Holiday Card & Project Ideas from All Around the Web

In case you haven't checked a calendar in a while, it's November! Yes, NOVEMBER! And that means it's time to get going on all those holiday projects you promised yourself you'd work on this year. We'd love to see what you're working on! If you need some time away from the family to actually get any of your projects done, we totally understand. That's why we're having a crop every Monday night in November, 5pm to 10pm, $5 crop fee (waived with a purchase of $25 or more). Call the store now to sign up (503) 259-9130. We still have our Friday night crops from 6pm to 11pm, but recently they've been filling up fast, so we've added a Monday crop to our schedule. We also still have table time for $1 per hour during the days while the store is open, call to save your space. And for those of you who need more than just a few hours to work on your projects, call to sign up for our All Day crop, November 28th, 10am to 10pm, $10 crop fee (waived with a purchase of $50 or more). Call now to sign up!

And once you're signed up for a crop and know you'll have some time to get some work done, check out these sites for some great holiday inspiration, cards, projects and fun gift ideas.

As we mentioned in the newsletter, there's a great article featuring simple holiday cards & instructions in the November issue of Scrapbook Ellaments online magazine. Sign up & have the magazine sent to your inbox every month, stuffed full of fun ideas.

Sign up for Jessica Sprague's FREE online class Holidays In Hand, where Jessica will help us create a December album full of all the memories from this December. Click HERE to go to Jessica's website, on the opening page, scroll down for the info. on the class.

Another beautiful December album is featured on designer, Ali Edwards's blog right now. Ali creates a December Daily album every year. She shows us how she prepared her book for this year, creating a special page for each day, where she'll add some journaling and a photo for each day in December.

(Personally, I've checked out Ali's album and signed up for Jessica's class. I'm excited to try this for December. If I can get my album done in November, I think I'll be able to fill it in a bit each day. I think I'll combine some of each designer's ideas and come up with my own book. If everyone likes this idea, I can teach a class on it next Fall...let me know!)

If holiday party invitations are on your to-do list, check out check out the holiday invitations on the Make Your Own Invitations blog. They love to have people submit great invitations they've created for inclusion in the blog, I'm submitting some of mine soon.

Here are 25 Holiday Quotes from Creating Keepsakes to download & print and use on your holiday cards, layouts & other projects.

On Creating Keepsakes's blog, I found a cute envelope for that DVD of photos you've been meaning to send to the relatives. Put it in the envelope and send it as their Christmas gift!

I was going to include individual links on to this one, but the home page of Paper Crafts magazine's webpage has so many cool ideas, I thought I'd just link to it & let you choose what you like best. They have 12 online bonus projects for cards & gift ideas, along with a great idea for using recycled Christmas cards you received last year as your cards for this year...such a cool green idea!

Of course, search through the web for holiday ideas just wouldn't be complete without a visit to the craft diva herself, Martha Stewart. Now, I was one of those who used to follow Martha, but kind of got out of the habit when I started to find all these other sources for craft ideas. But lately, I've found myself coming back to Martha for her sense of style and ideas that seem easier to me now than her old ideas did way back then. So check out Martha's Christmas Ideas page for all sorts of fun Christmas ideas. If you give a lot of gift cards, give them a little of your personality this year and check out these great gift card holders.

And just to "toot my own horn" a bit, if you're looking for a nice project to create for your home or to give to a special friend, check out my H-O-M-E project article which is featured in Scrapbooking.com Magazine this month, complete with photos & instructions. I was very excited to be asked to write this article and have my project featured this month. As always, remember to check out my blog JulieChats, to see my latest Layout of the Week or browse through my "Get Your Creative On" section of blogs from all over the web.

You can sign up to have updates to this blog and/or my blog emailed to your account.

Twila's Coaster Set

The holiday season is coming soon and we've got a great gift idea for you. Twila created this beautiful set of coasters using Kaisercraft's Beyond the Page collection mdf coaster set. She painted the coasters & holder red and covered them with papers from Graphic 45's Domestic Goddess collection. Give this coaster set a try, if you're looking for a fun, easy gift to make for family & friends this year. They would look great covered with photos, paper or a combination of both. Be sure to cover them with a water resistant coating, such as Mod Podge.

Paperbag Mini Album - 4th of July

If you're looking for a fun mini album idea, that's also economical, you really should check this one out! This mini album came to us from our customer Gina Smith. It's made from small paper bags and is covered with all sorts of great 4th of July embellishments. Tags, photos & memorabilia fill every page and are tucked into each bag.

We don't know about you, but we all can't wait to give this album idea a try!

Thanks for sharing Gina!

20% off almost everything, Monday October 12th!!!

Whimzee's is having a Columbus Day Sale! 20% off almost everything in the store, even markdowns! We're only holding out a very few new arrivals from this storewide sale! We just FILLED the tables with all sorts of great deals! Find Halloween, Christmas, Albums & much more, marked down plus an additional 20% off!

Everything (almost) in the store, 20% off!

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Nana's Coupons Mini Book

This week we're featuring a mini book created by Gina Smith's mom for her daughter. The book is full of cute coupons for a little girl to redeem for fun activities with her grandma.

Cheerleader Mini Album by Gina Smith

Fall is here, and that means the kids are busy with sports & activities! This mini album was created by Whimzee's customer, Gina Smith. Gina used our custom high school papers from Stamping Station and a 7 Gypsies album. (Album size is 6" x 8", page size is 6" x 6".) This album showcases Gina's daughter's youth cheerleading experience. (After reading the article, scroll down to see the inside pages.) This album shows us that you don't have to have a child in high school to use these cool custom papers. You might use them to create an album for your child's youth sports season. And if you do have a high schooler, you could use this idea to create an album celebrating a special event in your child's high school years. Still need some ideas...how about marching band, science fairs, school plays, homecoming, drill team or just freshman year. Twila scraplifted this idea and created a mini album she plans to use to document her son's high school football season at Aloha. We'll share her album soon!

Yes, we all scraplift, even those of us who are seasoned scrappers, in fact seasoned scrappers probably to scraplift more often than beginners. Scraplifting is a term used by scrapbookers to describe borrowing an idea from another scrapbooker. You might recreate an entire page layout from the design to the papers & embellishments used. You might use another person's design and placement of page elements while using different papers & embellishments. You might borrow only the color scheme of the layout, card or project. These are all forms of scraplifting.

For those of you out there who are beginners, don't be afraid to scraplift! In scrapbooking, we consider it the highest form of flattery when someone appreciates one of our creations enough to scraplift it!

My Favorites Mini Album by Gina Smith

We are so happy that Gina Smith has shared some of her original creations with us! This week, we feature Gina's My Favorites Mini Album. On each page, is a journal box where her daughter wrote a list of her favorite things, from TV shows to candy, video games & even school subjects. Now she'll always have this cute record of her favorite things when she was 11. Gina used Bo Bunny's Double Dot papers to create this album. She used the dotted side of the paper on the front side of each page and its solid side on the back of each page. This technique creates a rainbow effect when the book is viewed as a whole project. Check back next week to see another of Gina's mini albums.