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

_{I tried out the brand new Jenni Bowlin inks and paints for this layout and I am so in love with the pink that I may need to stockpile it! I’ll show you the polka dot painting at the top in more detail soon.}

I actually blogged about my wedding dress before the wedding, but of course I couldn’t share any pictures at the time — that would have ruined the secret! I actually went to every fitting on my own because I didn’t want anyone to know about the dress. Apparently I was so secretive that some of my friends had a betting pool about what colour it would be, so I suppose in the end it may have been far more traditional than some expected!

I actually only tried dresses on at one place. I looked at some others but couldn’t commit to trying things on that just weren’t right. The fabulous girls at Candy Anthony never tried to talk me into dresses that didn’t meet my little checklist of what I had imagined in my mind. It was so refreshing to have someone take me at my word when I made blanket statements like I don’t want a strapless dress. They never tried to change my mind like so many others. The studio is an amazing little place and the in-progress dresses just visible through a doorway were just as intriguing as all the beautiful things on display. Popping in to see the dress come together was particularly cool. Taking it home in that giant bag, I don’t think I stopped smiling at all, even though I had to take it on the train during rush hour. Men were clueless and thought I had clearly gone on some sort of ridiculous shopping spree; women knew exactly what would come in a bag that big and smiled or even asked about the big day.

Originally I had imagined I would go with something a little more funky — I loved the idea of her polka dot dresses (and if this one had been in the collection at the time, it might have swayed me!) but in the end they seemed too much, and it was the simplicity of this dress that had me at hello. It wasn’t one they would bring out for an obvious choice of a summer wedding, but it turned out that sleeves were exactly what made the difference to me. I just liked the line of it all and when I asked if they thought I would melt wearing sleeves in August, the reply was Darling, you’ll be wearing a million layers of crinoline. If you melt, it will have nothing at all to do with sleeves. Oh: quite right.

And pink crinoline, yes please! Pink and white in the veil too — although given the choice again, I think I would have gone for an additional petticoat and foregone the veil, but it was hardly an issue. As much as I wish I could wear my wedding dress for other occasions, I do actually wear that pink petticoat from time to time with other skirts and dresses. Once I wound up in a Marks & Spencer in full petticoat and it was quite amusing to try to fit through the sandwich aisle in all those layers of fluff!

I have worn my dress exactly once since the wedding — for some photos taken by SJ in which we spent the day walking all over the picturesque seaside town where she lives. It’s a quiet place, so anyone who did see us seemed shocked at the idea of walking around in a white dress, and several people asked if we were going to a fancy dress party (what was SJ’s costume then? A photographer?) and some people stared a little more than what was comfortable but all in all it was a fabulous fun day and something I would totally recommend. We didn’t take lots of portrait type pictures at our wedding because we wanted to enjoy the day, so we knew something like this would be an option. Some people actually do trash the dress sessions, but I didn’t want to trash my dress in the slightest and I can assure you that it survived entirely. Perhaps another benefit of a slightly shorter dress was that I never had to worry about it dragging along the ground.

Also, I think if you have a friend who is a dab hand with a camera, this is exactly the type of photo shoot that is perfect for a friend. Don’t get me wrong – there are amazingly talented photographers out there who do bridal shoots and I’m sure the experience would be amazing! But it was also nice to have a known quantity for the support when you’re doing something a little out of the ordinary, like walking around town in your wedding dress. Some of the silly ideas we tried didn’t make for amazing photos after all, but some of them worked and some of them just happened — like when we walked along the sea front to see this gorgeous old car. The people who owned it were sitting nearby and they giggled as we tried to take the pictures quickly before anyone noticed. But really – how perfect was that?

_{More Jenni Bowlin paint here – for the stamping and painted onto the back of crepe paper to make the flower. I promise to share more paint things once it hits the stores!}

I have been trying to plan a day for The Boy to join in the photos as well but sadly he is a bit more camera shy. Seriously his suit was amazing so eventually he will have to give in to more Kodak moments at his sartorial best! Oh, and unlike my dress which was many, many months in planning, he picked out his suit about 72 hours before he walked down the aisle. And had it tailored in that time too. I kid you not.

For the record, I don’t think I have ever included so many photos of myself in one post and I’m not planning to do it again any time soon. Eeep. But many thanks to SJ Dowsett for taking these pictures for me!!

Also, I am loving the snippets of your own wedding stories that are being left in the comments this week. I can’t wait to hear your wedding dress stories now!

xlovesx

PS: I still have the giant purple bag, and although it is a ridiculous size to store, I have no intention of ever giving it up.

