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

Thank you for your interest in my 2023 Album Mindset class. This is a class coming soon and I have not yet published all the details. If you would like to go ahead and sign up before those details, you can do that here. Please understand there is no pressure to do so and you will be able to sign up at the same price once the details are published!

The starter course is $15 USD and each month’s videos will be $5, with those being published as soon as I have finished those entries so it won’t be published on a set date every month or anything like that. You’ll be able to add each month individually once it is ready or if you would like to sign up all in one go, you can do that here and I will not charge for November or December. January and February are already covered, so that means the price for all the months is $40USD, meaning a total of $55 for the whole year’s album content. PLEASE understand if you choose the $55 option that this is not being updated at a certain time each month. ONLY sign up for the $55 if you are cool with seeing these things as they come together in real life time scales, and otherwise just add each month for the $5 once it is live and ready, okay? I don’t want anyone upset that it’s not all ready at the same time each month. It won’t be! :)

Okay, $15 for the starter class covering philosophy, my process, and all the February pages:

Or $55 for the starter class PLUS all the monthly updates for 2023:

Any questions, email me: shimelle@gmail.com. Also email me if your PayPal address is not where you want to receive emails from me.

Thanks so much and we’ll talk more soon!

With all the fun of Creativation just finished, thousands of beautiful new papers, stamps, and embellishments are on their way to shops and then to your hands. But if I’m honest, I still have a few things from last year’s new releases sitting on my shelf, just sitting and looking pretty. It’s time for them to do something! And the time is now, so they can have their moment of glory on a beautiful new scrapbook page before brand new products arrive and eclipse my older favourites.

Clear the Desk is a short online class to help with just this. Through a series of eight videos, we’ll gather our supplies and create new pages with a focus on using patterned paper, stamps, and embellishments. (If you are not a stamper, you can opt for more stickers and other embellishments; likewise you can stamp more and use fewer premade items if that’s your style.) The example layouts feature a variety of photos sizes, including mini prints, 4×6 prints, and A4 enlargements. Most of the examples are 12×12 single page layouts but there is one two page spread and one pocket page as well.

You are welcome to use any supplies you have to hand and the aim is to not do any shopping for this class – that way you’ll be making room to welcome your new supplies! If you are a kit club subscriber, you’re welcome to use one or more kits to follow along. If you buy all your supplies individually, the very first video will walk you through the gathering stage of this process so you can choose what you want to move from your stash into your albums!

Class begins Tuesday the 20th of February 2018 and runs two weeks until the 6th of March. You can, however, sign up at any time to access the class materials. If you would like to participate at the same time as others, then join in now for the live run!

Clear the Desk is just £10 or $15, but for the first time I’m also offering a year-long class membership should you wish to automatically join in all the classes I teach throughout 2018. The 2018 class pass is £100 or $150, which is less than the total of all my new classes for the coming year. Should you not already be signed up for the annual classes Learn Something New and Journal your Christmas, these would also be included for further savings, but they are not including in that total of ‘new’ classes – just an extra bonus if you haven’t already sign up for those. I realise the annual class pass is not the right option for everyone and I will always offer every class individually, but I’ve had some of you request this option for several years and it seems the best time to give it a try! This offer will only be available until the end of February 2018, and then will close and classes will be available individually. If it helps with your decision, classes on the schedule for this year include layering, choosing colour combinations, journaling, page composition, and photography. Some classes are longer and more in-depth and others are a shorter two week format like Clear the Desk.

No matter how you sign up for any of my classes, you have permanent access to all the class materials. There are no deadlines and you can work on any schedule that suits you.

Do be careful to choose the option you want, of course!

Access to all shimelle.com classes for the whole of 2018: £100 or $150.

Or sign up for just Clear the Desk on its own: £10 or $15.

I’ll talk more about Clear the Desk between now and the 20th, when we get started, and of course you can email me any time with any questions and I’ll help in any way I can!

Have a great day and see what’s still sitting on your desk! I hope to see you in class soon.

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When I need to rediscover my creativity, I do three things.

I listen to the score from Amelie on repeat.
I go to the V&A.
I buy a new box of crayons.

Somewhere between the sound of the piano, the colour of the museum, and the smell of the crayons, lies my reset button, and it is a very powerful thing in my life. But it’s a life I refuse to take too seriously. Enter Box of Crayons, my shout out to crafters that I understand the need to make things, the need to use all the colours in the box, and the need to order the milkshake that comes topped with candy floss and a lollipop just to see it on your table. Let’s make stuff, okay?

This collection will debut in full this weekend at the Creativation trade show in Arizona, but my first samples of some of the products arrived today and I’m allowed to give you a look. I shared everything straight out of the box today on my Instagram Stories, so you can see some products there. You can also see more on the American Crafts blog.

