Last week I had the pleasure of being interviewed for the lastest edition The Daily Scrapper. Check it out!!

This weekend was the Gay Pride Parade here in Toronto. I think it’s actually the largest Gay Pride Parade in the world. We were in the area and decided to check it out. It was just a massize sea of half dressed, undressed, costumed, painted, screaming, dancing people running around. Lots of wankers and boobs flopping about. The wanker really ought to stay covered don’t you think? The only thing worse than a fully naked guy, is a fully naked guy wearing only socks and running shoes. Not a pretty picture. I will spare you the photos. These are the only ones I deemed ‘bloggable’ but if you really want to know what you missed you can ‘Flickr’ Pride Toronto 2008 and check out the pictures people have posted. I’d make sure your kids are in another room before you do so. LOL.

The streets were packed in both directions. I think there were over a million people there!

Lots of fun, bright floats went by and the people tossed beads to the crowd.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Hi! It’s Cindy here, doing my very first blog post as a Mint Chick…yay! Miss Mint put out so many new fabulous products recently, so I thought I would take the time to put a spotlight on one of my favourite new goodies that have been creeping into a lot of my layouts lately. I love this product; they add so much interest to a layout and can be used in a variety of ways! Check them out:

Also notice that they are custom vector shapes, which means they can be endlessly resized without losing quality. In Miss Mint’s words: “Whether they’re 1 inch high or 10 feet tall, you’ll always get a perfect shape with a crisp clean edge”. Just to show you some of the great uses for this product, I thought I would post some layouts that use them created by a few of the Mint Chicks.

First (& second) up are two layouts by Missy:

I love in how the first one the bold red wave draws your attention straight to the gorgeous photo and in the second one the wave works so well to portray motion in the layout, perfect for a carousel page!

Next up is a layout by Kirstie:

How cute and creative is this layout?!?!? She used the wave template to create a hill in her layout with a perfect bump for her daughter’s feet. So adorable!

These waves are also so perfect for water/pool/beach layouts. This next layout is by Ingrid and I love how the wave, combined with the , is so perfect for the theme of this page:

Messed Up Mats 1

Megan also used the waves in a water layout and it turned out just beautifully! I love how she layered them in here.

And finally here is a layout from me:

I actually put this wave into my page as an afterthought, but I love how it gives a certain softness to the layout and pulls it all together.

Another cool thing about these Custom Shapes is that once you have them loaded into your Custom Shape Tools and have chosen one of the shapes you want to use, you can play around with it. Photoshop has several functions you can use such as Distort and Skew. I played with the “Skew” Function, and look at the shape variations you can achieve:

To do this, you choose the wave of interest from your Custom Shapes Palette (once you have installed them into your program) and draw it onto your layout. Once you have done this, you can edit the shape by choosing Edit->Transform Path->Skew. You will then see tiny boxes or “handles” show up around your shape (shown in the next photo) which you can click and drag to start modifying your shapes.

You must be sure to do the shape transformations before you “Rasterize” the shape (if you chose to do so) or else you may not get the crisp, clean edges. You can then use your new modified shape as a clipping mask to “cut” your papers. So fun!

Make sure you go check these Custom Waves out in the shop, or you can pick up the whole Custom Shapes Bundle, it’s a great deal!

Hope you all have a great day!

“K” Monogram Card with Notebook Edge
By: Mary Jo Johnston

Notebook paper edges are a hot trend right now and I love the look of them. Unfortunately, not all of my favorite papers come with that option. And, I don’t have one of those fancy notebook paper edge punches. So, here’s a great way to achieve the look and it’s a super easy technique!

Supplies Used:
Alphabook, Backpack, Blueprint and Uniform Stripe Papers
from the Peppermint Creative Elementary Grammar Paper Pack
Bazzill Cardstock
Creative Imaginations Rub Ons
Making Memories Staples
Raffle Ticket
Fiskars Foam Squares

Tools:
Hole Punch and Hammer
Circle Punch
Scissors

Instructions:
1. Cut cardstock to 10” x 7”, fold in half. Finished card will be 5”wide x 7”tall.
2. Cut Backpack Paper to 3.5” wide x 7” tall.
3. Adhere to right side of card.

