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

With December starting tomorrow, it almost feels like Christmas morning to me already! The first day of Journal your Christmas makes the Christmas season real for me and I love sharing the holidays with so many others who love to craft, write or both! When I explain to non-crafters what I do this time of year, I come back to the same sorts of points so I wanted to share my top ten reasons for Journaling your Christmas with you today, just one day from class starting. At the end of this post don’t miss the chance to win $50 to spend on scrapbooking supplies and the winner of the last giveaway.

Remember why this season is important to you.
Do you remember a most magical time when Christmas filled you with excitement and happiness? Whether that was from circling every toy in the special Christmas catalogue or from the nativity play at church, there is absolutely no reason why you can’t love Christmas just as much as an adult. Journaling your Christmas isn’t just about this year: it’s about all the wonderful memories of Christmas past. (We even talk a bit about how to brighten up the not-so-amazing memories by putting everything into perspective.) Journaling your Christmas brings together your very own Christmas past, present and future – and without any nasty run-ins with a grumpy Ebeneezer Scrooge!

Use what you have and what you love.
You don’t need any special supplies. It’s okay if you haven’t prepared anything. You can jump right in on any day of December with the supplies you have on hand. Embrace your own style – use lots of techniques and spend lots of time if that’s what you love. Likewise, keep things simple and spend just ten minutes a day if that is more suited to you. Your Christmas journal isn’t there to take over your life: it’s there to help you enjoy every minute of the holidays.

Learn about holiday traditions all over the world.
Journal your Christmas participants come from more than forty countries. Hearing the traditions from different nations, neighbourhoods and families inspires me every Christmastime. Many JYC participants have made overseas friends and adopted new family traditions as a result of reading the Christmas stories of others. From advent calendars to candle lighting to recipes for special treats, adding new traditions to your old favourites makes each Christmas special.

Write things with a pen.
Actually, you’re welcome to type if you prefer, of course! But writing things with a pen is quickly disappearing from our world. Yet old notes written in the actual handwriting of someone else tend to be very special to us. I’ll save you all the scientific study of how writing with a pen is a different thought process than typing but suffice to say: I believe in the power of writing things with a pen. And that kind of thought process is especially powerful at Christmas.

Take advantage of simple solutions.
Love the idea of taking back Christmas but don’t fancy adding something ‘big’ to your to-do list? There are simple solutions to help. Like a set of 4×6 cards you can print out tomorrow, write on each day, then add some 4×6 photos at the end of the month and have a finished project as simply as that. (The printable cards even include notes on how to make that finished project as your choice of a 4×6 mini book, an envelope book or full-size album pages using divided page protectors.)

See the changes from year to year.
Journal your Christmas includes permanent membership – participate as many years as you would like. That means your Christmas journals can track the changes in your life. My stack of journals from the past several years document moving house, meeting my husband, getting married, the arrival of two nephews and all sorts of other life milestones, simply by writing about how each Christmas is unique. Journal your Christmas includes lifetime membership so you can revisit the project as many years as you like and track those changes in your very own life story.

Every way is the right way.
There are so many ways to Journal your Christmas and all of them are fabulous. Want to make daily scrapbook pages? Awesome. Want to write a series of blog posts? Fabulous. You can keep a notebook to write your thoughts and not worry about the crafty option. You can create a digital scrapbook. You can record your voice each day to create an audio journal. Also, there’s no pressure to make daily entries. You can pick and choose the topics you would like to explore. Want to make one or two entries a week? Equally cool as daily entries. You might make each page have its own unique design or you might use a set format and just change the words and photos. Want to just read the prompts and think about things to keep a perspective on the season? Go for it! Seriously, any way you want to take this project is totally the right way!

Take inspiring photographs.
There’s so much pressure to get amazing pictures on Christmas morning but often the excitement is there but the photos can’t live up to the real thing. Whether you’re tired of yellowed indoor pictures from dark Christmas mornings or you just want new ideas for photos throughout the season because you’ve taken so many over the years, you’re in for a Christmas photography treat. Every day includes photo tips and tricks and shots from a variety of photographers to inspire you through the viewfinder.

