NEW BLOG!

Attention all Kiwi fans!!! If you have not already heard....we have relocated to our new blog which you can follow HERE or find on our website at kiwilane.com.  We will continue posting ideas and inspiration on our new blog that you can continue to follow. Make sure to check it out!  If you have any questions please contact us at customerservice@kiwilane.com!

October Sincerely

 October is such a wonderful time of year!  After a long, hot summer, the cooler temps in October and the wonderful changing colors get me really excited for the upcoming holidays....including Halloween!  So this month for Sincerely, we're focusing on Halloween cards.  

Designed by Debbie Budge

We have a lot of fun Halloween ideas and cards in our blog already and on our Facebook page, so I tried to think outside the box and come up with more fun ways to use our Designer Templates!  This card measures 8 by 5 1/2 inches.  I wanted to focus on a witch's hat and broom, and it turned out really cute!  I made the border using Mini Strips and Mini Abbie.  For the witch's hat I used the Tiny Shapes set...the larger oval and rounded triangle, trimmed with some ribbon.  Super easy to do!  Then I really wanted to make a witch's broom, and the Tiny Tags worked great!  I used the Tiny Tags 6T for the body of the broom, clipped to make it look like bristles.  I wanted a crooked stick feel for the handle, so I used Happy Trails 1B and traced it twice to get the size handle I was looking for.  Then I wound some string around the handle just where it joined the broom.  It turned out really cute and took no time at all to do!

Designed by Debbie Budge

Next I used some Halloween paper from my stash to make this card.  I was messing around with the maple leaf template from the Tiny Holiday set and realized I could make a different kind of ghost from it.  Remember when your little ones would put a sheet over their heads and pretend to be ghosts?  That's the feeling I was looking for and the maple leaf was perfect, with the addition of some googly eyes...so cute!  I tucked a tiny pumpkin right up next to the ghost from the Tiny Holiday set also and added a Halloween strip over the top of them.  Behind the pumpkin and ghost I tucked a border from the Sentiments card border set.  

Designed by Gail Owens

Gail Owens, one of our wonderful design team members, created the next two cards for us this month.  

This card measures 5 x 7 inches and uses the following supplies:

Templates

Holiday 4T, 5T

Spook 1A

Shapes 7T, 37

Celebrate 5

Wacky 2T 

PAPER AMERICAN CRAFTS

Pearls doodlebug

twine- lily belles paperie on etsy

Designed by Gail Owens

4x6 card

Paper American Crafts paper and brads

ink-Ranger

twine-lilly Belles Paperie on etsy

templates

spook alley 1a

holiday 5t

Both Gail and I had a lot of fun designing our Halloween Cards.  What can you come up with?  We'd love to see!  Be sure to share your own creations with us on our Facebook page.  

Halloween Ideas

Paper Pumpkins - Designed by Shiloh Jorgensen
Using Happy Trails, Tiny Shapes, Tiny Holiday, & Tiny Accents. Paper by My Mind's Eye

 Here are the steps to create your own paper pumpkin.



Step 1: Cut and ink the happy trails strips - 16 full-size trails for the large pumpkin and 7 full-size trails, cut in half, making 14 for the small. I used 2 patterns of double-sided paper to make the trails.


Step 2: Cut 2 circles out of chipboard - Tiny Shapes #7 for large pumpkin / Tiny Shapes #3 for small pumpkin



Step 3: Hot glue each of the strips to the circle one at a time like the picture below.

Step 4: Add a paper circle to cover where you hot glued at the bottom. Now, using the other chipboard circle,
 bend the strips up and hot glue to 2nd circle...one piece at a time.

Step 5: To create the top, decide on the shapes you would like to use and cut them out. I used Tiny Accents & Tiny Shapes. After you have inked them and adhered the pieces together, 
cut a slit in the top. 

 Step 6: Use the end of the Happy Trails Template to create a paper stem. To make the stem the same pattern on both sides, trace about 3 inches of the trail onto the pattern paper that you want to use. Then flip the template over and trace that same 3 inches on the pattern paper again. Cut both pieces out and adhere together so that both sides are the same pattern. Ink the stem then insert 1/2 an inch through the slit and bend at the back until it lays flat. Glue the bent part to the back. Then Hot glue the entire stem/shape piece to the top of the pumpkin. Embellish with other tiny Accessory sets and twine to complete the look.