4. Cut Uniform Stripe Paper to approximately 2” wide x 5” tall.

5. On the back side of your Uniform Stripe Paper, draw a straight line near the edge. Add a series of equally spaced marks that will guide your hole punches. Punch a small hole at each mark.

6. Use your scissors to cut a small slit at the bottom of each hole.

7. Next, ruffle the edges of your paper to resemble the look of your notebook paper being torn. I even pulled off a few of the tabs for added character.

8. Cut Blueprint Paper to approximately 1.5” wide x 6” tall.

9. Adhere the Blueprint Paper to the left side of your card, slightly overlapping the Backpack Paper. Adhere the Uniform Stripe Paper, with your new notebook edge, over the Blueprint Paper.

10. From the Alphabook Paper, circle punch the letter “K”.

11. Adhere rub ons, ticket, staples or embellishments of your choice. Adhere the “K” monogram with foam squares for added dimension.

Happy Crafting!

           ::click image above to view all 50 products and start shopping!::

Happy Father’s Day!  I don’t think there are too many men reading this blog – but if any should happen to pass by while you’re reading it…Happy Father’s Day to them. I’ve just updated my blog software and was working out the kinks – one of which was the inability to upload images – otherwise I would have posted this earlier. I hope you all used your crafty skills to come up with some fabulous Father’s Day cards and gifts. I know those PC coupon books would make a FABULOUS last minute gift for anyone who is stuck. Mr. Mint loved the one he got for Valentine’s Day.

Thanks to those who shared their designs. There are some super cute cards to check out in the hybrid gallery. Speaking of super cute…check out this awesome CD album that Megan made:

HERE’S HOW SHE DID IT:
Megan measured the CDs and set her canvas size to 12×12 cm and made a circle the same dimensions. She then used this circle as a template to clip the papers to. She had her designs printed at Costco on matte paper (fit 7 pages on a 12×18 and then the other 3 on another 12×18 and printed some other hybrids on the white space of that page). She cut out each page, attached them to the CD’s with metal glue (a little goes a long way!) and trimmed the overhang with some fine tip crafting scissors. Once her pages were assembled, she punch a hole in each CD using a Crop-A-Dile and then put the ring through the holes and tied on some ribbons for a more polished look.
 
This is a great project for anyone. I’ve been meaning to make one (along with 100 other things) forever but I’ve been away from the computer for most of this month (and yes, I’m in complete withdrawl and it is very painful) helping my honey with his new business. Oh the joys of being the only one who knows how to use Photoshop. LOL.

Actually it’s been really great to actually work together for a change but I miss my computer and am itching to get back and design up some more goodies for you. It’s nice to take a break once in a while I think. It helps keep it fresh and I’m sure Mr.M is happy not to hear about scrapbooking for a little bit. Poor thing, he can name most of the designers and most of my team..even some of my customers. He even understands what a kit, embellishments, layout, template etc. are. It’s kind of funny listening to him explain to other people exactly what I do…it seems that the whole concept is a little hard for non-computer people (gasp, do such people really exist?!@#) to understand.

Ok, I don’t know where I was going with that, so I’m going to call it a day.
Have a great one!!

Hey there, scrappers! Megan here with some info on FONTS – where to get ‘em, how to install them, and which ones you should never delete.

My favorite fonts to use are handwritten fonts, especially for journaling. I use one of these fonts on almost every page I make. I find my handwritten fonts at Kevin & Amanda: Fonts for Peas. Another great page at Kevin and Amanda is Free Scrapbook Fonts where you’ll find loads of great fonts for journaling and titles. Other great sites to pick up some free fonts are Da Font, Scrappinfun Fonts, and Font Garden.

Now that you have your fonts, how do you install them? For Windows XP, you need to locate your Windows Font folder and place the fonts in there. If you’re like me and cursed with Windows Vista, fonts are installed differently. Luckily, once you know how to install fonts with Vista, it’s actually pretty easy. I have a folder labeled “Fonts” under My Documents that stores my downloaded fonts. To install, simply right click on the font and select “Install.” If you have a Mac, well I have no idea how you install them, but I found this page that will help you out!

Check out these sites for information on how to delete fonts, and which fonts you should never delete:
Font Overload in Windows and How Many Mac Fonts are Too Many?

Enjoy your fonts and as always, happy scrapping!