Scrapbooking Ideas From The Memory Zone Scrapbook Store

“In Stitchz” by Bazzill

Have you noticed at The Memory Zone the company Bazzill has come out
with a cute line of sewing stuff called “In Stitchz”.

The line
includes a bunch of templates consisting of borders, flourishes,
flowers, words, animal shapes, and etc. Each set of templates come
with a ring to put them on so you don’t loose them. Also, Bazzill
makes their own paper piercer, push pad, idea book, and a handy
storage bag to put all your lute in to! Bazzill also makes a paper
line with a border already punched out…all you have to do is sew
away!
Molly

Scraproom Remodeling Video reveal…

Rhonda’s new room reveal…

And if that wasn’t enough she even organized her basement for us!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And here is the video reveal:

Thanks for looking…can’t wait to see if this inspires anyone to do the same.  Please post up some pictures for us to see your rooms too. New or Old,Big or Little… We would love to see all your rooms. So you can inspire someone too. Lots of luck in your remodel projects.

Scraproom Remodeling~ Part 2!

So when we last left off we discussed the “Keep, Purge, Sell” theory. And since most of our tools, extra supplies and garage sale needs are ready to go, we can start relocating furniture in the room so we can lay on a fresh coat of paint. This also gives us a chance to design a new floor plan for where we would like the furniture to go when it’s all said and done.

We had to think about lighting too. Rhonda’s room had the typical ceiling lighting. But as we scrapbookers and papercrafters realized a long time ago lighting is a key tool in everything you create. We went with some inexpensive track lighting and had our handy dandy helper come in and give us a testosterone hand.

With our fresh coat of paint on the walls and our new floor plan in place, we started on the task of creating our next list. The “Where in the world will everything go” list! Rhonda had a system that already seemed to fit her needs, we just need to tweak it a bit. Clear storage is very helpful when it comes to your scrap supplies. And there was enough for us to begin organizing to almost fit everything. We started with her Cropper Hopper vertical storage system. It works wonders if you have storage cubes or bookshelves to work with. Cropper Hopper designed the system to make it compact and clearly visible. If you work with 6×6, 8 1/2 x 11, or 12×12 you’ll love this.

We also took a step forward and added the Clip It Up to “The List.” Like most crafters, Rhonda had enough stickers, rub ons & embellishments to fill up a bottom and top tier. Rhonda’s journey through “the Organized & Inspired Scrapbooker” book helped her discover she likes her products organized by company. You may find you like it organized by theme, but either way the Clip It Up was a GENIUS idea.

You’ll see we took her ribbon and color coordinated it in pre-existing jars and added a few large Making Memories jars to the bunch. We found ribbon was one thing we all agreed need to be seen and not hidden.

We took some of her existing storage and refurbished it, like with the fancy ribbon storage box. Rhonda loves to make cards on the go, so we ran with that idea and made an easily accessible card center for her. She can put it away on the shelf when she doesn’t need it.

Next time we’ll talk about Rhonda’s tools and her favorite item Making Memories ever made!
Cheers!
charity

Scraproom Remodeling ~ Part 1

We were posed a challenge among the Design Team Members at The Memory Zone recently. Can we pull off a blog that depicted one of those trendy home remodeling or organization shows? “Heck Yeah!” we said! We’re the TMZ girlz. It sounds easy enough doesn’t it??

Well……On a good scrapping day this is what our victim’s scraproom looks like! It’s cramped with all the things she’s pulled out to use on projects or stuff she hasn’t had the chance to put away or rummage through yet. Clean up can be a little overwhelming for a scrapbooker/papercrafter, don’t you think?

So where do we start ? We need a victim volunteer us their room to revamp! And excitedly Rhonda allowed us to use her room for our remodeling guinea pig! You are a brave and deserving woman Rhonda!

After that…..what happens next? Take stock of your room or craft space! Do you have a whole room like Rhonda you have {or can} dedicated to your hobby? Or do you have a closet dedicated {or can dedicate} for your supplies? Some people are lucky enough to just be able to use a closet for all their scrapbooking/papercrafting needs. Review your area and supplies.

