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

Happy Friday scrapping friends! This weekend, I’m delighted to bring you a series of scrapbooking challenges so you can join in our online crop and scrapbook right along with us. You’ll see quite a few sketches as well as some theme and technique challenges, and you can work with any supplies, any photos, and any pace you fancy – no pressure, just inspiration and ideas from a group of lovely guest artists! There are couple challenges tonight then more throughout Saturday and Sunday, so please check back whenever you need a boost. For now, Corrie Jones starts us off with a sketch and layout!

When I plotted out this page sketch, I imagined it as a design that would work well with a sheet of patterned paper you really liked and didn’t want to cover (something I also covered in this week’s Glitter Girl Adventure actually), but Corrie made me realise it can work just as well with something simply and airy too. With one block for photos and writing then some banners in the opposite corner, this is a design that can be made with just one full sheet for the background and everything else made from scraps.

I love creating with sketches. I find that I can be incredibly creative with a sketch as a jumping off point. Instead of trying to come up with a design, I can just play with supplies. Sometimes, I will take one or two things that I am inspired by from a sketch and other times, like with this sketch, I will be more true to the overall layout. With this sketch, how was I not supposed to be more true. I just love the design with the white space and two elements. Totally my kind of page. This page is the continuation of my personal pages about me. I rarely scrapbooked about myself and honestly, except for these monthly pages journaling about myself each month on the 8th, I still rarely scrapbook about myself. But I like these. I like that I have a few pages that are more than what my kids are doing or what event we have going on. These pages are a glimpse of inside me that I am sure one day I will really be happy I have.

To share what you create with this sketch, upload it to a page gallery like Two Peas or UKScrappers, or your Instagram account, then link us up here. (If you’d like to start using Instagram for your sharing, you can find info on that here at Inlinkz, but it’s easy and just look for the Instagram logo, really!)

Corrie Jones lives with her dear hubby and three active girls in the ‘burbs of Atlanta, Georgia. She has been scrapbooking for four years, ever since two large plastic tubs jammed full of photos started laughing at her. Four sheets of paper, blue Thickers, some double-sided tape, and a scrapbook magazine later and she hasn’t looked back since! Now scrapbooking is her way to relax, to stretch her creative side of her brain, and a great reason to spend my time with her friends. Other than scrapbooking, Corrie enjoys being at the beach, photography, and reading.

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Moving right along then with the August kit and some long overdue sketches, I came up to a design for a single photo and knew just the thing I had in mind, filed away under ‘somewhat random but still important’ as a story I wanted to include in my backpacking album, all about our midday routine while in Luang Prabang, Laos, which included milkshakes while sitting on the riverside. Yes, I’m scrapping about milkshakes. You’re right, I probably have lost the plot a bit.

This sketch is designed for a single 4×6 landscape photo with an accompanying story. It’s another design that is purposely meant for those patterned papers you love but don’t want to cover entirely – there is plenty of open space to let a pattern breathe.

Pretty much everything for this page comes from the August Best of Both Worlds kit. I know, I know: it is far from August. I can but move forward! The good news is most of that kit is still in stock and 25% off until Sunday the 5th of January too. I added a sheet of 12×12 kraft cardstock for the background and then the black ink pad of course.

I know it may seem strange to devote an entire page to one seemingly random 4×6 photo – it’s hardly a beautiful portrait or an amazing bit of scenery. It’s milkshakes of all things. But for me, it makes sense to take the space when there is a particular memory that is important, even if it’s not a traditional milestone. This image represents something that was very important for me to get written down in my backpacking album. There is quite a bit of open space on the page (in the form of the patterned paper) and that gives me two things that will work well for those sorts of important stories: one, if the story hadn’t fit in the space that it did, there is the potential to add more elsewhere, and two, using one pattern with relatively few colours and a repeating design can help direct your eye to the writing and emphasise its importance. It’s not a story tucked away in a corner of a page with lots going on – it has a space all its own.

That said, I had some more random memories and photos that went alongside this story in the form of a divided page protector for the facing page. I’ll share that next so you can see the balance between this more minimal and that one with more stuff in the same space.

For a second look at this sketch, let me introduce Jill Sprott with her interpretation in beautiful yellow.

This is my kind of sketch! It emphasizes the basics — a photo, some journaling, and a few accents — while also allowing room for interpretation. I sized down the sketch to work with an 8.5” x 11” layout, and reduced the margins around the photo and journaling block a bit. Since there is so much open space in the photo, I added the title to the photo itself rather than below it, and replaced the title block on the sketch with a sunburst pattern (from October Afternoon) that parallels the rays of sunlight in the photo. I built on the blocks in the sketch by adding layers and strips of patterned paper (from American Crafts, October Afternoon, Farmhouse Paper Company, and Studio Calico). Some of the patterns repeat the colors in the photo, while others serve to reinforce the theme of the layout. I also backed the photo with a rectangle of vellum, to add a shimmery quality to the sun-centered layout.

