First Edition of Canadian Scrabookers Blog Carnival is up!

You can check it out here.

Canadian Scrappers Blog Carnival has it's own blog!

I've decided to start a separate blog for the Canadian Scrappers Blog Carnival. I still only have two submissions for the first edition but I am going to post the first edition on Monday whether I have more submissions or not. If you want to get a post in the first edition of the Canadian Scrappers Blog Carnival then you must send me a link to your post before Sunday. You can send your link to canadianscrapbookerscarnival@gmail.com and please indicate in your email what part of Canada you are living in. Don't forget to take the time to check out the new Canadian Scrappers Blog Carnival Blog and help spread the word about it.

Some scrappy find this week

I had heard about The Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine before but I'd never actually seen it. This week I discovered their online site.

The CC&S blog highlighted a neat tutorial on how to make a Mini Teabag Album in their resources wiki this week.

It's Friday Night Crop night at Scrapbooking Fanatics and teh challenges have been posted.

Anyone thinking about trying the 2009 Memory Makers Masters Contest. Lots of time to prepare as the deadline isn't until July 31.

Update on Carnivals and Scrappy finds

I didn't post the Carnival of NL Scrappers because I didn't get any submissions!! I didn't expect to get a lot, but I did think I would get a couple. No such luck. I will try again at another time, especially if anyone expresses any interest in it.

I also still haven't posted a Carnival of Canadian Scrappers because I haven't received the ten posts that I set as needed for the first edition. That really shocked me! There are so many great Canadian Scrappers out there with blogs that I really thought getting ten posts would be a breeze. Guess I was wrong. I did get two submissions. I'd like at least a couple more to go with that but I will be posting it the end of the week with or without more.

Now, on to some scrappy finds.

The first is not a Canadian find but there are at least a couple of Canadians on their design team. I didn't know it but Scrapbook Heaven has been running an Amazing Race on their board. While it's too late to join in that race they have decided to start a second race that you can still join. Sure sounds like fun!

Allison recently posted about some Some Different Stitching. I love the look and I want to try it some time. She got the idea from Scrapbook Lounge Episode Building Bridges.

ScrapShotz Scrappy Hour is Monday April 21 8pm. Oh my goodness! It's probably happening now! I must go check it out. Okay, I'm back. :) Jess has posted instructions on how to make a neat mini album using tabbed index cards. Looks really neat!

Scrapshotz is also into the third week of their HotShotz contests. What great creations are being posted! I am oh so proud of a fellow Newfoundlander that has managed to stay in the race so far in the HotShotz Cardz contest.

Wendy recently posted on her blog that she will be offering online classes!

Reminder about the Carnivals of Scrappers

Just a quick reminder of the Carnivals. I only have one submission yet! Come on, blogging scrappers! Submit a post. Share about the Carnivals on your blog. Encourage your friends to submit. I'd really like to be able to post teh first editions of the Carnivals by the beginning of next week. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, click on the link in the right hand column.

Contests and Challenges

Crafty Al is encouraging sheetload readers to "Share a "Sheetload of Cards". I love this idea! She was inspired by the May 2008 CardMaker Magazine's "Readers Reach Out" article. The idea is to make and donate cards to a Nursing Home. Great idea!

In WeScrap Newsletter I discovered another Canadian site, Scrapbookers Clubhouse, and they have a sketch contest happening (deadline april 28).

At CC&S blog I found out about Scrapdango's crop this weekend - April 19 - 20.

PageMaps is turning 2 in May and they're hosting a Sketch Contest Celebration. The contest started today and ends May 22.

Scrappy finds from this past week

In one of Ally's posts on CC&S blog she wrote about a tutorial on how to Make a Mini Flip Flop Album in CC&S wiki. I haven't tried it yet but I want to.

Wendy made a really cool travel tic-tac-toe game and posted pictures of it on her blog. Love it!

A couple of things in Split Coast Stampers newsletter caught my eye this week. I love the effect of Thumping on stamps with another color. I haven't tried it yet but I plan to. I also love this card organizer. So easy to make and so functional! Another one I want to try.

GinaK revealed her new stamps Kindred Spirits on her blog this week. I love the way she revealed them, and the stamps are so neat!