Share the experience with those you choose.
The very first Christmas journal I kept was for my eyes only. I kept it to myself, used it to work out my thoughts during a very rough Christmas season and that was just what I needed. Of course other years I’ve shared every entry in my journal with all the participants in class, and that has been amazing too. Sharing your Christmas journal can really bring the season to life and help you celebrate it fully, but it is always up to you if you share or keep things to yourself. You can share your album with just friends and family, or upload entries to share with other participants on the private class forum or upload entries to your blog, page gallery or Flickr to share with the world. You decide!

Take back your Christmas.
Above all, this is what it’s all about. Don’t let some commercial-crazy world tell you that Christmas is all about keeping up and doing this, that and the other thing that you may or may not enjoy. Journal your Christmas gives you a little window of time each day to relax and tune out any outside pressure. Just because you’re the responsible grown-up now does not mean you can’t love Christmas in the same magical way you did years ago – or an entirely new way that is just right for you. You are in control: take a few minutes each day to remember and you’ll discover this season of joy is exactly what you make it.

Journal your Christmas starts tomorrow, the first of December. You can join us at any time! Want to see what participants had to say about Journal your Christmas? The comments on this post really reminded me why this is my favourite class of the year.

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And because it’s the season of giving, I have a $50 gift card to spend on scrapping supplies of your choice from Two Peas in a Bucket. I’m going to give it to one of you! To enter, leave a comment on this post with a favourite Christmas memory. You only have today to enter! I’ll announce the winner tomorrow.

And the winner from the weekend giveaway?

Congratulations Jennifer! Pick a friend to join you for Journal your Christmas!

xlovesx

PS: I’m hosting a chat on the message board at Two Peas today. It starts at 4pm UK time or 10am US Central time – adjust from there for your own time zone – and finishes about an hour later. When it starts, you’ll find the chat thread here. You’re welcome to come by and heckle say hello and chat!

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Journal your Christmas is so close – it starts the day after tomorrow! So excited to see all these albums come together and share lots of crafty projects throughout December!

Every year I number my pages in some way, and many years I’ve made each date tag on the day as a way to start my entry, even if the date tags were all the same. This year I decided to make them all in advance from punches and scraps of paper and ribbon. The numbers are all stickers from a variety of sheets – I very rarely use the numbers on a sticker sheet so that seems like the perfect match. Here’s a short video that shows the process.

_{By the way, if you have a YouTube account, you can subscribe to my videos and I’ll send you imaginary cupcakes and generally think you are downright awesome.}

Of course there are plenty of ways to make date tags – both simpler and more complicated than these! I wanted something that would work equally well with something simple, like just a photo and a journaling card, or something more ornate with lots of other embellishments. Making the full set of 37 took just over an hour, including all the punching, inking and sewing, so that might help you plan what you would like to include in your Christmas journal.

In other news, Elsie interviewed me and therein you can read about all sorts of things from my love of Mary Tyler Moore to learning to talk with a pen in my mouth… oh, and a bit more about the big upcoming journey that will be here before I know it! Thanks Miss Elsiecake!

Also don’t miss out on the giveaway post – it ends at midnight tonight!

xlovesx

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Journal your Christmas is nearly here, and you can still sign up or you can win a place! How about winning a free place for you and a friend?
TO ENTER leave a comment on this blog post telling me one thing you enjoy during the Christmas season! Easy, right? (And if you have any trouble leaving a comment, click the preview button as that usually does the trick!)

And lest you think this is your only chance to win, a few lovely friends are gifting places to Journal your Christmas too, so check out the blogs of Nichol, Jennifer, Doris, Caroline, Liz, Alissa, Wilna and Shannon, plus Jen, Laura and SJ have giveaways that start Monday. So go enter, of course! (Also, it’s worth knowing that if you ever win a giveaway and have just signed up for the class, I will happily let you gift it to a friend OR have a refund if you signed up this year. If you signed up last year or earlier, you can gift it or have a class pass for a future class!)

Want to check out more albums from previous years to get in gear to start your journal? Check out this post and this post, both from last Christmas!

