Springing into March!

Spring is definitely in the air! It’s the season of all things fresh and new

and what better way to kick off spring than a revamped Gazette? This month’s newsletter features lots of goodies from Jenni’s new Magpie line, which is avail-able in stores now.

To kick off this season in style, on Mon-day March 26, we’ll be blog hopping with Ranger Ink, and visitors will get a chance to win a handmade piece of art from Jenni Bowlin herself. Watch for de-tails on the Inspiration Blog - you won’t want to miss it!

We’ll also be hosting an online crop March 30 - April 1. The JBS Mercantile

Forum will be hopping with challenges, chats, and creative inspiration. Mark your calendars and plan to stop by, say hello, and get some scrapping done!

This month is also a great time to stock up on a scrapbook staple - alphabets! Visit the Sale Section of the Mercantile to find Cardstock Alphabet Stickers, Kindergarten Rub-Ons and Old-School Rub-Ons, all marked down to $1.00. Grab them while you can!

Paint Dabbers 101This month’s video tutorial features a variety of fun techniques for working with the Jenni Bowlin for Ranger line of paint dabbers! Check out how guest designer May Flaum creates whimsical Disney pages using a variety of paint dabber techniques involving stamps and stencils. May’s charming designs and top-notch in-struction will have you inspired to create! You can watch the tutorial video by click-ing here and don’t forget to mark your calendar for Tuesday, March 20th, at 8:30 pm CST (6:30 pm PST) for our live chat with May on the JBS Mercantile board!

JBS Mercantilewww.jbsmercantile.com

JBS Message Boardjbsmercantileforum.ning.com

kit design teamLisa Dickinson

Leah FarquharsonMegan Klauer

Briana Johnson Ranjini Malhotra

Mindy MillerWaleska Neris

Becky NovacekBetsy Sammarco

Doris SanderJill Sprott

Dina Wakley

newsletter feedbackdoris.sander@gmail.com

newsletter designblue star design

lisa@bsdgraphics.com

jbs mercantile

Original Art by Jenni Bowlin

We are thrilled to welcome Natalie Elphinstone as our March Guest

Star! We fell in love with Natalie’s free-form, textural style and her amazing ability to incorporated all types of mixed media on her pages. Here’s what Natalie told us about herself:

“My name is Natalie Elphinstone and I live in the city that boasts all four seasons every single day; Melbourne, Australia. I’m very blessed to have a husband who supports both my full time career and my very full time hobby/obsession. I have two beautiful girls who comprise the vast majority of my scrapbook subjects and whom I love to bits! My day job (actually it’s currently my night job) is as a doctor specialising

in Obstetrics and Gynaecology which is occasionally a little demanding. So when I get home I need to spend time unwinding with my family, and then thrashing it out creatively in my Scrap Space - it’s how I relax. It’s in my nature not to do things by halves, I do things wholeheartedly or not at all! I discovered this great hobby 4 years ago and haven’t looked back since. I love that I can be my family’s memory keeper and have a whole bunch of fun at the same time, and I love that I’ve made friends all over the world doing exactly the same thing.”

How can you fit a whopping 12 photos on a single page layout and still have it look clean

and simple? Follow the lead of designer Jill Sprott, who designed this month’s Mercantile Multi-Photo Layout. Jill instantly organized her page design by us-ing a 16-square grid, created with a white pen, which gives a defined space for each of her photos to reside. She used bits of patterned paper to matte her square photos and connected each horizontal row with a strip of paper, vellum, or ribbon. Jill’s journaling is alloted to the four squares along the right-hand side of the grid. She’s used the small numbers from the Hodge Podge stickers to identify the photos and her list-style journaling corresponds with those numbers. To finish off this fabulous page, Jill used the Cardstock Alphabet Stickers in Red Bookprint for her title, which serves to connect the photos with the journaling block.

February • layout by Jill Sprott

JBS Guest Star

Natalie Elphinstone

Layouts by Natalie Elphinstone for JBS Mercantile

I absolutely love the versatility of digital scrapbook products. Once you

learn how to print things off at home, you can resize any digital element to fit your needs. With very little effort, one of your favorite 12x12 papers can become the perfect label-size base to fit in the center of a card. Or the butterfly rub-on that you adore can be sized to fit anywhere, and even layered in different sizes.

To illustrate the versatility of digital prod-ucts, I created this Happy Spring card, using the Jenni Bowlin Varsity Collection and the Butterfly Rub-On kit, both avail-able at JessicaSprague.com. The first step was to resize and layer my elements together in my photo editing software. I used several of the Varsity papers, a scalloped label, and the yellow butterfly rub-on in my design. Once I was happy with the arrangement of the elements, I added drop shadows to make them appear more realistic and add a touch of dimension.

When I was finished arranging every-thing, I printed the design out on high definition cardstock-weight, matte presentation paper. Once printed, I cut out my two pieces (I have one separate strip for the “Happy Spring” greeting), inked the edges with Spice Tin ink, and attached the main piece to a sheet of cardstock for the base. Then I just added a Doily Flower, Rhinestone Bow, and my sentiment.

