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

And so my weekend-long scrapping spree continues… with so very much kraft cardstock!

Jamie’s second challenge is all about questions and answers. I was stumped for a bit, I have to admit! It led me to interviewing someone for journaling and well, there wasn’t an obvious candidate around for an interesting interview. Back to the drawing board and a flip through some pictures and I realised there is one question that keeps coming up, and that would work for a page. And actually be something quite sweet to record now, because who knows where the future will take us.

The Boy grew up in several different countries and generally thinks it was a pretty amazing and defining experience. So although I already live in another country than where I started, he looks at new countries with the question Could we live here?, which can be funny. Sometimes we agree. Sometimes we disagree. But of the dozen countries we visited, there is one that we agree we could happily call home for a few years, should the opportunity present itself. And that was New Zealand. It’s our answer to all the ‘Where was best?’, ‘Where do you want to go back to?’ and ‘Where should you have stayed longer?’ questions.

And then for something completely different… the next challenge is scraplift a Garden Girl. I chose this layout by Chelsea Parsons. Chelsea’s style is so different to mine, but I always love her pages – both paper and digital. So I gave it the old What Would Chelsea Do try. I tried her technique for the background paper and rubbed lots of red chalk over a sheet of kraft dotted swiss. I think the background is lovely fun but then I had a hard time getting it to look right with my patterned papers and such. I wished I had started with a big photo like Chelsea did! But I used a few other things that come up in Chelsea’s albums, like lots of tape and stitching. And then splashed it with a bunch of white paint. I’m not sure if our styles work together or not! But it was fun to try all those new things… and I have plenty of photos in front of that wall, so a bit of variety is a great thing.

Three challenges down, and there are currently four more on the Garden Girl blog, plus I will be setting my own challenge at the start of my chat session today. So there is plenty to pick from, all week long!

xlovesx

Comment [7]

Instead of just yesterday, Two Peas is celebrating Scrapbooking Day for a full weekend, so today I’m focusing on the challenges there. Just like the challenges I set here yesterday, all the Two Peas challenges are open until next Sunday the 15th of May and there are prizes to be won, of course! So you’re invited to join in. I’m hosting a chat there today – 8pm UK time, 2pm US Central time – and I’ll post a direct link here when that starts so you can come say hello!

If you are not a member at Two Peas, create an account and join in the fun. They have a great community and so much inspiration. Plus fabulous shopping! But you can join in the community without shopping if you need to save your pennies. One tip for creating an account if you don’t live in the US: the registration process asks for your address, including a state. Of course, not every country has states, but if you leave it blank, sometimes it says your address isn’t valid. Type XX in that box if you don’t have a state, and that usually does the trick! You don’t have to give any payment details to join and you can choose which newsletters you would like to receive by email.

Jamie is the community manager at Two Peas and she manages all the cool things like events and also takes care of the message boards, the design team and all the fun stuff that goes on at Two Peas. On Friday, she set three challenges to kick off the weekend. The first challenge is all about folding. Include some folded element on your layout! That means you could even do this month’s 4×6 Photo Love and enter for both challenges if you fancied following that project this week! Or of course, anything else that involves folding… so I’ve pulled out the new Sassafras Foldies. I love these embellishments but I don’t think their full potential is obvious when you see them on the sheet, so here’s a quick video that lets you see how they work.

Really loving the foldies on my pages and hoping Sassafras continue to make them with their new collections. (They are showing a new sheet in their Sunshine Broadcast collection that will hit stores soon, so I think it’s a good sign!) Michelle used them here in her guest post last month too.

So that’s one challenge done for the Two Peas weekend event… now I’m on to challenge two – Questions and Answers – and hoping I can come up with something clever!

I hope you’re having a lovely Sunday!

xlovesx

Comment [5]

A few weeks ago I came across an image that made me want to scrapbook. It wasn’t a picture of a scrapbook page, it wasn’t the image itself that I wanted to scrapbook – it was this image from Pink Suede Shoe with its explosion of colour and pattern that made me wonder why I was sat at my computer when I could be cutting and pasting plenty of pretty paper onto a scrapbook page. And so I did what any scrapbooker would do… I pinned it on Pinterest.

