Ever heard of Core'dinations cardstock??

I never had... until Cathy came back from CHA raving about it! Super textured colorful cardstock, with a surprise inside! Rip it, tear it, emboss it and the contrasting color on the INSIDE pops right through. What a cool concept, something new in the scrapbook world. Cathy purchased their entire line at CHA, 250!! colors for the AllyScraps store. Luckily for us, our wonderful guest designer this month, Kimber McGray is a member of the Core'dinations cardstock Design Team. She agreed to make some special projects using the cardstock, to show us all how cool it is and what you can do with it. Check out Kimber's BLOG, she has many more awesome projects on her blog to inspire you.



Chillin' Out uses Black Magic with a grey color core and orange color core. You can see that she ran the die cut title through the embossing folder and then sanded to show the grey. The OUT in the title was just sanded to reveal most of the Orange. The circles on the background were created using brass stencils to dry emboss and then sanded to show the color.



Her Birthday Blast card uses Black Core Essentials and Yellow Vintage Core. She loves that you can run this through an embossing machine and then lightly sand to show the color from underneath. The yellow Vintage as wrinkled and then sanded for some fun texture.



Snack Time was created using Chocolate Box papers. Kimber ran the tree through her Fiskars curvy crimper and then sanded the top to reveal the lighter brown color core. She used a stylus on her leaves and then sanded the ridges to create veins. She also die cut her title letters from Core and then sanded for texture.


Here are a few more projects that Kimber shared with us! Love them all.







Big thanks to Kimber... so glad to have you at AllyScraps this month.

~ Dana

October came early this year!

October Afternoon goodies, that is! This is one of my favorite lines. When I saw that Cathy had stocked the Ally Scraps store with OA, I pretty much bought every sheet of their Cherry Hill Collection. These double sided papers are so fun, and colorful, not to mention they're thick, so I was able to use the Egg Basket sheet as my layout base.



The gray with the white polka dots is the back side of Sunday Dishes and the bottom strip is the front of the same sheet (gotta love double sided!!)



I used some of the stickers from the Cherry Hill Collection.



The little bird is from DCWV Green Stack Chipboard Embellishments. The little black alpha's are from Making Memories. For the title I used a bright red American Crafts vinyl letter sticker.



Here I just used some old chipboard pieces that I had in my stash. The nice thing about this October Afternoon line is that you can mix and match with other manufactures. I used the yellow and red colors to coordinate with my paper.

I hope you enjoyed spending an “October Afternoon” with me! Stop by again, and don’t forget to look for that giveaway coming up soon!

Scrappy Inspiration!

Hi everyone... it's back to school for us this week, and for me that means a serious scrappy day! Every year, I treat myself to a full of scrapping when the kids and DH go back to school... really looking forward to getting some new projects done. But, until I do, I'd love to share a 2 page layout I did recently along with a special treat. Our very own Debbie Gaydos made a sketch based on my layout... you know how much we love Debbie's sketches, and 2 page ones are an extra special treat. I did this layout with Fancy Pants products, and guess what? A little birdie told me that new Fancy Pants stuff will be coming to AllyScraps VERY soon. Can't wait, love me some Fancy Pants.

Here's my page, Fresh Picked.



Here is Debbie's sketch.



Hope you have the time to make a layout using Debbie's sketch, now that the kiddies are back in school! This week is sure to be an exciting one here on the blog. Chris Hertel will be doing an extra special blog post on Wednesday, and we'll be seeing more super projects from our guest designer Kimber McGray on Friday. Always something fun going on at AllyScraps.

Thanks so much for your input about what you'd love to see on the blog in coming weeks. You're likely to see most of what you've asked for. Layouts, tutorials, cards, sketches, altered art and MORE. I've picked a winner from the comments, and the winner is BabyBokChoy!! Big congrats to you. Send me an e-mail with your contact information to allyscraps@gmail.com by next Monday at midnight, and we'll send you out a fun prize. Love giveaways? There will be another one soon, so keep checking out the blog! Have a great week. ~ Dana

Jillibean Soup is here!

AllyScraps is proud to bring Jillibean Soup to the store. We have 3 new ranges including fabulous journal sprouts, printed twill and stamps.

And as if that wasn't enough, Kimber McGray from Jillibean's design team is our Guest Designer this month.

First up is a beautiful selection of Kraft papers and co-ordinating journal spots - the hottest on the block! Kimber has used Bit of Bibble Babble as the background Cup of Yak and Journal Sprouts. I love the way Kimber has layered her journalling.



How cute is this lil' house?! I adore the Ground Round paper featuring the school house. All the double-sided papers are just so versatile. See the door and window, taken from the journal card on Beef Bullion. And how about the fabulous printed twill?

How about getting started early on those Christmas projects? Kimber has done the most AMAZING projects to inspire us.


I love the trees the way the colours of Grandma's soup range co-ordinate so well.



This clever Christmas card featuring Frozen Crab Meat and Tomato Soup sounds quite a combination!



This uber-cool mailbox is just the thing for those Christmas cards. How adorable!

Lastly, So Sweet is exactly right! I love the combination of Can Beef Consomme with traditional Christmas colours.



Dont forget that stocks are limited! Check out the full range here. All our new goodies from CHA can be found in this handy What's New section.

Shipping is only $4.95 anywhere in the U.S.

Check back soon as we've got more exciting projects to share.

Kimber & Morag x

Just the Paper Mam

What is the number one thing you have in your scrapbook supplies? What is the one item that you have the most of?

Paper!

On this layout I basically only used paper. There is a lot you can do with paper. You can cut out shapes, distress it, punch it, fold it, sew on it... and more. I chose 2 double sided patterned papers and 2 sheets of elements - all from the FABULOUS Cosmo Cricket line - boyfriend.

After choosing gray as my solid background base, I cut and distressed my paper edges. Doing this adds some dimension to your layout without adding bulk. I also distressed the elements that I cut out.



Here's a close up of the cut out elements. I used some foam squares under the Happy Place element for even more dimension:


And the foam American Crafts Thickers I used for my title also add dimension without the added bulk:



The Supplies

All these delicious Cosmo Cricket Boyfriend papers and elements are in stock NOW in the Ally Scraps store!!

Cosmo Cricket Boyfriend Collection 12x12 Elements
Cosmo Cricket Boyfriend Collection 12x12 Borders
Cosmo Cricket Boyfriend Collection 12x12 Patterned Paper - Art Appreciation
Cosmo Cricket Boyfriend Collection 12x12 Patterned Paper - Fitting In
Cosmo Cricket Boyfriend Collection - Sticker
My Little Shoebox Mini Alphabet Stickers - Red Lipstick
American Crafts Thickers

Get out your paper and play today! When you are finished, be sure to share it with us in the Ally Scraps gallery, we'd love to see it!