Dabbling in Zentangle at Girls' Night Out!

Hello, Memory Bound friends!

Our Girls' Night Out group meets monthly for inspiration and fun. Lately the group has learning a new technique each time, facilitated by one of the group members. At the most recent meeting, customer Janis Timmons introduced the group to Zentangle.

What is Zentangle?  

According to Zentangle.com:

Zentangle is an easy to learn method of creating beautiful images from repetitive patterns. 

In other words, it is a structured, "contained" doodle with repetitive patterns. Here are some samples I found around the web:

 

 

 

 

Zentangle shapes can be drawn by hand, but Janis taught the group how to incorporate STENCILS into a Zentangle project. In this example, Janis used a bird stencil and filled it with repeating patterns. Beautiful!

Here, Janis created a frame and sectioned it off into segments, then filled each one with a free-hand pattern:

Here Janis used overlapping leaf shapes and filled them with fall colors. This would make a lovely card front or home decor piece!

  

Zentangle projects can be monochromatic (often black/white) or colorful. If you want to color your Zentangle image, you can use colored pencils, watercolor, or Copic markers, to name just a few options. Janis showed the group how to use Ranger Distress Markers to add color to Zentangle drawings created on Neenah white cardstock.

 

Zentangle is very popular right now, and for good reason! By all accounts, it's very fun and relaxing! The ladies of Girls Night Out thoroughly enjoyed learning about this art form! Thank you, Janis!

If you'd like to learn how to make Zentangle projects, we've got several "how to" books and everything you'll need to get started. Stop by and we'll help you find what you need!

 And new folks are always welcome at Girls' Night Out! Our next meeting is on Monday, April 13, 6-7:30pm. It's FREE and always inspirational! Bring any projects you've been working on to share with the group. Call us at (515) 965-1102 for more information!

Janet

Customer Project: Annette's Shadow Box

Hello, Memory Bound friends!

Today we have a super-fun and inspiring project to share with you! One of our customers, Annette Hong, participated in our recent Mixed Media Madness Day where students created three fabulous canvas projects. Instead of Maggie's Halloween Canvas shown here...

Annette used the same concepts to create this beautiful canvas of her own design!

As you can see, Annette followed the same steps to create her lovely canvas but used completely different materials. She painted the canvas with gold metallic paint, then used Cloudy Blue paint on the inside of the "shadow box", rubbing gold paint by hand along the edges for a bit of shine. Her shadow box canvas features a Jolee's Boutique church and gold embellishments, available at Memory Bound. Annette brought the cross from home for the perfect finishing touch to her project.

Annette's shadow box canvas is a great example of how one project can inspire another. Thanks to Annette for sharing her beautiful work with us!
Janet

Customer Project: Marilyn's Halloween Album

 

Hello, Memory Bound friends! 

Today we are super excited to share with you a beautiful project made by one of our customers, Marilyn Carlson. Marilyn is an avid paper crafter and loves making cards and mini albums. Marilyn recently attended Pat's Stacked Hinge Album class where students created this adorable mini album.

Well, Marilyn was so inspired by Pat's awesome album that she created an adorable baby album using the same design. But she didn't stop there! Marilyn recently made an incredible Halloween album...again inspired by the same fun class project. Marilyn has a particular fondness for Graphic 45 papers and when she saw the new Halloween line (An Eerie Tale), the wheels started turning! 

Take a peek at just a few photos from her beautiful project!

 The papers Marilyn chose were indeed perfect for this project, and she did a wonderful job mixing and matching them to create a cohesive album which flows from one page to the next.

   

She added so many fun details to her project, like pull-out tags, special photo corners, and die cuts like the spider web (by Taylored Expressions).

 

I especially love Marilyn's little pocket with a button closure. Perfect for tucking in a little note or photo!
 

The "interactive" pull-out tags make albums like this so much fun!

Thanks so much to Marilyn for sharing her amazing project with us!

Janet

Custom Banners by Memory Bound

 Hello, Memory Bound friends!

Today we would like to share a fun project that Diane just completed for one of our Memory Bound customers. She asked us to create a banner set for her daughter's first birthday...a very big event! The customer shared some ideas for color and theme, and then Diane got to work on this very special assignment!

 Diane chose cardstock and patterned paper in the desired color scheme then cut a series of circles and letters in our Accu-Cut die cutting center. She layered colors and sizes to add interest to her design. After spelling out "Happy Birthday", she punched holes and added ribbon to string the circles together to create a banner which can be hung on a wall, window, or mantel.

