Vintage Clip Art by Connie Mercer

Hi everyone, Connie here with a project using some JBS products and ephemera from the Mercantile.

 

I love the "old timey" graphics and I love using them in projects!!  I feel like I'm saving them for everyone to enjoy!!!

 

 

This clip is made with burlap and the cluster is JBS products and very "cool" ephemera.  It looks great as book mark on the old ledger books, a tote or this~

 

 

 

a vintage coffee bag aka gift bag.  What a great gift for the coffee enthusiast. 

 

 

 

I used hot glue to attach the cluster to the center of the burlap.  The clip is a cloths pin hot glued to the back of the burlap.  This also looks great on aprons.  Just change out the cloths pin for a large metal clasp pin.

 

Thanks for stopping by~

 

 

Interested in seeing more of Connie's vintage inspired art?  Check out her blog, Crafty Goodies.

 

 

Love is in the Air

Hello Hello :)

Sooo Love is in the air with the fabulous January Jenni Bowlin Studio Kits! Have you got yours yet???

I would like to share with you some layouts that I created using an assortement of the January Kits.

I created the background for my photo using the fabulous exclusive heart stencil and gold embossing. I also added some extra splats of gold to make the embossing look a little more funky :).

So so love the exclusive wood embellishments that you get with the JBS kits :)

The January 'loved up' kits are perfect for creating layouts about the other people in your life that you love outside of your family!!! :) :) :)

Well that is it for me at the moment. I do hope you are enjoying all of the fabulous inspiration on the blog and in the gallery from the awesome team and our fabulous GDTeamer Chantal!

Cheers and Happy Scrapping

Louise :) xxx

Quick Update on Our Digi Creative Team Call

Just wanted to let our Digi Creative Team applicants know that we are still in the process of contacting our new CT members!  We are running late, but should have all our ducks in a row soon, and will contact our applicants next week!

{ducks in a row soon}

Thank you! - betsy

Welcome February Guest Chantal Vandenberg

This month we are excited to welcome the lovely and talented Chantal Vandenberg to the JBS Mercantile Gallery.   Chantal is an Australian designer and one of this year's Scrapbooking Memories Masters.  You can find more of her work on her blog, "Girls Just Wanna Scrapbook," and in her shop.

I have used the awesome February 2014 Papercrafting Kit  here for my layout, "Say What??!."

 

I was so inspired by the wonderfully playful speech bubble paper and the coordinating Maya Road paper clips.  These elements gave me the perfect opportunity to scrapbook some wonderful memories about my youngest daughter, Heidi, who says the cutest and funniest things!  It's so important to jot down these little moments as they are so easy to forget over time.  I really enjoyed creating this layout, as I had some fab photos and journalling all ready to go and this kit just made the whole layout come together so sweetly!  I absolutely adore the colours and the lovely timeless embellishments included!  I used the Mercantile Exclusive Stencil with some different coloured mists - to pepper a sweet rainbow of hearts over the patterned background for extra depth and for a cute and colourful detail.

 

I absolutely love JBS Mercantile kits and I can't wait to create some more projects very soon!! 

I recently was announced as a Scrapbooking Memories Master, and not only that, my layout was on the cover too!  The layout is one of my very favourites ever and I have it sitting on my shelving unit where I keep all my magazines, albums and scrapbooking supplies.  I can't put it away yet!! :)

This photo was taken of myself and my youngest daughter Heidi only weeks ago at the beach.  I'm so glad I asked my husband to capture this moment, as I am usually behind the camera!  I try to remember to hand over the camera and this shot is my latest fave!

Betsy's Creative Space

Hello! It's Betsy.  This month I'm showing you my creative space.   My space is at the far end of our sunny family room.   This is the first room people see when they come in through our most used back door.  Because of that, I will close up my furniture pieces when people are coming over and it neatens up quickly that way.

One of my larger pieces is the armoire in the center of the space.  I originally found this piece at an auction when I was pregnant with my first, and used it as a closet for the boys' clothes for years.  As my boys grew, their big body clothes outgrew it and this became my craft armoire.  Dh added shelves and it works so nicely to hold supplies and sets of drawers.

This is the top shelf of the armoire where I store some of my embellishments in glass jars.  I think it looks like a candy store!

These buttons are my grandmother's and are saved for the most special projects.

