Join Us for Our New Blog Launch!!

We're super excited to announce our new blog HERE! Be sure to change your readers and your links to reflect our new home. Take a minute to come and explore our new site!

Watch for upcoming contests to help us celebrate our new digs.

Our new blog will feature all the weekly posts you've become accustomed to, but in a clean, fresh style. We've also launched an inspirational new gallery with Layouts, Cards, Altered Art/Home Decor, and Mini Albums. You can find this in our blog side bar. You can now shop our digital products including Echo Park Paper Die Cut shapes, and our Echo Park Paper Digital Collection kits directly from links in our blog side bar as well! Connect with us through Facebook, and Twitter. Pin projects directly to your Pinterest boards. And watch our latest EP TV tutorial videos.

Also watch for a special Design Team Blog Hop on Monday!

Stop by and explore all our new blog has to offer. Take a minute to say hello. And watch for an upcoming blog launch party with BIG prizes to celebrate! (We're starting with a special "Project Contest" to get the party rolling so be sure to check out the details on the new blog.)

You can find us at: http://www.echoparkpaperblog.com/!

Treat Bags with Design Team Expert Leslie Ashe

Please welcome Leslie Ashe today as she shares a super cool way to add embellishments to a small, plain paper bag creating darling, little treat bags This is a great project for classroom parties or for party favors for your party guests.

I made 3 tiny goodie bags of candy using a plain paper bag. They’re just “everyday I love you” message bags(but would also work for party favor bags) --easy to make, fun to create!

 

Supplies:

-Echo Park This & That "Charming" Element Stickers

-Small brown bags (found at Hobby Lobby) – size: 3.5”x2”x6.75”

-EK Success Scallop Border Punch

-3D adhesive

Instructions:

1)  Gather 3 (or more if desired) tiny brown paper bags. Use a scallop border punch (or any border punch of your choice) to punch the edges of the bags.

 

 

2)  Use the This & That "Charming" Element Stickers to decorate the bag using adhesive foam squares.

 

 

 

3)  Place candy inside the bag.

 

 

You could easily add additional paper, stamping, ribbon, etc. to decorate these bags. This tutorial would work well with any of the Echo Park Paper collections. You could also decorate a larger, full size paper bag for a gift bag or decorate a lunch bag for your children. How would you use this tutorial? We'd love to hear in the comments section below.

"Times & Seasons" Digital Kits 50% Off Today ONLY!

There is a time and a season for everything, but when it comes to celebrating all things family the time is NOW. Today we're offering two beautiful "Times & Seasons" digital kits through Jessica Sprague for 50% off.

In this "Wonderful Wednesday" sale we've included our "Times & Seasons Paper Pack #1" kit which contains 14 papers in the most beautiful, rich color scheme. Whether you're documenting memories from the past or celebrating the now of everyday events, this collection is full of papers, icons, and images to help you tell your story!

We've also included the "Times & Seasons Elements" kit in today's sale, which contains the matching imagery for this collection. I have to admit that I have a tiny crush on that fun, vintage car (you can have a crush on a car, right?).

Both of these amazing kits are available for 50% through midnight EST today ONLY so be sure to download them before the time for this amazing sale ends tonight!

Mini Albums with Design Team Expert Lowri McNabb

Please welcome Lowri for her first ever and completely AMAZING Design Team Expert blog post. You may recognize her as one of our fabulous Fresh Face Designers from last year. Lowri is sharing her method for creating a mini album. Lowri really knows her stuff when it comes to papercrafting so be sure to read through her instructions for creating this project!

Lowri here to share an idea for a mini album created from a single sheet of 12x12 paper. This is one of my favourite techniques for creating mini albums!

I have used the latest This and That Charming Collection to create a simple mini with some recent photos of my family. I have a tutorial below showing how I created it and as you can see from the following picture that the weight of the Echo Park paper is perfect for this kind of technique as you can get a crisp fold without absolutely no paper cracking.

