JBS Mercantile February Reveal!

The Design Team Gallery is live and the January Kits are up for sale!  Love is in the air at JBS Mercantile!

 

You'll also want to cruise on by the Flea Market.  There's a Downton Abbey theme this month and several way cool vintage storage pieces!

One Little Word: Balance

The new year is always a chance to begin anew - setting goals and resolutions, planning for new ventures, and plotting just how to get it all accomplished. This year I decided to make one word my mantra:  BALANCE.  I documented this on my blog in early January and decided that it also deserved a scrapbook page as well.  The February JBS Mercantile Kits were the perfect inspiration for getting my One Little Word down on paper.  Here's the layout that resulted!

Using the contents of the Papercrafting Kit (which goes on sale tomorrow at midnight!) I created this layout that features the text from my blog post along with a photo of the bracelet I bought, which is stamped with letters spelling out balance.

I used the kit stencil to trace the small heart pattern with colored pencils. The three circles of stitching help give the design balance and reinforce my theme.

 

Do you have a word/mantra/theme for 2014? Document it with a special scrapbook page that will help remind you of your goal throughout the year.

Happy Scrapping!

JBS Digital Shoppe Creative Team Call!

Our JBS Digital Shoppe at JessicaSprague.com is having a Creative Team Call!

We are looking for both digital and hybrid scrappers who'd like to work with our digital products.

The information to apply is below, but if you have any questions, don't hesitate to email us at JBSDigitalCall@gmail.com .

We look forward to your applications!

We'd want to thank our 2013 Creative Team for all their inspiring projects!

Amy Kingsford

Anja DeDobbelaere

Audrey Tan

Brynn Marie Dukes

Celeste Smith

Chiara Castelluccia

Chrissy Guido

Nirupama Kumar

Roelien van den Berg

Susie Cannon Moore

Van Nguyen

New Furbaby: January kit layout

Hi everyone! It's Amanda here and today I am sharing this layout I created with the January Papercrafting and Mini Album kits. As we're focusing on new beginnings this month, I thought it was a great opportunity to scrap the newest addition to our family: Jackson the Pomchi!

He was only 9 weeks old when I snapped these photos. The kits had some elements which worked really well for this page. The tilted lines on the background and the blurred bokeh effect on the vellum highlight his favourite activity - running around in corcles like a lunatic at breakneck speed ;) The little "hello friend" phrase within the paper pattern is a nod to the fact that we just brought him home.

As a lot of the page elements did the talking for me, I kept the rest of the page design fairly simple, adding just a few small embellishments to draw attention to the focal point of my page: the photos.

What new beginnings can you think of to document this month? We'd love you to share your ideas!

Have a great week!

Doris Sander's Creative Space

We thought it would be fun to share our creative spaces with you all this year, so you can look forward to a design team member sharing a peek into her studio each month.  Doris Sander is kicking off the series for this month . . .

This is my work in progress studio.  We moved to our little house in the country a year ago October, and for the very first time I was able to have my own craft room.  I want to paint the walls white and replace the carpet with wood floors and brightly colored rugs, but the furniture arrangement i love.  I have two big worktables running galley style down the room and the arrangement is so productive.  I mostly work on the left side, but often keep project life open on the right and my son likes to do his homework and crafting down at the end there.  It's also perfect for hosting my own mini crops.  We comfortably seat four and with a card table, we can squeeze in a couple more. 

The other thing I love about these tables is that their workhorses.  The one on the left is a vintage library table (the shelf that runs along top came with it) and the one on the right is our old dining room table.  Both have a few ink/paint stains, and I'm totally okay with that (now the little hole my son carved in one with my exacto knife is a different story).

The first shelf you see here is actually my son's old changing table.  How's that for re purposing?  It's kind of sweet thinking about his fresh diapers and little onesies nestled in those baskets.  The wire basket on the top shelf was a shopping basket from my old LSS.  I guess I enjoy having functional memories surrounding me as much as I do having memories recorded in my scrapbooking albums.

