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

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Inspired by this conversation on the General Scrapbooking message board at Two Peas, Glitter Girl brings you thirty minutes of scrapbook talk this week, all about journaling. She shares her tips for product choices that will make journaling easy, designs that allow you to incorporate your writing without losing other page elements, and other tips for seeing your writing as an integral part of any page. I hope you enjoy!

See this post for all the supplies for this project, plus further details including Glitter Girl’s challenge to you this week.

Those photos were taken in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, inside a market hall. I know the colouring looks a little blue, and I toyed with ‘correcting’ it, but the light truly looked like this inside and in the end I decided I wanted to stay true to the look and feel of the memory rather than changing the colour to look like it could be anywhere. But the story is about our adventures in drinking beans, which sounds strange, but I assure you is actually pretty fabulous. We were introduced to this idea in Vietnam when part of a cooking workshop took us through the local market to sample different local ingredients. There we met someone who was introduced only as ‘The Bean Lady’, and she sat outside the market with half a dozen pots of different slow cooked beans. This summer concoction is made with azuki beans that have been slow cooked with sugar until they are very sweet, then layered with sweetened condensed milk, shaved ice, and caramel. (In the winter, there is a warm version with similar ingredients.) Different regions have different ways of making and eating this and indeed different pots of different things from all the local bean ladies! As we went further south in Vietnam, bean ladies became harder and harder to find, so when we stumbled upon one in Cambodia, we were excited to try her version, which happened to be the sweetest we ever tasted. So for my journaling on this page, I didn’t just want to focus on the moment at hand, but also include some of that backstory – the context of other memories that makes you see why I felt these photos were worth taking and why they are something I want to preserve in my scrapbooks.

For more inspiration on journaling at Two Peas, follow this Pinterest board, where I’ll continue to add my favourites as I spot them in the gallery and other resources there.

If you’re looking to take your writing further in your scrapbooking, True Stories is a resource you might find useful. It’s my journaling class and I’m joined by guest artists and a guest teacher (Relly Annett-Baker, who is a writing expert outside of her scrapbooking side, and contributed a second point of view to each prompt, which provides a great balance and extension of ideas). The pages I made for True Stories are probably my favourites I’ve ever made for any class, because the chance to focus on the writing (but still have fun with photos, patterns, and embellishment) made these pages dear to my heart. I worked on them when we were at an interesting cross-roads in life, as well, and I am grateful that I took the time to document things like decision making processes and conversations between old friends. This class is available any time as a self-paced project, with fifteen prompts for £10 or $15, and you can sign up here.

Onward, covered in glitter, my dear scrapbookers!

The Adventures of Glitter Girl is a weekly series on Two Peas in a Bucket, and goes live every Wednesday. I’ll share each adventure here shortly after that. I hope you enjoy her quests for crafting happiness, and if you ever have a scrapbooking dilemma yourself, you can always call her to action on the message board.

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It’s time for the gardeners’ digest – a monthly blog hop through the Two Peas in a Bucket designers, the Garden Girls.

Since last time, it’s been my sparkly friend contributing to the garden, of course. Last week Glitter Girl got the chance to give the brand new Amy Tangerine stitching templates a whirl, even though they don’t hit stores for a couple more weeks. You can see that new item plus Glitter Girl’s tips on unlikely colours in her adventure on Colour Coordination.

The new year has brought a huge change to how the garden works at Two Peas – and now there are six new videos every week. Each day has a theme, and Mondays belong to 213 in 2013, which is a new take on the old weekly challenge idea. Each video includes three or four different creativity prompts so the full year adds up to 213 different ideas, from design to photography to product to colour choice and so on.

This video is from new Garden Girl Corrie Jones and I know how nerve-wracking it is just getting started with videos… even at this point I feel like every video is a new learning curve! I love Corrie’s page and I’m really excited to try some of the ideas she presented, so I thought this might inspire you too. See her full project here.

For my product picks this month, I’m really drawn to stamps! You’ve seen my last few projects including this set by Kelly Purkey, which is exclusive to Two Peas. I’ve also ordered this set by Mama Elephant, this camera background by Hero Arts, the interlocking backgrounds by Lawn Fawn, and these BasicGrey arrows. I guess I’m on a bit of a stamp kick!

