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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

How About A Color Challenge

I thought that I would post a color challenge to inspire all of you. Let's see how this set of colors will inspire your creativity.

Do you have a picture you have been wanting to scrap but can't find the right inspiration to do it? Maybe these colors will inspire you. maybe these are a bit out of your safety zone, so why not try them on for a layout.

Here is my layout just in case you think these won't work. I was worried too at first but love my end result.


Saturday, May 24, 2008

April's Design Team Picks

Once again each Design Team member has picked their favourite layout from each of the challenges they posted in April. Please take a moment to check out the slide show. There are some awesome layouts here, and I want to congratulate all of you.



Remember, the only way your layouts will make it to the slide show is by participating in the Design Team Challenges at Kindred Creations.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Spring Cleaning

The weather is finally nice! Winter just hung on WAY too long for me this year....but not anymore. Now I finally feel like it's going to be summer. Right about now is when I get the itch to do some Spring Cleaning and my scraproom is usually the first place I start.

I'm issuing a challenge. Get into your stash....and purge people. There are a whole host of Mom's groups, church groups, school classrooms, etc who would love to benefit from the stuff you've got leftover from all your winter scrapping adventures. There's also the huge potential of garage sales this time of year - I just sold off a table full of stuff for a couple hundred bucks....you know - the "one man's junk is another man's treasure" totally applies to this craft. You just never know what people will buy off you. And, on that note, I just came home today with $50 worth of stuff from my best friend's garage sale pile too (oops). Another reason I love to purge right now is that getting my scraproom in order early in Spring makes the few moments I can steal in summer to scrap that much more efficient. I want to spend lots of time outside in this weather but when I get a chance to scrap - I want to have the clutter gone, everything in it's place and some new (new to me) goodies lined up and ready to go!


Kinda related: Here's one of my latest layouts. Rub-ons and Tree paper are "hand-me-downs" from my friends' garage sale pile....see....her junk = my treasure!

Happy Spring...bring on the sun!
Cathy

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Wooohoooo!!!

KC is back up and running, things look a little bit different, but it's good to be back! I did notice however that all my bookmarks to the site are different so here is a link in case you need it. Welcome back!

Scrap Metal and Patience

Hi ladies, thank you for your continued patience as Rebecca and the programmers continue to figure out the bugs that are plaguing the site. Becca actually has one of the programs creators working on it as well, trying to find that needle in a mountain of gibberish (I’m sure that’s what the source code would look like to most of us). Don’t give up; the site will be back up and running. Coincidentally the message in our church service today was all about patience… I don’t think it is something that many of us have enough of. Ugh, I’m not sure if adage ‘practice makes perfect’ will work for patience.

On another note: We all have a pile of metal embellishments sitting around; they were all the rage a few years ago, and we had to have them, stock piled them, ooh-ed and awe-ed at them, and we maybe even used some of them. Time has passed though and we may have grown tired of them, and they are ready for the scrap pile (hah-hah). I’ve come up with a list of ways to breathe new life into your old metal embellishments and keep them out of the recycling bin:

1) Paint; especially on textured metal paint will add a wonderful touch. You can even try two different colours and rub the second coat off a little bit more so it only shows in the deeper crevices of the embellishment. Don’t forget some of your metallic paint either for a (ie) gold on silver look.

2) Stamp with StazOn. If your metal is smooth you can stamp a design or texture (if the image is bigger than your embellishment) onto it using StazOn ink. Or just rub some of the ink onto the embellishment like you would with the paint.

3) Add rub-ons. Remember a while back some of the companies came out with rub ons specifically designed to go on the biggie brads. Why not try it with other metal items as well!

4) How about just adding a little accent such as a flower, button, a piece of ribbon, trims or fiber, rhinestones, pearls, tiny die cuts, just like we would on our chipboard. The possibilities are endless. Gasp, we could even add another small metal embellishment.

5) Alcohol inks: Janet challenged us to use these. They can be used on any non-porous surface; so don’t forget to try them on your metal embellishments.

6) Embossing, you can either stamp with Versamark and emboss or you can heat the entire embellishment and dip it in the embossing powder to change the look of your metal embellishments. Make sure you handle the hot item with tweezers or you might seriously burn yourself.

7) Micro beads: Micro beads come in many colours as well as clear which will allow the background colour to show through. You can adhere them with Glossy Accents, Crystal Lacquer or the like, or just use thin coating of good quality liquid glue.

8) Glitter: There are a lot of glitter-covered brads out there these days but you could certainly transform some of your own by covering it in a thin layer of glue and dipping it in the glitter. Don’t just leave it at brads though; the same technique can be extended to so many of your metal embellishments.

9) Fun flock is a new thing that is all the rage at the moment. Take advantage of it and cover up some of your old metal stuff. You can either stamp a design or cover the whole surface depending on the look you want.

10) Patterned paper, magic mesh, fabric, stickers or photos: We could certainly entirely or partly cover up the metal embellishment with any of these. How about tracing a template of the item and cutting it out slightly smaller so that when the items are adhered you are left with a thin edge of the original metal embellishment.

11) Dimensional paint and stickles: I think we all still love stickles and they would make a great addition to our metal embellishments. For myself the dimensional paints have always been right beside them. They are a great alternative especially when we’re dealing with masculine subjects where you can get a little too glitzy.

Here are a few more non-acid free alternatives you can use if that is not an issue for you. Go to your make up cabinet and dig out all those fun and funky nail polishes you use, the selection these days is amazing! Deco art also has paint that looks like stone finish and there is a large selection of various spray paints as well. Maybe your significant other or child likes to put together model cars or planes etc. and has a nice stash of paints (s)he’ll let you use. Check to see what you have laying around the house and get creative.

If you have any other suggestions on how to update our old metal embellishments add them to the comments section and I will add them to my list to share with everyone else!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

KC is coming back...slowly

You all may have noticed that some parts of the site are working again. We are still working out some changes in the database for the forum, but we're getting there! I can't wait to get things back up and running again I have gotten some amazing new items for the store that I am just dieing to share with everyone.

Thanks for sticking with us through all these big changes. KC should come out of it better, faster and more secure than ever.

A small update

Hi ladies, I just received a small update from Becca so I thought I'd pass it along. The site changes are progressing. She is till learning more about the site and finding 'new' things she was unaware of. That makes me think of spring cleaning and coming across things I've forgotten all about LOL

I hope you have all found some extra scrapping time with the site down and it will be great to see everyone's work when we're back up and running. Please hang on a little longer (as if you have much choice LOL). Your understanding is greatly appreciated!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Happy Mother's Day!!

Hello ladies. I would like to wish you all a happy Mother's day. I hope all you mothers out there were spoiled today, and that everyone had/ will have the opportunity to visit with your mother this weekend.

I thought for today I would give everyone some inspiration in the form of a sketch. I hope you enjoy it.
If you have the opportunity to use it I would love it if you left a link to your LO in the comments section so I can go and admire it.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Are we up and running yet?

You may have noticed the site is down again. Becca and the programmer have the site moved over to the new and faster server. They are diligently working away at fixing a few problems they were having, as well as updating security while they are at it (some of you may have noticed the site on the old server was hacked). They are hoping things will be back up and running by the end of the day, so keep your fingers crossed!

Thanks for your continued patience as we continue to work towards making Kindred Creations an even better place to call 'home'.