Hi there everyone!!

I hope you're having a great Wednesday night.  A Wednesday night that has come after a lovely day and maybe a Wednesday night that sees a little crafty time.

Here at Polly! we would like to share with you some changes to the team.  A couple of departures and a couple coming off the bench and onto the crafting table on a more permanent basis

Renae and Kayla have decided to move on from Polly! to focus on the exciting developments in their personal lives - Renae is recently engaged and will be busy planning her wedding while Kayla is first time mum and will be pouring her energy into Elijah.  We'd like to thank both Renae and Kayla for their contributions to Polly! and wish them every happiness.

So who's coming to the crafting table?  You may remember guest DTs Lauren and Linda.  The girls are talented, cool, down to earth and fit in so well with the team AND create some pretty awesome stuff so, we decided to keep them!!


Please join us in welcoming Lauren and Linda - head over to check them out with the rest of the Design Team - and be sure to tune in to the blog, the girls have some awesome things coming up that we know will inspire you!

Speak to you soon!

Love,
Carol xo

Before I talk about the new team, I wanted to thank the 2013 Polly team, who are amazingly talented and have been so supportive. You will see some have asked to stay here for 2014, and I feel very grateful to have them here, but some are moving on to new things and I know that these girls will be doing great stuff where-ever they go. You can still find them on the DT page till the end of the year, so hop over there and make sure you follow their personal blogs so you dont miss them in the new year. It is what I plan to do!

I had a lot of amazing applicants and it was a tough decision, but I am very excited about working with these women, and I think you will love them! Please join me in welcoming both the continuing and new members of the Polly DT.

Here is the Polly! team from January, 2014.


Ruth Bonser
Owner
Hi, I'm Ruth. I'm a Mum, an IT nerd and I love Scrapbooking. I live in Sydney, Australia with my husband and 2 kids. I love sketches and bright happy colours. I love both pocket and my traditional layouts, occasional mini albums and even a little bit of hybrid scrapbooking. I pretty much will put my hand to anything, plus I sometimes use pink on pages about my son. I think scrapbooking needs to be fun and fulfilling and try not to let anything get in the way of that.


Sandra Bunch
Social Media Manager
Well, hello! I'm Sandra - a lover, mother, dreamer, memory maker and memory keeper! I live in Brisbane, Australia, with my 3 divine kids and loving, quirky husband. By day I’m a software engineer, by night I help my husband with his IT business, but scrapbooking ignites a fire in me that is unrivalled by anything else. I’ve been scrapping for 6 years, including traditional, hybrid & pocket page (Project Life) scrapbooking, mixed media, off-the-page and cardmaking. More recently I’ve started designing digi kits and printables. I can’t say I have a particular “style” as I love to experiment with them all. My focus remains on telling the stories of my life - big and small. The fact that I get to express and share those stories through a variety of mediums these days, makes my heart sing!


Renae Finlayson
Kayla Renee MacAulay
Scrapbook Designer



Bernii Miller
Project Life Designer
Hi there! My name is Bernadette, but people have called me Bernii for short for as long as I can remember. I am a blessed mother to two little cherubs, Abigail (5) and Hunter (2). I started scrapbooking about 12 years ago, but it has been on and off over the last few years. I do not have any definite "style" in my scrapping, but LOVE it when I can paint, mist, stitch and use textured elements as much as I can, and love that Project life allows me to dabble in these areas and get my "scrapbooking" fix.


Manda Moore
Scrapbook Designer
I'm Manda, a graphic designer living in a small country town in Victoria, Australia. I'm the Creative Director of Life.Paper.Scrapbook. “http://www.lifepaperscrapbook.com/” a free online magazine that is published quarterly, a project I started to share my love of scrapbooking with other designers from around the world.  I have always loved art and craft and have been making a crafty mess of paper, glue, paint, glitter and anything else I can use as long as I can remember! When I'm not creating something with paper and glue I love to cook, take photos, travel and spend time with my two kitties, Harry & Winston. You can find my at my blog Mandalika Designs, Facebook page or on Instagram
Project Life Designer

Evening all, I am excited to share the September Polly! Kits with you and to introduce you to someone I am super excited to have on the Polly! Team. Lets have introductions first,

Manda Moore is a brilliantly talented Aussie Scrapbooker. She does fantastic work, but you may all know her for the amazing work she has done publishing the online Australian Magazine called Life.Paper.Scrapbook. You can find out some more about Manda on our Design Team page. Now I would like to share with you her first layout for Polly! using this month's main kit.

