Christmas is barely over, we're just getting around to breaking in the new year, and can you believe that it's already time for another seasonal product roundup? This time we're taking a stroll through all of the new Valentine's scrapbook offerings introduced at or since the CHA Summer 2012 show. This is a much smaller list than either the Fall/Thanksgiving/Halloween or Winter/Christmas roundups- many manufacturers do some sort of fall theme and some sort of Christmas theme every year, but a lot of companyies opt to release Valentine's collections only every other season or so (though there are definitely some exceptions to that!).

As usual, you'll find collections listed under their respective manufacturer names (in alphabetical order) with convenient shopping links included should something catch your eye!

American Crafts - XOXO (Two Peas in a Bucket | Scrapbook.com | Simon Says Stamp)

 

 

 

 

Authentique - Lovely (Simon Says Stamp)

layout | oh so merry & bright {pretty little studio}

There's a new sketch up on the Pretty Little Studio blog this week, and it was my turn to help provide layout inspiration to go along with it.

 

I tend to work pretty far in advance on my design team assignments, so I actually made this page a little over a month ago- thus the Christmas theme with Pretty Little Studio's Christmas at Home collection.

This was one of those photos that I've wanted to scrap for a while, but just never really had the right papers until now (it really needed something with a graphic feel and definite blue tones instead of the aquas that exist in a lot of Christmas collections- not that I don't love aqua!). It's a difficult to little make out what it is from the tiny little web-sized layout picture, but what looks like a mess of branches with my little blue blob of a car in the driveway in the background is actually my husband climbing one of the trees in our front yard to hang Christmas lights for me (in the mess of branches with my little blue blob of a car in the driveway in the background).

I love Christmas lights. Darren hates hanging Christmas lights on the house. We compromise by hanging all of the lights (really, there aren't a ton) in one tree in the front yard along with some snowflake lights as a sort of miniature homage to my favorite part of the Galaxy of Lights at the botanical gardens. It's easy to put up, easy to take down, and looks really pretty outside the living room window, so it's a win-win for both of us.

Unfortunately most of my Christmas light strands (including the LED snowflakes that were supposed to have a super long life) were dead when we plugged them in this year, so I'm not sure if this lighting tradition will continue or not. It gets pretty expensive to have to replace lights so often!

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Supplies (click on images for product links):

InLinkz.com

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garden girl

Just under two weeks ago I got final word that I was going to have the opportunity to be a member of this amazing group of scrapbookers:

 

I really don't know how to sum up my reaction at being asked to be one of the Garden Girls at Two Peas in a Bucket...I'm excited and also very humbled to be included with these talented ladies, and I hope I can live up to their amazing work.

I'll be contributing two projects to the Garden each month- one layout based on the month's theme (you can see my first one near the bottom of this post!) and another Project Life layout + video for the Two Peas 2013 weekly Project Life class. I'll be on rotation with three of the other girls on the team, so you'll see a new lesson from me each month...with voice this time and not just music- eeek! I'll also keep doing the same type of layout videos that you've been seeing lately here on my own blog, so those Project Life videos will be in addition to, not in place of, the content you're already used to seeing here.

And I also still fully intend to use my stash as much as possible this year, even for my Two Peas pages. I can't go into details, but let's suffice to say that being a member of the Two Peas design team does not include compensation with all the latest and greatest product as soon as it comes out. There's actually very little of that- much, much less, in fact, than you find on manufacturer design teams- meaning that I'm free to use whatever I want, mix products from different manufacturers to my heart's content, and use anything that I have in my scrap room that's currently stocked in the Two Peas store (and there's a lot in the store!). I've already run all of this past Jamie and have her blessing for using older products- in fact, one of Two Peas recurring classes in 2013 is called Scrap Your Stash! So the Peas-in-charge do indeed hear you on wanting inspiration with older product, not just the new stuff.

I can sit here any type all day long that I'm serious about this whole stashbusting thing, but how about some actual concrete proof?

The product in the photo above? That's everything that I have in my stash that's currently in the Two Peas store (and not in the "Phasing Out" section), minus the items that I'm still using for projects for Lily Bee. I crawled through pages and pages of product in the store to see what was still being stocked that I already had in my scrap room, and yesterday I made it my project to pull it all together into its own section of one of my Expedits. My plan is to scrap as much as possible from these items (and there are so many collections represented that I should have plenty to choose from without repeating items) for as long as they are in the Two Peas store. From time to time I may be asked to work with specific new products (this will be rare), and I've already outlined in a previous post how I'm personally choosing new products to buy this year. Beyond that, I'm sticking to this pile of pretties as much as possible!

And, just to get things started, I've already scrapped my first layout for the Garden using a collection that I bought early last year but have barely used- Amy Tan's Sketchbook collection for American Crafts. Actually, this page started with Sketchbook, and I used that color palette to draw in a few other collections- most notably Simple Stories Sn@p (I love those Sn@p Pads like you wouldn't believe- I've already used them on a previous Project Life spread, and there are still a ton of cards left in the books) and Elle's Studio's The Sweet Life journaling cards. You can click here to see the project in the 2Peas gallery and read a bit more about my design process.

Layout supplies:

InLinkz.com

The theme for this month's Garden projects is 365, and since I've been keeping up with Project Life all year already I didn't really have it in me to do a "Year in Review" type of layout. Instead, I focused in on just one aspect of my life- working out- and scrapped about its impact on my every day. It's a rare day when you don't find me at some point either at the gym or outside running, and I chose bright colors and shapes with lots of movement (like stripes and chevrons) to convey energy and enthusiasm. And, let's face it, the dreary weather outside my window right now influenced those colors, too- I need something bright during these winter months!

I had so much fun putting this layout together- being able to choose pretty much any product I wanted to use from any manufacturer (because you know I love mixing it up!) helped it all come together so quickly, and I'm already plotting what I want to do for my Project Life video and for my next Garden layout!

So, happy New Year to everyone! I'm so excited for what 2013 has in store, and I'm going to dash off now to work on a bit of it while watching some of the 9 seasons of Frasier that I recently discovered in the streaming library on Netflix. :)