When I first started scrapbooking, I had an uncontrollable obsession with ribbon and trim.  I haven't used it much lately, but I think it adds a fun colorful vibe to my crafting area.  Half the jars are old pickle jars my mom found for me and the others I nabbed in the housewares section at Target.  The other great Target find is those trays on the top shelf.  I use them to contain works in progress (for example, the first one currently holds new stuff, the second is Christmas, the third is my current kit, and the fourth is a merger of the October and August kits that I'd still like to get a little mileage out of). 

This corner was a hot mess, but I cleaned it up for the photo and I'm very glad that I did.  It was the catchall corner, but now it feels more functional and will hopefully never again become quite the mess that it was.  There are lots of tools and basic supplies back here as well as paperwork type items.    The main improvement that I made in the clean up was to put a narrow vintage wooden tool drawer along the wall (you can barely see the front peeking out in front of my computer) to hold notebooks, memorabilia, and such.

This shelf holds embellishments and such in a variety of containers.  I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted my scrap space to look like when I first started collecting storage containers, but I guess I had a subconscious sense of style.  I tend to gravitate towards glass, stainless steel, baskets, and natural wood.  I think I like the neutrals (and mostly open storage) because it provides a nice backdrop for my colorful scrapping supplies.

I'd also like to point out even more sweet vintage memories like the button jars from my grandma on the top shelf, the hatbox (holding the re purposed Prima jars) that was an Easter basket for me once in my teen years, and the old rickety child's table and chair (holds my cameo) that Santa brought when I was six or seven.

And more vertical storage holding smaller embellishments, ink pads, and colorful, fun, technique stuffs.

I hope you've enjoyed my tour!  It has sure been fun conducting it.  This is just a brief overview (although I feel like I've written a novel!).  If you notice something specific that you'd like to hear more about, please leave me a comment.  I'll be checking those over the next week or so and would be more than happy to answer any questions that you might have.  Thanks for dropping by!  :)

A Banner for January!

I love banners and garlands - how lucky I am that banners are still popular in the scrapbooking world!

I've made quite a few banners for my house over the years. Here are just a few:

a Christmas garland

a lucky banner

a quilt star garland

a little mini banner

Banners and garlands are just HAPPY, aren't they?  So this year I've resolved to make one banner or garland every month.  Something to keep the "happy in the house" all year 'round.  And to start this off in January I used bits and pieces from the January Mercantile Kits to create this happy banner celebrating the new year.

It hangs on an old painted mirror in our dining room.

The die cut numbers are sooo pretty (from the Artisan Kit).  I used the gold pen in the Artisan to embellish the wooden buttons and die cuts.  And aren't those felt flowers great?

Here's hoping 2014 is a wonderfully creative one for you!

There are still some kits left in our January collection.  Head over using this link to see them!

So Many New Beginnings

January is a time to focus on new beginnings. It's kind of obvious since it's the start of a new year. However, there are fresh starts and new adventures all year long. After viewing the soft palette of January's kits, I wanted to focus on something that was just as gentle and beautiful.

In 2004, my family rescued several orphaned kittens. They were quite tiny with their eyes just barely open. We ended up keeping two of them. In those early months, we met with many new beginnings. This particular layout focuses on a newly forged friendship between our older dog and our cats. I entitled it Love Etc. because love encompasses so many things including friendship, acceptance and comfort. 

Each stage in life is a new start. Birth, learning to walk and play, maturing... all of these are a beginning we can mark and document. Our new kittens sort of regarded my son as a litter mate. I wanted to capture this stage of life marked by the endless cycle of playing, eating and sleeping. I added white sequins and punched circles to the swirling background. These help convey this cycle and the energy young children possess.

How do you begin your day? Each morning is, after all, another new beginning. Though it may seem a bit boring, it does tell the story of your life right now. For this layout, I took a few photos of my son and his cat sleeping. I used a block foundation and  added a bit of the bleached woodgrain tape to symbolize the stability of our current morning routine.

What are your new beginnings? Are you documenting an everyday beginning or perhaps a big event?

~ Christy