Monday, January 31, 2011

Kid at Heart - all grown up!

Hello lovelies! Thanks for joining us for day two of our Kid at Heart blog party! For those who are just stopping by, we've got some great projects meant to inspire you to create. Check out the post above to follow along with our party. *thanks*
Today Natalie has an excellent take on this very kid-centric kit, proving that young and old can be a kid at heart! Check out her amazing layouts that she's created:

I love how she paired rich earth tones with a pretty taffy orange. And her use of the heart doily is adorable!

And for this one - simply put, it's incredible. I love how her layering of the different patterned papers mimics the leaf pattern on the base of the paper.

So, are you lucky?
Each of the Lucky Girls on our blog party has some Lucky Bucks to give away, and each day of the party you'll have another chance to enter to win!

The grand prize of the party can be found right here!!!
Enter here for $25 Lucky Bucks to our store - check out the ways you can win:

Earn 1 entry for referring a friend to the LGC blog party

Earn 1 entry for answering today's question:
What's your favorite childhood treat (even if you still eat it today)?!

Earn 10 entries for the giveaways on all of the Lucky Girl Crafts Blog Party when you place any order between now and February 3!

Kid at Heart = Craft Love!

Hi friends, old and new! I'm so glad you can join us for the first stop on our February Blog Party. If you're new to the game, please read the posting above for more details.

The ever-delightful Emily is up with our first Blog Party project this month, and she's got a fantastic project to share that she created with our Kid at Heart kit. I don't know about you, but I definitely feel like a kid when I'm scrapping. Even my hubby teases me, saying that most "kids" stopped playing with paper, glue and scissors in elementary school. Though, secretly, I know he's happy I do it.

Emily took this kit to the next level, creating an awesome organizer tray for her flowers, using the Echo Park papers and Prima flowers that are some of the amazing elements of this month's kit.

Wouldn't this make such a bright and cheery addition to any craft room?
Now, how many of you are hoping you're Lucky this month?
Each of the Lucky Girls on our blog party has some Lucky Bucks to give away, and each day of the party you'll have another chance to enter to win!
The grand prize of the party, though, can be found right here!!!
Enter here for $25 Lucky Bucks to our store - check out the ways you can win:
Earn 1 entry for referring a friend to the LGC blog party
Earn 1 entry for answering today's question: What have you done lately that made you feel like a kid again?!
Earn 10 entries for the giveaways on all of the Lucky Girl Crafts Blog Party when you place any order between now and February 3!

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Somethin' Special Sunday - February Newsletter & Debbie's special layout

Want to get in the know? Check out our February Newsletter, with all sorts of crafty tidbits and fantastic deals! Just click HERE to check it out.

And now, for a special Sunday treat, I've got a gorgeous layout to share! Our January Blog Party grand prize winner, Debbie, submitted a project to shre with the Lucky Girl readers that she created with her prize:

Her stunning layout elevated many of the elements included in the January kit, "Forever Love." By the way, we have two more of our January kits left in the store - snag one before they're gone!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Friday Fun Day Challenge - Clearly Yours!

It's Friday and you know what that means. It's time once again for our
Friday Fun Day Challenge -
where imitation is the highest form of flattery!

This is the last one for January, so be sure to get crafty this weekend and enter your project no later than Wednesday, February 2nd for a chance to win our January prize!

To participate the challenge, you must create your own project inspired by any of the following based on Jessica's project:

Overall Design
Color Combination
Title of the Project
Use of Embellies



For my Valentine's treat bag, I used up the last little bits from my January Lucky Girl Crafts kit - Forever Love. I saved the best of my Pink Paislee Sweetness line for last!
I disassembled the mini gift bag to cut a window out of the front, then hot glued one of the Sweetness Clear Cards along the inside of the bag. Once that was done, I reassembled the bag and decorated the front with pleated grosgrain ribbon & fussy cut flowers from the Love Blooms paper. I added a little Shimmerz to the roses, a few layered buttons and a little Valentine's banner to tie it all together. The inside gift is wrapped in shimmery tissue paper and tulle.