I love how Diane combined ribbon styles and colors!

 The customer also asked Diane to create a sign for the door announcing the big event. The "Little Sunshine" theme works great with the colors!

Diane also created a shorter "I'm 1" banner for this little girl's high chair! How cute is that?

 Here is the completed set, including the door sign, high chair banner, and wall banner. These colorful decorations will be perfect for the big day!

If you have a big event coming up and need assistance creating banners like these, give us a call at (515) 965-1102! We would love to help you make your party very special! Prices vary.

Janet

Scenes from the Latest Girls' Night Out!

 Hello, Memory Bound friends!
Have you heard about our Girls' Night Out group? This lively bunch meets monthly for sharing, friendship, and inspiration. New members are welcomed with open arms! Just bring along any projects you've been working on -- cards, scrapbook pages, home decor pieces, sewing...anything crafty! -- to share. 

These wonderful ladies regularly have crops at Memory Bound, go on outings (our last one was "junking" in the Ames area!), and take on volunteer causes to put their paper crafting skills to work. Take a look at some photos from our June meeting!

LeAnn and her niece Paige showed cards they've been making. Paige made her Father's Day card in our monthly Scrappin' Kidz class taught by Diana Tuttle.

Bonnie (whose face is hidden by a beautiful card!) is involved with Gigi's Playhouse in Urbandale, an organization which offers education and support to young children with Down Syndrome and their families. Bonnie started a program to make cards for Gigi's Playhouse and of course, the ladies of Girls' Night Out jumped in to help! They've been making TONS of cards! Read more about Gigi's Playhouse HERE.

 Diana shared some awesome sample cards she made with some new stamps from Art Impressions. Diana creates a lot of wonderful cards available for purchase in our Staff Studio. Read more about our Staff Studio HERE!

RaNae showed a beautiful recipe album and card she recently made for her daughter. This cookbook has an amazing story!

In RaNae's words: "When my daughter was engaged to be married, I gave her a cookbook with completely hand written family recipes going back generations. It was full and covered many categories. I purchased a cookbook, then added the recipes, the tabs for the categories, and a short note inside. 

Well, she & her husband moved many times for his job, and during one move to Mayfield, Kentucky, they had a house fire and lost over half of their belongings. The main part of the fire was in the kitchen, so, needless to say, the cookbook was heavily damaged. The outside was completely bubbled up and charred. Part of the inscription was brown as were the clear pockets. But the recipes all survived with no smoke or water damage. So when they moved back home to Iowa, I told her I would get her another cookbook cover and insert the recipes.

Well, I went to where I bought the first one and of course, they didn't have any more, no cookbooks at all!!! So, after quite some time, I decided it was time to get her cookbook done. I was at a garage sale and found a green photo album, then the light bulb came on: I decided to make it into a new cookbook for her.  Inside, I wrote her a new inscription dated the day I made the new cookbook and below it, I rewrote the original inscription from her first cookbook 7 years ago. When I gave it to her, she absolutely loved it! That did my heart proud."

What a wonderful project and touching story!

Jennifer shared a beautiful Christmas album she just finished. This was an inspiration to all of us to get those holiday pictures scrapbooked...before next Christmas rolls around!
 

We'd love to see YOU at our next meeting, scheduled for Monday, July 8, 6-7:30pm. It's always fun, inspirational, and FREE! Just give us a call at (515) 965-1102 to let us know you're coming!
Janet

Beautiful Customer Project: Must Love Dogs!

Hello, Memory Bound friends!
 If you've got a pet (or three) in your life, you'll love today's post. I recently had the privilege of looking through a beautiful project made by our customer, Laura Armantrout. This is an altered book honoring the dogs who have been part of her life over the years. Laura shared her project at last month's Mixed Media Happy Hour. (If you'd like to start your own altered book, read more about this fun group HERE!)

Laura started with a book called Must Love Dogs. She altered the cover and many of the pages using a variety of creative mixed media techniques.

  
As you can see, she incorporated tags and other special memorabilia.

Laura's project includes beautiful details such as pockets, vintage photos, quotations, and hand stitching.

 

There are pages for each of Laura's dogs, including a journaling card with information about each one.

 

  Laura found creative ways to add each dog's name to the pages. And since this book is about dogs, she circled words in the text which were significant to her. 

 

She incorporated favorite photos and dog tags.

 

Each page of Laura's book is a work of art!

 

In looking through her Laura's project, I could feel the love she has for her dogs!

