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

It’s been an exciting weekend around the internets.

Thank you to Avant-Garde Craft Magazine who featured me and my little studio in their new issue. So honoured to be asked!

And also excited because our wedding cupcakes made a guest appearance on Let Her Bake Cake.

And just now I talked one of my oldest friends into joining Facebook and for this and I giddy with joy. This opens up an entirely new world of old photos for entertainment.

And something coming up: the adorable Jen Johner is teaching a four week online scrapbooking class here which looks exceedingly cool, and it will only set you back a whopping five bucks.

And the Here, There & Everywhere girls started posting pages today which is rather exciting indeed!

Hope your week is looking lovely!

xlovesx

PS: If anyone reading can translate the Japanese in my little hedgehog stamp, I actually have a set of them and would love to know what they say! Let me know, pretty please!

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Recently loving:
...that the snow has disappeared to reveal that the daffodils are coming up and seem to still be thriving. I think they will bloom late this year, but I am happy for them whenever they arrive.
...discovering that friend and neighbour Hilary has a lovely baking blog with many things I want to make.
...chatting about cameras and villages and worldly perceptions with the girls in the new class.
...hearing happy news from two far away friends.
...making bread and watching House.
...the genius playlist in itunes that picks stuff from my existing collection that all goes together perfectly, no matter if I fancy beautiful 90s grunge or just ‘things that go well with David Bowie’.
...finding a birthday present for the boy that takes up no space in the flat and does not expand the waist line. I’ll blog more about that later perhaps. It needs a few weeks to see if it was a success.
...that although I am far from Japan, I am not that far from a Japanese bakery. Thankfully I am far enough that I can’t possibly go there on a daily basis, or there would be very much more of me. It is perhaps the perfect distance from home.
...working on a magazine project that has made me smile every step of the way, and

...that for the first time in three years, I am home on the boy’s birthday.

Which means tomorrow I have a cupcake post to share.

xlovesx

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Just a note to say…

If you signed up for Here, There and Everywhere and haven’t received today’s class materials, please email me so I can make sure you have everything you need.

Thanks!

xlovesx

Image composed by Rosie—my boss!

Scrapbook Inspirations Magazine!

It’s a big month for scrap-friendly birthdays, as the new edition of SI is Issue 50. I’ve been working with SI in some way or another since the day before the very first issue was finished. I only remember because I returned a call to the office and was greeted by the hilarious voice of a temp who had been called in for admin help. When I asked for Jenny (our very first editor), he replied ‘Dudedudedudedudedude….she is like SOOOO busy right now you like SOOOOO don’t wanna talk to her!’ Which to this date is possibly the most hilarious and definitely the most Ashton-Kutchereque conversation of all my time at the magazine. It turned out that all that dude-talk was shorthand for saying ‘we’re about to meet the very first deadline’.

Supplies: Travel Journal Tool Kit, Rhonna Swirls v4 , Urban Junque Journalers and Round N Round v4 all by Rhonna Farrer; Toy Camera Frames by Tia Bennett, Rough Paint Stencils by Erica Hernandez and Legibles 1 by Meredith Fenwick.

Even after fifty issues, I still get nervous about what things will look like in the finished edition. Issue 50 includes my first real digital article—it covers techniques for using a photograph as your page background in digital artwork. This page is from that, plus two more you’ll find in the magazine.

For a chance to appear in the letters section of Scrapbook Inspirations, be sure to email some birthday wishes to SI headquarters. The Readers’ Gallery is also looking for your best wedding and father-themed pages, so email those in too, to this address! Submission deadline is 6th March.

xlovesx

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If the Frog Blog isn’t on your reading list, this definitely the time to add it. The new Banana Frog design team has made it a pretty darn exciting place with new projects pretty much every day. Today there are ideas for what to do with Paper Chains stamps.

Plus I got some of the brand new It’s All About… stamps from Banana Frog today and now I am quite excited to get them all inked up and put them to work! Check them out here.

xlovesx

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I don’t want to shout too much for fear of something else breaking…but it looks like ye olde blog is working again now! Hurrah!

Thank you for the well-wishes for those who kindly wrote to make sure I was okay—I was, but not the website. I won’t bore you with technical details because frankly…I wouldn’t know where to start! Completely unrelated to this incident, I’ve been working on some changes to make soon…so they may be happening sooner than I planned if it will make the site more secure. Suffice to say I now REALLY know why I always send my class prompts by EMAIL! My sincerest apologies for the stuck front page for far. too. long. Cross your fingers that everything will work now!

Here’s what you missed because it wouldn’t display:
26.01.09: This Year Finishing Notes
27.01.09: Celeb Spotting
28.01.09: CHA highlights
30.01.09: Supersize your layout
01.02.09: Happy Birthday
02.02.09: Happy people, happy times

So now! Onward and upward with technology! (And possibly an extended bit of sleep!)

xlovesx

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...but not a happy camera.

Had a lovely time at the lovely Laura and the lovely Will’s engagement party…but my lens did not. It now looks something like the picture above (which I have shamefully stolen from Sarah Jane via facebook!) and it has now officially died. I say ‘officially’ because this lens was purchased for a ridiculously cheap price and has broken half a dozen times before, but has always gone back together and worked just fine. The last time it broke was on the table at IHOP in Anaheim, and I put it back together with a knife. Until now, when someone who is not me decided to demonstrate its ability to fall apart and be put back together, when something snapped and now all the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put this 50mm back together again.

Instead, we experimented with what pub photography can look like when your lens comes in two pieces.

The answer is: very grainy. And without a lot of focus. Huh.

So…happy engagement, Laura & Will! And happy lens shopping to me! The latter being not quite as exciting, but it will do.

xlovesx

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Happy Birthday to Two Peas! Two Peas in a Bucket is turning ten this month, and there are lots of things going on to celebrate. Things you might like! Things like…
...a host of lovely new things in the garden
...an online crop next Friday on the message board
...a real-live crop in Wisconsin at the end of the month—and I’ll be there, so come say hello!
...five free year-long classes, covering Photoshop Elements, seasonal layouts, creating an album of you, sketches, cards…lots of lovely stuff.
...a free digi kit for February.

So hey…it’s like enabling, except almost everything in that list is free, so there’s no negative about that at all. Free is my favourite price!

xlovesx

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