“It’s the Little Things”

We are pleased to offer a third class opportunity for you this Spring retreat.

Join the 2 Katie’s of 2 Katie Designs for this fabulous 2 page layout class! This class will be on Saturday at 4pm.

They will focus on making pages fabulous while still quickly scrappin’ those 4x6 snap shots! Join them to create this memorable two page layout featuring a newly released paper line from Fancy Pants Designs. Capture the “little things” in your life while learning fresh scrapbook techniques that will leave you inspired and motivated to scrapbook the memories that are often forgotten.

This class is for an additional fee of $15. Click the paypal button to the right to sign up and pay for this class.

Spring 2011 Retreat Class Layout Teaser

It was requested last retreat to let you know what colors we are using for the class layouts you receive. Great Idea!

The layout kit is a Springy layout. The colors are yellow, orange, pink, red, green, cream. Lots of colors as you can tell.

You will need these photos: a 4x4 or 5x5 and seven 2x2's and a 4x4 and a 2.5x3.75

It features an interactive waterfall technique for the photos. We will have an actual class on how to construct this piece on Saturday of retreat at 10:30am.

We are excited to share this technique with you.

Spring 2011 Retreat

We only have 10 spots left for the Spring 2011 Retreat. If you haven't signed up yet or if your friend hasn't, now is the time.

Challenge

Read this article then post what you create with this technique.

Learn more about overlaying textures onto your photos to enhance the stories you're telling.

I can't wait to see what you create

What Can You Expect

We want to invite you to attend the Croppin' Train Scrapbook Retreat week-end.

We are excited to have the retreat back at the Embassy Suites and Convention Center in Rogers, AR. This venue is easily accessible from the highway, and is very centrally located to a variety of food establishments and other shopping areas. Signed, Sealed and Delivered is directly across the street. 

For those that have not attended a Croppin' Train event in the past, here's what you can expect.

Friday:
The week-end ride begins at noon. Pick out your very own 8' table (let us know if you want to be seated with a particular group of croppers) and set up your work area. A little later in the evening, when most people have arrived, we'll introduce ourselves, pass out the Welcome Aboard goodie bags, and take a brief tour of both the Supply Depot and Boxcar Store. You can crop as late as you want.

Saturday:
If you are staying in the hotel, you can start the morning off with a hearty breakfast (we have to fortify ourselves for all that scrapbooking!). The crop room will open at 7:30am. Throughout the day, we'll offer demonstrations of new products or techniques at our Demonstration Station. If there's a product or a technique you are particularly interested in, please email us before the retreat so we can try and include it in our demonstrations. 

Sunday:
This is always a short day. The crop room will open at 7:30am. After breakfast (if you are staying in the hotel), you'll want to give yourself that 'last-minute' push to get more scrapbooking done. We'll draw for the final ticket prizes, and get you all on the road by 2:00 p.m.

Door Prizes
We like getting prizes when we attend events, so we want to make sure you get lots of prizes at a Croppin' Train event. In addition to prizes, you'll also win tickets throughout the week-end. You can use those tickets to try and win your favorite prizes on Sunday. These are special prizes that will be put out Friday night; we'll draw a ticket for some prizes on Saturday and the rest on Sunday. You do need to be present on Sunday to receive the ticket-prizes.

Supply Depot
We are proud to offer one of the best Supply Depots in the area! We want to make sure you have all the basics, plus several 'cool tools', at your disposal - and you don't have to bring them from home! You'll find a substantial listing of available tools on the website. Check it out periodically - we are continually updating it with new tools, stamps, etc.

Boxcar Store
We celebrated the Grand Opening of our Boxcar Store at the Spring 2008 Retreat. We are able to offer an impressive array of products -- cardstock, designer paper, fibers, embellisments, alterables, storage / organization items, etc. -- at very low prices (at least 15% off MRSP)! Again, if there's a particular product you are interested in, please email us before the Retreat and we'll see if we can make the item(s) available for you. 