Took a little closer look at a couple more Canadian scrapping boards this week. Love the name of the board JustCre8. I think that is so cool. I was reminded of this board by their sponsorship of a prize in the Sisterhood of Scrap celebrations this week. Haven't really checked it out much yet but it looks neat. My friend Carla has been a loyal member of LoveBug Scrapbooking, singing their praises to me, for quite a while. It does seem like a fun place to play. Carla is Guest DT there for a while and she was playing with the gorgeous kit they sent her to play with today when we were scrapping together. Nice stuff!

I have really been enjoying checking out all the fun at Sisterhood of Scrap Anniversary celebrations all week. I love how creative they were in having their challenges tie in with their theme of games. It was fun visiting all the different blogs to find the challenges. There's still time to join in the fun if you're interested. They start giving out the prizes next week.

It's Carnival Time!

I recently discovered the world of blog carnivals - and I love them. They make it easy to find blog posts on a topic that you are interested in.

When it comes to scrapbooking, I am very interested in seeing the work of other scrapbookers in my country and province. I searched for Canadian and Newfoundland scrapbooking carnivals and came up with none, so I decided to start my own.

In case you don't know what a blog carnival is, I'll share with you bits and peices of what Wikipedia has to say about it:

A blog carnival is a type of blog event. It is similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule, often weekly or monthly. Each edition of a blog carnival is in the form of a blog article that contains permalinks links to other blog articles on the particular topic....

There are many variations, but typically, someone who wants to organize a carnival posts details of the theme or topic to their blog, and asks readers to submit relevant articles for inclusion in an upcoming edition. The host then collects links to these submissions, edits and annotates them (often in very creative ways), and publishes the resulting round-up to his or her blog.

Many carnivals have a home page or principal organizer, who lines up guest bloggers to host each edition. This means that the carnival travels, appearing on a different blog each time.

Communities of blog readers, writers, and edition hosts form around specific carnivals. The carnivals provide an aggregation of recent posts by the community on a given topic, and the host provides a level of editing and annotation that helps readers find posts they are interested in. Writers who submit their articles to blog carnivals are rewarded with traffic...

I have decided to start both a Carnival of Canadian Scrapbookers and Carnival of NL Scrapbookers. These Carnivals are to highlight scrapbookers, stampers, and cardmakers living in both Canada and the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland and Labrador scrappers can submit their posts to both carnivals if they want. I will host the first editions of these Carnivals in my blog but I will be looking for other bloggers that would be interested in hosting future editions, so let me know if that interests you.

I know there are a lot of Canadian scrapbookers out there that blog. I've decided that rather than set a date as a deadline for posts for the first edition of the Carnival of Canadian Scrapbookers, I will put together and post the first edition when I have 10 submissions. The faster I get them, the earlier the Carnival will be posted.

I don't know of too many scrapbookers living in Newfoundland and Labrador that blog so instead of giving a number of submissions as the deadline for submissions I've decided to set April 17 as a deadline for submissions for the first edition of the Carnival of Newfoundland and Labrador Scrapbookers. I will post the first edition April 18.

To participate in either Carnival all you have to do is send me a link to a post on your blog that you would like to have included in the carnival. It can be a new or old post. It can be a post about anything scrapbooking/stamping/cardmaking related. It can be as short or as long as you like. If you have any questions or suggestions you can post them in the comments and I will edit this blog post with answers. Send your submissions to jacqueline hillier AT g mail DOT com , but leave out the spaces and substitute the correct symbols for the capitalized words.

Please help spread the word about these Carnivals.

I actually scrapped this past weekend!

Not layouts, but cards. Made 8 of them actually, inspired by challenges at ScrapShotz's Spring Fling crop. Two of the cards were for the special ScrapShotz Gives Back Challenge. Thanks to all the scrappers that completed the challenge ScrapShotz made a donation of $165 to the Canadian Cancer Society.

Here are my creations:

For the Gives Back challenge I choose to do 2 cards instead of one layout. The challenge was to have flowers in your creation somewhere, somehow. For the first one I used a big prima whisper flower that I got in a RAK. I didn't even know what the flower was called until someone commented on it in the gallery. :) I made the card for my in-laws. FIL was diagnosed with a brain tumor in February. Since then he has had surgery and has just completed the last of his post surgery treatments. He is finally at home and doing well.

Closed:

Opened:


My second card for the Gives Back Challenge was also inspired by another challenge to make a transparency card. The front of the card is actually a transparency with a strip down one side of it to hide the side of the picture that is underneath and the sentiment that is inside. When you open it up you see the other side of the picture, and also the inside sentiment. There are flowers on the pattern paper I used. I made a card for my DH telling him that I am proud of the good son he has been to his parents through this time.