After I created the base, I then used strips from the Elements and Alpha sticker sheets to decorate the tops and bottoms of my pages – don’t forget to use the negative pieces left over too, or you can cut the wider strips in half to stretch them further. The camera sticker looks great on the cover against the Chevron print of the Border Strips (reverse) paper and this fabulous Snapshots flag from the Elements sticker sheet.

For each page I cut a simple mat from the Tickets Please paper, glued it at an angle and added my photos on top. I cut the pictures into a Polaroid shape to keep the old style camera feel. Using additional elements and a couple of chipboard pieces, I kept the decoration simple to allow the photos to stand out. There were so many great elements in the collection I was spoilt for choice!

TUTORIAL:

1.       Take a piece of 12” X 12” paper and trim off four inches from one side.

2.       Take the 12” X 8” piece and fold into 8 equal pieces as shown.

3.       Using a sharp knife – make a cut through the paper from point a to b.

4.       Fold the paper wrong sides together at the remaining intact fold .

5.       Using the folds as a guide create a booklet.

6.       Glue pages together as shown at c, d and e (I used a strong adhesive tape runner).

7.       You should have three pages of double thickness paper and two covers of single thickness.

8.       Cut a 12" X 4” piece of paper and glue to one side of the book.

9.       Turn the book over and crease at the spine of the book firmly before gluing the other side of the cover. This will ensure a neat finish and mean there is enough paper over the spine to allow the book to open freely. To finish, trim off the excess paper from the cover with a sharp knife

Above you can see a couple of other albums I have created using this technique with the older For The Record, Happy Days and Holly Jolly Christmas Collections.

One little hint - If you are trying any technique like this for the first time – I suggest using a scrap piece of paper that you can measure , mark and make adjustments on if necessary – before you cut into your really precious stuff!

Supplies List:

Echo Park Paper: This and That Charming Collection Kit - THC26016, This and That Charming 6 x 12 Chipboard - THC26022, This and That Charming Layered Chipboard -  THC26021

Extras: Double sided adhesive tape, dimensional mounting foam

I have a feeling that Lowri's technique has got your creative heart racing! Using this technique how will you create your own album? We'd love to see it. Simply leave us a link in the comments section below or upload your page to our Facebook gallery to share with the rest of the community.

New Echo Park Paper Digital Kits!

This weekend I finally got the opportunity to spend some time being creative. I was working on a birthday layout and needed some beautiful, basic papers to help highlight some of the embellishments and patterns I chose. I found myself reaching time and time again for the Dots & Stripes paper collections. Whether I want a diagonal pattern, a tiny dot pattern, or a small dot pattern each of these collections gives me so many shades of colors to choose from.

Today through Jessica Sprague we're introducing Dots & Stripes "Homefront" and "Soda Fountain" as digital collections. And to celebrate this release we're offering them at 25% off today ONLY. Whether you're in need of some great foundational papers for your cards, layouts, and altered projects or whether you're wanting some great patterns to add to your digital masks and embellishments, you are going to love both of these kits!

The Dots & Stripes "Homefront" Full Paper collection contains all 24 papers in this release. Rich blues, oranges, reds, and browns are included in this collection, as well as, a soft robin egg blue and baby pink to round out a very sophisticated palette.

The Dots & Stripes "Soda Fountain" Full Paper collection also contains all 24 papers in this collection. This playful collection is bright and happy and contains black, raspberry, yellow, blue, gray, and green tones of our popular patterns.

Download both of these collections today while they're on sale to start or add to your fabulous digital collection!

Echo Park Paper In the News!

We work really hard to make products that you'll both love and help you tell your story creatively. But don't take our word for it! We thought it might be fun to share a few places where people are talking about Echo Park Paper. Click on the links below to read more about our products!

Stacy Julian's Top 10 Products from CHA Winter 2012

Watch the video to see what Stacy loved about Echo Park Paper's "Style Essentials" collection!