The most important aspect of this page, in my view, is the journaling. It begins with a ‘surface’ view, commenting on the photo itself, but it starts to move beyond that, commenting on the photo as a metaphor for the mindset that I wish to embrace as another school year begins. I usually try to avoid talking about the act of taking a photo in my journaling, since I would rather focus on telling stories or sharing my thoughts and feelings. I want to say more than, ‘So-and-so took the time to smile for the camera.’ In this case, however, the act of taking the photo and what followed from that is part of the story, contributing to the overall meaning of this page.

Jill Sprott lives on Oahu, Hawaii, with her husband, daughter, and their menagerie of pets. She is a high school English teacher, which makes for pretty busy days, but on the weekends, when not grading papers, Jill shifts from working with words to playing with words and pictures, surrounded by patterned paper. Like teaching, scrapbooking is a creative, challenging, colorful, and rewarding endeavor. Jill is currently on the design teams for October Afternoon and Jenni Bowlin Studio, and is a Garden Girl at Two Peas in a Bucket. You can follow Jill on her blog, Use Your Words.

Now it’s your turn. I’d love to see you you interpret this sketch with your own style and stories. As always, this sketch is just for fun and everyone is welcome.

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Jumping back a little, I have a big stack of pages and scrapbooking videos to share with you over the next few days! Today I’m starting with the video I included as a preview link in the last post – but now it’s here properly so you can also see the finished page and download the sketch to give it a try.

When I originally drew this sketch, I was on a real kick of printing multiple photos on a 4×6 photo print, and in landscape I prefer the 3×2 ratio to the 4×3, if that makes any difference to you, so that’s what I had in mind when I put the sketch together. Except I did that in the earliest days of 2013, and by the time we got to August supplies, I had moved on a bit and found myself with a big stack of 4×4 photos that really need to be scrapped. Then today’s guest used this sketch for 4×6 prints, so the happy part of this story is that this sketch seems to work really easily with a range of print sizes! Pair two prints with one background paper you really love and don’t want to cover up, and you’re halfway to a completed layout already.

This page was made with just supplies from my August Best of Both Worlds kit, most of which is currently in stock and 25% off, including my ‘Nailed It’ stamp set.

The 4×6 boxes as slightly messy layers behind the photo isn’t something I had planned when I drew the sketch either but I think it makes a huge difference to the page design. With a page that has plenty of white space, a little goes a long way in terms of small angles and just a few layers. And if you’ve watched the video and realised I said I would add the date and location before I finished and then I didn’t… I did realise the next morning so you can see it there at the top right corner. Things like that make me glad my head is screwed on tightly, or I would leave it on the train.

As far as the title – we made a bit of a promise to ourselves in the last year or so that we would get in the picture more often. Sometimes it works really well! Other times it is not quite awesome. This particular day I imagined some amazing pictures but in reality, it just wasn’t going to happen. The Boy made silly faces. I told him he could keep making silly faces, I would scrapbook them. I’m just keeping my word as a wife, clearly.

For a second look at this sketch, let me introduce Rachel Hull with her interpretation in another pretty blue floral!

I love following sketches & this was a great way to get back into scrapping after having my daughter. The kraft backing and photos were easy to select and then I slowly built up the embellished areas with stickers, washi tape, ribbon and punches and layered a project life card over a simple office tag for my journalling. I have been scrapping for over five years now, and whilst I don’t always get as much time as I used to, I like to keep on top of my Project Life album. However 12×12 pages will always stay close to my heart and I will always fit them in when i have time as I find them much more enjoyable.

Rachel currently lives in Leeds with her husband Rob and brand new baby daughter Martha, she has been scrapbooking for several years and divides any free time between scrapping and knitting. She runs her own blog, Rewarding Memories, including notes on plenty of crafty endeavours.

Now it’s your turn. I’d love to see you you interpret this sketch with your own style and stories. As always, this sketch is just for fun and everyone is welcome.

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Two videos in two days? It’s a start, at any rate. If you’re not off watching Doctor Who, you can watch a bit of Sketch to Scrapbook Page craftiness! (It’s also acceptable to watch this after The Doctor saves all space and time yet again. I’ll allow it. Just the once.)

