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

I love the idea of a scrapbooking kit: a collection of beautiful crafting items curated by a designer who has an idea for how they will go together, but sets you free with the supplies to make unique projects in your style. But subscribing to a kit is a delicate matter, because budgets change, styles change, favourite products and techniques change… but with a kit subscription, you’re stuck with everything that arrives in the box. No more, no less.

On the other hand, you can shop from scratch. But for most of us, that’s now an online activity. (If you have a local store, support it! Go shopping!) It can be tiresome to look at the screen for a long time, trying to imagine what the products look like in person, guessing what green will go with that yellow. It makes it dangerous to take a risk on a new brand or colour or product, because it might not be as useful in real life as I imagined.

To me, the Best of Both Worlds is a monthly shopping list that gives you the ease of a curated collection with the flexibility to add, remove, and change items from the list. It’s something I used to do seven or eight years ago, and it was great fun to put the kit together then use it up with videos to share those projects. But the shop I worked with then is long gone, and the idea went with it. But I think it’s just the right time to bring it back. Best of Both Worlds, from me in 2020, with affiliate shopping links to Scrapbook.com! It’s all ready to go now!

Here’s the schedule for things: I will update the shopping list just before the first Facebook Live of a calendar month. (My Facebook Live broadcasts are Mondays at 1:30pm and Fridays at 9:30am, both UK time.) I’ll be ordering then too, and it takes a while for an order to make it from Arizona to me here in London! But that’s okay – because I’ll be making projects with one kit while the next kit is on its way! This first kit went live on the 6th of July and arrived with me on the 30th, so I started creating with it on the 31st of July, but let’s call it the August kit. The September list will be available for shopping on Monday the 3rd of August, but I’ll be making stuff with it throughout September. I will be sharing process videos using the kit supplies on both my Facebook Live videos (where there is lots of informal, non-scrapbook chit chat) and my YouTube channel (where there is no off-topic discussion and I focus on scrapbook talk only), and then I very much hope I can stay up to date with sharing all of that here so it’s in one place and easy for you to come back and reference.

Here’s a video walk through of what’s in my August 2020 kit! Remember, this is the kit that went live at the beginning of July, so many items on the shopping list are now sold out. But that’s okay! You are welcome – even encouraged! – to shop your stash for similar products that could work just as well without you needing to shop. And if you prefer, you can take the shopping list to another store of your choice! If you are shopping, leave out items you won’t use or double up on papers you love. Make it work for you. I originally had the turquoise (swimming pool) enamel dots on the shopping list and they sold out very quickly so I changed the list to yellow (bumblebee), but you could choose any colour in the kit for your enamel dots or use a variety of colours if you have a stash of half-used sheets at home. If you don’t stamp, don’t add the stamps and ink and you’ll have a less expensive kit without waste. If you do stamp but already have lots of camera stamps or plenty of ink pads, you can leave those off too. That’s the Best of Both Worlds idea: you can keep it simple and add one of everything to your cart or you can shop selectively to suit your needs perfectly.

The Best of Both Worlds shopping list can be found here, and will automatically change over to the new list on the first Live of each calendar month – you won’t need a new link. So here’s also an itemised list so you can see the individual items I’ll be working with over the course of August 2020.

Thanks so much for your support and interest in this project! If you share your supplies all gathered (from a shop or from your stash) or any projects you make with this kit, please tag me @shimelle and add the hashtag #shimelleBOBW so we can all see the different projects made from the same supplies. I can’t wait to see what you make!

Okay, third day in a row and now I’ll be all caught up sharing my makes for Paige Taylor Evans’ blog! This time I went with her Seashell cut file to scrapbook some photos of Ariel and Eric from The Little Mermaid!

You can find the full write up on Paige’s blog, or watch this video to see how it all came together.

You can find Bloom Street and the Silhouette Cameo to order through that dandy affiliate link (thanks!) and find the cut file here or by searching for it on the Silhouette Design Store.

Have you spotted that all the pages I’ve made for Paige’s blog are Disney projects? No coincidence there – there’s a lot of magic in Paige’s designs! This and a few other seashells she offers are great for photos of meeting Ariel, be it at Bon Voyage Breakfast like this (a character meal with two princes! Huzzah!) or with her feeling a bit more under-the-sea in her grotto at the Magic Kingdom.

Shhh, don’t laugh at me too much but I got a bit behind in posting my pages for Paige over here, so I have another one today. And also tomorrow. Ha! At any rate, today it’s all about an easy-peasy start to mixed media with your cut files. You can find this project on Paige Taylor Evans’ blog and this time I went with her Best Friends Forever cut file for a big title that could also hold some photos. The title was cut from smooth white cardstock and most of the rest of the page comes from Paige’s Bloom Street collection.

You can find the full write up at Paige’s blog, or watch how it all came together in this video. This is a very easy intro to mixed media and I promise you can do it!

