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

_{Click here to see full page and more details.}

A little something new from the Garden Girls – on the twenty-second of the month, we bring you Gardeners’ Digest, a blog-hop style wrap up of our favourite projects and products at Two Peas in a Bucket. If you’ve just arrived from Shannon’s blog, then hello hello! (And if you’re just starting here, you can following it around, of course!)

First up, a look at what each of us is doing in the garden, and you may have noticed my slightly mysterious job there now! All I know is I’m the mild-mannered scrapbooker. This Glitter Girl person does seem to have some similarities, and I’m not quite sure if I can identify the voice known as the Adhesive Avenger. But I hope you are enjoying the Adventures of Glitter Girl each Wednesday, and if you have any topic you would like her to address in a video, please stop by the General Scrapbooking message board to grab her attention. She’s always on the look out for a good scrapping discussion!

_{Project by Lisa Truesdell.}

If you like scrapbooking videos, I also urge you to check out Memory Keeping Mondays, which now has three different scrapbook pages from start to finish, with a new one added tomorrow. I love that there are four different scrappers working on this series (Jen, Shannon, Nancy and Lisa) so you’ll see a variety of styles, techniques and page themes. And if you’re working on a year-long documenting project (like Project Life or Document:2012), then definitely check out 2012 Captured, a monthly update from Lisa Truesdell with all sorts of creative energy and ideas for keeping that project rolling.

Here’s a little peek into my latest order from Two Peas. We’re each sharing five products we love, so here are five I’ve just unpacked yesterday and I’m looking forward to finding them a home on a layout very soon.
Two stock-up items: the polaroid paper from Echo Park (now 50% off) and all things Sassafras. I’m still mourning the loss of Sassafras and I stocked up on papers, stickers and embellishments (including Foldies!) before they disappear for good. Then three things that are brand new to me: a set of tape from KI Memories, pink, white and red baker’s twine from Doodlebug and Go-themed die cut tags from Ormulu. See if you can spot any of these on projects in the next few weeks – and hassle me if you can’t!

Two things for you:
First, leave a comment on this post to be entered to win a $10 gift certificate to Two Peas. Easy! Enter before the end of Thursday and the winner will be posted on Friday.
Second, your next stop on the way is Wendy Sue. Go, go, go!

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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_{Class content ©twopeasinabucket.com.}

In this week’s adventure, Glitter Girl tackles creative block, an issue currently being discussed here on the General Scrapbooking message board at Two Peas. Her adventure takes her through the reasons why creative block occurs, how to find inspiration here at Two Peas and how scraplifting can become a useful step in the creative process.

To create the layout in this week’s video, Glitter Girl selected six layouts posted at Two Peas and took one piece of inspiration from each. The product choice of the Peachy Keen collection was inspired by Say Cheese by hyperstarre, the white cardstock and splash of ink was inspired by Hello Lazy Mornings by 4Shanna, the garland of buttons and mixed paper elements was inspired by Lookalike by Jen Chapin, the title came from BrianaJ’s Time Flies layout, Wilna inspired the photo strip with a mix of colour and black & white images with her page Ten and Chasing the Morning Sunshine by MaryGrace inspired the final touch of lace to complete the page.

_{Click here for supplies – and a bunch of them are on sale, by the way.}

I wouldn’t normally make such a prescriptive list of inspiration points, and would rather take just one element perhaps. But this was such a fun page to create and the more detailed challenge created by all those elements made it come together quickly. I love the look of the finished page and how it looks different than any of those original pages. Proof that creative block can be crushed when we need it to be!

This week Glitter Girl challenges you to take inspiration from something you have found at Two Peas in a Bucket. Create something to share with the Two Peas community and in your project description, tell us about how you found inspiration there. Be sure to click the challenge box when you upload a picture to the gallery. You can also leave a link here in the comments to share what you have made!

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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_{Class content ©twopeasinabucket.}

In her second adventure, Glitter Girl tackles the mists of magnitude, an issue currently being discussed here on the General Scrapbooking message board at Two Peas.

This adventure takes her through the differences in various mist and spray product lines, including which white sprays show up on black cardstock, and on to create two scrapbook pages with an assortment of misting techniques.

_{Click here for supplies.}
On this page, the obvious ideas of spraying the background and splattering bigger drops of ink, but also my favourite thing about cream coloured mist, which is painting a white-based sticker cream to match another collection. In this case, that means BasicGrey stickers (which are printed on white) can match with October Afternoon stickers (printed on cream) and act as if they always existed in harmony. This minor concept makes me happier than I can explain.