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Love the January kit? There's just two more left in the store - get yours before they're gone!
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Invite your friends & play along with our Friday Fun Day Challenge! Post your creations no later than Wednesday, February 2nd to our InLinkz gallery at the bottom of each weekly challenge.

You may post as many projects as you'd like each month for a chance to win a Lucky Girl kit or store credit. Each month's challenge will close at 11:59 PM MST on the first Wednesday of the next month (so, for the January Friday Fun Day Challenges, you must post your project inspired by any January FFD Challenge here no later than February 2nd at 11:59 PM MST). The winner will be announced with the first Friday Fun Day Challenge of that next month. January's winner will be announced on Friday, February 4th.






Monday, January 24, 2011

It's {close enough to} the 25th....

and you know what that means! Reveal day for our latest kit! Yeah!!!

This month's kit is chock full of brilliant colors and celebratory patterns that make it a perfect match for your kiddo's albums, your "me" book, or cards for all occasions.

From baby blankets and booties, dolls to dress up, amusement parks and after school activities, our "Kid at Heart" kit covers it all. Whether you've got kiddos of your own or you're a kid in your own right, the brilliant colors and celebratory prints are perfect for capturing your favorite memories.

These exclusive, limited kits are available for preorder starting now! Rush on over to the store to get your hands on one before they fly off the shelf!!!

Preordered kits will be shipped on February 1st. Subscribe to Lucky Girl Crafts kits and you'll get your kit even sooner!!!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

TGIF! Friday Fun Day Challenge & Emily's Home Decor

Welcome to our
Friday Fun Day Challenge -
where imitation is the highest form of flattery!

Emily has a gorgeous altered tree for home decor to share with you this week, complete with a great step-by-step tutorial. Play along with us for a chance to win a February LCG kit of your very own!

To participate the challenge, you must create your own project inspired by any of the following based on the Emily's project:

Your project can be inspired by as many of the following that you get from Em's beautiful project:
Overall Design
Color Combination
Title of the Project
Use of Embellies

Once you've got it created, you'll come back here and post your project to our InLinkz gallery at the bottom of each weekly challenge.

You may post as many projects as you'd like each month for a chance to win a Lucky Girl kit or store credit. Each month's challenge will close at 11:59 PM MST on the first Wednesday of the next month (so, for the January Friday Fun Day Challenges, you must post your project inspired by any January FFD Challenge here no later than February 2nd at 11:59 PM MST). The winner will be announced with the first Friday Fun Day Challenge of that next month. January's winner will be announced on Friday, February 4th.

The January Friday Fun Day Challenge winner will receive the yet-to-be-released February kit and bragging rights for being the best among the Lucky Girls!


Due to the high cost of international shipping, our international Lucky Girls will have the option of choosing store credit in an equal monetary amount to the product prize, or may choose to pay for a portion of the actual shipping rate to their delivery address.

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I've got a special prize for all those who complete a Friday Fun Day project before next week. Remember! You can use any of this month's projects as your inspiration. And with the awesome tutorials Emily & Natalie have provided this month, you've got everything you need!

Altered Tree








Thursday, January 13, 2011

Friday Fun Day Challenge - Sweet Love Banner!

Welcome to our
Friday Fun Day Challenge -
where imitation is the highest form of flattery!

Natalie is sharing a beautiful banner project and a full blown tutorial, but before we get to it, let's share how you can play along for a chance to win our soon-to-be-released February kit.

To participate the challenge, you must create your own project inspired by any of the following based on the Lucky Girl's project:
Overall Design
Color Combination

Title of the Project
Use of Embellies
Once you've got it created, you'll come back here and post your project to our InLinkz gallery at the bottom of each weekly challenge.

