Hello friends!

I'm sorry! I meant to announce our NSD Challenge winners yesterday but, well, it was Mother's Day and I forgot! So now without any further delay, here are our talented winners, selected by our Biker Chicks!

Our "Kickin' it Old Style" winner was Wendy Rasbach with her layout "Bloom and Grow" featuring the very popular Elizabeth Park collection:

Our "Spring Color Challenge" winner was Eileen Mead, with "Be You" featuring this winter's Paradise collection:

And finally, for our "Hot Off the Presses" category, our Biker Chicks' pick (and a fan favorite judging by all of the comments on Facebook), was Kelly Jo Massicotte's beautifully springy altered Printers Tray!

Congratulations to our talented winners, who have all won a $150 LYB prize pack, including our brand new (and not even in stores yet) Splash collection! Thank you to EVERYONE who participated. We truly loved seeing all of your creations. In case you missed them, you can see all of the entries on our Facebook Page (just look under the album with the title that corresponds to the challenge category)!

Winners - please email me with your mailing information at "peg@cthruruler.com"!

Happy Monday!

~ Peg

We have some wonderful projects to share from our Peloton (you know, the larger pack of riders in a bicycle race).  They never disappoint and it is really a treat to scour the world wide web looking for projects featuring Little Yellow Bicycle. 

Saturdays Page by Hilde Aaslund found on our Facebook Page

Saturdays Mini Album by Renee Zwirek found at Scrapbook.com

Saturdays Mini Album by Vanessa Menhorn found at Two Peas in a Bucket

 
Saturdays Page by Ros Madey found on her blog Not Every Picturez Perfect

Paradise Page by Kerys Sharrock found on our Facebook Page

Lucky Me and Paradise Treats by Izzy Anderson found on our Facebook Page

If you would like to see your project featured on our blog, please email it to Liz at lizq@cthruruler.com

Happy Monday!

Liz

We are so excited to bring our Training Reels with Biker Chick Tania Willis back.  Needless to say with all the Winter CHA Show hubub, we are a bit behind in some of our regular features.  Tania has a wonderful and creative page project, using our Paradise Collection to share with you, plus some exclusive tips in her Training Reel, be sure to take a look.

We Are Family page by Tania Willis featuring our beautiful Paradise collection.

Little Yellow Bicycle Paper Flower Kits are so versatile and so easy to use.  Tania really added some fun elements to her page with both the chipboard and paper flowers, not to mention the confetti!

So many beautiful details on this page.  I think I might get out my small circle punch! The effect that Tania added is brilliant!

Download the instructions below.

Download Twillis_PD_We Are Family Layout Instructions PDF

Please visit Tania's blog Whatchu Talkin' bout Willis? for more daily inspiration from her.

Have a wonderfully creative day!

Liz

Ready for another sketch challenge?  We can't rightly wrap up that last challenge without starting a new one.  We mentioned that Little Yellow Bicycle had some exciting things in store for 2012 and one of the things we are committed to is some kind of challenge to keep our fans busy each month.  We know a lot of people like to use sketches, but it would be awesome if you could tell us if there are other challenges you would like to participate in?  Just leave us a quick comment with some ideas and we will start thinking about how to make it happen. 

With many of our collections, we include Tear Out Ticket journaling cards, which is one of the focal elements on this sketch, but we also love to see how our fans use our paper flower kits.  Each of our examples include some of those elements with a few special twists on Little Yellow Bicycle products.

I love how the Saturdays collection can easily be used for either gender, but I keep channeling masculine pages. I just love the pops of red in this collection and how it is grounded in blues and browns, which I think are perfect for stuff that guys like to do.  This is my husband and our son hiking, and then a smaller picture of our campsite. I also happen to be enthralled with velvet embroidery floss, because the texture is so rich and soft.  Please come check out my blog for more detailed photos of this page - My Little Sketch Blook.

But wait...look at how Cycling Team Member Robbie Herring interpreted the sketch with a very feminine page using our Saturdays collection.  She combined both our paper flower kit with our felt flowers for a really beautiful and eye catching page!  Love how Robbie dressed up her banners with a bit of baker's twine.  Please visit her blog Just the Scrap for more details.

Cycling Team Member Kristine Berc really pushed the boundaries of the sketch using our Paradise collection.  Instead of the stitched border, she incorporated a "homemade" die cut paper and then concentrated the paper flowers in one area on her layout.  She also added one of the smaller Tear Out Tickets on her page. Please visit Kristine's blog A Stash of Pretty Paper for more details.

