So it goes without saying that when she asked me whether I would like to collaborate with her to celebrate the opening of her new store, a little voice in my head was screaming something like “GET. OUT. You did NOT just ask me that, Vinnie Pearce.”

I think I managed to play it cool, though. I’m sure I said something that oozed confidence … like “ZOMG! Yes! Yes! No takesies backsies, we’re totally doing this!”

I’m really thrilled to be able to tell you that Retrouvailles is now available in my store, and you can save 20% through 1/30/2011.

Try not to totally spaz out like I did when you check it out. Keep it together, you.

Layout by Me

JOURNALING ┊ No one else gets you quite as wound up as she does. You’ve always been the type to desperately fling yourself at another person trying to engage them in some sort of physical battle, and she’s one of the people who is always happy to oblige. I never thought I’d be the “not fun” mom giving lectures on the merits of keeping your hands to yourself. I especially never thought I’d be giving that lecture to my own mother, the self-professed Queen of Stop Having Fun. I remember entire road trips where Cynnamon and I had to maintain as much distance as possible from one another in the backseat of the car after “angry mom” showed up and informed us that we were having entirely too much fun. I know that deep down she’s reveling in it, soaking up all that payback she hoped would come around one day. Seeing her once-a-total-spaz daughter walk into a room to say things like “Stop. Tackling. Grandma.” I never once tackled my grandma, so this is just fighting dirty. All those years I was just the heir apparent to the Stop Having Fun throne, along with your aunt Cyn. Believe me when I say one day you will be warming this seat, too. And you’ll be just as unhappy about it as we are. For now there’s nothing I can do, my lectures fall on deaf ears to begin with, and whatever you manage to absorb is forgotten the next time she walks through the door and you launch yourself in her general vicinity. Then I reprise my role as the abolisher of all things fun and you two will roll your eyes at me behind my back. Because this is your thing, the thing that the two of you do to rebel against me – against the loud and crazy kid from her past and the rule enforcing mom from your present.

MATERIALS ┊ Retrouvailles by One Little Bird and Vinnie Pearce

Inspiration From The Flock

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by Becky

by Beth

by Bianka

by Crystal

by Julie

by Kelly C

by LaRissa

by LaRissa

by Lex

by Margelz

by Nicole

by Rachel

by Renee

by Steffi

Hello, friends! I have a new product for you, a collaboration with Paislee Press and Traci Murphy Designs.

I’m so excited to be able to share it with you and hope that you’ll find it as lovely and inspiring as I do.

Generations will be available for 20% off through January 10th, 2012.

Cage Liner subscribers can save an extra 10% using the coupon code in their newsletters. Not yet a subscriber? Subscribe now and receive a coupon code of your own!

My Page

JOURNALING ┊ It’s a beautiful thing when you’re all together, standing side-by-side, the kids that Cynnamon and I made. When Grandma gathered you up for this photo the common thread was unmistakable – each of you unique in your own little ways but for those smiles. Oh, those little smiles that we see every day when you’re happy, when you’re scheming, when you’re humoring us. And there you are gathered around the source of it all, the Alpha smile to this little gathering of Omegas. It’s a sight to behold.

MATERIALS ┊ Generations by Paislee Press, One Little Bird and Traci Murphy Designs; Stamped by One Little Bird; Photo Edges by Something Blue Studio; Font is American Typewriter by ITC.

Inspiration From The Flock

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by Rachel

by Becky

by Beth

by Crystal

by Dana

by Julie

by Kelly S

by Leontien

by Lex

by Margelz

by Michelle

by Nicole

by Rachel

by Renee

by Sarah

by Sarah

by Steffi

Several days ago I dropped this mini-kit into my store under the cover of night, with little to no fanfare, as a part of the Oscraps 12 Days of Christmas promotion. Its original name, “Naughty List”, was abandoned at the last possible moment when I decided that sounded quite scandalous. Little Miss Play-It-Safe over here. It is still labeled under its original name on my computer, though – I like the whole “Hey, I have multiple personalities!” sort of tone it sets in my organizational system.

Shortly after completing Star on Top with Amy Martin I was leafing through a home-decorating-type magazine and hit a picture of a holiday tablescape featuring green apple and deep aubergine colored Christmas trees of varying heights and dimensions and I had a “Damn, that would have been a really great Christmas palette” moment.

I tore it out and dropped it into my ‘someday’ file after drawing big marker circles around the picture and writing things like “Unconventional Christmas palette!!” and “Don’t forget about this, dummy!!” all over it. But in the end I couldn’t let it sit for a year, so I expanded the palette a bit and made a holiday mini kit for those who’ve been naughty, those who’ve been nice, and those for whom the jury is still out.

