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

_{©twopeasinabucket.com. Click here for supplies and details.}

This time last year, I declared it wedding week on my blog and you know what? I’m thinking this should be an annual event. So welcome to Wedding Week 2011! How’s that for spontaneous theming? By now I’ve probably shared way more wedding things from my own wedding than can be exciting to anyone who isn’t me, but rest assured I have actually attended weddings of other people. It’s an amazing concept. So if I add their wedding fun into the mix, I’m pretty sure there’s a whole week of stuff to share. (Plus, there’s a new 4×6 Photo Love class tomorrow, so if you have scrapping time today and haven’t entered the seven photo challenge, hop to it while you still have two chances to win!)

To kick off Wedding Week, here are three scrapbook pages I made for the wedding themed garden at Two Peas this summer. This first page is a real rarity for me – no writing! I really thought about that for a while because pages without any writing really sadden me. When you see just one page at a time in a scrapper’s gallery, it’s easy to assume that one page without any writing is representative of albums filled with pages without writing and I can’t cope with that idea. If we never write on our pages, there is very little to differentiate a beautiful scrapbook page from one of those shoeboxes of old photos in an antique store, with all the pictures of unidentified people doing unidentified things. I really want more than that from my albums.

But I think by now you know that. And sometimes it’s nice to just have a page here or there with just a photo, like a chapter break in a novel. Breathing room. So I added this to my album with no writing. But I assure you, it’s surrounded by pages with plenty of words indeed.

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At our reception, we used books instead of numbers to mark the tables. So that needed a little explanation in our wedding album. It was quite funny to see the people on each table try to make a connection to the book chosen to represent them. Sometimes there was a definite link to the guests… other times it was just a book that had some sort of meaning to both of us.

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And this page makes a break in the album between the fancier professional photos and the haphazard images that came from the vintage cameras on each table. I wanted to start that section with a bit of explanation as to why the old cameras were there, as several people had mentioned in advance that surely we wouldn’t get any decent photos from these cameras at all. And truly, the vast majority are blurry, under-, over- or double-exposed and of course very grainy as they were all shot indoors without flash. But there were plenty of pictures that made them completely worthwhile – unexpected photos that captured great expressions and different combinations of guests. I love those pictures and am so very glad we had film as well as digital on our wedding day.

So… let’s see what other wedding fun I can find to share this week! And maybe you’ll join me in making a wedding-themed project or two!

xlovesx

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Turns out Learn Something New isn’t the only bit of back-to-school scrapbooking on my desk at the moment. At Two Peas, the Garden Girls are going back to school with a twist – it’s all about the elements of making stand-out pages, cards and albums. It’s called Design School. It’s a free event with a range of example projects plus PDFs to review design principles and inspire your projects.

My part in all that design talk is the idea of continuity, and specifically how I try to keep some continuity throughout an album. In particular, there were two pages in my album that were bothering me as neither stayed true to the continuity elements throughout the rest of the book and wouldn’t you know they ended up on facing pages in my album. So I set out to find a way to remedy this and make those two pages less awkward. You can watch that process all in a tidy little video!

Be sure to check out all the other projects in the first week of Design School and beyond – it’s a great resource with lots of scrapbooking styles represented so you’re sure to find something that catches your eye.

xlovesx

PS: Winners of the crop weekend challenges will be posted later today Wednesday morning!

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_{All class content ©twopeasinabucket.com. Click here for supplies and here to chat on the message board.}

Right about now is when I should start to panic in the 4×6 Photo Love class. Beyond the half-way point means it only gets tougher to add that extra photo to the layout each month, but actually I’m quite excited about all the extra tricks we can throw in now to create plenty of space for all those 4×6 shots. You can check out the newest edition now, with seven 4×6 photos on a single page layout.

This month’s page appears to just have two photos at first glance, but there are indeed seven, plus a 4×6 journaling card too. They are hidden behind the photo on the left, which opens up like this…

…with photos on both sides, creating plenty of room. I still use page protectors with pages like this, but just create a window in the protector so the folded section can be opened. You can watch the entire process, from layout to page protector, in this month’s video:

Neither layout this month is on kraft cardstock – shocking, I know! One is travel themed but the other uses a stack of photos from our wedding reception that I have been meaning to scrap for ages but I kept putting it off because it was a big stack of images that wouldn’t ordinarily go on one layout. But I love how they can all live on one page now!

This month, the lovely Julie Kirk is my special guest and she adapted the page design to feature landscape photographs. I love the colours and patterns she used on this page.

But this is so very clever! She explains her process for the rope ladder technique here, so you can try it too. Thank you for joining me, Julie!

Every month, there are two ways to win a prize for participating in 4×6 Photo Love! The first is at Two Peas: create your page and upload it to the gallery. Be sure to tick the box for this challenge in step four of the upload process. One participant will win a gift certificate to Two Peas to go shopping for whatever you like. But there’s a second chance to win right here: on this post, leave a comment with a link to your page (in the gallery at Two Peas or on your blog, whatever you prefer) and one of those links will win Two Peas shopping money too! The deadline for both is the 29th of August.

