My Mind's Eye Blog

Welcome Lori Allred!

We are pleased to announce our November Guest Designer: Lori Allred!

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be invited as the Guest Designer for November. If ever there was a blog I stalk and designers I am inspired by often, it would be here at My Minds Eye. I’ve always found it easy to create with the great options My Minds Eye offers with their collections and my love of all things My Minds Eye started years and years ago with their adorable Frame Ups. And to prove it, here’s a few layouts from long, long ago:

I’ve always enjoyed playing with paper, but started my journey into scrapbooking the way we know it now about 16 years ago when my oldest was a baby. Aside from single handedly keeping My Mind’s Eye in business by purchasing every release they come out with, my relationship with My Mind’s Eye started when I had the opportunity to design samples for them for trade shows and catalogs quite a while back.

As for my background, I’ve designed and worked for several different scrapbook related companies and you can find me blogging for a few these days. My expertise is social media and yes, I do get paid to Facebook. But I’m horrible at blogging for myself. You can find a lot of my work for projects or past publication on my blog at allreddesign.net. Here’s a couple projects I created earlier in the year (for Cricut).

As for working in this industry, my first love is teaching and this past year I’ve been to New Zealand and all over the US teaching classes to others like you that love crafting with beautiful papers. But lately you will find me working with My Craft Channel <link: http://www.mycraftchannel.com>. This new project gives me the great opportunity to work with many inspiring crafters from all types of genres and I LOVE IT!

Here are a few of my more recent My Minds Eye creations and I look forward to sharing more later on in the month!

Let’s welcome Lori in style!  Leave a comment welcoming Lori to the team on this blog post before Thursday, November 10 at midnight.  One lucky winner will WIN Lori’s favorite My Mind’s Eye things!

Blog Challenge #13: Hope

We’d like to thank everyone who took the time to share their talent with us.  Be sure to check out ALL the entries in our Blog Challenge 13: Hope.  Please look at both album pages.  Every entry is included in the album and are listed in alphabetical order by designer.

We are thrilled to announce our two winners.

Winner:  Karen Grunberg

Featured Collection: Quite Contrary

We love how Karen opened up her circles!  Her accent made from punched flowers that were overlapped and sewn are brilliant and unique!

Honorable Mention Winner:

Florence Teixeira

Featured Collections: Wild Asparagus, Out And About, Quite Contrary, Signature Life, Abbey Road, So Sophie, Laundry Line and Bella Bella.

Flo might just win the prize for the most collections used on this gorgeous layout of her darling son.

To claim your prizes, please email [email protected].

Baby Shower and Gift Ideas

What better way to celebrate a the birth of a baby than with our gorgeous Lush Collection!?  Trisha and Gretchen have created some beautiful projects to help get your creative juices going for the next baby shower or gift for a new mom!

 

Designer: Trisha Ladouceur, Featured Collection: Lush Blue

 

 

Designer: Trisha Ladouceur, Featured Collection: Lush Pink

   

 

Designer: Gretchen McElveen, Featured Collection: Lush Brown, Quite Contrary and Penny Lane

I have created a gift card holder and 2 cards. The cards are using the same basic design-one card is girly and one is a more neutral card. The die cuts on the cards are from Penny Lane ("sweet baby") and Quite Contrary ("so sweet") but the rest is all Lush!

 

Designer: Gretchen McElveen, Featured Collection: Lush Brown & Green

Guess what!?  I think I am so clever (wink) because the tag is made out of the packaging from the Lush bling. The packaging in this line is sooo cute, I could not let it go to waste! So I just decorated the back of the bling packaging for the tag.

Party time with Quite Contrary

Over the next two weeks we will be celebrating four birthdays in our family. Crazy I know!  I wanted to share a few of the party decorations and favors that I have made with the Quite Contrary collection to make our home a bit more of a "party house."  

My flags are cut 4" x 6" and simply tied together with pink Lush rick-rack. The sign is 8" x 8 1/2" mounted on a 9 1/2" x 10" sheet.  I used glitter letters from Laundry Line and added stickers to finish it off.  

  
   The birthday card is 6" x 6".  The center is cut 5" x 5".  I tied the ribbon and added the title die cut with pop dots and added the square to the card with pop dots as well.  I love the dimension that this technique adds.

Finally we have one of my favorite tricks. Cupcakes dressed up with die cut sticker toppers.  These are so fun to make!  I used one accessory sheet and my left over paper from the bunting to make all five of these toppers.  Hint -  I like to use bamboo skewers rather than toothpicks.  That way I can make them any length that I need.

Now we're ready to party!

 

Spring Fun...

With Easter being around the corner, many of us will share some yummy chocolate treats with friends and family. Typically it is a handful of chocolate eggs or a large chocolate bunny for a child who will gobble them up as fast as they find them.  Join Trisha and Anam in taking the non-traditional Easter Basket route to celebrate SPRING!

 

With a sophisticated treat bag like this one, it is more likely to be appreciated by an adult who adores paper crafts as much as a fine chocolate morsel.

In fact, you may decide to KEEP the bag just to store your secret stash of delectable delights as it is just too pretty to give away! Better yet, create one as your gift bag and another for yourself! Make the recipient an extremely happy person and put a smile on your face as well!

Load up on the brown and pink elements from the My Mind's Eye LUSH Collections to create a project similar to this. This project includes the ribbons, epoxy brads and papers. By layering multiple patterns and keeping the colour scheme simple, the end result is fantastic! Using a fine tipped pair of scissors, an exacto knife and cutting mat and taking the the time to cut out the beautiful flocked flowers on the floral paper, the end result is almost as yummy as the sweet treat being given as the gift!