Classes

You will receive layout materials for two classes. We will have a tool area set up specifically for these class kits and have samples to view while you are at the retreat. These classes can be completed at your own leisure. And we are there to help you while you work too.

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” — Mary Lou Cook

We need your input

Please use the poll on the right to vote on your top two date picks for the Fall 2011 event.

Crop Express on Feb 5th

Our Crop Express on Feb 5th is sold out.
For those of you that are signed up - see you soon.
For those of you who missed it this time, we plan to have another in May.

Cricut Station

At our last Crop Express I took a picture of our Cricut station. This is the same station we set up for our Spring and Fall retreat except that we have two Cricut Expressions for you to use there.

This picture only shows half of the cartridges that we bring to share with you:
Here are the rest of them:
To see the whole list check out our Cricut post here.

9 New Stickles Colors!!

9 New Stickles Colors and we will have them at the Spring retreat just for you.

Let your projects sparkle with everyone's favorite—Stickles Glitter Glue! Nine luscious new colors of Stickles in the same high quality, non-settling formula that you know and love.

The new colors include:

• True Blue
• Mystic Green
• Paprika
• Lagoon
• Midnight Blue
• Thistle
• Glam Pink
• Firefly
• Tropical Tangerine

Use Stickles to add glittery dimension to craft projects—easily add dots, lines, doodles and draw on paper, fabric, plastic, wood, metal and more.

check out this blog post on Ranger to see them http://blog.rangerink.com/blog/2011/01/nine-new-stickles-colors-and-a-contest.html

Scrapbooking - Wedding Photos

The daughter of one of my best friends from high school got married last fall. I've created a scrapbook for her as a late(!) gift. All of the base cardstock used is from Best Creations - their Mr & Mrs line. It's all double-sided; one side is embossed and glittery; the other side is plain (but still nice). Everything coordinates nicely, and makes it easy to add any accent colors you wish. The bride's colors were eggplant, plum and silver. I could never find any plum paper that really worked, so I stuck with (SU!) Elegant Eggplant, Basic Black and Silver. I also used LOTS of bling on these pages (at least LOTS for me!) Most of the bling was added with the iRock tool, but some were Heidi Swapp self-adhesive jewels. And lots of Cricut cuts - several different cartridges. Hope you enjoy! More pictures can be seen on our Facebook page. Thanks for looking! Pat

Fall 2010 Retreat

The last couple of months have a been a whirlwind for us getting ready for our Fall Retreat. There was a chance I wasn't going to be able to make it due to work. Luckily that didn't come true. I am not sure I could miss one.

This is a picture of one of the Class kits our attendees received last weekend.


The techniques we used are:
- We used a Clear Glaze Pen and doodled on Vanilla Cardstock. Then after it was dry, we used Spanish Moss Glimmer Mist. The Clear Glaze acts as a resist to the GM. If you don't like to freehand, you can also stamp an image with Versamark ink and it will act as a resist as well.

- We cut flowers out of the patterned paper that will be later covered with the brown cardstock. We adhered them to the page, raising their petals with dimensionals.

- We adhered self-adhesive pearls throughout the layout. We used the stencils from the i-Rock tool to make the swirl that is under the cut-out flowers.

I will be listing some of these kits on ebay next weekend. The kit will include the Spanish Moss glimmer mist, cardstock, patterned paper plus step-by-step instructions.. If you are interested, please send us an email and we can make arrangements or check us out on ebay (seller name is inkyfingersdora), The kit will be $15.

We should be able to get back to a weekly posting either here or on Facebook or both.
More posts coming soon... classes I took at Tulsa and Kansas City CKC and more.

Talk to you later, Dora

Croppin' Train Express - September 11

Thanks to EVERYONE that attended the September 11 Croppin' Train Express event! We had a full house, and it was great! Build your own deli sandwiches for lunch and a delicious roast, with carrots and potatoes, for dinner! It was fun to see what projects everyone was working on - so many ideas! We'll rest a few days and then it's on to more planning, etc. for the Fall 2010 Croppin' Train Scrapbook Retreat week-end.