This month, I’m delighted to giveaway a class pass to Julie Campbell’s new workshop, Journey into Cardmaking. Whether you’re a seasoned card maker or have yet to make your first card, this workshop will take you on a journey to create handmade cards that your friends & loved ones will cherish.

Julie will start out by teaching you card making basics; you will create a card organizer to file away all the new cards you’ll be designing! You’ll then travel on to gain greater design skills. You’ll dive into design principles and learn how to create an eye pleasing design. You’ll learn all about composition & balance in a way that will take your cards from good to great! Become adventurous and explore some of the hottest trends in paper crafting! In this workshop, you’ll also learn how to incorporate colors in your projects & how to create cards in several unique styles. Included in this workshop are over 30 brand-new card samples from Julie and her contributors. The three chapters contain a printable PDF for a total of over 40 pages, and 80 minutes of coordinating video tutorials.

To enter, leave a comment on this post! Entries close at 11:59pm GMT on the 31st of January 2013, and the winner will be contacted and posted here shortly thereafter. But you don’t have to wait to sign up if you’re interested: if the winner has already purchased the workshop, the purchase price will be fully refunded (or you can choose to gift it to a friend, of course).

Once you leave that comment to enter, your next stop is Julie herself! So do go there next!

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There are some things I absolutely love about scrapbooking kits: the ease of something selected to mix and match perfectly without it all being one collection, the right amount of stuff to make quite a few pages or projects without having to dip into too many other supplies, the portability factor that makes it easy to pick up and scrap anywhere by grabbing a kit with some photos and basic tools, getting to see how different crafters are so creative with the same set of supplies, and the chance to take up the challenge to use something I might not otherwise purchase for myself. But then there are downsides: accidentally duplicating items I’ve already purchased, ending up with supplies I won’t use because they are beyond a challenge and just aren’t my style, wishing I had something very close to that kit but with maybe a small change or two, and the conundrum of what to do with a subscription that arrives every month whether I’ve had time to use the last one or not.

So for 2013, I’ve put together a little something designed to be the Best of Both Worlds. These are my product picks that I’m assembling into a kit each month, with a few guidelines: the kit will stay at the same budget (just shy of $40 USD – but keep reading because there’s a solution if that’s too much for you) and always include at least two elements that will last long after the paper and stickers are gone (usually a stamp set for one, then things like tape, mist, or ink for the other). You place your order through Two Peas in a Bucket, so you can add more products while you’re shopping if you like (they offer free US shipping over $50, so that may be beneficial to you) and they ship all over the world. You can skip straight to the January kit here if you fancy.

There’s no subscription so you can jump in and out as you see fit.
You can edit the kit if you want more control by omitting items or replacing them. Say you don’t stamp: removing the stamp set from the kit saves you a sizeable chunk of the kit’s overall price, so that’s a great way to keep things to a smaller budget. Or say you don’t like Thickers (gasp!), you could leave them out or if you just don’t like glittery Thickers, you could replace them with another colour in a non-glittery option in the same font, so the kit would work exactly the same as I’m using it but you wouldn’t be angry at the world for getting glitter on your desk.

And yes, I’ll be using it. Each month you’ll see my projects from the kit come together through different videos and blog posts. I’ll be using the kit for my Sketch to Scrapbook Page videos and Scrapbook Starting Points and a few other spontaneous blog posts along the way. (You are, of course, welcome to participate in those challenges without the kit too.)

I realise this is a different definition to the idea of a ‘kit’ in the scrapbooking world, but that’s certainly what I’m making – a kit of supplies to use throughout the month. It just doesn’t have the subscription element and gives you the freedom to make choices should you wish to change the kit a bit! The January selection includes patterned papers from Pebbles, Echo Park, Studio Calico, Jenni Bowlin, BasicGrey, My Mind’s Eye, and October Afternoon, plus Thickers and smaller flat letter stickers, buttons and chipboard embellishments, colourful tape and a set of clear stamps designed by Kelly Purkey.

Here’s a look at the January selections and some further thoughts on how this works – including why I added certain elements this month and what changes you might want to make if your scrapping style differs to mine!

