Cord Scrapbook Studio

Guest Post: Introducing Simple Stories

Who better to share about this fabulous new [to Cord] scrapbooking company than Simple Stories themselves! I'm really excited about this product line and I know you will be too! So without further adieu, ... welcome, Jodi!
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Life is busy... we get it! That is why Amber Crowell created Simple Stories, a refreshing simple, time-saving, stress-free approach to scrapbooking! Our innovative products simplify how you capture, create, document and share your most important memories.


100 Days of Summer is all about scrapbooking your summer memories and photos in a fun and simple way. There are approximately 100 days of summer... and there's plenty to keep you busy!  So whether you're soaking up the sun, exploring outdoor adventures, enjoying summer celebrations... or simply resting, relaxing and chill-axing, 100 Days of Summer is the perfect way to capture your fun-filled, carefree, lazy days of Summer!

 
Our Design Team has been busy creating  projects to show off our 100 Days of Summer collection to all of you; so sit back and grab your notebook--there are some fun ideas that you are going to want to create for sure!

Take a peek at the fun layouts and cards that Liz Qualman created! Liz has some amazing sketches that she shares on our blog once a month.
 
 
  
Wendy Morris created this fun layout by combining 2 of our collections together--Destinations and 100 Days of Summer.
 
Summer would not be complete without a BBQ! Emily Pitts captured her favorites of Summer in this layout of grilled summer veggies.
 
I love mini books, and this one from Kim Holmes is no exception! Kim is showing this one off today on our blog--I think she did a great job! I also love the cards she created.
 
 
 
 
Thanks for letting us visit with you today and share a little bit of our story with you!

 

Guest Post: Canvas Art

Hello everyone!  I am Vicki from the Nora store, and well I have taken over the blog from Stephanne today!  I wanted to share a quick and easy project I have been making for my family members…..Canvas scrapbooking!  My mom and grandma are in love with theirs! 

 
I selected an 8x10 canvas and a 5x7 picture (of course printed at Cord Camera – have you tried to online prints yet?  I love it!  I can upload, crop, etc while at home – way convenient!), then chose a coordinating piece of patterned paper for matting my picture.  I cut the photo mat to 5.5 x 7.5 inches and then used the We R Memory Keepers’ Corner Chomper to round the corners of both the patterned paper and the photo.

Use a coordinating color of Glimmer Mist or Smooch Spritz and spritz the canvas (don’t worry about the sides – we are going to cover that up!).  The spritz may pool on the canvas, but that is ok it will add character to your project.  You can leave it to dry or if you are like me and in a time crunch use your heat tool to dry!  Adhere your picture to the center of the canvas.  Add Tim Holtz’s Tissue Tape around the edges of the canvas.  Tissue Tape can be used in various ways including making flowers – that could be another post!  LOL (easily distracted!) 

Stamp a flower and vines onto Tim Holtz Grunge paper, (oh grunge paper!  I am so in love with it.  It is great for making your own embellishments!  It can with stand a ton of techniques and is very pliable!) and cut out.  Using a blending tool and distress ink – add colors to the vines and flower. I used Aged Mahogany for the flower, and pine needles for the vines.  Hint:  when using the blending tool apply in circular motion.  The ink blends easily and without blotches.

Let the distress ink dry for a moment, and then use a gold dabber on the flower and leaves for a more distressed look!  Add a button in the center of the flower and use the gold dabber, then heat set for fast drying. Have you used Glossy Accents?  Did you know that Glossy Accents makes a great sturdy adhesive?  Just sayin’!  Stamp sentiments as desired using Archival Ink, and hand journal date with a black slick writer.  Viola!

 
Hey, let’s us know if you like this project and maybe Stephanne will let me take over the blog more often! 

Have a great day!  Happy Scrappin’!
Vicki
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Vicki is the Scrapbooking Coordinator at our Nora, Indiana store and is one of several talented Scrapbook Studio Scrappers! Always learning something new to share among fellow papercrafting enthusiasts, Vicki teaches Cricut classes, Copic classes and specializes in a variety of different techniques (as you can see here!) More SB Studio Scrapper tutorials to come next week!

Oh and P.S. Vicki... you're welcome to hijack the blog, er.. I mean, uh... share your posts ANYTIME! :-)

Guest Post: Introducing Lily Bee Design

We're incredibly excited to announce that our first delivery of Lily Bee Design product will be shipping to us early next week! Here to share a little with you about herself and Lily Bee is special guest blogger Kristen Young. 
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I am SO Thrilled to have Cord Camera carrying Lily Bee Design!  Lily Bee Design started as a dream of mine back in 1995 when I first began working at my LSS.   Scrapbooking  was becoming very popular and I got excited seeing new paper and products emerging and thought "Hey I want to do that!" Fourteen years later I decided to take the plunge and Lily Bee Design was founded Februrary of 2009.  I get asked all the time at CHA if I'm Lily-no but I did name the company after my Great Grandmother Lily Berrett.  She was an amazing artist who loved to paint.  I thought it would be very fitting. 