Cycling Team Member Heather Leopard also used our Paradise collection to make her version of the sketch. She incorporated a number of the Tear Out Tickets on her page and then used our paper flowers to make her own prize ribbon.  What a clever idea!  Please visit Heather's blog The Spotted Leopard for more details.

We cannot wait to see what you do with the sketch this month.

Here's the rules:

1.  You may use the sketch any way you please (turn it upside down, on its side, or use it as is).

2.  You must use at least 75% Little Yellow Bicycle product, from ANY of our collections (We like to see the new stuff, but we have so many great collections, that we basically just like to see our stuff).

3.  Your work must be your own! ;)

Here's how to enter:

1. You may enter by posting your layout to LYB's Facebook Page - please post it in the Album titled "February/March Sketch Challenge". 

2. If you're not a Facebook user, you still may enter, by emailing a photo of your entry to lizq@cthruruler.com. Please include your mailing address - so we have it in case you win!

3.  All entries must be received by midnight EST on Saturday, March 24, 2012.

Here's the fun part ... the prizes!

1.  We will select THREE finalists. All of the finalists will win a prize.

2.  We will post the finalists to our Facebook Page and Blog for you to VOTE on your favorites.

3.  You'll have a week to vote (one vote per person).

4.  The grand prize winner will win $50 in LYB product. The runners up will each receive $25 in LYB product!

**Due to shipping costs, prizes may vary depending on where you are in the world.

Cannot wait to see what you all create.  We will be back tomorrow with another project from our Saturdays Guest Designer Corrie Jones - stay tuned!

Liz

We are always so surprised and happy to find projects from our fans a.k.a The Peloton (large pack of riders in a bike race).  We scour the internet each week looking for projects with our newest collections and this week we think you will agree we found some wonderful ideas.  How do you find the projects you might ask...we google our collection names, find them posted on our facebook page or have them emailed to us at lizq@cthruruler.com.

Saturdays Page by Melissa Rehberg emailed to us.

Saturdays Bird Cottage by Debbie found on her blog Paws to Scrap - (please see post for more detailed photos of the cottage)

Paradise Two Page Layout by Beth Hallgren found on our Facebook Page

Paradise Page by Labgirl found at Scrapbook.com

Cafe Crop in Crown Point, Indiana has Saturdays in the house.  If you live nearby, you can pick some up today!

If you would like to see your project on our blog, please mention Little Yellow Bicycle and the collection name on your blog or website, load your page on our Facebook Page or email Liz at lizq@cthruruler.com.

Have a wonderful day!

Liz

It's another Monday on the blog and we are very happy to share some more projects from our Peloton.  In case you are new to our Monday post, the peloton is the large pack of riders in a bicycle race and we happen to have a lot of fans riding in our Peloton and we love to show case their work on our blog.

Paradise Page by Kelly Foster found on our Facebook Page

Paradise Page by Luz Maria Bruna found on her blog Luzma's Scrap Place

Paradise Card by Izzy Anderson emailed to us

Looking for some Paradise?  We found this photo from the Paper Trail Store in Fayetteville, NC.

Ever wonder how we find the projects???  We google the name of our collections to see what comes up, so if you are mentioning Little Yellow Bicycle on your blog or web page, chances are, we will find you.  We also love to feature projects linked to our Facebook Page or emailed to us - lizq@cthruruler.com.

Thank you for stopping by today!

Liz

We have been searching the World Wide Web for projects from you, our fans, with our new Paradise collection and I think you will agree that our Peloton has created some amazing projects!  In fact, our friends at Artful Delight featured our Paradise Collection in their monthly kit and below are a few projects from their design team.

Paradise Card by June Houck found on her blog Simply Elegant Paper Crafts

 
Paradise Page by Marcia Dehn-Nix (LYB Cycling Team Member) found on the Artful Delight Blog

Paradise Page by Debbie found on the Artful Delight Blog

Paradise Page by Abby found on the Artful Delight Blog

If you would like to have a project featured on our blog, please email Liz at lizq@cthruruler.com or post your project to our facebook page.  We are looking forward to seeing all of the amazing projects created by our Peloton with our newest collections.

Thank you for stopping by today!

Liz

We are so pleased to share more projects with our Paradise Collection from Cycling Team Member Kristine Berc.  She has done such a beautiful job of showcasing all of the beautiful embellishments that come with this collection.  But, let's have Kristine tell you all about it...

I'm Kris Berc and I'm so thrilled to have this opportunity to share some Paradise projects with you today!  It has been an incredible honor (and completely fun!) to design with this gorgeous collection of delightful blues, greens, and pinks.

