Scrap Big

First Day Friday for September 3rd.

May Flaum's workshop, Use Your Stash opened yesterday.

May has over 400 scrapbookers registered who are ready to diminish their stockpiles and engage in some productive play!
The galleries are already hoppin' ...

In May's first handout, she challenged students to pull out a neutral sheet of cardstock and then lay down some photos they want to scrapbook -- from there, you fill in the extra space with pattern paper and add a title and a few embellishments.

Rebecca in Connecticut has already taken this challenge and posted her work -- WOW!

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We love your enthusiasm and want to reward you for posting in the galleries on the first day of class.  We will randomly scan the classroom layouts galleries the day after a new class opens (Friday morning) and select a winner.  The winner receives a $10 BPS gift certificate and their masterpiece is featured on the BPS blog on First Day Friday!

Congratulations Rebecca -- your gift certificate will be on it's way to you in no time!

Calling ALL Busy Women

I'm thrilled to announce annual "Take August Off" promotion. 

image link.

From the launch of Big Picture Scrapbooking, we have had an ethic of "relax and have FUN."  We believe a stop-and-smell-the-roses mentality is crucial to our health as creative professionals and to our success as human beings engaged in the art and passion of storytelling. In an effort to be true to this ethic, we decided that every year in August we would invite our teachers to reach out to our community in the spirit of sharing and encourage each other to relax, enjoy, be inspired and have FUN.

Each spring we discuss possible themes that might guide our month-long campaign of sharing. This year I've had the opportunity to work closely with three of our great teachers -- we lovingly refer to them as our featured teachers -- and I hope I speak for all of them when I say we have really enjoyed the commitment to a greater degree of collaboration. Lisa Damrosch, Georgana Hall and Elizabeth Dillow are accomplished women who approach teaching with caring and passion and yet approach teaching from very different places and with different talents and skill sets. It has been enriching for me to spend more time with them.

As the four of us discussed our plans for August, we kept coming back to the context of our daily lives as they are affected by the growth of social media and the online culture as well as the struggling (but recovering) global economy. We (everyone) is so busy all of the time, we feel a need to be continually multi-tasking or at least fully informed, connected and engaged in the moment, camera in hand. There is so much that vies for our attention. At the same time we are trying to do more and more, we seem to have less and less to work with -- both in terms of time and money. We decided that even in the midst of this imposed scarcity, we can choose to find and feel inspired and when we do, we will inevitably find the solutions we need in to move forward, prepared and optimistic. 

This is a very LONG and perhaps somewhat esoteric way of saying ... OUR AUGUST PROMOTION is LIVE with the theme:

BUSY WOMEN, OUT OF TIME, ON A BUDGET, BUT STILL INSPIRED.

You are officially invited to set aside whatever it is you think you should be doing and login in to our FREE classroom, so you can treat yourself to some good old fashioned inspiration. There is much to be had, so pull up a chair (grab your timer if you need to) and enjoy.

note: These ideas will not quench your actual thirst, so you may want to grab a nice tall glass of lemonade first!

Paula's doing giveaways

Go check out my blog here. I am doing some product giveaways! The bags are filled with OLD, semi OLD and new product.

BPS on YOUR Blog!

Yep, that's right. You can now put a BPS badge on your blog. There are TEN great designs to choose from (thanks Kayce!) and it's so easy to do ...

1. Visit our FUN Stuff page and click on "badges."

2. Select the badge (or badges) you want to add to the sidebar of your blog.

3. Copy the HTML code, listed under each design.

4. Embed this code into a "NOTES" style typelist and then select it to show up on your sidebar. You can also copy these codes into the body of any post!

How will you ever decide?

If you're an alumni of Library of Memories, you could choose this one ...

OR this one ...

OR this one ...

We LOVE YOU, our students.
Now YOU can show your blog readers that you LOVE us!!

Recipes Winner!

Hi, everyone!  Thanks for your comments on May's class -- we appreciate your feedback, as we're learning a lot about what recipes you want for your pages!

Our randomly selected winner is comment #8:

Love May's work!!  I need recipes for journaling!!!  I always struggle with that.  I would love to win a seat in May's class!

Posted by: Stacie Schultz | October 03, 2008 at 07:31 PM

So, Stacie, please email admin @ bigpicture scrapbooking.com (without the spaces, of course) to claim your spot! 

And watch out for more giveaways this week!  :)

Have you seen the blog buzz today?

I hope you've seen Stacy's blog today: if not, click here to see more of her present to herself -- an album that captures a present moment.  So many of our BPS friends have made minis today -- so check out their blogs, too!  Just click the links on the left to visit teacher blogs:  you might want to especially check out Georgana Hall, Kolette Hall,Lisa Cohen, Amy Sorensen, May Flaum, and Lisa Damrosch, as they have BPS classes coming up very soon, and I'd love for you to check their blogs and get to know them better.

