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

_{Scrapbook page by Victoria Calvin of Victoria Marie Scraps}

I’ve been curious about how scrapbookers would take to Patreon, an online platform that processes subscriptions for creators to offer perks to those extra special followers. I’ve followed Victoria Calvin on both Instagram and YouTube for a long while now, so I suddenly had to ask myself why I hadn’t joined her Patreon community, so I made my pledge and signed right up. It turns out there is a wealth of content included in the membership and all my quarantine insomnia need not fear, because I can just sit here and watch Victoria scrapbook 24/7 if I need to, and actually, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all.

This page is one I made recently on Facebook Live, but it was entirely inspired by a sketch and accompanying process video Victoria posted in her Patreon community. And yes, that photo is most definitely a throw back – that’s Wonder Boy’s first EVER character meet! I’ve scrapbooked this photo years ago, but I just love this image and working with that memory was exactly the creative pick me up I needed for the day!

(I scrapbook live on Facebook twice a week – Mondays at 1:30pm and Fridays at 9:30am, UK time – almost every week of the year. You can find more info here.)

Although Victoria and I definitely have differences in our creative styles and our video delivery, we also have a lot in common, and if you like the sorts of videos I upload to YouTube and include in my classes, I would bet you will also enjoy Victoria’s videos. They are straight forward and her education background is clear, and the pages she makes are layered and lovely! I love Victoria’s enthusiasm for the craft and also for telling stories. I always want to read the journaling on her pages.

_{Scrapbook page by Victoria Calvin of Victoria Marie Scraps}

You can find Victoria on YouTube and Instagram as well as her Patreon community. Her Patreon membership tiers range from $5 to $10 USD per month, which includes a great deal of video content, and when you join you can access everything from the past too, so that’s a serious amount of videos to watch. There are sketch videos but also other themes, and there are some live lessons, like a recent session covering ideas for what to do with a surplus of 3×4 and 4×6 cards when you create more traditional full-sized pages than pocket pages. Patreon memberships don’t have a set time frame, so you’re not tied down if one day you realise you don’t have the spare cash or the spare time to scrapbook!

A few of you have requested more examples using my Never Grow Up collection* recently. It seemed like the perfect time to share a scrapbook page composition that would work well with either small scraps or something like the 6×8 paper pad*!

*Just to be super clear, these are affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through this link, I’ll receive a commission which won’t cost you anything extra! Hooray!

My small assistant starts us off with a watercolour project. If you’d like to get straight to the scrapbooking, scrub ahead to the 22 minute mark. Thanks!

I used the rainbow ledger paper* as the base but a clean white base will work as well. This is a really quick way to use some of those little scraps and papers you have lingering in your stash.

I’d love to know how you like to use your small scraps! And if you’re sharing pages with this collection, please tag me and add the hashtag #ACnevergrowup!

I know we’ve had this conversation before: sticker books were one of my favourite parts of childhood. I can say that loudly and proudly in front of scrapbookers because you probably had ten one too. I loved collecting the stickers and trading the stickers and finding the right page and placement for the stickers. I especially loved the part of the process where I was far too young for a job and needed to find every available moment to convince my mother I needed new stickers. And I loved sitting in my room when I was supposed to be asleep, quietly turning the pages under the lamplight to catch all the little foils and glimmers and shines on the most special of all the stickers in my book.

Tell me this is not crazy talk and it has long been time to bring back sticker books. Sticker books should never have left.

So I’m rather excited by this new collection from American Crafts that is actually called #StickerBook and it’s made up of… books of stickers. Yep. Big books of stickers from all the different designers and collections you know and love: Amy Tangerine, Dear Lizzy, Heidi Swapp, Vicki Boutin, Maggie Holmes, Jen Hadfield, Paige Evans, 1Canoe2, and me too! Each book has thirty pages of stickers, so you can trade and stick on repeat for a long while before you’re running anywhere near low. These stickers also have a thinner profile than the cardstock stickers of our collections, making them great for things like planners where bulk can be a real concern.

My sticker book has over 2000 stickers, thanks to several pages that have lots of tiny pieces designed to be scattered around the page in the same way I often use enamel dots and mist. It has the same colour palette as the Glitter Girl collection, with lots of brights and also gold foil and iridescent holographic finishes. Because 1987 me was very serious about her iridescent holographic finishes, and just maybe this is my gift to her.

You can collect all the #StickerBook editions from HobbyLobby stores in the US, or your favourite paper craft retailer, like here.

I’ve used my #StickerBook on a few Friday Live pages now, and here’s the most recent – it is definitely possible to find plenty of stickers in this book that are not pink and purple. (But if you need pink and purple, when yeah: you are covered.)

Here’s the full Friday Live session if you want to see this page from start to finish, alongside plenty of random Friday afternoon chitchat! (This week Friday Live moves to a new time – 1:45pm UK time. You can join in live on Facebook.)