Halloween Pen Toppers - 
Use your leftover paper to make these fun pen toppers! They were created using My Mind's Eye paper, Halloween, Tiny Holiday, Tiny Shapes, Tiny Accents, Tiny Nature, Nature, and Adventure 
Designer Template sets.

  Prize Ribbons - Using Tiny shapes, cut a circle out for the back of the prize ribbon ( I used a lightweight chipboard). Hot glue ribbon around the edge. Cut some ribbon or burlap to use for the long ribbon pieces. Staple onto the circle. 
Print wording and use the Tiny Shapes small circle to trace and cut the wording out. Use the larger Tiny Shapes circle to create a matte for the small circle and adhere the 2 together. Add pop tape to the back of the circle and place in the middle. Hot Glue a pin to the back to complete the prize ribbon.



Bottle Label -
Using Strips and Adventure Designer Template sets - My Mind's Eye paper


Other Fun Halloween Decorations

Picture Perfect Winner

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Picture Perfect for October! 

The lucky random winner is Leanne Bourassa! Leanne please e-mail susan@kiwilane.com

 to get your prize. Make sure to check out the DT Challenge going on this week 

for your chance to win again! 

October Sketch Challenge

Hello everyone! It is that time again!! This months sketch is technically more of a summer theme but I thought it would look amazing with a bunch of different Accessories and it completely inspires me to play around so I thought we would go ahead with it this month! You have until next Monday( OCT 22)to get your layout uploaded here for the challenge. Voting is from now, until we pick a winner Tues the 23rd. We will announce the winner on Facebook at that time. Good Luck!!

October Calendar Topper

The Holidays are coming...and this month is one of my favorites!  I love everything that comes with Halloween and after 8 kids, we're getting pretty good at it!  Now I have a whole bunch of grandkids to enjoy as they decorate their homes and porches with pumpkins and witches and ghosts and webs...and as they decide what they want to be for Halloween.  So, of course, for my October Calendar topper, I picked Halloween as my theme!

This Calendar was so fun to design!  I used some Halloween paper that I had left over from last year - My Mind's Eye - and it worked great!  I used the following designer template sets in my design:

Spook Alley, Strips, Halloween, Adventure, Tags, Tiny Tags, Tiny Holiday, Tiny Nature and Photos.

I had a lot of fun with the pumpkins from the Halloween and Tiny Holiday Accessory sets.  I used a crimper to add some texture to the larger pumpkin and then layered them together, adding leaves and a star to go with the star theme in the paper.  

Next I used two tags that reminded me of tombstones, one from the Tags set and one from the Tiny Tags set.  It's a simple embellishment, but really added a fun touch to this design!  

I pulled the same paper down to the Month space and added some punch-out stars from the paper line and Thickers letters for OCTOBER...in a really cute green color, which pops!

It all came together beautifully and the family photo from one Halloween was the perfect finishing touch!  I hope you'll take the time to create your own Halloween Calendar!  

Designed by Debbie Budge

Picture Perfect Challenge

A Perfect 10!

Alright. So I had this grand Ideas to make this layout again using halloween paper instead...since it is October, but life got in the way. Although this paper is not my favorite it does have 10 pictures on it! 

So feel free to scrap lift the layout or come up with your own that uses10 pictures for this challenge! 

October PP Challenge....Design the Perfect layout for Ten Photos. Make sure to use your KLD Designer Templates. When you are done, post your picture here on facebook under the samples in the picture perfect "October" category! Not a facebook user? Feel free to e-mail your entry as well to susan@kiwilane.com. The challenge is from Monday October 7-14th You have until Monday October 14th 12pm MST to upload your layout for a chance to win a $25.00 gift certificate to Kiwilane.com Winner will be announced on Tuesday October 15th!  

Love Fall!

How was everyones weekends? Shiloh and I decided to decorate our porches for the Fall this weekend. Thanks to Pinterest... we saw this idea and had to make one for ourselves. I love this time of year!

 Here is a picture of Shy's porch at night! 