You may post as many projects as you'd like each month for a chance to win a Lucky Girl kit or store credit. Each month's challenge will close at 11:59 PM MST on the first Wendesday of the next month (so, for the January Friday Fun Day Challenges, you must post your project inspired by any January FFD Challenge here no later than February 2nd at 11:59 PM MST). The winner will be announced with the first Friday Fun Day Challenge of that next month. January's winner will be announced on Friday, February 4th.

The January Friday Fun Day Challenge winner will receive the yet-to-be-released February kit and bragging rights for being the best among the Lucky Girls!

Due to the high cost of international shipping, our international Lucky Girls will have the option of choosing store credit in an equal monetary amount to the product prize, or may choose to pay for a portion of the actual shipping rate to their delivery address.

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Now, without further ado, I'll leave it to the always lovely Natalie:


For today's Friday Fun Day project, I decided to make a banner... It looks great hanging on my craft room door for the Valentine's Day "season"-- but it would also be great for a little girl's room, or a birthday party!

I'm going to take you through the process I followed to create this banner. First, I gathered up supplies from my Lucky Girls January 2011 kit... I had in mind that I was going to create a banner, and gathering my supplies together let me see what I would have to work with.


You'll notice, if you look at the photo of the completed project, that I didn't end up using all of the things I pulled out, but that didn't bother me. I was inspired by the color combinations nonetheless. (P.S. I decided to use the Thickers that I had left from the October kit rather than the pink Thickers from this kit-- both look great!)

Next, I sketched out a fairly detailed design of how I envisioned the final result.


I tried to shade in the embellishments that I knew were dark so that I could make sure I balanced them across the finished piece. In the end, I stuck pretty closely to my design, but there are a few things that changed.

To make the triangular banner shapes, I looked at some pre-made banner flags I had on hand (Jenni Bowlin banner stickers, like those in the July kit). I noted that the triangles had an approximately 3:5 ratio of width at the top to length to the point. So I made the middle pieces of my pennant flags 3" across at the top and 5" long from top to tip. In order to create a template shape, I folded a piece of regular printer paper in half lengthwise. I marked a point 5" down from the top of the sheet along the fold, then marked a point 1.5" away from the fold at the top of the sheet. I connected the dots with my ruler and cut along the line. Using the template, I traced my triangles onto the cardstock and patterned papers.


I made slightly bigger triangles to "mat" these pieces by adding about a 1/2" on all sides.

I began laying out my banner pieces and adding the embellishments. To make the letters stand out, I used punched circles from the Pink Paislee canvas border packaging... and then decided they needed to stand out even more, so I cut out little squares from the Dear Lizzy striped paper.

You can also see in this photo one of the "tricks" I use when I'm not yet fully committed to a particular choice: I cut up the packaging -- like the plastic behind the canvas borders or the brown gems-- before I remove the adhesive-backed items. Then I can move it around to get it exactly where I want it... before it gets permanently stuck in place.

As I was moving things around, I decided that all the paper pieces needed a little bit more definition, so I inked all the edges with a brown ink pad.


This also reinforces the brown as an accent color.

While my inked edges were drying -- all laid out on scrap paper-- I made some paper ruffles. I cut strips of the Doodlebug polka dot paper and ran them under water. I was amazed at how strong the paper remains when it is wet-- but be careful not to get it TOO wet!! It will just fall to pieces if you do.


Once the paper was wet, I manipulated the strips into the ruffle shapes I wanted... and then made myself walk away until they were totally dry (which was pretty hard, haha! I was impatient!) The dry paper ruffles will maintain their shape, all nice and curvy!

This is one of my favorite techniques recently... I love getting a lusciously dimensional embellishment from a simple strip of paper!

To finish up my banner, I pop-dotted the bejeepers out of everything (because we know how much I LOVE me some foam adhesive!)

To string the pennants together, I punched 1/8" holes in the corners of the matting papers just below the corners of the center pieces. Then I knotted ribbon connectors behind each hole. If this banner was going to get moved around a lot, I would probably punch holes BEFORE I put the layers together and set eyelets for reinforcement.

And here are some photos of the finished project!

