Latest posts from Merly Impressions

This month we have two new Kaisercraft collections, new papers and sticker sheets for the Timeless collection and a mass of other new products to offer.

Firstly we have the Rock Pool collection that features the shapes and patterns of coral, seaweed and waves embellished with sea creatures such as crabs, fish and sea shells. This large collection features nine double-sided 12×12 papers as well as printed ribbon, epoxy stickers, two sets of collectables, two wonderful die-cut papers, two stickers sheets and much more. If you have a beach or seaside project in mind then this collection could be for you.

Next we have the Magnolia Grove collection – featuring floral designs and pretty patterns with a vintage feel in shades of dusty pink, smokey grey and cream. This collection includes nine 12×12 double-sided papers, a sticker sheet, printed ribbon, collectables and much more. Magnolia Grove is a excellent choice for floral styled, vintage themed projects and would look wonderful used in combination with your favourite vintage photos.

We also have six new 12×12 double-sided papers and two sticker sheets to extend the very popular Timeless collection. The new papers include a fabulous Fob Watch design and a beautiful vintage style Butterfly design.

To coordinate with the classic designs of the Timeless collection, this month we also have six brand new Vintage Clear Stamps that can be used to add some gorgeous detail to your layouts.

Also new new this month are six new Texture Clear Stamps, six new Mini Clear Stamps (featuring sea creatures to coordinate with the Rock Pool collection), five new colours of Kaisercraft Ink Pads and four new Beyond-the-Page products. So much to choose from !

I don’t know about you, but Easter here was a little hit and miss.  Although most of the country is in drought, there seemed to be an awful lot of rain around!  When I look back over the whole Easter period though, I found that we had been on plenty of days out with great weather.

So I thought I would create a little mini-book to help remind me of all the things we got up to this month.

I used the Fine & Sunny collection as my starting point. The cute birdies and flowers are a perfect partner for this sort of project.

I love making mini books with a difference. I try to challenge myself to bind it in a different way or create pages with a difference. For this one, I made small pockets from cardstock which were there bound together using a concertina binding.

The pages are simply decorated with papers from the paper pad as well as collectables die-cuts.

Of course you can decorate the book with all sorts of embellishments because the beauty of the concertina binding is that it will expand as needed. I do love pinwheels which can get a little squashed in an ordinary book.

Extra tags can accomodate more journalling or photos.  I decorated mine using a variety of stickers, paper pieces and die-cuts.

I hope that I have inspired you to make a mini book of your own.  Be sure to check out the Fine & Sunny collection which is a perfect partner for your Easter projects.

Morag x

Hi everybody! Emilie here again for another layout! I really had a lot of fun creating this page! No surprise, it is about French Macarons (Macaroons). And I decided to use the Sweet Nothings collection, so sweet it was indeed.

I have used photographs of French patisseries and Macarons that I took through the window of the shop. When I am asked what I miss most about my country my first and main thought is the Bakeries/Patisseries. Yes I do miss hugely the cakes and posh desserts that are so widely available across the Channel! I used the “Dozen Roses” paper mostly because of the Eiffel Tower on it which tied-in nicely with my story. I then added a bit of stamped script image. You can obtain a similar effect with THIS stamp, a definite Must Have! I placed a sheet of pink paper from the paper pad on which I stuck my photos. I framed the pic on the left with the frame that came in the pack of Collectables. I then added one of the strips of stickers from the Sticker Sheet on the left of the layout as well as the big flower at the bottom (mounted on foam pads to give it depth). I loved the cheeky little angel so much that I thought he had to feature! I placed him at the bottom right hand side.

The rub-ons were exactly what I needed to add a few more details to my layout!

A few more elements from the paper pads (I love it! It’s full of papers AND die-cuts!) to finish off my page along with a few pearls and it’s a wrap!

I love this layout! I hope this inspired you, don’t hesitate to let me know your thought!

Emilie

I for one am so glad that Spring is in full swing.  It really is my favourite time of year.