Comment [31]

Oh dresses. I do love a dress. I will happily wear a dress every single day of the week (and in fact, I am wearing two dresses as I type this, for I am also rather in love with layering and quite unsure as to what has happened to our summer weather in recent days) so today I have not one but multiple posts about dresses for weddings. Starting with my bridesmaids.

When I started, I had dreams beyond my league for the handmade creations I would sew for each of my three bridesmaids. The plan was for each girl to have a dress that was unique to her, but all made from the same fabric. All started well: something classic and feminine for Abbie, our maid of honour, something youthful but sophisticated for Cassie and something with a twinge of late eighties rock for Beks. All cut from a dusty blue starchy silk found on Berwick Street.

But it turns out that making dresses for other people is entirely different to making dresses for yourself. When I sew for myself, I just try it on before I sew each seam. By the time the dress is done, I’ve tried it on more times that I’ve actually worn some items in my wardrobe! And when you sew for someone else, it’s significantly more troublesome to get that exact fitting part right. Sadly, sewing with silk means you need to get the fit a great deal more exact than something like… jersey.

We were going fine until about a fortnight before the wedding when I made a huge mistake that just wasn’t something I could fix. And I didn’t think I had time to do the finishing touches on the other dresses and also pretty much make that one again from scratch.

Enter plan B.

Through sheer coincidence, the dresses were all quite similar from the waist down. I quite literally sat on the sofa with a seam ripper and took the tops off all three dresses. All the stitching and paneling and details of the tops were tossed to the side and I ended up with three blue skirts and their three white petticoats and one night of horrible dreams in which my three bridesmaids wore ratty old t-shirts down the aisle.

_{I promise she didn’t wear jeans during the ceremony. But somehow she still makes it look cute.}

But everything was salvageable as skirts (aside from the fact that I made one at least a full size too big and she was so polite that she just coped and carried on, bless her) and I headed to Oxford Street to find three tops that would work, now that I had overcome the barrier of ‘it’s a bridesmaid’s dress – it shouldn’t be a skirt and top‘. Oh, and then I had to get over any worries about the girls wearing black at a wedding, because I found black formal tops at Coast, a sort of corset style with lots of layers of ruched fabric. A bit like this in their current collection, but sleeveless. I was in the store for ages as I worked out with a measuring tape and a patient sales assistant. I called Abbie and she actually went to a store near her to try the same top on. I remember having real discussions with the shop girl like ‘why are you still waiting?’ ‘oh, someone is driving to another store to try it on and see what will work’… but I think I must have been too nervous to leave the store without the tops in hand, so I stayed there for quite some time. Anyway, I left with four tops for three girls, as one of them I thought was going to be in between sizes and I figured whichever one didn’t fit I could return.

Meanwhile, my grandmother sat in my flat and fixed my wobbly hems, and said nice things like It’s only because I’ve been sewing for forty years more than you when I was about to break down at some of my mistakes. (Silk is not exactly the most forgiving of fabrics, but mostly I was just on emotional breakdown from having Ruined An Entire Dress. Sigh.) Her help was fantabulous.

So on the day… petticoats (which I made quite early so they were hanging there for ages waiting for something to dress them up appropriately!), blue skirts and black tops, plus black beaded bracelets with one big rose, and blue-grey t-strap shoes from Aldo for the ceremony and blue Converse All-Stars for dancing, which happened to have a lovely print with handwritten words about love and friendship and other such sweet things.

If you fancy making skirts and petticoats, this tutorial is pretty much how I made the petticoats (and I stitched ribbon around the bottom edge for my maid of honour) and this is the process for a flared circle skirt. You don’t need a pattern for either.

And after all that sewing for nothing and the breakdown and the stress, I actually loved how these all worked out in the end.

xlovesx

PS: I never returned the fourth black top. The extra one fit me, so I kept it thinking it would be such a good go-to piece for occasions that called for dressing up. The first time I wore it, I spent the entire evening feeling like I needed to apologise to these three lovelies, since none of them ever mentioned how wholly uncomfortable it was. Bless them.

Photos in this post – with the exception of the first two – were all taken by Ben Roberts who now shoots weddings with Jay and Ben photography.