Lucky Girl supplies:
Bazzill Canvas Fawn
Bazzill Bling Feather Boa
Doodlebug Swimming Pool Swiss Dot
Making Memories Reverie Brun Antique gems (I used pearls from my stash because I'd used the pearls from this pack already!)
Making Memories Reverie Brun butterflies
Pink Paislee Sweetness Canvas Borders + background packaging!
Petaloo Color Me Crazies Flowers
American Crafts Thickers Sprinkles (from the October kit)

other supplies:
EK Success 1" circle punch
Fiskars 1/8" hole punch
Therm O Web foam adhesive
Glossy Accents
double-sided tape
brown pigment ink pad
brown ribbon


Alright Lucky Girls, time to get creating! You've now got two projects to "copy" from - Natalie's banner and my mailbox from last week. Remember to link your project to our inLinkz at the bottom of this post for your chance to win!





Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Meet our new team!!!!

Can I just say how stinkin' hard it was to pick through all of the amazing submissions to find a new design team? Seriously, very difficult. After much deliberation and extremely difficult decisions, I am so pleased to announce the latest Lucky Girl Crafts Design Team:

Ana


Ruth


Sabrina



And you know these two lovely ladies, the new Lucky Girl Senior DT
Emily
Natalie


The new DT will make their debut with the February kit - stay tuned for their awesome styles coming to inspire a Lucky Girl near you!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

You've Got Mail! Welcome to our debut Friday Fun Day Challenge...

Welcome to our first of many
Friday Fun Day Challenges -
where imitation is the highest form of flattery!

Out of the many upgrades we've got in store for 2011, this is by far my favorite! I get tons of my inspiration from my crafty idols - fave designers and artists, and I wanted to help inspire Lucky Girls in the same way. I know a lot of you Lucky Girls lead busy lives, so we're going to be keeping the Friday Fun Day Challenge "rules" pretty easy going. Watch for new challenge inspiration posted by our Lucky Girl DT each Friday.

To participate the challenge, you must create your own project inspired by any of the following based on the Lucky Girl's project:

Overall Design

Color Combination

Title of the Project

Use of Embellies

Once you've got it created, you'll come back here and post your project to our InLinkz gallery at the bottom of each weekly challenge.


You may post as many projects as you'd like each month for a chance to win a Lucky Girl kit or store credit. Each month's challenge will close at 11:59 PM MST on the first Wendesday of the next month (so, for the January Friday Fun Day Challenges, you must post your project inspired by any January FFD Challenge here no later than February 2nd at 11:59 PM MST). The winner will be announced with the first Friday Fun Day Challenge of that next month. January's winner will be announced on Friday, February 4th.

The January Friday Fun Day Challenge winner will receive the yet-to-be-released February kit and bragging rights for being the best among the Lucky Girls!

At this time, due to the high cost of international shipping, our international Lucky Girls will have the option of choosing store credit in an equal monetary amount to the product prize, or may choose to pay for a portion of the actual shipping rate to their delivery address.

For your first project inspiration,

You've Got Mail!

Jessica created this little altered mail box(as another dollar aisle makeover!) using many of the left over pieces from her January kit, Forever Love, plus a few flowers, ribbon and bling from her stash. To create the flourishes, she trimmed a corner out of the American Crafts Dear Lizzy Sir Charlie die cut paper and used it as a stencil with acrylic paint. After the paint dried, she outlined the flourishes with a fine tip permanent marker.

Join the fun - I can't wait to see what you create!!!



Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Who wants to be a winner?!

Thanks for playing along with our January Blog Party!

It was great to see so many new faces and getting to know each and every one of you. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

Our winner for this month's grand prize - $25 store credit to the Lucky Girl store - is Debbie! Way to go, girl! Please e-mail me to receive your redemption code.

For the rest of you, do you want more chances to win?!

Check out our blog this Friday for the Friday Fun Day Challenge - where imitation is the highest form of a compliment! More prizes are up for grabs - so don't miss out!

