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

I haven’t managed to get the Christmas decorations up just yet, but these numbers are making me feel very festive indeed. They were designed by Jen of Hey Jen Renee and they fit perfectly with Journal your Christmas. I’ve screen printed her design on cardstock and vintage dictionary pages for a little extra imperfect fun.

Real decorations to come soon, including some advent calendar goodness. A few days late, obviously. But always appreciated.

xlovesx

PS: adorable frame available here

PPS: Did you know that if you buy a product to be delivered by email but pay from an old email address, it’s very difficult to track you down? I’m still searching for about a dozen people who have signed up for Journal your Christmas in the past two weeks but paid with invalid email addresses. From the email addresses, it looks like I’m looking for a Tracy, a Mary, a Gertrude, a Donna and a few others that are anybody’s guess. :) If one of these could be you, please email me—I’d love to send you your class materials! If none of these are you, do yourself one tiny favour before you order all your Christmas presents: make sure your email address is up to date at places where you order online so retailers can get in touch with you if they need to. It might save you from a saga of a prezzie that never shows up—and no one likes that to happen!
And thereby ends my online Christmas shopping public service announcement.

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I made this little box a few years back for a Christmas issue of Scrapbook Inspirations and it’s one that I have continued to add to every year since. It’s super simple—a plain white box like what I kept my pencils in as a child covered with pretty papers and filled with recipe cards. You can download the recipe card template here and just print it out on the colours of cardstock you fancy. What makes this box a little different than a notebook filled with scribbled recipes (and there are a fair few of those notebooks in my kitchen!) is the size of the cards—they are just perfect to hold a photograph on the back. So recipe on the front and photo on the back once you’ve made it, and it’s a scrapbook in a box that can live in your kitchen every Christmas.

There are a few kits for these in the shop if you fancy a box to make yourself. Or if you’re one to save nice gift boxes every year, have a look to see if you have something in a suitable size. You can keep the box yourself and add recipes every year or fill all the cards straight away and give the box as a Christmas present to a friend who would appreciate a cookbook with a difference.

xlovesx

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I love where I work: it’s my own personal sweet shop. And I’ve just given a tour here, if you fancy a look around!

Happy Sunday to you.

xlovesx

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Banana Frog Stamps just made some major changes and things are looking pretty exciting for 2009 in Bananaland. To try to contain her excitement, Banana Frog Bev is looking for a few good stampers to join in the mix.

Interested in working on a fab design team? Catch all the details here and then get stamping.

And as much as I try to convince her that anyone who uses my stamps in their portfolio should automatically win, she just ain’t buying it. So stamp with whatever you like, and show it off already!

xlovesx

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Things making me happy on the internets lately:
->This project and a window display based on this dress are both making me wonder why my friends can’t all do me a favour and have little girls. (Or rather, little girls who like girly things.)
->The colours and happiness in this layout are fabulous. I just ordered those loopy letter stickers in practically every colour because clearly my life was less grand without them. Now I am stalking the post box for their arrival.
->Aqua + woodgrain = pretty yet manly enough for boys.
-> The fact that I. Caught. Up. On. My. Email.
-> The perfection of this room. So unlike anything in our home but so lovely. I want to sit there and read a new book and drink tea and film out the window with the super 8 camera that cost me fifty pence, including postage.
-> Possibly the cutest paper I have seen since I left Japan. (Oh stationery and fabric haunts of Japan: I miss you still!)
-> Working on something with this funky girl. So far it does not involve woodgrain. Frankly, I don’t know how long that part will last.

Happy Saturday to you!
xlovesx

Long-time blog readers and those who read Scrapbook Inspirations will know I scrapbook about a particular band far too often. Perhaps it’s a character flaw. I like to think of it as more to do with pretty pictures and pretty music, but think of it what you will.

Scrapbook pages aside, they started a European tour last week and I was thrilled to score a photo pass to opening night, so not only pretty pictures and pretty music, but pretty pictures without tall people in the way! This was pretty exciting for short little me.

Anyway, now that the images are up on the band’s website, I can share a few here.

The rest of the set is here and their new album is here.

And just to make this scrapbook-related in some way, here’s the last time I scrapped them, as seen in Scrapbook Inspirations!

And two other little bits of housekeeping:
Journal your Christmas alumni should have received a welcome message yesterday. If you have changed your email address since last year, you’ll need to change it on the forum or by emailing me please.

The sneak peek from the last post is a quilted title page for a scrapbook—sewn straight onto a page protector. Click here for details including a free tutorial to download and print that walks you through, step by step.

And for the record, I am very sad about the disappearance of the Eggnog Latte from the world of red cups this year. Is this everywhere or just in the UK? Not that I will fly to America for a coffee, mind you. I promise.

xlovesx

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©twopeasinabucket.com

Just a little note to say I’ll be chatting here at TwoPeas today (along with superstar Tia Bennett) at 5pm British time/11am CST. We’ll be talking Christmas and home decor and all sorts of seasonal goodness, and we’d love for you to join us.

It’s my first official duty as a Garden Girl, oh my!

xlovesx

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Somewhere along the insanity of getting back to a gazillion hour time difference, a huge drop in temperatures and that autumn shock that is ‘my goodness, when did it start getting dark so early?!’, we decided we needed some Halloween festivities and hosted a party with pumpkin cupcakes and pumpkin carving and pumpkin pie and that not-so-pumpkiny food: burritos. While our guests were super cool, can you believe we had not a single trick or treater?! We have decided we will have to eat the entire contents of the trick-or-treat bowl ourselves in order to find some solace for missing this vital part of the holiday!

(Also about solace: we braved the stupidly long walk in the rain today to see the new Bond movie. Hmmm. For once, can he just drive the exceedingly pretty car without killing it in every possible way? I suppose not. We didn’t like this one as much as the last but I loved the opera scene. Spies! It’s like miles above the rock & roll lifestyle! And with Tosca!)

Now that it is November, it’s time for my brain to shift from Halloween and autumny goodness to Christmas! The best time of year! I’m ringing in my start to Christmas with a Christmas themed cropping retreat next weekend in Shropshire—Skrapztacular! I’ll share photos of those projects with you tomorrow morning as the light went about ten hours ago and try as I might, I can’t get a decent photo to save my life right now! So I’ll be right back with those as soon as the sun comes up! Happy weekend to you!

xlovesx

Super fun Halloween photo frames are here, here and here, respectively! It seemed appropriate since the 1st of November is Official Digital Scrapbooking Day! Who knew?!

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