"It's all about the candy! 23 days until Trick or Treating~"

and here is a picture of my porch -Susan

"When witches go riding and black cats are seen...tis 23 days until halloween"

And guess what we used for the lettering? Yup..Shy had this idea to use all the chipboard we had in our scrapbooking supplies as a stencil! It worked perfect! 

Family pictures

Well it is that time of year. Family Pictures! 

Last year we ended up not taking family pictures because well....I just had a baby and family pictures are crazy enough.... so that gave me an excuse. So this year I needed to follow through, and get them done ; ) 

Do you take Family Pictures every year? 

 There is something about seeing your whole family in a picture together. 

Do I really have that many kids? lol

And here are a couple with our newest family addition. Honestly. I feel like taking this picture with Ollie was way more work then taking our family pictures last week. Between Eli and Ollie...lets just say Impossible! I pretty much just gave up...

it is, what it is. Right? lol

What papers to use?

Ideas to Inspire

Paper Addicts! 

Here is a little review on some things to keep in mind when picking paper. 

Click play to watch our latest paper video below and click on the link to see all our past paper videos.

Review: 

We use about 5-6 sheets of double-sided paper.

• 2 sheets of paper for your background (more of a subtle pattern,  not too busy.) 
• 2-3 double -sided papers for your layers and accessories (make sure to keep in mind the patterns on both sides of the paper to get the most efficient use of your paper. 
• 1 sheet of paper for matting your pictures...pattern or solid cardstock. 
• Start by picking one sheet of paper that stands out to you the most and that has all the colors included that are in the paper line. This will allow you to blend all the colors together. Then pick your other 1-2 sheets to go along with that one for your borders and accessories.
• This allows us to create a 2-page layout (layers and all) and usually we can make 1-2 cards out of the scraps.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF4DCEC65C99772C5&feature=plcp&fb_source=message

Note: Although I love Authentique paper...One thing I noticed after using this paper line was that it was 2 tone in the colors...You get shades of green and blue.  It worked for the old black and white pictures I had...but when I went back and looked at some of the other pages that I have scrapbooked and love they have about 4 color tones included. This makes it a lot easier to layer with because you have more color options to play with. Also it  makes more of a pop. So that is also something else you can keep in mind when buying paper.

September Title Fight - School!

This weeks Monday Challenge is our Title Fight Contest!

Well with school now in, I am sure that many of you have cute pictures of those back to school moments! It is now the perfect time to scrap them!!! For this months Title Fight, create a layout with a school theme and a cute title. Once done, upload it to Facebook for your chance to win a $25 Gift Certificate to the KLD website!!! 

You have until Oct. 1st to enter. Voting will be Oct 1st and the winner will be announced the following day.

 Off To School Layout - Created by Gail Owens - Using Large Bracket 1, Tiny Bracket 2T, Paisley Place 3A, Tiny Tags 2T & 5T

September Calendar

As soon as I saw these pictures of my granddaughter, Riley, heading off to school for another year, I knew they would be perfect for my September Calendar topper!  

I used the Simple Stories Harvest Lane line of paper...so cute...along with some Core-dinations cardstock that I have on hand.  I wanted to capture the fun feels and colors of Fall...leaves and ripening apples...as well as the excitement of the first day of school.  

Here is a list of the designer templates I used to create my Calendar:  Chestnut Drive 2a/2b and 3b, Strips, Halloween 3, Tiny Holiday 2T and 4T, Tiny Nature 1T, 3T and 4T, Tags 5, Tiny Sweetheart 1T and Photos.

I made the apples out of the pumpkin templates in Halloween and Tiny Holiday.  The center of the larger apple is the smaller pumpkin from Tiny Holiday with the stem trimmed off.  I hand-cut little 'seeds' for the center of the apple.  

I pulled the same colors and patterns down to the header and added some glittered letters to spell SEPTEMBER.  The arrow is from Tiny Nature and the leaves are from Tiny Nature and Tiny Holiday.

I always pull some of the colors and patterns down to the bottom of my calendar using different STRIPS.  It gives the whole design a completed look.

And here's the end result!  I love it and have it hanging right by my scrapbooking table.  I hope you are working on your own calendar...it would make a wonderful gift for a loved on at Christmas!

Designed by Debbie Budge