Now Anam has taken Spring Fun to an entirely new level!
She has created these fun Pillow Boxes disguised as Seed Packets to be shared with those near and dear that don't need or want the calories that Sweet Treats pack!

In Anam's words:

"Spring is finally here and now is the time to start the cycle of life that is seeds and plants to give us beautiful summer blooms. I love to give the gift of seeds to friends as it is sharing hope and faith in the future. These are very simple little envelopes that carry a gift that doesn’t cost much but the result can be so beautiful!"

 

Using the My Mind;s Eye Quite Contrary Collection of papers, die cuts and stickers combined with fabulous LUSH Collection embellishments, the results are superb!

Anam created a template to download so that you too can follow the attached instructions to create your own Seed Packets to share with friends:)

Download MME2010_Growlove_template

Download MME2010_Growlove

Happy Scrapping!

Trisha and Anam

Spring is in the air...

... and what better way to celebrate the season that with a fun card made with love using the Quite Contrary Collection by My Mind's Eye!

Both of the above cards were created with the Jack and Jill line from the Quite Contrary Collection and were enhanced with chipboard letter, ribbon and epoxy brads from the LUSH collection.

 

By adding some Glossy Accents to the self adhesive chipboard letters, you can give them additional dimension and gorgeous shine. I also applied Glossy Accents to the word "happy" that I cut out from another die cut so it would worth with this particular card.

Layer various Die Cut Stickers with the beautiful coordinating papers and you have a card worthy of the day it was created for.

This next card is just to share with someone close to you...

 

It is actually what I call a "card within a card" and by that I mean is is a smaller card attached to the front of the main card.

 

The small card actually flips open to reveal a small pocket designed to be a gift card enclosure.

 

   
 What a great way to present a token of your affection! So many of us turn to gift cards to surprise those near and dear and I would bet that you can think up a tonne of alternatives to cleverly house your gift cards too! Any variation of My Mind's Eye products will start you off in the right direction and with your creativity the sky is the limit! Try your hand at one today!

Happy Scrapping!

 

Trisha's Blog  

Easter Tree

Today is a GOOD day!  I had the opportunity to appear on Good Things Utah this morning and demonstrate this fun Easter/Spring Tree:

 

I bought the wood eggs at Michaels.  I bet they are in your local craft store.  The ones I bought are about 2 3/4” tall and come white.  I wanted to find a way to cover them with My Mind’s Eye paper.  I found that if you get the paper slightly wet, like you are making paper flowers, it’s MUCH more pliable.  If you can’t find the wooden eggs, flat paper eggs decorated similarly will be PERFECT, too!  (QuicKutz has a nesting egg die.  I bet the other die cut machines have something similar)

If you don’t celebrate Easter, I was thinking it would be so fun to hang shamrocks, and paper flowers and make this a Spring Tree.

A fun tip: I used fake forsythia and cherry blossoms.  If you have a fun, spring flowering tree or bush in your yard, simply cut off a few branches and put them in water.  The warmth of your home will force them to bloom early and you will enjoy a beautiful, living tree in your home.

I have typed up detailed instructions that also include pictures.  All you have to do is click here to download the instructions: Amber_Easter_Tree.

Later this afternoon, when the video is available, we’ll add the the video to the left column.  You can also click here to read the segment on the Good Things Utah website.

I hope you enjoy this project!

p.s.  Check out the flowers on my headband! 

Quite Contrary...

 
Anam did a beautiful job using the Quite Contrary "Little Miss Muffet" collection of papers and embellishments. She further enhanced this lovely layout with a few of the LUSH Self Adhesive Rhinestones and added a bot of Ranger "Glossy Accents" to her title.

Her tip for this layout: rotate the die-cut paper to be off center. This gives a varied point of interest to the layout.

 

 

Trisha did a masculine looking layout using the Quite Contrary "Little Boy Blue" Collection of papers and co-odinating die cuts and stickers. She also used the ribbons and chipboard letters from the brown and green LUSH collections, which all matched PERFECTLY!

 

Layer some of the sticker ad die cuts using pop dots for additional dimension (because lumps and bumps are a GOOD thing!).

Happy Scrapping!

Anam and Trisha

so happy to be here

Hello everyone, my name is Wendy Smedley.  I'm happy to be spending the next few weeks with you. I have been a fan of MME since the beginning, in fact I have some fun older layouts for your entertainment that are below, anyway a little about me.

 

photo by Cathy Zielske

I am... (in no particular order)

• scrapbooker
• mother of five boys, four of which are teenagers
• married to my own UPS man
• weekly church goer
• avid reader
• addicted to scrapbook product
• aspiring photographer
• web junkie
• admirer of beauty
• living with a ping pong table in my living room (just ask Tiffani)
• admirer of fabric
• pet owner
• collector of matryoshka dolls
• fan of Costco
• energized by scrapbookers
• excited to use and share the yummy new MME products
• lover of flowers

 

Now for some vintage My Mind's Eye layouts, ready?

Check out that title, and no their is no pool in this picture, just some sunbathing!

This Christmas Joy layout is circa 2001... check out the vellum!

Notice, more vellum and some sweet die cuts.

Now I am getting tricky... mixing the alphabets and fonts.

This has to be my favorite vintage MME layout, the title is so dang cute. I remember how exciting it was to have colorful printed die cuts and frames. Today MME continues to innovate and I am eager to play with their current product. In fact I made the layout, Teen Rules, today using new product.  I am currently drawn to a linear layout design, such as this one. 

Hope the journaling made you laugh, it is so true, life with teens is full of rules.

Enjoy!

Leave a comment welcoming Wendy by next Wednesday and you'll be entered to win Wendy's Favorite Things!  A few of Wendy's favorite things are: Blue Lush, Little Boy Blue and Life Stories journaling cards.