eta : congratulations #144 Lisa Russell you won the beautiful Olive Juice & co Charlotte apron kit. send us your contact information {info [at!] kenner road [dot!] com} and address and we’ll pass it along to Kim @ OJ % co and she’ll get your kit to you asap!

144.  Lisa Russell Says:
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:34 am
Beautiful! Love the apples in the fabric. Very nice!

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October sneak peeks are up on the home page and you can win this beautiful apron kit from my amazing & generous friend kim at olive juice & co! just by leaving a comment by Saturday night October 3rd at 11pm pacific. We’ll announce the winner on Sunday.

xo

Where do you get your inspiration when you’re stuck?  Do you have a file of layouts you reference?  Do you have a bunch bookmarked at a certain website?  Do you flip through magazines?  Do you use templates or sketches to jump start your creativity?

Personally, I do a little bit of all of the above.  If I use something for inspiration, though, my finished product never ends up looking very similar to the original!  Something about making things my own.  Here’s some work from our very own Kenner Road Flikr gallery…. do any of these layouts inspire you?

1. Berry Picking, 2. KR Sweet Love, 3. haley’s mom, 4. Hero Book Eight, 5. roadtripFULL, 6. Liberté °Kenner Road°, 7. muddy island, 8. YOU, 9. how she loves her scooter

The layout, Sweet Love (top row, middle), inspired the layout below.  It uses some older Kenner Road goodies; however, I saw Sweet Love and was comfortably inspired.  We don’t always have to challenge ourselves to get out of our comfort zone – sometimes being right in it isn’t necessarily a bad thing!  :)

Credits (all Kenner Road):  October Afternoon alphas, Kenner Road vintage ribbon, label, Jenni Bowlin Blue Rhinestone button; Packing envelope, staples, thread; Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist; Fonts – Times New Roman, Typewriter New Roman

We, as parents, have the 1st most important job. Teachers have the 2nd most important job in our children’s lives.   

Once we send our children off to school, they are so greatly influenced by their teacher.  Not only by what they are being taught but by how they are being taught,  inspired and how they are being treated.  

 Some of my greatest memories are of wonderful teachers and some of my worst memories are of mean teachers.  I have been very lucky with my girls so far, they have gotten great teachers up to this point. 

  I appreciate that so much, I cannot even tell you.  Teachers definitely don’t work for the money, they work for the reward of making a difference.    I try to remember to thank them for going above and beyond their job descriptions. 

  So with that in mind, this months Kenner Road kit was perfect with it’s vintage Back to School look  to make a cute little classroom decoration for a special teacher. 

  I used a Maya Road Mini Banner set (these came in the June Kenner Road kit) and made a very simple, quick banner. 

I crackle painted the Jillibean Soup letters to match the pie chart fabric.  I cut the fabric into strips and tied them as ribbon onto the banner wire. 

I used vintage milk caps as my base for my letters, I adhered these onto the vintage encyclopedia pages and cut around them with my scallop scissors.

  It’s as Easy as 1,2,3!!

Have a great Day!

~Katie

hey there! i don’t know about you, but i often slip into the same old scrapbooking style/routine. so for this post i challenged myself to try something different to get out of my comfort zone.

i decided i wanted to try using spray ink and a mask. i’ve sprayed ink on only one other layout so this was a good challenge for me. i punched a bunch of chipboard circles out of the backing they came in and used the backing for my mask. you can see my inked circles at the bottom – they are supposed to look like bicycle wheels – but my kids say they look like basketballs LOL!

lessons learned…
1.  embrace imperfection – there is no way to produce a perfectly even coat of ink and have all perfect circles.
2. dont’ be afraid to use too much ink.
3. wear old clothes and maybe spray outside – i made a mess.
4. hold the mask down so the ink doesn’t get beneath it.
5. after you spray use a roll of paper towels – roll in over your sprayed image to absorb excess ink. you’ll get less curling that way.
6. you don’t have to use your whole sprayed image – here i opted for using a strip of circles.

my challenge to you is to try something that you’ve never tried before – get out of your comfort zone – scrap a different size, try a different technique, stamp a title…the possibilities are endless. be sure to share your creation in the flickr gallery – i’d love to see it!

I grew up in Ohio, Michigan, and England, and we had the most glorious Autumns! Now I live in Arizona, and I really miss the crisp temperatures and colorful leaves of my youth. One tradition that I can keep alive, despite the hot weather here, is all of the wonderful comfort foods we would eat in the Fall! As the season progressed, we would just feel like baking, and we would make homemade bread, pumpkin cookies, soup & scones, sugar cookies….yum.

I did a layout about a comfort food from my youth…homemade bread. What is your Fall comfort food? Do a layout about it & link it here…I want to read about your traditions.

To make the title, I first sprayed Tim Holtz Adirondack “Buttersctoch” Color Wash ink over the word “food” right onto the kraft cardstock. When the ink was dry, I outlined the letters with a black pen. Then, I took those 4 letters and added them to the rest of the letters I needed to make the word “comfort.” I sprayed over all of them with the “Stream” Color Wash color (on scrap paper). The letters that were already Butterscotch-colored turned out a little green when I added the blue ink, but I knew they would…and I like the two-toned look it gives the word. When the letters were dry, I sewed them onto the page. I had accidentally dripped a little ink on the vintage card, but I liked the blotchy look so I used it in the layout. Isn’t it great when a boo-boo turns into an inspiration?