I say that in jest, of course, but seriously: Pinterest is fabulous, right? If you’ve joined, I’m here, by the way. If you haven’t joined, think about it! It’s a bookmarking system for images you find on the internet – and those have existed in several forms for a while now. But Pinterest takes that idea and does it very well: first, by letting you create categories for your images so you can go back and find the things you bookmarked so easily, and second, by maintaining the links back to the posts where you first found the image. No more not remembering where you saw something – the image links back to the original source. I use it primarily for bookmarking things I want to try or otherwise want to return to, which makes it quite time-efficient, as it saves me the time I normally waste trying to remember something from six months ago (or let’s be honest: I probably don’t remember even if it was yesterday). There’s also the second side of Pinterest, and that’s following what your friends and other Pinterest members are adding to their boards. That part really does offer up a host of amazingly inspiring pictures and projects on all sorts of topics… but it can also become anything but time-efficient, because there is a near-infinite amount of material you can view. I try my best to save that for little ten minute sessions so I don’t lose myself to the world of pretty things on the internet!

On Pinterest, I do have a scrapbooking category for layouts I see and want to reference later, but it’s the other categories that I really like to use for scrapping inspiration – taking some small element of something and letting it translate to paper and photos. That’s exactly how that image inspired this layout. All those little flags gathered up there in the corner behind the photo – it’s something I’ve already found myself using on additional layouts. And it’s not the only pin that has been making the translation to paper. This image makes me want to try something oversized and in an unexpected colour on a scrapbook page. This makes me want to try something with extra-bold typography and spring colours… possibly with our printing press, which is sitting sadly neglected lately. This photo makes me want to plan a layout in advance and hold the title in the picture. Just a little insight into how outside inspiration works for me.

This week, I want to know how it works for you. I’m hosting a challenge at Two Peas that ends this Thursday. Take inspiration from something outside the scrapbooking world – absolutely anything you like. Use that inspiration to make a paper or digital scrapbook page, a card, a tag or anything crafty. Upload it to the gallery at Two Peas and be sure to select the weekly challenge box in step four of the upload process so you’ll be entered for a Two Peas prize.

And here I would love to hear about how your inspiration process works! Do you prefer taking ideas directly from finished scrapbook pages? Do you like something that gives you a starting point, like a colour combination or a sketch? Do you like taking bits of pieces from non-papercraft things and turning them into a scrapbook design element? Or do you really not even think about all this and just enjoy gluing pieces of paper to other pieces of paper in an aesthetically pleasing manner?

Have a beautiful – and inspirational – week!

xlovesx

Comment [9]

_{©twopeasinabucket.com. Click here for supplies and class details or click here for the message board thread.}

Have you checked out the latest edition of 4×6 Photo Love? In the fourth prompt of the year, we’re scrapping with four 4×6 photos. It’s a design concept that features just three photos at first glance, but the title is actually a card that opens like a door to reveal journaling and an addition photo. This month’s video shows how the page comes together with either portrait or landscape photos and how to customise your page protector to make this page work in your album. Have a look:

I love simple interactive pages like this that allow you to add just a little something unexpected to your layouts – it makes your albums a bit like a pop-up book when you turn the pages.

The first example uses four portrait photos and the journaling tells the story of how Laura was the logical choice for the Cheshire Cat, as I have never known someone to contort their smile into so many silly faces! She will probably kill me for scrapping that, but I figure if she’s going to make those faces for the camera, then she knows they will end up in my scrapbook, right? The pink, turquoise and yellow paper range here is Upcycle by Cosmo Cricket.

And this is the page I walk you through in the video. This page uses a mix of supplies, including October Afternoon, Cosmo Cricket, Jenni Bowlin Studio, Echo Park and Bazzil’s dotted cardstock. I love the baker’s twine for adding a little something to borders on a page. It’s available in so many colours now.

