Homegrown Scrapbooks: May News and Happenings

It’s a Girl!!!

Huge congratulations are in order for Homegrown Scrapbooks owner Stephanie Fearn, her husband Bryan, and sons Eli and Noah. Stephanie gave birth to a baby girl, Delainey London Annelynn Fearn, on March 16, 2006. Delainey weighed in at 8 lbs., 3 oz. and was 20 in. long. May’s kit will honor Delainey’s arrival – something just as beautiful as she is!

Basic Grey Oh, Baby! Girl
It’s not just for girls anymore!
Okay, so obviously this paper is great for scrapbooking your adorable baby girl, and oh what a treat this has been for me! But the Basic Grey Oh, Baby! Girl papers don’t stop there! In true Basic Grey style, they lend themselves to your spring, mother’s day, book of me, friendship, wedding, and yes, even your boy pages!

May Hybrid Kit Contents
1 sheet of each of the following patterned papers from the Basic Grey Oh, Baby! Girl collection: Sophie, Karina, Madison, Carlie, Lilly, Taylor, Hannah
2 sheets Heather cardstock
2 sheets Lemon Drop cardstock
1 sheet Oh, Baby! Girl cardstock Monograms
1 package Making Memories Pearl and Diamond Gem Stickers
1 set Li'l Davis Designs Pearl Crillon Chipboard alphabet set
2 yards assorted ribbon
1 Wisteria Cat's Eye Fluid Chalk Inkpad

This month’s papers were just PERFECT for this layout of my son Noah wearing my birthday tiara! I’ve been searching for just the right combination of papers and embellishments to show off this picture (one of my faves!) since Fall, and as soon as I opened the BG papers, I knew I had a perfect match!

Now not all of you have pictures lying around of your silly boys wearing “princely crowns” (as my husband likes to refer to the tiara), but I’m sure that you DO have pictures of you and your best friend or photographs of your garden gnome surrounded by beautiful spring flowers! BE CREATIVE and think outside the pink box! The possibilities are limitless with the Oh, Baby! Girl papers and embellishments that we’ve put together for you this month.

Inspiration
Need a little more inspiration? We’ve got that covered too!

Looking for a contest? We’ve got one!
Use this kit to create layouts of YOUR prince, and you could win free stuff!!! Post your work in our Members’ Gallery by June 15th and we will choose our favorite creation to win a prize! See the Homegrown Contest Announcements section of our forum for more details!

Looking for some inspirational quotes for your pages? Try these!
When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts.
A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.
~ Sophia Loren

Her children rise up and bless her. - Proverbs 31:28
No language can express the power and beauty and heroism of a mother's love. - Edwin H. Chapin

Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer.
~ Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.
~ Proverb from Guinea

Spring - An experience in immortality.
~ Henry D. Thoreau

Looking for ways to make your Hybrid kit stretch even farther? We’ve got those too!

**NEW FEATURE** Hybrid Accessory Packs
Check out our new Hybrid Accessory Packs and expand your creative horizons! The Hybrid Accessory Pack is filled with more embellishments, inks and tools that perfectly complement your Hybrid Kit, and the Deluxe Hybrid Accessory Pack features an additional sheet of each patterned paper and even more coordinating cardstock!

And the best part about these Accessory Kits is that there is no additional shipping charge for our domestic customers when your purchase is shipped with your kit. Pick yours up today in our Current Kits Section!

**NEW FEATURE** Daily Inspiration
And if you still need more inspiration, check out our new Inspiration of the Day and Project of the Day threads in the forum!

Inspiration of the Day
Each day, design team leader Charissa Stanton chooses an\Inspiration of the Day and shares it with everyone in our forum. This is a great feature for those of you who don’t have time to go surfing for the latest techniques and the newest offerings from your favorite trendsetters! Charissa does all the research for you, and brings inspiration to your desktop daily!

Project of the Day
In an effort to work even harder for you, our design team has created the Project of the Day series in our Class Corner and Resource Room forum. Each day, a member of the team will post one of their layouts or projects in this forum. Along with the photograph are step-by-step instructions that will guide you through the project from beginning to end. Now you will have a daily, detailed guide for working with your Hybrid kit!

**NEW FEATURE** Bits and Pieces Section
Need more of something found in your Hybrid kit? Check out our Bits and Pieces section for sale prices on items found in previous kits!

Design Team News
Homegrown Is Pleased To Welcome Tia Bennett as our Guest Designer!

You’ve seen her name everywhere, but have you gotten to know Tia Bennett – the woman behind the Freestyle craze? Now you can!...

