"Hello, My name is..... "

Hello. My name is Telah Wrenn and I'm the newest member of the Sussies Design Team. I was honored and so excited when Lara asked me to join! She asked me to introduce myself to you on my blog post, so here I am to do so. I live in Alabama with my husband and our 4 children. We have been married for almost 15 years. (Wow! I can't believe I just typed that!) Our oldest daughter is 10, our oldest son is 7, our youngest son is 5 and our youngest daughter is 2. Needless to say, life stays pretty busy and there's never a dull moment in our household. I've been scrapping off an on for 10 years but more "on" for the past 5. Like most everyone, my style has changed so much since I began scrapping and seems to continue to change as new products and techniques emerge. I got the chance to be a guest designer with Sussies back in April and I truly fell in love with the kits then. I love how Lara creates the kit to have two different "sides" to it. And even more than that, I love the embellishments she puts in them. Yes, I admit, I am an embellishment junkie here lately! I'm looking forward to creating much more using Sussies kits and look forward to getting to know others on the team as well as all of you. If you'd like, you can visit me on my blog.

I thought I'd also share a few sneaks for the upcoming June kit (which is AWESOME!!!!) with you before I leave. And also I needed to remind you that Lara is on vacation and so there will be a slight delay in the shipment of your June kits. They will ship first thing next week when she gets back. But don't worry, the kit is definitely worth the wait!!
Be sure to check out the Design Team Gallery tomorrow to see the full reveals of the entire team!

Crate Paper yumminess from the June Kit!!!

I was soooo excited when I saw the June Scrapbook Sussies kit and drooled over all the beautiful girly Crate Paper product! I am expecting my first NIECE in August and I thought these papers and embellishments would be PERFECT for a Welcome Home banner for a baby girl.

I started out by taking bare cardboard (packaging from all of those tests we get at school) and using the cutter at work to create triangular "flags". I then used one of my fiskars border punches with the pink cardstock to create borders that I glued to the back of each flag. I traced each flag onto the patterned paper, cut them all out, and inked the edges.

Then I used Mod Podge to adhere the patterned paper on to the front of each flag. I laid them out to see what I was working with.

I used my circle cutter to cut circles from the brown cardstock as a background for the letters on each flag.

Next, I grabbed some tissue paper, ran adhesive around the edges of each brown circle, and bunched up the tissue paper around the back to create some dimension and frilliness.

 I also punched flowers from the pink patterned paper to place in the middle of the circles and add more "girly-ness" to the center of the flags.

The most fun I had was embellishing each flag using the Crate Paper rubons, chipboard, and other stickers that came with the kit. I used pop-dots behind each letter to add more "pop". I used the Jillibean corrugated white alphas for even more texture and dimension. 

The last thing I did was use my Big Bite to cut holes in each top corner and tie ribbon to attach each flag into one long banner.

TA-DA!!! My very first hand-made banner!

Here's some close-ups....

So excited about how it turned out! Can't wait to surprise my SIL with it when she comes home from the hospital with her precious baby girl!

oops :)

i was just getting my post all ready for tomorrow and was catching up on reading and cleaning out some e-mails and what do i discover... i was supposed to post on Monday~ oops~ hope you will all forgive me :)
this month was such a fun and playful kit, but one of my favorite elements was the "cards" tree house paper. i knew it would be fun to whip up a stack of quick and cute cards! some of the other design team members did this as well, you can find those in the gallery here <---- click here
here are two of my cards. i cut out the same background, added a strip of green patterned paper from the kit and one of the cards. i finished them off with a couple of buttons....

i hope you make some quick and cute cards with your leftovers from this super fun kit, too :)

A Friday Challenge

Hello! Hope everyone had a good week! I'm looking forward to a nice weekend. The weather here is supposed to be sunny and hot!
Today I'm going to give a little plug for the Challenge Blog that I am a part of. It is called Scrap Whispers, and every week we issue a challenge. It's a great way to jump start a LO if you need a little bit of inspiration. For this week's challenge I used LOTS of stuff from past Sussie kits. I think pretty much everything is from a past kit except maybe one piece of patterned paper that I used from my stash.
Here is the layout I created.
Our challenge was to use a favorite movie as inspiration. One of my all time favorites is Back to the Future. I used the song The Power of Love (Huey Lewis and the News) from the Movie.

