Hey there, readers!  Today, I’m going to give you the scoop on how you can sign up for several of the Studio Girls’ personal newsletters.  Believe me!  It’s totally worth subscribing to these additional newsletters for the extra savings and surprises they send out!

Jen Caputo–a free template for subscribing.  
Sign up here for Jen’s PHP List Newsletter

Wendyzine Scraps–a free alpha for subscribing.
Email Wendy with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line to be put on her mailing list.

Birgit Kerr
Scroll down a bit on Birgit’s blog, Scrapalicious Bytes, to sign up for her newsletter.

Studio Flergs
Sign up here for the Studio Flergs Newsletter.

Baers Garten Designs–receive the Remembering Mini Kit for signing up.
Join the Baers Garten Designs Yahoo Group here.

Michelle Godin–receive the Candy Hearts alpha for subscribing.
Sign up here on Michelle’s blog.
 
Fontologie
Subscribe at Fontologie.com to be kept up-to-date on the latest from Steph.

Doris Castle
Sign up here to join Doris Castle’s Yahoo Group.

Studio Manu
Sign up here at Manu Designs to subscribe to Manu’s newsletter.

Rachel Young
Sign up here on Rachel’s blog for her newsletter.

If you have any questions, just give us a holler at service@scrapbookgraphics.com

Now, here’s a challenge I know you can wrap your brain around!  Let’s scrap those back-to-school photos this weekend!  There’s no time like the present!  So, let’s not put it off a second longer!  I got my son’s first day of school photos scrapped…Woo Hoo!

CREDITS: Baers Garten Designs’ Late Summer Afternoon; Kate Hadfield’s Back 2 School (check mark); Nancy Comelab’s Frame Cluster; SS Play Font

Okay, I did find it slightly amusing that the sample layouts I got from the Crew this week were from the two members that don’t have kids! But that’s okay!  Here they are showing you a couple of ways you can go with this challenge!

ROBIN
"For the Back To School studio start, I dug out this photo from my favorite class trip. That’s me, third from left in the front row, wearing the Mickey Mouse shirt!"

CREDITS: MGL Scraps’s Free Spirit (collab with Franziska Altmann); Jessica Bolton’s Trix Pix (NSD freebie), Kim Jensen’s Spell It Bead from Scrapdish, name tag by Toni Berman.

ANN
"This is my mom as a freshman in college.  I wondered if this was used in the yearbook or something, because that’s not Mom’s handwriting!  Maybe a friend wrote it on there or something.  But it sure is a cute photo of her, and love the extra character the writing gave to the photo.

"Traci’s notebook papers are really a staple for me.  I had had my eye on her Bordeaux kit for a long time with this very photo in mind."

CREDITS: Traci Sims’ Bordeaux; Jen Caputo Torn and Curled Paper Edges 2; Font Brush Script

Now it’s your turn!  Join us in scrapping those back-to-school photos…from this week, two weeks ago, two years ago or two decades ago! Post your pages in the Studio Starts Gallery.  Every page completed for this challenge earns you 20 points toward Spirit Club prizes…so make sure you’re signed up for this month’s contest!

by Karen Maggie

Happy Fall Everyone!  This is my absolute favorite time of year – when the weather is cool, crisp and fresh!  And for those of us working on Theme Albums, it’s the beginning of the final stretch.  I find myself already thinking about next year and whether we should continue the Theme Album challenge again in 2009.  I know that my personal list of albums that I want to create is very long (heritage albums, birthday albums, sports albums, baby books, travel albums etc.).   Please feel free to PM me with your thoughts and let me know your interest level.  Also, be sure to let me know if you have any suggestions on how to make the challenge more fun or useful.