Here’s a look at all of the papers, a and b sides, and the three paper pads: 6×6, 12×12 project pad, and the 6×8 writing pad.

Box of Crayons is scheduled to ship to stores from the 19th of February, so I hope you’ll enjoy cutting and sticking with all things bright and colourful all spring and summer this year! There will be plenty of projects to share as I get a chance to cut into all those papers, and can’t wait to see what you make too. If you share your projects on social media, please add the hashtag #ACboxofcrayons and tag me so I don’t miss your creative genius!

Oh, and one more thing. There are these:

NAVY BLUE THICKERS.

Because you know that thing where you open the fridge to see if there’s anything you want when you know full well the contents of said fridge? I open my Thickers drawer at least six times a day looking for navy blue. And there is never navy blue.

BUT NOW THERE WILL BE.

I’m a little excited about that. That and new boxes of crayons.

Stop and say hi if you’re at the show this weekend!

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I know we’ve had this conversation before: sticker books were one of my favourite parts of childhood. I can say that loudly and proudly in front of scrapbookers because you probably had ten one too. I loved collecting the stickers and trading the stickers and finding the right page and placement for the stickers. I especially loved the part of the process where I was far too young for a job and needed to find every available moment to convince my mother I needed new stickers. And I loved sitting in my room when I was supposed to be asleep, quietly turning the pages under the lamplight to catch all the little foils and glimmers and shines on the most special of all the stickers in my book.

Tell me this is not crazy talk and it has long been time to bring back sticker books. Sticker books should never have left.

So I’m rather excited by this new collection from American Crafts that is actually called #StickerBook and it’s made up of… books of stickers. Yep. Big books of stickers from all the different designers and collections you know and love: Amy Tangerine, Dear Lizzy, Heidi Swapp, Vicki Boutin, Maggie Holmes, Jen Hadfield, Paige Evans, 1Canoe2, and me too! Each book has thirty pages of stickers, so you can trade and stick on repeat for a long while before you’re running anywhere near low. These stickers also have a thinner profile than the cardstock stickers of our collections, making them great for things like planners where bulk can be a real concern.

My sticker book has over 2000 stickers, thanks to several pages that have lots of tiny pieces designed to be scattered around the page in the same way I often use enamel dots and mist. It has the same colour palette as the Glitter Girl collection, with lots of brights and also gold foil and iridescent holographic finishes. Because 1987 me was very serious about her iridescent holographic finishes, and just maybe this is my gift to her.

You can collect all the #StickerBook editions from HobbyLobby stores in the US, or your favourite paper craft retailer, like here.

I’ve used my #StickerBook on a few Friday Live pages now, and here’s the most recent – it is definitely possible to find plenty of stickers in this book that are not pink and purple. (But if you need pink and purple, when yeah: you are covered.)

Here’s the full Friday Live session if you want to see this page from start to finish, alongside plenty of random Friday afternoon chitchat! (This week Friday Live moves to a new time – 1:45pm UK time. You can join in live on Facebook.)

And now… which of these sticker books will make it to your collection? I can’t wait to see them on your desk and the stickers on your projects! I won’t even tell your mum if you’re up late looking at page after page of shiny stickers. I promise.

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While I’ve been all things Most Magical Scrapbook all the time, I’ve just saved enough time to do a Friday Live scrapbooking video each week on Facebook, but it’s only now that I’ve had a moment to update here! For those of you don’t do Facebook, no worries: here’s an ongoing feed of the Friday Live videos. If you’re used to the style I post on my YouTube channel or in my classes, be warned: Friday Live is very different. No editing. Lots of chit-chat with those who are watching and typing in comments, many of which have nothing to do with scrapbooking. But you can definitely see each layout come together from start to finish, just with a very different delivery method.

This layout came from a challenge I used earlier that day: to take a look at this Pinterest board of scrapbook pages and choose one for me to scrap lift. The gorgeous layout chosen was by Cassie Box and I adore hers and mine too, so many thanks Cassie for sharing your beautiful work! Supplies for this page are from the Glitter Girl collection, plus the ‘today’ word from a Dear Lizzy Thickers set, some older American Crafts pearl brads, and a few assorted enamel dots.

Next up: a challenge to actually use plenty of unicorns, because so many of you have told me you love them but have no idea where to put them on a page. From the looks of things, my answer to that is everywhere.

Everything on this page is from the Glitter Girl collection, bar a scrap of plain white vellum for the journaling!

Time to head back a bit and add something to my Harry Potter album from the studio tour several years ago. It’s a cupboard under the stairs page!

The papers here are from my Starshine collection, plus chipboard pieces, star stickers, and stamps from assorted Studio Calico kits over the years.

Another challenge that has come up with the Glitter Girl collection is how to use it for boy photos… and I’m definitely game for that! Today, my answer is to mix it with some very old favourites to pull out the greens and blues in the Glitter Girl colour palette.

