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

Brain slightly boggled.
Counting to the same number repeatedly, making sure there is enough of everything.
Reviewing step by step instructions and taking and checking pictures.
Giddy about woodgrain!
Hoping Cropodiles are pretty popular with French scrappers. I only have one.
Remembering that I speak pretty much NO French.

Catching train to Paris on Thursday morning!

Version Scrap is this weekend. I’m teaching four scrapbooking classes there and very excited, in case you couldn’t tell. If you’re coming to class and have any questions, let me know! I now have someone helpful to translate these things for me! (Seriously need to bring her the biggest gift I can.)

Possibly more sneak peeks tomorrow, assuming my eyes have uncrossed and everything fits in my suitcase. Please may the weather report be accurate!

xlovesx

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Out with one crazy week of work and in with the next: we are both in a state of working more hours than we can count. Some of it happy fun work, some of it work that has to be done, some of it we’re just trying to get through and call it finished!

Apparently we both react to overwork with…baking? Over the past few days I made Cannelle et Vanille’s Rhubarb and Pistachio Tart and some not-too-sweet sugar cookies. The Boy made rosemary and raisin rolls, partly to celebrate his amazing skill at nursing the rosemary back to health after I spent most of the winter killing it.

Super Easy Not-Too-Sweet Sugar Cookies
makes a bunch of dough to keep in the freezer and bake as desired
250g unsalted butter
150g icing sugar
50g caster sugar, plus extra for dusting
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
350g flour, plus extra for dusting
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Cream butter, sugars and vanilla in a mixer. Add the egg and mix until even. Stir in flour and baking powder and mix until it magically balls up as a big lump of cookie dough. Wrap that up in plastic and pop into the fridge for an hour or two.
Remove from the fridge, unwrap and roll out on floured surface. Roll up whatever dough you don’t want to cook, wrap in plastic and freeze. Roll out dough you do want to cook until about 1/4” thick. Cut with cookie cutters and place on greased baking sheet. Sprinkle with extra caster sugar.
Bake at 180C for about 10 minutes.

And now? Back to work.

xlovesx

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I am not ashamed to repeat time and time again free is my favourite price. Because it really, really is. I have been a bargain girl for years and years, and if you offer me something for free, I will probably say yes before I actually realise what it is. Which is perhaps slightly dangerous, but so far I haven’t been offered hard drugs for free so I’ve been okay. Brilliant!

So yes, I am all about the freebies to be found in the world of digital scrapbooking, even though I am going to choose paper over pixels almost every time. I might just be amassing quite the collection of these freebies here on my computer. Seems to me I should be doing something with them in order for the freeness to be a bargain, right? A little challenge for myself today then: can I get three proper projects by starting with this free digital kit?

Idea #1: Put the freebies together
An all-digital page made entirely from free kits…and hopefully it doesn’t scream ‘I made this for free!’ too loudly. The majority of the layout is all from the All U Need kit, but I’ve also added bits and pieces from other free kits. The spotty orange paper is from Indie Pops Celebrate, the shape in the middle and the date strip both come from this kit, the faded scrolly frame behind the photo comes from Color my World and the stitched ribbon is part of Spring Fever. So somehow yes, I do seem to have a big folder full of freebies. Of course they don’t all match at first…but replace colour is my friend and eventually it all matches!

Idea #2: Mix freebies with investment pieces
You know that theory that magazines tell you will make your wardrobe absolute perfection—how you should have a few investment pieces that last years and years that represent the bulk of your spending, then inexpensive items for trends that will come and go in a season or two? I think this is pretty sound advice for digital scrapbooking too: buy the kits you would use over and over again without them ever going out of style, then dress them up with freebies that are in style right this second. Definitely Dotty is my little black dress. It will go with everything and always look appropriate…dress it up, dress it down, that sort of thing. I’ve also used the Bada Bing Overlays so many times that I must be into pennies per use, so that seems like a good investment to me! And well, there is so much packed into Made in France that is just pops up on my pages pretty often—here it’s the round stitching. Everything else on this page? Totally free.

Idea #3: Print them out
Hello hybrid! Made a new document that was A4 sized, covered it in the free kit papers and printed it out to make a page. And I’ve even got a bit leftover to make a card. But if I don’t finish this blog post I am going to be in trouble for both not finishing all of today’s work and being late to dinner, so perhaps I should go now!

Hurrah for free!

xlovesx

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What happened to the time today? One moment it was ten in the morning, the next it was seven at night. I swear there was no time in between!

