GIVEAWAY | WHO WANTS MY NEW KIT FOR FREE?

Here's a chance to win the my latest kit that will go into my Lilypad store tomorrow!

YOUR PRIZE INCLUDES

A brand new kit filled with colorful, beautifully patterned papers and a large assortment of elements in a variety of textures and styles all drawn on various bohemian and hippie influences. Perfect for scrapping some timeless shabby chic pages!

Includes:
1 alpha [upper case, lower case, numbers and punctuation - all seperate .pngs - 88 files in total]
17 papers [9 patterned and 8 matching solids]
61 unique elements

Here's a little sneak peek of what could be yours for FREE. If you like what you see then all you have to do is leave a comment in the comments section of this post.
I will be back tomorrow around noon my time [that's around 6 am EST] to pick ONE lucky winner.

Make sure I can get back to you by leaving a link to your FB page or a link to one of your galleries so I can pm you!

Good luck everyone!

APRIL BLOG CHALLENGE

It's a new month and time for a new challenge on the Pink Reptile Blog!

I hope you enjoyed the March challenge as much as I did. What I love about these template challenges is seeing how everyone makes the template their own, and what comes through is wonderful creativity!!! A BIG thank you goes out to Em Stafrace of the Nifty Pixel, who provided us with the fun March challenge sketch! 

Another big thank you to everyone that participated! You really rocked the template!

As always, you can find all the challenge entry pages on my Facebook page. The ones for March are right here if you want to have a look. It's really worth your while!

As each page submitted rocks, I am just so glad that I don't have to make a choice. I swear it would be impossible for me! Instead, as I usually do, I let Mr. Random pick the winner for me. So let's find out who won the 10 dollar coupon and let's see what's up for April!

And here's her fabulous page:

Congratulations Karen!! I have sent you a pm on you TLP account.

All other participants received their 25% discount coupons also via their TLP gallery accounts and Katja and Gaelle via FB. Please make sure you check your messages!

April's blog challenge is a pretty simple one. Spring for me is a refresh, a renewal, and with that it brings joy and happiness to me and I'd love to see what Happiness is to you! I have made Happiness Word Art for you to use on your layout. You can download it FREE below just by clicking the image! 

The Random winner will receive a 10 dollar coupon to my TLP store. Everyone is a winner for the challenge, as all other participants receive a 25% discount coupon to my TLP store, so why not, right??!!!

- IMAGE IS LINKED -

Use the "Happiness is" Word Art provided. Let your happiness shine through!!!.  ALSO you must use at least 75% of Pink Reptile Design products.

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 May 15th.

FACEBOOK

Off course there's always a little something for free under the Free Gift Tab at the Pink Reptile FB

To get you started, the Pink Ladies have made some inspirationale pages to show you what happiness means to them:

by anja

by lorry

by céline and sannn

by cynthia

by géraldine and jenn

by christa

Good Luck and let's do some "Happy" Scrapping!

KITCHEN PROOF FABRIC COVERS

Normally it's around 5 degrees Celsius here at the beginning of March, the year 2014 however brought us temeratures of 15, 16 and even up til 18 degrees! Woot! My internal clock immediately jumped to Spring Cleaning time and I couldn't help myself when I started a BIG clean up in the kitchen. Once everything was spick and span I realized that 2 of my cooking books didn't meet the spick and span criteria anymore. They were really worn and torn and badly in need of fresh new covers. Problem was they are 3 ring binders which aren't that easy to get especially not in cute patterns and or colours. So I figured it was time to get creative.

I decided I wanted fabric covers because I love the look. Of course not the best choice for your to go to cook books. I mean there's a reason the original covers are tattered and stained. But when my mind is set on something I see only challenges and no problems that are too big they can't be solved. I managed to come up with a solution and lo and behold it worked! I thought it might be fun to share how I did it so you can copy my idea if you want to. I mean... it's not just for cook books! LOL

Here's my final result. Volume 1 is covered with a small plaid cloth and Volume 2 with a bigger one. The green binder next to the 2 of them contains my hand written recipes.



