BLOG CHALLENGE | JANUARY

Hello everyone, Rikki here!

Welcome to the January blog challenge! First let's have a look at the winner of the template challenge from December. The template last month was awesome once more. If you want to have a look at all the awesome entries, you can find them HERE.

The lucky winner for this month is Angela!!!

Congratulations Angela aka Angela Toucan!!! You have a notification on your TLP account.
All other participants also received their 25% discount coupons via their Lilypad accounts. Please make sure you check your messages everyone and if your coupon didn't come through send an e-mail to pinkreptiledesigns at gmail dot com!

Here's Angela's great page:

This month I have a really simple challenge for you. I found this quote on Pinterest (where else?) and thought it would make a great title for a page. The kind of title that goes with about any photo that depicts something fun and/or happy.

"Just be happy. It drives people crazy."

So the challenge is: Use the quote on your page. You can use it for the title, the journaling, as a sort of overlay with reduced opacity on the background paper or as an overlay on your photo, there are many possibilities to incorporate it on your page... If you don't like the crazy part, just use the first part of the quote "Just be happy", it is totally up to you.

For those of you who like my title I have turned it into a little freebie in two versions - with the regular "crazy" and the one you can see on my page. Do as you wish with it! For my page I used a paper and clipped it to it and then added a stroke (that is why the bottom words are plain white  - the stroke is so thick the paper doesn't show any more). Of course, you can create your own wordart, title etc. Using the freebie is just an option, not mandatory.

This is what the awesome Pink Ladies made with it:

by Rikki


by Marilyn


by marijke

 
Now it's your turn to create! I can't wait to see your achievements put to paper.

Make sure you use at least 75% of Pink Reptile Design products on your page. Once completed, just upload your page to one or all of your galleries and post a link to your layout in the comments section of this post before the next challenge goes live on February 15th.

ONE favorite page will be chosen as the winner to receive a 10 dollar coupon to the PRD store, but really everyone is a winner, as all other participants receive a 25% discount coupon to the Pink Reptile Designs TLP store. So all the more reason to join in on the fun, right?!

Wishing you tons of fun and Happy Scrappin'!

TUTORIAL | POCKET LETTERS

Today I would like to show you how easy it is to create a pocket letter with digital products. My process is super easy and fun and it is so rewarding to have a tangible product in the end. Believe me, I used to be 100% digi and never considered hybrid, but when the pocket letter swap (more info here: https://the-lilypad.com/forum/threads/lilypad-letter-swap-info-timeline.56657/ ) started at TLP I gave it a go and I love it.

OK, now, the December letter had the topic "Christmas" and that was a no brainer. I decided to go mostly with Mirjam's new "Down the chimney" products (and added a few bits and pieces from other kits). So, how to go about it with minimal fuss? Here is how:

First I opened my pocket letter template with my nine cards all laid out. You can find the link to the template at the bottom of the post.



I also gathered a few supplies already in ACDSee and chose three kraft papers from Basically Kraft and six papers from Down the chimney to give each card a different background.



Just clip each paper to a card. I always kind of arrange them already in the way that I like so I can envision what the pocket letter will look like later (this is not carved in stone, however).

So this is my basic letter.




I then added some gesso to make it look a bit more artsy. Mirjam's gesso is awesome and less messy than the real thing. I also added some writing and stickers, as well as some ornaments and paint that are hard or impossible to cut out by hand.



Next I chose random elements that might or might not end up on the finished pocket letter. I normally just collect stuff that I think might look good, pull it into my pocket letter layout and resize it so it fits into a pocket. Sometimes I use larger elements that I print and then cut in half to use on two pockets next to each other (just an idea - I didn't do that with this letter). After resizing I move them to a new A4 page and arrange them there so they can be printed later. Make sure you don't place anything too close to the edge of the sheet as it might get cut off when you print. Some elements that are already on the cards I print again to stick them on top later with dimensional glue dots for a 3-D effect. I sometimes make my own wordstrips with German words or phrases to give my pockets a little international flair.