Sketch thirty-one is designed for a single landscape photo (most likely a 4×6 print, but other sizes could work easily) and has substantial space for writing too. The vertical border strips beneath the photo can be paper, tape, ribbon, die-cuts, fancied up with a border punch, or whatever you fancy really.

I know the calendar will argue with me, but the supplies for this page are from the August Best of Both Worlds kit. (I said it’s a start!) Everything is back in stock with the exception of the aqua star paperclips, should you fancy anything for your own crafting.

For a second look at this sketch, please welcome Laura Kate with her interpretation adapted to a page in her Project Life album.

To me, this sketch seemed like it would best fit in a single pocket rather than across a whole pre-divided page. Adapting a 12×12 square sketch to a 4×6 rectangular might seem weird, but I often have little square Instagram photos and the ways I add them in have gotten a bit samey. As you can see, I turned the sketch a bit to aid in the horizontal flow of the card and worked with the b/w theme already in my PL spread to document a fun event we attended that made up the bulk of this PL page (using a great shot of the drinks snapped by my husband!). It was a bit of a challenge to figure out how to make this sketch work, but I really love the end result!

Laura Kate is a teacher, crafter, ex-pat, erstwhile musician, kitchen dabbler & lover of Blythe dolls. A scrapbooker since 1993 – starting with an awesome Lisa Frank album – she writes about all her exploits on her blog, tries her hand at designing some products, and occasionally remembers to update her Etsy shop with her doll fashion creations. Laura Kate lives in London with her husband and 4 fancy goldfish.

Now it’s your turn. I’d love to see you you interpret this sketch with your own style and stories. As always, this sketch is just for fun and everyone is welcome.

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There have been a few requests in both directions lately – some for simpler pages, some for more embellished examples. It’s a good challenge and I like trying a little bit from each direction to keep things feeling fresh. This may be the most minimal page I’ve done in quite a while, and it only uses one sheet of patterned paper. It might be necessary for someone to take my pulse and check that I’m okay, really.

Mixing landscape and portrait photos on the same page is one of my biggest design challenges, as I just prefer all the same direction really! But there are a few ways to include both in a design I still like, and balancing two smaller prints with one larger print falls in that category. I used one 4×6 portrait and two 2×3 landscapes, but there is room to adjust that to suit your pictures.

The supplies for this page come from the July Best of Both Worlds kit, then there is a bit of grey and cream cardstock and silver mist.

I will admit my temptation would have been to work the opposite way around with these papers: the patterned paper and the grey cardstock flipped so the background was the solid. But since the last few pages I’ve done on solid cardstock backgrounds have seemed finished to me until I trimmed them a bit and matted them with a contrasting pattern, it seemed worth a shot to try it the other way around, especially since this sketch called for the mist on the smaller block of paper. Which way would you be tempted to try?

For a second look at this sketch, Asia takes a turn with square photos in this design. Asia’s work is so beautiful, and I certainly wish I had an ounce of this creative fluidity at her age!

I really like creating with sketches. Shimelle’s sketch is great, but it isn’t my usual type of design – I seldom make layouts with multiple photos. But I like it! I interpreted this sketch to my own style by taking it to a smaller scale. I chose the photo first, then I dug through my papers and chose these in a sky blue colour. I also added some grey papers. On the background paper, I used a mask and blue Glimmer Mist. I thought that working with three photographs will be a little difficult, but creation process was very fast and fun! At the end I splashed the page with black ink and added sequins to finish.. Voilà!

Asia lives in Poland. She is 17 and attends high school. In the scrap world she uses her nickname Po prostu Asia. She started scrapbooking in 2011 and now is addicted to scrapbooking! Asia creates everything, but she totally loves layouts. She is a DT member of CraftFun and Scrapki. You can find Asia at her blog or on Facebook .

Now it’s your turn! I’d love to see how you interpret this sketch.

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I’ve been tempted to photograph my stack of Project Life cards, but I’m a little afraid to show you right now. I’m not quite sure how I’ve managed to convince myself that I need quite so many when I work far, far more in the 12×12 format than pages with 3×4 pockets. But the truth is I still like the designs and enjoy the challenge to incorporate 3×4 cards in a variety of styles onto the 12×12 canvas. Plus by sharing core kits with a group of friends, I have far more designs on the cards in the same amount of space… it’s something.

This sketch didn’t originate with the 3×4 thought in mind, but when I looked at my desk, it seemed just right. Originally I had imagined a page that was all quite simple but one rectangle of that grid was layered and embellished with plenty of detail. That’s where I would spend my time. It turned out that by picking a 3×4 card that I really liked, I didn’t want to layer anything on top and it cut my scrapping time back to just minutes!