Comment [14]

I know, in scrapbooking terms bunting is seen as a huge trend. And maybe on the wedding scene too. But I firmly believe that bunting is as British as a cup of tea and when I discussed this by email with a friend who qualifies as a real Brit rather than a poser like myself, she replied with just an image of a family having a picnic in the middle of the war, with bunting hanging between two Anderson shelters. That says it all to me: the British will hang bunting even in the middle of the blitz.

So clearly we need some for the wedding. (Which had nothing to do with the blitz. But say blitz out loud. It’s a rather cool word to say. I digress.)

When I made our bunting, I made it in the easiest way possible, pretty much, and it turned out exactly how I wanted so hurrah for that. No hemming. No measuring. These were the steps:

…Gather fabrics from the ‘I really am going to sew something with this someday’ pile in shades of blue or black and white.
…Iron them. Fold them with the wrong side on the inside — the print on the outside.
…Put on a DVD and cut all that fabric into tons of randomly sized triangles, arranging them by pattern on the table. (Cutting both layers at once so the print is on both sides of the triangle pair, yes?)
…When things are cut and DVD is done, sit at the sewing machine, making sure both spools have as much thread as possible, and pick up one pair of triangles. Start sewing with a straight running stitch, across the wide top of the triangle.
…Continue to sew and just pick up another triangle pair at the end of each one and keep right on sewing. Don’t worry about what order the patterns go in or if the big triangles are all together or anything. Just pick them up as random as humanly possible. Keep sewing until they are all in one long string.
…Realise that this has essentially created one giant knotted string of bunting on the other side of the sewing machine.
…Put on another DVD and untangle the whole mess.

And seriously, I think the last step was the hardest.

Once it was untangled, it was just as perfect as could be, and it graced our dessert table at the reception. (I had hoped to string it across the room or the terrace, but it turned out our venue didn’t really have any way of hanging anything from overhead.)

Since the wedding, the bunting has racked up quite a few miles, as it’s my go-to decoration for pretty much anything. The guest room, the Christmas tree, displays at craft shows — it always works. Since it isn’t hemmed at all, it has frayed and since it’s only one row of stitching holding it together, it does sometimes break. But both things are benefits in my mind — the fraying has given it much character now and the stitching is so easy to mend that I don’t mind pulling it apart to make it just the right length for any given space. Sometimes I even staple it back together for displays and it works just fine.

So yes, bunting. Oh how I love it. And don’t worry: I will dish more about the desserts later in wedding week, I promise. I’ll even share the recipes.

xlovesx

PS: I am curious as to how many of you actually said blitz aloud!

Comment [18]

Two years ago, this Monday marked the start of one week of excitement and insanity leading up to our wedding. It was a very crafty, DIY affair in many ways, and at this point there were still skirts to hem, bunting to sew and cherry amaretto jam to stew, not to mention friends and family to collect from the airport, deliveries to make and dinner dates to keep! Oh, and the little extra insanity that I knew I only had one day between the wedding and the first day of this annual online class.

I loved every minute of it, but I didn’t really get time to blog very much of it. A few things have appeared here and there on scrapbook pages, but most of the projects remained just snapshots on my hard drive after the big day. But between that upcoming anniversary and constant crafty talking and planning for the September weddings of two of my favourite friends, I am back in wedding mode, so it seems the right time to share. So welcome to wedding week here at shimelle.com! (Don’t worry – I promise there will be some scrapbooking things this week too.)

Today I’m starting with one of the very first crafty things we finished: our invitations. They were very much a team effort, which is what made them so perfect to me.

We had quite a long engagement and didn’t really start planning straight away. Or actually, we did start planning in quite a traditional sense, like going to wedding fairs and such but I had a really horrible experience and went away knowing that pretty much all I knew was that I didn’t want some sort of template wedding that was chosen out of six options in a brochure, which was seriously what was being pushed by those vendors. So we backed off and let things happen as they did. (Yes, this is also known as procrastination. Shush.)

In that window of time between engagement and a real outline of the wedding, we turned a work trip to the Seattle scrapbooking convention into a holiday with a road trip through Washington and British Columbia. That included a day spent with the fabulous Joy Madison and her family. Now, Joy is an awesome photographer (and scrapbooker) and her husband Jon has this wicked-crazy street photography style that I love. So we spent the day eating Japanese food, getting leaves in our hair, chasing geese and standing in the middle of traffic while he took our pictures all over Seattle. Seriously: so. much. fun.

And the shot of our feet above became our wedding invitation. I love how it’s a slightly insecure picture with the body language. Not that we were insecure about getting married, just that we are both people who can be very shy and quiet at times and it was just very natural. We added the text to the wall and sent it off to an online printer, ordering plenty of these at 4×6 with a white border.