You can find the Bloom Street collection and indeed the Silhouette Cameo to order through that dandy affiliate link (thanks!) and find the cut file here or by searching for ‘Best Friends Forever’ on the Silhouette Design Store.

Here’s also a look at the layout that inspired me to keep going with the Best Friends theme! This is one I made with my Never Grow Up collection plus a bit of Sparkle City while scrapping on Facebook Live.

Hello hello! It’s my turn to share a design team page on Paige Taylor Evans’ blog and this time I went with her Speech Bubbles Background. Once that was cut from smooth white cardstock, I set myself the challenge of using just one 12×12 paper pad and one #StickerBook to complete the whole page.

You can find the full write up at Paige’s blog, or watch how it all came together in this video.

You can find the Bloom Street Paper Pad and the Paige Evans #StickerBook to order through that dandy affiliate link (thanks!) and find the cut file here or by searching for it on the Silhouette Design Store.

This photo was from a solo day at Disneyland back in January of this year. I can’t skip character meets just because I’m by myself – it’s part of the fun and definitely part of the magic! But there’s not always a substantial story for these photos beyond the fact that they make me smile a lot, so I love pairing them with big designs that offer a chance to just play with product and make something new to me!

_{Scrapbook page by Victoria Calvin of Victoria Marie Scraps}

I’ve been curious about how scrapbookers would take to Patreon, an online platform that processes subscriptions for creators to offer perks to those extra special followers. I’ve followed Victoria Calvin on both Instagram and YouTube for a long while now, so I suddenly had to ask myself why I hadn’t joined her Patreon community, so I made my pledge and signed right up. It turns out there is a wealth of content included in the membership and all my quarantine insomnia need not fear, because I can just sit here and watch Victoria scrapbook 24/7 if I need to, and actually, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all.

This page is one I made recently on Facebook Live, but it was entirely inspired by a sketch and accompanying process video Victoria posted in her Patreon community. And yes, that photo is most definitely a throw back – that’s Wonder Boy’s first EVER character meet! I’ve scrapbooked this photo years ago, but I just love this image and working with that memory was exactly the creative pick me up I needed for the day!

(I scrapbook live on Facebook twice a week – Mondays at 1:30pm and Fridays at 9:30am, UK time – almost every week of the year. You can find more info here.)

Although Victoria and I definitely have differences in our creative styles and our video delivery, we also have a lot in common, and if you like the sorts of videos I upload to YouTube and include in my classes, I would bet you will also enjoy Victoria’s videos. They are straight forward and her education background is clear, and the pages she makes are layered and lovely! I love Victoria’s enthusiasm for the craft and also for telling stories. I always want to read the journaling on her pages.

_{Scrapbook page by Victoria Calvin of Victoria Marie Scraps}

You can find Victoria on YouTube and Instagram as well as her Patreon community. Her Patreon membership tiers range from $5 to $10 USD per month, which includes a great deal of video content, and when you join you can access everything from the past too, so that’s a serious amount of videos to watch. There are sketch videos but also other themes, and there are some live lessons, like a recent session covering ideas for what to do with a surplus of 3×4 and 4×6 cards when you create more traditional full-sized pages than pocket pages. Patreon memberships don’t have a set time frame, so you’re not tied down if one day you realise you don’t have the spare cash or the spare time to scrapbook!

Our family project in 2020 is to watch the collection of Disney animated films from the beginning, in release order. (Huzzah for streaming services, because that’s a lot of DVDs to track down.) With every film, we make sure we always have some reading, some making, and some play! We’re up to Sleeping Beauty just in time for Mother’s Day in America… or hopefully the arrival of some warmer weather here in the UK. Our Mother’s Day is in March, but the lovely Hailee and Jasmin from Bounding on a Budget are from California, and they invited us to play along with the quarantine challenge of a Disney-themed mother and child day, with crafting and snacks! Sounds like our kind of day, and shhh, but I am cool with having two Mother’s Days this year.

Dressing up is a big part of play in our house, and Wonder Boy (now SIX YEARS OLD?!) loves Disneybounding (or ‘dressing like characters’ as he has long called it) so much that he will choose my clothes as well as his own. We dressed as the always brave Prince Philip and a very ‘make it pink’ Aurora. His top tip for princes: a red cape comes in handy! He cut this one himself from some plain red cotton fabric, and has worn it to be Snow White’s prince as well.

I was just slightly too old when Polly Pocket toys hit the scene: they were always the toys my little sister had that I secretly wished I had too. We love the Disney Animators’ Micro Playsets for a very similar reason: all the little pieces and lots of detail! They come with a good selection of characters for retelling a story or making your own adventure, so that’s brilliant for youthful creativity! The Sleeping Beauty set includes Briar Rose, Prince Philip, Flora, Fauna, Merryweather, Owl, and the leaning birthday cake and a table, plus there’s a blind bag. He got a squirrel to add to the woodland adventures! He’s a big fan of how these little sets pack up with a handle so you can take them along for adventures. He’d quite like to take this one to the wooded part of our park once it is open again!

