Congratulations to Design Team member Penny Smith, who has a beautiful layout in the latest issue of Scrapbook Trends!  (Check it out on page 126!)

Our Design Team has been working madly with their August products, and it’s time to head to their galleries and see what they’ve created!  Take a look!

Here’s your advance look, just to tantalize a bit…

Design Team member JJ Sobey has just welcomed an adorable baby girl into their family (Congratulations, JJ and family!), so something tells me that we’ll be seeing some pink layouts from her in the future.  But for this month’s projects, JJ played with The Paper Element’s Coffee - beautiful blues and browns.  I always tell people that The Paper Element paper picks up ink and paint so well because of its weight and texture… take a look at the torn edges on JJ’s layout, featuring her adorable little boy:

And speaking of beautiful little boys, take a look at this peaceful page by Sasha Holloway, created with The Paper Element’s Spicy.  All you Moms out there know how quickly that toddler profile morphs into a little boy face, don’t you?  What a great moment and great photograph!  And I love the 3-D butterflies she included on the page.

So check out the gallery.  You can’t leave comments in the gallery, but if you want to leave some love for the Design Team, you can do it here!

So, the giveaway has stalled!  We’ve given one set of papers away to Erin Morehouse, who correctly guessed “U2.”  The lone tree on the Kilimanjaro and African Sand papers echo “The Joshua Tree” to some of us.  A Joshua Tree is native to the American Southwest, not Africa, but it’s the image of the lone tree that had some of us going, “Hmm.” 

But, we’ve still got one album outstanding!  So it’s time for a hint, I think.  One person has guessed the name of the band, but she guessed it in a whole string of others.  So we need to have someone zero in on the band itself.  For a hint, the album itself came out in 1973, with almost simultaneous releases in the US and UK (one week apart).  And the paper that has inspired the comparison?  Well, it’s not an animal print!

OK, who’s got the next guess?

If you’re subscribing to these updates and clicked straight here, leave for a minute, go to the homepage, and watch the fabulous slide show of the beautiful Fall & Winter Collection!  (Isn’t our web designer great?)  You can see images of all the Fall & Winter papers in our Products section, or just click on “Products” at the top of the screen.

For starters, and to pique your interest a little, here’s the short version.  Remember, all of these beautiful double-sided designs are printed on heavy-weight (80 lb.) textured cardstock.  Great for tearing, ripping, distressing, inking, sanding,… or just plain gazing at in wonder.

Oh, and did I mention that you should keep reading for a great giveaway?

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Think soft, warm sheets or your favorite pj’s, in a cozy, homey blue.  Faded just right, maybe just a little worn around the edges, Blue Flannel has beautiful soft snowflakes, wintry plaids, and a few flourishes to finish it off right.  Cardstock stickers in coordinating wintry shapes provide journaling spots or just an added embellishment.  Our white rub-ons coordinate with both Blue Flannel and Tinsel Town.

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And while you cozy up in your flannels, how about a steamy cup of Hot Chocolate?  In beautiful, rich fall colors, these papers and coordinating cardstock stickers designed with abstracted flourishes offer you soft and earthy visual interest for all of your paper projects.  Coffee lover?  It’s perfect for your kitchen, too!

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Bring out the holly, snowflakes, and holiday baubles for a ride to Tinsel Town.  And how could you not want to go?  In the richest of reds, these papers will bring the holiday spirit to any layout or project.  Our white rub-ons coordinate with the Blue Flannel papers, and cardstock stickers echo the fun holiday shapes in the papers.

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Where Tinsel Town is warm and classic, Deck the Halls is fun and jazzy.  In greens that pop and a touch of pink edging into the reds, these papers and cardstock stickers will put the funky back into your holiday.

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Sky Europa may be the most versatile of our Fall/Winter papers.  In muted pastels over distressed gray and white, each paper invokes the spirit of a European city.  Distressing in the papers includes ticket images that could be just right for travel pages, but more intense colors over it and on the reverse give you many options for these gorgeous papers.

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I’ll let you in on a little secret.  We all love the versatile quality of Safari Spots — Fall tones, a few animal prints that are subtle enough to lend themselves to several other uses, and a peaceful and serene quality overall.  But, we’re also women of a certain age.  And two of these papers just make us think of some of our favorite ’70s and ’80s music…  I’ll give you a hint.  It’s not in the title of the line or in the individual paper names; it’s in the design and graphic images of the papers themselves.  So think album covers (and I do mean albums, because we’re that old!)  AND, if you’re the first to leave a comment correctly identifying the two musical artists that we’re thinking of, YOU will WIN a complete Safari Spots package!  (Safari Spots will be printed and shipped in September, so it’ll be a while before you see it.  But the anticipation is worth it, right?)

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Good luck!

Watch this blog in the next day or so for a little giveaway from our Fall/Winter collection!  If you haven’t registered to post comments yet, this would be a good time to do it!