We are so very excited to be exhibiting alongside our new parent company, Art Anthology at CHA Winter 2013!  Our booth (#2109!) will include all the product lines from both Basically Bare and Art Anthology.  In addition to seeing all our brand new products, we will also be happy to demonstrate for you how fabulous these two mixed-media product lines work together to create seriously cool projects!

Basically Bare is proud to announce the release of our Artful Binders line of mixed-media binder albums.  These sturdy and versatile albums are sized to fit 8 1/2 x 11, 8×8, 9×6 and 6×6 pages (the albums are slightly larger to accommodate these standard-size papers!)

But that’s not all!  We are also debuting our wide line of expansion packs for the Artful Binder album series!  Each of the four album sizes has five expansion packs available, in a variety of fun and artsy materials, including our BRAND NEW addition of 140lb. watercolor paper!

Be sure to drop by booth #2109 if you’ll be attending CHA.  We will be sponsoring daily make n’ takes using both Basically Bare and Art Anthology products, and we will also be hosting a number of daily giveaways with great prizes!

Basically Bare is proud to announce our 2012/2013 Term A Design Team!  We had an incredible amount of talented designers apply for the four spots available, and choosing was difficult. Thanks to everyone that answered the call and applied.  We hope to see you again on our future calls!  We think that the four paper artists we chose are going to bring you a lot of inspiration in the upcoming months, and can’t wait to see what they create!  Without any further ado, here they are!

NATALIE DEVER

My name is Natalie Dever and I am so excited to be working with Basically Bare products! I have been paper crafting for quite a while now, my focus seems to be on cards and layouts and mini albums, but I do love a challenge and enjoy trying new things.

I am a stay-at-home mom to 4 kiddos, am a ‘reality’ TV junkie…..almost NEVER miss an episode of Survivor.My favorite color is green, I am addicted to diet coke and taco pizza love to read in my spare time.

BECKY GARRISON

Hello! I am Becky Garrison, and I am so super excited to have been chosen as a member of the Basically Bare Design Team! A life long Georgia girl, I was raised in the foothills of the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains. I am a child of the 1950′s, and some of my earliest memories are of my mother teaching me to make paper dolls from the pictures in the Sears catalog and furniture for them from cardboard. I have tried many different types of crafts over the years, but paper crafting in general and making cards and mini albums specifically has taken root in my heart and is my joy, my therapy, and very often my sanity. Very simply put, playing with paper, scissors, glue, and all the other things that go with them, makes me happy!

I am blessed to be married to a wonderful man who is also my best friend – in 2012 we celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary. He is so sweet about this crafty obsession of mine, and not only encourages, but enables me to keep it going as well. We love to travel, go camping and canoeing and exploring new areas of the country just to see what’s around the bend. I am retired from the corporate world and enjoy being a SAHM to our two mini Dachshunds, Bailey and Bessie. I am also caregiver to my 80+ year old Mama, who thankfully doesn’t need a lot of care, in fact she can work rings around me, and it is my joy and honor to be there to help her when she needs me.

I love sharing what I know with others, and even more I enjoy encouraging others in their crafty endeavors. If I had to pick one style that best fits me, that would be difficult, but I would probably say vintage/retro/shabby, but I try hard to make projects in different styles and not limit myself to only one. I also believe that paper crafting is ‘my’ art! One of my favorite quotes is “He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands, his head and his heart is an artist” — Francis of Assisi … and I really do believe that it is true! Happy Crafting!

MARILYN HUGHES

Hi! I’m Marilyn Hughes and I live in a small town in southeast Louisiana. I’ve been married to my wonderful husband for 24 years and have the best 17-year old son a mom could want. During the week, I’m an Assistant Director of Facilities for a well-known research center, but in the evenings and especially on weekends, I turn into an papercrafting fiend. I started out many many years ago in the miniature field making dollhouses, dressing dolls, and creating miniature scenes, in the process using lots of paper. Then, about 4 years ago my love of that paper let me into papercrafting and I haven’t looked back. I started with ATCs but quickly expanded into all kinds of art and types/sizes of surfaces. I love altered art & mixed media and will alter anything handed to me. Along with my love of paper, embellishments, and miniatures (I’ve been known to use miniatures in my art), I am also an avid reader, and along with my mother, run a (very) small antiques business in a local antique mall.

AUDREY YEAGER

Hello everyone! My name is Audrey Yeager and I am a stay-at-home mom to two cuties, Charlotte and Kyler. We recently moved back to central New York state after living in Houston for 5 years. We are excited to be back with family and friends! I spend my days being domestic and an night I get crafty when the kiddos go to bed. It’s not rare to find me still up at 1 am most nights! In addition to scrapping, I play in a recreational volleyball league and LOVE to watch fantasy/sci fi shows and stupid reality shows. I listen to hard rock/heavy metal/alternative music, LOVE sushi, and love to chase butterflies!

My scrappy style has definitely evolved over the years, but currently on most of my pages you will find paints/mists with stencils, machine stitching, fussy cutting, and lots of distressing. My kids are the topics of most of my pages, and I love to tell their stories. I have also been dabbling in creating SVG files and working with my Cricut more and more.

Whether you want to make an elegant gentleman’s birthday card, whimsical vintage scrapbook layout, Steampunk ATC, or just pop the ‘staches on a stick and have a hilarious photo shoot, these magnificent mustaches and matching hats are perfect for the job.  You get EIGHT full sets of hats & ‘staches, in both heavy weight chipboard and black-core chipboard.

