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

In June, I started a little something that has become a new habit: Friday Facebook Live. On a Friday afternoon (well, it’s afternoon for me!) I create a page with very little planning and plenty of live discussion with those watching on Facebook. It’s a little different to how I share videos in classes and on YouTube – it’s very rough around the edges, there is absolutely no editing, and I don’t set out with a clear mission of where I’m going. I change my mind, I take suggestions from the audience, and I answer questions so we sometimes go on big tangents all while I’m cutting and sticking. It’s perfectly Facebook in its unpolished and chatty nature, so I don’t want to move it anywhere else. However, Facebook is a little difficult in terms of searching back to find older posts, with its love of all things right-this-second. It seems high time to make an archive here. I will post each one in its own post going forward, but for the sake of being complete, here’s everything that has come so far.

Did I mention Friday Live is not a polished presentation? It’s so unpolished that it took me a couple weeks to figure out how to see the comments as they were coming in live and in the very first week, the video is sideways. SIDEWAYS. So you would need to watch on a phone or a tablet and turn the screen, basically. If you want to see that very first one, knowing that it’s sideways, you can find that here. It’s the layout above, by the way.

Then I learned how to broadcast in landscape and things got better. Phew.

This was a blast back to my backpacking albums, where everything starts with a sheet of kraft cardstock. It fell on the ‘page with no people’ day of the June scrapbooking photo challenge. That map paper is still one of my favourite things in the Go Now Go collection.

Then we had a day of everyone running to find their copy of Cat in the Hat, which multiple people were able to do, and I didn’t find ours until the next day. (It was under his pillow.)

The facing page that I mention in this video is a layout that you’ll see in the upcoming class, just in case you need more Cat in the Hat cuteness in your life.

Then I used a sketch while we discussed Disney Princesses. As you do.

I was most excited to use the Elle’s Studio Title Builder stamp and embellishment set on this page. You can find the pin board where I collect useful scrapbook page sketches here.

Then there was the day when I dropped the entire bowl of flair badges on the floor. That was dramatic and in no way a pain in the neck to tidy up later.

I love that camera paper from Maggie Holmes so much I bought three sheets. I might need more.

Then there was a day when I made a double page layout! On white cardstock! WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO, I ASK YOU?!

This was the first time I used a little something from the new Glitter Girl collection too, so that was extra fun. I didn’t get to finish the full layout in the video time but it got me back on track for scrapping.

And that brings us up to date! I’ve added a new tag so you can find all the Friday Live posts in one place too, in case you’re ever feeling the need to binge on overly enthusiastic chatting about pretty much anything while I cut and stick paper to other paper in (hopefully!) an aesthetically pleasing manner. Thanks for watching!

Of course, you can join in with Friday Live actually Live on Facebook. I’m currently scheduling this for 3:45pm UK time on Fridays but it IS schedule to change (like I know already I will have to pick a new time this week) so I try to announce the time as soon as I can, especially if it’s a change of time. But you can always watch later!

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I know, I know, it’s called ‘Glitter Girl’ and it’s very girly. There’s a lot of hot pink. Really a lot. But I promise you there are other colours in there too and I really want it to be possible to use the Glitter Girl collection on things that are not all hot pink unicorns. This became today’s challenge for Friday Live, a weekly video on Facebook where I create (or attempt to create!) a new scrapbook page with little to no advance planning and plenty of interaction from those watching and chatting along.

At the moment, I am starting Friday Live sessions at 3:45pm UK time (10:45am Eastern, and adjust to your timezone from there) and I plan to keep that schedule through most of August. I’ll need to find a good time to move it to when the summer ends as I’m going to lose my long Friday work day, but I’ll cross that bridge and announce the time when I come to it. For now, it’s Friday afternoons for me!

You can join in on Facebook and clicking the ‘follow’ button there should let you get a little notification with the live sessions start, should you want to receive that. Or you can always stop by to watch them after the fact.

Happy scrapping, and I look forward to showing you more unexpected Glitter Girl colour schemes for your scrapbooking and paper crafting projects!

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I always buy the 12×12 sticker sheets in my favourite collections because they are always so eye-catching, but I have trouble using more than a few stickers at a time. I need a strategy quick or I’m going to be overrun with stickers! I’d love a style of layout I could create now and then to really embrace my sticker love rather than trying to ration them out indefinitely. Glitter Girl, can you help?

