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

I picked these two photos up the other day knowing they were from the same day and everything, but not remembering that I must have purposely taken the images to sit together. Suddenly I wondered why there were two matching telephone towers in the same city when it finally hit me that the two images fit together as a panorama. Sometimes I can be pretty slow to catch the obvious, it would seem.

And so this week I figured out a little sketch that would work for a panorama made from two photos or just any two landscape pictures you wanted to scrapbook together, even if they don’t fit together like a puzzle. It looks like this:

It can be done with all scraps, except for the paper you choose as the background, as there are two spots of embellishment on the layout and they are both built up from lots of small pieces of paper. Lately I’ve been painting the edges of my paper pieces with glimmer mist and a paintbrush rather than just ink, so that’s something that appears on both layouts this week.

Both layouts? Well, since last week was also two landscape 4×6 photos, I wondered how this same sketch would look with a different photo option. This page uses four 2×3 portrait photos instead of the two larger landscapes. And it documents my somewhat strange love of dioramas in museums. Here’s how the second page came together, if you’re curious!

As always, the weekly sketch is no-stress and just for fun! If you use it, I’d love to see, so please leave a link in the comments.

What a lovely bunch of layouts came from the sketch last week, if I’m allowed to say that! I love how different they all looked with different colours and papers and themes. Here are a dozen pages I loved!
Top row, L to R: one, two, three, four.
Middle row, L to R: five, six, seven, eight.
Bottom row, L to R: nine, ten, eleven and twelve.
Thanks to everyone who joined in! I hope you’ll join us again this week.

xlovesx

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This morning I have been processing class registrations and tallying up our numbers for our day of girl power. I will save my gushing message of thank you for later today, when I can post the exact total and show you our donation to Plan-UK, but for right now, let me just say this: it was amazing.

And for now, how about this week’s sketch? Recently there has been a discussion on Two Peas about schools of thought in printing photos. Some people only print the specific photos they are going to scrap, others print everything and plenty fall somewhere in the middle. I print a great deal of photos and will print two or three or even more similar shots if I like them all. Which seems a little silly to some, but there are two reasons it makes me happy. The first is that a library of printed photos doesn’t make me feel behind – it makes me feel inspired. I love that there is a catalogue of printed photos that show our everyday lives, and I prefer images that are printed (like the old days!) rather than just living as pixels on a hard drive. But that’s just me. The other reason is more relevant to this layout: it’s because I like being able to scrapbook the same event from a different perspective. I’ve scrapbooked this day and place before but it has been on my mind recently, and then I passed these photos in the drawer. Perfection: the chance to return to that day with additional (if similar) photos and document some thoughts from the this point on the timeline.

A side note: if you watched that BBC documentary a while back about the girl from the Isle of Wight who is big in Japan, you are allowed to giggle at the title of this layout with full appreciation that I love kawaii kitsch.

Some of the design inspiration for this page comes from that older layout, and the two will live happily together in the same album. I wanted to use the same navy and red colour scheme (but this time threw in grey and a tiny bit of aqua) and wanted to repeat the photo corners, but this time I cut them from cardstock as I don’t have the same supplies from that older layout. I used two 4×6 photos, but you can fill the photo space on this sketch with any number of pictures you would like. There’s really only one area of embellishment – just below the title. If you have that patterned paper by Studio Calico, by the way, the circles fit just perfectly inside the Martha Stewart sunburst punch. (Wait. Did I promise yesterday I would get back to the butterfly punch? Well… sunburst will have to do, I suppose.)

As always, the weekly sketch is no-stress and just for fun! If you use it, I’d love to see, so please leave a link!

Last week was one of the busiest weeks yet, going by how many of you posted and shared your pages! Here is a sampling of pages from that three photo sketch – click the corresponding link to see any page in more detail and get to know the scrapper behind the page!
Top row, L to R: one, two, three, four, five
Middle row, L to R: six, seven, eight, nine, ten
Bottom row, L to R: eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen and fifteen.

Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s sketch. Happy scrapping!

xlovesx

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It’s Wednesday, so it must be time for a scrapbooking sketch? And there are three photos on this week’s page, and it’s not all that different from the March edition of 4×6 Photo Love. But with this little added detail across the bottom of the page:

this combination of something circular plus a label or rectangle below is something I’m using here and there throughout this particular album. Word stickers are perfect, but you can also customise your own word strips with your own handwriting, a typewriter or anything you want to print from your computer. Give it a try!

If you prefer smaller photos, you can make this same design hold six or twelve smaller photos in the same space or you could take it back to a single photo layout and use a panorama-style print.

As always, the weekly sketch is no-stress and just for fun! If you use it, I’d love to see, so please leave a link.