Take stock of your current organization products {are they working for you?} and what your definite needs are {table space to work on, shelves to store your supplies}. Rhonda found a very helpful book in the store to help guide us through her needs and wants, likes and dislikes when it came to remodeling her scrapbook room!

“The Organized & Inspired Scrapbooker” by Wendy Smedley & Aby Garver is expert advice for organizing your scraproom needs. You start with the workbook, which gives you a personal how-to on following the book. Your first area to cover, Organization!
Before we get started on updating your the organization of your room you need to work on the “Keep, Purge, Sell” theory. Rhonda started with her passion that seemed to be overwhelming not only her room but flowing into other areas of her home at the same time, Idea Books. She loves them so much she has dedicated the time and money into having them spiral bound at her local office supply store. So begin with the area in your room that seems to take up the most space and personal need. Rhonda took the time to use the “Keep, Purge Sell” theory into effect in her room. Getting OUT the things that you are no longer in need of or haven’t used in 6 months or more is your starting point. It also gives you extra space to work with which you never realized was available before.

And with the Used Item Sale coming up August 16th at The Memory Zone Scrapbook Store, you can take all those items you just stuck in your Sell pile and earn some extra “credit” towards new organization items for updating your room. Give them a call and get your ID number for the sale!

Next we’ll get into the nitty gritty of where your room is going to go from here! You might want to go pick out a new color for your room or closet and make a list of what you have and what you need!
Until next time!
Charity

CHA Review~Call It “Creative Overload!”

Written By Beth Marohn
Being a scrapper, hearing those 3 letters ~ C-H-A & your mind goes into a tizzy anticipating all the new & innovative products that await you in the coming 6 months! BUT, even MORE fortunate to be on The Memory Zone Design Team & going to actually SEE what is going to be coming to your favorite scrapbook store (TMZ, of course!) is a dream come true, at least it was for me! Needless to say, I was not disappointed!

First of all, the Design Team members would like to especially thank Rhonda & Marlene for the invitation to attend this wonderful event. We truly appreciated the opportunity!

Next, let me say that the drive there was so much fun with Kelly, Jennifer & Rebecca, that it didn’t seem like it took very long at all & we were there. We had a blast just getting there & back home!

After arriving there & meeting with Rhonda & Marlene & the rest of the store staff, we got to hang a bit with the cutest little ol’ Cricut bug you’ve ever seen! He’s the hottest thing going right now & he knows it too!
Cricut is coming out with some truly cute stuff that’s gonna be on every Cricut owner’s “must have” list! They had some amazing make & takes, ideas & give aways. Each of us four ladies was lucky enough to get one of their exclusive bags that are so cool & trendy looking! There was a contest involving these bags, like Kelly mentioned in her article, & only 12 people were given these bags each hour. Rebecca was the lucky one of the bunch with her prizes – YAY Rebecca!

I definitely got my exercise that day because I signed up for a very cool make & take at the Kaiser Craft booth. It was so popular, that they had to pass out numbers to the participants & you had to keep going back to see if they had called your number yet. It was about 90 minutes before I actually got to work on it.

Kaiser Craft is a 3 yr. old company based out of Australia, but they are also located in Chicago to help keep the cost down to the consumer. They have lots of cool products for the scrapper & they are also highly involved with the general paper crafter, as well. They offer cool wooden projects & wooden embellishments for a truly artistic look to any project. They were a fun group of people & very generous with their projects & goodies they gave out.

Here was what all the fuss & excitement was over; it’s a wooden book that I altered. Notice they had a CHA rub on specially made for the event:

Chatterbox is not a new name to most of us scrappers, but they have been essentially renewed as a company. They offered a beautiful Make & Take wall hanging & their new stuff offers elegantly beautiful tastes in papers & embellishments. They’re also offering some stunning patterned chipboard frames & accents now. I was impressed with their new lines & their color schemes are the more muted colors that are all the rage right now.

