Fall Festival is here

How can it (nearly) be September already? Summers sure do fly fast! I knew that summer was almost over when the great Minnesota get-together (a.k.a. the state fair) started last Thursday. I'm planning on going next year when one of my favorite vocal groups, Tonic Sol-fa, performs. If you haven't heard them, they're amazing and their concerts are always a good time.

The beginning of the month means it's time for another Stuff to Scrap blog train. This month's theme is "Fall Festival" and features a fun palette of brown, orange, green, aqua, and pink. I've seen all the previews and there are some great goodies for you this month!

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Here is the rest of the train. If a designer doesn't have her portion posted yet, please check back later. Everyone's mini-kits will remain free for two weeks. After that, designers can move their portion to their store(s); my portion will remain free the entire month of September. And don't forget to leave designers some love--we love hearing from you!

Dreams Inspired
Strawbeary Designs' Blog
Ginger's House
Manda's Scrappin' Creations
Samantha Scraps
Adriana's Cafe
Scrappin' Serenity
Scraps by Andrea
Stuff To Scrap
Christins Creations
Elegantly Funky Designs
Designed by Anya
A valóság tükre
Nibbles Skribbles
Saphira's Scrapdesign
Shel Belle Scraps <--YOU ARE HERE
Pretty Pixel Designs
Grandma's Templates
The Scrappy Kat
Tonisha's Playground
Always Be Neighbors Designs
Threeunderfour Designs
Noelle's Little Corner in Scrapland
Every EverAfter Moment
Mommy Me Time Scrapper
Let Me Scrapbook!
Lovin' My Scrappy Life
Becky aka SAHM Scrapper
Seal Scraps
Life is Not a Cereal
Rants N Random Ramblings
Designs By Mel
Borsmustár
Digi-Scrapz by Christi
Scrapping Rainbow
JW-DigiScraps
My Digaddiction
nitasthings
FlowerScrap
Tricia's Treasures

CT Call for Stuff to Scrap Store

The Stuff to Scrap store is having a CT call. Read the flyer below for more info.

Sudesh Designs CT call

Sudesh Designs, a fellow Stuff to Scrap designer, is having a CT call. Details are below. If interested, please contact her!

Final 48 hours...

Just a reminder to grab my old freebies while they're still available. All old freebie kit links will become inactive at midnight (CT), Sunday, August 23rd.

Family Ties layouts & QPs

Whew! What a week it's been. Between releasing this collab, working on getting stuff ready for my store at Stuff to Scrap, general life craziness, and a tornado (yes, a real "Wizard of Oz" tornado), it's been a crazy week. I think I've earned a restful weekend, right? :)

Nicole and her awesome CT put together a whole bunch of QPs for you as well. Nicole's blog post with links to the QPs can be found here. Be sure to leave her and her CT some love when you download their work!

Finally, it's not a QP, but Tara sent me this fab layout she made using both portions of the collab. She's got a whole bunch of great layouts posted on her blog. Take a few minutes to check out her great work. Thank you so much for sharing Tara!
Have a great weekend and happy scrapping!

Family Ties QPs

TGIF! This has been such a crazy week. The storms and intermittent power outages didn't help, either.

I wanted to get these posted for you before I head off to an appointment. Sorry I wasn't able to bring them to you yesterday. I'll have at least one more post today with links to QPs others have created.

Be sure to head to Nicole's blog to see the QPs she created as well as those her CT made for you.

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QPs tomorrow...sorry

Sorry all, but I won't have the QPs for you tonight. The storms that came through here yesterday wreaked havoc with our local power grid and we've been without power most of the day. I'm posting this using the wi-fi at a surburban coffee shop. Since the QPs are on my home hard drive, I don't have access to them. I will get them posted first thing in the morning.

Have a good night--I'll have Family Ties goodies for you tomorrow morning!

