Simple Scrapbooks

Happy Halloween!

We've been having too much fun around the Simple office today. We all dressed up as prisoners, decorated our cubicles with bars (PVC pipe) and gave ourselves nicknames. Why are we in prison? Because we all committed scrapbook crimes of passion. Check out our mug shots from die-cut row.

And have you seen her? Cathy Zielske is wanted for running with scissors. Beware! She is charmed and dangerous. If you see her, please tell her how fabulous she is.

Now for the fun part. Share your best Halloween layout or favorite Halloween photo in the Simple group this weekend for a chance to win a HUGE Halloween prize pack from Little Yellow Bicycle. Label your file (not your project) as "Halloween." (The quote marks are important). A winner will be chosen on Monday.

Happy Halloween! Have a great weekend.

At Long Last, November/December Behind the Scenes!

Pull out your issue, and follow along!

cover Photo by Margaret Scarbrough; layout by Lisa Dickinson.

pg. 6  Those little circle cutters belong to me. They're by Creative Imaginations, and they're fantastic. You really should pick some up, if you have the means.
pg. 8  Are you using your 20% off coupon?
pg. 13  This is the second time this year we've featured a bucket o' adhesives on the Editor's Note. We figured, hey, you can never have too many buckets o' adhesive.
pg. 14  Um, who WOULDN'T want to win one of these? To enter for your chance to win, click here to fill out our reader survey and then enter our contest!

pg. 19  You may have noticed that none of the "Use" columns have bylines. Why? Because they're so collaborative. Wendy gathers products and assign layouts. We take turns writing. And I carefully edit them, followed by a careful copy edit by Rachel Gainer. This particular column was also written by Rachel.

pg. 19  The little circle cutter that's pictured is cool, yes, but the magnetic Circle Cutter is REALLY cool. I have one...saw 'em in my local scrapbook store last week! Here's a pic:

pg. 20  Look at me in that middle picture of Beth's CHA layout...I look like a giant! But I'm only 5 ft. 7 in...Beth and Rebecca are both just teeny. In contrast to that picture, check out the picture below...in this one I look like a runt, standing next to my scrappin' friend Deanna (who's really NOT this much taller than me) and Wendy (who's actually a little bit shorter than me). It's all about perspective.

pg. 21  There they are again...my little circle cutters. I'm so proud. 

pg. 23  Layouts by assorted designers; copy written by our own Megan Hoeppner. Cute intro, huh?

pg. 24  Check out the Santa Baby layout. Adorable, right? Technically, you'd need two sheets of this paper to punch both "Santa" and "Baby" for a layout...the words are too close together. But shhh! don't tell anyone. All the other patterns on this layout DID come from a single sheet of the strip paper.
pg. 26  Project and notes by Wendy Smedley; final copy by our editor-in-chief Jennafer Martin.
pg. 30  Projects by Candice Palmer; final copy by yours truly. Hey...THAT'S where that green embroidery floss went! I've been looking for that everywhere!
pg. 36  There she is. My little rival. Shelby Kate Gainer...she's the one who took Editor Rachel away from us in April. Sniff. I miss having my own personal grammar genius right around the corner from my office. But that's okay. She still writes for us plenty (as this article proves) and she's just a phone call away! I called her twice today with life-or-death grammar questions. We talked about squinting modifiers and prepositional phrases. I always surprise myself by how much I enjoy talking about grammar! Are you with me? (It's okay if you're not.)
pg. 43  I LOVE that picture of little Ryan looking at his footprints in the show. Priceless!
pg. 44  Don't even get me started on how hard it was to get those high-end cameras into our photo studio for photographs. Sheesh! Mine was easy of course. (The red one is mine...and I've convinced my husband that it's NOT pink...it's RED. So don't give away the secret.)
pg. 46  Say farewell to Color Play! We're retiring it for something newer, fresher...something that our readers have been asking us for. Just you wait for the March/April redesign! (Note: this was a great column, but the idea is showing up so many other places that it doesn't feel fresh any more. Our own Stacy Julian, who launched this column, is always way ahead of the curve! For more color palettes any time of the day or night, you can find them at bigpicturescrapbooking.com. Click here!)
pg. 53  Remember Megan Hoeppner, the editor who wrote that fun intro to Creative Combos (mentioned earlier)? Here's a picture of her! She's the cute brunette in the pink jacket.
pg. 59  I love this layout by Melissa Kaiserman! It's SUCH a great idea. Definitely one of my favorites in this issue. Go Melissa!
pg. 66  In case you hadn't noticed, this is our TOOL ISSUE. There are tools everywhere!
pg. 69  After receiving this layout, we really truly called Sara Winnick and asked her to mail us the goggles for our photo shoot. Too cute.