It’s free with any purchase in my store until the end of December (with a few exceptions – those being any product with Paislee Press, Kitty Designs or Kathryn Wilson Designs on the packaging along with mine).

Just in case you really didn’t want to buy anything else – because you already own everything I’ve ever made, or you’re opposed to free with purchase offers on principle, or you just like to be a rebel – I put a price on it and marked it down 50% for the entire month, also. But be advised that there are items in my store that are less expensive than that price. Items like this one or this one or this one just off the top of my head. Add the mini-kit to your cart along with any other product in my store and let the cart work its magic.

Inspiration From The Flock (and Friends)

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by Amy

by Crystal

by Kelly C

by LaRissa

by Leontien

by Alexis

by LindaW (Cheery-O)

by Nicole

by Rachel

by Sara

by Timounette (Cheery-O)

by Trudy (Cheery-O)

I’ve often talked about how Amy is my go-to template person (mentioned it here, and on The Digi Show here), I feel like everyone should have one. I’ve used a lot of templates from a lot of different designers and Amy’s make me feel as though she’s inside my head. (A scary place to be!) I think it’s important that everyone find their “right people” and Amy Martin is definitely one of my right people.

But she’s more than just templates! She’s a complex woman, that Amy Martin.

Star On Top contains 22 papers, over 80 elements, three of Amy’s awesome 12×12 page templates and two 4×6 holiday photo card templates. We wanted it to be holiday, and we wanted it to be BIG – so that it’s suitable for a variety of December projects. Because December is full of projects, isn’t it?

You’ll save 20% on Star On Top, and when you purchase the kit you’ll also receive the Star On Top 3×4 Journaling Cards as a complimentary gift. Add both products to your cart and let the cart work its magic.

Both offers end 11/28/2011, so hurry in!

CT Inspiration

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Black Friday One Day Sale

It’s the One Little Bird Black Friday Sale! One day only, save 20% storewide on One Little Bird products – no coupon necessary for that!

Cage Liner Subscribers save an extra 20% on a selection of Holiday Products to use for your holiday gift giving projects (or the projects you’ll just keep for yourself, of course!) Check your latest newsletter for a coupon code. Not yet a subscriber? Subscribe now and get a coupon of your very own.

And my girl, Liz (of Paislee Press), is doing the same – so that’s a lot of holiday goodness up for grabs. Subscribe to her newsletter to receive a coupon code and then check out her holiday shop and get your good cheer on!

You’ll find two new additions to the In The Loop family, the first is a new set of 12×12 page borders:

The second is a new set of photo frames:

And I’ve made no secret of the fact that I adore kraft paper (and beige papers, and beige kraft papers). For my fellow kraft devotees I created a set of 12 kraft papers in a variety of shades and textures.

And finally, I’ve added the 2011 Holiday Card to my store. This year I added a few extra templates for the card backs so that you can include additional photos. If you would just like the single photo on the front, there are text-only back designs for each card, too.

These 5×7 templates are sized to match WHCC’s Press Printed Card specs but can easily be cropped to match the specifications of other printers. You could print these cards as one-sided 5×7 photo prints at your local or online photo printer and be done in a snap.

I personally love to print the 2-sided cards at WHCC, and if you haven’t tried their service I can’t say enough great things about it. These two-sided cards are so easy to whip up, inexpensive to print, and everyone you send them to will seriously think you’re some sort of genius! Something this custom just blows their minds. Plus that extra side allows to include a personalized message (and additional photos) for your family and friends. A bit of a mini-newsletter all on one professionally printed card.

I printed last year’s design on WHCC’s Pearl paper on a whim, and the end product was completely magical. It adds a soft opalescent lustre to the design that added a very premium, luxury feeling to the card. A little something above and beyond the typical “flat white” paper feel.

Note that if you’re never printed with WHCC before, you’ll want to allow yourself a bit of extra lead time for your cards (3-7 days). Setting up a new account with them requires that you submit a few 8×10 test prints before your account is activated. The test prints are printed and shipped free of charge in order to allow you to verify that your color settings are in line with their printing color space (so hey, send some of your favorite photos!) Along with your test prints they include samples of their different paper offerings and further information about your account. So I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you to set up your account today and send in your test prints – THEN start working on your cards. That way by the time you’ve put the finishing touches on the cards your account at WHCC should be active – and some additional 8×10 photos for holiday gifts will be on their way to you.

As for all of these new releases, you can save 20% on every single one of them through 11/27/2011. Cage Liner subscribers save an extra 10% on these products using the savings code in their newsletter. Not yet a subscriber? You can subscribe now and get exclusive savings on new releases, free product downloads and notification of One Little Bird sales & events direct to your inbox.

And I love pulling autumn boots out of storage, but “Boot Weather” didn’t sound as nice.

