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

Three-day weekends are pure bliss in my book. I love that we have two in May here—perfect for the month that tends to have some of our most pleasant weather. Perfect for fresh air and rejuvenation. What are you planning for this fabulous window of time?

Here are a few ways I’m hoping to mix craft and life over the next three days.

_{Iceland, August 2006.}

1. Pick up the camera.
I’ve taken fewer everyday snapshots over the last month that I have in ages. Too much going on, a lot of putting work ahead of life. Definitely planning to redress that balance with lots of snapping this weekend. And really hoping I can get others to take pictures too. I am not above inciting silly camera games to encourage this.

2. Take up a challenge.
How about this weekly challenge to be inspired by graphic design, this digital challenge to paint with your pixels or this week’s Scrap Like You Mean It challenge to use a song title on your page? If you follow challenges and always mean to take them up, this weekend could be a good time to make that happen.

3. Finish something that’s already started.
If you have a half-finished layout or minibook sitting around, perhaps this is the time to finish it. Perfect for a long weekend, since you can budget your time to finish one project and then start something new. And let’s just say I have plenty of projects that qualify for this category.

_{Supplies: Bazzill Dotted Swiss cardstock, Pebbles patterned papers, Sassafras patterned paper, October Afternoon journaling card, Creative Cafe scallop stickers, October Afternoon letter stickers, American Crafts thickers, MLS little letters, and more stickers from Sassafras Lass.}

4. Scrap about someone, somewhere or something you miss.
Long weekends sometimes give us extra time in our heads to think about things we wish we were doing or people we wish we could see…but for whatever reason, those things aren’t happening this weekend. Use craft as therapy to get those thoughts through their angsty stage and back to balance. It may help to use older photographs and focus on happy memories. Let nostalgia have a happy side!

5. Go find your inspiration.
I love reading crafty blogs and crafty magazines but sooner or later I have to get my head out of the craft world and into other forms of inspiration or I’ll hit a dead end. We have concrete plans for two things that will get me away from crafts and yet inspired to craft…one very long hike and a trip to see Coraline at the cinema (which has been evading me for nearly a month due to that silly work-taking-over thing I have mentioned a few times). Excited to see what ideas things like this will spark. Love that there is a balance of something that is active inspiration to keep me moving and something calmer to relax and absorb.

_{photo processing inspired by this tutorial}

6. Follow a tutorial.
I love learning-by-doing. Tutorials are a perfect way to learn a new skill by following someone’s instructions when you make something the first time. Then make it again with your own spin by changing the colours, materials, shape, etc. I love this process for lots of things, like learning a new recipe (today I’m using this recipe for macarons but also trying a batch tweaking it for a new flavour), getting the most out of software (loving the new TRA recipes site to get the most from the Totally Rad Actions for Photoshop) as well as crafty goodness like this.
If you own a gadget or a supply that you paid for but rarely use—search for tutorials for that specific item and make something cool. By the end you’ll know how to use that tool, have your own ideas for future projects and thereby end that dreaded feeling of buyer’s remorse, because now you’ll be using it!

7. Include friends and family.
These are the people in our photos. The people who inspire us to scrapbook, right? Doing something nice with them gives you a lovely day and the added bonus of future scrapbook page fodder. Scrapbook pages some of them will even appreciate (this one is entirely dependent on how well your family and friends appreciate scrapbooking in general, of course). But still: everyone wins.

_{Supplies: Bazzill Dotted Swiss cardstock, Doodlebug flocked paper, Imaginisce patterned paper, MLS little letters, 7gypsies stickers, BoBunny chipboard, Heidi Swapp clear die cuts and passport trims from Making Memories.}

8. Scraplift yourself.
Go through your own gallery or your albums and find that layout that you still really love. Use it as the inspiration for a new project and feel doubly brilliant at your endless creativity!

9. Listen to something new.
When I am on my own, I am very motivated by sound, so much so that I have playlists set up by habit so I can click to turn out my ‘getting caught up on email’ playlist, my ‘clean the kitchen’ playlist, my ‘seriously need to finish this layout’ playlist. Seriously. And I have those because I am predictable and know that they will almost always help be stay focused and productive. But sometimes things need shaking up. I’m planning to create some new playlists this weekend to see what the new tunes inspire. (Suggestions always welcome!)