I can't imagine a better collection than Paradise for this photo of my little girl.  She was happily running around the yard with these big sticks in her hands just being her fun and happy self.  The color combination is both outdoorsy and feminine... just perfect!

For the main embellishment cluster, I layered several Clear Cuts Shapes and Chipboard Shapes around a big dimensional flower, which, by the way, was incredibly quick and simple to make thanks to the Paper Flower Kit.  Whoever came up with the idea for those flower kits is just brilliant!  Can you see the beautiful texture and details that are included on both the clear and chipboard embellishments?  I also added some drops of pearl-colored dimensional fabric paint here and there for some extra interest.

I could not resist adding this wonderful felt sticker.  It comes layered and ready to stick!  All I did was add a few of those fabric paint dots around the flower's petals.

There were so many Chipboard Shapes and Cardstock Stickers that were just screaming to be used with this photo.  I couldn't decide which one to choose.  I ended up using several :)

You may have noticed that I layered several different sheets of the Paradise patterned paper before I even adhered the photo.  I couldn't help it... each of the papers is so pretty and I wanted to use them all!  But it is also important to me that my supplies last as long as possible, so here is what I did to get the most out of the paper:

Before I adhere my paper layers onto one another, I first cut out the centers of the papers.  The cuts don't have to be precise as they'll be covered up anyway :)  So just go in there with your scissors and cut the centers away, making sure to leave enough of the edges intact.  Now I can use each of those sheets of papers again for more projects!

See... who would have known that we had cut away the centers of the three bottom layers?

When I received Paradise I was completely excited for so many reasons, one of them being that the bright pinks included in it perfectly matched my daughter's new pink sweater.  So we got dressed and headed outside for what I had hoped would be a pretty, girly photo shoot.  Of course, she went straight for the dirt and started digging in it, as if to say, "Come on, Mommy, do you really think putting me in a pretty pink sweater that matches your scrapbook paper is going to prevent me from playing in the dirt?!"  Well okay... she had a point, and it ended up being a blessing in disguise.

One of the Paradise Fabric Favorites stickers had to have been made for moments like these!  It says "Discoveries", which you can see above along with some assembled flowers from the Paper Flower Kit (again, brilliant idea!) and a Chipboard Shape.

Apparently, the digging and sifting of the dirt wasn't enough for her, because before I could do anything about it she proceeded to put a large handful into her mouth.  Why do kids feel the need to eat dirt?  So there's the story of this layout.  In any case, in this cluster I used one of the Paper Flowers, a Chipboard Flower, an adorable bird Felt Sticker, and some of the wonderful Cardstock Sticker alphas.

My third project is this sweet little "Hi" card that will hopefully brighten a loved one's day.  The beautiful, colorful tree is one of the Chipboard Shapes, and the pretty bird is a Fabric Favorites sticker.  The only thing I did to dress her up even more was to layer on that pretty pink Fabric Favorites heart sticker.

I adhered the "Hi" Cardstock Sticker alphas (did you know those are embossed?!) with foam tape for added dimension.  Thanks to the beautifully detailed embellishments, this card came together in no time at all.

I hope you have enjoyed my Paradise projects!  Thank you to the readers for visiting Little Yellow Bicycle today, and thank you to Little Yellow Bicycle for including me on the Cycling Team!

Thank you Kristine!  We love your projects and even though you may not tell anyone, we think you bought that pink sweater for you daughter just to match our beautiful papers - Shhhhh - it's just between us!   Please visit Kristine's blog Stash of Pretty Paper for more inspiration.

We will be back later this week with some Biker Chick inspiration and another post from our Guest Designer Izzy Anderson.

Take care!

Liz

We are still busy showing off our beautiful new collections in Anaheim.  You can see that the Yellow Bicycle has been raised and we are not going home until we kick some butt and take names - LOL, which translates into lots of sales and more LYB product at your local scrapbook store.

Biker Chick Greta Hammond working with our customers and fans at our Make N' Take table.  Did you know we offer OUR visitors an opportunity to create a whole page?  Yep that's right, we love to create and we want you to create right along with us.

In this picture you can see our Saturdays Collection.  We are so excited about this collection and how much it will appeal to all the adults in your lives.

Our beautiful Paradise Collection.

This is our new Hello Spring Collection.  We took the idea of our Hello Fall! collection and made it a brand new season.  We think you will love the bright happy colors and springtime embellishments.

This is our new Canvas Mini Album decorated with our Hello Spring Collection.

We have a gorgeous new Wedding Collection called Swoon.

Our new Canvas Mini Album decorated with our Splash Collection.

Travel Journal made with The Escape Collection.

We cannot wait until you have these collections in your hands.

