huge collection has a variety of backgrounds - from pages of Shakespeare's plays to vintage ephemera to hand-painted combinations of color - that you can embellish with paper flowers, bits and pieces of romantic images, word art, and more! Here's a better look at each pack in the collection:

In Lovers Eyes: Main Kit - courtesy of Crafty Button Design

In Lovers Eyes: Paint & Overlays - courtesy of Crafty Button Design

In Lovers Eyes: Hand Painted Backgrounds - courtesy of Crafty Button Design

In Lovers Eyes: Shakespeare's Pages - courtesy of Crafty Button Design

In Lovers Eyes: Ephemera Papers - courtesy of Crafty Button Design

In Lovers Eyes: Painterly Page Overlays - courtesy of Crafty Button Design

Of course, the Crafty Button ladies created dazzling works of art with this collection:

By Skinospot for Crafty Button Design

By Thimbleberrie for Crafty Button Design 

By Erin for Crafty Button Design 

By rarou47 for Crafty Button Design 

By Skinospot for Crafty Button Design 

Feel a little creativity coming on? Scoop up In Lovers Eyes for 40% off the entire bundle (and get a special background pack free with purchase!) or purchase individual packs for 20% off through Thursday, February 25th!

The Artful Planner

Earlier this week, I divulged my passion about planners. Today, I'm going to share my attempt to infuse a little scrapbooking creativity into my planner. Let me say that I'm still in the "beta-phase." I haven't quite figured out how I want to do this, but I found it extremely fun and satisfying in the attempt!

Planner: Melange is a new collection just for planners from Crafty Button Design. After seeing Amber's planner designs, I had to make some time to try it out and see if I could actually use "artsy" in my daily planner. Here's a look at her new collection:

Courtesy of Crafty Button Design

Courtesy of Crafty Button Design

First off, I decided to bring in some digital elements and "write" in certain items, like birthdays and holidays, but I also included some notes that I would normally write on my usual planner pages. What's great about Amber's new planner pages is that you're able to personalize the pages to suit your style: fonts, decorative elements, etc. Everything on the pages shown below was added in via Photoshop. And a plus for doing it digitally - no extra bulk!

(FYI, the planner is an A5 size. I'm using the Carpe Diem Planner from Simple Stories.)

February Monthly Calendar using Planner Melange by cyranoscrap

CREDITS
All supplies (except fonts) by Crafty Button Design, unless otherwise noted

Planner: Melange Monthly Calendar Pack 01
Creative Mind Mini Kit – quote
Love Story – heart
Cotton Candy – flowers, girl, label stamp
Gypsy at Heart – violin, ric rac
Cheers Mini Kit – lantern
SHE Mini Art Journal Kit – artsy girl
Colorful Chaos – stamp
Viva La Vida – Frieda drawing
Validation – Word art
Fonts: Loxley Caps (calendar dates), Shelter Me, Miserably Lose, Facile Sans

Granted, these two pages aren't the most intricate, but I'm quite pleased with the results. 

Next up to try: including photos in my planner! My foray into a more artful planner is slow progress, but I'm definitely enjoying it!

Inspire Your Heart With Art Day

Yesterday, January 31, was Inspire Your Heart With Art Day. Essentially, it's a day to appreciate art and how it affects you. I took it as a day to create art. With that in mind, I did a little bit of creating, warming up by finishing two regular digiscrap layouts, then creating an art journaling page - something I haven't dabbled in for quite awhile. 

Valeria of Little Butterfly Wings holds a monthly template challenge. I hadn't thought about participating until I saw a page from a fellow digiscrapper using January's template. I decided that since I had failed to complete many of the challenges from The Lilypad's Month of Challenges 4 this year, I could at least do the monthly template challenge, especially since I own lots of kits from Little Butterfly Wings. :D

Visiting Santa by cyranoscrap

CREDITS:

All supplies from Little Butterfly Wings unless otherwise noted

Papers: Santa Claus is Coming, My Own Little World

Elements: Santa Claus is Coming

Template: January 2016 Template Challenge

Fonts: Reba (title), My Underwood (date and journaling)

My biggest challenge on this layout was trying to do all the journaling. I haven't written a lot of journaling on my layouts in forever. On this layout, I now have the back story on the little guy's first visit with Santa.

Next up, I finished a layout that I had started on Saturday. This was a two-page template from The Daily Digi as part of their Gratitude Journal, a memory-keeping project. Luckily, I have been keeping track of my daily life in a planner (The Happy Planner from Me & My Big Ideas), so being able to create this spread wasn't too bad. I did change the dates a little to be more in line with how I keep track of the weeks. I'm still not used to the Monday-Sunday layout (that's how the planner is laid out), so I may change this again (the template runs from Friday-Thursday and I'm used to Sunday-Saturday). Good thing it's digital! :D

Project Life 2016 (journal-style): Week 3 by cyranoscrap

CREDITS:

Papers: Get Messy (The Daily Digi - The Digi Files #85)

Elements: Every Day of the Week and XOXO (Pink Reptile Designs); The Little Things, Sweet November, and Scrap Time Mini (Little Butterfly Wings)

Template: Gratitude Journal – Week 3 (The Daily Digi)

Fonts: Facile Sans (week); Pea BMad (journaling)

Finally, after realizing Sunday, January 31st was Inspire Your Heart with Art Day, I was compelled to make an art journaling page. Art journaling doesn't come easy to me, but there are lots of great digiscrapping "tools" available for me to make the process easier. 