I’m happy to announce that Sweater Weather is now available for purchase in my Oscraps store. It’s 20% off through Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 – and Cage Liner subscribers can save an extra 10% using the exclusive savings code in their most recent newsletter.

(Not yet a subscriber? You can subscribe now and get a code of your very own.)

Layout by Me

JOURNALING | This year marks the first time that we were asked to bring you to your parent/teacher conference, and so you didn’t know that the last few minutes are always spent setting goals for the rest of the year. When Mrs. Syverson asked what you felt your goal for the year should be and you responded “Nothing. I’m perfect!” I couldn’t help but laugh. No one could ever accuse you of being deficient in the self-esteem department. You had to sit through a bit of a lecture from her on how no one is perfect and how perfect is boring, but I could tell you were only half buying it while you nodded along. I’ve never been the type of mom who acts as though you can do no wrong, I think you’ll jump at the chance to agree with me on that, but when it comes right down to it you’re a straight A student with a huge heart, a great sense of humor and an abundance of determination. Sure, you could use a filter between your brain and your mouth – which is a topic that comes up every year in your conferences – but if that’s the biggest obstacle that we have to overcome think we’re doing pretty okay in the scheme of things. The truth is – you really are pretty close to perfection and we both know it. And maybe it’s boring in other people, but there’s never a dull moment when you’re around. That’s for sure.

MATERIALS | Sweater Weather by One Little Bird

Inspiration

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by Amy

by Astrid (October Guest)

by Becky

by Crystal

by Dana

by Julie

by Kelly C.

by Kelly S.

by LaurieW (Cheery-O)

by Leontien

by Leontien

by Lex

by LindaW (Cheery-O)

by Margelz

by Nicole

by Rachel

by Sara

by Sarah

by Selena (Cheery-O)

by Som

by Steffi

by SuezeeQ (Cheery-O)

I’m happy to announce that Epic, a joint effort between myself, Paislee Press and Biograffiti, is now available for purchase at Oscraps.

Epic is 20% off through October 11th, and there’s a free product with purchase available for newsletter subscribers, so read on for more information on that.

It all started with a Vintage Carnival Flickr Stream that Molly felt inspired by. You may remember that my son was going through an Epic phase a while back, but the idea of creating an Epic Kit actually wasn’t my idea – it was Liz’s.

(For those of you keeping track at home, his new catchphrase seems to be “Hummus!” and I haven’t figured out why – nor have I asked. All I know is that he texts me things like “HUMMUS! Can I borrow your headphones?”)

(Also, I don’t think he even knows what hummus is. I’d bet money on it.)

. . .

I used this kit to chronicle my ongoing campaign for Mother of the Year:

JOURNALING | The standing joke is that I’m campaigning for Mom of the Year this year but it’s not that far from the truth. One of my biggest goals when transitioning to this home-based business was to be able to give more of my time and energy to you. You’ve turned in uninspired visual projects at school for the past five years in a row and it hardly seems fair for a kid whose mom is a graphic artist. What’s the old saying about how the Cobbler’s children have no shoes? That. That’s been you. When I saw that sad little photocopy that they wanted you to fill in for Star of the Week this year I said to you “We can do WAY better than this.” So we did. We spent an entire afternoon on the Saturday before it was due making a list of all of your favorite things and sifting through all of my favorite photographs to represent them. I printed out each section then you would run into the dining room and lay it on the board so we could see how much space we had left. We kept it very simple – nothing over the top – but everything created with love and care. Will anyone think that you completed this project on your own? Not a chance. Did either of us care? Not even a little bit. This was our afternoon of arts and crafts, just the two of us. Me, revisiting all of your old favorites and discovering some new ones for the first time. You, finally reaping some benefit from all that time your mom has spent stockpiling photos and working in front of graphics programs all of these years. So thanks for hanging in there, buddy. And enjoy those new shoes. It’s about time I got around to making you a pair, right?

MATERIALS | Epic by One Little Bird, Paislee Press & Biograffiti

. . .

Liz, Molly and I made our pages available as a layered template pack which is also available (and 20% off through 10/11). Newsletter subscribers receive these templates free with the purchase of Epic through October 11th. Check your latest newsletter for the exclusive savings code. Not yet a subscriber? You can subscribe to The Cage Liner now and receive a code of your very own.

Layouts by The Flock

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by Astrid (October Guest)

by Beth

by Bianka

by Crystal

by Julie

by Kelly S

by LaRissa

by Leontien

by Leontien

by Margelz

by Nicole

by Peppermint

by Lex

by Rachel

by Renee

by Som

by Som

by Steffi

by Jeannie

Designed for the clean and simple DIY scrapbooker my 2012 Printable Calendar allows you to create a monthly desk calendar featuring your most cherished photographs. I wanted to create an easy to display calendar to give as holiday gifts to our friends and family (guess you ruined the surprise, Mom!) I love the candid feel of 35MM negatives and black and white photos, and the monthly calendars were designed based on the vintage “dashboard calendars” that I remember from my childhood. The ones that every local business sent out to their loyal customers when the holidays were approaching.