I decided for our second release at 2009 Summer CHA I would give graphic design a try ended up designing my first two collections-Audrey and Vintage Poppy.  I was hooked and since have designed all of our current collections.  Even though I still am such a newbie and have much to learn I've been able to teach myself along the way and think each collection continues to get better and better.  Plus, I LOVE our embellishments-have you seen our 12x12 Rub-Ons?!  Love at first sight :) and our NEW Chipboard Buttons are so sweet and an amazing price! 

Catching Fall has to be one of my favorites thus far.  I absolutely love the rich colors that are perfect for fall.  However, I do make all of our designs very versatile so you can really use them for whatever occasion you want.  Another fun think we added to our collections this time is our cardstock stickers.  I LOVE Banners.   Here are a few examples from our designers Brenda Hurd and Cindy Liebel:

 
 
Christmas Town is stunning to say the least.  The colors are not your  traditional Christmas colors but along with the patterns I think it's speaks sophistication.  I love the mix and size of patterns in this collection.  Plus, we have a few amazing Damask patterns-something that we are known for.  Again so many of the patterns are versatile and can be used in so many ways.  I LOVE these layouts created by Lori Gentile and Cindy Liebel:

 

The response to Lily Bee has been astounding to me and I am so thankful for the opportunity to share my talent with paper artists all over the world.  I LOVE seeing what women are creating using our products.  Join us over at our Ning site and share your creations with us!  We feature members' projects on our blog  every Friday for our "Friday's Faves."

Thanks so much Stephanne for letting me take some time to gush about Lily Bee!
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Thank YOU Kristen for telling us a little more about Lily Bee and for sharing such great inspiration from the Design Team! I encourage everyone to check out Lily Bee Designs, coming soon to a Cord Scrapbook Studio location near you! Look for additional new product updates on our Facebook page and in our Weekly Email Newsletter.

Have a great weekend 

Guest Post: Ciao Bella!

Hi there! I'm so excited to be here hosting the Cord Camera blog!
My name is Stephanie Hunt.

I am the founder and owner of Bella Blvd, a scrapbooking manufacture. Some people could argue that I have the best job in the universe designing products from patterned papers, cardstock stickers, clear stamps, chipboard and so so much more! I have an awesome (to say the least) team of people that play an important part of keeping you inspired. The Bella Artistas fill up the blog with endless ideas and inspiration.

Bella Blvd's first collection was Family Tree.

It debuted in the Fall of 2008. Since then I have designed and Bella has released 19 product collections! One thing I am extremely thankful for is that I have not lost my passion for scrapbooking. I scrap just about once a week with "my girls" keeping my album in chronological order, making mini albums and participating in a card swap every now and then.

My background in design also stems from photography. I love portrait photography, bright colors and landscape backdrops. For several years I did freelance photography for close friends and family through word of mouth. I shoot with a Canon D50, and if I'm allowed to say so, I think she is one of my best friends. ;)

To make this a little more fun, I have put together a great giveaway for a lucky Cord Camera fan! Leave a comment here (below) and then visit the Bella Blog and leave a comment there as well for your chance to win! 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Many thanks to Stephanie for sharing with us today! It was a pleasure getting to know a little more about her--including a few tidbits she shared in a fun lttle getting-to-know-you interview. For instance... I learned that she's in love with the color pink, Italy, and home decor. Her favorite place to shop is Marshalls and she'd never leave the house without her iPhone or her chapstick. And just like yours truly, she has a tendency to leave cupboard doors open, runs her gas tank empty before filling it up, bites her nails and hates (with a capital "H-A-T-E") traffic. I just *knew* we were kindred spirits... it must be in the name. (She's Stephanie - I'm Stephanne....get it?) Anyway... happy comment posting and best of luck!

Guest Post: Chasing Picture Perfection w/ Stacie Errera

I may work for Cord Camera and spend a couple of days every week working out of one of our stores, but you'd be surprised at how many times I take for granted the untapped photography knowledge resource we have at our fingertips! So today I've decided to tap into the photography world thanks to our special guest poster--Stacie Errera.
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When the sun is really harsh during midday, you know that kind of day—when your eyes won't stop tearing from the brightness and sunglasses hardly help—you can still get wonderful portraits by placing your subjects just inside a shady area.

This might be just under an umbrella, inside a garage door, inside your house door, under the slide at the park, under the light of the first tree, etc. The key is to not position your subject too deep into the shade as you want all of the light that is just behind you to spill softly onto your subject. This will give even lighting across the face(s) as well as great catch lights in the eyes.

Here, my subject stood on the lawn, just where the tree started to shade the lawn and you can see exactly what I mean—smooth bright skin with no deep shadows and gorgeous blue eyes! Below, you can see an example of the line of shade.