Of course she can! It would probably be overkill to use most of a large sticker sheet on every layout, but there’s no reason not to embrace your sticker love in an explosion of pretty things on a chosen page.

I used the sticker sheet from Little by Little for this challenge, along with patterned papers from Pebbles. The Thickers are from many years ago, I’m afraid, and the tiny letter stickers were from a Studio Calico Documenter kit.

If you’re trying to create your own page with a surplus of stickers, I’d suggest these top tips:
Make it a single photo page. You’ll need plenty of space on the page to work with the stickers, plus you need that photo to hold its own. Of course you could print smaller photos to still have the same page space, but then everything in the smaller photos is more likely to be lost amongst all the designs of the stickers. Something with a simple visual composition to the photograph will work best to hold its own.

Select your sticker sheet wisely. If the set of stickers is just too varied, it will be difficult to pull all the randomness together. Look for a mix of things that are easy to use across lots of topics – labels, banners, and simple geometrics help. Florals can work beautifully if they are your thing. A sticker sheet with a typewriter, a mailbox, a bicycle, a birthday cake, and four birds is going to be far more difficult to pull together than some flowers, feathers, and labels.

Find a line on your page and stay on the line. If you’ve been scrapbooking for a while, you may have heard of the old ‘sticker sneeze’. It was a description of a certain scrapbooking look, where pages were made by first matting and arranging the photos, then taking a sheet of small stickers and just dotting them anywhere and everywhere in the gaps. I have an early page like this where I scrapbooked photos of a beautiful rose garden and filled the gaps with tiny frog stickers. (Of course.) Admittedly, it’s quite fun in that embrace-your-inner-pre-teen sort of way, it can leave your eyes not knowing where to look. For a look that says ‘I meant to do this’ rather than a sneeze, find a line somewhere on your page – probably with the photo on the line but it can work elsewhere – and build your stickers from that point. Foam squares are your friend for adding dimension to all your layers of design.

Have you made a page using at least half a sheet of stickers? Share it with us!

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I have to admit filming the products in a new collection without getting stuck in immediately with scissors, glue, and photos is tough! It’s a hard life, I know, but with that out of the way now I can have fun actually making stuff! For my first project, I wanted to make a scrapbook page with plenty of colourful layers and other than that, I didn’t have much of a plan! But you can watch the whole process if you like.

Everything on this page is from the Glitter Girl collection. I also used a small heart punch and some grey ink, but that’s it!

The journaling for this page was something I’d already written and posted with the photo here on Instagram, though I changed the voice from ‘him’ to ‘you’ to be more consistent with my family albums. I knew I wanted to use lots of colour with this picture and its big amount of white and black, because the story is actually quite cute and whimsical. If the same photo had a more sombre story, I think it would work beautifully with a largely soft white, grey, and black colour scheme, but that just doesn’t suit the energy in this memory for me. Colour it is!

The Glitter Girl collection ships to stores in mid August, and I can’t wait to see what you make with all these colours and patterns.

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I’m terribly torn by the lack of ridiculously brightly coloured, ultra positive, bordering on a rainbow-powered daydream supplies available in the scrapbooking world right now. I need my pretty paper with unicorns and stars and plenty of sparkle. Glitter Girl, can you help?

Of course I can.

Today I’m delighted to share my newest collection with American Crafts: Glitter Girl. This is undoubtedly the pinkest, most upbeat, most fairytale of collections I’ve done and there is an extra heavy dose of sparkle on top of Glitter Girl’s two favourite colours: pink and turquoise, of course. Plus woodgrain, gold foil, pearlescent cardstock, holographic washi, and ditty little self-inking rolling stamps. I hope you’re ready to indulge in the paper collection thirteen year old me would have bought with every penny of babysitting money she could save.

Here’s a look at most (not quite all) of the collection right when I opened my box! Come share my excitement at things like lenticular die-cuts and scissors with glittery handles and positive affirmations. It also shows the papers so you can take a good look at all those b-sides too.

There are a few things not in that video, and they include the embellishment pack (wood buttons, small enamel dots, and adhesive sequins all in one pack), washi tape set, and the self-inking roller stamps, which include a camera design and come all stacked in a set.

I’m not sure which of these two is my favourite of favourites from the entire collection! I have needed both of these in my life for a very long time!