Congratulations to Connie for winning the draw for last month’s six photo class! (Connie, you will receive your gift certificate by email.) Will you be next? Just choose seven 4×6 photos to scrap and follow along with this month’s class prompt.

xlovesx

PS: Feel free to grab the button there on the left for your blog or to share this class with a friend – since it’s free, the more the merrier! And you’re welcome to use any supplies and any photos, so there’s no boundaries to your scrapping with this year-long project.

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I have a terrible secret to tell you. You’ve never noticed. I’ve kept it hidden all this time and now I’m ready to come clean and tell you.

I’m rather partial to scrapbooking with butterflies.

Oh. I guess it really wasn’t a secret after all. In fact, it’s so much not a secret that Two Peas in a Bucket is throwing a special one-day sale to say thank you to shimelle.com readers. And what did we come up with? Mark down the butterflies!

So today only (Wednesday, 20th July 2011), butterflies are on sale here. And that’s hundreds of products! Papers, punches, stamps, stickers – you name it, they’ve put a butterfly on it. So today is the day to stock up and save. You don’t need a special code, just click here to go to the sale and check out when you’re ready! Be ready before midnight central time. If you spend more than $50 (on any physical product – not just butterflies!), you can get free US shipping as well with code YQTUVC.

A little something else you might not know… for real this time. When you shop at Two Peas via a link here, you help support all the extra fun stuff on the blog. As a Two Peas affiliate, I make a small percentage for sales I send their way (when you click). That’s pretty common practice in linking to stores online, but since I first became a Two Peas affiliate, I have always taken those funds and put them back into the shimelle.com community. It pays for prizes, postage for giveaways, special guests and weekend crop events. I love that I can send it right back into this circle of readers. I hope you like that idea too.

Thanks Two Peas for the special sale and thank you to all of you who support this little site of mine!

xlovesx

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_{All class content ©twopeasinabucket.com. Click here for supplies and here to chat on the message board.}

I can’t believe we are already at the half-way point for 4×6 Photo Love, the online scrapbooking class I’m teaching throughout 2011 at Two Peas! (If you haven’t heard about it until now, it’s free and you can jump in at any time.) The lessons post on the 30th of each month, so that means I have the June edition to share with you, and it’s all about scrapping six photos this month.

This month’s design concept is a variation of what we created with three photos in March. Then we lined them up to go all the way across a 12×12 page. This time we’re placing them all the way across two pages to make a double page layout, but also offsetting the photos with boxes of patterned paper to create a bit of a zig-zag effect. I’ve used portrait photos for the examples, but if you only have landscapes, you could try turning the pages so you have two columns of three photos from the top to the bottom of the page rather than one long line from left to right. Have a look at this month’s video to get a better idea of how these pages were constructed.

Both my examples are travel related, purely because that tends to be when I take the most photos and there aren’t many other events where I would have six portraits that all worked together – but that’s just me! You are welcome to participate with any theme, colours and supplies you would like.

_{Page by Jamie Sorenson. Click here for supplies.}

This month I’m delighted to feature Jamie Sorenson as my guest. She’s our community manager (and the Garden Girl boss!) at Two Peas, so she’s a face many peas know from the message boards and newsletters, but she’s also a fab scrapbooker and I love her creative spirit. This layout is just what I mean – she took my boxed-out, linear sketch and infused it with youthful energy for these family photos. Try tilting the pictures and adding embellishments that don’t have to sit right inside each of the patterned paper boxes. You can add this page to your bookmarks here. Thank you for joining me, Jamie!

Every month, there are two ways to win a prize for participating in 4×6 Photo Love! The first is at Two Peas: create your page and upload it to the gallery. Be sure to tick the box for this challenge in step four of the upload process. One participant will win a gift certificate to Two Peas to go shopping for whatever you like. But there’s a second chance to win right here: on this post, leave a comment with a link to your page (in the gallery at Two Peas or on your blog, whatever you prefer) and one of those links will win Two Peas shopping money too! The deadline for both is the 29th of July.

Congratulations to Daphne for winning the draw for last month’s five photo class! (Daphne, you will receive your gift certificate by email.) Will you be next? Just choose six 4×6 photos to scrap and follow along with this month’s class prompt. I hope you enjoy a bit of double-page fun!

xlovesx

PS: Feel free to grab the button there on the left for your blog or to share this class with a friend – since it’s free, the more the merrier! And you’re welcome to use any supplies and any photos, so there’s no boundaries to your scrapping with this year-long project.

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_{©twopeasinabucket.com. Click here for full layout and supplies.}

I just wanted to share this page with you. It’s one of my most favourite photos of our entire journey and it was captured entirely by accident. I promise I didn’t follow monks around all day trying to catch them at the most photogenic moments of their day. No, I was taking pictures of a boy who happens to climb steep and wobbly staircases far, far quicker than I do and he just happened to be oblivious to the next few pedestrians on those stairs. When I had told him to go ahead he thought I was ridiculous, but this picture made me very thankful to have stayed at ground level just a few minutes longer.