I noticed the newest trend to really hit the scene from several companies, like Making Memories, Little Yellow Bicycle, Queen & Co. & We R Memory Keepers ~ just to name a few, was all the specialty die cutting that has been done to everything from papers, to felt, to flocked ribbon – you name it, they have created amazing patterns for every taste!

There were some new companies there that were real eye openers for us too. A company by the name of Zva (pronounced zee-vah) is going to be giving Prima’s “Say It In Crystals” & Flower lines a run for their money! Literally! This should be a company to watch for in the future. They’re pitch was that they are a cost effective company with great product at a more reasonable price to the consumer. We were impressed with their lines of flowers & jewels! The proof will be in the pocketbook & quality.

3L has come out with some black pop dots for those that want to keep them a little less noticeable in their darker colored projects. These are great for those.

Some of the companies realize that with the state of the economy, their going to have to do something innovative & cost effective to keep the paper crafting consumer able to buy their products. Queen & Co. & Zva are a couple that immediately come to mind.

There was so much to see & do there that you can’t possibly get it all done in one day. It’s like an amusement park for paper crafters. I loved quite a bit of the new products that this community has come out with this year; it proves to be an exciting & creative time ahead of us. I could go on & on about all the ideas & products we seen, but I’m sure you have some scrapping to do to clear out what you have & make room for all the cool new stuff you’re gonna have to have soon!

**If you have any other questions or comments on CHA, go to The Memory Zone’s Messageboard & post them there. We’d love to answer any questions you have that we didn’t get to touch on here in the blog!

~ Beth

Lost at CHA by Heather Pickens

   Poor Rhonda! She was totally not prepared for CHA. Let’s start with our drive over there. We left Thursday morning. Heather and I followed behind Rhonda which was really fun because she had an I-Pass and we didn’t, but we were able to keep up with her most of the time. After what seemed like hours we got off the highway hoping we were at our destination, but we had actually arrived early for the Olympics in Beijing. I’m just kidding! We were only in Chinatown. It was soooo funny!! We were trying to communicate with each other via cellphone, but all we could do was laugh! Especially since it’s illegal to talk and drive at the same time in Chicago! We eventually contacted our own personal On-Star adviser, aka Amy. Somehow we got it straightened out and made it to the hotel after a few more wrong turns. Like I said, Rhonda wasn’t prepared. Just when she thought the fun(the drive there) was over, surprise! Now she gets to spend two days alone with Heather1 and Heather2. She didn’t know what hit her!  No wonder she forgot her rolling cart and business cards.
   After we settled our stuff at the hotel we went to the convention center and got our badges. That evening we had three private parties to attend, Making Memories, Sei and Creative Imaginations. Bring on the food! Every party had so much food, from cheese and crackers, desserts, to a whole buffet with a chocolate fountain. All we did was eat! I can’t believe we didn’t get sick. Another bonus was free stuff, especially at Sei. They gave us a kit of stuff from their Poppy line and an album kit. Wow! We didn’t win any of the give-aways, but we had a lot of fun and met some funny people!
   On Friday we were at the show all day. Heather and I made some really cute make-n-takes. We also got some great freebies and bags of course. We love the bags! Spencer showed us all the new Quickutz stuff, which we love! We also seen a lot of famous crafters, Tim Holtz, Kelly Panacci, Heidi Grace, Teresa Collins, Anna Griffin, our favorite Ali Edwards and our second favorite Elmo! It was another great show. I feel so lucky to be a part of this industry, but most of all to be a part of The Memory Zone family. Thank you so much Rhonda and Marlene!!!

   Heather Pickens

Sketches…Week 26

Thanks you everyone for checking out the sketches and wanting more.

It is Monday again and as I promised I have posted a new sketch and layout. But wait we have a Guest Designer…Barb Craft…This is her sketch and layout.

I can’t wait to do a sketch myself and see you post your layout in the gallery at The Memory Zone. Let’s see what you ladies can do… So Let’s Get Scrappin’… Please tell your friends and family about the fun we are having with the sketches. They might want to be included in the fun…

This is week twenty-six sketch… And you will soon see this layout hanging in our favorite scrapbooking store: The Memory Zone.