Ordering the photos was the easy part. Then there was the hard labour. First we letterpressed the letter N onto pretty much anything that didn’t move. (In case you haven’t ever guessed from the background of photos in our house, my married name starts with N! It just ended up easier to stay with Laine in the scrapbooking world, especially since really I just go by my first name so much of the time.) The various letter Ns came from a variety of market stalls around London, and we used a reinker bottle of Colorbox pigment ink in Colonial Blue for all the letterpressing. One big N on the front of the RSVP envelopes and a different big N on plain white 4×6 postcards and a swirl design on blue scalloped postcards for the RSVPs. Lots and lots of letterpressing.

The plain white 4×6 postcards were then glued to the back of the photo prints, and instead of bulk printing the details, I wrote everyone a personal note with a fountain pen. It was actually quite therapeutic but it was far, far more time-consuming than I ever imagined. But each person got their very own note written with my very own hand. Oh, and each card included details about the dress code wherein we asked everyone to wear their best black and white. (More about that later this week.)

The RSVP cards were screen printed on our Gocco machine with black ink over the tone-on-tone blue design that we letterpressed. I loved that some of our guests dressed them up when they returned them, so we had some with gems, some with fancy silver lettering and some with very sweet notes. I kept them all – every single one.

The photo cards with the notes on the back were then bundled with the reply card and the return envelope and tied up with black sheer ribbon with white polka dots.

And then we sat one night and punched and stamped and stamped and punched until we had one of these little ‘and they lived happily ever after’ circles for everyone, and we attached that to the ribbon with a brad and a flower and packed the entire little set into a blue envelopes with more letterpressed monograms and sent the entire stack flying away in the post.

…and that is how we made our wedding invitations! But my favourite part of the entire process was when we both sat on the floor of our flat with tons of stamps and inks and ribbons and photos and we mixed and matched and pasted and punched until we found something that we both loved. Why didn’t I take a picture of our fifty half-finished drafts?

I have no idea.

xlovesx

Comment [27]

_{See the JBS Inspiration blog for more details about this layout.}

Once again, thanks so much for all your participation in last weekend’s online crop! I know August is a tricky month for lots of people, so I’m taking it as a sign that our autumn crop will get even bigger. I have my thinking cap on already so you can look forward to some new things then!

But now the exciting part if you could take part — the list of prize winners! It’s a long list, so be sure to check for your name. If you’re a winner, please follow the instructions at the end of this post to claim your prize. (If you’re not a winner, I’m sorry and I wish I had something for everyone! Please play again at our next crop, and I hope you enjoyed the challenges anyway!) Okay — winners then!

Crafting challenges:
Scrapbooking with red, aqua and white
Jenny B wins a prize package of red and aqua inks, paints and mists!

The first sketch
Liz wins a selection of label stickers

Scrapbooking with a free printable alphabet
Connie C wins a selection of goodies from Shimelle Digitals.

Scrapbooking with circles
Jenny Pitcairn wins a set of Banana Frog stamps.

Scrapbooking with black and white photos
Mary Bainbridge wins a class pass for herself and a friend on Learn Something New, the September online class here at shimelle.com.

Scrapbooking with patterned papers
Helen Overton wins a prize package filled with patterned paper.

Journal around the page
Lisa Funky Fairy wins a prize pack filled with paper goodness from Jenni Bowlin Studio.

Scrapbooking with squares
Kitty Scrapper wins a prize pack of scrapping supplies with a square theme.

Scrapbooking with at least a little pink
Maja wins a prize pack of pink scrapbooking supplies.

The second sketch
Lisa O wins a copy of Stretch your Sketches=, an e-book from Ella Publishing

Scrapbooking with heart
Mandy Mck wins a selection of scrapbooking goodies from the Green at Heart collection by BasicGrey.

Scrapbooking with letters or numbers
Lisa wins a copy of Time to Scrapbook, which features the layout above and tips for finding time from each of the Most Influential Scrapbooker nominees.

Scrapbooking with paper rosettes
Jimjam wins Scrapbook Inspirations Idea Book volume 2.

Scrapbooking with stamps
Susan Roh wins a set of Banana Frog stamps.

Scrapbooking with quadrants
Karen wins a custom portrait (person or pet) as a Little Musing by SJ Dowsett.

The third sketch
Shannon Hager wins a prize pack of scrapbooking supplies.