You can see the full layout here, in the garden.

A few other things:
…The Garden Girls are hosting a special event called Snap and Scrap your Summer – it’s totally free and fun. There’s an interview with me here, and I got to talk about favourite summertime photo opportunities, things I’ve made and projects by other crafters that are currently inspiring me. I also got to post a challenge, and it’s all about capturing the details of summer in day to day. It’s open until next Monday and there’s a Two Peas prize for one lucky participant.
…Or there’s the new challenge for the UKS Scrap Factor contest – and it’s to find an old layout and return to those photos or that event and scrap it again in your current style. The Play Along side of the contest is open to anyone and there are prizes given each week for one page each in paper, hybrid and digital. That challenge is open until the third of July.
…Today is the last day to post a link to your page for the current sketch and perhaps be featured in tomorrow’s post. Which doesn’t include a giant photo, interestingly enough!

So you know… don’t let anyone say there aren’t enough scrapbooking challenges to keep you busy! (Kidding. Scrap as you love to scrap. Always.)

xlovesx

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_{All class content ©twopeasinabucket.com. Click here for supplies and here for this month’s message board thread.}

It’s the 30th of the month, which means a new edition of 4×6 Photo Love, a free online scrapbooking class I’m teaching all year at Two Peas in a Bucket. As it’s the fifth month of the year, we’re scrapping five 4×6 photos. This month’s design is… gasp… a double page! So something a little different than the four prompts so far. It’s not all doubles from here on out though – some of the pages later in the year pile on a surprising number of 4×6 prints on a single 12×12! But this month, I’m hoping you’ll give the double page layout a try.

The design concept this month includes four of the photos as landscape, so they can create a straight line all across the double page. Then borders go above and below the photos, and a fifth photo is added above the line. That picture can be either portrait or landscape, and it’s a great way to give a bit of special treatment to a single photo.

These two layouts follow the same principles, and it’s this second layout that I create step by step in this month’s video. Grab the beverage of your choice and have a watch! And don’t laugh too much when I start dropping things on the floor. (Live television presenters: how do you not fall to pieces on an hourly basis, I ask?!)

Click here for a printable PDF, full list of supplies and more details on the class page at Two Peas!

This month I have two special guests playing along with the class. This first page comes from May Flaum, who you might remember from her five ideas post not too long ago! May opted for embellishing the middle border, all the way across the page. Perfect for lots of little bits and bringing in plenty of colour and texture! Check out May’s page and supply list here at Two Peas and if you like her style, be sure to check out her blog and Etsy shop too.

My second guest is Melissa Stinson, often better known as the Scrappy Jedi. I love how she added her embellishment to the top left corner of the layout, so that’s a third option while still using the same basic outline for your two page layout. Click here to see Melissa’s supplies and to add her page to your Two Peas bookmarks.

Every month, there are two ways to win a prize for participating in 4×6 Photo Love! The first is at Two Peas: create your page and upload it to the gallery. Be sure to tick the box for this challenge in step four of the upload process. One participant will win a gift certificate to Two Peas to go shopping for whatever you like. But there’s a second chance to win right here: on this post, leave a comment with a link to your page (in the gallery at Two Peas or on your blog, whatever you prefer) and one of those links will win Two Peas shopping money too! The deadline for both is the 29th of June.

And it’s time to catch up with some winners while I’m on that subject! I’m happy to announce Jen, Charity and Lisa all have 4×6 Photo Love prizes coming their way!

Will you be next? Just choose five 4×6 photos to scrap and follow along with this month’s class prompt. I hope you enjoy a bit of double-page fun!

xlovesx

PS: Feel free to grab the button there on the left for your blog or to share this class with a friend – since it’s free, the more the merrier! And you’re welcome to use any supplies and any photos, so there’s no boundaries to your scrapping with this year-long project.

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Here’s my final challenge, and it’s my contribution to all the NSD celebrations at Two Peas this weekend. Build an embellishment out of bits and pieces. I think this might be my favourite way to scrapbook, and it feels like scrapbooking in a traditional sense – a bit of this, a bit of that, put it all together to make something lovely. Yep, sounds like scrapbooking to me. You can find the challenge on the Garden Girl blog here.

As this post goes live, I’m also hosting a chat on the Two Peas message board for an hour or so. Find us here and say hello! UK girls, you should definitely pop by – I think I may be a bit lonely in the chat room with so many of the American scrappers out for lovely Mother’s Day lunches and such.

All of the challenges here and at Two Peas are open till next Sunday, so there’s still time to join in, even if you were busy this weekend. There are also two giveaways here that only take a comment to enter. This one closes today so go comment now! And this one is open until next Sunday.

It’s been so lovely to scrap with all of you this weekend! I finished eight layouts and think it’s probably time I tidy up my scrapdesk. How about you?

xlovesx

PS: The big NSD sale at Two Peas closes tonight, so don’t forget to finish your order if you want to pick something in the sale!

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