Boy, this is like saying goodbye to family members.  After 4.5+ years on our Hip Kit Club Design Team, Melanie Jarocki & Kristin Kingrey are stepping down from our team and pursuing other creative endeavors. They have both been a huge support for me ever since I opened Hip 2-b Square over 6 years ago. In the fall of 2007 when I started the Hip Kit Club – they were my very first DT members. Over the years they have both created more fabulous projects with my Hip Kits than I could possibly count.  Here are some of my favorite projects from 2012…

“Feast Day” by Melanie Jarocki
created with our May 2012 Hip Kit
”So Happy When We’re Together” card by Melanie Jarocki
created with our June 2012 Hip Kit
”What a Cute Pair” card by Melanie Jarocki
created with our September 2012 Hip Kit
”Preschool” by Melanie Jarocki
created with our September 2012 Hip Kit
”Remember” card by Melanie Jarocki
created with our September 2012 Hip Kit
”Wishing You a Purr-fect Birthday” card by Melanie Jarocki
created with our October 2012 Hip Kit
”Snaggletooth & Bedhead” by Kristin Kingrey
created with our April 2012 Hip Kit
”Last Day of First Grade” by Kristin Kingrey
created with our June 2012 Hip Kit
”Cool in the Pool” by Kristin Kingrey
created with our July 2012 Hip Kit
”Happy Birthday” card by Kristin Kingrey
created with our July 2012 Hip Kit

These are just a handful of the wonderful things that Melanie & Kristin have created with my Hip Kits.  Their projects always inspire me and bring a smile to my face.  I am so thankful to have had them as Design Team members, and I am even more thankful that through this experience that we have become friends.  Thank you to each of you for generously sharing your talent and passion for this wonderful craft with all of us.  XO – Kimberly -

Hi Everyone!

It is Melanie here with you.  After we celebrated Halloween a couple of weeks ago -  I was really excited to dig into my October Hip Kit to make some spooky projects.  While I waited for the ink to dry on my pictures from THIS year, I came across these photos from 2007 that I hadn’t scrapped yet, and I thought NOW would be a great time to get that done. :)

I kept the design simple - but added in some of the fun embellishments from our October kit for an extra-special touch. :D  The October Afternoon Witch Hazel Chip N’ Stick shapes (from our Embellishment Add-On Kit) really made my layout come alive with the Halloween-theme.  The Word Stickers from October Afternoon provided a nice journaling spot  for me to write – and the little witch on it is super cute too!  Border with the words at the bottom of the page added a bit more detail.  Finally, I splattered some of the OA Midnight Sprinkler Mist onto the orange cardstock.  It helps make a piece of solid cardstock a little more interesting.

I hope you are finding some time to scrap some of your Halloween photos with our awesome October Hip Kit.  If you haven’t had a chance to print out this years photos, do what I did…  pull out a couple of pictures from a previous year and get to work.  We would love to see your Halloween layouts and projects.  Post a photo of your completed layout or card on our Facebook page!  Thanks so much for visiting today.  We will have another awesome project created with our October kit to share with you tomorrow – so make sure to come back then.  xo – Melanie -

Hi Everyone!

It is Melanie here with you today and I have 3 very different cards to share with you that I made with our super fun October 2012 Hip Kit.  There so many wonderful things in this kit – don’t let it trick you – although there are a lot of Halloween themed items – they aren’t only limited to Halloween themed projects.

For our family, the month of November holds several birthdays.  So I had "birthday" on my mind as I created this card.  The black cat from the Witch Hazel Chip n’ Stick Accents from our Embellishment Add-On Kit inspired the "purr-fect" sentiment for my card.

The Elle's Studio pennant provided a great place to put the play on words. I popped it up off the card with dimensional adhesive and sandwiched it between some sentiment stickers from SRM. (You could easily print your sentiment onto the background paper).  To add a little more color to the card, I cut the little striped border at the top of the Echo Park Fall Fever sticker sheet.  I used it to created a couple of borders on my project.  Tying baker’s twine around the cat's collar added a little extra texture and gave my card a bit of whimsy.