And now… which of these sticker books will make it to your collection? I can’t wait to see them on your desk and the stickers on your projects! I won’t even tell your mum if you’re up late looking at page after page of shiny stickers. I promise.

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While I’ve been all things Most Magical Scrapbook all the time, I’ve just saved enough time to do a Friday Live scrapbooking video each week on Facebook, but it’s only now that I’ve had a moment to update here! For those of you don’t do Facebook, no worries: here’s an ongoing feed of the Friday Live videos. If you’re used to the style I post on my YouTube channel or in my classes, be warned: Friday Live is very different. No editing. Lots of chit-chat with those who are watching and typing in comments, many of which have nothing to do with scrapbooking. But you can definitely see each layout come together from start to finish, just with a very different delivery method.

This layout came from a challenge I used earlier that day: to take a look at this Pinterest board of scrapbook pages and choose one for me to scrap lift. The gorgeous layout chosen was by Cassie Box and I adore hers and mine too, so many thanks Cassie for sharing your beautiful work! Supplies for this page are from the Glitter Girl collection, plus the ‘today’ word from a Dear Lizzy Thickers set, some older American Crafts pearl brads, and a few assorted enamel dots.

Next up: a challenge to actually use plenty of unicorns, because so many of you have told me you love them but have no idea where to put them on a page. From the looks of things, my answer to that is everywhere.

Everything on this page is from the Glitter Girl collection, bar a scrap of plain white vellum for the journaling!

Time to head back a bit and add something to my Harry Potter album from the studio tour several years ago. It’s a cupboard under the stairs page!

The papers here are from my Starshine collection, plus chipboard pieces, star stickers, and stamps from assorted Studio Calico kits over the years.

Another challenge that has come up with the Glitter Girl collection is how to use it for boy photos… and I’m definitely game for that! Today, my answer is to mix it with some very old favourites to pull out the greens and blues in the Glitter Girl colour palette.

The copper vellum on this page is from my Go Now Go collection, and everything else is a mix of Glitter Girl and some vintage products from the days of Love, Elsie and KI Memories. (Nope, I have no shame in keeping supplies for ten years if I still like them!)

I can’t believe I am scrapping first day of school photos, but I am! I started with three photos for this page but ended up making two layouts that face each other in the album, one this week and one the next. Also, the connection went very skewif midway through the broadcast this time, so the video is in two parts.

Supplies for this one are a mix of Glitter Girl (just without the pink elements!), Go Now Go, and Elle’s Studio – the yellow background paper is an older Elle’s Studio paper and the stamps are that amazing Title Builder stamp set that I love so much. Plus green letter stickers from my old favourite, Sassafras!

Then another boy page to face that one – this time really working with the green rather than the lighter shades!

The green paper in the background is ancient, from Scenic Route, and the rainbow of stripes down the side is equally vintage, from KI Memories. But the darker cloud paper is from my Starshine collection and the rainbow cloud print is from Glitter Girl, as is the funky star paperclip. Red letters are Sassafras, gold foil Thickers from 1Canoe2, woodgrain papers from LilyBee, and a few stickers from something coming to stores soon that I wasn’t really supposed to show you yet but I didn’t realise. Whoops.

Then there was the week that it seemed like computers were plotting against me. I started the video in landscape and it moved to portrait. So I started again and it went to portrait again. I tried a third time and it was not the charm… so in the end, I just scrapped sideways so you can see it the right way but oh man it was a weird week.

Mostly Glitter Girl supplies here, plus a background stamp from October Afternoon, the Title Builder stamp set from Elle’s Studio, pink Thickers from Amy Tangerine, and an awesome Inkadinkado coffee stamp I’ve had for years and haven’t used nearly enough!

And then I found the answer and the video didn’t flip this week! HUZZAH!

Again it’s the Glitter Girl collection minus the pink… but plus florals so who knows what’s happening there. The florals are one of my favourite products of all time – Foldies from Sassafras. I have a good stockpile of them still. Plus some die-cuts and 3×4 cards from last year’s Studio Calico kits.

Annnnnnnd that brings you up to date with what I’ve been making! Perhaps I’ll see you this Friday for Friday Live! You can find me live pretty much every week here on Facebook and there’s also the Scrapbook like a Superhero Facebook group for sharing what you’re making too.

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Black cardstock is totally what comes to mind when you decide to scrapbook with rainbow-print patterned paper, right? Yep, that’s what I thought too.

Or maybe that’s not where I started at all. But that’s where the last Friday Live scrapping session took me!

The supplies for this page are a mix of the new Glitter Girl collection, Amy Tangerine’s Oh Happy Life, and green glitter Thickers in the Eclair font, which I may have been holding onto for longer than I care to admit.

Friday Live happens on my Facebook page and I’d love for you to join me! The next Friday Live is the 11th of August at 3:45pm UK time, 10:45am Eastern.

Happy scrapping! And let me know what you pair your rainbows with, of course!

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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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