_{Click here for supplies. Oh, and that smile sticker is incorrectly identified in the video. It’s by KI Memories, not Doodlebug. You can find it here and Glitter Girl apologises for the error.}
And a second page this week, to demonstrate how white mist can be particularly useful with patterned papers, and because I’m not ready to put that snowflake punch away with the Christmas decorations!

Any more ideas for mists you would like to share? Please do! Glitter Girl would love to hear from you in the comments. And she challenges you to share a layout or a project with your favourite brand of mist in the gallery this week.

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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_{Class content ©twopeasinabucket.}

In her first adventure, Glitter Girl comes to the rescue of Chrispeas, who shares her concern with organising and scrapbooking a mountain of memorabilia. (See the discussion here.)

Along her adventure, Glitter Girl tackles storage solutions, finds useful products and creates a scrapbook page with new year memorabilia.

_{Click here for supplies.}

For pretty pieces of memorabilia you would like to keep out and enjoy, a shadow box or printer’s tray from 7gypsies may be just the thing. Just cut photos to size then stack on the memorabilia you would like to save. This box is tiny (the large photo is just smaller than 4×6) and includes tulle from a bridal veil, a wedding favour and ribbons from the wedding stationery, plus the four photographs.

_{Click here for supplies.}

Pockets are handy for adding memorabilia to scrapbook pages, and this new pack is especially cute. Glitter Girl used the smallest and largest size from that set on this layout. (And I am rather excited to have my first page in our 2012 album!)

Any more ideas for memorabilia you would like to share? Please do! Glitter Girl would love to hear from you in the comments. And she challenges you to share a layout or a photo of your memorabilia storage system in the gallery this week.

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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_{All class content ©twopeasinabucket.com. Click here to view supplies and full details.}

It’s the thirtieth of the month, so that means it’s time for a brand new edition of 4×6 Photo Love! This is the final lesson in the year long class. Since it’s the twelfth month of the year, we’re scrapbooking a full dozen 4×6 prints on one scrapbook page – and it’s even a single page layout, if you can believe it!

This month’s idea is super simple: create a stack of photos and attach them to the top of the layout with string, twine or ribbon. With double-sided patterned papers, you can make the stack of photos extra pretty and colourful. I used the Little Black Dress collection from BasicGrey for one layout and a mix of collections from Studio Calico for the second page.

By the way, just for today Two Peas has marked all patterned papers from Studio Calico to 60% off, like the dozen papers I used in my Year in Review layout. Check the sale out here and stock up on 12×12 papers for thirty-four cents and 6×6 paper pads under three dollars. (Your order might qualify for free US shipping too – try code NKFFRL for free shipping on orders of $35 of physical, non-phase out products up till the stroke of the new year.)

Depending on how you prefer things in your album, the loose mini pages can stay inside the page protector or you can attach them so they are on the outside of the page protector with just a little tweaking. Punch the hole through the page protector as well as the layout, staple or sew through the page protector, or just cut part of the page protector away. You can also cut extra page protectors to size to fit all the photo layers. Stitch them or close the edges with pretty washi tape.

Stop by Two Peas to download a PDF with notes on this project and visit the Education message board for all the Two Peas classes.

This month I’m joined by special guest Leah Farquharson with her take on this design principle. Leah added border punches to the mix for a beautifully detailed

You can find Leah’s project here at Two Peas to add to your bookmarks.

Now it’s your turn…
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 January.

Congratulations to Gaby for winning the draw for last month’s eleven photo class! (Gaby, I need your email address. Can you contact me at shimelle at gmail dot com please?) Will you be next? Just choose twelve 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! This is our final update to this project but it will continue to be available for free to help any scrapper with ideas for 4×6 pictures.

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_{All class content ©twopeasinabucket.com. Click here to view supplies and full details.}

It’s the thirtieth of the month, so that means it’s time for a brand new edition of 4×6 Photo Love! Since it’s the eleventh month of the year, we’re scrapbooking eleven 4×6 prints on one scrapbook layout – which is quite possibly an eye-crossing endeavour, but it is possible! Grab some photos and join in the fun and games.

I shall swear up and down that this month’s design isn’t cheating – it still counts as one layout to me! It starts with a double page spread including seven 4×6 prints (I used three portraits and four landscapes) then an extra 6×12 page in the middle holds four more landscape images and two journaling cards.

With so many photos on the page, you’ll find that it comes together rather quickly and without a huge stack of supplies, since more of the page than usual is filled with photographs. This month’s pages are definitely easier to see on video than in still pictures, so watch this month’s pages come together when you have a minute!

Stop by Two Peas to download a PDF with notes on this project and visit the Education message board for all the Two Peas classes.