I use a lot of vintage items to store my stuff!

I have new and old jars holding new fabric embellishments, buttons, glitter, and chandelier crystals.

This is an old apothecary cubbie from our pharmacy.  I found wire containers that fit perfectly into the spaces and I store different embellishments in each.

On the top of an old cabinet in the corner are various glass jars that hold threads, string, and ribbon.

I use a couple of vintage drawers to hold paints, mists, and stencils.

I bought this receipt holder from the Mercantile Flea Market and it holds my most commonly used thread.

Another Mercantile Flea Market find are flower frogs that I use to hold stamps and embellishments as I work on a kit, so they're not lost in the shuffle.

As I work on a kit, I like to keep small embellishments together in this pedestal dish I found at a flea market in Rhode Island.

I love this storage piece and wish I could find more.  The top slides on and off and there are 49 little compartments to store things in.

This tiered piece looks vintage but was really purchased at Michaels! I couldn't resist.

What I love about my space:

It gets a lot of natural light.

My garden is right outside this room.  I can see it when I'm at my desk.

Since it is part of the family room, I've never felt isolated from the rest of the family when crafting.

The wooden furniture can hide the craft stuff pretty well if I need it to.

A lot of the furniture and storage pieces have special meaning to my husband and I.

What I'd like to change about my space:

More lighting for working at night would help!

The Iris Cart next to my work desk holds the items I use the most, but I'd like to find an affordable furniture piece that would do the same job.

The set up can be a little cramped in that corner.  I need to work on opening it up a bit.

Thank you for visiting my space!

Stay tuned as we'll visit another creative space in March!

My Love List

'Tis the season for layouts that celebrate love and that document how we feel about the special people in our lives. This month's gallery at JBS Mercantile has been full of those, and they are so very inspiring.

However, while the lovey-dovey vibe of February still hangs heavy in the air, have you considered scrapbooking what you love as well?  Why not grab a few minutes to put together an indirect self-portrait page that reveals who you are at the moment by sharing what has been bringing you joy lately? Share what's on your love list. 

That's just what I did: 

I created this layout in under 30 minutes using papers, accents, and stamps from this month JBS Mercantile kits. This one is a real "victory page" for me, because it pushed me past my impulse to hoard the little beauties found in this month's kits, like those blue and gold foil hearts and the aqua Swiss-dot cardstock. 

My love list includes a bunch of things that I have been crushing on, binge-watching, or indulging in lately.  Some items on it may seem trivial or minor in importance, but I love them anyway, and so they deserve a place on this page. Even small wonders matter. 

So what's on your love list?  Follow your heart and scrap it!

My One and Only

Happy belated Valentine's Day! Here at JBS we're celebrating love this month. People you love, objects you love, activities you love. If it's about love... we want to encourage you to scrap it and share it! Here's the page I created:

If you're a subscriber to the JBS Mercantile kits then you might recognise what I've used here. It's the Papercrafting Kit and Artisan Kit from August last year. They're simply perfect for your Valentine's scrapping with hearts a recurring theme in the papers and embellishments.

I limited myself to quite a monochrome colour palette - white, cream and yellow. But there was plenty to choose from, and with so much texture involved too I don't think it becomes boring ;-) Don't forget if you're attempting monochrome that you can also include the neutral colours like black and white which helps break it up a little and adds some great contrast. A black and white photo is usually the way to go too.

My favourite bit out of the kits were the Fancy Pants stencils from the Artisan add on. There's plenty of potential with these - pop out the letters and use them like you normally would, or use the stencil part to outline with pen, spray mist through, paint, ink.... limitless options. You will have noticed I ultimately chose to use then stencil itself as the title and popped it up on foam dots so you can see the gold vellum layered underneath.

Now do you want to know the extra good news for you?! Both the August Papercrafting Kit and Artisan Kit are still available. And.... they're both on SALE right now for 50% off! Check them out in the 'Past Kits' section of the shop. They would make a great late Valentine's Day present to yourself ;-)

Happy Scrapping,
xx

New Digi Kit : Let's Celebrate!

There's a new JBS digital kit available this weekend at our JBS Digital Shoppe.

With Mini Deck Great Words you can create digital pages, cards, mini albums and more.  The sentiments and words on the images can be used for just about anything!

