I always underestimate how long a task will take! It's going to be Tuesday before the new My Mind's Eye collections are out and ready for purchase. Here's the schedule for new goodies the next few days...it's going to be an awesome week!

Tuesday: 

-- My Mind's Eye (everything new)  

-- Pink Paislee's Mistletoe 

-- KaiserCraft (eight new collections) 

-- Paper Loft's Autumn Splendor

-- Daisy Bucket's Farmers Market

Wednesday:

-- BasicGrey's Nook and Pantry

Thursday:

-- BoBunny's Love Bandit, Persuasion, and Snowy Serenade

Thursday or Friday:

-- Cosmo Cricket's Nutmeg

Allison Davis will be teaching two sessions of her series of classes called Tim Holtz Techniques. This second in the series focuses on his line of distress inks, and who knew they could be used for so many different techniques besides just inking the edges of papers! She will be demonstrating five or six different and unique ways to use this product, as shown in the close-ups of the class project above. It's a gorgeous layout, and you'll learn skills that can be used over and over, plus put all those ink pads you've collected to good use!

Classes are Monday, Oct. 26 at 2 pm and Thursday, Oct. 29 at 6 pm. Fee is $15.

Stacey has a full house, 12 ladies, at her Christmas card class tonight, and this is a great chance for me to say thanks to all of you who have been taking Scrapbook Generation classes recently. It seems as if our class numbers have increased dramatically in the past months, and we are so thankful that so many of you like the work of our teachers! Allison's Tim Holtz technique classes are a good example of this trend. She had almost 25 people in the two technique classes last month! And for our upcoming birthday celebration in about two weeks, we have a full house of 98 scrapbookers!

One thing we have always done here at SG is to hold classes no matter how small the enrollment. If even two people are signed up, we hold the class, because we don't want to disappoint the ones who are interested!

Thanks so much for responding so positively to our classes! And if you haven't given us a try, why not sign up for a class and see what the buzz is all about!

Just wanted you to know that when we return from the second retreat this weekend, we'll have tons of new collections for you...we'll try to have everything ready for you as quickly as possible on Monday!
-- BasicGrey's Nook and Pantry;
-- My Mind's Eye (the entire new release);
-- Paper Loft's Autumn Splendor;
-- Daisy Bucket's Farmer's Market;
-- KaiserCraft (six new collections);
-- Pink Paislee's Mistletoe.

The blank white countdown calendar box by Karen Foster has been transformed into a Christmas advent box by Allison Davis. Ali used the new Crate Paper Christmas collection, some chipboard for the large trees behind the box, and the numbers that are included with the box. If you want to try the project for yourself, Allison has made a photo card similar to her Allison's Creative Kitchen cards that you can purchase here at Scrapbook Generation.

Allison's Creative Kitchen for October is out and ready for purchase, and it's awesome! Pink Paislee Halloween papers and embellishments make for a "spooky" page. All you have to do to recreate the page is refer to her "recipe cards," and all the products are here waiting for you!

Four new collections by Crate Paper! Lots of neat embellishments, and gorgeous double-sided papers.

Debbi Turnbow: Designers Challenge Club long-distance member...

Creative ideas...Debbi used the Prima flower as the center for a three-layer flower on the top card...on the second card she used brown flourish accents as "leaves" for the flower...on the double-page layout she used a series of journaling strips as a design element, and used the tulle as a title tag accent...on the last layout, Debbi used a row of circles to balance out her title, which included a stamped sub-title.

