Let the games, challenges and classes begin!

Let the games, challenges and classes begin! Over at SNR our Spring into Summer Event is underway. Come on over and join us. My class will begin at 5 pm EST Come join me for this all day event. I will be hanging out over at Scrapbook News and Review.

New cover to SNR Mag and Spread the word Contest continues through tonight

I am always excited when I get to do something creative and though this is not about one of my scrapbook pages, I must share the excitement. This is Scrapbook News and Review's new magazine cover... and guess who designed it... go ahead guess. ME! Sorry, I just love showing off my work. This was created in word but thanks to a dear friend I know have to learn Photoshop Elements 7 and I will be able to make this even better next month. Do you like it?
The Art work is by: Delaina Burns and the Sketch by: Debbie Gaydos. Thank you both for great pieces of your creativity to inspire mine.

Now on to a little something I am going to be giving away. If you were fallowing much this weekend then you know I was part of an enormous blog hop. Anne House organized the Oh Say can you see blog hop sponsored by Scrapbook News and Review Card Universe. There were over 90 blogs participating and it was a HUGE success!

My blog freebie is still up for grabs tough through tonight if you leave me a comment on the post below, by tonight at 10 pm CST, that you have taken this graphic and spread the word to your friends about a very exciting event hosted by Scrapbook News and Review. It is part of the SNR Summer Event Series. SNR's Spring into Summer Event is this Saturday July 11th. Come join us, there will be eight classes taught by our staff members and I am one of them. So help me spread the word. You will get a chance to win one month free subscription to Scrapbook News and Review.

Thanks for taking the time once again to read about my creative journey... pst... do you think I should go Digi??? Come on you know I am itching to try digital scrapbooking... hehe. Na! I love my traditional style. Though I cant promise I won't dabble in it. Have a great Monday!

"Oh Say Can You See" 4th of July Blog Hop

Heeeelllllllloooooo everyone! Happy 4th of July! I am Grace Lauer, Scrapbook News and Review's Marketing Director, which means I am a SNR STAFFER and I have part of the secret code further down within this post. I want to welcome you to yet another blog on the Scrapbook News and Review Card Universe's "Oh Say Can You See" 4th of July Blog Hop. It's a big one isn't it? The more to inspire you with!

Want to know when where it begins... click here. If you came from Helen Dooley's blog: http://tomorrowstreasure.blogspot.com/ you are on the right track! This is one large blog hop and I hope you are enjoying yourself. Lots of wonderful projects to make and learn from. What a wonderful way to get inspired on our countries birthday. I have a freebie for you and the piece of the code for the contest to win the 1 year subscription for Scrapbook News and Review!

I have a 4th of July fireworks card for you. This was a crazy card I created that was a little outside my box. Yet this was so fun to create and I had a blast mimicking a firework explosion. Here is a little explanation and instruction for you if you would like to create this card.

4th of July card Instructions:

1. 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" piece of white cardstock, fold in half with bone folder
2. 3 3/4" x 5" piece of red cardstock
3. Draw along the edge of red cardstock with gold ink pen
4. Stamp 13 - 15 small 4th of July images with red pigment ink on extra white cardstock
5. Heat emboss with red glitter embossing powder
6. Color in with blue, red and gold markers
7. Cut around images leaving 1/16" of white around embossed image
8. Adhere all cut out images onto blue cardstock
9. Cut around all images leaving 1/16" of blue around the white
10. Cut 7-9 1" strips of white fibers
11. Adhere red cardstock in the center of the folded card base
12. Choose the main embossed image and adhere it to the center front of the red cardstock with two layers of pop dots
13. Choose five embossed images and adhere them around the center image with one pop dot
14. Adhere remaining embossed images with mono adhesive around the embossed images from the previous step
15. Roll the 1" strip of fibers into a ball, try to keep the fibers out of the adhesive, and adhere under the popped up layers of embossed images.
16. Spread extending fibers into place before adhesive drys.

I hope you enjoy creating a card similar to this. I can this design in several ways. How about creating a Birthday card or New Years card? I hope you have been inspired a bit not only here at my attic but during your journey through the largest blog hop SNR has ever had almost 100 blogs! Big kudos to Anne House for putting this all together with the support from the Scrapbook News and Review staff. Don't forget all the wonderful bloggers who have signed up and participated for this holiday event.