This month, I want to highlight another wonderful album.  Its Carin’s (aka Carinspixels) Zoo album.  Each month, Carin has created gorgeous pages using the Theme Album templates paired with various digital kits.  Although she uses different kits, her pages maintain a cohesive look through her use of natural elements such as leaves and grasses.  It’s as if each type of animal has it’s own digital habitat!  Here is a sampling of Carin’s pages:

This month’s templates includes a bracket frame (can you tell that I love brackets?).  Feel free to add or delete the number of photos to suit your own needs and also to modify them in any way you please:

And here is the two-pager that I’m working on about my daughter’s 10th Birthday.  It’s not totally complete yet, as I’m still ‘tweaking’ it (for me, a layout is usually not considered finished until I add some bling):  

CREDITS:  Everything from "Toxic Pop"  Collab by MGL Scraps and Melissa Bennett.  Font is Fontologie’s Printing Primer Abundant. Also, Drop Shadow Actions by Traci Murphy.

Be sure to upload your layouts in the Theme Album Challenge Gallery and post your links in the Theme Album Challenge Forum.

Remember to registere in the September Spirit Club Thread.  Each Theme Album challenge layout you complete will earn you 20 additional Pom Pom points!

This week we’re so excited to welcome Monica of MGL Scraps to Scrapbook Graphics! She’s been busy filling her studio with her fabulous kits! Here are just a few!

I love the faded look of her Bleached Alphas.

Monica teamed up with Franziska Altmann for Free Spirit with lots of pretty pinks and blues and acrylic and glittery elements!

Build Your Own Box 1 comes with tears, curls, rubber bands clusters and custom drop shadows.

I absolutely love Monica’s bold and bright color combinations, like in Crimson Gypsy.

And her Dreams in Colour collection (available as a complete collection with some bonus goodies or individually) is packed with vivid paper s and funky elements in every color of the rainbow!

Be sure to check back at Studio Matters on Saturday to see what the Studio Crew has been working on using Monica’s kits!

Studio Crew Spotlight: Traci Sims’ Itsy Bitsy Blooms and Michelle Godin’s Petal Flips

This week’s pick is from Becky! "For flowers on a page, it seems like time and time again I turn to Traci Sims’ Itsy Bitsy Blooms and Michelle Godin’s Petal Flips. For realism, they can’t be beat. I know a lot of scrappers like to use photo-realistic images of real flowers and foliage on their pages, and I do, too, sometimes, but traditional scrappers use paper and fabric flowers on their pages, so I guess that’s why I like the look of these flowers best. Traci provides several little fasteners in her Itsy Bitsy Blooms collection as well, so they are easily "attached" to the page. She also provides so many colors (easily recolored if the hue isn’t quite right), that I always have a choice. And Michelle’s Petal Flips are elegantly cute with those little pearl accents! They just make me happy!"

Come on over to the forum and join Jenna and the gang for this month’s RAK Challenge…we swap photos and scrap for each other!  It’s really fun!

This month’s Spirit Club prizes coordinate with the Studio Girls’ Impressions of Serendipity collab. By participating in our Spirit Club, you could earn all of these wonderful goodies from the Studio Crew and members of Team SBG (creative team members for our designers):

Plus, one lucky winner who posts over 400 comments in the month will win the Studio Girls’ Impressions of Comfort, our October collaboration.

All you have to do is sign up in our forum with your current Post Count, and then play along!  Leave praise in the gallery, comments in the forum, and post links to your layouts created for any of our challenges.  You can get all the details and rules in this month’s Spirit Club post, including the breakdown of the prizes you can earn at each point level and a link to this month’s registration freebie! We hope you’ll join us! It’s really fun!

Get it while it’s hot!  A grab bag of seven brand new products from Studio Meredith! At this fabulous price, you can’t go wrong!

This week we’ve got a couple of album ideas for you and a back-to-school project that will have your kids tickled pink to be going to school!

RAMONA
"Here is the hybrid album I made of our Stone Harbor Vacation.  I made the cover sticky and then laminated it so it would be protected.  When I pulled off the sticky part, the laminate came off  the bottom, and I could put it on the cover. I still need to file/sand the edges and maybe ink in the cracks of the pages."
 