I suppose smartphones are to blame for sending the dashboard calendar to the endangered species list?

You can, of course, customize your own calendars however you see fit – with color photos and patterned backgrounds and whatever else your heart desires. I just happened to like this black, white and beige look. (Surprise!)

The product includes twelve 4×6 300DPI layered templates, one for each month of the year in 2012. In addition I’ve included each of the monthly calendars (the text portion) as an ABR file for use in your other projects, or to further customize this one.

This 4×6 format makes this a perfect, personalized holiday gift for the entire family – matted and framed, or elegantly hung with a length of ribbon or twine. It’s a calendar that your loved ones will love to have on display.

My plan is to give each of our calendars alongside a chunky 8×10 frame with January displayed. The rest of the months will be packaged in a 4×6 glassine envelope, dolled up with a custom tag and other assorted fancy embellishments. I really love glassine envelopes because they’re semi-transparent so the calendars will show through faintly from within. (Also, according to this article at Style Me Pretty, it may be possible for me to print directly onto the glassine envelopes with my inkjet printer – so I’m going to test that out.)

I’ll post more on that process once I’m to the packaging stage, I’m sure. My first wave of wrapping supplies is on its way from Etsy, but first I want to customize the calendars for each side of our family. Tom’s family will be visiting us in October and November, so I plan on getting some updated photos of all of them while they’re here to include in their version.

For now, though, you can get started on your own custom calendars along with me. The 2012 Calendar set is on sale for 20% off through Wednesday, October 5th, 2011. Cage Liner Subscribers can save an additional 10% using their exclusive savings code for this product.

NOTE: Photographers and S4H/S4O business can purchase a Limited Professional Use License for this product for an additional charge via the drop-down menu at the bottom of the store listing. Please visit the Terms of Use page on my site for an explanation of this license.

I can’t wait to see how you all use them, so be sure to share your finished projects with me in my Gallery at Oscraps and/or the One Little Bird Flickr Pool.

As a general tip:  if you’re printing these at home using an inkjet printer that prints borderless prints, I found that it worked best to select all of the layers except for the background and reduce the size by about 98% before printing. On my Canon Pixma printer the extra background was “shaved off” in the borderless print process instead of the edges of the 35MM negative or the calendar. Since all printers vary, I felt it was the safest to design each template edge-to-edge to allow you to tinker with it for your individual needs.

I also received an email from a customer who wanted a more customizable version of the Check It Journaling Cards that would allow her to use her own backgrounds and modify the colors a bit. So I added a PSD file to the original product package with a far more layered version of each card. This way you can use your own background paper and customize the colors of the chevron pattern, the text and the outlines independently. The original kraft versions are still there, too.

If you’ve already purchased the journaling cards, you should be able to open your order back up in your Order History in the Oscraps store and download the entire file again. The new layered PSD will be in the “Customizable PSD” folder. If you experience any difficulties, drop me a line through my contact form here and I’ll try to help.

Since I changed the original product, I marked them down 20% again (through Sunday, 9/25) for anyone who missed them the first time. The extra savings code in the newsletter will also work on these.

And these weren’t customer requests, necessarily, but they’re One Little Bird requests. Crystal Livesay created a couple of new Tale Feathers for the store using elements and papers from Janie & June and Westover.

(Note: these Tale-Feathers are not on sale, nor will the coupon work on them.)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Westover features hand-drawn elements with a soft, slightly-vintage palette. I had our back-to-school photos in mind while creating it, but I don’t like to paint myself into a corner with kits so I kept it versatile enough for a variety of topics and age groups.

Westover is 20% off through September 25th. Cage Liner subscribers receive an extra 10% off.

I definitely had my boy in mind the entire time I was creating this.

JOURNALING | This is the last time you’ll walk down this sidewalk on the first day of school, five years after you walked down it for the first time ever. I couldn’t help but choke up as I pictured it, so I hung back a little. Five years under your belt. Time flies, indeed.

MATERIALS | Westover by One Little Bird

This page is also available in the One Little Bird store as a Tale-Feather (Quick Page) and a Flight Plan (Template). These are also 20% off through 9/25.

More Inspiration

[Show as slideshow]

By Beth

by Crystal

by Dana

by Julie

by Leontien

by Leontien

by Lex

by Margelz

by Nicole

by Peppermint

by Rachel

by Renee

by Sarah

by Som

by Steffi