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Commercial license versions of ScrapSimple Embellishment Templates: Paper Rolls and Wraps Biggie are also available. |
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Layout by Joyce Schardt
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Create accents or papers with these retro racing themed digital scrapbook brushes! Coordinates with Syndee's Vroom line of products.
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Commercial license versions of Brush Set: Vroom and ScrapSimple Embellishment Templates: Bakers Twine are also available. |
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Layout by Brandy Murry
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ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Torn Paper Masks
Included in this set are six 12 x 12 paper masks made from old torn, creased and folded papers. Use them to layer your digital scrapbooking backgrounds, photos or use them as journaling areas in your layouts.
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Commercial license versions of ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Torn Paper Masks, ScrapSimple Type Paths: Shabby Text and Beautiful Black Paper are also available. |
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Layout by Kathleen Szatmary
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Pretty Pastels have been speckled and spotted, just like your home-dyed Easter Eggs. Use them for your Easter and Spring layouts, or just for a fun, tie-dyed, speckled look. Easter Eggs Paper Super Mini includes three speckled and spotted papers in pretty pastel Spring colors.
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Commercial license versions of Easter Eggs Paper Super Mini, ScrapSimple Digital Layout Templates: Blendability and Easter Goodies Embellishment Mini are also available. |
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If you have praise, comments, or questions for any of our Product Designers or Layout Artists, did you know you can send them a PM (private message) using the Forum? It's easy!
If you are a registered user of the Forum, just click on the "PM" box at the bottom of any of their posts to send them a message. Or, to check out more of your favorite Scrap Girls team layouts, visit the Scrap Girls Design Team section and the Scrap Girls Layout Artist Team section of the Layout Gallery.
Making Connections
Monday, April 2, 2012
IN TODAY'S ISSUE:
- What's New in the Scrap Girls Boutique?
- A Designer's Life: Melanie Johnson
- Scrap Girls Club
- ScrapSimple Club
- Designer Freebie
- What's Happening at Scrap Girls
- Ongoing Opportunities for YOU
GENERAL INFORMATION
Contact Scrap Girls
Your email address is safe with us. We never share, rent, sell, or loan our list with anyone! If you ever need any assistance, please email [email protected] or call
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The entire Scrap Girls team wants to say how grateful we are that you have chosen to participate with us. You'll never know just how much your support means to us and our families. Ro IMPORTANT TO KNOWDon't forget to check out the Retirement Sale section of the Boutique. Items in this section are always on sale for 30% off. The items you will find during any particular month will be discontinued permanently on the 5th of the following month. So if you see something you like, grab it while you can! OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUSuggest a Challenge, Win a Prize! Have a great idea for a Gallery layout challenge? Submit it to [email protected]. If your challenge idea is chosen, you will win a prize! Friday will be Customer Challenge Day, so keep an eye out on the Message Board calendar. It will be fun to see what YOU come up with for us to do!
Of course, it is a surprise what you will receive because birthday presents should alway be a surprise! Make sure your Forum email address is current and that you have the correct birthdate entered into your profile to participate. |
Scrap Girls sends a birthday gift to each of our Forum members!
TIP OF THE DAYScrap Girls Club and ScrapSimple Club products are brand new, never-seen-before items that are released for the first time on club day. So you never have to worry about receiving a kit you already have, when the new club comes out. |
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*ADVERTISEMENTS*
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Making Connections
As a homeschooling mom of three, I'm often asked why I choose to do it. There are lots of reasons why, but one of the biggest is that in deciding how I was going to teach them, I discovered the ancient classical model of the trivium. For those of you who may be (like I was) unfamiliar with the trivium, here's the short version.
The trivium is comprised of three of the ancient liberal arts (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), with each stage corresponding to a phase in the student's development. In the grammar stage of learning, you provide your student with lots of raw data to memorize: lists and tables like the cube roots of numbers from 1 to 12, the names of all the U.S. states and capitals, the names of all the countries in any given continent, the elements of the periodic table and their atomic numbers, the names of the planets, the books of the Bible, or the names of the various body parts that make up each system of the body. Young children are like sponges when it comes to this type of information, and it helps them create "pegs" in their brains on which they will later be able to hang bigger pieces of information.