Great thanks to our guest designer…..Thanks Barb.

CHA Review 2008 - by Kelly Crowl

My feet are throbbing, my legs aching, but would I do it again? Heck yes! Saturday Rhonda & Marlene treated several of the Memory Zone Design Team members to our second trip to check out all of the latest and greatest at the Craft and Hobby Association Summer Show in Chicago, Illinois. Like last year, this years’ event was held at the Donald Stephens Convention Center, formerly the Rosemont Convention Center.

This convention offers the excitement of connecting with other people who have the same passion and desire for the hobbies we all enjoy, scrap booking and paper crafting. The energy of introducing brand new product lines and new companies into the industry adds fuel to the fire. At every turn you never know who might be demonstrating, introducing products or walking the very same aisles. The opportunity presents a peak into this thriving industry not everyone gets a chance to do. So a quick THANK YOU to Rhonda & Marlene for letting the Design Team be a part of the action and now…my review.

The three booths that earned the most attention were definitely Provo Craft (maker of the Cricut), Making Memories and QuicKutz. The common factors of great products, awesome displays, and a motivated demonstrating/sales team with give-a-ways were the key elements in their winning some major attention of show goers.

The new releases for the Cricut are making it as popular as ever and their make-n-takes were over the top adorable. Fellow design team member Jen, made the time to do EVERY ONE of them. And Rebecca managed to convince all of us to get in line and wait for 53 minutes (yes, that’s seven minutes shy of 1 whole hour!) to win a really awesome Provo Craft bag which ultimately led her onto winning a T-shirt and limited edition Daisy Chain Letter cartridge. She was elated to say the least!

Making Memories new products alone were enough to get attention, but they also reeled in the crowds by handing out aprons and other freebies for show goers to wear and if they spotted you at the right time you would win a whole tote packed full of their products. Jen, a frequent message board poster, was at the show and landed herself one, lucky girl! Keep an eye on the message board and I’ll bet she tells us all about it…

QuicKutz new product rollouts were exciting too. Lots of great alphabet sets in a new size format of 4×8 dies, I think these will be a strong addition to their line. And a brand new storage system caught my attention too. It will be able to hold ALL their die sizes in one nicely designed book/box type holder.( I even got to sneak a peek at their prototype motorized cutter…oooooo, can’t wait until this one comes out.) Oh, one more thing about the QK Booth, they have the best looking and nicest dudes at the show!

There is so much to see and we did try to see it all. One of the new companies getting a lot of attention was called “My Little Shoebox.”  We all agreed, this company blew our doors off with cute, colorful and different! Exciting layouts were featured in their tiny booth. You know how when you see something and it just calls you in…this is it!

Another head turner at the show was Bo-Bunny. They have the COOLEST new shape mini book coming out. It’s has different arrows as the pages. The sample at the show was great, but I see so many possibilities with it: graduation, bridal shower, toddler, school, and life’s turning points in general…very excited about this one. Oh, and the new lines of paper are just as grand as ever.

Theresa Collins is really making a name for herself in the industry. Her line is really expanding, it’s so adaptable and flexible, something I think today’s scrappers are looking for.

Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist is smoking hot stuff right now and stopping at their booth was definitely another highlight of mine. I got to spend some time with one of their top designers sharing some tips and tricks I’ll be sure to pass on, on a later blog.

Fancy Pants, Basic Grey, Cosmo Cricket, Best Creations, Rusty Pickle, Doodlebug, October Afternoon, S.E.I., Tim Holtz, Creative Imaginations, EK Success, Piggy Tales, Sandy Lion, Pebbles, Inc., Reminisce, Heidi Swapp, We R Memory Keepers, Cloud 9, Prima Products, Heidi Grace, Pink Paislee, Jenni Bowlin, Stamping Station, Inque Boutique,  Queen & Company, all had some great new stuff, too much to mention actually.   