The copper vellum on this page is from my Go Now Go collection, and everything else is a mix of Glitter Girl and some vintage products from the days of Love, Elsie and KI Memories. (Nope, I have no shame in keeping supplies for ten years if I still like them!)

I can’t believe I am scrapping first day of school photos, but I am! I started with three photos for this page but ended up making two layouts that face each other in the album, one this week and one the next. Also, the connection went very skewif midway through the broadcast this time, so the video is in two parts.

Supplies for this one are a mix of Glitter Girl (just without the pink elements!), Go Now Go, and Elle’s Studio – the yellow background paper is an older Elle’s Studio paper and the stamps are that amazing Title Builder stamp set that I love so much. Plus green letter stickers from my old favourite, Sassafras!

Then another boy page to face that one – this time really working with the green rather than the lighter shades!

The green paper in the background is ancient, from Scenic Route, and the rainbow of stripes down the side is equally vintage, from KI Memories. But the darker cloud paper is from my Starshine collection and the rainbow cloud print is from Glitter Girl, as is the funky star paperclip. Red letters are Sassafras, gold foil Thickers from 1Canoe2, woodgrain papers from LilyBee, and a few stickers from something coming to stores soon that I wasn’t really supposed to show you yet but I didn’t realise. Whoops.

Then there was the week that it seemed like computers were plotting against me. I started the video in landscape and it moved to portrait. So I started again and it went to portrait again. I tried a third time and it was not the charm… so in the end, I just scrapped sideways so you can see it the right way but oh man it was a weird week.

Mostly Glitter Girl supplies here, plus a background stamp from October Afternoon, the Title Builder stamp set from Elle’s Studio, pink Thickers from Amy Tangerine, and an awesome Inkadinkado coffee stamp I’ve had for years and haven’t used nearly enough!

And then I found the answer and the video didn’t flip this week! HUZZAH!

Again it’s the Glitter Girl collection minus the pink… but plus florals so who knows what’s happening there. The florals are one of my favourite products of all time – Foldies from Sassafras. I have a good stockpile of them still. Plus some die-cuts and 3×4 cards from last year’s Studio Calico kits.

Annnnnnnd that brings you up to date with what I’ve been making! Perhaps I’ll see you this Friday for Friday Live! You can find me live pretty much every week here on Facebook and there’s also the Scrapbook like a Superhero Facebook group for sharing what you’re making too.

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Hello October! This brings my one little slip when I must start talking about Christmas before November – this week is the time to pre-order if you’d like a 2017 Christmas in a Box kit or any of the stamps! This year there are a few options: the full, complete kit, including the word and number stamp sheets plus papers and embellishments, to ship either from me here in the UK or from Blue Moon Scrapbooking in the USA; just the word and number stamp sheets, or a third sheet of stamps that can be added on or purchased individually. Let me tell you more!

Shall we look at the stamps first? This is the word sheet…

…and this is the number sheet. These are 4×6 inch stamp sets and are both included in the full Christmas in a Box kit. They can also be purchased as a set without the kit, if you prefer.

And here’s something new for 2017: a stamp add-on! This Christmas Carol stamp set is also 4×6 and is NOT included in the kit. It can be purchased in addition to the kit, in addition to the other stamps, or all on its own.

Here’s more of what you’ll find packed into Christmas in a Box: lots of 12×12 paper, including red, a few shades of green, and some aqua and blue for balance, enamel dots, flat letter stickers and Thickers, puffy stickers, and more embellishments. Everything is chosen for a mix of specifically Christmas things alongside patterns that can be used year-round for the everyday. This way you can incorporate your leftover supplies into your stash in January without building up year after year of supplies you only use at Christmas.

I am happy to report that the US option for kits this year will be a full kit rather than having to shop for the kit contents. If you do prefer to shop for individual items, I will make that list available next month.

Christmas in a Box is the kit I use to make my Christmas journal, and if you’re following along with the Journal your Christmas class, you’ll see the kit in action every day in the class videos.

Kits ship from the UK and the US, stamps on their own ship from the UK. If you’re in another country, you can choose where you would like your kit to ship from, and the additional shipping will be billed at the cost from the postal service. From the UK, this about £9 for Europe and £14 beyond Europe for the full kit.

When you pre-order, you pay a deposit of half your kit price now and the remaining half when your kit is boxed and ready to ship. For UK addresses, that’s £20 now for a total kit price of £40. For US addresses, that’s $25 now, for a total kit price of $50. Those prices include shipping.

If you have plenty of Christmas stash and would just like this year’s stamps, that’s available too. The set of two sheets – words and numbers – is £18, which includes postage anywhere in the world. The deposit to pre-order is £9, with the remaining £9 due when they are packed and ready to ship to you.