Now that I have prepared everything in Photoshop I print my two pages out on white paper. I am using HP Colour Laer paper in A4 and a weight of 200g/m². Once everything is printed I am cutting out my cards (a paper cutter really, really helps)



and lay them out.



I then cut out all my elements



and prepare my individual cards. Those dimensional glue dots are awesome. They give your cards such a great look, even when they are put into the pockets. I LOVE them.



I also sometimes use some fabric (this one I got from Sokee in the November swap and it fit perfectly with my colours here, so I made use of it right away).



I stamp a little (depending on what stamps I have). Here I just stamped some rectangles that went under the 3D word strips.



The doily that I already put on the card in Photoshop is being covered with a real doily (I never liked doilies that much, but they are quite nice actually and a pack for a few cents goes a really long way).



For "real life" supplies (i.e. non digi) I only used some washi tape, some adhesive ribbon, a few wordstrips from a magazine, a little silvery snowflake that I happened to find in my supply box on one of the cards



and some cardstock from a pad I already had for the back of the letter.



The punch holes I decorated with some ribbon that I also already had from my sewing days. And there is my finished pocket letter:



I added a little letter to my swap partner and to ship it folded the PL and tied it together with some string. There are tons of ideas how to wrap your pocket letter, but this time I kept it very basic.



That's it! Easy, right?

Why not download the pocket letter template HERE and give it a try. We would love to have you swapping with us. Again, here is the link to the swap at TLP: https://the-lilypad.com/forum/threads/lilypad-letter-swap-info-timeline.56657/

Credits:
Basically Kraft papers by Pink Reptile Designs; Down the chimney papers by Pink Reptile Designs; Gesso it Vol. 2 by Pink Reptile Designs; Down the chimney elements by Pink Reptile Designs; Winter is Magic freebie by Pink Reptile Designs; Falala Seasons greetings elements by Pink Reptile Designs

NEW: JANUARY BYOC | OUT OF THIS WORLD

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Can you believe it? Just like that, 2018 is gone and 2019 begins! I sure hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season, enjoying your family and friends. It is now time for new beginnings. It is a new year. Do you have resolutions or goals that you want to accomplish this year?

I know one thing that is happening and we all want to accomplish, - that is the Month of Challenges over at the Lilypad! It is the 7th year of the MOC, and I have participated and finished ALL challenges since 2014. It's awesome and I enjoy this time so much. I sure hope I will see you around taking part in this out of this world event!

Talking about out of this world things..... For the JANUARY BYOC I created 4 new products with just that theme! They are perfect for scrapping some OUT OF THIS WORLD pages, wether you take the theme literally or not there's tons of stuff to play with.

The new packs are ALL 20% off through January 6 but but of course there's special offers for newsletter subscribers!!! Not a subscriber yet? Click HERE to join the gang!





 
OUT OF THIS WORLD | ELEMENTS
A great set of 58 unique elements [70 in total] in all kind of shapes, sizes, textures and styles. Especially made for scrapping those out of this world moments!






OUT OF THIS WORLD | PAPERS
A great set of 11 slightly grungy, timeless patterned papers, 11 alternate color combinations PLUS 10 gorgeously textured matching solids. Which makes this a pack of 32 papers in total!!

PATTERNS PLUS ALTERNATES





OUT OF THIS WORLD | ALPHA
This super fun, all purpose stamped alpha includes lower case letters and numbers. All seperate .png's 36 characters in total. Perfect for some eye catching titles or monograms.
Also included is an all including .abr brush file for super easy stamping, resizing and coloring!






OUT OF THIS WORLD | TEMPLATES
Rejoice in the little things, give in to whatever tugs at your heart...and off you go!
Let these 4 amazing 12 x 12 templates help you scrap those out of this world moments.






Wishing you a wonderful weekend and Happy Scrappin'!