Click here to purchase the January 2013 Best of Both Worlds kit.
It’s as simple as adding one of everything if you want to use the same kit that I’ll be using all month, but you can of course make any changes you would like. Right now, there is a good supply of all the items in the kit, but as this gives you the option to pick and choose, it may mean some items sell out quicker than others. So waiting is at your own risk, I guess!

If you’re a loyal customer at Two Peas, your customer loyalty discount will be applied! And of course your kit purchase counts toward the customer loyalty discount too.

Coming right up: the first Sketch to Scrapbook Page video of the year, with a layout made from this kit, of course!

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It’s that time again – it’s our final Gardeners’ Digest blog hop for 2012! The Garden Girls from Two Peas have a few things to share with you, as always, so you can hop from blog to blog to catch up on all our favourites from the past month.

This month Glitter Girl has covered all sorts of things like 6×6 papers and plenty of Christmas scrapbooking projects in her latest videos, and the most recent adventure sees her getting glittery with it (na na na na na na na).

It seems the most common question in my inbox lately is ‘Will Glitter Girl be back in 2013?’ but I’m afraid that’s yet to be revealed! Oh the suspense!

So many times I see scrapbookers write things about how annual events (like holidays and birthdays) can be less fun to scrapbook because they get repetitive, but I have to say the inspiration for Christmas pages from the Garden Girls have totally blown that theory out of the water for me. The variety of details they have included is just gorgeous and the entire team has inspired me so much this month. Check out all the Christmas projects here.

As for product suggestions this month, it’s pretty hard to ignore the fabulousness of the huge holiday sale that’s already started – 25% off more than nine hundred holiday-themed scrapbooking products. You can find that sale here, and if that’s a bit too much to take in all at once, narrow it down to just physical products if you want paper and tape and stickers and other such stuff to arrive in a lovely box. (But that first option also includes digital and printable goodies that you can download straight away, perfect if you have some last minute crafting needs!) Plus the warehouse is shipping really fast right now – I placed an order when the sale started and it was out the door and on its way to me in sixteen hours, which is pretty darn cool. (Now if they can just invent a nice little teleporter for scrapbook supplies so I don’t have to wait for airmail? That would be one amazing Christmas!)

Now two more things that are most important!
One, your next stop on the hop is the always lovely Miss Amy Tan, so be sure to head to her next and see what she’s up to in the lovely warm climate of southern California (and she just came back from Maui). Today’s freezing rain here in London is making me think she’s got a good idea going there!
Two, it’s giveaway time! Leave a comment on this post to be entered to win a space on the brand new workshop from Lisa Truesdell (also known as Gluestick Girl). It’s called Start Here and it’s all about letting your photos and stories inspire the way you create your pages, finding a variety of interesting ways to get started (and finished) with great designs that stay true to your style and life! (You can sign up and access this self-paced class at any time here, and if you win this giveaway and have already purchased the class, your purchase will be refunded or you can choose to gift it to a friend, so go ahead and treat yourself to something fun!) Entries close next Thursday, the 27th of December 2012. You can enter up to three times per person: once for leaving a comment, once for following me on Twitter, and once for following on Facebook (you can add me as a friend or just subscribe to public updates – whatever you prefer). Just say in your comment if you’re following on either or both of those and you’ll get up to three total names in the hat.

Good luck, and happy hopping!

xlovesx

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On the twenty-second of every month, we bring you Gardeners’ Digest – a blog hop of scrapbooking news from the Garden Girls at Two Peas in a Bucket! Except the twenty-second of November is a big holiday for many of you, so we’ve altered the schedule a bit. The Gardeners’ Digest comes a little early!

Since the last Digest, Glitter Girl has been up to several adventures, of course! She’s tackled masculine scrapbook pages, scrapbooking with ribbons, layering vellum, and finding traditional Christmas papers amongst your supplies from the rest of the year. Any guesses what question she might be answering tomorrow from that little sneak peek above?

Instead of picking just one project this month, I thought I’d pick one from each of the Garden Girls! All the pictures are clickable, so just click through to bookmark anything you like (and see the project in full, of course).

Two Peas has run a few fabulous sales recently, so I may have taken that opportunity to go shopping! Just maybe! Five of my favourite products right now include Seen & Noted papers by Pebbles, Dear Lizzy 5th & Frolic papers in 6×6, translucent letter stickers by Amy Tangerine, colourful mini letter stickers from Simple Stories Sn@p and the perfect set of little badges for any Instagram fan. What are your favourites lately? Did you pick up anything special in the sale?