Closed:

Opened:


I got the idea to make the tranparency card from Virginia's "Lighten Up for Spring" challenge. She gave great instructions on how to make a transparency card. The paper I used for this one was part of a beautiful RAK I received from Nonie as a prize for another ScrapShotz challenge a while back.



Heidi challenged us to make a "Pocket Card" and she provided a link to a pattern to download to make a heart pocket. I didn't want to download anything and I wasn't feeling hearts right then so I went searching for different pocket card ideas and I found Brittany's Double Fold Card Class. Love this! You use a single 8 1/2 x 11 double sided paper to make a card that has two pockets. My DD and her friends love going to Tim's so I decided to make the card for her and attach a Tim's card to each of the tags in the pockets. The paper I used for this was part of a RAK I received from Sisterhood of Scrap as a prize for a challenge a while back.



Heidi's "It's Finally Spring Challenge" was to use a page map sketch. Loved this sketch!



I loved Heidi's "Punch it" challenge to use only plain papers and to use punches to add pattern to a card, but I was kind of limited because I only have one size of punch to use. I made up for that by using different sized needles to punch different sized holes. Not great, but okay.



Inspired by Jen's "April Showers" challenge I used different sized objects around my kitchen to stamp different sized circles on the papers in an attempt to make the look of raindrops in puddles. Jen's challenge was to create a card inspired by rain and I've always been fascinated with the ever widening circle pattern that is created in puddles when rain drops fall in them.



For Jen's "May Flowers" challenge she challenged us to use a photo of a flower on a card. I used a photo DD took last year of my crocuses.



I had a great time creating this weekend! It felt good to be back at it. I had been in a scrappin' slump for some time and I wondered when I was going to get out of it. I missed creating. I think what kicked me out of my slump was entering ScrapShotz HotShotz Cardz contest. I didn't even make it into the first round of the contest, and I was a little disappointed at thatm but I really think that I would have missed the fun this weekend if I hadn't entered the contest. It was the kick I needed right then.

A chance to give, and a chance to win...plus other stuff

Earlier this week I told you about Scrap Shotz Sping Fling crop this weekend and the planned ScrapShotz Gives Back challenge, which involves ScrapShotz donating $5 to the Canadian Cancer Society for every layout completed for the challenge. Well, the crop is happening now and the challenge has been posted and the giving keeps on growing! Board member Lacintia has offered a generious RAK to be awarded by a random draw to one of the lucky participants, while board member Dea has extended the giving through her blog. She's going to match ScrapShotz donation on her behalf and is also offering to give $1 for everyone that posts on her blog after completing the challenge! How cool is that!

And here's a chance to win some prizes. Do you like to write? During the month of April Scrapbooking.com Magazine, a free online magazine, is running a National Scrapbook Day Essay Contest. In 400 words or less tell what scrapbooking means to you from one of two topics - 1. Why I scrapbook or, 2. The one thing I want people to remember about my scrapbooks is...Why? Can be submitted through their form online and must include one layout or photo. They're looking for good content, not good form. They have editors that will help you tell your story in good form. First place prize has a value of $600, second place $300, and third place $125.

Here's a couple of links to projects you could make that would make great gifts. Erika, Stampin' Mama, has this special Bake it, Make it & Take Feature every once in a while and the feature this time was a Muffin in a basket. The post includes instructions to make the basket and the recipe for the muffins. In this post she gives instructions to make a neat CD tin Mini book .

Beginning of the month happenings, plus other stuff

Many scrapping boards have unveiled their kits for the month of April, along with some special plan for the month:

The Scrapping Bug's April Monthly Kit

ScrapShotz has an April calendar posted on their blog where you can check out what they have planned for the month. They're having a special Blog Comment Sale - for next two weeks, April 1-15. Leave a comment telling what you love about Prima products and get 15% off Prima Products. Their April kit, Pump Up the Volume, is now available with a 3,6, or 12 month subscription. Yesterday was reveal day for the DT's creations with the kit. Nonie posted her reveal on her blog.

Lil' Scrappers has posted the DT Reveals for their "April Blooms" kit and a planned DT Challenge Schedule, while promising that other challenges will still be popping up from time to time. You can check out Carla's reveal for the kit on her blog. They have a special Card a Day Challenge for April. They will also be starting a Monthly Card Kit, with the first one to be showcased April 15th.

April challenges are up at Scrapbooking Fanatics


April's Sheetload is up and so are April page Maps.