New Product Highlight: Swan Lake Creative Collection

Swan Lake is fairy-tale meets elegant holiday.  The featured colors for this collections are: Black, Canary, Fern, Glacier, Goldrush, Peacock, Poppy, Slate, Whisper and White Daisy. 

In this collection are the standard items:

The Paper Pack

The Complements, Grey enamel gems and Black Shimmer Ribbon.

and

The Workshops Your Way

Scrapbooking Kit

 Where you can make these 6 layouts

and if you add a few items to your purchase

you can also make these items.

By just adding:

• Z4007 Thankful for you Thin Cuts Bundle
• Z2823 Goldrush Stamp Pad
• Z2849 Peacock Stamp Pad
• Z2852 Poppy Stamp Pad
• Z2872 Whisper Stamp Pad
• Z2060 Thin 3-D Foam Tape
• X254 White Cards & Envelopes Value Pack
• Pocket Plus Protectors

I also got the opportunity to use Shannon Buck's Swan Lake workshop. I made a few adjustments to fit my needs. Here are my results and here is the workshop for you to download.<CLICK HERE>.

Here are more items made using this collection:

Close to my Heart's Everyday Life 2017 Planner Pages & Bundles

We've been waiting for the release of the 2017 Everyday Life Planner Pages and wow the wait was definitely worth it. 

They are now available but supplies are limited! You can get them three different ways.

You can purchase the basic planner page pack. Item #CC2017

or

You can purchase the Striped Bundle. Item #CC1178

or

You can purchase the SeaGlass Bundle. Item #CC1177

Three great options and one wonderful planning system.

Order yours today at www.NinasArtSpot.ctmh.com

The Resource Theory and the Card Sketch Layout

I've always been a believer in you can do anything. Even those things you don't know how to do or have no skills at...as long as you have the resources to get the job done. I call this my Resource Theory. I believe in this so much I decided to have children after years of saying I wouldn't because 1.) I was fertility challenged and 2.) I come from a family who was Mother challenged and although my Dad had parenting skills I didn't think I could be an adequate Mother. After years of being around other girls/young adults and adults and their Mothers I learned one thing. I can do as I saw them doing. This is where my whole premise of the resource theory came from. Ask my children today what are two pieces of advice your Mother always gave you and they will say 1.) "You can do anything with the right resources" and 2.) "Make good decisions today"... or they might say 3.) "You come from a family of dorks so celebrate it...don't fight a good thing"...but you get the drift. 

So I was perusing Instagram the other night and came upon a blog, Something About Marie.  She talked about not being inspired by the sketch for a layout and focused on her card as the frame for her layout. This got me thinking or should I say stressing. What resources were out there that I wasn't tapping into, or worse yet what resources wasn't I using fully or correctly. 

Much to my husbands disdain, I have lots of resources in my life that I use for my art.  One that you may already know about is the Journaling Prompt and how I record those for use. Another if you follow along on the Facebook page, is the Mojo Card Sketches. They come out every Monday and I share the post on the Nina's Art Spot FB page. I do this because of my belief in the resource theory. These card sketches I use as a resource for when I'm stuck for an idea for a card layout. Sometimes they are merely stepping stones to a bigger idea for a card...but what if...what if I used them beyond what they were originally created for. What if they became a completely advanced Resource all together? So, I stewed on this idea. I pulled out my Mojo book of sketches and perused though it and ideas immediately started brewing. Thus was born a completely new resource right out of one that I was already using. The Mojo card sketch layout option.

Let me show you first how I have correlated my collection of Mojo sketches over the years. 

I took my old Z3208 Everyday Life 3 ring binder and used some PML cards and the My Crush Everyday Life Pages Z3210 from Close to my Heart and created the tabbed inserts.

The older sketches are laid out 4 up on a page.

Where as the 2015 and 2016 sketches I printed individually at 4" x 6" and inserted into Z3192 4" x 6" Memory protectors. 

So this is my Monday Mojo Card Sketch resource binder!

So the next step was to test this alternative resource within a resource. I perused through all the Mojo sketches and selected a couple to try. I then created them into single panels (no card flap). Here are the Mojo Sketches I choose and the single panels I then created.

Mojo #432 from 2016

Mojo #432 Photo Panel

Mojo Monday #432 Scrapbook Layout

  ~What you can't see is that I popped the panel up with 3D Foam tape so it appears to be hovering over the 12" x 12" page. However the angle of this photo didn't do it justice.

I have to admit there was something completely rewarding about doing this. I simply choose a Mojo Sketch that would fit the photo I had. I then picked out the papers for the panel. Like following any recipe that panel was pretty straight forward...but then the fun began. I laid the panel on top of the base page and looked at all the elements and paper I had left to my disposal and well I winged it. I just built upon the panel. It was very freeing and fun.

Here is the second page of the layout.

Mojo #121 from 2010

Mojo #121 Photo Panel

 ~Again...what you can't see is that I popped the panel up with 3D Foam tape.

With the second layout I pulled the basics from the first. Again this was completely satisfying and remarkably easy and fun. It did help that I was looking for something to do with an even I only had two photo's of. What is even nicer is that my daughters Senior Choir Banquet came right after her Senior Prom. I saved the Brushed Workshop on the Go to scrapbook the photo's from Prom so when placed in chronological order in her Senior Scrapbook it will all go together. Nothing more beautiful than when a non-plan comes together to look like it was planned. 

This opens up or nearly doubles my layout references. What a wonderfully awesome alternative. I hope you test these waters with whatever card layout reference you use. Comment back here and let me know what your take on this exercise is and if you found it helpful.

Here is a supply list of the items I used to create these two pages.

Supply List

• Close to my Heart's X7190B Brushed Paper Pack (retired) available HERE on my etsy store
• Close to my Heart's Z3013 Brushed Assortment (retired)
• Close to my Heart's X7190C Brushed Complements (retired)
• Close to my Heart's Z2002 Topiary Washi Tape (retired) available HERE on my etsy store

Happy creating.

Color of the Year ~> Sea Glass

I am completely in love with this color. I'm not sure why because this is generally a color I would NOT gravitate to, even though it is in the green family and I usually like anything in the green family. Of course I needed to immerse myself in it. This last weekend I spent playing with all things sea glass.

This card I made using of course the Sea Glass and the new Blossom paper and ink. The Sea Glass glitter paper is amazing. It doesn't leave a lot of fall off glitter when you cut or use it. When you rub your hand over the surface its NOT like most glitter papers where the surface catches everything.

Created by Andrea Marie Sherman at girlpluspaper.blogspot.com

This card was created using the Sea Glass papers, cricut and the new Rustic Home Fundamentals.

This is the beautiful NEW Everyday Life Album in Faux Leather

The NEW just released in the Holiday Expressions Everyday Life Album is beyond beautiful. All you planner girls will gush over how wonderful the surface feels. It's like butter. It will last much better over time when used as a planner. I can't wait to see what the NEW planner insert pages are going to look like. 

Here is another card sample using the Sea Glass colors and the October stamp of the month. Isn't it beautiful!

Created by Robyn Holfeltz

Supply List

• S1610 Yuletide Joy October 2016 Stamp of the Month
• 1385 White Daisy Cardstock
• Z891 Versamark Ink Pad
• Z2067 Silver Embossing Powder
• Z3240 Seaglass Glitter Paper
• Z2873 Slate Ink Pad
• Z2013 Silver Sequins
• Z3274 Clear Sparkles
• Z2060 Thin 3-D Foam Tape
• Z3263 Uptown Fundamentals
• Z1912 Corner Rounder