Well - it's about time - let's celebrate!!!

 

In early January, the hit counter on my blog passed one million.  February 1st was my three year "blogoversary."  In March, the number of posts reached 1,000 (that's a lot of projects and writing!).  Now it is April and I think it is about time to have a blog celebration in honor of all of these milestones.  I have been looking into some new options and may be changing things around as I continue to develop as a crafter and designer - I hope you will enjoy the journey with me!

If you are a long time reader of my blog, you know my favorite numbers are three and seven.  I went to the post office and got three large flat rate priority mailing boxes and for the next seven days I will be adding items to the boxes - at the end the week I'll draw to choose three winners and send off some amazing gifts to three people.  Some days I'll add several items and some days just one - so you'll need to check in every day to see how the boxes are filling up.  Some of the things I'll be adding are similar, but not identical - just to keep things interesting.  The boxes will be sent randomly to the three winners so you won't know exactly what you won until you are unpacking the box (I love a surprise and I hope you do too!).

Some of the items in the boxes have been donated by companies that I have worked with over the past few years and others are items that I have selected and purchased to share with my readers.  There are also a few things that I have made to add to the boxes - I hope you like them!

I chose the large flat rate boxes because they would hold a 12 x 12 stack of paper - and the first item in each box is a fantastic DCWV stack called "Ciao Bella" (or "Hello Beautiful").

This stack has lots of pages with glitter and beautiful birds, butterflies and flowers with a modern vintage twist.  Here are a couple of my favorite pages...

There is also a page of elements that can be cut out and used with the papers.

When I was looking for the date of this stack I discovered that it is the second version of the stack.  If you are a digital scrapper you can download a free kit of the original stack from the DCWV 300 dpi site HERE.  You can also purchase the digital version of this stack - the two versions would work wonderfully together for a large project.

This stack was also used for one of the fabulous dresses in the DCWV booth at CHA in January.

In addition to the paper stack, each box has one other item added today.

The February/March Premier Issue of the Cricut Magazine.  I received these at CHA from Northridge Publishing in the ProvoCraft booth.  

I was surprised when I looked through this first issue to see that there were a lot of items used in the projects that were not made using the Cricut (scalloped borders from dies, chipboard letters, etc.).  I talked with the representatives and they assured me that future issues will be more focused on using the Cricut to full potential.  The magazines from Northridge are beautifully produced and there are some nice projects in this first issue.

So - what do you need to do to take part in this celebration?  As always it's simple - just leave a comment.  But not just any comment - each day I'll ask you to answer a question (just to keep things interesting!). 

You don't have to be a blog follower or a subscriber to play along, but if you are, you can leave another comment and have a second chance each day as a way for me to thank you for your support.  If you are a Facebook user you can also "like" the Capadia Designs page HERE and leave another comment telling me that you are a Facebook fan.  I started the Facebook page at the request of some readers who wanted to keep up with my blog on Facebook and I am planning to start using the page in some new ways (more about that later).

You can leave comments everyday so you will have multiple chances to be one of the three winners.  Please don't leave more than 3 on one day (1 comment, 2 follower or subscriber, 3 Facebook fan).  When you leave a comment be sure that you don't have the box checked to be notified of follow up comments so you don't get tons of emails clogging up your in box.  Please be sure to leave some way for me to contact you if you are one of the lucky three - you can leave your email address and use (at) and (dot) to help avoid spam.

I am so excited to show you all of the things that will be added to the boxes and I wish you all good luck!

  

I had to share this photo of the sky from our back deck Tuesday night - amazing colors!

 

...and here is a sneak peek at one of the "assembly" projects we have been working on...

Today's question is

Do you use Design Studio or the Gypsy (or both) with your Cricut and if you don't use either of these will you use the new Cricut CraftRoom free online design tool when it is available?

Subscribe to Capadia Designs 

 

Something new - more digital fun!

I got an email tonight about an interesting new website.  Die Cuts With a View (DCWV) is launching a new digital scrapbook site.  I took a look around and saw that you can buy many of the paper stacks that you may already have in digital versions.  There were also some new stacks I hadn't seen before.  There are lots of possibilities here!

The new site is called 300dpi,  here is a LINK.   In case you are not familiar with the term, dpi is a measure of resolution or "dots per inch"  - 300 is considered high and is the accepted standard for digital scrapping.  Images at 300 dpi are sharp and clear.  For comparison the typical resolution for images on the web is 72 dpi.

I bought the "Animal Crackers" digital kit and did the quick little collage at the top of this post.  Just think of the ways you can combine the actual papers and the digital versions in a scrapbook.

The paper is even "glittered" - just like the actual stacks.  The kit included a stitched lower case alphabet, 17 papers and 19 elements for $6.95.

I hope some of you are getting interested in the digital scrapping - I find it to be so much fun to use "paper" in my computer and create all sorts of things without making any mess (and no scraps!).  If you have questions about digital projects let me know and I will try to help.  I definitely recommend the Creative Memories StoryBook Creator Plus 3.0 program - it is extremely user friendly and you can work with both the CM content and all sorts of other digi kits that you purchase elsewhere (or get as a freebie).  Here is a LINK to my CM website for more information.

I have a fun Cricut project to share - probably tomorrow...  I just need to add a few finishing touches...