The Smash Books craze and how to start a smashing upcycling adventure! Part 1

Hi Y’all! Hope you had a lovely lovely Christmas, full of laughter and joy and fun times with family and friends. Did you get all the crafting goodies you asked Santa for?  If so, do share pictures with us and tell us what you got and if you have started playing with your ‘stash’ yet.

I recently went to visit family in Boston and of course no ‘holiday’ is complete without several trips to art stores and book stores. I did manage to collect quite a few wonderful paper packs and some handmade paper sheets. I also got a Cinch book binding machine, more on how that turned out later, and I went to Paper Source…several times 🙂

I absoulutely love the store! It’s like being in paper crafter heaven. Not only do they have cards and envelopes in all colors and sizes, they also have really gorgeous handmade paper sheets from all over the world. Their displays are marvelous! They group the papers by color and you can literally see a rainbow of papers every time you go to a Paper Source outlet.

This time though, when I visited Paper Source, I was excited about something completely different. I discovered the Smash Journals in their display and it was love at first sight. They currently have the journals in seven different flavors.

1. The International Smash Folio

2. Simple Orange Smash Folio

3. Eco Green Smash Folio

4. Mod Black Smash Folio

5. Doodle Red Smash Folio

6. Retro Blue Smash Folio

7. Pretty Pink Smash Folio

A smash journal is basically like a premade scrapbook/journal. It gives you lots of patterned papers to write, doodle, glue stuff on and capture memories. I love the way these folios have been laid out and planned and the wonderful patterns that can be found within the folios. Everything from roses to vintage ledger paper to quotes and sayings. All the pages are good quality card stock and will stand quite a lot of wear and lots of memorabilia stuck on them. That is what EK Success wanted these folios to be, they say the smash folio is good for lots of sticking and writing and glueing and doodling and is basically supposed to always have room like your junk drawer! So what ya’ waitin’ for…smash it all in! 🙂

The journals come with lots of extras, like stickers and tabs and little embellishment pads. The other highlight of the folios, in addition to the gorgeous designs, is the smash stick. The smash stick is a pen on one side and a glue stick on the other. That way you never have to wait to stick something in your smash journal! I LOVE that!

Here is the EK Success Smash website for more fun! They have a wonderful blog and a product video that is really fun to watch! http://www.eksuccessbrands.com/kandcompany/productlist.htm?bid=1695

I bought the pretty pink folio and am in love with it. I am going to work on it this coming week, the last of 2011, as a recap of the year. Lots has happened this year and I am looking forward to reliving the memories as we say goodbye to 2011. It is also the perfect end of year craft project.

I love the folios so much that I wanted to do an upcycled version of them. In the next week or so I will walk you guys through the elements of a successful smash folio and we will make our own. Hopefully we’ll stick to using materials that are lying around and paper scraps, old maps and brochures, found items and hand made embellishments… Keep reading and let’s start a new smashing upcycling adventure!

Here are the other blog-posts in this series.

Part 1 https://alteredfantasy.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/the-smash-books-craze-and-how-to-start-a-smashing-upcycling-adventure-part-1/

Part 2 https://alteredfantasy.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/the-smash-books-craze-and-how-to-start-a-smashing-upcycling-adventure-part-2/

Part 3  https://alteredfantasy.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/the-smash-books-craze-and-how-to-start-a-smashing-upcycling-adventure-a-bit-of-a-detour-part-3/

Part 4  https://alteredfantasy.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/the-smash-books-craze-and-how-to-start-a-smashing-upcycling-adventure-back-on-track-part-4/

Part 5  https://alteredfantasy.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/the-smash-books-craze-and-how-to-start-a-smashing-upcycling-adventure-part-5/

Part 6 https://alteredfantasy.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/the-smash-books-craze-and-how-to-start-a-smashing-upcycling-adventure-journeys-end-part-6/