It seems like weeks or months ago that we had the National Scrapbooking Day crop and sale. But in fact, it was only 2 weeks ago. We had a good time---If you did not join us that day, I hope that you had a super day enjoying and celebrating this very addictive hobby. The Garden Girls did and awesome job hosting this event, with 2 contests held in each of the 12 hours. It was fun. We have been talking and making plans to do this again sooner than later. The sale was also a success that day, and we have decided to offer a big sale like this once or twice a month---with a freebie and other deals offered by one manufacturer for the event. We already have a June sale all lined up and ready to go!! Watch for details.

We also did a mini Creating Garden for the National Scrapbooking Day events---- the girls that participated in this did layouts with a theme of a "signature" challenge that was issued on Tina Barriscale's Blog; a self portrait challenge issued by Ali Edwards on her Blog; and then a layout or other project that was specifically about Scrapbooking and why we love this hobby. If you did not see it that day, or since, it is Still up in the Creating Garden. Be sure to take a look--these layouts are really cool!!

Chatterbox Sale: This week we are holding a Chatterbox 40% Sale---we called it the Love Train sale, as it had started out with the purpose of being just for the Love Tiles that somehow we acquired too many of. But as we did a spot inventory on our backstock, we realized that we had too much of a lot of Chatterbox Embellishment products. So this sale is including Love Tiles, Descriptives, Letter Stickers, Wood Tags, and Wood Frames. There have been some super great projects using these products in the Creating Garden recently, so if you are looking for ideas on using these products, check out some of the ones below in this newsletter.

This was an interesting theme for us to do----but it turned out to be broader than we had originally anticipated. There are quite a few of us that don't use our computers for scrapbooking. so we had to find other ways to focus on the FONTS. We talked about letter stickers, metal letters, quote stickers, monogram die cuts, rub ons---basically anything with letters. It certainly seemed harder to do than we thought it was going to be when we came up with the idea. Those that do use fonts on their computer for creating purposes did come up with some really cool things---titles, journaling, monograms, etc. Font manipulation and combination. I would think that the possiblities for this are pretty wide and open. The Garden Girls used a lot of different things to inspire them with this theme, including graphic design periodicals, and font/text books. Lisa McGarvey shared a huge book of typographics that she had acquired. it had a wealth of cool ideas that inspired us. I think that we discovered that with working with this kind of theme, we had to look a bit further than we do on a regular basis for things that created sparks of creative genius. Even with this struggle, the Garden Girls did great layouts!!

Weekly Challenge: By Margie Scherschligt. Challenge: Create a border with words! I thought these Descriptives stickers and Love Tiles were perfect for this layout that I will frame and put on the door to my girls' room.

Digital Challenge: By Rhonna Farrer. This week, we're challenging you to use your STROKE feature. Just think of it as an outline. You can adjust the pixel width & outline any color. Very fun & handy! Here, I've used the stroke feature around my photos & the 'm' monogram. If you are not familiar with this feature: 1. Select the area you want to outline: i.e. I used the Magic Wand Tool to select the outline of the 'm'. 2. Go to EDIT>STROKE & select your pixel width & color. You also will see that you have the option to select 'inside' 'outside' or 'center'. Select whatever you want...experiment & see the various results you can achieve. 3. Experiment with the Blending Modes, & various ways to 'Stroke' your outlines! Just have fun & ENJOY THE PROCESS.

My new office is finally finished. It took Dan a long time to finally get around to it. It is wonderful to have a room set up exactly like I want it. I took way too many photos but I will summarize them here.

#1 and #2 - Just views of the room. It is not a huge room but uses all the space available. It is in the basement, beside the family room. I still plan to hang photos in here but have not found frames that I like yet. I did get some of the Melissa Frances clip boards which I still need to finish putting up. I really like these for displaying projects.

#3 and #4 - My stamp and ink shelves. I have the stamps I use most out on the shelves and the rest are in bins in a storage room.

#5, #6 and #7 - Just more views of the room.

#8 - this is where I store all of my paper. Both pattern and cardstock. The cardstock is in the vertical paper holders and pattern is in the generations holders, sorted by company. I was going to go with racks but realized that I could fit a lot more paper into this one space using this method. Some photos and CD's are also here.

#9 and #10- This is a tall cabinet that has the plastic drawers in it. Each drawer is sorted by company for the most part.

#11 and #12 - this cabinet has a number of items stored in wire bins.

#13 - this is a corner cabinet that has my sewing machine, sizzix and boxes of photos. I also store my completed pages here in vertical paper holders, as I dont usually put them in albums.

#14 and #15 - this cabinet has the large wire bins. The top one is where I throw my scrap paper and the lower contains special papers which are in hanging files.

#16 and #17 - this cabinet contains all Autumn Leaves product. The top has the legal hanging files with product and the bottom is all the paper in a large wire bin. The paper is sorted by line with generations paper keepers.

#18 - this is the metal containers that are on the shelves along the wall under the island area. I store magazines, fabric and other things in these bins.

#19 and #20 - This is where I store most of the smaller embellishments. I take them out of the packaging and put them in the small drawers. I find this very handy right at my work area.

#21 and #22 - I have these hanging organizers from Ikea to keep tools right at hand but off the counter space. I also hang my heat gun and have baby wipes and paper towels close at hand. I hate clutter.

#23 and #24 - the shelves which hold my books and ribbons etc in jars.

#25 and #26 - I have wooden drawers that hold some sticker and rub on sheets as well as my photo papers etc.

That is it. I fit almost everything that I use on a regular basis in this room. I have two tall drawer carts in a storage room with less often used items. My room RARELY looks this tidy.