Here is part of a message Debbi sent Scrapbook Generation along with her creations...
I am so excited to be a part of this club even though it is long distance. I hope sometime in the coming year to be able to attend a real meeting and meet everyone...You'll find I am not a fancy scrapbooker. I had never used flowers, tulle or "shaped" paper before so these simple things were new territory for me. Emma's layout, I especially love.....as beautiful as these Bo Bunny papers are, I never would have picked them up for a baby girl page. My uncreative mind would have sent me to the baby scrapbook paper aisle and I would have chosen pink and maybe a pale aqua like in the Bo Bunny papers. Instead, when I got these papers I went through my unscrapped photos to see what might match. When I laid that "finger" photo on the aqua, yellow & brown papers, I started salivating. I love the final result and I know our family will cherish it for many years to come. Thank you again for the opportunity to challenge myself and learn from others. I know it's going to be so much fun.

Congratulations to "Reginna H," the random winner of our October blog contest! Reginna, just stop by Scrapbook Generation and we'll have your $50 prize package all ready for you.

Thanks to all of you who entered the contest, and for the wonderful, warm, enthusiastic, and sweet comments you made about Scrapbook Generation's first five years as Springfield's scrapbooking and card-making destination! We cherish each of those comments!

We're back to "normal" after the first of our two Branson weekend retreats. I slept all day Monday, literally, and now it's time to do the last-minute preparations for the second group!

Looking ahead, I want to share some information about future Scrapbook Generation events, and also to ask for your help. Stacey and Allison and Karin and I are in the talking stages about adding several new events to our 2010 schedule. Based on the huge success of Scrap-a-Palooza at Remington's, and because our Kansas City, St. Louis, and central Missouri customers have requested it, we are considering hosting a similar event in the Lake of the Ozarks area, possibly twice a year. We are also considering adding one or more weekend retreats in the same area.

Finding the "just right" venue is the big issue, and if any of you have any suggestions we'd be happy to hear them. Large hotels have the large meeting spaces, but you also get into their rules, which almost always include not being able to bring in your own food. You must live in their world of $2 brownies and $1.50 cans of pop, which kind of defeats our purpose of actually making money on the event! We'll be making a road trip that way soon to scope out the possibilities, so if you have any personal knowledge of good locations, please leave a comment here, email Stacey (stacey@scrapbookgeneration.com) or me (scrapbookgen@sbcglobal.net). Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

I'm thrilled to present the debut of Scrapbook Generation's Designers Challenge Club! The group of about 25 club members met for the first time in mid-September, learned guidelines for the club, and received their first packet of materials. The $15 monthly club fee entitles club members to a packet of materials, the chance to display their own creations and to view the creativity of others in the club.

In mid-October, club members returned to Scrapbook Generation with their projects, all made from the same materials, with the addition of "approved" items like cardstock, stamps, punches, inks and paints and similar products, ribbons and buttons, mini-albums, and much more. The first packet of materials featured five patterned papers and two die-cut papers by BoBunny, a set of Thickers chipboard letters, chipboard buttons, three colors of tulle, a Bling-It swirl by BasicGrey, and flowers by Prima.

We had a great time looking at each other's projects. Some had made only cards, others had made only layouts. Some had made a combination, and others had made party favors, mini-albums, and even home decor items. Everyone had worked hard to add creative touches, and there were many, many ideas to share and learn.

First, some apologies. For some reason, I didn't end up with a photo of Corbi Beshears' project, which was a layout with a "Jacob's Ladder" mini-album incorporated into the page design. I will add that as soon as I can. Also, we have a long-distance club member who has emailed Stacey photos of her projects. However, I'm blogging while at our Branson retreat, and I'll have to add those photos as soon as I get together with Stacey on Monday. We also have a few ladies who were unable to attend Thursday night, and I'll also add their photos as soon as possible. Also apologies if I said something incorrect about any of the projects...I'm working from my pitiful memory, with no notes! I'll learn for next time to write things down!

The following beautiful and creative designs are all brought to you by the talented customers and friends of Scrapbook Generation! We will also be posting these projects on our Facebook page, probably in mini-galleries for each person, which will allow you to easily comment on each card or layout individually. If you would like to join this group, we take new members (both local and long-distance) at any time. Just email or call if you need more details!

Read on, and get inspired!