pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.}

I’m very aware that I need to spend at least one day this week getting all the posts on this blog updated to include all the projects and videos that have happened since my last update here!

Today I am sharing the October kit live on Facebook at 1:30pm UK time (or you can watch on the replay any time you like). All those videos are found here.

The October kit looks like this:
(These are affiliate links. Thank you for your support, and also feel free to use this list to shop at your local store if you have one!)

And you are welcome to shop your stash for similar items to play along!

If you’re looking for what I’ll scrap with throughout November, that is now available here.

Thanks so much, and I’ll get these posts up to date!

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Update: Pre-orders have no closed. A very limited number of stamps will go on sale shortly, which will be in a separate post here.*

I may not have a full paper release this autumn, but I do have autumn and Christmas Journal stamp sets ready to preorder now! Please be aware this is a preorder, which will be open for one week, and then the stamps will be manufactured and sent to you straight away. These stamps are high quality photopolymer, created here in the UK, and packed and posted by yours truly. Worldwide postage is included in the prices, which are listed in US Dollars (purely because there are more of you reading from the States than from any other country, but you can see what that will convert to in your currency at xe.com).

First up, the autumn set: Courage and Kindness. All the words are individual stamps so you can make several different text blocks by mixing and matching, or inking just ‘kind’ from ‘kindness’. The solid black stamps fit the outline shapes, so you can use different colours of ink to layer the designs.

Next up is the Christmas Journal set for 2020, which is two sheets of stamps as one purchase. Again, the words are made to mix and match for a variety of text block options!

Both sets of stamps will be delivered at the same time, please be aware that the autumn stamps will be arriving late in autumn. I decided I would rather go ahead and offer them, since we often scrapbook things after the fact! But please be aware they might not arrive in time to make Halloween cards, if you are a cardmaker!

Any questions, please email me. I’ve had to turn off comments on the blog because I get some rather not-family-friendly spam! Egad. So email me. Please. Happy to chat!

Thanks so much!

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_{This post includes affiliate links to scrapbook.com, where I bought my supplies for this page.}

When we created the Field Trip die-cut specialty paper, my intention was that it could be used for several pages: all or some of the inner pieces could be added to page plus you could then back the frame with other papers to make another layout. In the end, I made three pages with the inner punch outs, and intended to fill the background frame with scraps from the other papers in the kit.

Problem: I used the other papers up and was left without scraps big enough to fill the spaces. Whoops.

So I’ve gone outside the kit this time, but just to my scrap basket. (Which is in a bag at the moment. It will go back to a basket soon, though. The bag is breaking my brain.) And pulled out scraps in eight colours: brick red and gold, emerald green and silver, royal blue and grey, and butter yellow and black. I can’t imagine why. Spoilers: I didn’t make the blanket. (My lovely friend Vic made it for me for my birthday. Eeeep.)

After this, I’m clearly down to the dregs of my kit, but I have a plan for one more page to use up what’s left. If I manage that one too, it means I will have made FIFTEEN 12×12 pages from this kit. My original hope was six or seven, so this is a level of madness unexpected by even me. Well, we all know I love a little MOAR. Apparently, that means more pages this time around!

This post includes links to all the supplies in the August kit, and the hashtag #shimelleBOBW is filled with pages made with those supplies!

_{This post includes affiliate links to scrapbook.com, where I bought my supplies for this page.}

I love the clean design and the sentiments in this PinkFresh cut apart paper but I’m running out of embellishments yet still have plenty of these cut-apart designs left! Time to put them to work to build a background. (Yep. More white cardstock. Seriously, I put more patterned paper in the September kit to see if that makes a difference.)

This Facebook Live session has two parts: the first 25 minutes are a look at September’s kit (see those product picks here go through suggestions should you wish to make a similar kit from your own stash. After the 25 minute mark, you’ll find the process video for this page.

In the end, a page to document a return to running in our park by this time taking Wonder Boy along for the journey, except he always looks way cooler than me. True story.