Scrapbooking with layers
Anne wins a prize pack of scrapbooking supplies.

Scrapbooking with your favourite supplies
Hannah wins a prize pack of supplies from a manufacturer of her choice.

Scrapbooking with whatever you have left
Kirsty wins a prize pack of scrapbooking supplies.

Photo challenges:
Get close
Daphne wins Picture Perfect a photography e-book from Ella Publishing.

Manmade
Aussie Mon wins Scrapper’s B&W Actions, a workflow of black and white processing options for your photographs. Or her choice of another product of the same value from Two Peas in a Bucket.

Through the glass
Natalie wins a new album.

Explosive energy
Rachel wins a camera t-shirt from Threadless.

I saw the sign
Leah wins a Keep Calm and Snap On print from the Keep Calm Etsy shop.

Night light
Christina wins a selection of fonts available exclusively at Two Peas in a Bucket.

Up above
Emy wins a pack of photo paper in her choice of brand.

Add a laugh
Tape wins her choice of a hilarious book.

Nature
Karen wins 40 Top Tips for Better Photos, an Ella ebook by Rebecca Cooper.

Below the knee
Gemma wins a care package of funky socks.

Reflections
Rinda wins a selection of glittery scrapbook supplies.

Study session
Louise wins some reading material and some pretty paper.

Get in the picture
Co Co wins this adorable handmade owl in navy AND this supercute one in red from etsy seller Vivikas.

Portrait or candid?
Jennifer wins Scrapbook Inspirations Idea Book volume 2.

Craft in progress
Lizzie wins a prize pack of scrapbooking supplies from Imaginisce.

Zoom out
Anso wins a prize pack of scrapbooking supplies from American Crafts.

Smiles
Bethan wins a prize pack of scrapbooking supplies.

At home
Kirsteen wins a prize pack of scrapbooking supplies with a home theme.

And the two comment-to-win posts:
Share a favourite quotation
Lorraine wins this gorgeous print from the always amazing Vol.25.

Share a scrapbooking thought
Smeepee wins her choice of a knitted bow headband or a knitted flower wearable from The Funky Beau.

To claim your prize, please email me (shimelle at gmail dot com) with the relevant details for your prize. If it’s a digital prize, I need your email address. If it’s a physical prize, I need your mailing address. If there are options (like t-shirt size or paper brand), please let me know. If it says ‘from a selection’, just email me and I’ll get back to you with the options so you can choose. Please make the subject line of your email PRIZE WINNER so I don’t miss your message. Thank you!

On a totally different note, I’m packing up a small number of kits appropriate for Learn Something New. They will be available for UK addresses only, I’m afraid, and I’ll probably pop them in the shop first thing tomorrow morning. Watch Twitter as I’ll post there first when they are in the shop. Once they are gone, I won’t be putting together any other kits for this class. (For those of you outside the UK or not fancying a kit, there will be notes on supplies in the prep notes that go out next week.)

Right – back to packing those boxes then!

xlovesx

Comment [17]

Every year, September makes me excited. Whether I’m headed back to school in a literal sense or not, the back to school season still seems to flip a switch that makes me think it’s time to learn something new. For the past several years, I’ve gone back to school by means of a month-long album called Learn Something New Every Day.

This adventure started in 2006, when back to school was more literal and I was heading to back to my classroom after the summer holidays. And somehow I still managed to create a 6×6 scrapbook page each day, even while working on lesson plans and seating charts and making sure everyone in my department had enough colours of board pens to annotate exemplar essays. In fact, the few minutes I set aside each day to review the experiences of that day with some pretty paper and a pen became my own little oasis of calm every day during that crazy back to school time.

In 2007, I followed the same class prompts but focused more on writing by keeping daily personal blog entries. It was like scrapbooking from another part of my mind, since I couldn’t depend on pretty papers to take the emphasis if I hadn’t had a particularly eventful day. But it worked, and I promise it only felt a tiny it like the end of a Doogie Howser episode.

Every year is a little different, and yet I still find there is something new to learn just from going through the day. In 2008, my September journal documented the first thirty days of married life. In 2009, I used my book as a daily reminder to myself to get out and make things happen rather than just hoping for the best. Each book has its own mood that matches life for that month and sharing that journey with other scrappers has become part of the process through an online class. Here you can see a few other albums that were created last September, and because past participants can join in every year at no extra cost, you’ll see some of these lovelies return to make new albums this year too. I can’t wait to see what everyone – both new and returning scrappers – learns through their back-to-school journal this year.

