Our first lineof scrapbooking paper...and then some other somewhat unrelated topics

OK, so it has been a very long time since I've blogged...
But I have a darn good excuse...
I met someone!

I'm not entirely sure if we're officially defining ourselves as boyfriend/girlfriend yet, but I'm choosing the presumptuous route and calling him my boyfriend... because in all seriousness, I'm pretty sure that he won't be reading up on my scrapbooking endeavors. But anyway, about a month ago I started taking salsa-dancing classes... in hopes of jumpstarting my rather embarrassing social life (...or lack there of). And that's where I met Atul!!! Who I think is fantastic! ...And funny... and smart... and smoking hot...

And so... I'm going to go ahead and blame every bit of my slackness this past month on him. My mom does too. She calls me just about every day to yell at me about something that I forgot and to tell me to knock off the excessive amount of dating that I've been doing. :)

Anyway, Atul is on a three week long business trip right now... so I have time to catch up on blogging, our website, our next fabric line, etc. And when he gets back... I'll have to put my foot down with this "being attached at the hip thing" that we have going on right now.

So paper products... I have always been a big fan of them.

And this love began sometime in my early childhood... thanks to my mom who really encouraged my sister and I to explore our creative sides. As children, we were never short on construction paper, pipecleaners, an assortment of drawing materials, and scotch tape... (LOTS of scotch tape...) with which we created small huts, dressup clothes, Barbie accessories, food for our fisher-price kitchen, etc.

And this love for paper continued to grow through various art classes in both high school and then college.

...But it wasn't until I was going to grad school in Atlanta (for graphic design at the Portfolio Center) and taking a bookmaking class with one of my favorite teachers there, Anne Elser, that my love for paper turned into the beautiful obsession that it is today. And on that same sidenote... I had four or five great classes with Anne, who has quite a wide variety of specialties... hand-lettering, bookmaking, painting... (See below.)

And prior to her... I never really cared much for "hand-made" graphic design. I would generally opt for things made in the computer. But she has a way of opening her students up... and guiding them towards new ways of thinking... and designing. And with her, I learned that sometimes its the marks and subtle imperfections left behind by the artists... that are unavoidable when something is made by hand... that give a design its unique voice and character. It adds back in the human-element that is so often missing from designs that come directly from the computer. Anyway, this tangent is a bit unrelated to my scrapbooking blog post (as was the entire boyfriend intro that came at the beginning of this entry) but I was just on Facebook and saw that Anne had a post up about how Martha Stewart Weddings has asked for her calligraphy samples. How cool is that!!

Anyway... on to scrapbooking!!! We love it!

And we have recently come out with our first scrapbooking line, Hideaway, that we've designed for a craft company in the UK named Trimcraft. (See above.) It is available in three sizes that come in both glittered and non-glittered paper! Which is awesome!!!

This line is based off of our second fabric line... but it has really evolved quite a bit since then. The patterns themselves have become a little more simplified, the repeats are now much smaller, and the colors are more like muted sherberts than the swiss/alpine theme that we used in the original (fabric) version. And you can check out the final line below. (This is the cover that they sent over for our approval, so I'm not positive that this is what the final version looks like.) Anyway, we're quite pumped about this new venture and hope that there will be many future lines to follow!!

(And if anyone has some cool pictures of this line in action, please send them our way and we'll add them to our website gallery!)

Be@Home

This week we were featured on Be@Home, a blog that showcases people with a passion for cross-stitching, sewing, quilting, and playing with different fabrics. It's part of a larger blog called Pocket Change which brings together several niche shopping blogs all into one area. Which is cool!

Almost Famous + Carrie and Jon Get a Camera

Why "Almost Famous" you ask? Well...we were just featured in the Summer edition of Quilts and More! Which is awesome...
So go get one!

You can find our article entitled "Made in the Shade" on page 78... and it includes both the instructions and diagrams needed to make our Lamp Quilt that we submitted to them a few months ago...

And then for the second half of this entry...
My sister, Carrie, has been promoted (within our little company)! To photographer...
Whoohoo!

(I've found that my day job really gets in the way of my extracurricular job because by the time I get home around 6:30... it's a little too dark for picture taking. So that's where Carrie comes in.)

As you can imagine, we are all really pumped that our lamp quilt was featured in a magazine. And true to Jung form, we wanted it well documented with copious amounts of pictures. Carrie gave it her best shot with her iphone, but it quickly became apparent that that wasn't going to cut it.... So she's now the proud new owner of a Sony a390... which she LOVES... and so does her husband, Jon, who's been fighting for a chance to experiment with it.... and in his free time he's been nerding things up with the instruction manual.