If your subject's feet are on the sunny side of the line, you will get get a contrasty image with harsh shadows across the face that also block the shine in the eyes. But if the subject takes two steps back into the shade, the result is amazing as you can see in the main image above.

Another great advantage—you can eliminate the problem of squinty eyes! So look for a line of shade in which to position your subject on those really bright days and you'll love the resulting photos.
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For additional tips on ways you can improve your everyday photography skills, visit Stacie's blog: chasingpictureperfection.com. You'll find anything from info on action shots to composition, lighting or special effects. For the photographer on-the-go, she's got four different Photo Tips cards available for download! Thanks so much Stacie for sharing today's tip!

We have a winner!!!

Drumroll, please...

We're happy to announce that the winner of last Friday's Jillibean Soup Core'dinations Cardstock giveaway is Phyllis who wrote:

The cards are lovely! I'd love to win some paper to play with.

Posted by: Phyllis| April 17, 2010 at 11:46 AM 

Thank you to everyone who posted--we had 150 comments! And special thanks to Jill from Jillibean Soup for providing all of those bea-u-ti-ful cards for us to drool over all weekend long! I think we're all itchin' to scraplift a few!

The Jillibean Core'dinations cardstock packs will be arriving at your local Cord Scrapbook Studio today (in Nora) and tomorrow (Columbus)! We're excited to see all of the pages and projects YOU create with these new papers--feel free to share on our Facebook Page or Flickr!

Happy Scrappin'!

 

Guest Post: Core'dinations Cards with Jillibean Soup

Hello!  Jill here again!  I’ve heard it through the grapevine that Cord followers love cards!  Since it’s Friday, how about I share some cards and do a GIVEAWAY! 

 

All of the cards shown below include the Core’dinations/Jillibean Soup Core Impressions.  In case you haven’t heard, Jillibean Soup teamed up with Core’dinations to create some awesome embossed cardstock designs!  We used Jillibean Soup designs and Core’dinations color core cardstocks…good stuff! 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Are you interested in winning some of this product?  The cardstock comes in a pack of 20 sheets (4 designs, 5 colors of each design).  To win this product, all you have to do is leave a comment telling us which is your favorite card (no hard feelings – they’re all my designs J). 

 

A winner will be announced Monday morning! 

 

Oh, by the way if you want 2 other chances to win, visit the Jillibean Soup Bean Talk blog.

 

Good Luck and have a great weekend!!!

 

Jill
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This is the second post in a special guest series from Jillibean Soup! To check out Jill's last post (Mini Albums), click here. For even more Jillibean Goodness, visit us Friday, April 30th here on the blog or Saturday, May 1st at our Nora, IN and Graceland, OH stores for a National Scrapbooking Day make-n-take with Jill and Kimber from Jillibean Soup!

Guest Post: Mini Albums with Jillibean Soup

Hello!  Jill here from Jillibean Soup!  I’m excited to be guest blogging for Cord today!  When Stephanne first asked, I had no idea what I was going to blog about.  Recently, I have taken an interest in mini albums, so I thought I would try that.  I don’t have a whole lot of time to scrap so I find myself doing small projects, cards, mini albums or a simple layout.  It’s a way for me to get to use some great Jillibean products J  and feel like I’m getting something completed!  I’m the first to admit that I have stacks and stacks of layouts that either need embellishments or journaling and haven’t made their way into an album yet. 

Have you ever made a mini album?  You know it doesn’t have to be difficult.  In a minute, I’ll show you a sample that I made with Jillibean’s new kraft tags….very simple!  It’s a tiny album that will even fit in my purse!   

Mini albums can be made from various forms of media, including chipboard, cardstock, patterned paper, acrylic, paper bags, tags, canvas and even coffee filters.  They can include any theme and you can chalk them full of bits and pieces of whatever event you’re celebrating. 

Here’s a recent mini album I started with Easter pics of my daughter Brooke…
 
 
     I used Jillibean’s Egg Drop Soup collection and our new kraft tags.  The photos were printed in a wallet size.  They almost fit perfectly on the kraft tags (you’ll have to trim them a little).  This would make a great gift for Grandparents!

Next up, I want to share a “Tractor Fun” mini album created by my friend Lori Slawinski.  Lori is part of the Jillibean in-house team.  She’s a local gal that has a gift for mini albums and projects!  So much so, that she even started a company that sells mini album kits…www.scrapscription.com.  Lori is great at adding little tags here and there, making flaps out of paper, making secret pockets, adding dimension and using different media in her projects.

Check out this adorable acrylic album…

  
Lori used the Jillibean Chicken Noodle collection for the album.  Love those piggies!!!

If you have a mini album idea you would like to share, leave a comment.  You never know when I’m giving away some Jillibean goodies – hint, hint!  

Have a great weekend and Happy Easter!

Jill