Hmmm . . . I guess it's no secret that I love using the Elle's Studio tags from our October kit on my cards :)  I saw this sketch on the Elle's Studio blog and I thought I would use it as my inspiration for me next card.

The circles reminded me of the brads and buttons.  I pulled a collection of buttons and brads from our October kit and combined them with the Elle’s Studio Thank You pennant to make my card.  I used a little piece of the wide brown ribbon and a little chipboard star for the elements in the upper right corner of the sketch.   I think it turned out really cute.  I would love to see your take on the sketch using your October Hip Kit.  If you would like to share  your project – you can post a photo of it on our Facebook page.

I think that the Elle's Studio Thankful Pennants are great little embellishments for any project. I have loved using them to my cards this month! For my last card, I thought it would be fun to make my thankful list into a “Thank You” card.  I used all three alphabet designs on my sentiment and I think they look super cute together.

For some extra texture, I  added a little machine stitching onto the ledger paper and on the striped background paper.  Also, I used an orange brad for one of the "O’s" in you.  I matted Elle’s Studio Pennant it with the yellow "Beware" sticker from the October Afternoon Witch Hazel Word Stickers.  This is a great way to put your extra stickers to use.  This gave the pennant that little extra pop of color that it needed to stand out.

Thanks for visiting today.  I hope that my cards have inspired you to create some cards for your loved ones.  There is nothing better than receiving a handmade card in the mail.  :D  Tomorrow we will have another collection of wonderful projects created with our October Hip Kit – so make sure to come back to check them out.  xo Melanie

Hi Everyone!  It is Melanie here with you tonight and I have a few projects to share with you that I made with our fun September 2012 Hip Kit.  I hope you like them.  :D

My oldest child became a teenager in September! She is such an amazing girl. It was fun to put together a feminine and funky layout to document this milestone in her life.

The orange and blue colors in our September Hip Kit are making their way onto all of my projects this month. I LOVE this combination :) For this card I went with the Simple Stories Harvest Lane sticker sheet (in our Embellishment Add-On Kit) and decided to use the ”little bird and the hello speech bubble” stickers. I matted the speech bubble on orange paper…  this gave me a base to add a pop dot which gave some dimension to my card, and made the sentiment stand out from the background.  Rounding the corners and inking the edges gave a nice finishing touch to it’s overall design.

The Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go Stamp Set in our September Embellishment Add-On is packed with a ton of great stamps! I love each of them and have several ideas to use them. Here is a card I made using the super cute "Hello" stamp:

My card is square, measuring 4-1/4". This way I can still use an A2 envelope (standard card size).  It was fun to make a patchwork-type background with several of the patterned papers from our September kit.  To make the center embellishment I matted two Jillibean Soup stickers on cardstock before layering them together.  The sticker with the tree on it has a pop dot behind it to give it some dimension.  The green striped square needed a little something extra – so I added in the plaid corner sticker from the Simple Stories Harvest Lane Stickers in our Embellishment Add-On Kit.  This little finishing touch pulled everything together.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope you are feeling inspired to create something wonderful with your September Hip Kit  Try mixing & matching the patterned papers in this kit and share your projects with us on our FACEBOOK page.  It is so much fun for us to see what you come up with.  We will have another collection of fabulous projects created with our September Hip Kit tomorrow – so make sure to check back.  Have a great evening.  xo – Melanie

Hi Everyone!

It is Melanie here with you today and I have a fun layout to share you that I made with our September 2012 Hip Kit.  The mix of papers and embellishments this kit are awesome for your fall and school projects.  These photos of my little guy on his first day of preschool matched the products in our September kit perfectly.

I layered strips of paper along with a border sticker and a journaling card along the left hand side of my page.  Then, for a fun affect, I cut apart the wood veneer banners from our Embellishment Add-On Kit and punched holes in them.  Then I strung them together using baker's twine.