See what I mean? Stunning!! I will be sharing some more layouts from Manda, Kayla and myself in the next few weeks to inspire you. There are only 2 kits left in the store right now for sale, shipping on Wednesday, so if you are interested, then you need to be quick!


We also have some terrific products available in store for you to add to your kit, extra alphabets and labels sold individually by colour, page protectors available individually as well. Kits ship wednesday, so if you want anything, you need to add it by then and select "pick-up" as the shipping option to include it with your kit.
It seems like every week we have exciting news at Polly! at the moment, so you never know what might be next around the corner.
All the best!
Ruth

Welcome to September, Polly! people, Ruth here, and it is the month of #30Lists and Learn Something New Everyday, and this year it is also includes a Week in the Life. These are ongoing classes that reoccur every year, and personally I have taken each of them in the past at least once, but never more than one at a time!


Today I am sharing my first take on using the August Polly PL kit, and I'm using it as part of a mini album for this month. I got this terrific BasicGrey 7x9 mini album, with divided page protectors in it, and each space is nice and small to fit a little photo or a little bit of writing. Nothing too big or challenging when I am writing something every day, sometimes several things.

If you want to get a mini album too, I'm going to give you a couple of suggestions. With the Polly store reducing in size to focus more on kits, we wont have everything available, so I would suggest you contact Jodie the polkadotcreative or LeeAnne at Scraptherapy for lots of album options. Both of these stores are well stocked and I have had terrific customer service from them personally, these are really lovely and hard-working women you can contact if you are ever looking for something that isn't in our kits.


I'm not quite sure whether I will include my week in the life here or go digital again, I like the clean simplicity of digital for my annual WITL album, but I do love the tactile nature of going with traditional crafting. So far this album is more fun than effort, which is always the goal.

I am inviting you to play along with our first Polly Blog Challenge. Later this week I will have my own example project for you, but since it is a recipe challenge, I thought I would give you a couple of days to think about your interpretation first.

The recipe is a pretty easy one, I think! Include the following three things in your project:
1) Coloured ink
2) Chipboard
3) The phrase "makes me happy"

The main kit flair can help with the third item. Here is a sneak of the exclusive designs you will receive if you are a subscriber to the main kit. If you want to make sure you get a set you can subscribe to the kit and receive the box filled with goodies every month, otherwise you can buy a one off kit at reveal, but there are currently only a few left with a number of recent new subscribers. I'll be able to increase numbers for next month, but there will only be a limited number of both the main and the PL kits available at reveal this month!
The winner of the monthly challenge will get Echo Park's Photo Freedom Volume II Collection Kit, which includes a set of page protectors as well as the great cut apart papers. They will also get a discount coupon for 10% off their next order with Polly, if the winner if a subscriber's they can even use the discount with their next subscription kit.

Big Changes and small ones have arrived at Polly Scrap Kits!



It's Ruth here, sharing the big news with you. Lets start with the biggest change, we have a new owner here at Polly, Kayla will be taking a step back to focus on her sweet baby that is on the way and I am going to be the new face behind Polly! Scrap Kits! You have seen me on the blog sharing layouts in the last few months and from today I will also be the new owner. Kayla is not leaving us entirely though, thankfully, she will still be part of the DT, here on the blog every month sharing her layouts with the Scrapbook kit and giving her advice and input to the kit creation process.

Smaller changes include a reduced store front to allow Polly! to focus on creating and delivering exciting kits full of the latest releases and exclusive items. We will also be offering our subscribers a "subscriber special" that can only be accessed by our awesome Polly! customers. These will include discounted rates on the latest must have goodies

First notice of this will be given by our newsletter, so it is a great idea to sign up to our newsletter here if you want to stay informed or its on the sidebar ---> at the top, just pop your email address in there. If you haven't seen the newsletter that was sent today, feel free to contact me and I will make sure you are on the list and forward you a copy so you can check out the great special offer we have for subscribers for September.

Today we're pleased to welcome our sixth and final permanent member to the Polly! Kits inspiration-family.  We now have a mix of Project Life enthusiasts as well as 'old-fashioned' (I suppose!) scrapbookers to keep you inspired, and showing off the contents of the best kits on the Australian market.

Welcome, Ruth!  Here's a little more about our newest Project Life guru...

Hi, I'm Ruth and I am so excited to be a part of the new Polly! Project Life Design Team. I absolutely adore the kits that Kayla is putting together, and just wait until you see what's coming up next!

Ruth Bonser lives in Sydney Australia. By day she works as an unassuming IT geek at a university and is a frazzled Mum most of the time, however by night, she loves to create by scrapbooking and blogging and generally making a lot of mess. Ruth is currently part of several design teams in Australia and the US and writes a weekly article for the Life.Paper.Scrapbook magazine blog.