 

Here are two wonderful photos from Laura's project.

 

Thank you to Laura for sharing her amazing altered book with us!
Janet

A Fabulous Fabric Idea!!

Hello, Memory Bound friends!
Today's post is by Katie. Enjoy!
Janet


Ready for some inspiration?

Linda Isely was in the store having copies made of her wonderful scrapbook pages. She and I got to talking about her pages. While I was admiring this particular layout...

 I commented to Linda how I LOVED her little details, such as the Iowa State logo in the upper left corner and lower right corner. She shared that she cut those from an ISU sports program! I went on about how I really liked her plaid ribbon and how it matched her paper (purchased at Memory Bound) perfectly!!

 That was when Linda shared it wasn't ribbon, but plaid fabric!! She buys old plaid shirts from the local thrift stores, rips them apart and uses them on her layouts!!

 I absolutely LOVE that idea!!

Here's another layout created by Linda. She did a similar theme last year and won a ribbon for it at the Iowa State Fair!! She is a talented woman!

Not only did the fun photos catch my eye, but so did the actual strip of denim fabric she used across the bottom of her layout! It matches her "cowgirl" theme and the denim skirt in the photo!

She got the strip of fabric from a pair of her husband's old jeans! What a great idea, Linda!

Bonnie, who works at the store, was inspired by Linda's use of fabric. Bonnie has a sack full of her dad's old plaid shirts and is now going to use them as ribbon in her layouts!

 We love to be inspired!! Thanks to Linda Isley for sharing and inspiring!!

Smiles!!
Katie

December Girls' Night Out Meeting-Part 2

Hello, Memory Bound friends!

 Our Girls' Night Out group met recently for another evening of fun! This is the second of two posts about the evening, this one featuring the Recipe Circle Albums the ladies have been creating. If you missed Part 1, you can find it here.

But first, here are several of the ladies from this group (a few were missing that evening). Pictured in the front row (left to right): Janet (that's me!), Diane (our store manager and fearless leader!), Jennifer, LeAnn, and Janis. Back row: RaNae, Jill, Janice, Diana (another Memory Bound staff member!), Fonda, and Karen.

 Recipe Circle Albums
The ladies started the recipe project back in October. Each person who chose to participate created an album with some guidelines about the recipes she wanted to collect. Each month, the albums are each passed to another member of the group who has the remainder of the month to provide a recipe and a photo (when possible), along with any other information requested by the album's owner. The following month, the albums are passed on to someone different, in "circle" fashion. By the time they eventually make their way back to the owner, they'll be filled with all kinds of yummy recipes!

Here's the adorable cover of Jennifer's album.

Diane had Jennifer's book this month, and she provided a recipe for Christmas Slush.

Janice had Diane's book, and she provided an old family recipe for Yummy Drops.



Janice made a batch of Yummy Drops and brought them for our potluck. They are, indeed, VERY yummy!

 
Janis had RaNae's book this month and shared her wonderful recipe for Cheesy Potatoes, a dish which she also brought to the potluck.

 Here is Janis showing the fun cover of RaNae's album!

 

Diana had Karen's book this month and provided a delicious recipe for Christmas Caramel Bars. (Sorry about the glare on this photo!) Diana provided pictures of the bars...

...as well as a pan of them for us to try!

RaNae had Jill's book this month and shared several great recipes, including a family recipe for waffles with only four ingredients, one being club soda. It makes the waffles very fluffy!

Here's RaNae showing us the very cute cover of Jill's book.

 RaNae also shared a recipe for a wonderful chocolate dessert. Don't let Janis and Janice fool you -- they did NOT eat all of this dessert! We helped! :) 

Jennifer provided a wonderful recipe for Sweet Corn Casserole...

...and she brought it for us to sample. As you can see, it was also very popular!

 

 Karen had Fonda's book this month and provided a quick and easy recipe for Angel Chicken.

 

 Peggy provided a tried and true family favorite recipe for Chicken Divan in this adorable album.

 

In addition to making a page and providing a recipe, the ladies always bring along copies of each recipe to share with the entire group. As you can see, this project has been a lot of fun -- in the craft room AND in the kitchen!

If you'd like to join our Girls' Night Out group, newbies are always welcome...and it's FREE! Our next meeting is scheduled for Monday, January 14, 6-7:30pm. Bring a project you've been working on to share with the group, or just come and check it out! You'll be inspired and have a great time. Give us a call at (515) 965-1102 to sign up!
Janet