Imaginisce I-Rock

I finally got my hands on the I-Rock tool by Imaginisce! For a couple weeks, everyone was sold out!

The I-Rock is battery-operated, and has a metal stem that heats up, allowing you to adhere pre-glued gems to paper, fabric, etc. The heated metal stem melts the glue enough to allow the gem to stick. If you don't like the placement, you can re-heat the gem (again, melting the glue), move it and there's still enough glue to re-adhere it somewhere else.

The only 'problem' I've had with it is having enough patience to wait the (approximately) 15 seconds it takes to adequately melt the glue. Overall, it's really a cool tool, does a good job of adhering the gems and is very quick and easy to use. Following are some pictures of the first time I used it.

These are some of the accessories I purchased. Each round container has different gems in it. The flowers have gems that can be glued in the flower's center. The templates are made of a light-weight teflon-like 'fabric' - they're not plastic. One template comes with each package of flowers and gems.

Here I'm using one of the Flourish templates on an Independence Day layout I had done earlier. It was very easy to use. You can actually put the gems in the corresponding holes, adhere them and then lift the template away. Well, the pictures and text aren't really cooperating tonight, but, I think you get the idea of how this works. :)

We'll be demoing the I-Rock at the November Retreat.

Back to School Purses

For our freshman college daughter and her three roommates, I made these purses. Each purse contained a matching beaded pen and two binder clip note holders, along with the snazzy sunglasses on the front, of course, These were really fun to put together; surprisingly, the actual purse goes together pretty quickly. You can't really see it in the pictures, but each purse is lined with coordinating paper.

Back to School Backpacks

I have several projects to share with you. For the little grandchildren, I made these miniature backpacks and put a gift card in each one, along with a couple sweet munchies, of course.

Teaser of Freebie Layout

Here is a teaser of the Freebie layout. This is a layout that you will get, in addition to the two class kits, if you pay your registration in full by August 31.


Sorry this image is dark but it was the only way I could get the glitter on the paper to show up.

Croppin' Train Express - September 11, 2010

We so enjoyed our first Croppin' Train Express event, we want to do it again! Join us on Saturday, September 11, 2010 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. at the Christ the King Lutheran Church in Bentonville! Sixteen hours of crop time - lunch - dinner - soda of your choice - all for just $25.00 per person! As before, we'll have our Cricuts there, along with all cartridges, for your use. We'll also have adhesive and paper for sale if you run out of anything. The layout at the Church only allows for a combination of TEN 6' and 8' tables, so, please register right away if you plan on coming! There is a $25.00 Express registration button on the right-side menu. If you have any questions, please let us know. Hope you can join us!

July 17 Express Event - Great Day!

We thoroughly enjoyed the July 17 Croppin' Train Express event. The one-day (16 hours!) was plenty to get lots of little things taken care of. We had 13 people attend, so it was a nice small group. I'm posting two of the layouts I was able to complete - one layout is a success for me! All of the cardstock is Stampin' Up!; I used Life is a Beach, Sports Mania, and Stand and Salute for the Cricut cuts. The "Freedom" page contains the words to the Lee Greenwood song, "God Bless the USA" - I forgot to give him credit on the page, but will add that.

Hope everyone else had a good time, and we look forward to presenting other, one-day Express events!

Thanks everyone!

Croppin' Train Express (July 17)

Don't forget to get registered for the Croppin' Train Express - a ONE-DAY event - on Saturday, July 17, 2010, at the Bentonville Police Department.

For those of you frantically looking for the PayPal registration button on the blog, it is there now! :)

Remember - we only have 16 tables, and we're just at the half-way mark for registrations. If you were thinking about it before, please register now so you don't get left out.

Thanks very much!