As they mature, they enter the logic (sometimes called dialectic) phase where they begin to ask questions about why and how all of these disparate pieces of information fit together. If you've ever spent much time around a child at this age, you'll probably agree that most of the statements that come out of their mouths usually end in a question mark! The dialectic stage takes advantage of this natural desire to question things and helps them learn how to channel that curiosity into research, debate, and the study of logic. They also begin to read and examine great works of literature in their entirety.
From there, they move into the rhetoric phase where the focus is on self-expression in writing and speech: they learn to write eloquently or speak persuasively on whatever they are interested in and are able to speak and write intelligently on a wide range of subject matter, recalling the broad base of information they acquired when they were much younger.
Now you are probably wondering: 1) what does any of that have to do with digital scrapbooking, and 2) why should I care? Well, as I studied and was drawn to this method of teaching, one day I realized that my personal pursuit of digital scrapbooking followed a very "classical" model of learning. When I first found out about the topic, I had no knowledge at all of even the basics. As a beginning student, I had to learn the "grammar" of digital scrapbooking: what were the different types of digital elements, different types of scrapping software, scrapbooking websites, rules of good design, types of digital cameras, product types at Scrap Girls... the list could go on and on.
As I learned each of these pieces of information, I was then able to make connections between things and start to ask questions that facilitated even more learning: What was the difference between 72 and 300 dpi? Why would I want to use one over the other? What were the steps involved in reducing resolution? Was there ever a good time to do that? What's the difference between raster and vector art? As you can see, this is just one area of digital design where asking questions led to even more learning and eventually took me to the final phase, where I became knowledgeable enough about the subject of digital scrapbooking design to write tutorials teaching others. A completely unexpected (but welcomed) side benefit was that in the process of teaching myself graphic design, I also taught myself web design, effectively taking on an entirely new career in my 40s!
As a teacher, two of my primary goals are to instill in my children a deep love of learning and a respect for the value of hard work. If they have these, they will be able to do anything they want to do. In fact, if my boys can find something about which they are as passionate as I have become about digital design, I will feel very successful indeed! Similarly, I hope that each of you will recognize that you, too, have the ability to learn anything at all that you set your mind to — and it's never too late to start.
- Melanie
Favorite Product I've designed:
ScrapSimple Craft Templates: Subway Stats - Birth (Vertical)
Like most designers, my favorite product is generally the last one I designed. In my case, that would be ScrapSimple Craft Templates: Subway Stats – Birth (Vertical). Because my personal style is very simple, I've always been drawn to subway art, where the words take center stage and everything else is secondary.
Layout by Melanie Johnson
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Commercial license versions of ScrapSimple Craft Templates: Subway Stats - Birth (Vertical) and ScrapSimple Paper Templates: InstanTexture Biggie are also available. |
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Learn to make digital scrapbooking layouts and more! – Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed Ready to learn advanced techniques? – MORE Scrapbook Software Secrets Revealed |
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Join the Scrap Girls Monthly Club and you can have fun with the newest traditional digital and printable scrapbooking looks while saving! (A $40.87 value for $9.99 or less!) The Scrap Girls Club contents are released on the 1st day of the month (or the closest business day to the 1st). With the Scrap Girls Club, you will receive:
April's Scrap Girls Club designed for you by Amanda Fraijo-Tobin |
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 Layout by Amanda Fraijo-Tobin using April's Scrap Girls Club |
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March's ScrapSimple Club has been created for you by |
Join the ScrapSimple Monthly Club and you can enjoy the newest ScrapSimple looks while saving! (A $13.95 value for $6.99 or less!) The new ScrapSimple Club contents are released on the 15th day of the month (or the closest business day to the 15th). A commercially licensed version of the ScrapSimple Club is also available here. With the ScrapSimple Club, you will receive:
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 Layout by Brandy Murry using March's ScrapSimple Club |
Layout by Brandy Murry
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Designer Freebie by Brandy Murry coordinates with this month's ScrapSimple Club offering!