We are having a summer full of paper crafting goodness and just for this event I am going to give you a sneak peek of the class I will be teaching one week from today for Scrapbook News and Review's Spring into Summer Event. My class is

Now, I promised you some freebies! As you read before I am SNR's Marketing Director so I will ask nothing more of you then to spread the word of our up coming event. If you leave a comment here on my blog telling me that you have posted on your blog or Facebook or twitter... about Scrapbook News and Review's up coming Spring into Summer Event and leave me a link to where you posted it, you will be entered into a drawing for a ONE MONTH FREE subscription to Scrapbook News and Review! You will need to post this by 10PM CST on Monday July 6th. How easy is that? Just spread the word about this amazing event! There is a graphic below for you to share!
Next, for you I have your code... yes here it is... are you ready? ................ "NOT WHAT" got it? Do you know what it is yet? Continue to play our code game by hopping through our Scrapbook News and Review Card Universe's “Oh Say Can You See 4th of July Blog Hop”. Your next blog is...

Lorie Ames' blog: http://www.live-love-laugh-create.blogspot.com/

Go check her out!

I would like to say thank you to all the heroes around the world. Here is a little something honoring my personal Hero and please take a moment to honor those who have been lost and who have fallen.

Thanks for viewing my blog I hope you have a wonderful Fourth of July!!!

Welcome Home Layout and a Reschedueled Class Event

This is one picture that I have been dieing to scrap. This is the moment that my Hubby came home to us from his last deployment. A memory to treasure for sure! The list behind the picture is of all the things we did to make sure his homecoming was one to remember. I will never forget this moment and the feelings we had that day upon his return. I hope that my children look back on this and remember something... from this day. After all they were pretty young.

This layout was created from an I Am a Scrapaholic's kit. I created this for a kit club review article that was in Scrapbook News and Review's May issue. I love this section of our magazine and how many wonderful ideas come from the same products. It is really a site to see.

Moving onto other great news. The Scrapbook News and Review's Spring into Summer Event is rescheduled for July 11th. We has some server issues over at Scrapbook News and Reviewlast weekend and had to postpone it. We believe all things come with hidden blessings though, and we hope that the delay will allow us to spread the news even further about this fantastic event. Remember I am teaching an layout class focusing on inking and Clearsnap products... have you ever "smooched" you embellishments? Come check it out! July 11th. Here is that information again. (pst... I got to design this graphic... hehe)
Class schedule is to be announced but there are some great new things posted up on the Scrapbook News and Review site... including a sneak peek for the Cosmo Cricket class... *cough* that I wrote *cough*. Go check it out!

Server Problems for SNR postpone June Issue and Spring into Summer Event.

"Site Unavailable Until Monday Morning

As you can see by the present state of our site, we’re no longer online. Our site is completely inaccessible and will not be available until Monday morning, at the very earliest and the June issue as well as the Spring into Summer Event are now being rescheduled due to this unfortunate turn of events.

In our desire to be proactive and ensure nothing went wrong on the event date, it all spiraled out of control. Ever since our site was hacked a few months ago, it has experienced minor problems here and there. Since anytime we experience traffic of more than 40,000 unique daily visitors to the site, we experience “blips” or “surges” which essentially kicks off people who are 40,000 + 1 in line, and knowing our last event garnered roughly 46,000 visitors we decided it was best to switch to a larger server. Our hosting service advised it would take no longer than 8 hours to transfer all content and then another 4 for the DNS switch. I laugh at that because it was about as far from the truth as you can get. 16 hours later the transfer was still hobbling along. With unforeseen problems leftover from the hacker, the over 12,000 images and 1,300 articles we had to transfer moved at a ridiculously low speed and then eventually just stopped.

At this point, our site is completely shut down and displays a not-so-attractive “down for scheduled maintenance” sign that was certainly not scheduled. To say we’re disappointed would be putting it mildly. With countless man hours and above and beyond efforts made by staff members, the hardest part was telling them we were unable to hold the event as scheduled, but, as we’ve always believed, there’s always a silver lining in every cloud.To that end, we have some major announcements and incredible stuff headed your way.

Over the next two weeks you'll discover and fall in love with all of the amazing changes we're putting into effect and now that we'll soon be on a server with almost unlimited capabilities, we'll now be able to ensure you never have a problem getting to all the scrappy goodness on our site.

We're deeply sorry for any confusion or trouble this may have caused and please know we do not take any of this lightly. As a whole, SNR magazine stands together as a family and we stand by our word and our commitment to the scrapbooking community and this weighs heavily on our hearts, but there's always a silver lining in every cloud and we refuse to see this as anything but a positive. All good things come to those who wait and for your patience, we assure you, it will be worth the wait.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to e-mail us. Fortunately, our e-mail accounts are on a different server so we still have access to you. Thank you for your patience and understanding and have an amazing weekend." ~ SNR

I will keep you all informed and updated. The event is to be rescheduled as far as I know.