MATERIALS USED


a. sanding block, b. brush for applying the gel medium, c. gel medium [you could also use mod podge or something similar], d. fabric [not too wrinkled otherwise you best iron before using it], e. pencil or fabric crayon to make marks, f. scissors, g. decorative tape, h. contact paper

PREAPARATION

Before I started on my covers I sanded them with a sanding block [a]. It's how I got rid of grease and stains so my gel medium would actually stick to both the fabric and my cover. If you are using a new book,  notepad or journal you can probably get away with skipping this step but I'd give it a little rub anyway just to be safe. Then I wiped of my book covers with a damp cloth to get rid of the sanding dust.

HOW TO
After that I opened one of the books and laid it down on the fabric that I marked all around, including a hem of approximately and inch [2,5 cm]. Then I cut the fabric to size.



Next I closed the book and added gel medium all over the back side and spine, making sure I covered the whole areas. I then carefully placed back the book on the right side of the fabric and pressed the book down firmly. Make sure you check that it is smooth and securely adhered to your book cover. At this point your fabric is just stuck to the back of your book and the spine is already covered in gel medium. I then added gel medium to the front cover, grabbed the fabric and carefully pulled it against the spine and over the front cover while rubbing it with my free hand to make sure I got rid of air bubbles and wrinkles. I turned the book and also rubbed the back neat and tight. My book now looks the same as in the image above with the only difference that now the fabric is glued to the covers.

It's the hems I need to deal with now. For this I cut off all cornes at angle of approximately 45 degrees leaving about 1/8 of an inch [3 mm] margin between the corner and the edge of the cut.. You could make marks but it's not a problem if the angles slightly differ so I did it on sight.



I made two cuts in the fabric by the spine also at an angle of app. 45 degrees. The cuts should end with where the cover creases.  Do this on both ends of the book.



Now add some gel medium all around the edge of the left inside of your book and smooth the fabric over the edges. Pay attention to the corners and make sure you pull the fabric firmly over the edges. Do the same for the right inner side of your book and the spine bits. I was covering a binder in which case the spine bits are very easily to smooth over the edges since there's lots of room to work. If you are covering a book you'll want to make straight cuts that allign with the width of the spine and add your gel medium on the fabric bits instead of the cover itself and push those bits down into the little gap between the cover and the binding with a letter opener or a knife.







Once I'd done both my books I left them to dry and continued working on them the next day when I prettied up the fabric edges with some decorative tape and repeated the whole covering process with contact paper to make them stain proof.

SUPERSTITIOUS AT THE DAILY DIGI

 

I am super excited to be featured at the Daily Digi this month and I am here to proudly show you the kit I made for the April Digi Files!

Swing by and check out my feature there, enter for a chance to win $10 to my store and grab a coupon code for 30% off your next purchase!



Happy Scrappin'!

APRIL BYOC | ROMANTIC, SLIGHTLY GRUNGY AND FRESH

Happy April everyone!

April Showers bring May Flowers....Just wait until you see what I made for the BYOC this month! Believe me when I say the color palette is refreshing and exquisite! Gorgeous pastels that will fit all those glorious spring layouts perfectly and I am betting you will just love the realistic 3 dimensional feel the alpha, elements and papers I created will give your pages!

DOG EARED  | ALPHA

Those dog eared corners and crumple textured letters will be jumping off your pages and give them an instant realistic look! Included are upper case letters, numbers, ampersand and I also included that kraft background paper as a bonus.

YO-YO | ELEMENTS

In addition to the crocheted yo-yos and leaves, I included a set of knotted twills, brads and string bows to 'fasten' the yo-yos to your pages: a super fun set of to go to page accents that will give your layouts that instant handmade wow factor!

REVERIE | PAPERS

This paper pack contains 12 yummy romantic and slightly grungy patterned papers plus 7 beautifully textured matching solids.

I really hope you will have as much fun making pages with these products as I had creating them. I'd love to see what you make with them so if you feel like sharing, by all means leave a link in the comment section of this post!

INSPIRATION

The Pink Ladies and Pollys have sprung into action and made these beautiful layouts to inspire you:

by géraldine

by lorry

by cynthia, céline and christa

by akizo

by farrah, marnel and nini

by anja

by elina and renee

by jenn

FREE GIFTS AND PRIZES

There is still time to enter the March Blog challenge. One random winner will win $10 to the Pink Reptile Designs store, and everyone else will get a 25% discount coupon just for entering so really EVERYONE is a winner. We are playing with this awesome template by super talented Em of The Nifty Pixel:

Click here for the challenge details!

