hello from CHA

I was lucky enough to get to come to CHA this year. It was my first show, and while the economy seemed to slow some things down, there was still tons of happy scrappy goods within the walls of the Anaheim Convention Center.

We placed looooooooots of orders and goods will begin pouring into the store almost immediately!

"From where, Chrissy?" you ask:

American Crafts
Pink Paislee
October Afternoon
7 Gypsies
Teresa Collins
Unity Stamp Co.
Bazzill
Maya Road
Hambly
Fancy Pants
Cosmo Cricket

and more!! Be watching the "what's new" section of the store for updates!

Organization and purging old supplies

For the last few weeks, I have been going through my scrappy supplies trying to get organized and purging the things I don't need or want anymore. I have so many things that have been given to me over the years that just aren't my style. Of course, there are plenty of things in my stash that I bought for myself and now I wonder why in the world I thought I needed it. One of the organization tools I have employed is the Inque Boutique stamp keeper. They are like clam shell packages that you put in a binder to keep your stamps easy to access. I have these 81/2x11 pages that I bought from the Memorable Seasons store. You are in luck, too, cause they are on sale right now for 65% off! In fact, all storage supplies are 65% off.



The other exciting thing I am doing is getting ready for a scrappy garage sale! I belong to a meet up group in my area that gets together in each other's homes and sometimes in churches to scrap together. We have decided to have a big garage sale to help us clean out our unused supplies. We are selling everything really cheap like dime and quarter cheap on most things. Any extra money we make will probably be used buying other people's unused stuff! We are advertising on Craig's list and hope we are successful. I will take pictures and report back how we do. Why don't you and your friends try something like this in your town? It would be a great way to make room in your space and give you a little extra money for all the fun new CHA items about to hit the stores in a few weeks. Keep checking the store and this blog. Jill is markdown happy lately and the good deals just keep on coming!

Homemade lillipop flowers

Do you like the look of the Prima lollipop flowers? There are several versions of them popping up in magazine layouts and in lots of on-line galleries. They are very simple to make. I made this version on the following layout. The version I did has imperfect circles. If you prefer perfectly round circles, you could use graduated sizes of punches. I cut 5 squares of three different patterns, each about a 1/4 smaller than the next one.
Then, I just cut circles out the square by just rounding off the corners.

Stack them on top of each other and trim a few of them if there is not enough difference between one layer and another.
I wanted mine to look distressed. I don't own one of those fancy distresser tools, so I scraped the edges with a pair of scissors to get the look I wanted.
I inked the edges.
Then I crumbled them up in my hand and worked on the edges to make them wrinkly looking.
Stack them together how you want them to look.
I used my piercing tool to put a hole through all the layers.
and put a brad through it. You could make these using fewer layers or with larger brads. You could glue the layers together and add a jewel or a button. There are lots of possibilities. The challenge for this week is to show me your version of a layered flower on a layout. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Upload them to the Memorable Seasons gallery and link them to this thread.

Cupid Has Struck....

ALL items in the Valentine's Day/Love theme section are currently 35% OFF.

Now is the perfect time to use the Valentine's Day goodies to make a special mini album for your hubby, child, friend....anyone! :) To help out with that all Albums (Chipboard, Acrylic, etc) are 50% OFF

You can find the Valentines Day goodies HERE

and the Albums HERE

The Oops Tip File...

So, here is a new, but not so scrappy tip for you. It is scrap related though...
Picture it.
That new box of scrapping goodies has just arrived... from Memorable Seasons of course!
You tell yourself... be patient, open it later. You have too much to do.
Oh, you have been down this road before, you know what will happen if you open the box.
Once the new goodies and you share the same airspace, it will all be over. All manner of "to-do lists" and chores will be chucked out the door quicker than those Basic Grey Notching Tools! (you know its true!)
Your eyes dart back and forth between the laundry, the sink, and the scrap goodies...

Should I?
Shouldn't I?
Should I?
Shouldn't I?


You finally tear open the box and in a flurry of adhesive, patterned paper, and ribbon, you scrap the day away.
Fast Forward... it is 430 pm, you have no little baskets of folded laundry, no clean dishes, and worst of all... no supper. Well, I cannot help with the dishes and laundry, BUT here is a recipe to help you manage to squeeze out a dinner that will keep your family from realizing that you scrapped your day away!


Lazy Woman's Oven Chicken:
4 chicken breasts, frozen or thawed. (yes, the frozen option is what makes this work for me!)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
½ cup milk
salt and pepper


Place chicken in casserole dish. Mix together soup, salt and pepper and milk in bowl, spread over chicken. At this point you can add any optional items you may have on hand... white wine, onions, mushrooms, cream of celery soup, etc. Basically, you can add anything and still be okay with this recipe. :)
Cover with foil and bake at 375 for one hour. If your chicken was totally frozen, you may need to add more time. Serve with rice!

* NOTE: This is also good in the crock pot, again, frozen chicken can be used!!


Now, in extreme emergencies, you may just have to use this alternative recipe that I am rather fond of too...

1-800-PIZZA HUT

Happy Scrapping Ladies!
Don't forget the MS Crop this week on Thursday! See you then!

a challenge

Lately, there has been some chatter about sewing on layouts over on the Message Boards. I would like to issue a challenge. If you have never sewn on a layout or you have a sewing machine just sitting there, waiting to be used, break it out!

I want to see some thread on a layout. Post your results in our Gallery and link us to them through this thread{ha ha, no pun intended} or leave us a comment on the blog. If you're like me, and can't sew in a straight line, opt for a zig-zag stitch, it's much more forgiving!

:)

Happy New Year!!

We hope everyone's New Year is off to a great start! Memorable Seasons has many fun things in store for the coming year...contests, crops, giveaways and MORE so stay tuned! If you haven't signed up for our newsletter now is the time to do so. You can sign up for it HERE.

Also, today is the last day to take advantage of the huge sale on Paper, Stamps and Heidi Swapp items. Now is the time to stock up while prices are slashed!

Thanks everyone for making Memorable Seasons first year such a great one!!!

Jill