The creative Karen Moss is my special guest this month, and she used this month’s design concept to create both a paper page that follows the steps in the video but also a genius digital page that layers two printed copies of the same digital page (with just one change – swapping the title for the photo) to create a page that is both digital and interactive. I so happy to share her work and I hope you will add her ideas to your bookmarks.

So now it’s your turn! Throughout this month, I challenge you to create a page with four 4×6 photographs and an interactive title box. As an added incentive, you have two chances to win a prize too! When you upload a picture of your completed project to the scrapbook gallery at Two Peas, make sure to check the box for the 4×6 Photo Love challenge in step four of the upload process. Then come back to this post and leave a link to your page here in the comments. One person from all the entries at Two Peas and one person from all the links here will be chosen and each wins a gift certificate to go shopping for your favourite stash! You need to upload and link by the 29th of May for both chances to win. (I also have winners to post here for earlier class participation – look for those later this week!)

Would you like to receive an email reminder each month when my class is live? If so, please send an email to shimelle at gmail dot com with this subject line: 4×6 Photo Love Reminders. (Copy and paste that subject line, as you won’t get added to the list unless it’s just like that! Thanks!) You’ll get one message each month when the class has been posted – no other mailings and I would never, ever sell your email list or anything else evil, I promise. This month’s message will go out later today.

So what four photos will you choose? Can’t wait to see what you create!

xlovesx

PS: As this is a free class and it lasts all year long, I’d love for you to invite a friend to join in the fun. Click the share button, reblog the video or grab the badge there on the left for your blog’s sidebar. Thanks!

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

This is one of my favourite pages in quite a while. It’s all about this. And it doesn’t even have a single butterfly.

It’s here in the Garden this week. Just wanted to share.

xlovesx

PS: excited about a little project happening here tomorrow!

Comment [4]

_{©twopeasinabucket.com. Click here for supplies and class details or click here for the message board thread.}

Have you checked out the latest edition of 4×6 Photo Love? In the third prompt of the year, we’re scrapping with three 4×6 photos. It’s a design concept that lines everything up and makes use of border strips, so you can get a big impact from relatively little stash – and it’s also quick to do! You can pretty much scrap right along with the video in real-time – just pause to grab your photos and papers perhaps. Have a look:

As always, this video includes random facts like why there is a swirl stamp permanently attached to my large acrylic block, blue nail varnish and paint spattering. Which may or may not be the true reason for wearing blue nail varnish. Oh, and making a layout with three 4×6 photos, of course!

The first page features some photos taken by SJ a while back. So much fun – a highly recommended post-wedding occasion to wear your dress again! But back to the layout: this month’s design concept using three photos and three borders. This page uses Crate Paper for the border strips and some lovely ribbons and trims (from Making Memories and American Crafts). And butterflies. Here’s a secret: I like my butterfly punch. I bet you never, ever knew.

And this is the page I walk you through in the video. No butterflies this time, I promise. Snowflakes seemed far more appropriate. This page uses October Afternoon papers and a border stamp by Studio Calico. Both pages use this EK Success border punch which is one of my absolute favourites.

The lovely Laura is my special guest this month, and she gets all creative with this month’s design concept – one option for using landscape photos instead of portrait and a second option for scrapping in 8.5×11 instead of 12×12. You can leave her a little comment love if you like her pages, you know! I love how her pages are always so bright and fresh.

So now it’s your turn! Throughout this month, I challenge you to create a page with three 4×6 photographs and three border strips. As an added incentive, you have two chances to win a prize too! When you upload a picture of your completed project to the scrapbook gallery at Two Peas, make sure to check the box for the 4×6 Photo Love challenge in step four of the upload process. Then come back to this post and leave a link to your page here in the comments. One person from all the entries at Two Peas and one person from all the links here will be chosen and each wins a gift certificate to go shopping for your favourite stash! (By the way, they have added a crazy amount of new stuff in the last week – like several thousand new products! Just in case you felt like you needed some new product to inspire your creativity!) You need to upload and link by the 29th of April for both chances to win.