I almost forgot to tell you about the newest KI Memories offerings…wait until The Memory Zone gets this stuff in…it will go fast. You are probably already on owner or user of the laser cut paper from this company but wait it’s gotten one step better!  Believe it or not, they’ve got a snowflake laser cut design coming out with glitter on it! It is a unique product I didn’t see anywhere else in the show! Oh, and a couple of other cool winter-Christmas designs too! Their next new product is hard to describe…it is basically a transparency in several different designs, patterns and colors but wait it gets better too. They cut the edges in different shapes and some are slightly textured or slightly opaque.  It is amazing and again unique to the industry. Totally can’t wait for this stuff!

I really enjoy meeting the people who have made it big in the scrap booking industry. This year I was fortunate enough to meet quite a few, starting with Ali Edwards. She is simply charming, down to earth and so friendly. Stacy Julian, one of the founding mothers of the industry, was there I actually got to meet her too. Sweet and charismatic, she was kind enough to let me get a picture too! Heidi Swapp and I talked about her living in China and how the people over there make her & her family make them feel so welcome.  I got to meet Sesame Street’s very own Elmo. He gave me the biggest hug of the day! Beth Opel, Leah Fung, Tim Holtz, Renae Lindgren, Theresa Collins, Norma Kennedy, Greta Hammond, Vicki Boutin, Heidi Grace, Jenni Bowlin and many more I can’t even remember right now were all there. It’s just amazing to me!

Trends I brought home from the show would include, botanicals, birds, and butterflies, are still as hot as ever. I noticed the same emphasis on double sided papers. Office type, ledger, folders, journal papers were throughout many companies. Stamping is a vital portion of scrap booking and paper crafting with acrylic stamps getting a lot of attention. Cricut and its’ cartridges are captivating many people’s attention. The laser cut papers are in and transparencies are too. In the various booths they post designers layouts and after studying many of them I see a mammoth amount of layering elements such as chipboard, buttons, flowers, tags, ribbons….all types of layers. I find the trend appealing and the layouts were beautiful! I noticed bling is changing too, companies are starting make more colors and sizes. Pearl-like bling was prevalent. Another trend I was well-aware of is that companies are realizing they need to lower pricing. With our economy in its current state with gas and grocery prices climbing, more affordable supplies must be available and have good quality. Companies know this and are effectively introducing more economically priced items. Queen & Company and Zva were two that stood out in this area.

 My review did not start out to be this long and I surely hope I haven’t bored you with my ramblings.  CHA Summer 2008 was awe-inspiring and remarkable. I am so glad I got to experience it first hand and hopefully now you’re “in the know” a little more than before. So much to look forward too!

Happy Scrapping!

Be Sure to visit the EVENTS - CHA SUMMER 2008 for more fun pictures!

~Kelly Crowl

CHA sneak peek - Bo Bunny Press

Check out what Bo Bunny has in store for us this CHA!

Beautiful Life has six new double sided papers with the most beautiful floral and leaf patterns and prints and a brand new double sided Journaling cut-out sheet.

Beau Jardin has six new double sided papers with stylish floral patterns and prints and a brand new double sided Journaling cut-out sheet.

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Holiday Cheer has six new double sided papers with the most beautiful swirly patterns and prints! Along with those are two new coordinating cardstock sticker sheets!

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My Darling has six new double sided papers with stylish floral patterns and prints and a brand new double sided Journaling cut-out sheet.

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Spooktastic has 6 new spooky papers..just look at the bat paper!!! A brand new double sided Journaling cut-out sheet

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Believe has 6 new beautiful double sided papers, a brand new double sided Journaling cut-out sheet

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Eight new rubons..one prettier than the next! And for something truly unique… these new designs feature bronze and silver images and designs. Plus we’ve combined these new colors with the traditional black to add style and contrast to your projects. Elegance has never been easier!

CHA SUMMER SNEAK PEEKS…Rusty Pickle

Well here it is our first Sneak peek from CHA SUMMER 2008 stay tuned for more through out the weekend. Remember these items are things released not all will be ordered. Be sure to leave comments they may be a decision breaker for us.

Latest goodies to enter the Rusty Pickle family: Candy Land, Costume Party, Brass Knuckles, White Christmas and Chocolate Covered Cherries!

Check back often we will be adding each night!!!