Sara's Blog

It’s so good to be back in Oregon—even for a little while! This week we’ve been busily filming a DVD for Personal Shopper customers (you guys will love the July kit!) and 10 new Webisodes.

This summer Webisode viewers will get a special treat—a guest star! In fact, there will be two guest appearances. HOTP designer LeNae Gerig joins me to demonstrate felting (she makes it sooo easy!) and Susan Cobb comes in to show metal embossing. (But don’t worry, Paulette’s not going anywhere—we just can’t fit three people on camera!)

Besides metal embossing and needle felting, you’ll also see the latest techniques with punches—like Tonic Studio’s new Border System, which I told myself I didn’t need, then promptly purchased one after seeing how cool it is. You’ll also see Webisodes on Patera jewelry, Fun Flock (new colors, yay!), felt ribbon and more Sara’s Surfaces™. I’m broke just thinking about all the new things I’ve got to have!

PS. Last week it was Koninginnedag (Queen’s Day) in Amsterdam, a massive festival day, where everyone dresses in orange and the streets are filled with party-goers. We went out on our friend Alex’s boat through the canals. We even ended up on television! The reporter and cameraman jumped into the boat and interviewed Alex’s wife and her father (mercifully not me—I couldn’t think that fast in Dutch!) and apparently we ended up on the nightly news!

My friend LeNae came up with a really neat little technique. We’re calling it “brad threading” for lack of a better term—take a look at the photo above and you’ll see what I mean. Then look at LeNae’s cute card to see how you can use this technique. LeNae threaded the Super Sized Yellow Flower Brads with a pink daisy brad. I think it’s super cute. (To see complete instructions for this card, visit Scrapbooking 101 and click on the April 2008 Layout of the Month.)

Also, you’ve got to check out this blog from paper crafter Marie-Hélène. We’ve been emailing last week and she told me about her blog, http://mariehelenescrap.canalblog.com/. Oh my gosh! I love how she uses our templates—keep scrolling on her main page and you’ll see our Scandinavian Hearts template, plus the Nested Shapes and Thing-a-ma-Jigs. The blog is in French and Spanish (this is helping me practice my Spanish!) but you don’t need to be fluent in either one to get inspired! (Plus isn’t she just the cutest?)

Gracias and merci to LeNae and Marie-Hélène for inspiration this week!

Last week Keith and I took a few days to visit Rome, a city we’ve both wanted to see for so long. How beautiful! We had a great time…ate a lot, walked a lot and ate a lot more!

I’ve put a few of the 175 photos I took in the Gallery—of course, my new challenge is to get them all scrapbooked, so this morning I went to a photo center to have them printed. The very busy clerk directed me to the photo kiosk (in Dutch) then scurried to the back room somewhere. So I think I will have photos to pick up in a few days…we’ll see if I operated the machine properly!

One note: In the Gallery you’ll see Keith sitting innocently in a cute little motorized bicycle car. I thought it would be fun to take a relaxing ride around the Villa Borghese park. I forgot that Keith Naumann is a speed-demon on a bicycle (even one like this). Five minutes into our ride, I was shrieking, “Apply the brake! Apply the brake!” as we rocketed down a sloping path, narrowly missing a gelato cart. “We aren’t going that fast,” Keith said calmly as we made a dramatic gravel-spraying u-turn, “It only goes about 20 miles an hour.” Turns out being a white-knuckled passenger was good practice for our taxi ride to the airport the next day!

PS. The summer issue of Paper Wishes should be coming to you next week! I’ve just gone through it and it is packed with cool stuff—I’ve got my eye on about 20 new things I’ve just got to have!

Earlier this month, I went to the Art Specially stamping convention in Zeist. While I was there, I saw a great card example on display in a booth and of course, as soon as I got permission to take a photo…my camera batteries died. (Argh!) So I dug out my little notebook and made a quick sketch. I love the idea of stamping a single image several times, cutting the paper into sections, then re-piecing it. It’s a quick, simple way to get a unique effect. The original card used a flower image, and I figured the technique would work well with swirls as well.

For this card, I stamped the swirl from our Winter Swirls set three times onto a piece of watercolor paper, positioning one swirl vertically and two horizontally. The two horizontal swirls are placed in opposite directions.

I filled in the open areas of each swirl with blue watercolor, then cut the piece of paper into thirds and inked the edges of each third with Faded Jeans Distress Ink (this will help each piece stand out.) Turn all the pieces face down on your work surface, then tape them back together. Mat the piece on black cardstock and attach to the front of your card. I also added small clear rhinestone stickers at the center of each swirl—I think it just adds a subtle, sparkly effect.

As you can see by my sketch, the original card was cut into six sections. I only cut mine into thirds, but I think this technique is so versatile you could easily adapt it to different numbers of sections, or different stamp images. And you could also dress up the design with a stamped sentiment, ribbon or other embellishments.

PS. For those who notice that brown sheet underneath the third photo, that’s my Craft Sheet—it’s probably the very best crafting investment I’ve ever made because it protects my work surface when I’m painting, inking, stamping or embossing.