For the Record Product Review by Scrapbook.com
"The Echo Park "For the Record" collection gives you enough papers to create layouts without requiring you to match with other collections. For a quick page, make an entire layout from the collection."

Echo Park at CHA Winter 2012 by Scrapbookupdate.com

"Just met the darling Lori Whitlock, designer of the This & That line for Echo Park. (A personal favorite!) Also noteable from Echo Park: this super cute Viewmaster paper from the Note To Self line."

It couldn't make us more happy to hear that people are enjoying the love and effort we put into our products. Did you hear some great buzz about Echo Park Paper? We'd love it if you'd share with us! Simply leave us a comment here or on our Facebook page telling us what you've heard. Your satisfaction and joy over our products is what gets us going, and we think you're the best fans and customers out there! Thank you for supporting us in all we do!

Interactive Card with Design Team Expert Tamara Tripodi

If you've been wanting to learn how to create interactive cards, then you will love Tamara's blog post today. She has created a fun interactive card using the This and That "Graceful" collection. Be sure to read through her directions for creating this card!

When I was assigned this month's "Card Expert" post, I was super excited! Cards are not something I make too often; although in the past few months, I've tried to make more here and there. So any extra card crafting time is always new and fun to me. For my expert post I thought about several different designs I thought would work. I actually started on a different card and then this one came into my head. I tossed the other one aside and here is my final card. I LOVE the hot air balloon sticker in the This and That "Graceful" kit!

 

 What do you think? I really like how it came out. It's just a fun card! If you'd like to make one for yourself, here's how!

SUPPLIES:

Echo Park Paper

This and That Graceful - THG27002 FlowerBox

This and That Graceful - THG27004 Flower Vine

This and That Graceful - THG27013 Border Strips

This and That Graceful - THG27014 ElementStickers F

This and That Graceful - THG27015 AlphaStickers F

This and That Graceful - THG27017 DkPink Mint Solid

Misc. Supplies:

 

Adhesive

Eyelets (3/16th) x4

Coordinating buttons x2

Coordinating thread and sewing machine

Dark brown ink and sponge

Tan twine

Craft Knife

Paper trimmer

Eyelet setting tool

Corner rounder

INSTRUCTIONS:

1). Create a 5" X 7" card base from DkPink Mint Solid paper (dark pink side). Trim the FlowerBox paper (floral side) to 5" X 7" and adhere to the front of card. Lightly ink edges in dark brown.

 

 

2). Trim the FlowerBox (wood print side) paper to 3.75" X 5.75". Use a corner rounder to round the edges. Add dark brown eyelets to each corner. Adhere tan twine to each side of the card about 3/4th the way down or so. Adhere to card with adhesive foam.

 

 

3). Trim paper Border Strips (polka dot side) to 3" wide and 8" tall. Score at every 1 1/2". You will have a 1/2" tab left. Accordian fold like so:

 

 

4). Adhere the the accordinan folded polka dot paper to the card so it's centered with the twine. Use the leftover 1/2" tab to adhere it.

5). Trim the Flower Vine paper to 5 small rectangles sized 1 1/2" tall and 2 3/4" high. Lightly ink the edges and add some random machinestitching. Then adhere the paper to the polka dot strip.

6). Adhere the balloon sticker to a piece of leftover cardstock. Trim edges with a craft knife. Then adhere the sticker to the top panel of the accordian folded strip. I added cardstock to the back so it wouldn't stick to the card and ruin it plus it makes it a little thicker and more sturdy.

 

 

7). Use the Alpha Stickers to spell out "You lift me up" on the last four panels. Embellish each panel. Accordian fold the strip flat to the card. Then tie with the twine to keep closed.

8). Add the ruler strip and flower stickers along with coordinating buttons, and you're done!

 

Here's a close-up photo of Tamara's card.

 

 

 

Can you think of other ways you might use this technique? What collection would you use to create an interactive card?