pg. 81  Hey, check it out! This "Our Time" layout was created by Deanna Billings...the same Deanna pictured above with me and Wendy! We met her at a scrapbooking event in Colorado. You never know where you'll run into new talent. :-)

pg. 89  What do you think about our new "Your Thoughts" column? I love it. We get such GREAT responses!

pg. 91  Check out another new column! This one will rotate through different Simple scrapbookers and editors. First up was Lain because she has a book of scrapbooking essays coming out in December! (I know it says November, but that was the best information we had as of press time. It will be available in December for real.) I can hear you thinking "scrapbooking essays? who'd want to read those?" Well, YOU will. Because they're hilarious. Trust me.

pg. 93  Cute Jenny Willden, our former assistant editor who is now working exclusively for Digital Scrapbooking magazine, was our tool-girl model.

pg. 97  The owl layout is also one of my faves in this issue. I actually went out and bought those very stamps after reading Andrea's recommendation! p.s. Andrea was 1st runner up in our Funnest Scrapbooker Ever (for 2007)!

That's it! (As if that wasn't enough.) Whew. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Ready for this issue's contest?

See if you can find:

1. A stuffed reindeer.

2. A sprig of faux mistletoe.

3. Another layout featuring the boys from the cover photo.

The FIRST person to respond with correct page numbers gets a really awesome prize. Then two more random commenters will get slightly less awesome prizes. Good luck!

congratulations to...

Dale Ann! You've won this first-bound copy of Quick & Easy Photo Albums.

And the photo albums go to:
Kitty Mortimer
Kristy H.

Winners, send your addresses to [email protected], and prizes shall be shipped shortly. :-)

Thanks for the comments.

Get Your Little Paws on One of These!

I just received my first-bound copies of the Quick & Easy Photo Albums special issue! And since I have two of them, I decided I could give one away to one of you. The issue doesn't go on sale until November 11, so the winner will be one of only 6 people to have seen this entire issue before the rest of the reading public. Sound like a deal?

Leave me a little comment about any old thing your heart desires, and I'll pick one random winner to get this beautiful, first-bound-copy special issue. Two additional winners will receive a photo album from C.R. Gibson or We R Memory Keepers (pictured above). Comment away!

Quotables

Alert reader Rebecca sent in a comment asking what happened to the Simple Quote Archive. Good question, Rebecca! The Quote Archive is an online collection of all the inspiring and motivational (and sometimes funny or inane) quotes that have been published in the pages of Simple Scrapbooks over the years. We update it every few months or so with all of our recently published quotes.

My favorite recent quote appears in our Jan/Feb 2009 issue (which you won't get to see until December), so I'll share it now:

“I am fond of children—except boys.”
Lewis Carroll

I just think that's so funny! Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, master of children's nonsense literature, a man who was once a boy himself. Why publish this quote? We have a little column (written by moi) about cool new product collections for boys. Keep an eye out!

Here's How to Find the Quote Archive:
It is available on the new site; it's just temporarily a little bit hard to find. Click here to go straight there, or visit simplescrapbooksmag.com and scroll down to the "Browse Other Issues" drop-down menu; you'll find it there on the list.

Happy Monday!

What's Happening, Hot Stuff?