Family Ties alpha

What a crazy day it has been around here. Mother Nature has been wreaking havoc a good share of the day. We've had torrential downpours of rain (over 3 inches total), straight-line winds, and even a tornado (or three)! I'm glad to report that except for a one-hour power outage, we escaped unscathed. However, one of the nearby schools had roof damage and a couple of windows blown out. Perhaps the best news is that no one was seriously injured or killed.

Angela loved this kit--she created six layouts using both portions of the collab. You've seen the other four layouts throughout the week, here are the final two. They're phenomenal!

Today you're getting alphas from Nicole and me. A little about my alpha: I used the font Steppin' Out which I got at SearchFreeFonts.com.

This alpha is a little different than other alphas I've created. I wanted you to be able to jazz it up, so I created holes in it and added some beads you could insert in the holes to coordinate with the color of your layout. Of course, you can always leave the holes empty too! So, the download includes six colored beads (red, yellow, blue, brown, silver, and gold) for you to customize the alpha as you wish. A bit of advice: If you're going to resize the letters--add the beads first and resize them at the same time as you resize the alpha. I learned that the hard way! :)

One other change I made is that the alpha is available in two formats: individual letter files and contact sheets. When I asked for feedback a couple of weeks ago, a few of you said you preferred having contact sheets for alphas rather than having each letter as an individual file. (Contact sheets contain all the letters on one file; you use your marquee or lasso tool to select the letter you wish to use.) ScrappyShannon had a retirement sale a few weeks ago and I picked up her alpha cutter action--it has saved me TONS of time. One of the great things is that it produces both contact sheets and individual letter files. Super easy for me and gives you some options!

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Click on Nicole's alpha preview below to be taken to her blog where you can download her alpha.

Don't forget to leave us each a little love! Have a great evening and I'll see you tomorrow with QPs. Happy scrapping!

Family Ties elements, part II

WOW! You are really loving this kit. Thank you all so much for the lovely comments. I'm so glad to know that you're enjoying it and that you can put it to good use. Once you've collected all parts from both Nicole and I, I'd love to see your layouts. Post them in the Stuff to Scrap gallery; post on my Slide show at the bottom of this page; post them on your blog. Just be sure to share! :)

If you don't want to miss any Shel Belle Scraps-related goodness, become a follower. You can become a follower on the left-hand side of the page.

Before I give you the second half of the elements, I've got more eye candy for you from both Nicole's CT and my CT. All our CT members did such a fantastic job--I'm blown away by their creativity.

Angela--one of my CT gals

Ginger--available as a QP on her blog

Lori--a member of Nicole's CT--has this QP available for you now on her blog.

And today's download, the second half of the elements.

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Leave us some love! We love reading your comments. See you tomorrow night with the alpha. Have a great evening and happy scrapping!

Family Ties elements, part I

Happy Monday evening to you! I hope your week is off to a good start. After a trip to the chiropractor, mine is! :)

Thank you all so much for the lovely comments. I love that so many of you have taken a moment to leave a few words here or on 4shared and I'm so glad you're liking this kit. Nicole gets credit for choosing the colors. I downloaded the palette off ColourLovers but hadn't gotten around to using it yet. I sent her a few swatches and we settled on this one. I definitely think we made the right choice, don't you?

Before I get to tonight's download, I've got some eye candy (layout inspiration) for you.

Angela--she created six, you'll see some each day

Another beautiful layout from Angela

Ginger

Beth

Kathy, who is a member of Nicole's CT, also created a layout using just Nicole's portion of the kit. She'll have this available as a QP for you later in the week.

Tara, a member of Nicole's CT, created this beautiful layout using parts of both kits. I absolutely love this layout. And it's available as a QP on her blog!
Here's a great layout Nicole made using my portion of the collab. She'll have this available as a QP for you later in the week.
And here's a layout I made using Nicole's portion of the kit. The cutie in the picture is my niece. I will have this available as a QP for you later this week.And here are previews of what you'll get today.