I used the "Celebrate" card to create a hybrid photo display of dear niece presenting flowers to her sister:

I printed the Celebrate card on heavy duty cardstock and pulled a page from an old dictionary that had the word "celebrate" on it.  I spritzed it a bit and sewed it onto the card.  The rest of the embellishments are from my Jenni Bowlin Studio stash and bits from the February Papercrafting kit.   I bent a drawer pull a bit so it would help keep the card upright and hold a title.

Photo displays are so much fun to create and this digital kit has the greatest backgrounds for them.

If you'd like to see what you can do with this kit, grab it today while it's on sale!

You can also find our JBS Sequins here!

Valentine Cards

I have a theory about Valentine's Day and sometimes I think I may be a little "grinchy".  But my thought about Valentine's Day is that it is silly.  I mean, if you only tell those you love that you love them on one day each year, something is really, really wrong!  This is probably one of the reasons my hubby fell for me (just kidding) because I have never wanted him to buy me a gift for Valentine's Day.

But we have kiddos now and although we tell them every day how much we love them, they WANT Valentine cards, and candy and gifts.  I guess it is the kid in them.  I guess I don't blame them.  Candy is pretty awesome.

But being a scrapbooker, I cannot just buy them cards, well, I can and often do because I am not a cardmaker, but not this year!!  Nope, this year I am stuck inside my house because of ice and snow, so I made them Valentine cards.  Thankfully the Jenni Bowlin February kit was on my desk and worked PERFECTLY for this task!

One for each.  I love the colors.  I hope they like them.  Now to try to get to the store for some candy.  Walking may be the safest way!

Happy Valentine's day!

~ Corrie

Letterbox Love

I went on a *cold*, but *fun* Letterbox adventure with my nieces one day as part of their Girl Scouts learning.  We learned how letterboxing started, made our own custom stamps and hunted for the boxes in the woods.  If you'd like more information about Letterboxing, you can read it here:  Letterboxing.Org

I made this layout to hold our photos, journaling, and examples of our custom stamps.  The leaders had us make our custom stamps from foam shapes adhered to wooden blocks.  Genius idea, isn't it?!  The entire layout was made using the February Mercantile Papercrafting Kit.  The only other items I added were one Vintage Valentine ticket and a couple of plain letter envelopes.

Once again I used Lisa Dickinson's exclusive patterned paper to help dictate my design!  I die cut stamped shaped hearts using Samantha Walker's digital kit Stamped Edge Shapes Mask Collection and used Lisa's heart images on the paper for placement.  The Elle's Studio patterned paper with the little envelopes is perfect for a layout like this or a "love notes" layout.  It's just so sweet.

I ran the plain everyday envelopes through a Sizzix machine with an embossing folder to fancy it up a bit.   I added some patterned paper to the top envelope's flap.  

The enamel hearts in the kit fit nicely into the paperclips and the chipboard letters are a nice neutral grey stripe - great for titles that don't overwhelm the layout.

This is a gorgeous kit ... greys, pinks, and splashes of color and is PACKED with goodies!

See the Papercrafting Kit here!

Something Old, Something New

My husband ranks at the top of my list of loves, so this month, I thought I would revisit my wedding album. We were married in 1997. I started scrapbooking our wedding photos. Started. I never finished. Every so often, I jump back into the project and work on a few of the photos.

What was it that inspired me to jump back into my wedding album layouts this month? The vintage valentine in the Antiquarian Kit.  Each kit comes with a slightly different Valentine. The one I received depicts a brunette girl kissing a blond boy. It just so happens that I am a brunette and my husband is blonde. I remember that I had yet to document our first kiss as a married couple.

I combined some of my left over supplies from the October Papercarfting kit with this month's kit selections. Combining kits from different months is easy to do. Look for common colors or motifs that will work well together. The February kits contain bits of blue which allowed me to work in some of the blue papers from the October Kit. Gold was also common in both kits. 

My biggest challenge wasn't merging the two kits together. My scrapbooking style has changed so much since I began the project many years ago. I opted to keep this layout very simple so that it wouldn't look so odd when compared to other layouts in my wedding album. I could go back and redo some of those older layouts. However, I would rather just keep working onward and concentrate on getting more photos onto pages.

Have you merged any of the JBS Mercantile kits together? We'd love to see! Share them with us over in the gallery.

Christy