How about a shopping spree? This month’s Gardeners’ Digest giveaway is Two Peas shopping money! For every hundred comments, the prize goes up by $10. Ten bucks for the first hundred comments… then twenty, thirty, forty. You can only comment once and you have until the end of next Thursday, the 29th of November. If there are lots and lots of comments, that prize pot might make it up to a $100 shopping spree perhaps! You might want to tell a friend.

Now, once you’ve left that comment, remember to click on over to the next Garden Girl. Your next stop is the fabulous Marcy Penner, who also has a range of delightful printable journaling cards available at Two Peas. And enjoy the digest posts from all the Garden Girls! You can also catch up with the Two Peas blog for everything happening in Pealand!

Gardeners’ Digest is a monthly update from the Garden Girls, the design team at Two Peas in a Bucket. To keep up with the Garden Girls throughout the month, check out the garden gallery, find us on Twitter or subscribe to all our blogs with just a couple clicks.

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The past few weeks I have been surrounded by Christmas scrapbooking supplies and I wasn’t allowed to cut and paste any of them! I’ve been preparing the preordered Christmas in a Box kits for UK addresses, and they’ve started posting and yesterday I had an email from one scrapper who had unpacked her kit – that always makes it feel quite real! Today I can share details about that kit and it is now available for purchase in the US and worldwide, complete with a discount code!

For pre-ordered kits in the UK
If you pre-ordered in July you were sent a click-to-pay invoice email for the balance of the kit and these started shipping last week. All remaining boxes here that have been paid will be posted tomorrow (Monday, 12th November). I even have a car for the day to make that happen – how fancy! If you haven’t paid your invoice, your box won’t ship until that’s paid of course.
Also, there is a little something extra coming to each of you in a separate little delivery that will arrive right around the first of December. It’s just a little bit of Christmas happiness from me to you and I hope it brings you some Christmas cheer!

For those in the UK who did not pre-order
There are a very limited number of extra kits available here. These will go on sale here Tuesday morning at 6am, and they will be shipped straight away. Kits are £44, which includes postage. There may also be a few later on if some pre-ordered kits are not paid for by mid-November, but please don’t bank on getting a kit that way as you know there are not many scrappers out there who don’t like a box of new crafting stash!

For those anywhere in the world
The kit is available from today from Two Peas in a Bucket, who will ship to anywhere in the world. You can find my kit list here, and just add one of each to your bucket to order your kit. There are just a few small differences between that kit and what I’ve boxed up here: sadly there are no more of the Jenni Bowlin rhinestone stars (unless you find them in a store that still has stock) as they were a limited edition item, so I’ve suggested enamel dots as a replacement as they are also red and can be used in the same way. There are two sheets of paper different, plus I’ve added a set of Thickers and the Two Peas exclusive Christmas stamp set. The list lets you pick and choose what you would like so you can make any changes you fancy and you can stick to whatever budget you would like. But there is a great reason to add the stamp set to your kit: if you spend at least $50 with your purchase and use code DDKP25, you’ll receive 25% off your items! That’s $12.50 off a $50 purchase, so that’s almost enough to cover the fab stamp set! But it doesn’t have to just be things from my list, so if you wanted to add an album or more shopping, go for it as the 25% discount will cover that too. (It cannot be combined with a free shipping code, but it can be used for any amount of shopping past $50, so it’s quite likely your savings will be much greater than the shipping discount – plus it can be used for international orders and those usually only get a $5 discount on the shipping.)

Please don’t wait to order as the discount code expires on the 16th of November and items may sell out, so go ahead and go shopping now to get everything you want, including the discount.

What about an album?
The kits do not include an album so you are free to choose whatever album style you would like! This year I am using the Studio Calico Handbook album with the coordinating page protectors. It comes in a few different cover styles (all the same size but different patterns embossed on the cover) and is a neutral cover designed to be customised however you would like. You can find the albums and the page protectors here, and if you’re spending more than $50 at Two Peas then use that DDKP25 discount code to get the 25% off these too. If you’re in the UK and looking to source these albums, they are available locally from Sarah’s Cards. (I will not be stocking these albums.)