What's wonderful about art journaling is being able to just do whatever you want, without any particular rules. I love being able to have spattered and messy backgrounds, elements that can be scattered... For this particular creation, I had no desire to have any frames, and I wanted to try out a mask over a not-so-great quality photo.

Together We Make A Family by cyranoscrap

CREDITS:

All supplies from Crafty Button Designs

Papers: Home

Elements: Home, Love Story, Maskin Momma V6, Colorful Chaos, Cotton Candy, Full Circle

I'm glad that I had "practiced" a little by doing other pages before I created the art journaling page. It's really hard to just put an art journaling page together when you don't scrap on a regular basis, lol. 

Anyway, I'm proud of myself for at least getting a few pages done. It's been a long time coming!

Introducing Collageables Pack 2

Yes, Virginia, there is another Collageables - Pack 2 to be exact! Crafty Button Design has a second edition to the Collageables series. This pack includes a variety of collage backgrounds that you can use digitally or print out and cut up for hybrid creations.

Collageables Pack 2 by Crafty Button Design

The Crafty Button girls also have a few ideas on how you can use these (some creations may include product from other Crafty Button Design collections):

By thimbleberrie for Crafty Button Design

By Skinospot for Crafty Button Design

If you'd like to see some samples from Collageables Pack 1, see my previous blog post. 

Finally, in honor of DSD (Digital Scrapbooking Day), Crafty Button Design will have a 40% off sale (some exclusions)!

Don't miss out on all the fun! And Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day!

DSD Flash Sales Start Now!

For digiscrappers, DSD (Digital Scrapbooking Day) is our Black Friday! This year, DSD falls on Saturday, Nov. 7. However, lots of designers and stores will have sales beginning as soon as now. 

Over at MScraps, you'll find Flash Sales (1 day only) for the next week) that begin today, thanks to the time difference between the U.S. and Europe. Here are a couple of designers and their specials:

Heather T.
You'll find 5 assorted packs and 1 kit on sale for $1 apiece!

Clockwise from top left: Wordy Bits 1 pack, Wordy Seasons templates, Fire Within kit, Grasses 1 (CU), Grasses 2 (CU), and Grasses 3 (CU).

Heather T. also has a special On Sale category with lots of goodies at drastically reduced prices. You can grab these items through November 15th.

Pretty Dutch Designs
The My Nature Collection is available for $1 per pack. 

Choose from (clockwise from top left): My Nature Papers, My Nature Texture Papers, My Nature Mini Templates, My Nature White Papers, My Nature Clusters, and My Nature Elements. 

Keep in touch and up to date by signing up for the Pretty Dutch Designs newsletter!

REMEMBER: Flash Sales are for ONE DAY only, so get them for this special price now. Let's go shopping!

Collageables - Pack 1

This week, a new collection from Crafty Button Design! Old photos, grade school books, artsy images and mixed backgrounds meld together in Collageables Pack 1. This pack consists of five 8.5x11 sheets are ready to be used in your digital or print creations in a snap. 

Collageables - Pack 1 by Crafty Button Design

The Crafty Button girls created some unique works of art using this collage pack:

by Audrey for Crafty Button Design

by Erin for Crafty Button Design

by Skinospot for Crafty Button Design

by Susan for Crafty Button Design

Hybrid or digital, you'll find versatile ways to use these collage sheets! Save 20% on Collageables - Pack 1 while the new release sale is on!

Vintage and Artsy Releases

This week, Crafty Button Design released some really fun packs that you need to add to your creative toolkit - brushes, labels, and templates!

The Enchanting Brushes include nine vintage newsprint style elements in .PNG and .ABR files.

Enchanting Brushes by Crafty Button Design

Here's a great example of how one of the Crafty girls used these brushes:

By Thimbleberrie for Crafty Button Design

While I've never smoked a cigar and don't really like the smell of them, I LOVE the Vintage Cigar Labels and Brushes!

Vintage Cigar Labels - Brushes by Crafty Button Design

Vintage Cigar Labels by Crafty Button Design

One of our CT girls, created an absolutely astounding layout with these labels and brushes that captured a Gallery Standout - well deserved!

By Skinospot for Crafty Button Design

Last, but not least, Amber is also releasing an artsy mixed media template to make those art journaling pages a snap - great for someone like me who seems to struggle when it comes to the art journaling. :)  FYI, these templates were previously released as a freebie back in December 2014, so check your stash before purchasing.

Amber's Mixed Media Template - Vol. 8 by Crafty Button Design

All these great add-ons to your creative stash are 20% off now, so make them a staple for you! Happy creating!

Enchanting Silhouettes

Silhouettes are an interesting "thing," for lack of a better word. I have a hard time describing what they are. One thing I know for sure - I love them, whether in photography or art. The subtlety and intrigue that they lend to a composition gives it so much depth. 

Crafty Button Design released a new pack of elements this week - Enchanting Silhouettes. With four large silhouettes, filled in with words and artsy swirls, the artsy possibilities are endless!

Enchanting Silhouettes by Crafty Button Design

if you love to art journal or dabble in mixed media, you'll find these silhouettes great for mixing and matching. The Crafty Button girls came up with lots of ways to use these:

by Skinospot for Crafty Button Design

by Barb Gould for Crafty Button Design

by Thimbleberrie for Crafty Button Design

by Skinospot for Crafty Button Design

by snowdropz for Crafty Button Design

As you can see, Enchanting Silhouettes is great for more than just art journaling! Pick up this pack for 20% off through new release week!