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

If the Frog Blog isn’t on your reading list, this definitely the time to add it. The new Banana Frog design team has made it a pretty darn exciting place with new projects pretty much every day. Today there are ideas for what to do with Paper Chains stamps.

Plus I got some of the brand new It’s All About… stamps from Banana Frog today and now I am quite excited to get them all inked up and put them to work! Check them out here.

xlovesx

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I don’t want to shout too much for fear of something else breaking…but it looks like ye olde blog is working again now! Hurrah!

Thank you for the well-wishes for those who kindly wrote to make sure I was okay—I was, but not the website. I won’t bore you with technical details because frankly…I wouldn’t know where to start! Completely unrelated to this incident, I’ve been working on some changes to make soon…so they may be happening sooner than I planned if it will make the site more secure. Suffice to say I now REALLY know why I always send my class prompts by EMAIL! My sincerest apologies for the stuck front page for far. too. long. Cross your fingers that everything will work now!

Here’s what you missed because it wouldn’t display:
26.01.09: This Year Finishing Notes
27.01.09: Celeb Spotting
28.01.09: CHA highlights
30.01.09: Supersize your layout
01.02.09: Happy Birthday
02.02.09: Happy people, happy times

So now! Onward and upward with technology! (And possibly an extended bit of sleep!)

xlovesx

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...but not a happy camera.

Had a lovely time at the lovely Laura and the lovely Will’s engagement party…but my lens did not. It now looks something like the picture above (which I have shamefully stolen from Sarah Jane via facebook!) and it has now officially died. I say ‘officially’ because this lens was purchased for a ridiculously cheap price and has broken half a dozen times before, but has always gone back together and worked just fine. The last time it broke was on the table at IHOP in Anaheim, and I put it back together with a knife. Until now, when someone who is not me decided to demonstrate its ability to fall apart and be put back together, when something snapped and now all the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put this 50mm back together again.

Instead, we experimented with what pub photography can look like when your lens comes in two pieces.

The answer is: very grainy. And without a lot of focus. Huh.

So…happy engagement, Laura & Will! And happy lens shopping to me! The latter being not quite as exciting, but it will do.

xlovesx

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Happy Birthday to Two Peas! Two Peas in a Bucket is turning ten this month, and there are lots of things going on to celebrate. Things you might like! Things like…
...a host of lovely new things in the garden
...an online crop next Friday on the message board
...a real-live crop in Wisconsin at the end of the month—and I’ll be there, so come say hello!
...five free year-long classes, covering Photoshop Elements, seasonal layouts, creating an album of you, sketches, cards…lots of lovely stuff.
...a free digi kit for February.

So hey…it’s like enabling, except almost everything in that list is free, so there’s no negative about that at all. Free is my favourite price!

xlovesx

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It was my turn to pose the weekly challenge in the garden…and my challenge is to supersize your layout with your biggest stickers, biggest pictures, biggest patterned papers, whatever you have sitting in your stash that is somewhat larger than the norm! Get it on a layout!

More details and layouts here.

xlovesx

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So…real-life stick figure celebrities aside, what was good stuff was to be found at CHA this year?

While not strictly craft-related, palm trees are always a good start. Especially in January.

Getting more on-topic then: this fabric line by Donna Downey for Prima. It’s so lovely. Totally excited to use this fabric album for something soon. The pages are made from canvas with big chunky eyelets. Scrummy.

And hey—that is Donna Downey herself.

This wood veneer album is one of my favourite things of the show…but it’s going to retail for $20 (and assumedly £20) for a 6×6 book. Oh, how torn I am! Love it…but it’s pricey. C’est la vie.

The TwoPeas cupcake social was great fun, but somehow I took all of three photographs? This is the delightful and super-sweet Sande Krieger (in the centre) plus supercute CD Muckosky on the right and someone I don’t know (feel free to identify yourself!) Dina Wakley who I’m also sure I know is awesome on the left. And clearly something was very funny. It could have been anything really. It was that sort of afternoon.

Other things that were lovely…
...my super-secret bargain accommodation shared with three roomies.
...adorable red mazda rental car! that I did not crash!
...PAPER! In particular…Craft Fair by American Crafts, Just Chillin’ and Great Escape from Making Memories, Traveler from Little Yellow Bicycle, Margarita from GCD, every single thing at My Little Shoebox and approximately six gazillion other adorable pieces of paper that I long to make my own.

Also, I may have been tempted into finally succumbing to some sort of digital cutting system. It hurts to think about it. But I tried the even more…and there is one that is releasing one of my favourite fonts on its system…and there is one that doesn’t need cards so I could cut that font plus lots of others…the jury is out. Do I need to cut things? Without scissors? It feels very foreign and quite wrong to me. And yet…it could help make cool stuff! And sometimes I am reduced to that amount of simplicity. It’s shameful.

xlovesx

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You didn’t expect me to not photograph the completely surreal moment when CHA’s winter trade show went from its usual calm and orderly self to a media circus, did you?! I had a press badge! I was totally there.

Except so where all the tabloids and about a gazillion other photographers who would never have come to the show otherwise. Including a rather dubious man stood to my right who, quite frankly, gave me the serious creeps. And a French television network. Who knew some paper and some rhinestones could be such a big deal?

So the dish on the Paris Hilton Creativity Collection…it’s a range of scrapbooking papers, paper accessory-making kits and clothing-blinging kits aimed at teenagers. Everything comes in kits, with a lovely cardboard likeness of Paris herself holding it all together as the hang tag. Sadly, if you expected the papers to have the look of designers that exist on Rodeo Drive or in Saks 5th Avenue, you will be sorely disappointed. It looks more like the kind of illustration that would be found at Spencer’s Gifts. Which begs me to ask what I asked as soon as I heard about the plans for a Paris scrapbooking line: Is this for real?

Truth be told, it may be real or it may not be real, depending on the number of orders placed at the show, as the line hasn’t been printed yet. Maybe it will show up in the American big box stores like Michael’s, if they think it will get more teenage customers in the door. But there’s some hefty competition for that market, as the big players are trying to bank on the teens too—American Crafts, Making Memories and others have teen lines that are aimed more at teens themselves scrapping rather than just the parents of teens. Plus there are licensed lines with Hannah Montana and High School Musical for the younger portion of that market. With all that in mind, it’s kinda hard to take the Creativity Collection seriously. It could have been a very smart business move—but not with the cartoony look that I’m not really sure will catch on with the teen market and I definitely don’t see it flying with the grown-ups.

But hey, I could be wrong. More power to Paris.

xlovesx

PS: did you spot her scrapbook? Second photo down—lots and lots of bling and a magazine clip of …Paris on the cover.

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With your desk all piled with bits and pieces ready to go, here’s the last prompt: your finishing notes! Download them here.

When you’ve completed your little book, please take a picture or two and post a link in the comments here. I’d love to put together a little gallery and share how everyone made the project their own. It’s just a little tiny project, but it’s still lovely to see the results!

Thanks so much for joining me on this little project! I hope you’ll join me for something a bit bigger in the future, where we have all the real fun!

Here’s everything in one place in case you’re just finding the time to join us:
Here’s our class schedule:
Prompt one: Supply checklist
Prompt two: Journaling worksheet
Prompt three: Construction notes
Prompt four: Construction notes
Prompt five: Finishing notes

xlovesx

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