Then time for some making! His request today was painting, so we brought out our watercolour paper and Mickey-shaped paints! There’s a Sleeping Beauty Mother’s Day card on the Disney Family website, and I printed that design straight onto the watercolour paper. (The thicker paper may need a little help to get picked up by the printer wheels, as a heads up!)

We like to tape the paper to the desk or a clipboard with watercolour, so it’s less likely to accidentally smear the painting with your non-painting hand! If you have little ones who tend to rush their painting and not be totally happy, and you have the luxury of the time, you may find they slow down if you sit near them. WB will slow right down and look at little details if he can tell me all about them. As soon as I stand up, he heads back to big broad brushstrokes. Though at this age, I love both!

We had two Sleeping Beauty books for our reading list today: one old and one new! We’ve been picking up secondhand copies of the Disney Wonderful World of Reading collection for years, and have a beautiful rainbow of their spines on our bookcase. Of course there was a Sleeping Beauty title in the collection! These books always have to leave out substantial parts of a movie to get the storyline to fit the short story format, so a great way to link the books to the films and check understanding is to ask your child what’s missing from the storybook! This book left out the entire time Aurora went to live with the fairies in the cottage! Our new book is such a beautiful treat: there’s a Sleeping Beauty edition of the Story Orchestra, a special series of books that play classical music as you read the story. We know Disney films for including hundreds of brilliant original songs, but Sleeping Beauty’s music is largely based on Tchaikovsky’s ballet, so it’s a great way to introduce a classical piece and to tune in on melodies we might recognise even when they don’t have words. (I particularly like that these books can grow with the child, as they tell a fairy tale and play pretty music, but they also include musical terminology and information about the composer and his style at the back of the book.)

While his painting dried, we mixed up some pancake batter to make a Sleeping Beauty snack: a towering stack of pancakes with blue whipped cream and sprinkles – just like Briar Rose’s birthday cake! Hands down, my favourite pancakes in the world are from Clinton Street Bakery in New York (please don’t tell Mickey) and learning that they whisk their egg whites was a game changer for our breakfasts. Later a WDW chef told me they follow the same technique with the batter for Mickey Waffles! We made our pancakes with just a tablespoon of batter each, so the stack could be as high as possible, then topped them with blue whipped cream (literally whipping cream, blue food colouring, a sprinkle of sugar, and whisk until it thickens!) and plenty of sprinkles! We use this recipe, but substitute the milk and butter (as well as the whipping cream!) for the same quantities of dairy-free alternatives to cope with an allergy. I’ve had both versions over the years and the recipe comes out delish either way.

Wishing you a very happy day, wherever you may be, and may it be filled with the magic of Sleeping Beauty! Thank you Hailee and Jasmin for inviting us to share our day with you!

A few of you have requested more examples using my Never Grow Up collection* recently. It seemed like the perfect time to share a scrapbook page composition that would work well with either small scraps or something like the 6×8 paper pad*!

*Just to be super clear, these are affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through this link, I’ll receive a commission which won’t cost you anything extra! Hooray!

My small assistant starts us off with a watercolour project. If you’d like to get straight to the scrapbooking, scrub ahead to the 22 minute mark. Thanks!

I used the rainbow ledger paper* as the base but a clean white base will work as well. This is a really quick way to use some of those little scraps and papers you have lingering in your stash.

I’d love to know how you like to use your small scraps! And if you’re sharing pages with this collection, please tag me and add the hashtag #ACnevergrowup!

I’m excited to share a new free mini class, Timeless Layout Techniques. I filmed this in the Scrapbook.com studio in January and it’s available now, with three videos taking you through some core page design principles that always lead to pleasing pages. The examples use my Never Grow Up and Field Trip collections, but the ideas presented are not specific to those collections and are techniques I use with all styles of paper designs.

This video is a teaser, and you can access three full videos by viewing the class at scrapbook.com. Class is free!

My goal when I teach is never for you to just copy my project. I always want you to walk away feeling confident that you can take the ideas and make something completely your own! You can use these tips with stash you’ve had in your cupboard for fifteen years or you can use the latest and greatest scrapbooking products to be released. (Have a need to see what’s new? I have a handy, dandy affiliate link for that! Scrapbook.com always has a section of brand new products! But seriously: use what you have and you love. I love a good shopping day too, but it really, really brings me joy to use what I have and love and to see you breathe new life into the papers you bought with the best of intentions but let them sit for a while.)

In each of the three videos, I focus on one composition technique that can become a go to for building pages with any product you like and putting things in places that will get you started and created pages that are pleasing to the eye, and don’t take hours to make either.

If you create pages inspired by Timeless Layout Techniques, please share! I’d love to see what you’re making in the gallery at scrapbook.com or by tagging me @shimelle if you share your pages on Instagram.