Thank you for stopping by today!

Liz

We are so excited to share a few more projects with our Paradise Collection from Cycling Team Member Ginny Hughes.  She has some simple ideas for putting that extra special something into a project.  But let's have Ginny tell you all about it...

My first project is this card. I am not a big cardmaker, but as soon as I saw these flowers I knew that they would make a beautiful Happy Spring card! I love that you can mix and match and make whatever you want!

This was hands down my favorite piece of paper from the collection, I just love it! So I had to use my scraps to make a card and I love the felt embellishments. They add great dimension and are fun little accents!

Ginny clustered our beautiful felt stickers with glass beads to accent her card.

My oldest daughter doesn't like pink or anything girly, so I loved that I could use these papers for a page about her and her playful side. I love the Confetti Garland, hands down one of my favorite things!!!

I also used the tag for some journaling and tucked it behind the photo.

I love that you can take bits and pieces from the flowers and use what you want. I thought the pinwheels made for a very happy page! I also used the long strip of words and cut it up to make my title fit to my page.

For me, paradise doesn't just mean the warm weather and the beach. Paradise is right out my front door! I love the colors of this line and think they are very fitting for a woodsy/lake theme page. I made a starburst pattern out of the patterned paper and added confetti and stars to keep it bright and happy!

Thank you Ginny for so many wonderful ideas and projects.  Please visit Ginny's blog 5 Little Chickens for more inspiration.

Have a great weekend!

Liz

We are so excited to introduce our newest Cycling Team Member Kay Rogers.  Kay's clean and simple style gives our Paradise collection a fresh look.  Here is what she had to say about Paradise, "I think Paradise was so versatile because I could accomplish outdoorsy, fun, subtle, and pretty all with one line! Thanks for the opportunity to be on the Cycling Team!"

For this layout of Jenna and her cousin, I wanted the soft blues and greens to make the picture shine.  The blocks of patterned paper are a nice compliment to the photo and the simple, clear cut tag is a great journal spot.

The Clear Cut shapes, not only come with glitter accents, but they are also easy to write on and add a very different look than cardstock.

This page has one of my favorite pics of Jenna. I really wanted the layout to be more "pretty" and serene in nature to make her shine through. The plaid paper makes a great border and contrast to the black and white photo.

The Paradise garland embellishment is such a fun addition to a page or project.  Just add some pop dots and the dimension shines through.

This layout with Jenna up on the pile of hay playing was inspired by the quote on the card. She was having such a little adventure that day, and I wanted to convey the fun with a more random feel to the placement of the elements on the page.

Kay also made this adorable project with our Paradise Medley Album.

I thought the papers were perfect for a series of photos I took with my photography club kids. We were outdoors and Jenna came with us on the trip.  I snapped so many pictures that day so a mini album was perfect!

For directions, I just printed my pictures 2x3. I used the mini-album kit, and supplemented the pages with the shaped papers. I then laid out all of the LYB stickers and embellies and went to town!

Thank you Kay for so many inspirational projects with our newest collection.  I am pretty sure that you can already find Paradise in your LSS, and if not, then I bet it is on the way.  What better way to take a break from the cold snap of winter than to play with a little Paradise???

You can visit Kay's blog How Did I End Up Here for more beautiful work and inspiration from her.

Stick with us this week as we gear up for CHA and share some more projects with our new collections from our Biker Chicks and our Guest Designer Izzy Anderson.

Have a wonderful day!

Liz

We are so excited to introduce Izzy Anderson as our first Guest Designer for 2012.  We had a little slice of Paradise to share and who better to ask than a Southern girl from Charlotte, North Carolina.  Izzy has been a Little Yellow Bicycle fan for a long time and a participant in some of our challenges.  You probably know her as Izzy Bean and have seen her design work at Echo Park, in Magazines such as Scrapbooks Etc., Creating Keepsakes and CARDS as well as in many online galleries and blogs.  But let's have Izzy tell you all about herself...

Hi, everyone! I’m Izzy and I am super excited to be guest designing for Little Yellow Bicycle for the next four weeks with the beautiful new Paradise collection.  When Liz told me about this line and asked if I would consider designing with it, I couldn’t believe my luck.  I had already seen sneaks for it on the LYB blog and then Liz sent me the catalog. Wow.  This is one of my favorite Little Yellow Bicycle collections.  I mostly scrap my little boy and I just adored the beautiful greens, teals, browns, creams and olives in this line.  Plus, it had this great pop of pink that really made me smile. I’m not one to shy away from a bit of pink on a boy’s page.  Finally, the name of the collection reeled me in. How could I resist Paradise?!

