Excuse the brief blog silence. I was on the road. Last week I traveled to Nashville, TN to meet up with friends but to also do a live demo of Scrapblog. Me and about 100 other crafty-ladies spent the weekend working on projects that ranged from scrapbook layouts to painting and sewing. On Sunday, with the help of some awesome peeps, we gave a Scrapblog demo and showed how to create the keychains I showed you on the blog a couple of weeks ago (only we left off the chain and just made artist trading cards).

In addition to some pretty awesome Michael Jackson karaoke, the ladies from Scrapinstyle created an amazing event. If you haven’t hopped over to their site, there is OODLES of creativity over there. You can even launch the builder directly from their site!

As you can see from this scrapblog, we had a blast! Thanks to all the girls that helped and those who gave me feedback about Scrapblog. We heart the SISters!

We are bringing the service down to perform system upgrades. The site and builder will be down for a short while as we perform the upgrades. We will update this post when we are back online.

[Update] We are back online and everything went smoothly! Thanks again.

Cheers,
Caleb
Scrapblog

This weeks Friday Five is about — you guessed it– Travel. Here are some of my fave pics of travelogues this week:

Title: Port Lympne
Author: smartcookies
Our first stop is the Port Lympne Zoo in Kent, England. Fascinating wildlife and eye-catching layouts make this Scrapblog great fun to look at. I did a search on the Port Lympne Zoo, and there’s so much to do there, it looks like they had a great time! Now I know where I’m going the next time I visit England…

Title: Adriatic
Author: dneilg
With it’s ancient architecture and decidedly European charm, Dneilg’s trip to Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia must have truly been the trip of a lifetime. The full color photos of little cobblestone streets and gorgeous night shots are nicely set off by her great layouts.

Title: Valentines Weekend Getaway
Author: Kim McKenzie
The little town of Eureka Spring, Arkansas is just the kind of little town you’d expect to find on a movie set. With it’s fascinating history, museums, beautiful caverns and lakes, it looks like the kind of town that would be hard to pass if one found themselves driving through. They even got to see some snow! All of that makes for one magical Valentine’s getaway!

Title: Port Aransas
Author: alisonthemonster
Take a road trip to Port Aransas, TX with Alison and her family as they travel 4 hours on nothing but open road. It looks like they had a blast at this beachy getaway! Her scrapblog almost makes me feel like I was part of the fun.

Title: Hansens trip to train station
Author: best grandma 2 u
All Aboard! Looks like The Hansen family had a blast on their trip to Union Station in Ogden, UT. They got to play on the trains and spend some quality family time together as they cataloged their trip with these great photographs. With super creative eye-popping layouts, and great sticker placement, this Scrapblog of Union Station sure makes it look like the perfect place for a family outing.

Father’s Day here in the US is this Sunday, June 21st. Even though the mailman (or Fedex guy) might not be able to deliver your gift by tomorrow, you can always make your Pop an online scrapbook and send it to him via email.

If you need some inspiration, I found these great scrapblog tributes to dear old Dad. Enjoy!

Check out this defender of his country, fishing, surfing, & down right incredibly FUN Dad.

Another daredevil Dad, who has clearly won the heart of his daughter!

Finally, go on an adventure with Father & Son as they travel to California.

Happy Father’s Day to all our Scrapblog Dads!!!

Rebecca

I hope everyone had an exciting or relaxing weekend, depending on what you were in the mood for! Today it is my pleasure to announce the winner of Challenge 17 - Vintage Family Photos. I spent a lot of time reviewing all the entries for this challenge. I found myself getting lost in the stories told about generations past. You are all wonderful documentarians! I feel inspired to create a heritage project of my own. Before I announce the winner, I want to share with you two other wonderful entries. I’m sure they will delight and inspire you as much as they did me!

First up is Abe and Anita created by rbtaylor. Like many of our entries, this scrapblog tells the story of rbtaylor’s grandparents. It stands out to me because of all the beautiful photos that include many details. I also found the story through pictures quite sentimental.

Next I want to share with you an amazing story of family. This scrapblog spoke to me in so many ways. First of all, BigRedssw is an active part of our community and I see her bopping all over leaving comments and saying “howdy” - she warms my heart! The story told in this scrapblog reminded me of how small the world really can be. Sally’s family inhabited an estate just outside of Georgetown, Kentucky. My husband and I went to college in Georgetown and we often wondered about the mysterious “Cardome.” I feel connected to her now through this scrapblog as it represents pieces of our past that somehow are woven together. I know you will enjoy this story of drama, seduction and family history!

And the winner of Challenge 17 - Vintage Family Photos is trilogymom!! Her scrapblog titled Life in Tomahawk, WI 1950s1980s is simply superb! I love the family history told through her journaling and photos. Page 28 is hauntingly awesome. I am so inspired by her pages. Truly an exceptional scrapblog. Congratulations!!

Check out all the challenges in the forum and be sure to participate in Challenge 18: Create a Fantasy/Magical scrapblog.

Cheers!
Rebecca

This week has been extremely exciting. I think that it’s the onset of summer, but everyone around me seems to be in a positive mood. This week’s Friday Five was a bit challenging. There are always so many wonderful new scrapblogs created everyday and I find myself getting lost in every story, every photo and every wonderful image that you create. Thank you, thank you for being so amazing! {HUGS}

So how did I ever decide on the five for today? I started with a theme in mind “art journal” and that led me on a journey of discovery. I really hope you enjoy these fabulous friday five choices. Have an AWESOME weekend!