The 3×4 card is from Simple Stories, from a cut-apart sheet in the June kit, and the papers, stamps, and letter stickers are from July.

I’m really drawn to tone-on-tone titles lately, like using the cream Thickers on the cream notebook paper. I think with the dimension of Thickers it’s still quite easy to read, but I’m guessing some of you may prefer more contrast? Just curious.

For a second interpretation of today’s sketch, please welcome Monika to the blog!

When I first saw this sketch I was so happy that I could use more than one photo. I took these photos in May when we were walking by a river, and there were a lot of dandelions. My younger son was blowing dozens of them and asked me to take photos. I wanted to use all three photos taken at every step of blowing, I used also numbers ’1-2-3’ to highlight the steps. I very much love the paper from Studio Calico’s Sundrifter collection, which is full of feathers, so I cut those out and used them to highlight the blowing effect. I love layering, so I used a couple of papers in pastel colours and layered them, as well as some clouds cut out from patterned paper. I think that this sketch worked out very well for this story and you can almost feel the wind.

Monika Głód loves to scrap and take photos. Scrapbooking since 2006, she is a member of American Crafts design team for 2012-2013 and also designs for 4heures37. Her work has been published in Scrapbook Trends magazine and Create Idea Books. Monika also runs her own blog and has galleries at Two peas and Studio Calico .

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With Noell’s design leading me to work more on the vertical and then that idea staying with me through the next few projects, it made me laugh to come to sketch 28 and see that it was such a vertical design. I planned out the sketches way back in December, so apparently I just knew way back then that I was going to be on a very vertical kick come July!

This sketch is drawn for three landscape photos, probably printed at 2×3 inches, but I opted for two square photos at 4×4 and that worked fine too. It’s a great design for scrapping quickly and with partial sheets of patterned paper, since it just takes a few simple blocks to layer the background.

These supplies are from the June and July Best of Both Worlds picks, plus some dark brown Mister Huey mist and two sizes of heart punch.

Today I’m delighted to welcome someone new to shimelle.com, with a second interpretation from Stephanie Berger, a very talented scrapbooker from Germany.

When I first saw the sketch, I instantly knew what pictures I wanted to use. I love the pictures of my husband, totally sunken into pottering a teacup. I took these photos via Instagram and as always I printed them 9 × 9 cm (about 3.5” square). After selecting the supplies – for a wonder, this was a quick step – I placed the pictures as shown in the sketch. However, it didn’t feel comfortable to me, so I decided to rotate the sketch. And behold, it was perfect for me. I enlarged the smaller papers, so the background paper does not look so dominant. Usually I do not use a lot of embellishments and so I added only a few. Some punched hearts, wooden stars, some splashes of turquoise colour for contrast and it was finished.

Together with her husband Stephanie lives in Southern Germany near Stuttgart. There both spend their time together exploring the country, playing some sports, and taking a whole lot of pictures. Stephanie is working as an assistant in real estate management – doing some craft is the balance to her job. Scrapbooking is the thing that puts all the outdoor adventures, taking pictures, and working with paper together. Stephanie has been on several German design teams, such as Scrapping the Music Germany and Scrapbook-Werkstatt . She also designed three of her own paper series for Scrapbook-Werkstatt. She teaches photography and scrapbooking workshops. You can find her on her blog , Instagram and Pinterest .

Now it’s your turn! Create a project from this sketch using any supplies you like, and share it with us here.

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Since working more in video and more in series format over the past two years, it’s amazed me how the totals add up. Sure, the Glitter Girl playlist is pretty long, but that’s a series that averages a half hour and comes out every single week. Sketch to Scrapbook Page is a little more here and there, but even so, there are forty-four videos and to watch all of them would take more than ten hours! I don’t suggest doing that all at once, if only because I fear for the part of your brain that has to register the same pitch of my voice and the same well-worn phrases for quite so long!

But this little challenge comes in two parts: something for you and something for me. The playlist above lets you scroll through to get to all forty-four different videos in the series (you can also find that in a list format here. They are listed in date order, with the newest first and oldest last.

The part of the challenge that’s for you: choose any sketch from that list and use it as the inspiration for your own page. Share what you make below!

The part of the challenge that’s for me: in the comments on this post, vote for which sketch you’d like me to try again with the August Best of Both Worlds kit. You vote today, I’ll film it tomorrow, and it will be the final post at the end of the weekend! So take your pick, and I’ll cross my fingers you vote for one I really love!

More challenges, videos, and new layouts coming up all day Sunday! Happy scrapping.

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