_{Supplies: Bazzill Swiss Dot cardstock, Doodlebug glittered paper, Imaginisce patterned paper, Fancy Pants journaling card, MLS little letters, American Crafts Thicker letters in aqua and green, BasicGrey monograms, Sassafras stickers, Amy Butler butterflies and flower stickers also from Sassafras.}

10. Use up what you need to put away.
I prefer crafting to cleaning. So given the option of walking five steps to put a sheet of paper away or just making something else that will use the rest of that sheet of paper, I will go with option B. If your desk is littered with leftovers, clean by means of using up. It’s far more fun and it’s economical…because otherwise I know my half-sheets have a pretty big chance of remaining half-sheets forever. A long weekend might mean you can dip in and out of your craft space (if you’re lucky!) and use whatever you find that needs tidying to make pages and cards. By the end of the weekend, your desk could be clean and you’ll have a stack of crafty goodness to show for it.

11. Just journal.
Just like we take pictures with future pages in mind, write things down in the same way. If you have a busy weekend planned, don’t worry about how you’re going to fit in the actual scrapbooking. Take pictures during the day. Write things down in the evening. Reflection is good for the soul and good for the scrapbook.

_{From the current issue of Scrapbook Inspirations magazine.
Supplies: Bazzill Dotted Swiss cardstock, some older Making Memories patterned papers, Sassafras Lass stickers, 7gypsies stickers, Creative Cafe scallop stickers, and BasicGrey letter stickers (but in an older colour scheme).}

12. Do something unexpected.
Use a colour you never use. Scrap about yourself if you never do. Swap a single page for a double. Make a card if you never do. Scrap with one picture if you usually include many…or many if you usually use just one. Do something to shake things up. My big plan for this weekend is a…video. I never do video. And I have no excuse: my camera does video so I don’t even need extra gear. So I am determined: a video of this weekend! Cross your fingers that I can figure it all out!

So…what are your plans for the long weekend? Hope it’s a lovely one!

xlovesx

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_{Supplies: May Freebie by Carina Gardner, Gypsy Monograms by Rhonna Farrer, Spool of Stitches by Tia Bennett, Kawaii Cute Fruits by Kitschy Digitals, Naked Stamp Sheets 2 by Meredith Fenwick.}

Oh, I do love a good freebie! Today I have two for you if you like your downloads to come for free — one from Two Peas and one from me. The first is Carina Gardner’s free kit for May, found here, with four papers and four embellishments all in lovely shades of pink.

_{Supplies: May Freebie by Carina Gardner, Scrap Canvas 1 by The Queen of Quirk, Antique-It Overlays by Jen Allyson.}

This page is almost free — I used the freebie kit plus a 99 cent template. The Queen of Quirk’s collection of templates is fab – I love how they are loaded with little extras like the scrolly swirl.

_{Supplies: May Freebie by Carina Gardner, Peony Place Pretty Borders by Carina Gardner, page template from shimelle.com.}

And because I love free and I love layered page templates, you can download this template free. Click here to download and it’s all yours. It will open in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, then you can drop in your papers and photos to make everything click into place! Enjoy — and share any pages you create with either of these May freebies!

xlovesx

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©twopeasinabucket.com…click any layout to see larger

Completely enjoying a rainy Sunday with some time to collect my thoughts and catch up with ye olde internets today. One think on my list of catch ups was the die cut themed garden over at Two Peas. I have to be honest—the die cut assignment scared me! For some reason I have filed them under uncool for a considerable number of years. But working on these projects and seeing what everyone else created has definitely changed my mind.

If you’re up for some new thinking about die cuts (or you’ve always loved them and think I’m mad for believing they went out of favour!) here are a few things worth checking out during May, unofficial die cut month:

inspired by DIY die cutting class – week 1.

DIY Die Cutting: a free class with weekly lessons to get more from your die cuts, especially if you have an electronic die cuttery gadget like a Cricut, Slice or Silhouette…but you can also use the ideas with purchased die cuts or with shapes you cut with scissors or a craft knife. New prompts are posted on Mondays on the education board or go straight to week one or week two for project samples, pdf instructions and videos to see the ideas in action.

inspired by DIY die cutting class – week 2.

20% off die cutting sale that includes some crazy deals, including the brand new Silhouette SD (and free US shipping).

New stuff for the Making Memories Slice, like the embossing tips which promise to be pretty darn cool. And I’ve been waiting for the Spring design card because it has one of my favourite fonts ever.

A hybrid challenge to use a digital element printed and cut out as a paper die cut and A digital challenge to cut out a shape and journal around it.

So what’s your verdict on die cuts? Cool or crazily uncool? I’d love to see your favourite die cut project.

xlovesx

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Taken what sometimes seems like a million years ago, in the window of what was once my classroom.

Decidedly lacking balance right now. It feels like I’m just lacking time, but clearly there are just as many hours in the day as there always have been. It is merely that I am trying to cram too much into those hours to keep my sanity.

