Welcome to Friday, friends! It’s a weekend of gratitude and gathering with our families as we celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving! Before you go to prep your holiday meal, let’s get inspired by our friends at Close To My Heart, who are sharing fun ink techniques with us today, as well as a fantastic giveaway!

We’re also excited that today we finally get to tell you about our newest SCT Delivered class, Planner 101! Be sure to read all of the way to the end of the post to find out all about it!

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It’s Jill with Close To My Heart and I’m excited to share with you some fun techniques to try on your next scrapbook layout. If you are like me, you have quite a stash of supplies, including inks of every shade. So often, we think of our inks as stamping tools, but they are so much more! On this layout, we’ve created our own background paper with a few simple supplies.

On the left page, we used masking tape and a beautiful new ink color called Seabrook to create a striped pattern on White Daisy cardstock. By applying the ink directly using a blending brush, you can create any look you want from a marbled watercolor effect, to a solid, intense line of color. The only difference is the amount of ink you apply. With this layout, we are going for a softer look and wanted the stripes on the left page to mimic the feeling of the textural patterned paper on the right page. 

Using these staple supplies, you can create almost any look you want. I know I will use this technique again and again by changing up the widths of the stripes, adding a rainbow of colors, or increasing the saturation of a few monochromatic colors. I hope you’ll give it a try!

We continued with inking techniques on the title. The title is cut from White Daisy cardstock. By using another new color, Pine ink and blending brushes, we applied more ink to the top to get a darker color, creating a gradient effect on the piece which gives it more depth and dimension. You can always cut the title from solid cardstock, but I love how elevated this looks because of the varying color that results from this inking technique. 

Lastly, I want to point out the fun detail happening in the stars as the finishing embellishment on the page. Using some simple cut pieces, we’ve added movement and pops of color to the page by mixing in cardstock, patterned paper, stamps, and acrylic shapes. We used the same ink colors to stamp the branches to the base pages and sprinkle in some stamped stars to really round out the layered paper stars. Close To My Heart has 40 exclusive colors and just launched six new stunning colors that we can’t get enough of!

If you love learning how to get even more from your inks and stamping supplies, you’re in luck! We are creating this exact layout, along with 10 other two-page layouts in our upcoming Close To My Heart Album Retreat! At this virtual event, you spend three days creating along with me and the other talented teachers at Close To My Heart while we share something new with each page. 

Learn more about the Close to My Heart Album Retreat HERE! 

One of the best things about Album Retreat is that the pages are all pre-cut for you so you can spend your creative time focused on the techniques and the educational components. You also get a great deal of full-sized product and an exclusive stamp set. This is truly our favorite event of the year because you invest in learning AND you have a finished album at the end! The theme for our November album is all holiday-specific, so you can add photos from the past or be ahead of the season for 2022 – it’s up to you! You can find all the details HERE. 

We look forward to sharing even more of our favorite tips and tricks for your inks and would LOVE to see you there!

Close To My Heart wants you to experience the inking techniques for yourself, so comment here on your favorite of the new colors by midnight Eastern time on Wednesday, October 12th, and we’ll choose two lucky winners to receive a set of each of the six new Exclusive Inks colors. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook and our YouTube channel for even more creative inspiration!

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What awesome ink techniques, Jill, and such beautiful new ink colours from our friends at Close to My Heart! Now, let’s announce last week’s giveaway winner! This lucky commenter who shared their favourite part about winter will receive a Winter Tales prize package from Spellbinders:

“Being all cozy inside and enjoying some reading or crafting with a candle burning!” ~ Alexandra

Congrats, Alexandra! Please email meghann@scrapbookandcards.com to claim your prize!

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NEW CLASS NEWS!

We are so excited to be able to share this big news: our first class of 2023 opens next Friday, October 14th: Planner 101 with Jennie McGarvey! This class will get you started with paper planning whether you’re new or haven’t picked up a planner for a while. Not only will you learn the how and why to plan, but you’ll also learn about memory planning and how to add pizzazz with fun decorative additions. Jennie will share her knowledge and expertise about how to keep your planner functional and creative all at once! By the end of the year, you’ll have lots of new ideas for staying on track beautifully. Take a look at this to learn more:

This class will include monthly lessons beginning on November 25, 2022 to get you set up for the new year, and end in November 2023. We hope to see you there!

Click HERE more about Planner 101 and get ready to register on October 14th!