Before we show you Izzy's first project, we had to ask her a few questions so we could all get to know her better.

LYB: What is your ‘go to’ embellishment?

IA:I love stickers. I love letter stickers, phrase stickers, icon stickers, label stickers and  journaling  stickers. I am a sticker collector!  I prefer flat stickers and I often back them with cardstock, cardboard or pop dots to give them a little dimension.  I also like to layer stickers to form an embellie cluster.

LYB: Do you prefer cardstock or patterned paper?

IA: I prefer patterned paper but I usually have a bit of cardstock somewhere on my projects so the eyes will have a place to rest.

Once I had my paper in place, I added the photo and an assortment of embellishments.   The banner at the top originally said, “Free,” but I altered that by using alphas in the collection to spell “Golf” instead. The alphas from the “Fresh Verse” stickers are the same size as the alphas on the banner, so that worked out perfectly. I love that LYB thinks ahead and makes its embellishments interchangeable like this. It makes it super easy to make a little alteration.  

Have you seen the Fabric Favorites in this line? I think they are my favorite embellies of the collection.  They look so rich and add a great texture to any project. I just had to use them.  I picked three fabric banners and turned them into golf flags by adding toothpicks as flagpoles.

We are so excited to announce our newest collection called Paradise!  It is the perfect blend of bright pinks and blues with serene greens, and like its name makes you want to visit warm, far off places or just make your own home a Paradise.  The Biker Chicks have a few sneak peeks from our CHA projects and I am pretty sure that there is a catolog with some of our newest collections circulating out there....

We also want to ask a few more designers to join our Cycling Team and take a spin with the new Paradise collection.  Details for the call are at the end of this post.

It just wouldn't be Little Yellow Bicycle if we didn't have a flower kit in our collections and as you can see the Paradise Flower Kit is full of bright, beautiful colors that are grounded in a warm and natural greens.

Biker Chick Greta Hammond made this darling page using many of the lovely patterned papers and cardstock stickers from the Paradise collection.  Love the little bits of lace she incorporated with the Little Yellow Bicycle Paper Doiles and her punch.

Look at the pretty details and the faded denim patterned paper.  It's such a perfect blend of brights and naturals.

Greta also created this adorable printer's tray project highlighting the 5 Things Pocket in the Paradise collection.

Biker Chick Vicki Boutin created this beautiful card.  Vicki incorporated some of the patterned paper from our Paradise Album Kit into her card which is a great shape and pattern for the beautiful flowers.

Love how Vicki also used the theme of the Paradise collection to show how her family is her Paradise.  She really captured the sentiment of happy with the black and white photos paired with some of the brighter elements in the collection.

Biker Chick Liz Qualman (me) created this page of a recent visit with some of my girlfriends to San Diego.  I thought the sentiments of the cardstock stickers perfectly captured the occasion.  I also highlighted the Flower Kit and dressed it up with LYB Jewel Stickers.

I just love how adding a few pop dots to the cardstock stickers makes them jump off the page.  The "free" sentiment paired with the bird sticker shows how my friends and I "left" our families at home so we could enjoy a girls weekend out.

I also created these bookmarks to take along on a trip to mark places to visit.  I saw a similar idea with felt on Pinterest and thought patterned paper and cardstock stickers would make great bookmarks too.

Biker Chick Renée Foss created this soft and beautiful page.  She also used the Happy Girls are the Prettiest cardstock sentiment which is perfect for this page!

Paradise Cycling Team Call

 Come Ride with Us!

Here's what we're looking for:

With each new collection we like to invite a few new designers (about 3-5 per collection) to come design for us.  We ask Cycling Team members to commit to a month of designing after the collection is released. In return, we'll send you some free product and shamelessly promote you along with ourselves on our blog and facebook page.  Read the details below:

1) Make one project with what we send you - a layout, some cards, a mini album, an altered item...whatever makes you happy!

2) Send us some pictures of it, and a little write-up or how-to of how you created it.

3) Post it on your blog, facebook page and any online galleries you belong to. We'll put it here on our blog too, of course!

That's it!

Tryouts for this team are starting RIGHT NOW!

If you are interested, please send us three (3) samples of your best work (preferably with LYB products because that is what we like to look at most, however it's not a deal breaker if you send something else) to LYBCyclingTeam@yahoo.com.  Also, if you have previously designed for a Cycling Team, please feel free to apply again!  We'll announce the NEW Paradise Cycling Team on December 23rd.  Please include your contact information (address, phone and blog) in your email.

And then we'll ask you to hop on that Little Yellow Bicycle and pedal your heart out!

Hope to hear from you!

Liz