See you soon!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

It's your last day to get Lucky! Today's the final day of the LGC blog party!

Happy Monday, friends! I must say, this is the perfect way to start your week - isn't it? Especially if you're one of the FIVE Lucky Girls who win a prize for participating in this month's Blog Party! Be sure to read to the end and visit the rest of the Lucky Girl DT to get your entries in!!!!

Over the past few days, you've seen some amazing projects created by our Lucky Girl DT using our latest & greatest kit:


I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. This is the last official Blog Party rotation for our current DT - so be sure to leave some love with each of them this month.

Kim - Emily -Natalie - Jessica

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Check out these AMAZING deals for a limited time only:

Get FREE SHIPPING anywhere in the U.S. with orders of $40 or more through January 7th - use code FOREVERLOVE at checkout.

For international orders, please contact me for discounted shipping rates January 1-7 by e-mailing your order to jasafras98@yahoo.com

Save 20% on all current stock of "extras" through January 31 or while supplies last! Prices as marked. Sale includes past kits, paper packets, ribbons, alphas, embellies & more!
http://www.luckygirlcrafts.com/

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Emily is bringing us the last of the projects - with a fun, bright tribute to winter.


Isn't that pleated circle amazing? Definitely one technique I'm going to hold on to!

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Don't forget about these upcoming events!

January 7th - last day to apply for our new Lucky Girl Design Team!Check out the details by clicking here.

Our first Friday Fun Day Challenge debuts THIS FRIDAY, JANUARY 7th!
Don't miss it!!!
We'll be featuring new projects each and every Friday on the store blog for you to scrap lift, create & enter to win!


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The Blog Party Grand Prize is a $25 gift credit to our store - here's how you can enter for a chance to win:

* What has been your favorite Blog Party project from the last few days (from any of the Lucky Girl DT)???

Earn 10 entries for the giveaways on all of the Lucky Girl Crafts Blog Party when you place any order between now and January 3!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

My wish for the New Year - blog party day 2!

Well hello again! Happy Sunday - I'm so glad you're joining us again for our Blog Party celebrating our latest & greatest kit - "Forever Love". We're celebrating in style with some AMAZING deals in the store, not to mention three days of amazing projects and five prizes up for grabs.
Check out these AMAZING deals for a limited time only:

Get FREE SHIPPING anywhere in the U.S. with orders of $40 or more through January 7th - use code FOREVERLOVE at checkout.

For international orders, please contact me for discounted shipping rates January 1-7 by e-mailing your order to jasafras98@yahoo.com

Save 20% on all current stock of "extras" through January 31 or while supplies last! Prices as marked. Sale includes past kits, paper packets, ribbons, alphas, embellies & more!
http://www.luckygirlcrafts.com/

My wish for the New Year is to bring joy to others through my craft. Even though I make tons of cards each year, I don't often get a chance to send them out as much as I should. That being the case, I'm going to be donating my cards to Operation Write Home - sending smiles to our solidiers serving over seas. Here's the first of the bunch:

I encourage you to join me in this mission! It's a small gift we can give to those who sacrifice so much.

This card was created with the brightere elements of this month's kit. Check out what the rest of the Lucky Girls have created (and enter for your chance to win!) by visiting them all:

Kim - Emily -Natalie - Jessica

To get your hands on your own kit, click here:
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Don't forget about these upcoming events!

January 7th - last day to apply for our new Lucky Girl Design Team!Check out the details by clicking here.

Coming soon... weekly Friday Fun Day Challenges, featuring new work each and every Friday on the store blog for you to scrap lift, create & enter to win! Join us for the first one, Friday, January 7th.

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The Blog Party Grand Prize is a $25 gift credit to our store - here's how you can enter for a chance to win:

* What is your favorite part about the monthly Blog Party?

Earn 10 entries for the giveaways on all of the Lucky Girl Crafts Blog Party when you place any order between now and January 3!
 

Graphic Design by Polka Dot Dandy