Here are some gorgeous layouts from the girls on my creative team. First, here’s one from Leslie:

And here are three more beauties from Denise, Amy and Krista (just click to enlarge):

And here’s a darling one from Sya:

By the way, today is your last day to get your hands on the Studio FEMNZ April Grab Bag… so, if you’ve been thinking about it, be sure to grab it today before it’s gone! I’ll be unpacking my goodies and releasing them separately this Saturday for National Scrapbooking Day.

Here’s one last layout from Jess to tempt you…

That’s all for day! I’ll be back a little later to let you know some of the fun things I’ll be up to for National Scrapbooking Day. There’s so much going on… so much fun to be had! Are you excited? I know I am!

Until then, happy scrapping!

Also, I wanted to let you know that time is running out on the Studio FEMNZ April Grab Bag! It will only be around until Thursday night (April 30th), so be sure to pick it up now!

The girls have been having a great time making beautiful layouts with the bag! Here are some beauties from Amy, Tigz and Jen (just click to enlarge):

And such a sweet one from Rosanne:

If you follow my tweets on Twitter, you might have seen mention of Ziska’s giveaway at DST today. I thought her idea was SO sweet! I love reading the list of words that you all think define each of our styles. A very uplifting thread for me… thanks for all the love. And best of luck to the winner!

Here are two more beautiful layouts from this week. First, here’s one from Amy, using the Calico Harvest kit (still one of my all time favorites!):

And here’s gorgeous one from Jen using Strawberry Café:

Hope you enjoy the inspiration!

I’ll be back tomorrow with more news and teasers for you… and it will be $2 Tuesday once again! See you then.

Happy scrapping!

Jill (jjstar) here again, twice in one week… are you excited? Haha! Did you catch the tutorial earlier this week? I provided detailed instructions on how to create an Easter banner. Now I’m here to challenge you to create one of your own!

Here are some other decoration items to get your creative juices going:

• acrylic heart
• leaf banner

The Fine Print: please use Sugarplum goodies to create your banner. You can find Nicole’s stuff at the Sugarplum Paperie shop and at The Digichick. Nicole has had TONS of freebies, so don’t feel like you can’t play because you haven’t been able to shop.

Upload your project to any gallery you want, and leave a link to your layout in the comments section of this post. You have until Thursday, March 26th to complete the challenge and you could win a $5.00 gift certificate to the Sugarplum Paperie shop!

Congratulations to Christina who won the challenge from last week… here is her layout!

Have fun with this! I can’t wait to see what everyone creates!!!

To help celebrate, I’m giving away the kit of your choice to three lucky winners! Be sure to stop by this thread here for your chance to win: Win your favorite kit from Sugarplum Paperie!

Best of luck to you! And happy scrapping!

• take 3  papers
• add 2 photos
• mix in one trim (ribbon, string, lace, etc.)
• sprinkle on 4 elements (hearts, flowers, brads, frames, you name it)
• and top off with some personalized journaling!

Here’s one from me…I used the NEW Strawberry Au Lait kit, Tough Stuff mini, Calico Harvest, and First Kiss of Spring on my layout:

There you have it!! Easy peasy… and have fun with this!!!

Please use mostly Sugarplum goodies on your layout. You can find Nicole’s stuff at the Sugarplum Paperie shop and at The DigiChick. Nicole has had TONS of freebies, so don’t feel like you can’t play because you haven’t been able to shop. 

Upload your layout to any gallery you want, and leave a link to your layout in the comments section of this post. You have until Thursday, February 6th to complete the challenge and one lucky person will win a $5.00 gift certificate to the Sugarplum Paperie shop!

Can’t wait to see what you come up with!!

And I’d also like to announce last week’s winner: Congratulations to Sharyn!

Are you doing Project 365? I am and I’m really excited about it. I’m not sure if I can keep up, but I’m going to try!! I started a blog for this, but soon realized that I’m only stressing out by trying to post there every day. I just decided to scrap one page per week.

This week’s challenge, should you accept it, is to scrap a Project 365 page. It could be a page summarizing your week or a page with photos from one day. If you are not doing the project 365, your challenge is to scrap something with a number, like a 2nd birthday or 10 random facts about you or just anything with numbers. 

Here are a few layouts from Denise and from Sharon for your inspiration:

And here is my layout using the new Project 365 embellishments:

Please use mostly Sugarplum goodies on your layout. You can find Nicole’s stuff at the Sugarplum Paperie shop and at The DigiChick. Nicole has had TONS of freebies, so don’t feel like you can’t play because you haven’t been able to shop. 

Upload your layout to any gallery you want, and leave a link to your layout in the comments section of this post. You have until Thursday, January 29th to complete the challenge and one lucky person will win a $5.00 gift certificate to the Sugarplum Paperie shop!

Can’t wait to see what you come up with!!

Also, let me announce last week’s winner. It is Cristina again because she was the only one to play along with last week’s challenge. Congratulations to you! You can see her pretty layout here.

I am crazy about templates. I love to use them. I love to make them. I love to give them away free! And combine that with Nicole’s fabulous goodness, and you have a recipe for success.

I scrapped this layout of my middle daughter Emma, and I just love how the simple combination of the right photos with the right title, say everything I wanted it to say.

So, your challenge, is to take the template and make it your own:

You can download it here: Sugarplum Blog Challenge Template.

Some of the girls on the CT played along, too. Here are their layouts.

Bexy:

Courtney, Amy and Crystal:

Nett:

Here are the rules:

- Use mostly Nicole’s products, which you can find at Sugarplum Paperie, the Digichick, or in the freebie section, here on the blog.