I don’t know if it’s her edgy charm or her body covered in ink, but I find Kat Von D, extremely fascinating. I love how Bombshell67 displays her photos in this artistic fan scrapblog.

Title: Kat Von D
Author: Bombshell67

Bramblerose2 shows off beautiful photos of the ruins of Cambodia, a place I’ve always wanted to visit. Her pages are peaceful, calm and inviting.

Title: Cambodia 2008
Author: bramblerose2

My Journal is a small sample of some amazing photos of the everyday. Like fotologic, I am too fascinated my taking pictures of ordinary things. There is something mysterious about photographing the micro world around us.

Title: My Journal
Author: fotologic

This scrapblog sort of breaks my theme of photo journaling, but I fell in love with the colors and the pictures of this family trip to the zoo.

Title: Naples Zoo
Author: JeanneHolland

This scrapblog is so striking and beautiful. I love the layering and the complexity of working in the photography to tell a story. I believe this is going to be a gift, who wouldn’t LOVE to get a book like this? Amazing!

Title: Working On Elzbeth’s Book
Author: whitemeadow2

Another week full of fabulous creations. Enjoy your weekend!

Rebecca

Have you noticed anything new when you select “start with a theme”? If your answer is “no” you haven’t been paying attention! {giggle giggle}
Don’t feel too bad, we just launched it this week. We know that there are times when you want a jumping off point to fuel your creativity, but you’re not 100% up for starting with a blank page. We are trying something new with the themes, so let us know if you like it, it’s called “card template.” When you select the card template theme, you are getting a basic layout to build a fantastic card design using the content of your choice.

Allow me to demonstrate…

When you choose the card template theme, it looks like this:

Think of these pages as a guide to help you create something when you are low on time or creative juice.

You start by selecting the backgrounds and stickers that you want to use. Often times I find myself looking at my photos to see what colors stand out as a starting point to choosing my stickers and backgrounds. However, I wanted to make a Father’s Day card, so I thought I’d see what I could do with this SUPER CUTE content from new store Posh Patterns. Could it be anymore adorable? I started by choosing some backgrounds.

Just like using any other template, I can add more stickers, change anything I want on the page, but if I decide not to, well - my card is still going to look unique and personal. The card template theme is a guide and a tool. You use it just like you would a ruler, to help you get to a finished card faster and with more precision. As you can see, I’ve added some matching stickers to complete the look of my card. Looks pretty different from that card template page, doesn’t it?

I repeat this process with the remaining two pages, adding text and changing a few things from the template design to accommodate my needs. Below is the finished scrapblog (shhh! don’t tell my Dad!). I’m extremely happy with the results! Let us know if you find this new card template helpful and if you would like to see more of this in the future!

Until next time!
Rebecca

Being a crafter, I have a room full of crazy art supplies. Among the paper, ink, paint, & beads I remembered I had a pack of shrink film. A crazy fun project idea was born! You can print on shrink film from your home computer and printer and put it in the oven. It then shrinks to 1/3 it’s size and 9 times in thickness! The finished piece of plastic makes a great keychain.

Today, I’m going to share with you how I made this super cute personalized key chain. Before you begin this project, preheat your oven to the temperature recommended on the shrink film package.

Here’s the breakdown:

1. Create Your Scrapblog page - Add photos, your favorite stickers and text!
* keep in mind the page is going to shrink to 1/3 the original size and the colors will become more vibrant. Some stickers with fine detail may appear different in the finished keychain.

2. Save and Publish your page.

3. Export as a Jpeg - choose “Export as JPEG” from the File drop down menu in the upper left hand corner of the builder.

4. Print the Jpeg from your home computer onto the inkjet shrink film.
*Choose to print your photo as a 5×7 size, landscape. You can make it smaller, but you may sacrifice some detail.

5. Trim your printed photo removing the entire white border. I also rounded the corners using a corner rounding punch.

6. Using a standard hole punch, punch a hole for the keychain before you heat it in the oven!

7. Lay your page on a cookie sheet and cover it with a piece of parchment or wax paper.

8. Pop the cookie sheet in the oven per the instructions on the package.

9. Allow the heated piece to cool on a cooling rack until it’s cool enough to handle.

10. Add the hardware and your keys!

11. The finished product!

Enjoy making your own keychain. Let’s see the finished products! Make a scrapblog of your experience!

Cheers!
Rebecca

Before you head over to see all of Little_M’s goodies, I want to share with you some other quite useful and creative scrapblog tutorials created by other members of our community.

Norbert starts us off with a fun tutorial about getting past that creative block we can get sometimes when creating. I love his concept of “Three” - his insight helps us realize that we are only 3 pages away from adding something extra special to our scrapblogs.

Have you ever wanted to add a special character to the text in your Scrapblog? MommyVictory shares her secrets to adding accents to text in Scrapblog.

For those of you curious about an easy way to add layering to your pages, Roban has created an excellent technique showing how she created a beautiful page.

Show these scrapblogs some LOVE and share with us your tutorials!

Until next time!
Rebecca

Just a quick note that our systems will be undergoing some routine maintenance early this Sunday Morning. There may be 30 minutes where you will not be able to access the site. The maintenance will be happening from 1am-7am EST, but the site will still be available the majority of that time.

Have a great weekend!
Caleb