If you would like some other album types to consider, check out this list of those available at Two Peas and see if something suits your style. You might also want to make your own album and not need a formal book at all – that works too and can help keep the cost down if that’s a priority for you this year.

Do I have to have a kit?
There is no requirement to use any certain supplies for Journal your Christmas, of course! You can use any supplies you would like! But it can be fun to treat yourself to a lovely box of new goodies to enjoy throughout the holiday season, and these are the supplies I will be using throughout my 2012-2013 album, which means you’ll see them in the prompts and videos of this year’s class. Having some or all of the same supplies can make it super easy to follow along if time is limited throughout the holidays, but you are always, always welcome to use your own supplies and scrap in your own style, so please don’t feel it’s a requirement in the slightest.

Thanks so much, and if there are any questions just let me know!

xlovesx

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This week Glitter Girl takes on an older product that is back on the scene: she’s scrapbooking with vellum! Inspired by this discussion on the message board at Two Peas, she has a few suggestions for product choices and benefits, then a new layout to share in this week’s adventure.

There are plenty of vellum options available at Two Peas and now and many of them are on sale this week. Scroll down to the bottom of this page and you’ll find all sorts of goodies related to this week’s adventure, but be quick if you want to grab the discounts as the hot products sale ends on Friday.

And yes, that is a school photo from my early teaching years! We had to have a staff photo taken each year and once the school had taken the necessary number for bulletin boards and so forth, the remaining prints would appear in our pigeon holes in the staff room, and ever since I’ve had this small collection of grown-up school portraits. I am pretty sure this is the first time I’ve put any of them on a page. I also have yearly class portraits of my tutor group – that’s basically like homeroom for those of you stateside. I had the same group for four years, so those class pictures show them starting as teeny kids and growing up one year at a time, all in school uniform of course. Some day I will figure out the best way to scrapbook that entire experience too… but this is a start. Interestingly, the top I am wearing in this photo caused me no end of trouble in my first teaching job (I missed the memo that red did not meet the dress code there) but that is a different story for a different day and a different page entirely.

This week, Glitter Girl challenges you to scrapbook with vellum and share the results! You can link to them in the comments here too if you like.

The Adventures of Glitter Girl is a weekly series on Two Peas in a Bucket, and goes live every Wednesday. I’ll share each adventure here shortly after that. I hope you enjoy her quests for crafting happiness, and if you ever have a scrapbooking dilemma yourself, you can always call her to action on the message board.

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On the twenty-second of every month, we bring you Gardeners’ Digest – a blog hop of scrapbooking news from the Garden Girls at Two Peas in a Bucket!

This week, Glitter Girl went on a colour binge! Three guesses what colour Glitter Girl uses most on her pages.

This month, Two Peas itself has given me design inspiration! If you haven’t visited in the last few days, you’re in for a whole new design. Go take a look! One of my favourite things about the new design is the look of the project pages, which now put more attention on the pictures of the project and include bigger, brighter shopping pictures for the relevant supplies at the bottom of the page, like this.

Having used quite a bit of patterned paper making eighty pages for my new class Scrapbook Remix, my Two Peas bucket is currently filled with paper! It includes Dear Lizzy 5th & Frolic, BasicGrey Lucille, Simple Stories Sn@p, Crate Acorn Avenue and Lost & Found 3 by My Mind’s Eye. So much pretty paper!

How about a shopping spree? This month’s Gardeners’ Digest giveaway is Two Peas shopping money! For every hundred comments, the prize goes up by $10. Ten bucks for the first hundred comments… then twenty, thirty, forty. You can only comment once and you have until the end of next Thursday. If there are lots and lots of comments, that prize pot might make it up to a $100 shopping spree perhaps! You might want to tell a friend.

Now, once you’ve left that comment, remember to click on over to the next Garden Girl. Your next stop is the lovely Lynn Gharary, who recently launched the Step Up Your Scrapbooking workshop. And enjoy the digest posts from all the Garden Girls! You can also catch up with the Two Peas blog for everything happening in Pealand!

Gardeners’ Digest is a monthly update from the Garden Girls, the design team at Two Peas in a Bucket. To keep up with the Garden Girls throughout the month, check out the garden gallery, find us on Twitter or subscribe to all our blogs with just a couple clicks.

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