The Glitter Girl collection ships to stores in mid August, so now is the time to let your favourite store know you want to see it on their shelves or website! (They can order directly from American Crafts or through their favourite AC distributor.)

Of course this collection is brand new in my own hands, so I will be sharing so many projects as I make them, including videos on YouTube, Friday Live on Facebook (we chat while I make a layout, starting at 3:45pm UK time / 10:45am Eastern time on Fridays), and Instagram, so please do join in! I’m also excited to see what you make with this collection, and the “Scrapbook Like a Superhero”: group is a great place to share what you make.

Thanks so much for taking a first look at all this new paper happiness in my world! I really, really hope you enjoy taking your own turn at saving the world, one piece of pretty paper at a time.

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After a month of sharing scrapbooking snapshots and then a big holiday weekend for many, here’s something to keep you going through July! This month we’re starting on Friday, the 7th, and sharing 25 days of scrapbooking words – titles and journaling on our pages.

You are welcome to share scrapbook pages past and present or a mix of both! This is not meant to drive you crazy making a new page every day. Sometimes reviewing an album we haven’t looked at for a while will spark ideas just as much as something completely new, so I love the balance that comes in looking at what others are posting along with what you might be making and what you have made over the years.

This challenge is primarily on Instagram: you can follow me there if you like, and we use the hashtag #scrapbookingismysuperpower. If Instagram isn’t your thing and you’d prefer Facebook, you can also join in there! I post each day on my own page (click the ‘follow’ button if we’re not already friends) as well as the sharing group Scrapbook like a Superhero. You’re welcome to join in anywhere that feels best to you!

And now, for the twenty-five days of topics! Share your interpretation of these, with a focus on the words of your pages.

_{page with plenty of words by Kirsty Smith.}

7. oh happy day

a personal favourite title of mine for all the types of photos that are filled with joy! So we start with something simple. Feel free to use these exact words in your title or journaling or to select another happy wording of your choice.

8. a single word

just one word for the title on your page – what will it be? No other rules apply today!

9. sing a song

find inspiration for your title or your journaling in a song! You can use one line or all the lyrics, whatever you like.

10. something big

make your title BIG! Use big monogram stickers perhaps, or paint it with a big brush, or cut something special, but make your title bigger than usual for a big impact.

11. something small

and now take it the other way – small letters, small title, maybe it won’t even be hugely noticeable as a title. Keep it to a small sentiment today, which might also give you more room for additional photos or extended journaling.

_{Stacked title by Meghann Andrew.}

12. something stacked

this is one of my favourite types of titles! Take all your words and stack them vertically, so you spell them with stickers or chipboard or stamps, one or two words per line, over several lines. It’s perfect for those sticker sheets that only have enough letters for one or two words as well.

13. something tall

be it stickers, stamps, handwriting, or cut out, what changes when you make your letters taller than they are wide? (They don’t have to be super tall across the page – but an alphabet like Fitzgerald or similar styles lets you add far more letters in the same page space as a blockier font!)

14. something simple

easy-peasy. Here’s a quick one to keep you on track today – just share a title or journaling that keeps things simple.

15. something said

let your story come directly from someone you know: share a title or journaling that spells out something funny or memorable you don’t want to forget. Perfect for wobbly toddler speak or hilarious grown-up moments of losing the word on the tip of your tongue.

_{lots of colour from Missy Whidden.}

16. so much colour

no plain black or white letter stickers today! Pull out a rainbow of colour for your title or your writing and share what you’ve used from stickers to inks to pens to paper.

17. puntastic

you know you want to love a pun. Go on, we won’t punish you.

18. repetition

stuck for a title? Repetition is the easiest way to link your title and journaling and make it look like you always had a master plan! Something as simple as ‘I Remember…’ can be your title and then start of three or more sentences in your journaling. Start with whatever you want, but say it a few times and up your impact.

19. alliteration

truly not just something useful in high school English class. Pick words with the same starting sounds for a title that just seems practically perfect!

20. how poetic

don’t feel blocked into paragraphs and traditional sentences for your journaling. Use a poem of your own composition or one you’ve always loved by another writer. Don’t overthink this challenge – you could write a haiku or a list poem and it still counts as channeling your inner Shakespeare!