When I agreed to go back and teach just one class for a few weeks, I knew I would be physically incapable of just showing up for my one hour and making an exit. But perhaps I didn’t realise just quite how many hours I would spend marking papers, talking through rewrites and just plain doing my own homework. As I was marking some papers this morning, I was reminded of that moment in science class when you learn that solids are a constant size and shape…liquids are a constant size but adapt their shape to fill the space…and a gas is constant in neither but will spread out to fill every available crevice.

Apparently preparing a nice class for an exam at the very last minute is like the last option: that one class of thirty students can easily expand to take up all of one’s hours and all of one’s brain cells, until one loses control of other basic household routines. Specifically laundry and dishes. And the end result is you leave your flat in an absolute mess so you can get to class early to answer a few more questions and on your way out, you pass the window cleaner and suddenly wish the earth would swallow you whole because you left the curtains open since you live upstairs and it’s not exactly like anyone case see your rather embarrassing laundry situation from outside. That is, unless they are standing on a ladder right outside your window.

Anyway, it seems worth it at the moment. Teaching so much in such little time isn’t particularly ideal, but their work is much improved over this little window of time. Hopefully they can forgive me for having to cover the entire story of Prometheus (and how it relates to a Simon Armitage poem) in under ten minutes. There are many things about returning to school that have made me even more grateful to be my own boss, but not the students. After all, it’s not often you teach students who ask for homework, come to class early and stay late. That seems to be the sort of thing worth a few weeks of feeling behind on laundry and dishes and blogging.

Just two lessons left until their literature exam. First of three papers. All extra crossed fingers greatly appreciated.

I’ll be back to scrappy posts soon. Of course I prefer scrapbooking to laundry!

xlovesx

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Right now, my studio does not look like this. Not at all.

See, in those pictures you can see things like floor. Floor! And see how those buckets in the cubes have space on either side of them? Space?! What’s that? Let’s just say that I have not done so great a job over the last six weeks or so of keeping this a) pretty or b) even workable.

So this weekend I am calling an amnesty on my supplies and planning to set so much free. I’m going to start cleaning, start sending things away…and I’m not going to stop until it is so clean I can cartwheel on the floor. That’s the basic plan.

The not-so-basic part of the plan is that I’m going to set everything free on the internet. Throughout this weekend, I’ll be posting my progress on Twitter, including photos of pizza boxes of supplies that need new homes. For most things, I’m happy to just send it to the first person who tweets back! So if you fancy a chance at a free box of supplies, you might want to follow me this weekend.

I’ll also be posting a few things here on the blog. There are a few things I can’t really put in a complete giveaway, but I can make them a bargain. Like some gadgets…some class kits from Paris…that sort of thing. So if you’re not the twitter type, you’ll find a few things here too.

Now to say many positive things to myself to convince me that I can make my room look this tidy and productive again! Yes I can! (It’s just going to be rather an intense weekend!)

xlovesx

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Just thought you might like to know I’m giving away free stamps over on the Banana Frog blog! Comment on this post to be entered for a chance to win. International entries welcome. Entries close next Tuesday night, so you have a week to tell your friends.

ETA: Sorry if I confused anyone—be sure to click here for the giveaway. Thanks!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo.

xlovesx

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Although Sunday has become official baking day here, it does seem there is a trade-off. Like Sunday is the day when one cannot make custard. Or at least I can’t make custard or anything resembling custard. I tried. A carton of egg yolks later, I had the worst custard I had ever made. With no eggs left, I decided to cheat and use semi-instant custard powder. Clearly been in the cupboard too long and set a new record for my worst custard. Then thought I had found a packet of truly-instant custard in the cupboard, only to find we had clearly put a pretty-much-empty packet back in the cupboard for some reason.

So this cake was supposed to have a layer of thick almond custard. But the gods of custard say no, so no it is.

Which leaves two layers of almond cake and two layers of meringue (one soft, one crunchy) and a bunch of almond pieces on top.

Sickeningly sweet and nowhere near as nice as the proper cake from Rhodes, a newish bakery in Greenwich for which we have fallen head over heels.

Oh well: if the worst thing I can find to whine about is a lack of almond custard, I think things must actually be pretty darn good.

xlovesx

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So glad we have a three day weekend to coincide with {inter}National Scrapbook Day! Only managed to make this today because it needed to be delivered today!

But got the perfect dose of sunshine today and am ready to scrap away for the rest of the long weekend.

xlovesx

PS: You know how I love free digi kits! There is a special NSD kit here by The Queen of Quirk, so share the love with anyone you know who loves a free kit to download.

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