But I think they were very thorough, to say the least, with the the shots that they sent over...

(See above picture of Carrie pretending to be a hobo.)

I think this would qualify as "thinking outside of the box". Ha.

(And if you also direct your attention to the second set of photos... the magazine spreads were photographed in a bush... while, very cleverly, sitting "in the shade"...)

Get it?

Like the magazine title?

Alpine Stars Pattern

So this is our third free pattern for our Hideaway line, and it's officially up and ready for download on our Free Patterns Page on our website here!
(And you can download it directly here.)

We think it's a nice one because it's relatively easy... and it's a fun way to use the entire line. It consists of 30 identical blocks that follow the Ohio Star pattern. (I've also seen this star called the Maryland Star as well as the Sawtooth Star.)

Anyway, when it's done with a more traditionally themed color palette... where all of the stars are identical, it will definitely give off that more traditional feel. But when it's created in the more scrappy technique... as shown here, it winds up creating a really nice mosaic-y feel. It becomes more intricate and the stars evolve into more of a secondary feature... rather than being a dominating visual element.

We hope you like it!!

On a side note, I know that it's difficult to find an entire line sometimes... because most stores won't generally buy entire collections. But if you're looking to create a quilt like this using our Hideaway line here are a list of stores that I've found online that are carrying the full line:

Suppose Quilt Boutique The Twiddletails Store Seamstar And Fabric.com has most of the line.

And finally, on yet another sidenote... We've just put up our new website... which I guess should be considered a work in progress, because there are still a number of things that we'd like to add. One of these things is a Where to Buy Page. So, I'll be putting together a list of stores that I find through Google, but if you'd like to email me a link to your store, I'd be happy to include you on this page. Just give me an idea of what you'll be carrying... like if you'll have the whole line... and if you're planning on doing any kits. (Because if you are doing kits, I'd love to post an entry about them... as well as provide access to your store through our website. I have a lot of people emailing me about kits, but I haven't come across any so far.)

Thank You Julie for Being Awesome!

I recently received a series of emails from several friends and family... telling me to check out the newest post on the Moda Bake Shop that uses Hideaway...

Julie Sebire (of "Narioka" Australia) was the creator of her beautiful Cabins in the Hills quilt tutorial/recipe... which seriously blew me away!

For those of you who don't know about the Moda Bake Shop, I'll give you a brief rundown... Its basically a blog that has weekly submissions from sewers/crafters/quilters all over the world who have created a quilt or some other kind of sewing project using any of Moda's "precuts" (e.g. JELLY ROLLS: 2 ½ ” x 45” strips of fabric, LAYER CAKES: 10” x 10” squares of fabric, HONEY BUNS: 1 ½ ” x 45” strips of fabric... etc.).

The whole idea is really pretty cool because each of their precuts are named after some kind of baked good... an idea that is then extended into the rest of their naming conventions: each submission/set of instructions is known as a "recipe", the designers are referred to as "chefs", and the web page that features their array of precuts is known as the "bakery".

Anyway, back to Julie and why I think her entry is so completely spectacular...

I've found that fabric is very much like any other artistic medium... you can give ten different people some clay and a wheel... and the pottery that results will be so unexpected... and so unique to each particular creator, that you never really know what you're going to get.

Ten different quilters/sewers/crafters can all use the same line of fabric in their projects... yet, they'll still manage to come up with a wildly diverse set of creations... creations that always seem to amaze me because of the way that same grouping of prints can evolve... and become transformed from designer to designer...

For example... we created mainly appliqué patterns to show off this line because the prints are rather small and intricate... and they do especially well in that type of application. But when you view those same prints in a very traditional style, such as this... they really take on an entirely different look and feel. The colors interact with each other in strange ways... which, to me, has sort of a kaleidoscope-y feel (if that makes any sense at all)... Ha.

And so... all that's to say, you should check out her entry on the Moda Bake Shop here. As well as her blog, Narioka, here, which has some really fun ideas. Plus, she has quite the eye, when it comes to photography! When I saw her pictures up on the Bake Shop I emailed her right away about using them on our blog! I LOVE it when people go picture-crazy after finishing up a project. Whenever I finish something up, I'll wind up with photos of it in the grass, in the trees, propped on old cars... hanging out windows... Sometimes I'll take it with me to work and explore the various photo ops there as well. The whole process will usually take hours, but it's just so darn fun to flip through the pictures later!

Which reminds me, if any of you have a fun set of photos that features a project that you've made with some of our fabric, shoot me an email! I'd love to show them off for you!