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Enjoy and leave some love. We both love reading your comments. See you again tomorrow night with the second half of the elements!

Back to School Sale at Stuff to Scrap

There's a big back to school sale this week at Stuff to Scrap. Everything (excluding CU licenses) is 30% off this week. Be sure to stop by and check out the great sales!

New kit: Family Ties

I am so, so, so excited to bring you this kit!

A few weeks ago, I saw that Nicole, of Digi-Designs by Nicole, was looking for collaborators. I've followed her blog since she started and love her stuff, so I sent her a message asking if she'd like to collaborate on a kit. I heard back very quick that she wanted to work with me. We settled on a palette and theme and I have to tell you--I think this kit came together very quickly for both of us.

I love what my CT did with their layouts. Some of them did more than one, so I'll have multiple layouts to share with you throughout the week.

Michele

Mary

Ginger - available as a QP on her blog
Juli - a two-page spread!Dawn

Angela

Kathy, from Nicole's CT, also created some beautiful layouts and shared them with me. This layout, and one she created using Nicole's portion of the kit, will be available later in the week as QPs for you. Thanks so much Kathy!
Nicole made a layout using her part of the kit. (I'll show you the one she made using my portion tomorrow. Both layouts will be available as QPs later in the week.)

Here's one of my layouts. I made this for my friend Kiera. This will be available as a QP later in the week.

Here's a preview of what you'll get from me this week.
And here's a preview of today's portions of the kits, the papers.

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See you tomorrow night with the first half of the elements. Have a great day and happy scrapping!

Get it now!

Thank you for all the congratulations about selling my stuff at Stuff to Scrap. I'm excited--and a little overwhelmed--by the move, but I think it will be a good thing.

A few of you have asked me what will happen to my old kits and what will happen with future kits. I thought I'd let you know now so you have time to download what you want.

OLD KITS: Most of my old kits and mini-kits will be moving to my Stuff to Scrap store. Some will be slightly revamped; a couple are going away permanently (and have already been removed, quietly, from the blog). All links to old freebie kits will be deactivated at midnight (CT) on Sunday, August 23rd. So, check your hard drives--make sure you've got everything you want! :)

FUTURE KITS: Beginning with the Family Ties kit--which starts Sunday--all kits will remain free for one week and then will be moved to the store. There will be kits that will go directly to the store but I will have a sampler/add-on freebie of some sort for those kits.

QPs/BB PAGES: All QPs and BB pages created by Sandy will continue to remain free--indefinitely--on my blog.

Sneak peek: Family Ties

Howdy! Hope you're all having a great week and looking forward to a great weekend.

I wanted to give you a quick sneak peek of the goodness that comes your way starting Sunday night. And the best part? It's a collab with Nicole of Digi-Designs by Nicole so you'll get two kits instead of just one!

Have a great weekend and I'll see you Sunday night for the first part of the kit!

Exciting News!

I have exciting news: I'm going to start selling my designs at Stuff to Scrap! I've been looking for a home for my products for the past few weeks and, after a few e-mail conversations with Nicole, I decided to go for it. She's already set up my store and I will be loading products to it over the next couple of weeks.

Look for an announcement about my grand opening sale soon!

CU small bow

Happy Saturday evening to you! Are you having a good weekend so far? Mine's been productive--which is exactly what I needed!

I've got a new CU product for you tonight. It's a small grosgrain bow. I know there are probably hundreds of small grosgrain bows available for you out there, but I needed some practice doing extractions, so I figured I might as well share the end product with you.

The preview only shows three colored ribbons, but there are five colored ribbon samples in the download. I'll give you a hint about the colors: You'll find them in my next kit, Family Ties, which starts Sunday, August 16th. It's a collab with the fantastic Nicole of Digi-Designs by Nicole.

Click on the picture to download and please leave some love!

I'll be back later this week with an alpha for you as well as a sneak peek at the Family Ties collab kit with Nicole. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your weekend! Happy scrapping!