This month I’m joined by special guest (and scrapping friend!) Leanne Edwards with her take on this design principle. She printed a big stack of photos from her wedding reception at 4×6 and they are all landscape, so she adapted the design to work perfectly with the pictures she wanted to scrap. I love the bright colours and the party feel from all those polka dots!

You can find Leanne’s project here at Two Peas to add to your bookmarks.

Now it’s your turn…
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 December.

Congratulations to Karen for winning the draw for last month’s ten photo class! (Karen, I need your email address. Can you contact me at shimelle at gmail dot com please?) Will you be next? Just choose eleven 4×6 photos to scrap and follow along with this month’s class prompt.

What if I don’t have those page protectors?
Using these page protectors is not a requirement of entering the challenge. You can create one yourself or adapt the idea as it suits you. Plus, don’t hit me but… these page protectors are out of stock at Two Peas after the big Thanksgiving weekend sale, darn it. But go here and you’ll find them as the first thing in the supply list. Click the ‘Request and Notify Me’ button, and then when they are back in stock, you’ll get an email so you can grab them before someone else. (Seriously, I use that button all the time for my standby items that I order again and again. Very useful!)

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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It’s time to draw the Garden Girl Blog Hop to a close and post a winner! You had to guess how much I spent on my last order at Two Peas in a Bucket and I promised a $15 Two Peas gift certificate to the person who guessed the closest. And you were so close! First there was Ruth, who guessed $138.32. Then Kelly Morris guessed $140.35. But Gina M. pipped it with a guess of $138.99, just thirty-nine cents off my shopping total of (deep breath) $139.38!

What was in my order? Twenty-seven different sheets of stickers. Sixty-one 12×12 patterned papers. Four sets of Thickers. Two stamp sets. Two packs of chipboard shapes. And a handful of die-cuts, rhinestones and buttons. Brand-wise, I ordered a mix of American Crafts, Simple Stories, My Mind’s Eye, Studio Calico and October Afternoon. Some of the items I’ve used in my travel album were on sale, so I went ahead and ordered them again since I still have plenty of pages to make for that ongoing project. I don’t often order the same paper or sticker more than once, so that’s quite a rare occasion. I placed my order after the close of business on the 31st of October. It left the Two Peas Warehouse on the 1st of November via USPS arrived at UK customs on the 6th. I’ve paid my customs bill this morning and it’s scheduled for delivery tomorrow, the 10th. (Or I could go pick it up in person today, but my local depot isn’t all that local so I just wait for it to be delivered the next day.)

A few of you have asked about customs charges, and yes I pay import tax (VAT) and occasionally duty on my orders. There are two things to keep in mind here: the current regulations for paying import tax on items sent to the UK from outside the EU: goods with a value over £15 is liable to import VAT (20%), anything with a value over £135 is also liable to a customs charge of £9 or more (it depends on the materials you’re importing). But the second thing is we all know not every single parcel seems to get picked up for VAT, when you talk to a variety of people. Because I import large quantities for workshops and such, I pay VAT on everything I receive – my address is on file and it’s something that goes into my taxes and so forth. But that’s one of those weird things about being a full-time scrapbooker and if you are just ordering normal amounts of scrapbook supplies, you won’t have that part of the equation. You may be asked to pay import tax and you may not. My advice is to figure it in, and if you don’t get charged, then you can put that extra 20% back into your crafting budget. Sorry, I know that’s really boring, but it’s a question that comes up often from those here in the UK so there is my definitive answer!

To those who guessed I would spend in the thousands – egads, no! I wonder what one could buy for that much in one order? And how big of a craft room must one have to accommodate such grandeur? Amazing. This month’s order is at the high end of normal for me, and I tend to place an order every month so I have the right supplies for assignments (we choose our own products from the Two Peas inventory rather than being told what to use, so every Garden Girl can stay true to her own style) and I did place one obscenely large order to arrive when we came back from our trip, but I promise it was under $500. Receiving that order was a joyous day indeed, with lots of collection packs and punches and stamps that I wouldn’t ordinarily let myself buy. I’m much more a papers and stickers girl. But that one giant order was essentially four or so months of orders combined into one big box since I hadn’t been around craft supplies for all that time and had a to-do list approximately seventeen miles long! I’ve never, ever come anywhere close to spending that much on any other scrapbooking order in the history of my life. Never ever. I think what’s most important is sticking to a budget that works for you and buying things you love and use. My supplies are worth far more to me in my albums than on my shelf.

Thanks so much for following the hop and playing along with the guessing game! Gina, I’ll be in touch with your gift certificate!

And I’ll be back later today with a new sketch and video!

xlovesx

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Two Peas in a Bucket.

