What's not to love?

With Summer CHA 2008 came some fabulous new product, and as we all know, new product equals new fun! From great new tools to darling new paper, there is something out there for just about any scrapbooker. All I know is, I need another room to store all my new favorite pretties!

Some of our favorites so far are...






Graphic 45 has several new lines of papers. This is just one of the fabulous papers from the Past Playtimes line... Paper dolls, whimsical checkerboards, tea parties, toy soldiers and choo-choo trains ... very unique! The papers are double sided, and both sides are so beautiful, the only problem will be deciding which side to use! Of course, this paper would be perfect for an acrylic album...

Pretty baby paper in versatile colors, along with darling graphics, make "Baby Powder" from imaginesce a must have. Coordinated embellies will make a baby album almost as cute as your little bundle of joy!

Halloween is right around the corner, and Cosmo Cricket's "Haunted line" is absolutely to die for! So many awesome papers in this line, all of which are double sided. Traditional orange and black, funky purple and green, and funky and whimsical graphics that are perfectly distressed... Love the coordinated journaling cards and the stickers that can be used alone or with the blackboard.

My Mind's Eye never fails to please. This seasonal line, "Be Merry", will be a must have this holiday season. Bright and crisp, this playful paper will be perfect for pictures of kids in the snow, wrapping gifts, and trimming the tree. Very cute! They also have a LAUNDRY line the ladies at BTDL are dying to try :)

Rolled Hotdogs

This recipe comes from our very own Mellisa or as you might know her thescrapbookexchange. It is a family favorite that everyone enjoys!


Rolled Hot Dogs aka... Heart Attack on a Platter:)

INGREDIENTS:
All Beef Hot Dogs
Dill Pickles (Sliced lengthwise same length as hot dog)
Velvetta Cheese - (sliced into long strips same length as hot dog)
Bacon Srips
Dijon Mustard
Tooth Picks

Ok, slice the hotdog lengthwise but not all the way through. Layer some Dijon Mustard in the slice, then layer the cheese and then the pickle. Take one piece of Bacon and secure one end with a toothpick to the hotdog, and wrap the entire dog with the bacon, securing the other end with another tooth pick. They look like this when they are assembled.



Place on a broilder pan, and broil until bacon is crisp. You will need to turn the dogs so all sides of the bacon are cooked completely. Please note that you will lose some cheese.

Here is what they look like cooked:



I DARE YOU TO TRY THIS. You think you won't like it... but you will. I have made these for many many skeptics and all end up asking me for the recipe. These are delicious and a great finger food! For a fun variation try using mini hotdogs for finger foods at parties. I gaurantee everyone will want this recipe!

If loving ribbon is wrong....

...than I don't want to be right.

It's true. I am a ribbon lover. I always labeled myself a paper kind of gal, but after a recent order of ribbon came in the mail, I am smitten! Polkadotted, stitched, embroidered, florals, twill, ricrac... So many yards of ribbon, so little time.

The ladies at BTDL were recently asked which scrapbook goodie they couldn't live without. Jan (hocki1415), our designer of the month, shares my fondness for ribbon. Polkadots are one of our favorites, and Jan can't resist pink and black! Andrea (andreatdesigns)loves buttons, and I love how she incorporates them in her altered art and to-die-for handmade cards. Jules (juliespieces)is a flower girl - simply mention the word "Prima" and watch her swoon :) Her sweet bear family pages are often blooming, and so colorful you are tempted to smell the roses!

Tonya (rainedakota) loves her ribbons and flowers too, but when asked what her obsession is? Charms. Enameled, pewter, clay, silver... she can't get enough of these delicate dangling pretties. One look at one of her signature Designer Purse Albums™ with their fabulous hang tags, and you will be charmed, I'm sure :)

Anita (scrapinams) is our resident Prima Queen. Her collection of these lovely flowers makes me envious, and the way she uses these pretties on her altered tins is flower fabulous!The princess of Primas would have to be Sheryl (scrappy4477). Her love of these blooms is rivaled only by her fondness for letters - chipboard and Doodlebug! Sheryl has an eye for fonts too, as evidenced not only by her layouts, but her fabulous digi work! Check her blog for her latest freebies!

Tina (tycaalak) loves chalk and ink - look closely at her darling paper piecings and you will be wowed by all the subtle shading and highlights. Tina just released her first CD with patterns of some of her best loved paper piecings, and it is incredible! As for Melissa (thescrapbookexchange), her accent of choice is Stickles. A little sparkle here, a little sparkle there... I think she has every color available.

