My dear friends,

I am writing to let you know that I have sold ScrapMuse to Traci Murphy from Georgia. While the deal closed earlier in April, we have been working steadily together since February to make sure that this transition is as smooth as possible for you, our wonderful members and friends. The ScrapMuse monthly kits and store products will be shipping from Georgia starting in June. We will soon be holding a moving sale (watch your email for the notice!), and we want to make very clear that there will be no interruption in your monthly kit, no style changes in the kit’s design, and most importantly, NO drop in our high level of customer service - that you have come to expect from us.

Traci has been a member of the ScrapMuse club and online community for over 3 years - you know her as “skooter95″; I had the fortune to meet her in person in February and felt 100% certain that she was the right fit for our club and community! She is so excited to be joining ScrapMuse in this fashion, and she already has some really fun things planned for ScrapMuse’s 4th birthday in May!

I will be working with Traci very closely throughout the summer, and I do plan to remain at ScrapMuse - this is my home on the net! I will be honest and say that I am a little bit sad to close this chapter in my life, but it is to make room for another exciting one - children! My husband and I are planning to start a family soon! Wish us luck, I think we will need it.

If you have any questions for either Traci or me during this transition, or anytime at all - please contact one of us. Traci’s email is Traci@ScrapMuse.com and mine is Amanda@ScrapMuse.com or you may certainly PM us here on the forum. Traci’s new forum ID is ScrapMuseAdmin.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Spring at Scrapmuse contest It’s spring here at Scrapmuse, and we’re all excited to be done with this crazy winter we’ve had!!  Our April kit contains beautiful spring colors and we’d love to see some spring inspired layouts. 

Contest dates:  now until May 20, 2008. 

Requirements:   The theme is spring.  Use any interpretation of the theme that you would like.  Kit items are not required, so use anything that says “spring” to you!!  Layouts (8 x 8 or larger) and altered items will be accepted.  Maximum 3 entries per person, please. Items must be loaded into the Scrapmuse April Contest Gallery by midnight (MST) on May 20, 2008.   

Winners will be announced no later than May 25^, 2008 in our forum.  Designs will be judged by our current design team. Contest is open to US, Canadian and International Scrappers.   

The goodies: First prize: $25 gift certificate from Scrapmuse storefront.  Second and third prize: $15 and $10 prize packs from Scrapmuse’s storefront  (International winners may have a gift certificate substituted for the prize pack, depending on location and shipping costs). We can’t wait to see your creations in the gallery!!!  Link: http://www.scrapmuse.com/   

Those girls at Pencil Lines never cease to amaze me - and they also provide those amazing sketches every month for Scrapmuse. This is this months sketch

And look what Annie and Kimmy did with this!

Annie’s Good Girl 

Kimmy’s The Beach

Come and show us your designs with this amazing sketch!

You might have noticed my non hand written journaling on this Layout “EEK”. And before you are going to tear your wonderful April kit apart to look for those stickers…I will tell you a secret Those are selfmade - and you can make them too!

Typewriters seem to be all the rage right now and though I do have an old Office Typewriter at my Mom’s house, there is no way I will pull this out, and put this in my room again - hey…I’m a computer kind of girl now. I downloaded some typewriter fonts I really liked from this site - I like 1942 Report and Mom’s Typewriter the best.

Then I typed the journaling with this font in Word and added a space between each of the letters, printed the text and cut each of the letters out. Simply glued them down - and done. It is a lot of work but I think it is totally worth it! Go ahead and try it!

Here’s my take on March’s sketch:

Thanks to everyone who entered our February Maya Road Chipboard Contest! We had some great entries!!The winners of the Maya Road Chipboard Contest are:Yazziegirl (Kerry) for All things grow with love:

And third place goes to eyesforscrappin for Precious gift:

Congratulations, everyone, on a job well done!!

In this video, I will show you some techniques for making your own backgrounds. Please watch it and come back to the forum to ask me any questions you have.

I cannot get enough of the houndstooth print in this kit!! I love it so much - it’s perfect for funky little accents! TFL!

As you know I’m a technique geek - only regarding scrapbooking of course Every time I get my Designteam kit I think about something as a technique I can use with the layout to show you.

Here is my layout *Newly Wed*

So, where is the technique you might ask - it is here:

See the crackled look on the Cherry Arte Paper? I cut a piece of this paper and on the darker swirly surface of the paper I added Ranger’s Crackle Accents. It is a 3-dimensional gloss medium which crackles once it is dried. You can use it on paper, stickers -almost on everything. It took about an nour to dry. The paper crimped a bit but after I glued the paper down to two pieces of square chipboard it flattened out.

I like the look of this- it makes it look like an vintage wallpaper. If you use this technique don’t forget to link your layout here! Wishing you all a great monday!

Nat Kalbach

Since apparently Easter baskets are not a common occurrence over here in France, we made our own this year. I found a pattern for making paper easter baskets, and it was really simple to make! Here’s my basket using the March Muse.

I found the pattern HERE . It’s perfect for using with a 12×12 piece of cardstock, since the pattern calls for a square piece of paper. And all that holds it togehter is a brad on each side of the basket - so easy!! For my handle, I cut two strips of cardstock, taped them together (since a single 12″ strip seemed a little too short), glued the ribbon to the top, and then attached them to the brads on each side.

It was a fun craft for the kiddos too - here are their easter baskets (they used a 12″ strip of cardstock on theirs, but I preferred mine to be a little longer):