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These Christmas kits have started to arrive and today a few people sent me some cute phone snaps of opening their parcels like it was Christmas morning! New crafty potential is always a happy time. For those who ordered a kit last Thursday, they all shipped at midday Friday, so if yours didn’t arrive on Saturday I would look for it on Monday!

Right: ready, steady, leave a comment with something you enjoy about the holidays and one lucky person will win Journal your Christmas plus a place to gift to a friend!

Entries close at the end of Monday and I’ll post the winner on Tuesday!

xlovesx

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Rob Ryan’s designs never fail to inspire me. A little bit of paper-cutting style not unlike the wondrous Lotte Reiniger with an East London edge and phrasings that teeter from romantic to eerie. Some day maybe we’ll have an actual Rob Ryan papercutting on our wall. For now we have a greeting card version. But then those crafty mavens at Clothkits made it possible to wear Rob Ryan. And sew it yourself for the perfect fit. Oh where do I sign up for such a fabulous thing? So today, I made a Rob Ryan skirt, and it was tremendously easy, I promise.

Clothkits designs include everything you need except the tools: the fabric printed with the design and dress pattern, the lining fabric, the zipper and a spool of thread, plus an instruction sheet. Add to that your own pins, scissors, iron and sewing machine and that’s all you need. I also used some adhesive for tacking the zip – but that’s just my special kind of crazy so totally optional.

The full process is seven steps from start to finish, and it took me about an hour and forty minutes… which does make me feel a bit guilty since I bought this back in March! It’s okay: I don’t love it any less now than when I spotted it last spring. Good thing!

Here’s the seven steps for making the skirt, in case you fancy giving it a go…

Instead of pinning a paper pattern to your fabric and worrying about getting the print in just the right place, all you have to do is cut along the lines. Clothkits come with the design printed right onto the fabric (in this case, a heavy white cotton twill, but they also do this pattern on a red corduroy). All the sizes for the pattern are printed right on the same piece of fabric – this one was UK size 8 to 16, but according to the Clothkits website, they have now revised the printing so it’s sizes 8 to 20. (To give an idea in American sizes, a UK size 8 is roughly a US size 4.) You can easily make the skirt smaller, but as the screen print ends at the largest size, you wouldn’t be able to size it any larger. I am always nervous about pattern sizes, since dress patterns follow their own magical world of sizing that has no resemblance to what you might buy in a store, so I actually cut the largest size on the pattern first so I could pin it together and try it on in case it didn’t run true to size, but I’m happy report the size was the same I would get in the store, so no magical mystery size chart in the slightest.

There are six pattern pieces: the front of the skirt and two panels that make the back of the skirt, and a facing piece for each of those pieces, that sits inside the waistband of the skirt.

The lining fabric is a solid, plain cotton – lighter weight than the printed fabric. Line it up with the three main pattern pieces and cut a piece of lining to match each piece. My cuts were really wobbly and it didn’t matter at all, so don’t worry too much about the trace cutting being perfect.

Sewing the facing to the lining is the only confusing part of the process – it’s not really confusing at all once you think about it, but there was a drawing in the instructions that contradicted the words on the same instruction sheet. I checked their website and the same issue had been addressed, and there’s a mention that they might change the drawing so this might be nice and clear now, I’m not sure. Anyway, the trick is that if you place the facing and the lining so the angles match up… then it will not work. So don’t sew them that way – the curves that don’t match up will work perfectly. It’s hard to pin but easy to sew, so I’ll admit I usually just hold them in place and don’t pin the whole piece, especially with cotton since the fabric isn’t slippery.

Now for making the skirt come together. Sew the two smaller panels together to form the back, leaving the top free to add the zipper in just a bit. Then sew to the front panel and check the sizing to make sure everything is still looking right. Do the same thing with the lining pieces. Press the seams apart as you sew the pieces together – definitely worthwhile later as everything will sit nice and flat rather than puckering at the seams.

Adding the zipper is next – before you sew the lining into the skirt. Sewing zippers is one of those things I think you have to try a few times and get a system that works right for you. I know so many people who swear by basting them in, but I don’t have much luck with that and get all twisted. I actually glue the edges of the zipper in place and then stitch with the zipper foot of my sewing machine. This tutorial is pretty close to how I add a zipper.