Adding in the October Afternoon diecut, button, and star embellishments gives the page nice little details. I used a manila tag for my journaling and I tucked it into a library card envelope from our Embellishment Add-On Kit.  I also used the pencil stamp from the Amy Tangerine stamp set to reinforced the school theme.

I hope my layout has inspired you to work with your back to school photos from this year or years past.  :D  We would love to see your “back to school” layouts – so make sure to share them with us by posting them on our Facebook page.  Thanks for visiting today.  Make sure to come back tomorrow to see our next great project created with our September Hip Kit.  xo – Melanie -

Hi Everyone!

It is Melanie here with you today, and I have a couple of fun cards to share with you that I made with our great September 2012 Hip Kit.  There are so many wonderful things in this month’s collection that it made creating my cards a cinch.

I love when pieces of a kit have the perfect sentiment on them.  The Harvest Lane Stickers in our Embellishment Add-On Kit had a ton of great shapes with several sweet sentiments.  I just had to use the "cute pair" along with the pear sticker on my first card.. Sometimes mixing and matching patterns can be a bit intimidating. The diagonal stripes on the pear may have been too busy against the floral pattern of the die cut. But by matting the pear on the dark blue cardstock, the patterns do not compete.
The Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go Stamp Set from our Embellishment Add-On Kit has so many cute stamps in it.  I thought that the little elephant stamp & the "remember" card cut from Lima Bean Soup Bite Size Bits paper would go perfectly  together.   The inside sentiment says "I love you so much".  I stamped the elephant on the blue floral patterned paper and then cut it out to adhere to the front of my card. The red heart sticker was a fun way to play up the message inside.

I hope my cards have inspired you to pull out your September Hip Kit and create some sweet cards of your own.  We would love to see your card projects…  so share them with us by posting them on our Facebook page. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  Make sure to visit tomorrow to see some more fabulous projects created with our September Kit.   xo – Melanie -

Hi Everyone!

It is Melanie here with you today. :D I have a fun layout to share with you that I created with our awesome September Hip Kit.  This page features a few photos that I snapped of my daughter on her 1st day of crossing guard duty. (I just had to capture this moment for posterity). haha…

I used the bright orange Thickers in our main kit for my the title.  They matched her crossing guard flag perfectly.  I backed my title with navy cardstock to help it stand out from the woodgrain background paper.  (Thanks for the tip, Cindy!).  Then I added a tree sticker from the Harvest Lane Fundamental Sticker Sheet that was included in our Embellishment Add-On Kit.  Using pop dots behind it to gave it some dimension.  To “ground” the tree onto my page -  I added a border along the bottom of my layout using the yellow scallop ribbon.I have to say that I absolutely love all of the stars in this kit!  Between the October Afternoon die cut stars and the Studio Calico Mistable Stars -  I was able to find the perfect finishing touches for my page.

I hope you are feeling inspired to create something wonderful today!  Thanks so much for visiting.  Don’t forget to come back tomorrow to see another great project created with our September Hip Kit.  xo – Melanie

Hi Everyone!

It is Melanie here with you this evening and I have a fun layout to share with that I made using our September Hip Kit.  The colors in this kit immediately brought "school" to mind.  I decided to go with a recent activity my son did in his 3rd grade class. Each student wrote down 5-7 facts about themselves and took a baby picture to school.  I wanted to document all of this on a layout.All the little embellishments in our September Hip Kit made perfect additions to my page. I really liked adding in the stars (die-cut, sticker, and canvas!).

To give a bit more interest and definition to the title, I stitched along the bottom of each line of letters.

What are you scrapping with the September kit?  We would love to see your projects created with your Hip Kits.  Leave a comment below & include a link to the online gallery where your project is posted…  or…  post your project onto our Facebook page.  It is so much fun when our members share their work.

xo Melanie