We had a lovely spring last year too and we visited our local National Trust property which was in full bloom. The Fine and Sunny collection was a perfect partner for my spring photos.

For my layout, I wanted to create a border at the top and the bottom of the page which I have lined with border stickers.  I just love those little raindrops.

I used the top border as a base for the little collection of die-cuts. I love to create a little scene with die-cuts.

I added more die-cuts for the journalling and finished off with a little quote.

You can find the Fine and Sunny Collection by clicking here. The gorgeous papers, stickers and die-cuts are just perfect for all our layouts this spring.

Thanks for popping in, be sure to pop back soon for more inspiration.

Morag x

Hello – Emilie here to introduce the very first Merly Impressions Monthly Challenge. I am really excited about setting this challenge for you and hope it will be the first of many fun and inspirational challenges at Merly Impressions.

I was wondering, when you don’t scrap about your children, pets, hubby, etc… what do you scrap about?

You see, I haven’t got any children; most people are getting bored of seeing photos of my dogs AND my other half isn’t a camera lover… So once I have exhausted all my “Scrap-able” pics of childhood memories should I just stop creating until some more re-surface or until the man in my life decides to stop sulking long enough for me to take an acceptable photo? Well, my answer is NO! I mean, our future generation will know everything there is to know about our offspring, dogs, cats, moody husbands, brothers, etc… but what will they know about us? The real us, not just the fact that we love his/her smile, hair, voice, sense of humour,… Yep, I knew it, not much! We love to talk about others but we are fairly shy.

Well, at Merly Impressions, we challenge you – we want to see a layout about you! You don’t need to use a photo of yourselves, or even a photo at all, but create a page that is about YOU. The possibilities are endless: your favourite food, music, film, or about a journey, a weight loss, an achievement,… The subject is vast but at the end, the page has to make you think “Yep, they will know me a little bit better now”.

So, to summarise, for this months challenge we would like you to create:

• a 12×12 scrapbook layout
• that says something about YOU (a secret, a fact, a story, etc)

Please link to your creation in the gallery below before the challenge closes at 1:00pm on 12th May. We will then choose the most inventive and inspirational entry to win this months prize – a £20 voucher to spend in the Merly Impressions online shop.

Please see the Monthly Challenge page for a full list of the rules.

Of course, I wouldn’t challenge you and not take part in it myself! I decided to talk about my favourite writer: Guillaume Musso. His books really strike a chord with me each time! I just took different shots of the same pile of books with different Hipstamatic lenses on my phone and layered them on top of each other to give the impression of a lot more books.

I used the back of the Kaisercraft Sweet Nothings Cupids Arrow paper as my background and then I added a lot of elements from the pack of Sweet Nothings Collectables around my photos and at the bottom right corner of my page.

I then stamped my journalling all the way down my layout mixing it up with some of these rub-ons. A few splashes of black paint to continue the feeling of a manuscript and my layout was complete! I hope I inspired you to talk about you!

Emilie

This challenge is now closed.

Today we have two beautiful layouts from the very talented Emma Williams who has used the lovely Tigerlilly collection to create a very girly look.

The first layout uses Tigerlilly papers and elements from the Collectables pack to highlight a fabulous photo with flowers, flourishes and butterflies.

Emma has used one of the Envelopes from the Tigerlilly Embellishment Pack to create a pocket for her journalling.

For the second layout Emma has beautifully matched the colours in her photo with the colours in the Tigerlilly papers and Collectables.

Emma has also used the new Kaisercraft Ribbon Roses which perfectly coordinate with the Tigerlilly papers.

Thanks to Emma for these lovely layout. We hope they inspire our readers to create something equally fabulous.

The Fine & Sunny collection from Kaisercraft features gorgeous imagery which is just perfect for so many subjects. I love the tweety birds, kites, sunshine and rainbows.  It’s happiness on a scrapbook page.

The Sky die-cut paper makes creating a scrapbook page easy.  I placed my photos on a mat on the right-hand side of the page.