So what do you think about three pictures? Can’t wait to see what you create!

xlovesx

PS: As this is a free class and it lasts all year long, I’d love for you to invite a friend to join in the fun. Click the share button or grab the badge there on the left for your blog. Thanks!

Comment [45]

One of the lovely things about online classes is that they can truly be self-paced and fit your schedule — which means if you’ve just heard about 4×6 Photo Love now (or you’re reading this next year), you can join in any time. As a little added bonus to participating at a later date, you can find further inspiration from all the participants who have shared their interpretations of each lesson. And with that, I think it’s about time for some highlights from the first month of this free class for 2011!

Here are nine of my favourite scrapbook pages that were uploaded to the Two Peas gallery during the first month of class. Follow these links to see each page in more detail and add them to your bookmarks or click that like button to make some scrappers’ days!
Top row, L to R: one, two, three.
Middle row, L to R: four, five, six.
Bottom row, L to R: seven, eight, nine.

Each month there are two chances to win – one winner is randomly selected from al the participants at Two Peas and another is randomly selected from those who leave a comment and a link here at shimelle.com. These are our two lucky crafters for the first month, and I love both their pages! LadybugUK (the layout on the left) is the Two Peas winner and Scrap Maman (the scrapbook page on the right) is the winner here! (Please email me at shimelle at gmail dot com so I can get your gift certificate over to you! Thanks!)

Lesson two is live now, so join us in scrapping two 4×6 pictures this month… or any time it fits your schedule!

xlovesx

Comment [17]

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

With February already drawing to a close, it’s time for the second edition of my free scrapbooking class for 2011, 4×6 Photo Love! As it’s the second month of the year, we’re creating layouts with two 4×6 photos, a number I just love.

Two photos are my default option for pages, because two images can show two different elements of any one moment or event. If you’re a fellow lover of crazy shallow depth of field, you can create a diptych of two images that show the same scene, but with different points in focus, so one focuses on the foreground and the other shows the background. Or you can show one detail shot and one wider shot of an entire scene. Or two different people at the same party, two angles of the same monument, one shot from the beginning and one from the end of the day, one in-progress picture and one of the finished item… so many ways to pair two photos to tell a story!

In this month’s video, we look at one design principle that works well with two 4×6 pictures, and I walk you through the creation of the Lady Liberty layout. I hope you enjoy!

If you prefer a written version to the video, you can download the class materials as a PDF and view it on your screen or print it out to have right there on your table as you scrapbook. You can find the PDF download link here. There’s also a thread on the message board for chatting about this month’s class.

Throughout the year, some special guests will be showing their own take on the design principles outlined in 4×6 Photo Love. This month, dear friend SJ had an early peek at the class and created two layouts in her beautiful style. I love them! I still have another month before I am back to my scrapping supplies but these pages just make me want to get scrapbooking right this second. Sigh! Please visit SJ’s blog to say hello and read a bit more about her creative process.

Now, each month you have two chances to win a prize for participating in class. (And you don’t need to have participated in the first class to take part in this month’s class!) Your first chance is to upload your page to the gallery at Two Peas and be sure to click the box for 4×6 Photo Love in step 4 of the uploading process. Your second chance to win is to then post a link in the comments here on this blog post to your layout (in the gallery or on your blog, etc). At the end of the month, a winner is randomly chosen for each way to enter and wins a gift certificate to Two Peas, so you can go shopping for whatever you like!

And one little request from me: since this class is free, care to invite a scrappy or crafting friend to join in? You don’t need any certain supplies to participate and can use whatever you have on hand and most of us have at least two 4×6 prints sitting around somewhere. Use the share button at the bottom right of this post or just email a friend with a link. I’d love for anyone to join us for this year of fun! Thanks!

Happy scrapping!

xlovesx

PS: I know some of you love to collect badges for your blog sidebars, so you can add one for 4×6 Photo Love if you like! Copy and paste this html into your blog sidebar to display it:
<a href="http://www.shimelle.com/category/4x6-photo-love/" title="online scrapbooking class :: 4x6 photo love"><img src="http://www.shimelle.com/images/1868.jpg" alt="4x6 photo love" /></a>

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