Hi there! Can you believe we've been eating cake and drinking soda and partying for four days straight now? What a fabulous week we're having!

Good Times at the Movies!

We were A-mazed by the A-wesome movie-inspired A-rt that you created and hung on our Challenge Gallery! Seriously. We were blown away by your amazing artistry and talent!

Here was what we gave you to jumpstart your creative juices:

And here are just some of the awesome A+ layouts that you came up with!

croppinkatiejo was inspired by movie poster #1:

 Balinda was inspired by movie poster #2:

FluidSign was also inspired by movie poster #2:

and so was  tawyn:

And our very own new designer Crystal (creativitybycrystal) joined the challenge, yay!

Movie poster #3 inspired Debi:

and cnborgers:

And AimeeWrites was so inspired she did a two-pager! Woot!

 Lindsan was likewise inspired by the same poster (and keep an eye on this amazing lady, too! You're going to hear more about her real soon! >wink!)

 pinewoodtoo was inspired by Movie Poster #4:

 d13k15 was inspired by Movie Poster #5:

and so was  ScrappySam:

Poster #6 was the inspiration of Michelle Kennedy:

And it also inspired sharon_suske to upload her very first layout to our Spraground galleries!

Movie Poster #7 was stirred the creative juices of pebbles_girl:

And Movie Poster #8 provided the creative spark for gonewiththewind:

and auroradawn:

and Scrappycat too!

chinamom4 was inspired by Movie Poster #9:

and so was WendyN:

And iMargo did a terrific job her #9-poster-inspired layout:

Movie Poster #10 inspired JanH:

and self-confessed Trekker DonnaLJ:

And juliaspencer14 did a great lift of it too!

Forrest Gump ruled as the inspiration of Marian:

And it coaxed jenniheath to upload her first layout to our Spraground gallery (yay!)

And the same Movie Poster #11 also beckoned to teys to upload her very first layout in our galleries!

It also called Aja Abney to join our challenge!

For even more of this amazing overflowing talent, run to our Challenge Gallery to ooh and aah  at all the layouts blooming there!

 And speaking of gardens and blooming...

Orchard & Broome Debuts on the Spraground!

Have you peeped in our shop today? Have you seen the newest awesome stuff we've got up there? We've got Orchard & Broome on our Spraground! YAY!

Orchard & Broome is the fabulous partnership made up of the very talented Sarah Champion and our very own Candice Stringham! This great team of two started on a small but well loved intersection of New York City, a city loved by both girls (and add to their list of loves a passion for romantic comedies). It's a truth universally acknowledged that any New Yorker in possession of a sound mind must also be in want of good design - so it was there that they decided to combine their passion for fantastic design and handmade crafts to create a brand new digital line of scrapbooking and printable stationary products. They like to think that their style is clean and modern (with a twist of lovely) and hope you will too!

A Bit More about Candice Stringham: Candice has a BFA in photography is an editorial photographer and contributing editor at Creating Keepsakes Magazine. She currently lives in Brooklyn but will be departing soon to the Alamo. She hears it has no basement, which is tragic, really. She loves Jane Austin, Jcrew, Pink Berry, the letter S, black and white photographs, umbrellas, cupcakes shops, and any movie that have a girl and a guy that fall in love and, oh yeah, her amazingly talented actor husband and two little boys fall on the top of that list!

A Bit More about Sarah Champion: Sarah is currently a student of Graphic Design at the prestigious Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY and lives in Manhattan. She spent several years at American Crafts designing some of their amazing products and winning both a Communication Arts award and several AIGA awards. She has a high standard of design and is amazingly talented on her Mac. She loves online shopping, traveling, Ingrid Michaelson, Diet Coke, cupcake bakeries, In the Heights, James McAvoy and the Upper West Side.

The best news is that you don't have to travel to New York to fall in love with Orchard & Broome because you get them right here on our Spraground! A little trip to their store will bring you to brilliant works of printable pattern paper, labels, stickers, cards, posters and more!

Here are a few of their wonderful items that are now in our shoppe:

Run to our shop and fall in love with Orchard & Broome today!

Good Karma (aka Today's Community Tip)

Some of you have discovered that little green icon beside your photo in your Community Profile page (and some have even debated whether it's a leaf or a butterfly! heehee!) 

And many have been wondering: what is that Karma, and how do I get more of it? 

Here's Jessica with the answers to all our questions!

Cool, right? Now you can ask anyone "What's your karma?" and you'll know if they read today's blogpost! 

And speaking of questions... Pop Quiz, Quick! Finish the sentence:

Candice Stringham loves { BLANK } photographs.

(If you answered black and white, give yourself a birthday cookie!)

And so do we! And we're taking that love to our challenge today!

B2 & W+1 - Our Birth-Day 4 Challenge!

Today's challenge is going to get you digging into your digi stash and photo folders (or boxes) for all things black and white! (Okay, we'll take browns as well).

Sometimes less is more, they say. And in this case, we're going to do away with all colors and go back to the basics! We're going to work with neutrals (black and white and, okay, we'll allow shades of brown as well :D ). And because we love ya, we'll allow you to add just ONE other color to the mix. (But just one, okay?)

Here's how we'll play today:

1. Create a layout with only the basics. What this means: every single thing on your layout, from papers to elements and photos, must be in neutral colors (shades of white, black, grey, and brown).

2. Choose only one other color to add to the neutrals. Red? Blue? Orange? Green? The choice is yours! You can use this color on your elements or, if you're feeling daring, on your photos... but not on any paper.

3. Upload your layout to our Challenge Gallery and then skip along to the sticky thread on our General Forum to let us know that you've done so, and we'll come running to leave you love! (Look for the thread that says "Birth-Day 4/June CAD-Day 25").

4. Don't forget to include "BD4-CAD25" in your layout title.

We can't wait to see what you come up with!

And we'll bet you can't wait to see...

Today's Birthday Giveaway!

Today's freebie is a set of 25 stitched tabs with glue strips for extra stickiness! You'll get 12 with pre-printed months for this year, plus 6 pre-made tabs and 6 tab covers with 1 textured paper so that you can create your own labels!

Click on the image above to download this freebie I've made for you (and don't forget to snag it before 10am EST tomorrow, when it moves to our shop and is replaced by a new freebie).

Have a wonderful day today, and look forward to more birthday fun and goodies tomorrow!