CREDITS: Doodle Brag Book Templates by Janet Phillips in the August grab bag; Journey Kit by Roberta D’Achille; Some frames by Nancy Comelab; Sausan Designs Seaweed

BECKY
I used Baers Garten Designs’ Amelie Kit and Mini Album (brag book sized) to put together this cute purse album.  I had to resize the brag book sized pages for the accordion album, but it worked out beautifully.  I had more photos of friends than I had pages in the album, however, so I created some tags with elements from the kit (flowers and tags) to create some more pages to tuck in the little purse.

CREDITS: Baers Garten Designs’ Amelie Kit and Mini Album; 7Gypsies Chipboard Purse Album; Susie’s Hand; Velcro Tabs; Diamond Glaze to adhere the button I found in my stash.

DENISE
Denise used Dianne’s new Old School Comp Covers especially designed for composition books to create this personalized notebook for her son.

MATERIALS: Matte computer paper, ribbon, round corner punch, adhesive, Me & My Big Ideas Jelly Stickers.

How have you mixed it up lately?  Would love to see your projects!

After a month off from collab creation, the Studio Girls have come back with gusto, offering up this September delight, Impressions of Serendipity.  Inspired by the colors of Persia and the waning days of summer, 14 of the designers at Scrapbookgraphics put together this new kit for your scrapping pleasure:

Participating Studio Girls are: Dianne Rigdon, Birgit Kerr, Dana Frantz, Studio Flergs, Traci Sims, Vera Lim, Wendyzine Scraps, Berna Datema, Studio Manu, Phuong Ton, Michelle Godin, Lorie Davison, Meredith Fenwick,  and Jen Caputo.  These amazing designers included the following elements in this 400 MB plus megakit which is available for the month of September for just $9.99:

47 papers
1 floral swag
5 flowers
1 leaf
1 leafed flower
1 butterfly
1 floral border
1 floral overlay
1 leaf branch
1 piece of lace
1 set of mini frames
3 stars
2 floral swirls
5 paper frames (1 in both shadowed and non-shadowed versions)
1 cut-out paper frame
1 paper frame with knot
7 pieces of word art
1 patterned bow (with and without shadow)
6 fabric strips (3 to a sheet)
1 alpha (upper and lower case with numbers and European characters)
1 epoxy square alpha with upper and lower case and numbers
1 swirl embellished journaling strips
1 set of journaling strips (with and without shadow)
1 quick page
5 intricate swirls
1 template in both .psd and .tif versions
1 template in .psd version in both 12×12 and 8.5×11 sizes
1 metal accents
1 domino piece
1 moon brooch
1 border accent
1 fastener
1 screw
1 fortune teller accent
number tags (1-12)
2 word labels
1 necklace
1 ornate frame
1 stick pin
2 staples
1 tag
2 journaling blocks
1 photo corner
1 folded and clipped flower set
1 torn out piece of notepad paper
1 line of zig zag stitching
1 piece of tape
1 decorative brad
1 vintage frame
1 ribbon flower
2 keys
1 fabric bow
2 ribbon wraps
1 charm
2 bows
1 vintage floral image
1 polka dotted heart

WOW!  And DOUBLE WOW when you see what the creative teams have put together using this month’s versatile and rich designs:

LORRAINE

DENISE

RAMONA

JENN

JEN

EDELINE

ANN

TAMMY

FLOR

APRIL

TERESA

LAURA

NATALIE

SAMANTHA

KAIT

KAIT

MELINDA

CHERYL

MICHELLE

KIM

ROBIN

WREN

And now’s the time to sign up for this month’s Quick Page Exchange using IO Serendipity:

This month we’re scrapping in the Shutterfly 8 x 8 size!  Come check it out!

For all you hard-working scrappers out there, we have a little gift from Wendyzine Scraps today! It’s a great set of rings for binding all those acrylic album pages you’re creating these days (or whatever else needs hooked together!) She’s even included the holes and a shadow layer!

Thanks, Wendy!