She has also been on the Paperclipping Roundtable podcast. Ruth loves using kits for her scrapbooking and has fallen in love with Project Life since discovering it. You can follow her adventures at http://scrapmachine.com/

It's going to be a busy little blog from here on in - so be sure to either follow us (over there on the right) or add us to your favorites - we can't wait to share this months kit with you very, very soon!

Bye for now,

Our Design Team at Polly! Scrap is still growing! We have more exciting news to share with you today, and one more Designer to reveal tomorrow night - come back for that!

A little overdue, but a big, warm welcome to our Contributing Project Life Designer - Bernadette Miller! Here's a little more about Bernii...

Exciting news!  We have a new addition to the Polly! design team!

We were already excited that Holly Connors would be guest designing with the main kit this month, but after this month she will be a permanent fixture on the Polly! team as our Project Life kit guru.

We love her bright, vibrant scrapbooking style and her Project Life creations are so inspiring.  You can check out Holly's blog here.  Be sure to visit and leave some comment love.


Hello, I’m Holly from QLD and am looking forward to sharing my creations as part of the Polly! team. I started scrapbooking around 2009, after nothing more than a dabble here and there previously.

My motivation then was to record the memories of an overseas trip but before long I was hooked and have been addicted to scrapbooking and all things related ever since.

Following the birth of my first child Lily, in December, I started to worry about where I would store the growing piles of traditional scrapbook layouts and from there discovered the Project Life style of scrapbooking.

While I still love traditional and off the page scrapbooking, Project Life has become the perfect way to record those day to day details that are so often skipped in traditional pages, in a much more compact format... while still allowing me to enjoy being creative.

I have been a memory keeper for a long time but since becoming a mother, it reminds you how important this is not just for yourself but for your future generations as well.

Stay tuned to see what magic Holly will spin with this month's kit, and our sell-out Project Life kits in future months.  Be sure to subscribe at the Polly! store so you don't miss out!

UPDATE - NOW SOLD OUT.  THERE WILL BE MORE IN MAY FEATURING AN AWESOME NEW RELEASE. SO IF YOU MISSED OUT AND ARE STILL INTERESTED, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO LET ME KNOW AND I WILL PUT YOUR NAME DOWN ON A WAITING LIST. Do you love Project Life? How about helping a good cause? Both? Fantastic!

Exciting times - Polly! Scrap shop owner, Kayla MacAulay, is putting together the first Project Life kit for Polly! Scrap Kits and the profits made from this exclusive kit will be going to a really good cause too.  You can join in the festivities here on the Polly! Facebook Event for the Charity Kit.

Here's a sneak peek of what will be going into the kit...



Here's what Kayla has to say about the fundraiser:
I am participating in LIVE BELOW THE LINE this year. It is an event run annually by the Oaktree Foundation (which I am proudly a member of as Australia's largest youth led organisation). It's based on living on $2 a day for 5 days to experience what extreme poverty is like. I seek sponsorships during this time and all the money raised goes towards funding education scholarships and building educational infrastructure in Pacific Asia (Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and East Timor). This is a cause I am really passionate about as a pre-service teacher, I feel that everyone should have access to the education they deserve.  In April I will be putting together a Project Life kit and will put all the profits from this kit towards my campaign.

You can sponsor me directly by following this link - every cent helps!https://www.livebelowtheline.com.au/me/kayla_macaulay

Kits will be $23.95 + postage. (Postage is yet to be determined but will be no more than $7...or a flat rate of $7.50 if you are already a Polly! subscriber or choose to purchase other things in the Polly! store)

As always, the kits are packed to the brim with new inspiring products, and all previous Polly! customers will know about getting value for money with these kits.  This kit will contain all brand new product fresh off the press, great for project life! (including exclusive product).
TO PURCHASE:
Please let us know if you are interested in a kit by leaving a comment on the Facebook Event or email Kayla at kayla.r@live.com with your details.  A $5 deposit will be required to reserve your kit.

WHEN WILL THE KIT BE RELEASED:
The date will be announced this week but should be the 3rd week of April.

FINAL PAYMENT:
 Your will be emailed for your final payment once the kit is ready. You will receive an invoice to pay via bank deposit or Paypal to your e-mail inbox.

A FINAL NOTE:
 Kayla will be processing every kits contribution to the campaign separately so you will see your name come up on her 'donations' on the page linked above, unless you would like it posted anonymously, then please let her know at kayla.r@live.com.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!
If you would like more information on the campaign, please let Kayla know via the Facebook Event or email.