I’m loving the patterned paper explosion from last week with the quadrant design! These are a few of my favourites. Click to see any of these pages in more detail and say hello to these scrapbookers.
Top row, L to R: one, two, three, four.
Middle row, L to R: five, six, seven, eight
Bottom row, L to R: nine, ten, eleven and twelve.

xlovesx

Comment [25]

A late sketch this Wednesday, but it is still Wednesday here for another few minutes! And it’s a bit of an older page but one I still really love – partially because it has quadrants of patterned paper, partially because it includes much fun with punches and little stickers and most partially because it’s about my completely awesome nephew. Who I am very excited to see quite soon, since we don’t exactly live very close. I do swear he is an entire foot taller each time I see him, but I’m hoping this time it might only be six inches, since it won’t have been quite a year.

So here’s the sketch for this week: four quadrants of patterned (or solid) paper to create the background, then a block on top of that just for good measure. I’ve used one photo but you could replace it with multiple pictures – two portrait pictures would work easily or you could include several photos at a smaller size. Then I find it’s easiest with this set-up to place the title, then add the embellishments to frame – a total of five circles. One small circle above the title and four circles (slightly larger) in a row below the picture, with journaling to break up the row. Or you could replace the circles with any other shape – stars, hearts, doilies… whatever bit of fabulous you’re loving right now.

As always, the weekly sketch is no-stress and just for fun! If you use it, I’d love to see, so please leave a link and share.

The sketch from last week was a little different to my norm and it was lovely to see so many interpretations of the one big photo + three small photos composition. Here are eight lovely favourites from last week’s submissions. Click for more detail and bigger pictures – and if you love their pages, be sure to let them know!
Top row, L to R: one, two, three, four.
Bottom row, L to R: five, six, seven and eight.
Thanks so much to everyone who had a go with last week’s sketch! Don’t forget to upload and link us if you create something with the new sketch too.

xlovesx

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_{Supplies: Butterfly stamp and patterned papers by Jenni Bowlin Studio, letter stickers by Sassafras and American Crafts, doilies by Little Yellow Bicycle, border punches by EK Success (small and large) and Martha Stewart Crafts and butterfly die by Sizzix.}

Lest you think I was exceedingly organised when I ordered those 691 photos a couple weeks back, I have to admit that part of that ordering frenzy was a case of clearing the decks. I found I actually had a bunch of photos uploaded that I had never printed… for quite some time. Like our honeymoon, and even some photos taken by friends and family at our wedding. So that works out well as something to break up all that kraft cardstock with the travel photos! What better to break it up than cupcakes? Exactly.

This week’s sketch has four photos and none of them are 4×6, shockingly! Three are cropped to 3×3 inches and the fourth shot is a larger print (this was an A4 print that I trimmed a bit), but you could substitute patterned paper here if you preferred. We had vintage cameras on all the tables at our wedding and this was a film shot taken with a camera older them I am… and I love the fade and the grain it produced. Just perfect for adding some journaling too – I used a precision pen to write right over the top.

I want to do a page just about the lovely friend who made all our 300+ cupcakes – Jackie, do you have a blog?! Seriously, she is amazing. And I have some photos of her all decked out at the wedding so that definitely needs to get in my album. Soon!

As always, the weekly sketch is no-stress and just for fun! If you use it, I’d love to see, so please leave a link in the comments.

So many lovely layouts from last week that it was so difficult to choose! I stopped at nine… but they are all lovely.
Top row, L to R: one, two, three.
Middle row, L to R: four, five, six.
Bottom row, L to R: seven, eight and nine.
Click on any of those to see and read more and say hello.

Thank you to everybody who took part last week! Now it’s your turn – everyone is welcome! Upload your layout to a page gallery or your blog and link it up here to share. Happy scrapping!

xlovesx

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After my single-photo soap box, I promise I have something slightly more versatile to share with you today. Two photos and plenty of opportunities for patterned papers and stickers and ink, if you like. Just don’t do what I did: think ‘oh but it’s such a lovely day, I’ll just step outside to spray this ink across the top of the layout’. Because there is a big difference between outdoor spraying and indoor spraying, and that difference is… wind. If you look closely, you’ll see it’s somewhat snowy on that lovely beach, since the spray went in entirely a different direction to what I was expecting.

I think we are all very clear now on why I am a scrapbooker rather than say a meteorologist.

This page captures a moment of impulsive seaside behaviour: it looks like a gorgeous beach because it truly is! (This is Wineglass Bay in Tasmania.) But as gorgeous as it looks, that water was incredibly cold. But yes, a certain individual who shall remain nameless thought it was too good to miss, regardless of the temperature, and swam a few laps across the bay. He lasted significantly longer than the next group of tourists who stepped into the water and promptly ran back to dry land with a scream.

Truly, this is a very basic sketch that I use time and time again by just customising the embellishment. This time I used a similar technique to this layout by changing the rectangles at the top right to that flag shape with the inverted V. Chipboard is a little something different for me too – I don’t tend to use plain chipboard shapes like these, but I quite liked them here! Maybe this sketch can help you use a few embellishments you might otherwise ignore.

As always, the weekly sketch is no-stress and just for fun! If you use it, I’d love to see, so please leave a link in the comments.