For my Newsletter subscribers I have a great little freebie that coordinates with the April BYOC releases. If you are not a subscriber make sure you sign up here as you don't want to miss this, along with future goodies!!

And lastly I wanted to let everyone know that I have a new freebie on my Face Book page. Three GORGEOUS quickpages derived directly from the brilliant creative mind of our very own Li Li, so make sure you stop on by!

And with that I would like to wish you a wonderful weekend and Happy Spring Scrappin'!

PRETTY PAGES FROM THE PINK REPTILE GALLERY

And it's Cynthia's turn to pick a round of pretty pages from the Pink Reptile Gallery at the Lilypadfor March.

by cynthia

Hi! Hope everyone is well, CynthiaT/ MrsPeel here, delighted to share with you some of the most amazing pages in the Pink Reptile Designs Gallery! Not an easy task to pick just a few, so many awesome creations! But here are my very favorite:

Simple Pleasures by Chigirl 

Cynthia: I love this page for so many reasons!!! I'm amazed at all different takes with the one template for our blog challenge this month, and this is such a great example!!!! love the photo crops and how they break the "balance" making the page full of movement. The main kit she used is one of my most fav from Mirjam, the stitched word art just give the page the crowning touch to have that homey feel... last but not least, I used to be a many cups of coffee a day drinker, but had to switch on to green tea & herbals for health reasons, so I identify all the way. Amazing page!!!

Sitting Pretty by bcgal00

Cynthia: Another marvelous take on the template!!!!! Love how she choose to tell the story, the main photo is just an amazing angle to give the page a wonderful perspective. I'm amazed to see how much there is in the page and still has such a clean cut! I don't often succeed in making clean pages and have the highest respect for those who can! The journaling completes this page so beautifully!

You are Goofy by Justagirl

Cynthia: wOw to this page!!!!! I had to look closer as I thought it could be a photo of an hybrid page, LOVE the shadows here and the background work, the layering is delightful with so many bits & pieces to discover!!!! Love how well the mixture of textures works here, the stamps with the elements and those shadows!!!!!! Of course, the photos are cute overload...irresistible!!!! An amazing page all over.

Week 36 by Ellie

Cynthia: I admire her pages always, and this one is no different! It is inspiring to the point I want to go back in time and start my own weekly scrapping again....love the amount of photos she got in the page, super gorgeous composition, the use of the journal cards is perfect, the few elements perfectly placed and making it all into a gorgeous harmonious page!!!!

Cynthia: Last but never least I couldn't resist and HAD to pick this page by our very own Pink Lady

Natasha with Beautiful Day 

She always brings a ray of sun into my day, her pages are perfect in every milimiter, and she masters any style, from every day memory keeping to the art journal or photo-less pages, and in here I'm loving how much happiness the page delivers! Love how she used the Journal Cards, personalizing the page so well, the photo is gorgeous and so is the tittle work, everything in here screams perfection!!!!

Hope you enjoyed these pages and got as inspired as I am....remember to keep posting your pages to the Pink Gallery, and keep an eye here as your page could be under the spotlight next month :) 

SPRING IS.....JOURNAL CARDS & GOING GOING GONE SALE

March has been way warmer then it normally is here so I was in a spring mood BIG time when I made this fun set of spring themed journal cards and decided to do a bit of spring cleaning at home AND in my store: 10 products will be going for good!

SPRING IS... | JOURNAL CARDS

Playful set of 6 beautifully textured, handmade journal cards with a spring theme. The perfect little touch to your pages and 365/52 projects whether you are going for digital or hybrid! PDF and PSD files are also included.

INSPIRATION
Eye candy by the Pink Ladies and Pollys:


by natascha

by cynthia and kim

 

by elina

by denny, géraldine and christa

by lorry

GOING GOING GONE SALE

          

Chance to grab 10 pink reptile products at 50% off through March 30, after that they will be gone for good!

Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Scrappin'!