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

I’m excited to share a new free mini class, Timeless Layout Techniques. I filmed this in the Scrapbook.com studio in January and it’s available now, with three videos taking you through some core page design principles that always lead to pleasing pages. The examples use my Never Grow Up and Field Trip collections, but the ideas presented are not specific to those collections and are techniques I use with all styles of paper designs.

This video is a teaser, and you can access three full videos by viewing the class at scrapbook.com. Class is free!

My goal when I teach is never for you to just copy my project. I always want you to walk away feeling confident that you can take the ideas and make something completely your own! You can use these tips with stash you’ve had in your cupboard for fifteen years or you can use the latest and greatest scrapbooking products to be released. (Have a need to see what’s new? I have a handy, dandy affiliate link for that! Scrapbook.com always has a section of brand new products! But seriously: use what you have and you love. I love a good shopping day too, but it really, really brings me joy to use what I have and love and to see you breathe new life into the papers you bought with the best of intentions but let them sit for a while.)

In each of the three videos, I focus on one composition technique that can become a go to for building pages with any product you like and putting things in places that will get you started and created pages that are pleasing to the eye, and don’t take hours to make either.

If you create pages inspired by Timeless Layout Techniques, please share! I’d love to see what you’re making in the gallery at scrapbook.com or by tagging me @shimelle if you share your pages on Instagram.

No really. For as long as we are locked down, I’m just going to scrapbook with rainbows. Rainbows on my desk bring me great joy and I am all for the little things that bring us joy right now!

Also, once someone gave me product feedback that there are too many rainbows in the industry right now.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO MANY RAINBOWS.

I just want to make my opinions clear on that.

If you also enjoy scrapbooking with rainbows and happen to share what you make on social media, add the #scrapbookrainbows hashtag, so we can have an amazing gallery of rainbow scrapbook pages!

Hello and RAWR to you today, friends! It’s my turn to share a page on “Paige’s blog”: and today I’m scrapbooking with Bloom Street’s pastel colours and some dinosaurs. What could be a better way to spend the day? Pretty sure RAWR is dinosaur for ‘stay home and scrapbook’ and I’m on board.

I’ve had the Geometric Dinosaur cut file bookmarked in my mind for a while, but someone recently asked which papers I would use specifically from Bloom Street to bring this dino to life, so it had to be done! And it appears the answer is all the greens and purples, plus a cheeky pair of chipmunks.

You can watch it all from start to finish in this process video.

Thanks so much for braving this fearsome T-Rex and I wish you much pastel fun in your own creating this week!

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Hey howdy hey friends! It’s my turn on Paige Evans’ blog and I’m excited to share with you a new layout using plenty of purple from Bloom Street along with this fab Star Wreath cut file and a photo from Disneyland!

The top I’m wearing in this photo has a space ranger badge on the front and says ‘to infinity and beyond!’ on the back, so I knew from the start I wanted to pair it with purple and green to play up the Buzz Lightyear memories, plus plenty of stars seem apt for a space ranger in Tomorrowland. I couldn’t decide between a star background or a star wreath, so put it to a vote on social media and the star wreath was the winner! I started the whole process by cutting that at the full page size from white cardstock on my Silhouette Cameo. You can watch the whole process from start to finish in this process video.

Thanks so much for taking a look, and please do let me know if you make something with purple, green, and stars any time soon.

One of my favourite things to come out of the start of 2020 is the chance to work in a new way with an old friend: as part of the cut file design team from none other than Paige Evans. Today I’m sharing the first page I’ve made as part of that team with her Love Love Love cut file and her beautiful new Bloom Street collection.

Here’s a look at how it all came together, with one photo taken just outside It’s a Small World at Disneyland Paris, and one patterned paper per word of the cut file. Plus a little thread to finish it all!

I cut my files like this with the Silhouette Cameo 3 and smooth white cardstock, then adhere with the same adhesive I use for almost everything: the Kokuyo dot roller.

You can find Paige’s paper collections here at scrapbook.com and find her cut files on Etsy and the Silhouette Design Store.

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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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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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