A few happy things for today:
...you can win two sets of stamps plus a framed piece I made just by commenting here on the Banana Frog Blog anytime between now and Sunday! Go comment so you can WIN!
...the Garden Girls went a little crazy posting pages this morning. I added nine layouts to my gallery and you’ll find tons of pages from the other girls if you scroll through the gallery today. Definitely check out this page by Kelli Crowe because it is seven levels of awesome, I do believe.
...I am really thinking I may only scrap with this cardstock from now on. There are only two things nagging me about that decision: I do have quite a lot of other cardstock on my paper rack that I should probably use too…and it will be one of those things where it will be so obvious when I made pages when you look at my albums. So maybe I won’t really. But I think it is positively fabulous. So maybe 85% of the time.

Lots of Scrap your Day goodness coming Tuesday and Wednesday!

xlovesx

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The newest issue of Scrapbook Inspirations included Jane Dean’s challenge for each member of the team to try something new-to-us on the digital front. For some, that meant making their first ever digital page. For others it meant printing things out and using them on a paper layout. My challenge was to find a way to include my handwriting on a digital layout—which admittedly is the biggest clash I have with digital scrapping. I always handwrite my journaling, and after years of that, it just feels wrong to start typing things again! I mean, it took quite a while for me to get used to seeing my own scrawl on those pages.

It turns out you can include your handwriting on digital pages very easily, and you don’t need a wacom tablet or a scanner, nor do you need to learn to write with your mouse! My fancy-schmancy list of equipment included a black pen, a sheet of white paper and my camera. And something tells me we all have those within reach! So here’s the entire layout from start to finish, in case you want to try something similar.

My layout uses these digital kits:
Travel Journal Tool Kit, Round & Round v4, Photo Phun Mat Pieces (all by Rhonna Farrer)
Haphazard (Erica Hernandez)
Spools of Stitches (Tia Bennett) {This is seriously one of the best purchases ever. Use it all the time and it always looks perfect. Love it!}
Sweet Notions (Meredith Fenwick)
Element-ary Stitches 2 (Carina Gardner)

Obviously, you can still follow the techniques with completely different digital supplies to customise the look.

I made my page in Photoshop CS3, but pretty much everything can be accomplished in any edition of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements—it just might mean that certain elements are in a different place or have a different name.

Right, that’s plenty of intro—let’s get started!

Click here for the tutorial—lots of images!

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This week I have been feeling the need for inspiration for the brain. Scrapbooking for the sake of scrapbooking made me want to revisit things that inspired me when I first started crafting and seek out a few new things that have been on my ‘meaning to do’ list for far too long. I’ve been reading a lot. Catching up on course materials for classes I’m taking in the background. Reading my new camera manual, bit by bit. Learning a little something every day. I think it is that same thing that makes us want to spring clean (I am feeling that too) — little signs of life around that urge us to be a slightly better version of ourselves.

Today I was able to split my work load into morning and evening and spent the middle of the day walking around the V&A museum with a friend. I love that you’re allowed to take pictures inside, although the collection at the V&A is so overwhelming at times that it can be hard to know what to photograph. I tried to just pick a few things so I could focus a bit more than coming home with hundreds of shots. It is very much a museum of texture more so than colour (although one particularly amazing example of colour is lit so there is so much light reflecting I couldn’t find a way to catch the colour in an image…so it is resonating in my head a bit instead). Colour is normally what strikes me first in any type of design – be it crafting supplies, photography, advertising or cinema – so to largely take that away and be left with shape and texture seemed to make me think in a different way. I’m totally blabbering now and this is making no sense, right? Forgive me.

Several times we would turn a corner to find ourselves alone in a long, echoing corridor and C would comment ‘This so isn’t a place to visit on your own’. And she was right not only because it is at times a bit too creaky for my liking but also because wandering there with someone else means she will see different things and point out things I would never think about twice.

Also, I think having coffee and catching up on a Wednesday can be quite inspiring in itself.

Can we have a happy chatty, commenty day today (or tomorrow or whenever)? I would love to see or hear about something that is inspiring you lately and making you feel alive. Pardon my ‘spring has sprung and the world is right’ feeling today, but I figure that doesn’t happen every day and I better embrace it when it does. So what have you been reading/watching/listening to/talking about/looking at/eating/otherwise thinking about that is making you feel like there really could be a slightly better version of yourself? Go on, tell us. Pretty please.

xlovesx

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A few of my favourite things…
Caroline’s weekly challenge
Bazzill polka dot Dotted Swiss cardstock
Every sticker Sassafras Lass has ever made
Teeny tiny letters from My Little Shoebox
Cosmo Cricket Mr Campy papers

And pages made just because. No reason, no assignment, just because the photos and the papers were there at the time.

Perhaps I should do this more often.

xlovesx

PS: I’ve got a new little project on the Banana Frog Blog today—do hop over and check it out, pretty please, if you fancy.

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Oh internet, I shall be back to you on Monday. We have much catching up to do!

In the meantime, although I’ll be away from my computer until then, I probably won’t be able to stay completely clear of Twitter and I’ve added some photos from my little journey to Wisconsin to Flickr.

Have a fabulous weekend and I’ll see you soon!

xlovesx

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