From last week’s sketch, I really want to highlight two layouts. The page on the left, by Kate made me smile a huge smile, because Kate hadn’t really been scrapbooking for a while. And then she decided to get back in the swing of it and I just love that she started with a lovely layout about herself. Kate, I hope this is your gateway to much crafty happiness! And the layout on the right is by Amy who decided to combine the sketch with the bunting ideas, and I love her unique bunting treatment for the additional photos! So very clever.

Please also check out beautiful pages from Julie (who can turn t-shirt shopping into a brilliant scrapbook page), Jeannie (who made friends with Charlie Chaplin just for the excellent scrapbooking potential of black and white papers), Amy (who discovered her perfect kraft paper in digital format and made this sketch look lush at a unique 8×10 size), Linda (who braved additional photos and used fab lacy paper with panache), Claire (who wins for most adorable this week with her little ones and their royal wedding celebration), Alyssa (who took on the multiple photo challenge and did some very cool stuff with pink and black) and Heather (who made me swoon with her use of fabric and paper flowers). Oh, and Rachel gets bonus points for actually making her page in front of me, while we were scrapping in a lovely cottage last weekend! Scroll to the bottom of her post to find her layouts. Thanks to everyone who played last week!

xlovesx

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I have a feeling you’re going to tell me two things about today’s sketch.
One, it’s a day late.
Two, it only has one photo.

And some of you just don’t do one photo.

But here’s the thing… I like one photo.
I like that I can show more pattern and colour from a lovely piece of paper. I like that the photos don’t fight for attention. I like that there’s more room for journaling. I like that no matter what the size of the photo, provided it’s 12×12 or smaller, there’s a way to make it work.

Then again, I have not a nerve in my body that urges me to catch up with what I scrapbook. Because if I did, this would be pretty scary:

Ever wonder what 691 photos would look like? Now you know. That is the order I placed late Tuesday afternoon and bright and early today it arrived at my door, including the first few hundred prints from our trip. You know, the first few hundred of the nine thousand. But I am not in a panic. I look at that giant stack of photos with much glee! All the different images, all the different opportunities. All the pretty papers with which they will coordinate! And thus I could sing from the rooftops.

I guarantee some of them will become single photo layouts. Not all. But some. Because I just find single-photo pages to be fun. End of story.

So when the JBS team were asked to share something that helped define our style, I chose this. Because it has colour. Because it has pattern. Because it has lots of detail in just one little part of the page. Because I have scrapped a great deal of Alice in Wonderland. Because it has one single 4×6 photo. (Oh. And a butterfly. Of course.)

But I will make you a deal:

If you like single photo layouts, follow this as it is. If single photo pages make you break out in hives, look at this sketch and imagine that there are additional photos. Maybe another directly above the picture that is there. And a third to the left of that. Or print the photos smaller and include even more, like a strip of photos all the way across the middle of the page.

In a world full of people who like single photos and people who don’t, I am convinced we can just all get along. Especially if we can find some pretty paper as common ground.

So here’s this week’s sketch, and I’d love for you to play along – with one photo or as many as you dare.

Since I got the links all mixed up last time, I’ve just picked four from last week’s sketch – let’s see if I can get them right! From left to right, Claire, Jenna, Veeruliiru and Cheryl. That should take you to more details and bigger pictures!

This week we’ll try a Mr Linky and see if that works better! So if you play along, please leave a link below… though you can still use the comments if you prefer. Let me know which you think is best for future, perhaps.

Happy scrapping!

xlovesx

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I may have tricked a few of you with this week’s sketch. At Two Peas, a new garden of pages from the design team goes live each Monday and I often base the week’s sketch on my pages there. So maybe you were thinking it would look a little like this. But as it’s Easter this Sunday, it seemed the right moment to grab something a little different! This page features Hipstamatic photos from last Easter, and I figured the five-small-square-photos option would make for something a little unexpected in this week’s sketch.

The layers of the sketch are relatively simple and make it a good candidate for a patterned background with a cluster of colour. You can even make this layout from scraps and leftovers. It also gives you plenty of space to really work the title, if you want to try something lovely with lettering! The sketch includes five small, square photos, but you can change this to suit something else, of course! It could even work with a single panoramic shot replacing the row of five pictures.

I love the pages posted from last week’s sketch! Here are a dozen of those scrapbook pages. Click any of these to see them in more detail and say hello to these scrappers!
Top row, L to R: one, two, three, four.
Middle row, L to R: five, six, seven, eight.
Bottom row, L to R: nine, ten, eleven and twelve.
Sorry about the problem with these links – somehow I had them in the reverse order! But they go to the right place now. So sorry for the mistake.

As always, the weekly sketch is a no-stress challenge that’s just for fun! If you find this sketch useful and create something with it, I’d love for you to leave a link in the comments! And while we’re very Easter themed today, I hope you have a lovely holiday weekend!

xlovesx

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