Give yourself the gift of present-moment scrapbooking!
p.s. you can enter on many of these blogs to win a teeny album of your own, so check out the links on Stacy's page and in her comments! 

MissMatched socks!

As the weather turns cooler, I'm realizing that some of my socks are looking a little thin, and that it's time for some new ones.  If you need some new socks too, why don't we break away from pairs of socks and visit Little Miss Matched for a fun trio of coordinating but non-matching socks?  Stacy Julian is a big fan of little Miss Matched -- so check out her interview with Jessica (the Miss Matched herself!) on the site! Now, Stacy wears these socks all the time...but I haven't branched out yet into not matching my socks -- after all, I'm the details gal at BPS.  But maybe these.....what do you think?

Have fun!

Meet our crop hostesses!

Have you been to the Big Wig Bash yet?  If not, don't delay!!  We've been having a wonderful time with make-and-takes from BPS teachers all week, and the BIG 30 hour live crop starts tomorrow!  It's hosted by the adorable duo from Key Lime Crops, Sue and Meredith (here sans wigs but with key lime chocolate treats!):

How could you not want to crop with these two gals?  They really know how to plan a party -- and I know that you'll be inspired to host a crop party of your own once you see what they can do.  You'll be able to download everything you need to host your very own Big Wig Crop (if you aren't having one this weekend), and on their website there are MORE fun themed parties available to you, too!  We're going to have so much fun, and it's free, so please join us!!

Sue and Meredith have been working so hard this week, putting the finishing touches on the party: you won't want to miss a moment, and not even Tropical Storm Fay (talk about a BIG party crasher at Meredith's house) is going to stop us, we promise! 

By the way, I've got a little crop-celebration giveaway for you!  Let me know which make-and-takes from our teachers you've created, and tell us your favorite part of the crop, too: and one randomly selected commenter will win a Mini is Big Prize Pack!  I've got another issue of (my favorite) Simple Scrapbooks special issue: Mini Albums in an Evening to inspire you to make some mini books, a super cute mini is BIG button, and a seat in Lisa Damrosch's Product Playground 2: The Albums, too!  If you don't know Lisa, be sure to check out her make-and-take challenge to see both of her upcoming classes(Product Playground 2 opens on August 28th, followed by Product Playground 2: The Albums on October 9th)! If you have a product stash, you won't want to miss either one of these. So check out the downloads and add a comment by Tuesday, August 26th, at noon Pacific (so you can take a nap after the 30 hour crop before you come back here) to be eligible!

Have fun!   

 

giving...

I've been thinking about giving this week!

Why?

Well, first of all,I've  been working on our Big Wig Bash -- a fun crop filled with some great make-and-take style handouts and other goodies, all from BPS and Key Lime Crops as our August gift to help you celebrate the end of summer! It's free and it's fun -- so register if you haven't already! 

Second, I've been working with Kolette Hall this week on her upcoming class called Giving Well 2008 (still in 2 Hours or Less).  Kolette organized a gift-giving project class last year with such success that she's designed a fabulous all-new version of the class.  Registration will be open soon, but it's so much fun I just had to give my blog readers the inside scoop!

And third, because I've got an issue of Mini-Albums in an Evening, this wonderful new special issue from Simple Scrapbooks, to give away!  If you're still on the fence about this issue, don't let it get away from you, seriously.  There are some nice sample projects here for you to check out.  I've had so much fun reading your comments and have lots of great ideas -- this just proves once again that in scrapbooking, mini really is BIG!  Congratulations to Bethany E.!  Random.org's integer generator picked her entry, so she's going to get some cute buttons and a magazine, too!  Here's her comment (and Bethany E., please email admin @ bigpicture scrapbooking.com (without the spaces) and note that you won my blog giveaway so that I can send you your magazine and button -- I'll need your address!) 

I want to make a mini album about my daughter's upcoming 3rd birthday!

The magazine looks fab!

Posted by: Bethany E. | August 01, 2008 at 08:59 PM

Winner at last!

I'm so happy to announce the winner of the random drawing for Amy Sorensen's awesome Write Now class -- especially because announcing the winner means that I am online again.  I've been without internet and telephone for about 24 hours and, well, cannot believe I survived!

So, without further ado, the winner (courtesy of random.org's random integer generator) is Leslie E!  Leslie, please email kayce @ bigpicturescrapbooking. com (without the spaces, of course) to claim your spot.  Here's her comment, too:

I could really benefit from this class. What really appeals to me is to have journaling with impact, the kind of writing that makes me say "I wish I could write like that". And, that you could actually do that in 10 minutes? Wow! Hope to win because I am in Have More Fun class right now and didn't think I should sign up for both classes at the same time, but hey, to win a spot, then I could do it!

Posted by: Leslie E | July 29, 2008 at 06:30 PM