Stitch the facing + lining into the waist of the skirt. This is where you’ll be glad you pressed all those seams! Essentially this is just one line of stitching all around the top of the skirt, then fold it all the right way along and go back to the ironing board and press the waist of the skirt so the lining stays inside and the top edge is nice and neat. Then run another line of stitching to hold it in place.

And then fold and iron to hem the bottom edge. This fabric hemmed really easily – and I am often rubbish with skirt hems, so easy-to-hem fabrics make me happy. Do make sure you try it on before you hem the lining layer — less work to cut it shorter before you hem than to put it on later and realise the lining is hanging lower than the skirt. (Does it sound like I have made these types of mistakes on skirts before? Because there might be a reason for that.)

And then get so excited to wear your lovely new skirt that you ignore the temperature in single-digits and think your red shoes will be the perfect answer, despite being summer sandals. I suppose that step is optional.

Now, no laughing if you see me any time in the next month and I’m wearing this, because I’ll probably want to wear it every day for a while. But maybe with more seasonally appropriate footwear.

xlovesx

PS: If you would like a Christmas scrapbooking kit, be sure to stop by tomorrow for details for UK addresses, or check out the week long holiday sale at Two Peas – it starts today and includes free US shipping for all orders over $25.

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_{2009 Christmas Journal by Alissa.}

With Journal your Christmas starting in just over a week, I love looking through the albums posted last year for inspiration. Throughout the class, there are beautiful pages posted on our class forum. Here are a few of my favourite finished albums from 2009.

_{2009 Christmas Journal by Jen.}

I love how everyone creates their own style for their album, from something bright and whimsical…

_{2009 Christmas Journal by Nikki.}

…to vintage colours and rich textures.
_{2009 Christmas Journal by Karen.}

I love entries that help keep things organised and enjoyable throughout the holidays as well as documenting everything that’s happening during December.

_{2009 Christmas Journal by Julia.}

Also check out books by Lara, Selena, Nita, Amy and Mel for more fabulous finished books all in one spot.

Journal your Christmas starts on the 1st of December, so there’s still time to sign up for gift a class to a friend! I’d love for you to join us for my favourite Christmas tradition!

xlovesx

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Lately I’ve found a new app is taking my iPhone time: Instagram. It’s a photo-sharing app and it’s free, so it seems like something that a scrapbooker or two or ten just might find interesting, right?

Instagram is currently a pretty simple app, and although there is talk about making it more robust, I love the current simplicity. Grab it for free from the app store and create a username and password. Then there are just a few functions that make everything work: feed is a running page of images posted by the users you follow, popular is a page with the thirty-two most popular images currently on the Instagram network, share is where you upload your photos, news lists recent activity like comments on your photos and new followers and your profile has all your account settings. That’s everything – easy enough!

When you share your photos, you can use the camera and take the photo right then or you can select an image from your camera roll, meaning you can use any camera app you like or even photos you’ve taken with another camera and transferred to your iPhone. Within Instagram, all photos are cropped to square images and there are a selection of optional photo processing filters you can choose if you fancy. Which makes Instagram sound a lot like Hipstamatic except there is a big difference: Instagram images are saved at 612 pixels square: that’s a web size, not a print size like Hipstamatic (1536 pixels square). To give you an idea, the images on my blog are 649 pixels wide, so it really is a web-only size and not something you’ll be able to print at a regular size (mini prints might be okay) and then have a clear image for your scrapbook. For that reason, my preference is to take photos with the iPhone camera using other apps (the regular camera function, Hipstamatic and some others I’ll write about soon) because then you have the original image (which is print-sized) saved to your camera roll as well as the new web-sized Instagram image. For those who don’t print their photos, then they would probably think I’m a little crazy for the extra step but I think scrapbookers will understand the method to my madness.