Why, thanks for asking! I actually spent last weekend and part of this week in lovely (and warm!) Los Gatos, California, hanging out with my buddy Lain Ehmann (who, by the way, has an adorable new website!). As such, I fell way behind on my official Simple Scrapbooks duties and have been madly trying to catch up! Here are a few fun highlights from the week:

1. For only the second time in my flying career, I missed my flight! (For the record, my first missed flight wasn't really my fault. I blame it on my little sister and In-N-Out Burger, but that's another story.) You see, on Delta, you can only check bags if you check in 30 minutes before scheduled departure. I reached the kiosk exactly 28 minutes before my flight, and I had an important bag to check. Those measly 2 minutes cost me $221. I keep thinking of ways I could have saved those two minutes: perhaps pushing past the family of five on the shuttle, instead of waiting patiently as they corralled their kids, strollers, and luggage. But courtesy counts for something, right?
2. I had an amazing time with Lain. I was there on official but top secret Simple Scrapbooks business, and the creative energy was just staggering. I am bursting at the seams with ideas and plans for future cool things. As soon as I'm at liberty to spill the beans, you'll hear it here first! The scenery and weather were great, Lain's kids were adorable and well-behaved, and Lain introduced me to my favorite new bakery: Icing on the Cake. Mmmmmm.
3. This week we worked on our design review for the lovely January/February issue. Here's one little itty bitty sneak peek for ya. It's one of our section openers, designed by Mi'Chelle Larsen:

4. My team has been working long and hard on a marketing plan for our newest special issue, which will be on newsstands November 11. It's called Quick&Easy Photo Albums. It's only $6.99, and it's AWESOME:

Note: the cover project is from inside the issue (but we did doctor it a bit for the cover, because above all, the cover is a sales tool). The original project was by Nicole Harper, who we discovered through her many project submissions through our website.

5. I'm busily writing my Behind the Scenes post for the November/December issue. Coming soon!

Stamp Champ 2008

After an intense competition in the So You Think You Can Stamp contest, I'm excited to announce our Stamp Champ 2008. Drum roll please...the winner is:

cdheeren

Check out the stamp contest blog to see all her winning layouts. Congratulations to all the participants in our stamp-alicious contest. 

Boo!

I got boo-ed today. (The good kind of boo-ed of course.) We have a little tradition here at the office come Halloween time. A sneaky little specter decorates your office with spooky treats and gifts, and you have three days to pass a "Boo" along to someone new. Behold the Halloween haul:

Here's my little Frankenstein treat box close up:

Cute, huh? You can't see that box of candy in back, but it's a "Box of Boogers." The tagline reads: "SsssNot Your Regular Gummy!" The flavors? Snottermelon, Lemon Loogy, and Sour Green Boogy. Sounds like the perfect re-gift for my resident 14-year-old.

Vote and Learn

1. VOTE!
You simply must head over to our So You Think You Can Stamp blog and vote for your favorite stamping sensation. We're down to our four finalists, and the layouts that are posted now WILL determine our STAMP CHAMP 2008! So head over and vote. Consider it your civic duty. (I won't tell you whom I'm pulling for.) You must vote by Thursday, October 9 at noon (MST). That's tomorrow!

2. LEARN!
Click on that little logo down there on the left hand side of the blog. See it? The Big Picture Scrapbooking logo? Today is your LAST DAY to sign up for Cathy Zielske's Design Your Life class.

If you only sign up for one class today, THIS should be the class. You'll have the time of your life. Cathy Zielske is truly one of the best humans on the planet, not to mention one of the best scrapbookers. I'd clone that lady if I could! (Now that's what you'd call a "scrap lift"...or maybe a "scrapper lift." Sorry. I'm very very sorry.) 

WCMD Winners!

WCMD sounds so menacing somehow (Weapons of Card Mass Destruction?), even though it stands for the sweetest thing in the world: World Card Making Day.

Our lucky winners are:
Dale Anne Potter
and
Tamara

Ladies, your Paper Crafts special issue is on its way!