I absolutely love that I can take bits and pieces from past kits, mix them all together and come up with something. I always have so many embellishments left over because the kits are just so packed!
Take a peek at the Scrap Whispers blog. We'd love for you to play along. And I know you've got plenty of Sussie supplies you could use for this challenge! :)

Pj Day Layout

Happy Monday all! Over the weekend I was able to scrapbook a little bit (between all the loads of laundry I was catching up on;) I had these photos for a while and was having a hard time figuring out how I wanted to scrap them. The May kit came to my rescue! The reds and blacks really worked with with my son's car pajamas. I now have another Easter layout ready to be completed with the more pastel side of the kit. Gotta love the versatility of Scrapbook Sussies kits!
-Valerie

GET YOUR BLOG ON II... (and sneak peeks...)

Hello everyone! Happy MAY! I am stunned that there are only two weeks left in our school year here in Colorado. It's just crazy!!! The weather has been decidedly cool and I'm ready for some warmer days. In the meantime, I'll keep dreaming of my upcoming trip to Hawaii to celebrate my 10 year anniversary! And speaking of that, if you haven't received the newsletter, that Hawaii trip does run over June 1st. So, the June kits will be delayed in their ship dates. I return on June 6th and will get them out to you ASAP! I hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone too much!

Stick with this post and you'll see the June kit sneak peeks down at the bottom. June will feature the lines of Crate Paper Paper Doll and Imaginisce Scooter's Vacation! Add-Ons go up for sale on May 15th (along with a couple of good special edition kits...) And, if you like what you see, you could gain yourself a chance to win one of the June kits (or get yours for free if you're already a subscriber...)

Sussies really lives on word of mouth recommendations.

I need your help in spreading the Sussies Love!!

Last month, we did a Get Your Blog On contest (winners are posted on the Year of the Sussies update page). Any subscriber could post on their blog about Sussies and get entered into the contest...

This month, we're including EVERYONE!!! Anybody who has a blog, just post about Sussies on your blog. We'd love for you to post good things, of course, but you can say whatever you want... Just make sure to include a link to the Sussies website, www.scrapbooksussies.com. Then, email me a link to your blog (email to info@scrapbooksussies.com). Once I see the post, your name will be entered into the drawing which will be held at the end of the month. OH - and if I see another link to Sussies posted somewhere on your blog, your name will be entered twice...

Don't have a blog??? DON'T WORRY! You can still be included! All you have to do is send an email out to your scrappy friends, telling them about Scrapbook Sussies. (DON'T FORGET TO SEND THEM A LINK!!!) CC me (info@scrapbooksussies.com) on the email and then your name will be entered.

Good luck to everyone!!!

And, now, to all of you who patiently read through all of that, here are the sneak peeks...

The MAY KIT!

Has everyone been LOVING the May kit??? The two collections are both so different, I felt like I had TWO kits to scrap with this month instead of just one. And those 3-D bird stickers from Jolee's...so much fun to work with!!! Hope you get some creative inspiration from the layouts I created.

Did you notice that some of the packaging can be cut into tags???

Happy National Scrapbook Day

i hope you are finding ways to scrap today and create new memories, too....
today i wanted to talk a little about simple design and remembering why we started doing this to begin with~
i notice as i have evolved as a scrapbooker i put more and more stuff on my pages and Sussies kits are incredible for that.... take the May Kit for example~ FULL of goodies and believe me i used a bunch of them on my pages this month, as did the other designers.... you can check out all the beautiful pages and projects here...
but sometimes we need to just remember why we took the photo and tell the story. maybe you are like me and you love embellies (you do get sussies kits, right???) but what if today on NSD you challenge your self to just keep it simple and tell some stories you are meaning to tell, but haven't yet....
here is a page i made last month~ just a few embellies, a simple design, but the story is all on there. the photo stands outs and it makes me smile to remember that day :) those girls have grown, but this memory will stay with me for a long time...







okay, so Lara tells me if i can find a lot of scrappers who may want to win the April Add-on that i used here on my page for NSD she might give one away *wink* *wink* so post a little comment and send your friends, too :)
take care~