The first product listed below is included in this month's ScrapSimple Club offering. Members receive a substantial discount on these club supplies. They are also available elsewhere in the Boutique at regular prices for those individuals who would rather not join a club.
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Commercial license versions of ScrapSimple Paper Templates: Art Diary and Design Pack: Inked Text are also available. |
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Today's freebie designed by Brandy Murry
* There is a "free download" button on the details page for each gift. You don't need to put them in your shopping cart unless you are shopping for other items. Also note that if you are slow reading your newsletter, you may find this freebie has already been retired, as the freebies are only available as gifts for about two newsletter cycles.
Creative Cards Chat
Tuesday, April 3rd - 6:00PM MDT
Do you use your digital supplies to make cards? Do you want to? Instead of going to the store every time you need a card, you can save money and have fun making cards with your digi-stash! Make a note of any cards you might need for the upcoming month and join April (April Showers) and Theresa (tiza126) for the once-a-month Card Chat on the first Tuesday of each month at 6pm MT. Can't wait to see you there!
East Coast High Noon Crop
Wednesday, April 4th - 10:00AM MDT
Join April (April Showers) each Wednesday at 10am MT for the East Coast High Noon Crop. All coasts and time zones are welcome! These crops are designed to allow you to work on your own photos and themes, simply giving participants a one hour goal and a fun, new challenge each week.
On April 4th, we'll do a Photo Manipulation Challenge! Create a layout using a photo you have manipulated in some way - change it to black and white or sepia, remove a distraction, cut out the subject. Anything goes!
Create your layout and upload it to the special High Noon Crop Gallery. You'll be amazed what you can get done in just one hour, but there is no High Noon Sheriff timing you! Hope to see you in the chat room!
April's Forum Game: BINGO!
Join us for an exciting game of Springtime BINGO on the Message Board Forum in April! Pick 25 words from the list provided in the forum game thread and send them in an email to [email protected] with a subject line that says "BINGO CARD - your Scrap Girls Message Board username" by Tuesday, April 3rd at Midnight MDT in order to play in the first round. The first round will begin on Wednesday, April 4th. If you miss the first round deadline, you can still play! Just send in your BINGO card at any time during the month, and you'll be eligible to begin playing when the next new round starts.
Each day, a member of the Welcoming Committee will call five random words from the BINGO list. Match just 15 of those words to win a BINGO. You must be first to call "BINGO!" in the game thread to win that round. After a winner is called, the boards will be cleared and a new round will begin the following day.
Each winner will receive a $5 Gift Certificate to the Scrap Girls Boutique! We like to see lots of winners, so please remember that each person can only win one round during the month. Have fun!
For complete details, visit the Monthly Message Board Games folder on the Scrap Girls Forum.
April Monthly Layout Contest: Life is full of surprises! Here in the United States, we have April Fools' Day on April 1st. Have you ever been surprised by someone playing an April Fools' joke on you? Or, you can scrap about another surprise that has happened in your life. You don't have to have photos. It could be a journaling page. Post your layouts in the April Monthly Layout Gallery before Midnight MDT on April 30th. Be sure to list your layout's product credits in the description or under the EXIF Properties. Two layouts will be selected to win a $10 Gift Certificate to the Scrap Girls Boutique!
Club Concepts Layout Contest: Post your new layout using the current club selection (either the Scrap Girls Club or the ScrapSimple Club) in our Scrap Girls Club Members Gallery or the ScrapSimple Club Members' Gallery. Be sure to list all of the Scrap Girls products you used. If your layout is chosen, it will be showcased as a Club Concepts layout winner, and you will win a $5 Gift Certificate to the Scrap Girls Boutique!
Check our Forum calendar if you have any questions about what is happening at Scrap Girls. All event times are given in Mountain Time Zone unless otherwise noted. Need help converting time zones? Check out the World Clock - Time Zone Converter. (Use 'USA-Utah-Salt Lake City' as the location for the Mountain time zone.)