The title of our kit this month has significant meaning to us. We have loved so much of our “little adventure” we embarked on almost two years ago. Color Me Daisy has been a labor of love, but it has also taken us away from some of the most important parts of our life. We knew this would take our time, but as our sons get older we realize that we are missing more of their lives than we are willing to miss.   

We love what we do and have enjoyed providing our kits each month to our valuable customers. To find some balance we have decided to make some changes to our kit offerings after this February kit. We are still working on the details but we can share the following with you:

-       We plan to release a limited quantity of kits up to 6 times each year with a single purchase option, as a result we will no longer offer monthly subscriptions.

-       Kits prices are estimated to range from $30-$40, plus shipping.

-       We have plans to offer you more ideas with your kit purchase

-       Our kits will still feature the latest and greatest from the hottest manufacturers with a mix of papers, embellishments, and extras to keep your creativity blooming.

-       To be notified first of our kit offerings please go to our home page and subscribe to our newsletter. We will continue to advertise when we release kits, but newsletter subscribers will be the first to hear of our kit offerings.

Subscriptions will be cancelled after the February kits have been shipped.  Prepaid subscribers will be contacted to make arrangements for refund options.  If you have any questions that we have not addressed here, please contact us at info@colormedaisy.com.

We thank all of our wonderful customers for your patronage, and hope you will continue to choose Color Me Daisy when we launch our new kit format in April.

After you see these sneaks I’m sure you will be!!  We design every other month here at CMD and February is one of my “off” months…but I couldn’t help myself.  I still had to buy this kit.  I LOVE it!!!

Ok, enough talk, how about some visual stimulation?

and…

and…

and if you want to see more sneaks check out this thread on the forum.

If you’re anything like me you’re always trying to find ways to save money or make your products go further. One way I, and probably you too, do this is by making templates of shapes we like. Things like die cuts, journaling shapes, or shaped paper. However I’ve noticed that my templates only hold up for so long. (I used to make mine out of cardstock.) The more you use one the more chewed up the edges get and the harder it is to get a clean crisp new image.

Easy solution!

Gather your supplies:

Shapes to make templates of
hole punch (I used my crop-a-dile)
pen
template plastic (I got mine in the quilting section of Joann’s. You can also find it here)
Binding ring

Trace your shapes onto the template plastic (I just used a regular old pen!)

Then cut your shapes out, punch a hole, and put them on the binding ring for easy access and storage!

And that’s it!  Easy peasy templates that will last!

It’s Monday ladies!  Hope you had a great weekend…maybe even found some time to do a little scrapbooking.

Since you’re here I’m going to assume you know how great the Color Me Daisy kits are (and they ARE great.)  I tend to use and use and use a kit until I’ve only got little tiny pieces left…and then I use them!

I did this LO of my youngest in a onesie I “decorated” for her using scrapbooking products using just little tiny bits and pieces leftover from the Homemade Treats kit.

I punched some hearts out of some of the scraps and used some of them as masks and some as embellishments.

This stamp is from a $ bin at Michael’s.  It says “adore” on it but I just used some of the MLS alphas that are one of the add ons this month to finish up my title and cover up the word on the stamp.

One of the WRMK’s Twirl papers had “strips” on it with cute sayings.  This one said “aren’t you just the Sweetest Thing” so I just cut it apart, inked the edges and matted the words I wanted to use with some more scraps from my kit and used them to add a bit of visual interest to this corner of my LO.

and the whole thing…

I used my SU Eyelet boarder punch to make the “ruffles” next to the photo and then added some doodling and embroidery to finish it off.

(glitter Thickers are from my stash)

Check back tomorrow for some sneaks of the February kit…I’m TOTALLY in love with it!!!!

My challenge this month is to find a different use for buttons.  I took a few of the beautiful, brightly colored buttons from the January kit and placed them in a plastic bag. I took that bag into the garage and got my husband’s heavy duty hammer and smashed them to bits!! Maybe it’s just me, but the smashing part was pretty satisfying lol! I then used those bits as sprinkles for the pearl paint iced Maya Road cupcakes.

For this challenge you can smash your own buttons, or come up with another fun, different use for buttons. Just be sure to load it up to the gallery and link it up here.

Have you seen Julie Bonner’s January Sketch of the Month? It is another masterpiece! Lots of wonderful details and lots of room to make it your own.

Here is Julie’s sketch:

And here is my take on the sketch:

You still have plenty of time to get this one done before next month’s sketch is released. If you do take this challenge, upload it to the CMD gallery and link it back to this thread.

Rebecca

What does that have to do with scrapbooking?  Nothing unless you want to add some to a LO or a card using some of your pretty ribbon, etc.  We sew on our projects and use fabric and ribbons, why (k)not add a little something more personal- made by you.  This month I did a “How to” -you can find it on the CMD message board here.   I made this card using some ribbon I macramed using the square knot (and January kit!!):

To do the square knot, you need to alternate from left to right.  To do a spiral knot, you only use one side.  Those are the only two knots I know, but a lot can be done with those two knots.  Be creative! 

 I hope you all decide to give a try and don’t forget to stop by our online gallery and show your work with us.

Smiles, Vanessa

Are you a fan of Color Me Daisy on Facebook?

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Color-Me-Daisy/77519834990?ref=ts

Come join in on my Year in Review challenge on the message board! You can add your layouts here.

I love to do a “Year in Review” layout, with a glance at some of my favorite or significant photos of the year.

Since I take tons and tons of pics (like I’m sure you all do too!), it’s hard for me to pick just one or two pictures for each month.

One way to help me narrow it down, is instead of looking through my file folders on my computer, I look through my blog archives. I open a tab for each month’s worth of blogging, and then I scroll through and pick out one or two photos from my blog that I’ll add for my layout. I figure that if it was important enough for me to add to my blog, then it’s probably a favorite or good one for me to add to the layout.

My printer (it’s an Epson Picture Mate - love love love it!) has an option to do 1.5 x 1.5″ photos, and I click “do not automatically crop” so that they end up as rectangles instead of squares. I prefer to see the whole image, even if it’s tiny!

My friend Gretchen taught me this little trick (backing the spaces with patterned paper) to help make my titles pop, I love it!

(Swirl made with my Silhouette. Man do I love that thing! Does anyone out there have some favorite tips using it?)

So your challenge? Do a year in review layout of 2009! You could do it for your whole family, or you could make it even more specific and do one for each member of your family- that’s my next task!