Now it its fifth year, this online scrapbooking class encourages you to observe the world around you and learn from your daily experiences and surroundings. We work with a small format album to make thirty daily entries, and we adopt a few short cuts and techniques to make those daily entries possible in even the busiest of weeks. And once you’ve joined, you’re welcome to participate for as many years as you like at no extra cost.

The class includes:
…preparation notes delivered next week
…thirty daily full-colour pdf prompts delivered to your inbox
…access to a private class forum at shimelle.com to chat and share your work
…permanent file archive so you can come back to the materials at any time

Plus new additions for 2010:
…custom printables for paper scrappers
…page templates and a digital kit for digi scrappers
…Try Something New Every Day, a back-to-school workbook with quick and easy crafting techniques that adds an element of challenge and surprise
…bonus technique tutorials (as PDF and video formats) to spice up your creativity
…two live chat sessions: one to start the class and a second to celebrate at the end of the month

Each of the daily prompts includes full colour photos of pages from a range of albums so you can see a variety in styles, from simple scrapbook pages to looks that use more layers to art journals. There are also hundreds of additional samples to view in the members’ forum, so no matter what your creative style you can always find something right up your street.

Ready to sign up? You can choose to pay in UK Pounds or US Dollars. If neither of those is your currency, you can choose whichever you prefer – you don’t need to do anything special to change the currency from your account.

You can pay by credit/debit card (click on the left of the payment screen) or Paypal account (log in on the right of the payment screen). Please be sure to enter a valid email address as part of your payment so your prompts can be delivered to your inbox.

Participated last year? You don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive a message in the next day or so with all the relevant links for you. If your email address has changed in the past year, however, you will need to update it on your forum account to ensure you receive your emails. If you can’t remember your login details, send me an email and I’ll get that all set for you.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me or ask in the comments on this post.

I’m excited to meet the class of 2010!

xlovesx

Comment [95]

Thank you so much for joining me for the online crop over this past weekend! I am loving all the projects and photos that are being posted. If you still have some time to take some pictures or finish up a crafting project, you can still get in on the fun — all of these challenges are open until 6am Tuesday morning — UK time. And each of these has a prize package up for grabs! Here’s a quick run-down of everything in one place:

Crafting challenges:
Scrapbooking with red, aqua and white
The first sketch
Scrapbooking with a free printable alphabet
Scrapbooking with circles
Scrapbooking with black and white photos
Scrapbooking with patterned papers
Journal around the page
Scrapbooking with squares
Scrapbooking with at least a little pink
The second sketch
Scrapbooking with heart
Scrapbooking with letters or numbers
Scrapbooking with paper rosettes
Scrapbooking with stamps
Scrapbooking with quadrants
The third sketch
Scrapbooking with layers
Scrapbooking with your favourite supplies
Scrapbooking with whatever you have left

Photo challenges:
Get close
Manmade
Through the glass
Explosive energy
I saw the sign
Night light
Up above
Add a laugh
Nature
Below the knee
Reflections
Study session
Get in the picture
Portrait or candid?
Craft in progress
Zoom out
Smiles
At home

And there are two posts where you can win a great prize just by leaving a comment.
Share a favourite quotation
Share a scrapbooking thought

Winners will be posted on Wednesday, and look for some details about an online class tomorrow! I hope everyone has a lovely week.

xlovesx

Comment [28]

Thanks so much for joining me for whatever part of this three days of crafting you could! It’s been lovely to see your photos and projects pop up across the blogosphere and in page galleries!

For our final giveaway, just leave a comment on this post sharing a thought about why you love scrapbooking. That’s all — just a little positive thought about this creative outlet that everyone here has in common.

One comment will be randomly chosen to win your choice of a knitted bow headband or a knitted flower wearable from The Funky Beau, Rachel’s lovely folksy shop with cute and affordable hand-knitted accessories. Please see this post for all the deadlines and details about this weekend. You have until bright and early Tuesday morning to enter this and all the other prize drawings from this weekend. I’m also going to throw in some extra prizes here and there. All of the prize drawings announced on each post will be randomly chosen, but I’ve saved some shimelle.com class passes to give to a few scrappers who have really made the most of the crop by taking part in many challenges or by creating a real masterpiece for one of the challenges. So those are out there to be won too! All of the prize winners will be announced on Wednesday, as the challenges are open until Tuesday morning.

Thanks again and I hope you had a lovely weekend, no matter how much scrapping you had on the schedule.

xlovesx

Comment [60]