Michelle (antq.freak)is all about the Bazzill. Her collection is incredible; every color you could ask for, and every shade of pink imaginable :) Her latest layout is just tooo pretty! Another Bazzill fan is Sandra(cornerhobby). How she is able to turn these pieces of cardstock into her intricate, multi-layered piecings is beyond me.... she must have magic fingers, although she says she just uses her favorite tool, her Cutterbee scissors :)

Paper is Julie's (bdule) true love. She says she wants to marry pretty paper. Of course, how many weddings can she have? There are so many pretty papers out there. And too, I think the primas would get jealous - she loves them too!

Sandy (sandyvint)loves her sewing machine, and stitches on just about every project she makes. Her little stitched shingles on her "house" explosion boxes are perfect! Of course, all of the ladies at BTDL want to raid Sandy's car - she has a habit of filling her trunk with goodies and forgetting about them. Stickles, paper, flowers, buttons, ribbon - even a sewing machine - odds are good you can find it in Sandy's car!

What is YOUR can't-scrap-without-it item? Post your comment here, and from the responses we get, I will randomly draw ONE of the posters for a PRIZE. He or she will receive FREE SHIPPING on their next order at the BTDL Boutique. Contest ends July 31, so be sure to vote in the poll, and LEAVE A COMMENT telling us YOUR favorite product!

More than burnt toast!

The girls of BTDL decided to offer up some of our yummy recipes for everyone to enjoy. Each week we will add 1 or 2 new recipes to share with our loyal readers! This weeks recipe is from Anita (scrapinams) and it is over the top YUMMY! Enjoy your meal :)

You can find the collection of recipes in the side bar, under the title "More than burnt toast"

Chicken Pomodoro

Each week one of the Designers at BTDL will be featuring a recipe.

This one is from Anita (scrapinams) enjoy!!

"Chicken Pomodoro"

**1lb chicken breast, pounded thin

**1lb roma tomatoes, cut in a medium dice

**1 large onion, minced

**6 good sized cloves of garlic (not a bulb ladies, cloves) pealed and minced

** olive oil

**1lb of spaghetti noodles, cooked and drained

1. season the chicken and grill or cook on stove until juice runs clear when pierced. Cover with foil and set aside to rest

2. heat about a 1/4 cup olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat

3. add the onions and the garlic to the pan and cook for 5-8 minutes until onions are translucent and garlic is lightly browned. if the garlic turns brown, your heat is too high. Don't panic, just turn it down :)

4. add the tomatoes to the pan, and saute for 3-4 minutes until tomatoes release their juice. You do not want to cook the tomatoes down to mush - this is a fresh dish.

5. slice chicken thinly and add to pan with another 1/4 olive oil. Toss to heat thru

6. Place spaghetti in a large serving bowl that has been pre-heated with hot water. Add the chicken mixture and toss to combine.

7. serve with freshly grated asiago and romano cheeses.

YUMMY!!!!!

So, where did June go?

It seems like just yesterday we were coloring eggs for Easter and still telling our children to wear a jacket. Now the kids are out of school and it is time to buy some sparklers and fireworks! Where has the time gone?

Summertime can be one of the nicest seasons around. The designers at BTDL are scattered around the country. Down south, out west, up north, out east... we have ladies in just about every US timezone, as well as just about every climate. But no matter what the weather, there are some favorite events that we just love to scrap. Vacations, family picnics, summer blockbuster movies, days at the beach...

In addition to taking photographs, there are so many ways to capture those great summer moments, no matter how big or small. Journaling, of course, is one of the best ways to capture the magic of those memories. But don't forget the "little" things, too, that will help bring those memories back years from now... Below are some ideas of the "little" things that will add interest to your scrapbook pages, as well as make wonderful embellishments. Set aside a plastic page protector from your scrapbook and use it as an envelope to store all your goodies you find.

Vacations:
Ticket stubs, maps of theme parks, receipts from hotel gift shop, brochures from the hotel lobby, postcards, train schedule, business card from that little bistro you found that had the best pizza in town...

Movies:
tickets, reviews from the newspaper, clip of showtimes from the newspaper, write out a quote from the best movie you saw this season, a flattened popcorn box (not the one you ate from - I don't know that butter and salt are AF/LF :))...

Beach fun:
tags from your new swimsuit, the paper umbrella from that fancy frozen drink, the parking pass, postcards...

Family picnics and Barbeques:
recipe card of Auntie Edith's "Secret" recipe for sweet potato pie, the homemade invitation your 8-year-old nephew sent to everyone...

Birthday parties:
scraps of wrapping paper, a party hat (flattened out), birthday cards, the invitations, a list of guests, hang tags from a favorite gift, or the instructions to your three-year-old's new "easy to assemble" bike...