Be sure to stop by tomorrow to see projects using this fantastically fun set of embellies!

Someone once said “Variety is the spice of life.”  If this is true, then our Basically Bare ‘Oh So Mini’ mix and match albums pack a super-spicy punch!

Six different album packs give you literally countless options while creating.  Chose your favorite album pack and create a fabulous mini.  Or, buy two or more packs and mix and match to create your own one-of-a-kind custom shaped album or project!  At only $6.99 per pack, you can pick as many as you’d like.

Check back here tomorrow (July 6th) for a great project idea using the ‘Oh So Mini’ album packs!

WOW!  It’s hot outside!  It’s so darn hot, that here at the Basically Bare offices, rolling blackouts have impacted our electricity and internet.  We apologize for not being able to bring you our first Summer Sneak Peek yesterday as planned.  So today, we have a sneaky two-fer for you!

Now keep in mind – these are only PEEKS.  To get a look at the full collections, join us starting on July 5th, where you’ll see the whole enchilada, including awesome project ideas from our design team!

First, we have our “Oh So Mini” collection!

Next, we have our first of three fabulous additions to our embellishments collection, Fanciful Frames II (Square Frames)!

Don’t forget to join us tomorrow for yet another sneak peek, and then on July 5th when we will begin revealing the entire collections.

Also, join us here at our blog during CHA Summer Show to see product/project videos created by our designers, as well as a spectacular giveaway of our entire summer collection!

Thanks very much to everyone who commented on all the great projects both here and on Momenta’s blog during our blog swap last week!  One commenter who left love on both blogs was picked at random to win a great Momenta-Basically Bare prize pack, and that winner is….

Julie Shearer!

Congrats, Julie!  Please send me your mailing address at bgaddis@basicallybare.com and we’ll get your goodies sent out.

Thanks again to all who participated!

We had such a great time during our get-together with Momenta, and we hope you did, too!  We want to thank the great Momenta folks for all the fun product and for teaming up with us.

You have until tomorrow to leave comments on all of the projects from our designers here on our blog and Momenta’s team’s projects on their blog.  Each comment enters you into a drawing for a great prize pack full of Momenta and Basically Bare goodies.

We’ll announce the winner tomorrow, so don’t miss out!

Welcome back, everyone!  Today we are continuing our swap with the fab team at Nikki Sivils.  Did you check out all of the projects yesterday and leave your comments?  Be sure you do so that you can get entered in our contest!  Need to know how to enter?

Just comment on both our designers’ projects for this swap AND the posts on the Nikki Sivils Blog.  We’re giving you all weekend to find time to comment.  On Monday (June 4th), we will draw a winner from the list of everyone who commented on both blogs.

That winner will get a prize pack containing a Timeless Tabs album and two sets of Basically Bare embellies (a Celestial Shapes set and a pack of Stack-a-bellies Birds)!  There’s a prize giveaway on the Nikki Sivils Blog, too, so be sure to check it out!

Just like yesterday, we’re putting together this handy-dandy overview of all the great projects from our team here on the Basically Bare Blog for the second day of the swap.  Click on the pictures to go straight to the individual posts so you can see lots more pics and leave your comments to enter to win!  Don’t forget – only the comments on the individual project posts will enter into the drawing!

 Linda Brun

Jennifer Matott

Tanisha Long

Frank Garcia

Rebecca Price

Daniela Costa

Emily Lanham

Sarah Bargo

 We hope you enjoyed all the projects as much as we enjoyed putting them together.  Now get on over to the Nikki Sivils Blog to see their Day Two projects!

Good morning, everyone!  We are all really happy to be joining up with the talented crew at  Nikki Sivils for two days of fun!  Today and tomorrow we’ll be posting lots of great projects, both here on our blog and on the Nikki Sivils Blog…..and both blogs will be having a contest!  Be sure to check out the Nikki Sivils Blog for details on how to enter the contest there.

And how do you enter the contest here on our blog?  Simple!  Just comment on both our designers’ projects for this swap AND the posts on the Nikki Sivils Blog.  Easy peasy!  We’re giving you all weekend to find time to comment.  On Monday (June 4th), we will draw a winner from the list of everyone who commented on both blogs.

That winner will get a prize pack containing a Timeless Tabs album and two sets of Basically Bare embellies (a Celestial Shapes set and a pack of Stack-a-bellies Birds)!  There’s a prize giveaway on the Nikki Sivils Blog, too, so be sure to check it out!

Here is an overview of all the great stuff we have here on the Basically Bare Blog for the first day of the swap.  Click on the pictures to go straight to the individual posts so you can see all the crafty awesomeness – and so you can leave your comments to enter to win!  (We love your comments on all our posts, but only the comments on the individual project posts will enter into the drawing!)

Erin Bassett

DeeDee Catron

Veronica Johnson

Christina Colon 

Katrina Hunt

Jamie Pope

Miae Rowe

Becky Launder

Kristin Tweedale 

So go check out all the great projects and leave your comments, and be sure to visit the Nikki Sivils blog as well!  And be sure to come back tomorrow, we have lots more projects waiting for you!

Click to visit the Nikki Sivils Blog:

Thanks to Sharon at the Scrap Room in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee for hosting us. Thanks also to the lovely ladies that attended our Beauty Blooms album workshop!