The Christmas Carol stamp set is available as an additional item or on its own. That’s £9, including postage anywhere in the world. The deposit to pre-order is £4.50, with the remaining £4.50 due when ready to ship to you.

Pre-orders have now closed. Thank you! A very limited supply of kits and stamps will be available without placing a deposit, but those numbers are truly very few. If you would like to reserve a kit with no worry, pre-ordering is your friend.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me and I’ll help in any way I can.

Thanks so much, and I promise you can now go right back to autumn and not think more about Christmas until at least November!

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Black cardstock is totally what comes to mind when you decide to scrapbook with rainbow-print patterned paper, right? Yep, that’s what I thought too.

Or maybe that’s not where I started at all. But that’s where the last Friday Live scrapping session took me!

The supplies for this page are a mix of the new Glitter Girl collection, Amy Tangerine’s Oh Happy Life, and green glitter Thickers in the Eclair font, which I may have been holding onto for longer than I care to admit.

Friday Live happens on my Facebook page and I’d love for you to join me! The next Friday Live is the 11th of August at 3:45pm UK time, 10:45am Eastern.

Happy scrapping! And let me know what you pair your rainbows with, of course!

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It doesn’t matter how often you create pages or how many years you’ve been scrapbooking, certain events are just extra special. It might be a wedding album or a baby album or a special travel adventure, but these special times bring up all the emotions for scrapbookers: so excited to scrapbook these photos; so nervous about getting it just right.

Of course, that’s exactly what happened when I came back from very special holiday to Disney World last October. So, so excited and absolutely bursting with stories and in love with so many photos. I wanted to get all the feelings from my heart and all the moments from my head and get them on paper in a way that captured it all with exactly the right… everything. Which is maybe just a little, tiny bit intimidating. Where on earth could I start?

But I caught my breath, approached things with a balance of practicality, order, and creative spontaneity, and recorded the entire thing from start to finish to share with you. It’s my most magical scrapbook ever.

In this class, you’ll receive colour PDFs with all the layouts in my scrapbook, sketches for those layouts and some variations thereof, and notes on design, journaling, and photography. And then there are the videos. More videos than I’ve ever assembled for a class! That includes a video on photo and printing organisation, album planning, then all the process videos for every layout in the class. Even if you have no interest in ever scrapbooking a theme park trip in your entire life, you’ll have a library of more than forty brand new page videos that are only available in this class. The layouts include single pages, double pages, and pocket pages. There are small photos, 4×6 photos, and large photos. There are pages with one photo and pages with many photos. I use a varied range of supplies throughout the album and share different techniques so every single page and video has its own unique focus. (I agree, forty pages of the same supplies would be pretty uninspiring viewing, and not nearly as fun for me to make either!)

In case you are a Disney fan and are planning a trip in the future, the class materials also include my top tips that I call ‘Disney for Scrapbookers’, including how and where to get super scrappable photos, where I fuel my Disney inspiration when I’m thousands of miles from the parks, and quick habits for during your trip that can make the process of making your album later all that more magical and enjoyable.

My album includes pages from our travel to Florida, the four main Disney parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom), the two main Universal Parks (largely the Wizarding World of Harry Potter but also a few other snippets like Dr Seuss and Jurassic Park), and our hotel (we stayed at Port Orleans Riverside), covering about twelve days with lots of detail. But nothing in the class is so specific that you need to have the same experience and memories. Everything is based on tailoring the inspiration to what will suit you, and that may be a theme park trip that becomes a theme park album like mine, or it could be another type of holiday or intimidating event to scrapbook, or you could use the inspiration from each page for completely unrelated photos you’re scrapping in a variety of albums. There’s no wrong way to participate!

All my classes include permanent access to the class materials and access to a private message board to chat and share what you’ve made.

Class starts Wednesday the 16th of August and runs through the end of September, but there is absolutely no need to keep to that specific schedule. The materials can (and should!) be viewed at your own pace and you can return to them at any time. You can choose your preferred currency: $30 US dollars or £23 British pounds. If neither of those is your home currency, you can check exchange rates at XE and use either button. It will automatically convert to your own currency and you do not need to do anything special. You can pay by credit or debit card or from a Paypal account.

Although the class does not begin until the 16th, when your class registration is processed (within 24 hours of payment), you’ll find a resource in the classroom to keep you entertained while you wait: there is a section with all the Disney and Harry Potter related videos I’ve published in the past, including not just the few from this trip but also many pages from previous trips to Disneyland in California and the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour.

(For those who also do Learn Something New each September, the two will overlap. While I wouldn’t overlap two classes featuring full size pages, I keep Learn Something New very small and true to its original aim of no more than ten minutes per day, so in this case the schedule feels fine.)

If you have any questions at any time, don’t hesitate to send me an email.

I can’t wait to see you in class. Or should I say see ya real soon!

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