This is just a small list of things you could add to your book to make it more memorable. Ways to incorporate these items are also fun! Make a flower out of receipts or ticket stubs, use cards as envelopes or journal blocks, clip out pictures from brochures for instant clip art. That popcorn box would make a great pocket to store all those ticket stubs :)...

Inspiration

It is the middle of the night, and I can't sleep. I didn't watch a scary movie, no one in my house has a fever, and it most definitely isn't the pile of laundry waiting to be folded. There is always a pile of laundry to be folded in my house.

No. It is the small stack of scrapbook paper I splurged on today, sitting quietly in my scrap room. New and beautiful 12x12 patterned paper, fresh from the local scrapbook store. The pretty pinks from Basic Grey's "Sugared" line... the distressed loveliness from My Mind's Eyes newest "Wild Asparagus" series... The whimsical and haunting flourishes of the "FLEURISTE" papers from Cosmo Cricket...Images of double matted photos are dancing in my head, and when I remember the cute grosgrain ribbon curled up next to that pile of paper, I have to get out of bed. Who cares that it is 3am? There is paper that needs to be trimmed!

The designers at BTDL are often asked, "Where do you get your ideas?" Many times, it is a fabulous product that gets the creativity going. Song lyrics, old family photos, movie titles, that adorable picture taken at last week's family barbecue... what inspires you?

We would love to hear some of your stories of favorite inspired layouts, unusual sources of inspiration... What inspires you?

To organize or not to organize... that is the question!

I started out with a tote that I stored my scrapook materials in. Then I bought a few little boxes. Soon I commandeered a bookshelf in the guestroom, and the next thing I know... I had taken over the entire room. How is it that this innocent hobby became an obsession, an obsession that requires massive amounts of storage and work space?



With all of the goodies out there available for scrappers, finding a good way to store all the pretties we "need" can be a challenge. From large, 12x12 papers to tiny little brads and snippets of ribbon, the range of storage needs are vast. And if you are like me (read pack rat), I take the "scrap" in "scrapbooking" seriously. I can't bear to toss my pretty scraps! One never knows if, the next time you go shopping, that particular paper will be gone. Sold out. No reordering in sight! Perish the thought! So I have baskets full of scraps. I tell myself that I will most definately use them for cards. Or tags. Or future piecings. If I just had one more drawer to store the latest scraps I saved....

And ribbon. Oh, ribbon... wherefore art thou so unruly? Why does the ricrac insist upon hiding in a tangle under a spool of polkadotted grossgrain?

Whether you have a box on a shelf or an entire wing of your house to scrap in (hey- a girl can dream), what are some of the best organizing tips you have found? Maybe you have a foolproof way to store your ribbon. An ingenious way to sort your Primas? A method for managing mismatched scraps? A system for keeping your workspace tidy? Share your tips!

What's Hot, What's Not...

Recently, the designers at BTDL were doing some much needed Spring Cleaning. No, we weren't washing windows. Or dusting. And we were definatelynot doing laundry... we were organizing our scrap spaces! If you are like us, you have your stash of papers, tools, embellishments, ribbons, adhesive, chipboard... well, the list goes on. So many fun products, so little time!

And how times have changed! A few years ago (OK, more than a few) fancy edged scissors were all the rage. Crinkle edges, lacy edges, zig-zag edges, swirly edges, "torn" edges... And who could forget shape templates? Square or rectangular photos were passe, and every photo had to be a circle, or heart-shaped, or star shaped, or cloud-shaped...

Trends come and go, and will even come back again. What trends do you see as "hot" right now?

What's new at BTDL

Busy, busy, busy...

The last few weeks and months at BTDL have been a flurry of activity! We are just wrapping up our Grand Opening of our online boutique, BTDLDesigns.com
which features paper piecings, altered art, premade scrapbook pages, custom albums.... there is a plethora of goodies to choose from :)


We are still keeping busy at eBay as well. We are launching a new series of artwork tonight called "Masterpiece Mondays."









While each and every piece we make is a work of "heart", we thought it would be fun to challenge each other to create a piece that pulls out all the stops! Goes beyond the distance, raises the bar so high a giant could limbo under it, detailed to the last drop-dead-gorgeous... and as a result, "Masterpiece Mondays" were born. This is the night where BTDL artists list a piece they have dreamed of for months,sweated over all week, and held nothing back in the attempt to knock you off your seat! Be sure to stop over to eBay and see what we have been up to!

We are also launching our themed challenge for May. As each day gets a little warmer, each artist is welcoming summer with a summer-themed project.







Simply search 'BTDL' at eBay, and see what hot new items are making a splash!