The Fine and Sunny 6 1/2″ paper pad also has a section at the back of die-cuts.  There are an amazing 4 pages of die-cuts including tags, journal cards and borders.  I used a couple of the borders to frame my photos and added my own die-cut rosette (Tim Holtz).

I know the flags and banners are all the rage right now, so I put my scraps to good use and joined in the fun.  To anchor my banner, I used two buttons either side of my photos.

I then laced baker’s twine between the two.  I cut strips of patterned paper of various widths and snipped out the ends.  Glue into place or add a small staple or tiny peg.  You’ll also notice that I snipped some of the grosgrain ribbon and added a stamped ticket.

I didn’t put a title on my page since it’s going in my Disney album but a fun title could be place on the left hand side or up in the top left corner.  Or for an alternative title, how about stamping your title and hanging it with the flags?

I hope you enjoyed the layout. Thanks for popping in.

Morag x

First of all I wish to say how happy and honoured I am to have been invited to join the Merly Impressions Design Team!!! I really do hope that I will bring some inspiration your way!!! I have been so spoilt by Chrissy with my first box! Everything in it was soooo gorgeous that I sat for hours stroking my new stash!!! I am sure you all do that too… But I was simply amazed by the quality of all the Kaisercraft goodies!

I fell in love with the “Great Southern Land” collection. I have never been to Australia and to be honest it isn’t at the number one spot on my list of “Have to go to…” but the colours and designs of that collection just got me drooling!!!

I wanted to be original so I used the sheet of  TAS Die-cut paper as my background but as I didn’t have anything to scrap that would tie with the Australian theme I decided to create a layout about my older brother who has been in a lot places across the world. I spread some white paint over the bottom left corner of my background so that it wouldn’t overwhelm my photograph and then layered pieces of  papers from the same collection.

I added the hot air balloon that was in the packet of “Collectables” from the “Sweet Nothing” collection.  I am amazed at how well the Kaisercraft collections can be mixed together!!!

To balance my page I added a strip of used French postage stamps I had kept from a letter and two pieces of ribbon. Those packs of Kaisercraft ribbons are A-mazing!!!! Now I know I will have the exact shade of brown I want!!! A must have for me!

I finished off my layout by adding a few blooms and buttons in the colours of the back of the “SA” sheet and the back of the “NSW” sheet.

So there you go! My first layout for Merly Impression! I hope this inspired you!

Emilie

As some of you already know we attended the a retreat last weekend (March 30th) as the resident shop. There were six Kaisercraft projects included in the retreat. Each delegate had what they needed to complete them although many of the ladies decided to purchase different papers and embellishments and make the projects their own. Some of the results were truly stunning.

One of the retreat projects was the Kaisercraft BTP Memo Board so I decided to make my own version of it. I actually started this at our last Merly Crop and finished it in time to have on display at the retreat. Below is my Memo Board… still loving March’s Tigerlilly collection so I decided to use that – I do love my Butterflies!

Below are some photo’s of all the beautiful projects that were completed at the retreat. We had a fabulous weekend and it was lovely to finally meet some of our lovely customers.

Enjoy & happy Kaisercrafting!

Chrissy xXx

Don’t you just love Easter? What’s not to love? Spring flowers and chocolate – oh joy!  Kaisercraft’s Fine & Sunny collection is the backdrop for my Easter layout with its cute rainbows, sunshine and clouds.

Our Easter egg hunt last year was a perfect Sunday morning.  We followed the egg trail at our local National Trust property which was in full bloom with bluebells.

I cut out the little Easter eggs from the Fine and Sunny Forecast gloss paper and combined them with die-cuts and stickers to make my collection of embellishments. I made the pin wheel and topped it off with a button and pearl.

The fabulous clouds, sunshine and rainbows are just gorgeous.  The chipboard is layered as you can see here making it super-easy to get some dimension onto the page.

I adopted a really simple design for the layout which gave me plenty of opportunity to gather my embellishments. I used an old die-cut paper as a template to draw around on my white cardstock.

Thanks for popping in.  I hope I’ve given you some inspiration for your Easter layouts.

Morag x