21. change one word

take a well-known phrase and change just one word: it’s why ‘happy unbirthday’ works so well! ‘I just want a cup gallon of coffee.’ ‘Lions and tigers and bears caterpillars, oh my!’

22. scrapbook standbys

there’s a reason why we see some words on plenty of products – they are pretty universal and useful! Things like documented, memories, remember, adventure, photographed, captured and others along those lines can apply to pretty much any photo, so it’s all in how you make it your own.

23. then & now

put two photos from different times together and title it ‘then & now’ – it’s that simple!

24. good times

I remember Amy Tan telling a story from her early days of scrapping when she’d done about ten pages all with the title ‘good times’ because it applied to so many of her photos that she didn’t even notice until she saw them in her album. I love it – so let’s all do a ‘good times’ title today!

25. a lesson learned

here’s your wording for today: a lesson learned (or learnt, depending on your background)! What might that lesson be? It can be something big or little – perfect for falling over on a bike right up to showing up to a wedding in the same dress as two other friends (when you weren’t bridesmaids).

26. a beautiful view

scrap something scenic today, and find a way to compose a beautiful title from the words a beautiful view!

27. much-loved quotation

choose your words from someone else today, like a line from a favourite film or a noteworthy speech. If you get stuck, the internet is definitely your friend for finding quotations, but it may deliver so many that you have trouble choosing just one.

_{a letter in the journaling by Wilna Furstenberg.}

28. an open letter

a combination of title and journaling, an open letter is just a letter that’s there on your page to be read. Use ‘Dear ______’ as your title, and the letter itself as the journaling. It could be a letter to a person with a photo of them, or it could be something bordering on sarcastic, like an open letter to the car that splashed your favourite shoes as you walked down the path.

29. a mix up

as much as I love letter stickers, the moment when it becomes difficult to spell a whole word with what’s left on the sheet. Get a little more love from those letters by making your title from a mix of several different letter styles!

30. good advice

this one can be used for scrapping advice given to you or advice you would give to someone else. Use ‘good advice’ or some variation as your title and the advice itself as your journaling, and it will all fit together beautifully.

31. keeping it real

and let’s end with something a bit realistic. Every day isn’t the best day ever, no matter how many stamps and stickers we own to say as much. What moment is in your album that simply wasn’t the best? Share it with us today!

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Throughout June, I’ve had a heap of fun on Instagram with a month-long photo challenge: #scrapbookingismysuperpower. This past weekend one of the prompts was to scrap lift, and I chose a beautiful page by Evelyn La Fleur.

I love that colourful and detailed cut pattern at the top and came up with a thought to make it go with that Buzz Lightyear photo above – not flowers, stars! Of course. And I also wanted to include some white but mostly a more saturated colour – like purple.

I even gave her way of photographing pages a try and it was so much fun, if a little disconcerting that it would make me want an endless supply of dishes and things to coordinate with every layout.

I didn’t see a star background like what I was imagining on the Silhouette store or with a quick Google search, so I put together this one. It’s very simple, but I like how it turned out! Click the image to download the PNG and you’re welcome to use it freely for your own pages and projects. I just opened it in Silhouette Studio, made it the size I wanted, then used the ‘trace’ function to add the cut lines.

If you use it, please share – I’d love to see what it inspired on your desk! Happy scrapping!

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Sometimes we need to shake things up a little bit. Not a lot. Just a little shift in the routine makes things feel new, right? I’ve needed that when scrapbooking and making videos lately, but I think I’ve found a simple little premise to set me up for some happy creating for at least a few weeks: making one big choice.

Starting with this video, I’ll be sharing some simple pages that come from one big decision, like how this layout all came from the decision between two different raindrop-printed patterned papers. This way I can show you both options, you can decide if you would make the same decision on your own desk, and if we want, we can try to figure out why. (If we don’t want, we can just make layouts we like without worrying about all the why and that’s always a good thing too.)

Supplies include papers and die-cuts from my Starshine collection and Amy’s On a Whim collection, plus stickers from True Stories, red Fitzgerald Thickers, and a Studio Calico stamp set.

If this type of design process video helps you but you’d like to break things down further, take a look at Design Decisions, a class now available in a self-paced format that is entirely based on the choices we make on each new page.

I’d love to hear if you think you’d choose the same patterned paper or a different option for a page like this – or if you’ve used either of the raindrop papers on pages of your own, please share what you’ve made!

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