Annette is one of our amazing Design Team members. She says, “I am a wife, mother, scrapper and photographer. My life is filled with creativity in various ways and getting my daily dose of ’scrapping’ is very important to me. I love to create anything with paper. I would describe my style as simple and the photos form a very important part of every page. I believe it is important to have a good balance between products and photos. Being part of the ATB design team is a great honor for me and I look forward to sharing more of my ideas with you.”

You can learn more about Annette, see more of her work and photos of her sweet children by visiting her blog.

Annette created these adorable altered clothes pins. She says, “The pegs can be used to attach photos, notes or just fun stuff (on the fridge or a wall). They are also great to use to close party packs.”

Instruction
1. Cover the pegs with some left over patterned paper.
2. Attach some gorgeous ATB Chipboard Tags from the “tag kit 2″
3. Tie ribbon through eyelets on the tags.

Here are some cards Annette also made using ATB Chipboard Tags and Soft Strips along with white and colored cardstock, ribbon and staples. Try making some for yourself - you’ll love them!

I would like to introduce Lisa Falduto - she is one of our very talented designers at ATB.

Lisa says, “Imagine me elbow deep in Patterned paper, embellishments, tools, adhesives and anything else Paper Crafting related! That is where I love to be, love to spend my time. I’m a paper crafting fanatic and love every minute of it!”

Lisa’s love for paper crafting shows in her work. Try making these projects Lisa has recently designed using ATB products.

School Supply Box

Supplies
1 cardboard pencil box
1 sheet each of School Days, Chalkboard, and Love my School Patterned Papers
School Days brads

Instruction
1. Cut a strip of Love my school with blue lined side up to fit around
school box. You may have to cut 2 strips and overlap. Cut a saying from
the Love my school sheet to place on the front of the box on top of this
strip with a brad on either side of it. Now, secure this with adhesive so
it wraps around the outside edge of the box.
2. Cut a piece of chalkboard so it fits the top of your box leaving a 1/8″
white border showing. Do not attach this piece yet.
3. Cut various sayings out of the Love My School sheet, and pictures from
the School Days sheet and place these on top of the chalkboard sheet above.
4. Scatter brads on the top where you want them and secure.
5. Finish off the box by tying a small piece of ribbon in a knot and
securing it to the lower right hand corner of the box.

Love Letter Mail Box

Supplies
1 Sheet each Head over Heels, Amore, Secret Admirer and Pink Floret Patterned Paper
1 Package Babe-Love 3D Crystal Appliques
1 Love Punch and Emboss
1 Circle punch larger than the punch and emboss
1 Mini tin mailbox (I got mine in the Target dollar spot)
6″ Coordinating 1/2″ ribbon

Instruction
1. Measure and cut a piece of the Pink Floret, solid side up that wraps
around the outside arch of your mailbox and secure in place making a slit so
it fits over the rivet in the mailbox flag.
2. Measure and cut a piece of Amore for the same area you just covered.
You will want to make this piece about an inch more narrow than the previous
piece so when attached it will leave a pink border. Secure in place.
3. Cut two 1/4″ strips of Secret Admirer. This will serve as the trim
between the pink and blue pieces you just attached to the mailbox.
4. Attach the “Love” Crystal Applique on top of the mailbox.
5. Remove one of the mailbox end caps and trace around the outside edge on
the brown side of Head over Heels. Cut both of these out slightly inside
the drawn line to make them a little smaller and then adhere to the ends of
the mailbox.
6. Use the Love punch and emboss to punch into the solid brown side of
Secret Admirier. Use your circle punch to punch this entire piece out.
7. Create a pink rectangle the size of the flag and adhere. Place the Love
punched piece centered in this rectangle and adhere. Tie on ribbon accent.

Steve and I took a trip to Canada to meet our scrapbooking friends and introduce our new CHA Winter release products. While there, we taught classes, demonstrated our new products and had some fun too! Here are some pics from the event.

On the first day we set up our booth.

The blurry figure in the above photo is one of our new BFF’s, Nicole from Imaginese. The event was a great venue for meeting our customers and for developing friendships with other vendors too. Here’s a shout out to Nicole and Denise from Imaginese, Margie from Making Memories and our new friends from Provo Craft, Bazzill, My Minds Eye and Cards Magazine!

After the booth was looking especially gorgeous, Steve and I had some free time so we pointed the rental car in the direction of one of Canada’s National Parks - Elk Island. The park is somewhat of an animal preserve. We saw bison, muskrats, chipmunks, birds and an elk. Steve enjoyed driving close to the bison - it made me a little nervous. I kept having visions of tourists being gored, so I was a bit of a nagger - “STEVE, STOP!! Don’t get so CLOSE!, SHEESH!” He didn’t seem to mind so much, evidently this was not the first time he has been nagged.

This guy was keeping his eye on us. Or was it a gal? It was hard to tell the difference. We did notice that many females were “with calf”.

This one kept licking his lips. I could hear his inner voice saying “Hey Steve, drive a little closer…you guys might be a tasty winter snack!”

Ahhh…nature.

The next day we dove into the teaching and selling scene.

There were over 200 ladies in attendance at the show - and we counted…the ladies who took our class made a total of 987 cards! The cards featured our patterned paper theme “Living Life“, Edgy Strips (used as borders - how cool!), Antiquing Tool, Paper Tagger and Big Metal Brads - Hearts & Arrows.

This is one of the class kits. Hey, a big thanks to Glue Arts for donating the Glue Rings adhesives. What a hit they were - the ladies loved them!

Steve is sharing his favorite card making techniques.

A close up of one of the cards and the Antiquing Tool.

Let’s pause here for a nod to the Antiquing Tool.

Wow - this thing is amazing! (And I’m just not bragging randomly about an ATB product!) This tool has serioulsy earned a medal or gold star, or whatever ranks higher. We had 5 tools at the show with us and those tools were used and abused! Each tool inked the edges of hundreds of papers and they still had ink at the end of the show. Talk about value - that ink lasts forever!

Oh, and did we mention it has an easy-to-hold handle? No ink on your hands! I think it could possible be one of the 7 wonders of the scrapbook world. Seriously.

Here are some of the most talented scrapbookers at the show, Barb and Doreen. They were so much fun. We always appreciate the ladies with the humor at the shows. Barb said she loved our cards the most - and she couldn’t even believe it - she didn’t even get anything crooked!

Thanks so much Annette and Trudy for the opportunity to come and meet and teach all of your fun retailers. We’ll be looking forward to next year!

Janelle is one of our very talented ATB designers. We’re sharing some of Janelle’s latest ATB designs.

Janelle says: “I live in Georgia with my wonderful husband, Christopher. We have 3 fabulous kids; Meghan-8, Matthew-4 and Brenden-2 . I have been scrapping since 2000, and I have finally found my groove!

I thoroughly enjoy scrapbooking, being the family historian, and preserving all our memories for many generations to come. I have had the honor to have been published in Memory Makers, Scrapbook Trends, Paper Trends, Paper Art, Pine Cone Press, Cards!, Scrapbooks Etc. and Scrapbooking Keepsakes.”

To make Janelle’s Sweet Fabulous Wand…
1. Purchase a wooden wand from your local craft store. (Mine is from Michaels)
2. Adhere some ATB Patterned paper to the star with glue stick. I used ATB’s patterned paper from the Essential Scrapbooking Kit.
3. I cut up and applied one of the Uber Luxe Soft Strips - they’re adhesive back.
4. Add some 3D Crystal Appliques for some added bling.
5. Tie some ribbon around the handle.

Super fun! I have a had time keeping it out of my kids hands! They keep telling me they want to use it to turn daddy into a butterfly!