Can you believe it's August already? We have some great club kits for you this month, and I wanted to share them with you, and also to remind everyone that we always make lots of extra kits each month so that new club members can get in on all the fun. You can join the clubs (or get more information) here in the store, by phone, or on our website!

From the top...

-- Generation page kit club (featuring a "family tree" that's easy to make and definitely eye-catching);

-- Allison Davis Hall of Fame page kit club (using some awesome My Mind's Eye products, including a transparency, "tickets," die-cut paper, die-cut titles, and more);

-- Boy Crazy page kit club (kraft papers by Fancy Pants and chipboard circles by BoBunny are a great combination);

-- Girl Crazy page kit club (I think this is my most elaborate page kit ever, with kraft papers by Fancy Pants embellished with buttons, floss, and Stickles glitter glue, which is included in the kit);

-- Generation card kit club (using a die-cut tag by My Mind's Eye, and check out that cute kite-shaped card!).

Thanks so much for your continued support of all our clubs, including Remember Me (only 5 memberships left!) and Remember Them!

I was feeling a little guilty about not making any layouts for display lately, since others have been doing such a great job of bringing in new pages, so I set aside some time last night and scrapbooked with a friend.  I had fun working with the pictures of Drew watering my garden. He took the whole process extremely seriously, and I wanted to remember how important it was to him to water each and every corn plant!

Here's a sneak peek at the three layouts we'll be making during our Super Saver Scrapbooking sessions this Saturday at Scrapbook Generation. We'll be using double-sided papers by Scenic Route, and letter stickers by Doodlebug. Your cost for everything? Only $9! And you get three great sketches you can use over and over! We have over 50 people already signed up, and the 1 pm session is full, but we do have the following openings: room for one at 10 am, room for one at 11:30 am, and room for two at 2:30 pm.

New product updates:

-- My Mind's Eye: All the new collections will be here Monday! As a VIP retailer for MME, we're getting priority shipping and will be among the first stores in the nation to receive this wonderful stuff. There are general themes, plus two Christmas collections and two Halloween collections. I can't wait!

-- Creative Imaginations: A large shipment of new items will arrive Thursday.

-- Graphic 45: All three of this popular company's new vintage lines are ordered and will soon be on the way. I'll update you as I know more info.

-- BoBunny: Every item of all seven of the new collections is ordered and should be shipping soon!

We're so fortunate to have Amy Wissbaum designing pages for us to display at Scrapbook Generation! Looking at the latest three pages she has shared with us, it's obvious how talented she is. Many of you who attend our retreats might have met Amy, who is a perennial winner in our layout contests there. Amy often creates single page layouts, which is a nice addition to the work of the rest of us two-pagers! I'm especially fond of the red, white, and blue layout made from Jenni Bowlin products. I have all those goodies, but I wasn't quite sure how to put them all together. I'm probably going to scraplift Amy's layout, which I hope she takes as a compliment!

Karin has brought in another great layout to display! She used one of our sketches, and altered it to fit her pictures, which is the whole idea. She also was really creative with Stickles glitter glue, using one of the 12x12 Crafters Workshop templates to first create the circle pattern.

Are you up for a challenge?
Now that most of you have received your August-September newsletters in the mail, I want to elaborate on a new venture for Scrapbook Generation I'm personally looking forward to hosting and participating in...Designers Challenge Club!

I'm pretty sure that we've all seen articles in the scrapbooking magazines where a few people are given the same supplies and then challenged to come up with creative projects using just those few supplies. It's always fun for me to see how different people using the same papers and embellishments manage to come up with totally unique layouts or cards.

Recently, Stacey and Allison and I participated in something that was essentially the same. I'll tell you more about it later, but we were each given the same packet of supplies and asked to make samples for a scrapbook company to display at its booth at the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) summer show in Orlando. When we brought our layouts and cards and home decor projects here to the store to deliver to the company, we had the best time looking at what each other had made, with me usually saying "why didn't I think of doing that!" Although we had each used the same papers and ribbons and stamps and other goodies, the similarities ended there! Same supplies...entirely different outcomes because we each have different styles! I got some great ideas from the projects Stacey and Allison had made.

I want Designers Challenge Club to do the same thing. I want it to be all about stretching and expanding our creativity and drawing inspiration and ideas from the work of others. If you join the club, you will meet with us once a month, on the third Thursday evening at 6 pm. At each meeting, you'll receive a packet with $15 worth of coordinating products, including patterned papers and embellishments. At home, you'll create cards or scrapbook pages or mini-books (in any combination that pleases you) using only materials in the packet and items on the "acceptable" list. (Stop by SG to pick up the brochure that explains items you can add and items you can't add!)

The following month, you'll bring the items you've created to the club meeting. We'll display all the creations, and have a discussion time to talk about interesting techniques. You'll be able to take photos of all the projects. We'll also have a members-only blog where photos of all projects will be posted, and where further comments can be added.

Now for the formalities. You must pre-register to participate in Designers Challenge Club. Because of space constraints, membership is limited to 30 people. Once you join, you will be a member until you tell us otherwise. The $15 materials fee will be billed to your card on the third Thursday of each month. If you need further information, I'll be happy to answer any questions either here on the blog, in person, or by phone.

I'm really looking forward to this new "experiment." The times when I've been restricted to a limited amount of supplies in making a scrapbook layout, I've found that it has forced me to be more creative and more innovative. I'm so excited about the fun of getting to see what a group of gals (of all ages, probably) can come up with when they take on this "designers challenge."

Be sure to check out the Creating Keepsakes blog link at the right of this page. Allison is the guest blogger today, and she has a great project shown step by step. She's in pretty good company as a guest blogger -- the last two have been Becky Higgins and Ali Edwards!

Oh, to be on a beach somewhere! Instead, Karin and I are in the Scrapbook Generation sweatshop, printing, sorting, punching, and binding sketch books! We're in a mad dash to get literally hundreds of each of the four volumes of Sketches for Scrapbooking ready for our booth at the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Tulsa in about four weeks. While we're busy with sketch books, Stacey and Allison are in overdrive trying to get at least 60 new page kits designed and packed for the same event.

We think that the sketch books will do really well at the Vendor Faire at CKC, because of the great response of both local customers and travelers who shop here at SG, as well as people across the country who purchase the books online. Just today, for example, we're shipping books to Louisiana, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Texas, California, New Jersey, and Connecticut!

Many of you have heard of Big Picture Scrapbooking, which offers online classes with teachers like Ali Edwards and Stacy Julian. A few weeks ago, one of the teachers contacted us about recommending our Sketches for Scrapbooking books as resources for her online students to purchase. Of course the answer was a big YES!

And all of this leads me to a new announcement. On August 19, you'll be able to purchase the first volume of Sketches for Cardmaking, by Stacey Atchley. Stacey is our resident card expert, and she has designed 40 sketches for her first book. We're working on creating the pages right now, and hope to soon start my favorite part, you know, the printing...the sorting...the punching...and the binding!

We're having technical difficulties getting photos posted right now, but I wanted to let you know that we just got in four styles of machine-stitched, beautifully patterned paper by Prima. We only have six sheets of each style, but now that I see them "in person," I'll be sure to order more.

Creative Imaginations is here! Scrapbook Generation has a nice new assortment of double-sided papers, die-cut papers, stickers, rub-ons, and other embellishments. There are items from their Creative Cafe collections, as well as floral-themed mini-groups. There are also some solid-colored die-cut papers with a looped border that are just beautiful! We also have a new group of flourish rub-ons, brads, and button sets by BasicGrey!