This post includes links to all the supplies in the August kit, and the hashtag #shimelleBOBW is filled with pages made with those supplies. If you share your work inspired by this page or using this kit, please add that tag so we can all see what you make.

_{This post includes affiliate links to scrapbook.com, where I bought my supplies for this page.}

There’s not much left of my August Best of Both Worlds kit at this point, but there is a fair amount hanging out on this sticker sheet from Paige’s Bloom Street collection. Including five tags! Surely that’s enough to basically make a page? Add ink and a stencil and… white cardstock (seriously, I have been abducted by aliens and I’m now a pod person who reaches for white cardstock all the time?) and it seems to be possible!

This post includes links to all the supplies in the August kit, and the hashtag #shimelleBOBW is filled with pages made with those supplies!

_{This post includes affiliate links to scrapbook.com, where I bought my supplies for this page.}

The August Best of Both World kit includes two different patterned papers that can break down into squares of about 2×2 inches: this PinkFresh rainbow grid and this Simple Stories Kate & Ash cut apart. Grabbing more of that trusty (ha! more like treacherous!) white cardstock, I combined most of my left over squares from the two papers to create this page documenting the day we drew an ocean of fish on the playground pavement.

The journaling on this page goes around the outside edge of the page, and documents a bit about ‘how’ we go to the playground in 2020 – how we go when it’s quiet and leave when it’s too busy, that we can leave without question when either of us feels overwhelmed, understanding that all children – even your friends – may not want to play right now in the ways they have before. Or they just might! Those sorts of things are important to me in documenting this time in our lives. I’m not making full pages dedicated entirely to how life has changed, but instead using my happy photos to celebrate the good times while recording the differences in a way that helps me stay uplifted. Remember your scrapbooking process can be as therapeutic as you want it to be, so find the things that make it just right for you.

For links to the supplies and indeed all about this first month of Best of Both Worlds scrapbooking kits – including how you are totally welcome to play along with the supplies you already have in your stash – please see this post.

If you make a page inspired by this project and share it online, please tag me @shimelle and add the hashtag #shimelleBOBW so we can all share ideas together!

_{This post includes affiliate links to scrapbook.com, where I bought my supplies for this page.}

We’ve used the Oh Snap Catherine Pooler stamps with tiny pieces of patterned paper, but what about them just on their own, with ink and white cardstock? Plus I have just one piece of the ‘pie’ left from my Field Trip die-cut punch outs… and I’d really like plenty of room left to tell a very specific story about one 4×6 photo. Hmmm…

This page was created during a Facebook Live session, so prepare for the off-topic banter.

If you like how this stamped background came out and you’re also a lover of more colourful pages, this one might spark some ideas for you! That’s a much less limited colour palette!

For links to all the supplies in this month of Best of Both Worlds scrapbooking kits – or ideas for making a similar kit from your existing stash – please see this post.

If you make a page inspired by this project and share it online, please tag me @shimelle and add the hashtag #shimelleBOBW so we can all share ideas together!

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A spectrum of patterned paper squares, and plenty of stickers left in my kit stash? Sounds like it’s time for some scrapbook rainbows! Today I’m scrapbooking three 4×6 photos, from our lockdown dressing up adventures – this time in honour of Newsies.

One of the things I wanted to include in this video is how some times my ideas don’t quite work and I make a change midway through. I always find I am happier with the end result if I go ahead and change whatever is bothering me rather than carry on. Every so often, I go through my old pages and remove those that don’t speak to me and don’t tell a story I want preserved, and while I don’t remove many, it is almost always the ones where something wasn’t quite right in the middle of making the page but I kept going… and years later, still all I see is the thing I didn’t like! As a result, I now try to be more accepting of changing my plans even if I’m halfway through making a page.

For links to the supplies and indeed all about this first month of Best of Both Worlds scrapbooking kits – including how you are totally welcome to play along with the supplies you already have in your stash – please see this post.

If you make a page inspired by this project and share it online, please tag me @shimelle and add the hashtag #shimelleBOBW so we can all share ideas together! If you love scrapbooking with a rainbow of colours, you might also enjoy the #scrapbookrainbows gallery!