- Upload your layout to any gallery you want, and leave a link to your layout in the comments section of this post. You have until Thursday, January 15th to complete the challenge and one lucky person will win a $5.00 gift certificate to the Sugarplum Paperie shop!

I can’t wait to see your creations!

Happy scrapping.

Now it is your turn to give it a try. The challenge is open until next Friday, December 5th. I’m excited to see what everyone creates! Leave a comment with a link to your project or layout. Then next week a random winner will be select to receive a $5 gift certificate to Sugarplum Paperie. Please use mostly Sugarplum goodies. You can find Nicole’s stuff at the Sugarplum Paperie shop and at The DigiChick. Nicole has had TONS of freebies, so don’t feel like you can’t play because you haven’t been able to shop. Remember, come back before next Friday (12/5)!

And if you’d like to play with the topper that I used, here is the file just for you: Bag Topper

Also, I’d like to announce last week’s winner: Congrats to Joy, who was participating in her first ever Sugarplum Challenge! Thanks for playing along Joy. Nicole is moving today, but I’m sure she’ll send you an e-mail with all the info you need as soon as she can.

Often when I’m digi-scrapping, or doing a hybrid project, I like to use a poem or verse as my journaling.  So that’s it… the challenge is to find your favorite poem or verse and journal with it and some of Sugarplum Paperie’s wonderful goodies.  I’ve given you two examples, one is a digital LO and one is a hybrid card.

You can find Nicole’s products at the Sugarplum Paperie Shop or The DigiChick.  You can also use her freebies.  When you’re finished, leave a link to your layout on this post from now until Thursday, November 27th for a chance to win a $5.00 gift card to the Sugarplum Shop.  The winner will be announced on Friday, November 28th.

And now to announce last week’s winner! Congratulations to Kay!

I hope everyone has a delightful and blessed Thanksgiving!

In studying some of the little details of that other (more skilled) scrappers do to make their layouts look so stunning, I noticed that a lot of them will rotate and even resize an element when they have more than one copy of it on their page. Take for example, the leaves on this lovely layout by Leslie:

She used two leaves five different times here, but they don’t all look the same! That’s because she rotated and resized them so that they’d each look different! You can do this with little flowers or buttons—any element you want to use multiple times on your layout. I love to do this when I use lots and lots of flowers.

So, here’s your challenge this week: Make a layout (using some Sugarplum Goodies—and freebies are fine with me!) using three or more of the same element, but play with the size and angle of each item on your page. (In Photoshop, you can do this by using the Transform tool, which is CTRL+T.)

Then, once you’re done, just leave a link to your layout here on this post from now until Thursday, November 20th for a chance to win a $5.00 gift card to the Sugarplum Shop! The winner will be announced here on the blog next Friday. Best of luck to you!

And happy scrapping!

I got to thinking that since it was the week before Halloween and all, we’d try to take this weeks challenge in that direction! I wasn’t sure which way to go with my idea, until a spider from Hell sparked the best inspiration I could’ve asked for. Your challenge this week, scrap about what creeps you out! What scares you? What gives you the heebie jeebies? Is it spiders, (EEEEK YES!!!!) or could it be your MIL, (EEEEK YES AGAIN!!!!) snakes, zombies, clowns (yes, I know but still… they freak me out!) Well whatever it is, neurotic or not… I want you to scrap about it! You can do it any way that you want… with pics, with journaling, or even just with elements! That’s kind of what I did. I TRIED to use a real picture of a spider, I even let my husband extract one for me to use… but everything I tried still made me scream and break out in hives!! Here’s what I could stomach scrapping together:

Even this glittery doodled one made me twitch while I scrapped the page LOL. I can’t stand spiders! The one that inspired this challenge knew this. It was HUGE, like dinosaur huge lol! It would only show up when my husband was gone and my daughter and I were alone! He’d leave, I’d look up and there it was. I’d freak and grab something to throw at it (I know, but I can’t squish them either…omg freak me out!) and by the time I turned around it would be gone again. This happened 4 times in one day… and it was ALL through the house, not just one room! It was crazy, like it was following me and just laughing hysterically at me every time I noticed it. The final straw that ended his fun? He got too close to my baby! I’m over protective and luckily can do anything that needs to be done for her instead of flapping my arms and screaming like I had done previously LOL. Here we are a week later and I’m still talking about it… ugh! So take this and run with it, any way you wish!

Only rule I have really is that you scrap it with mostly Sugarplum Paperie awesomeness! You can grab stuff at either one of Nicole’s stores: here at Sugarplum Paperie, or at The Digichick. She also has a ton of fabulous freebies right here on the Sugarplum blog that you can use! How easy is that!? This challenge will be open from today Friday October 24th, until Thursday night October 30th. Anytime during this week just upload your LO to your gallery of choice and post a link to it here in the comments. Then you’ll be in the running to win a $5 Gift Card to Nicole’s store! Winners will be picked at random, so everyone has an equal and fair shot! What are you waiting for? Come on, scare me! I deserve it!

The ad that I used was from the July issue of Parents magazine (yes I’ve been holding onto it for a little while). To get to the final layout I turned the ad 90 degrees:

And here is what I came up with:

Denise also played around with the same ad to make her layout:

You can use this same ad or find one of your own. The challenge is open until next Friday, October 17th. I’m excited to see what everyone creates! Leave a comment with a link to your project or layout. Then next week a random winner will be select to receive a $5 gift certificate to Sugarplum Paperie. Please use mostly Sugarplum goodies. You can find Nicole’s stuff at the Sugarplum Paperie and at The DigiChick. Nicole has had TONS of freebies, so don’t feel like you can’t play because you haven’t been able to shop. Remember, come back before next Friday (10/17)!