Welcome our September Guest Designer Kim Jeffress...

We are excited to be welcoming the talented Kim Jeffress to the Mei Li team this month, not only because we love her bright, graphic and fun scrapbooking style but because this is our first guest designer joining us who we have had the pleasure of hanging out with in person! 

One of my favourite aspects of being in this industry are the connections we make all over the world, but the best part is when you get to meet those people you feel you already know well virtually in real life. Fiona and I had the pleasure of hang out with Kim in LA this past January, first with a few chats on the CHA floor but also during the Big Picture classes Play event afterwards. Her scraping style truly represents how she is in reality, fun, bright and bubbly. We look forward to having her here with us this month!

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Hi everyone I am very excited to be here at Mel Li Paperie this month.

I am waving hello from sunny Brisbane Australia where I live my husband and two boys aged 5 and 7. They are my main inspiration from my scrapbooking, I love to record the little everyday stories about their lives which one day would be forgotten.

I am honoured to be involved in the wider scrapbooking industry.  I would have to say though the pinnacle for me has been  designing for Heidi Swapp. Being on her team has been a dream come true, her generosity, enthusiasm and inspiration for Memory keeping is so infectious it drives me to keep improving my own scrapbooking everyday.

I can't wait to share more of my family's stories on the blog this month , see you soon.

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You can find out more about Kim and see more of her awesome work at her blog Glass Half Full or on any of these design teams: Heidi Swapp, Bella Blvd, Pebbles Inc, Greatest-view or Jot Magazine.

Tutorial ~ A quick & easy mini album...

Hey everyone! Lucia here again – with my last guest post for Mei Li Paperie, and this time I’m gonna share with you a tutorial about how to make a quick and easy mini album.

This month, I spent few days in Sardinia, Italy. It was a lovely but really short holiday (just 4 days!), so I thought that a little mini about these days would be just right.

BONUS – I’ve finally tried one thing that I was thinking about for about a year!!! And it worked. Read on to find out what it is : )  

Step 1: Gather your supplies – 12x12 patterned papers, white tissue/ vellum paper and a few embellishments, like thickers or journaling tags. You’ll also need a sewing machine,  a crop-a-dile or hole punch and a hair tie or fun elastic: )

Step 2: Cut the 12x12 papers in half and mark the center.

Step 3: Sew over the line that you’ve just drawn to bind the pages together.

Step 4: Now fold the pages – and the base for your minialbum is done! I know, it’s not a big deal but quite handy when you need a quick mini such as a notebook or mini album. The fun part is about to come.

Step 5: Cut the hair tie or elastic like in the picture.

Step 6: We are going to attach the hearband to thelast page. In order to do this, I've made that part of the page stronger by adding a stripe of paper and sewed over it few times.

Step 7: Now punch two holes at the top and bottom of the back page, insert the eyelet and one end of the hairband – like on the picture – and bind together.

Step 8: Do the same with the other hole. It’s important that the hair tie goes in the same direction as i have shown in the picture:

I've always wanted to try this, because I like when my notebooks or agenda closes like this and holds everything together – so even if your pages are rich in embellishment, the hair tie will hold everything together : )

Step 9: To keep it simple (and easy), I've only used white tissue/copy paper and white thread for embellishing or to create layers under the photos. There are also some tags from Websters Pages Ocean Melody’s Paper (Storyteller Card Sheet II) and gold glitter alphas from AC on the front page. And finally – I’ve used a pocket with a card from Fancy Pants – Library Cards to write a simple journaling.

And here’s my finished mini album.

Have fun creating!

Lucia

August colour challenge winner!

We have a winner! You guys rocked this colour challenge! Congrats to Giorgia Rossini you are our random winner this month.

Check out these fab projects that were also entered! We loved seeing how you guys took on this challenging colour palette! 

Sweet T, Park 

JayTeeZeHang

Alyce

(Since you entered via Instagram we can't access your photo to post here) 

Chantalle M  

( We love your layout but for some reason can't post it from your website to share here)

Make sure you check out our Inspired By... challenge and play along for a chance to win a great prize! Giorgia please email us at info@meilipaperie.com to let us know where we can send your prize. 

Our 1st Video!!!

As an online only retailer we often hear comments about how hard it is to shop online for scrapbooking goodies as often the photos of the products just don't show the true awesomeness of a product. We hear ya! Some of the photos we get from manufacturers make us go... huh? So we thought it was time to teach ourselves how to make videos! But we didn't want to make those boring product videos that you see everywhere with someone talking in a less than excited voice going "....and here is this... and here is this..." be honest do you ever watch those to the end? So we decided to try making something a bit more entertaining and fun. We hope you enjoy it! We would love your feedback so please let us know what you think!

August Inspired by... Challenge

Our Inspired by... challenge is really about finding inspiration from so many different things, and in choosing what we will post as the next challenges inspiration I always consider all different sources. In light of last weeks sad news of Robin Williams passing I knew finding inspiration from him and all that he was and did was the perfect source. This past week has really shone light on how loved and inspiring he was to so many people. I chose a fun photo of him that has a lot of feeling and fun graphics. I also included one of his many inspiring quotes from him.  You can take inspiration from the elements of the photo itself or find inspiration in something he did or said. Our August guest designer Lucia Barbas was beautifully inspired... 