What’s the point of Instagram? Well, it depends. If plenty of your friends have an iPhone, then it’s a great way to keep in touch as a group and share a little about your day. Share what you’ve been crafting or baking, ask for opinions on new shoes or an experimental hairdo or catch up with baby and kitten photos from friends. But Instagram is iPhone only, so if you don’t have an iPhone or your friends don’t, then by now you’re probably completely over this blog post and ready to move right along. Sorry – I don’t have anything to do with the app other than giving it a try!

If you have an iPhone but your friends don’t, there are still reasons you might love Instagram. First you can sync your Instagram with your Facebook, Twitter or Flickr account, making it a way to add photos to your account quickly, even with filters. Or you can jump right into the Instagram community and make new friends or find new photographers to follow and learn from their inspiring images. Take a look at the images under the popular tab and you’ll find amazing images, and most of them have been taken with the iPhone camera. There are some pretty amazing photographers in the community sharing lots of tips for improving your images. I spend the most time on my iPhone while sitting on a train or waiting for an appointment and taking a few photo ideas away from that ten minutes of waiting is just the sort of thing that makes me love this app.

_{Two informal uses for Instagram: Does my hair look okay like this? and I’m standing in front of the building that looks like this. Where are you? for those moments when you end up separated in the crowd.}

Does all this make the app useful for scrapbookers? If you like to capture little details of your day and document them in some way (even if you’re only sharing with a few people), then yes: this is a scrapbooking app. Just be aware of the web-sized images so you’re not disappointed when it comes to actually scrapbooking those bits of everyday life.

One thing I would really suggest is deciding from the beginning whether you want your photos to be private or public. If you intend to share images that you’re happy for the world to see, then no problem. But if you open your account, get a few followers and then decide you’d rather only share your photos with your real-life friends, those original followers – whether you knew them or not – will be able to see your pictures. So if you would rather share only with your friends, open your account then go straight to your profile and change the privacy setting. With your photos switched to private, you’ll get a request from anyone who asks to see your photos, and you can confirm or ignore each request.

If you’re on Instagram, say hello! My username is Shimelle so I’m pretty easy to find. Other Instagram members I would suggest following include JoshJohnson, who is a professional photographer by day but also posts ‘Instatips’ with great advice on getting the most from the phone camera and the app, Paatri, who has a fab street photography style and Make_Shift, who does some nifty tricks with abstract composition and exposure. It’s also cool to find a photographer in a part of the world you really like and follow them for a stream of images from somewhere you love but can’t really visit all the time. I’ve been following user Axs for fab shots of Tokyo and I’m watching for an Icelandic Instagrammer to follow through the winter!

If you’re an Instagrammer, leave your username in the comments if you like. Or share your favourites to follow. And if you have an iPhone but haven’t downloaded Instagram, what are you waiting for?

xlovesx

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_{©twopeasinabucket.com}

Two Garden pages to share with you today! One with Hipstamatic photos and a real mix of supplies, including Jenni Bowlin, The Girls’ Paperie, My Mind’s Eye, Martha Stewart and Studio Calico…

_{©twopeasinabucket.com}

…and the other quite minimal, with just one photo, papers from the Pink Paislee Queen Bee collection and one little square of embellishment, with a butterfly. Of course.

Spent part of today at the doctor’s office getting necessary vaccines for travel. We have our itinerary mapped out, but where do you think we should go? I’m curious!

xlovesx

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Just a quick reminder – Journal your Christmas starts on the first of December and you can sign up now! I would love for you to join us for a holiday season of sanity, happiness and remembering by keeping a journal.

Those of you who have already joined, this year’s blinkies and class graphics are available on the forum, and you can already jump into the conversations about getting ready if you like – or just browse last year’s albums for inspiration!

For today (Monday) only, you can get 25% off anything in the Dear Lizzy Christmas collection by American Crafts, including the Thickers letter stickers too. It’s today’s deal at Two Peas, so don’t wait if you fancy this collection. A bargain is always better than full price, right?

And I would like to thank the Baker’s Dozen, my team of digital girls, for their continued support! They have a great blog hop to follow with a celebration theme. Check out pages by Elisa, ScrapDolly, Taly, Kate, Karen, Sheri, Anso, Yvonne and SJ. Thank you so much for continuing to be awesome, girls!

Have a beautiful week everybody!

xlovesx

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