AC Bailey National Scrapbook Day Blog Hop Stop

Welcome to my blog. I am so excited to be asked to participate in this, AC Bailey's FIRST ever blog hop! This is amazing....this is an awesome opportunity for you to meet all the ACB DT members, learn lots of (hopefully) new ideas and techniques, gain some inspiration and rumor has it that YOU may even win a prize or two along the way.

Here is how this works, if you are already on my site via a link you already know this, but for those of you popping in here mid-stream, let me explain. The FIRST post or START to this blog hop is on the AC Bailey blog. There you will find the instructions, all the "fine print" details and such. From there, you will go the firsat DT member whose link is in the post (at the bottom). Once you have visited that gal's site, you will click on the link she has in her post to the next ACB DT designer and so on and so on,...following me? Be sure to leave a comment on each blog as at every site there will be a random name drawn from all who post and one lucky person who leaves a message/comment will win a SUPER prize. Don't forget to leave a comment here too! Then- when you are finished with all THAT, you can still win a prize, a bigger better one I am sure! Just create a layout or project using three or more of the ideas you saw demo'd on the blogs and post that layout in the ACB gallery in the NSD layout folder (under Scrap Stimulus Contest). There is also a thread in the forum there for you to post "I did it" and you can even post a link there to your layout (all instructions for this are on the forum and we can help you - it is easy peasy) . We will then draw one lucky winner from all those posting qualifying layouts and THAT lucky "rabbit" will win an ACB May Goodies KOTM . That is what is pictured here (actually there is MORE to it than what you see here, this is a good idea of what it is - it is GORGEOUS stuff, Marks papers, Chatterbox tags and embellishments, Maya Road Ribbon, Prima butterflies- all KINDS of stuff! How cool would winning that be?? It COULD be you, all you need to do is PLAY! It is a lot easier than this perhaps sounds, try it! You will enjoy it.
So, since we all promised to answer these questions - here is a little about me-
1) My name is Gail Connor, I am from Rindge, NH - I have lived most all my life in New England and I love it. I am one of the "oldest" DT members, I have been on this team since I am also theACB Consultant Coordinator. I love this company.
2) I found ACB by accident! I was with another direct sales company of scrap supplies and I wanted something more so I was looking around. A friend found the forum and we joined to chat with other scrappers, who knew it was the start of something so much BIGGER for us?
3) What I like most about being part of ACB is the friends I have made-these gals are awesome, but the constantly new items in the store is good, and the gallery full of inspiration is good too and the daily tips, links and pointers on the forum ...I like it ALL.
4) My current favorite product or line, and it may change next week is the Marks Paper line. It is amazing, the colors are so rich and the papers so thick and easy to handle and use. I also LOVE my THICKERS and the ACB store carried LOTS of them.
4) One thing unique about YOU. Hmmm,....I have bunions. There, I said it- no one else I know has bunions and they hurt and they are ugly and I need them removed. Don't tell anyone.

And,..you want me to teach you a technique or give you a tip or two? Well, my lastest craze (okay I have been crazy for years) is altering THICKERS! I love Thickers, when I saw all the options available to us at the CHA Summer 2008 I thought I had died and gone to Thicker Heaven. Look at this pic with me and some of the Thickers they had there...who seriously can have that many thickers?

Not me- there is a limit to my scrap budget too. So,...I figured "your imagination is your boundary" not your budget girl and I decided to make my own thickers, not actually branch out and manufacture them, but alter and re-cycle and create my own. You can too. There are several different ways.
You can buy each style thicker in white only and really stretch your creativity and budget. Just paint or ink them any color you want to match your layout. You can also cover them with pattern paper for a different look too.

Try paints and all kinds of different inking and painting styles. Here I painted the "g" and "m" with acrylic paint and the "&" was painted with crackle paint-

Or you can apply a few coats of Ranger Glossy Accents (or diamond glaze) like I did here-
these thickers were yellow, I inked them orange and then just added the brads to the "d" and "y" and the glaze to the rest for two totally different fun effects.

How about "blinging" your thickers with stickles or rhinestones! You can decorate them with buttons or brads too. These techniques definatley give them a totally different look from plain out of the package and they are unique and one of a kind.

I have drawn on mine with sharpie-check this funky look out-

You can stickle them for a sparkly look, or ink them like I inked this white one with pink cat's eye ink and then stickled it, the periods and exclamation point are also stickled on the plain white.

and this ultimate alteration was done for a snow layout.
I inked the thicker, then when it was dry I stickled it, then when that was dry I covered it with Ranger Glossy Accents (you can use Diamond Glaze too). It looks awesome in real life- dimensional and sparkly and like glass.

My DT friend Gin (tell her I said "hi" when you visit her blog) inks her thickers and glazes them and she says they look like tile. How awesome is that? Here you will see both the inked and glossy accent ones and the "just ink" version. If you visit the ACB Gallery there is TONS of inspiration in there and if you look close you will see all kinds of layouts with thicker titles alters and created by myself, Gin and the other ACB girls. I sure hope you try this altering technique and add YOUR layout to our gallery too.
Oh, and another tip with regard to altering Thickers-if you line them up in order on a sheet of wax paper, prepare them there and then transfer to your layout the backs stay sticky and they are easy to work with. Clean up is a breeze too. Do you need letters and have run out? You can create new ones by altering other letters into something else and by creatively adding the ink, paint, or bling you can masterfully hide the alterations. You know, cut m's into n's and cut the middle out of e's to make more c's. Shortened j's are more i's and shortened h's are new n's...got the picture? See if you can identify the "used to be a..." letters in my samples-there are some, keep looking.
Have fun and STRETCH those thickers ....you can do it- be creative, you are only limited by YOUR imagination.
Hope you had fun visiting my blog- your next stop on this "hop" is the blog of my good friend Lisa- tell her I said "hello"!!
Enjoy the rest of your blog hop-see you on the ACB forum-come back here soon too to visit me, you are welcome anytime.