Hey everyone! Here's my page for the "Inspired by... challenge". I love EVERYTHING about it. The fact that we can remember Robin Williams even like this, the photo of him :), the quote, the black and white collage.

I got inspiration from the overall look of the collage - B&W photo and the quote written in big  capital letters. So I've decided to do the same for my page. I stamped one of my favourite quotes of his (I've used clear stamp set from Amy Buttler) on a piece of paper, cut every word out and glued them on my page. I then machine stitched the words and added a photo I took this past spring when we went for a walk in a forest with my brothers - and added some layering. Pretty simple, yet quite inspiring :)

 So shows us how Robin Williams inspired you! Link your layout here by August 31st and you could win an American Crafts Shimelle prize pack!

Here is how to play along: 

- You can submit ANY kind of project that you were inspired to create such as layouts, cards, project life fillers

- The winner of the prize will be randomly drawn and our 3 favourite layouts be featured on the blog. 

- Our challenge will run until August 31st at 11:55pm Hong Kong time. 

- Link your creation below by entering a link to your blog post or online gallery sharing your work.  Our InLinkz now has the ability to link your project from Instagram! so you can just snap a photo of your project and link while you share it on instagram.. so cool! 

- Please no back-linking.  This is for newly created projects only.  Any back-links will be be disqualified. 

- If you don't have a blog or online gallery, alternatively you can post a photo of your work on our facebook page. Please make sure you include " Mei Li July Inspired by... Challenge" somewhere in the post. 

Mood Board inspiration with Lucia Barabas

Hello girls : ) Lucia here today to share an idea about how to reuse the lovely packaging from Mei Li
Paperie – and create an inspiring (and at the same time quite handy) moodboard for your wall. When I opened the box with my goodies, I knew immediately that I HAD to reuse that paper bag! The aqua color is actually one of my favourite colors and I had quite a few ideas on what to do with it. Finally, I went for a “multifunctional moodboard” : ) Moodboard – because its purpose is to inspire you to craft. Multifunctional – because it’s not only an inspiration but also a decoration AND a mini storage space.

Here’s what I did:

I machine stitched the edges of the bag to secure it. I then placed the vellum envelopes all over the bag, added some clips, wooden mini pegs and stripes of a washi tape. All these are gonna allow me to change my moodboard whenever I want.

I positioned the envelopes and glued them down (I’ve used a wide double sided tape). I left some 

space for the embellishment and started to fill the envelopes. I am SO in love with the Websters Pages Ocean Melody Paper Storyteller Card Sheet that I’ve cut all of the cards and filled the envelopes with them (that’s the storage part ; ) ). I’ve added some wood veneer and lace – lovely combination.

And finally – the embellishing!! Alphas, paper flowers, sequins, stamps ... Add whatever you want to 

make it pretty and inspiring.

Have fun creating your own mood board!

Lucia

Winner ~ July Inspired by...

Let me just start by saying you ladies rocked the triangles! Thanks so much for joining us! Congrats to this months Inspired by... winner Katie Smith! Such a great card!

Thanks to everyone else for playing along! We loved seeing what you did with triangles! Here are this months featured projects. 

JayTeeZeHang 

Jade 

Phei Low 

Make sure you check out our August colour challenge and play along for a chance to win a great prize! Katie please email us at info@meilipaperie.com to let us know where we can send your prize. 

August colour challenge

Jen here.. I just wanted to post a quick apology for this going up a day late. We have been having intermittent internet and issues with our blogging platform the past few days and couldn't get our post to go live.... so without further ado here is the colour challenge with Lucia!

Hello girls! Lucia here today to share a page I made using the August color palette and some pretty

goodies from Mei Li Paperie store.

I think this is the second time in my scrapbooking “career” (lol) that I’m scrapping a picture of mine.

Life is amazingly awesome and I sometimes feel like scrapping an emotion or feeling. This picture

was taken on a Sunday afternoon, when me and a friend of mine went for a walk outside the city –

nothing but fresh air, wild flowers, berries and herbs, beautiful mountain in the background and a

silence of the forest. Perfect!

This page is a perfect example of my work : ) White background, sewn banners, tissue paper, layers.

Another thing I LOVE to use when crafting are things you usually throw away, like the bottom stripes

from a 12x12 pages or packaging. I think it makes a page look really original : )

So shows us how this inspired you! Link your layout here by August 17th and you could win an Websters Ocean Melody prize pack!

Here is how to play along: 

- You can submit ANY kind of project that you were inspired to create such as layouts, cards, project life fillers

- The winner of the prize will be randomly drawn and our 3 favourite layouts be featured on the blog. 

- Our challenge will run until August 17th at 11:55pm Hong Kong time. 

- Link your creation below by entering a link to your blog post or online gallery sharing your work.  Our InLinkz now has the ability to link your project from Instagram! so you can just snap a photo of your project and link while you share it on instagram.. so cool! 

- Please no back-linking.  This is for newly created projects only.  Any back-links will be be disqualified. 

- If you don't have a blog or online gallery, alternatively you can post a photo of your work on our facebook page. Please make sure you include " Mei Li August Colour Challenge" somewhere in the post. 

( We are currently experiencing some issue with our project linking system.. as of right now I just wanted to get this posted. This issue will be fixed in the next 24 hrs and probably before you are finished your project for this... please come back and link your project)