In just a few moments, I had this sweet spring greeting, which I plan to send off to my mom to brighten her day! If you haven’t given the JBS digital goods a try yet, you should!

Happy Spring • card by Leah Farquharson

Hybrid Creativity

by Leah Farquharson

I’ve long been a fan of Elsie Larson’s work. I think her style inspires everyone and I could

spend hours looking through her blog, A Beautiful Mess. Patterns & quilt patching seem to be a huge trend in scrapbooking right now, so when I found Elsie’s little gem of an idea - Geometric Photo Art Project, I thought it would be a perfect starting point for a scrapbook page.

I began by punching squares from three different pattern papers. This was a quick, easy process and great for using up those leftover scraps from the kit! Then I cut all the squares in half diago-nally. I really didn’t have a pattern in mind when I first started. Since I struggle with keeping things straight, I made some pencils lines before I placed the tri-angles down. I moved things around several times before I felt it was complete. There are so many variations that could come from this...just have fun with it and see where it takes you!

Elsie incorporated photos into her geometric pat-tern, which I thought was amazing. It would be perfect for a series of photos. I chose to focus on a single photograph, which happens to be an Insta-gram shot.

In addition to the pattern paper from the Paper-crafting Kit, I used the My Mind’s Eye Great Day wood veneer flag from the Artisan Add-On, as well as a mini calendar bingo card, a numbered decorative brad {which happened to match up with the date I took the picture}, and the Black Mini Alpha Chalkboard Stickers. Finally, to include the story behind the photo, I added my jour-naling in a narrow column along the right edge.

Inspiration Stationby Leah Farquharson

by Megan Klauer

Geometric Photo Art Project by Elsie Larson

Inspiration Station

Just Enough • layout by Megan Klauer

Mercantile MonthlyCHALLENGE

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Our challenge to you this month? But-ton it up! Most every scrapper has

a stash of buttons, so why not feature some of them on your next page? Here’s what our designers created, using only the Papercrafting Kit + the oh-so-versa-tile supply of buttons!

1. Collect by Natalie Elphinstone. On this pretty page, Natalie used a scattering of softly toned buttons to highlight both her journaling and title. The buttons not only add dimension, they also carry the color scheme through the page. 2. Happy by Doris Sander. This circle-filled page effectively uses the design concept of repetition. Doris mimicked the polka dot background by layering buttons over punched circles of vellum for a lovely layered accent.

3. Valentine’s Day by Lisa Dickinson. To connect the top half of her page with the bottom half, Lisa uses clustered trios of the JBS Sew-On Buttons. The groupings provide a “starting” and “stopping” point for the eye.

4. Keep by Briana Johnson. In a clever border treatment, Briana punched out starburst shapes along the bottom edge of her page and filled each one with a button. 5. Always Believe by Leah Farquharson. The tiny JBS Pearl Buttons add a perfect bit of dimension and sparkle to Leah’s page. They also add motion and softness to a predominately linear design. 6. Camera by Megan Klauer. A sprinkling of cream buttons is the perfect accent to Megan’s page, which lead the eye through all the layered elements on her gorgeous page.

When I committed to participating in Project Life this year, I did so with

two stipulations: (1) That I would use products predominately from my stash to complete the album; and (2) that I would keep it simple.

So after I had finished my layouts for this month’s kit gallery, I set my rules in force and created my weekly Project Life spread, using the leftover bits and pieces. Rather than searching for the “perfect” supply to use on my page, I limited myself to what was already out on my work ta-ble. Because it was all pieces from the kit, everything coordinated well, and there was very little thinking required! (Always a bonus!) The whole process couldn’t have been simpler and the spread came together very quickly.

I had a total of 10 photos from the week, and I knew I wanted to feature a date block and a journaling block as well. So I opted to fill my page protector with twelve mini-pages, each sized 3” x 4”. Us-ing scrap of papers and tags as my base, (the new JBS Kraft Tags are the perfect size for this!) I layered photos, chipboard, and other embellishments from the kit

on top. The Kraft Pocket (in the upper right corner) made a perfect hiding spot for receipts, memorabilia, or journaling.

I did break the rules just slight-ly to create my date block, us-ing a page from the Journaling Die Cut pad and some of the JBS alpha stickers. (Although technically, they were in my stash, so it was a very minor infraction!)

The whole thing came together in less than 45 minutes - a time frame that’s pretty impressive for me. That’s thanks, in large part, to my self-imposed rules, which are assuring that my Project Life continues to grow at a smooth and steady pace!

Project Life

by Lisa Dickinson

Project Life • layout by Lisa Dickinson

Got inspiration?

Hop on over to the

JBS Inspiration Blog this month

where we’ve got challenges,

guest features, Digi Monday

tips, and inspiration galore!