Hi there! I'm Tia Bennett. I am the girl who, in 1st grade, laid her head down and cried when her teacher told her she had to color inside the lines. It wasn’t a matter of skill—I was pretty accomplished at being precise—I just wanted to add some ‘scenery’, is all! To this day, I continue my drive to challenge the ordinary; to color outside the lines, with a creative energy that lives within my every breath.

I'm a 30 year old wife (of 11 years) and mom (to 3 kiddos) and live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest in Washington State. I've been scrapbooking since Fall of 2004, after the tumultuous birth of my 3rd child left me feeling rather emotional and needing to express myself creatively. It only took me a month or so of papercrafting until I dove head-first into the design world, and haven't looked back since!

I've been published in many magazines and books, most recently Autumn Leaves' "Freestyle". I design products for Autumn Leaves and the stamp company Fontwerks, and release weekly designs at http://www.designerdigitals.com/. You can also find my fonts at http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/. I feel so blessed each and every day to do what I do; to design and create, while still staying home to be a mom!

Redesign
Homegrown’s Re-Designed Design Team
We’ve been in the process of re-designing our Design Team, and are proud to announce our talented group of Homegrown designers!
Aimee Takayoshi, Audrey Neal, Audrey Tan, Catherine Sebree, Chantal Andress, Jeanne Tamez, Lori Gentile, Lynne Wilson, Melissa Bierlin, Meera D’Souza, Severine Langlois, Stacy Rogers. Charissa Stanton will head up this talented group of papercrafters as Design Team Leader. Come see the latest projects we’ve done to inspire you and keep watching for more info on our two new designers!

Design Team Call
Homegrown is holding a Design Team search beginning in May! We will be looking for new designers to join our talented design team beginning this summer! For more details, check out our forum at http://www.homegrownscrapbooks.com/.

Did You Know?
Forum Facts
Did you know we have a font forum here at Homegrown? Our resident font guru and design team member, Jeanne-Marie Tamez, posts a Font of the Week with a link to download the free font.
If you’re new to font downloading, Jeanne has useful information and easy-to-follow tutorials posted on how to download fonts and how to install them on both MACS and PC’s.
And if you’re all too familiar with fonts and have too many to keep track of, she has a link to a font viewer that allows you to see all your fonts at one time!
Be sure to stop by our font forum to see all of Jeanne’s resources and download a font or two today!

**NEW FEATURE** Free Fonts
Jeanne has chosen several free fonts to match your Hybrid kit! The following fonts were chosen to coordinate with your May Hybrid Kit. There’s even a great floral dingbat font included!

http://www.dafont.com/lms-hippy-chick.font

http://www.dafont.com/kr-spring-me.font

http://www.dafont.com/search.php?q=girls+are+weird

And as an added bonus, here is a great paisley font to go with your April Hybrid Kit. It’s called Paisley Caps and it even included numbers!!!

http://www.1001fonts.com/font_details.html?font_id=2399

**NEW FEATURE** Forum Francais
We now have a special French Forum for our French-speaking members!

Create Your Own Custom Stamps in Just Two Easy Steps!
by Charissa Stanton

After seeing a lot of the new products releases over the past few months from CHA, it would be an understatement to say that stamps are a big trend right now! Rubber stamps, foam stamps, acrylic stamps, digital stamps – they’re a “must have” item for our scrapbook pages. Quickutz has even come out with stamping products!
This got the frugal scrapper in me thinking about several stamping possibilities... Every die cut machine I am familiar with will cut basic craft foam.
So here’s how you do it…
1. Cut a die-cut shape out of basic craft foam (can be found in the children’s section of craft stores)
2. Adhere the shape or letter to an acrylic block with double stick tape and voila! – you have your own custom foam stamp!
How cool (and frugal) is that? The possibilities are endless!

Contest News
And The Winner Is . . .
Congratulations to amberjane, mei_lye, scribler and flcropper, winners of our March Madness contest!

Check your raffle ticket…
Check those raffle tickets you’ve been holding onto that came in your March kit! The winning numbers are posted in the Contest Announcement forum. Three free May kits are up for grabs!

More great ways to win free stuff…
Fill out our questionnaire! Return the paper copy of the questionnaire included with your April kit, or fill it out online! It couldn’t be easier! We will pick two winners at random to win a FREE 3-month subscription to our Hybrid Club kit!

Get those boy pages uploaded…
Post those layouts of your little prince created using this month’s kit and you could be chosen as the winner of a fabulous Basic Grey prize pack!

Coming up next month…