It’s a funny name for a store, I suppose. If you didn’t already know, what on earth would you think such a store would sell? Vegetables. Or gardening equipment, perhaps. But not more than four thousand different styles of pretty paper. Not washi tape and baker’s twine and digital kits and stickers and ribbon and letterpress prints and rubber stamps and well… anything else you might fancy for scrapbooking and papercrafting.

Today you’re invited to the Garden Girl blog hop – a visit to the creative space for the different designers at Two Peas in a Bucket. We each have a new project to share and we each have a prize to win, so we hope you enjoy the journey. And for my stop on the hop, indulge in some Two Peas trivia!

Five little snippets of Two Peas trivia

1. Two Peas is both a shop and a crafting community. The business side is an online store with all the latest crafting supplies. They have some serious choice in their inventory – they stock so many lines and get new stuff quickly. The community side includes message boards on a range of topics and plenty of contests and challenges to keep you creating. Every week there’s both a scrapbooking and a photography challenge, and there is a prize to be won every time. Enter – you never know when it will be your lucky day!

_{Add a zig-zag fold to the front of a card and cut the other side to the folded width, for a narrow card with funky folds!}

2. I joined the Garden Girl team in 2008. I actually got the email just a day before we were due to leave on our honeymoon, and although I was completely excited about the wonder that is Japan, the only thing that made it okay to leave was that I was so excited to get to work on my first assignment. The Garden Girls are the Two Peas design team, and we’re a mix of paper scrappers, digital scrappers, minibook artists and cardmakers. New projects from the design team are posted to the gallery every Monday, plus we work on a range of special projects throughout the year. I’ve uploaded about two hundred projects in my time as a Garden Girl. This page is the ‘most liked’ and this project is my most bookmarked.
If there is ever a product you’re curious about, let a Garden Girl know – we love the challenge of figuring out a fab way to use a new design or gizmo!

3. The education branch of Two Peas is all about providing ideas and instructional content for free. My class 4×6 Photo Love is part of that education programme, but there are three other year-long classes throughout 2011 (Stretch your Sketch, Products You Love and Scrapbook Stamping). Each of these classes and many of the special projects include videos so you can see everything come together and also offer printable PDF instructions, so whether you prefer to read or watch, you’re covered. Other events run for just a set amount of time rather than the full year, like the current A to Z of Stamping event, with twenty-six days of stamping techniques and project ideas. It’s all for free. And I may be working on something extra special for the 2012 education programme. I might even call it super special. But that’s all I can say about that for now.

4. I placed my first order with Two Peas in January of 2000 and am user number – or Pea Number – 2356. That very first order included many sheets of 8.5×11 paper, since 12×12 was still a bit of a rarity in scrapping at that point! I split that order with another scrapper in the UK because we were both looking for some papers we couldn’t find on this side of the Atlantic.

_{I think this is my favourite garden project this year, but I keep changing my mind.}

5. Two Peas has fabulous sales. For anything that isn’t brand new, check out the sale section to see if there is something you would love or check out the Deal of the Day, which changes every day obviously, but often includes brand new products on a twenty-four hour discount. Today the deal of the day is 50% off a selection of Tim Holtz products! As an American-based store, shipping can add up for an international order, so I try to balance things out: I order the things I can’t find here and then I check the sale section for things I know I will use and stock up at a bargain. In the end that works well for me! If you’re a regular shopper, it’s also worth knowing their loyalty program lets you take a further ten to fifteen percent off your bill.

By the way, if you have an iPhone, Two Peas has a free app in the app store that makes it easy to upload to the gallery from a crop, find inspiring pages and projects, chat and shop on the go! I love paging through the gallery while I’m on the train. (Android friends, an app for you is currently in the works!)

Ready to enter for a chance to win? Yesterday, on the 31st of October, I placed an order at Two Peas. How much do you think I loaded into that bucket? Leave a comment with a guess of my order total. Not including shipping or loyalty discounts – just the amount for the items when I hit the checkout button. The person who gets closest to the amount will win a $15 gift certificate to spend on anything you like at Two Peas. There’s no penalty for going over – the gift voucher will go to the person who guesses closest, no matter if you’re high or low.

Entries close at midnight UK time on the 7th of November and the winner will be announced on the 8th… and I will go public with exactly how much I spent on scrapbooking supplies this month!

After you leave your guess, it’s time to visit the next stop on the blog hop! You should have arrived here from Jen Jockisch. Your next stop is Jen Martakis. We’re very pro-Jen on the Garden Girl team.

One last thing…
Later today, check back for some important stuff here at shimelle.com. Like this year’s details for Journal your Christmas. And an optional Christmas kit available for purchase. And a special offer that might help your order at Two Peas in the next couple days. Don’t miss out! That post goes live at midday, UK time.

xlovesx

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