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

A month into 2008, and this project is still going strong. This page is probably my favourite so far, but I can’t take any credit for the design. It is a little strange to lift projects, but these are pages just for my albums and most importantly, the process of using the inspiration from the calendar each day without reinventing the wheel has meant that pretty much every day I have a layout done by 8am. When I started, I hoped it would act like a little warm up in the mornings, and most days it does exactly that: after I put the calendar page away, I am in a groove to start working on other projects and I’m far less likely to find other things that ‘need’ my attention around the house. We’ll see if that’s a good thing or a bad one in the long run!

I just wanted to share this with you because it links to today’s journaling exercise. That photo of The Boy was taken during the holidays. He spends an awful lot of time and energy every year telling me that he is not a fan of the holidays. Too much stress, too much fuss, too much disappointment when life has to get back to normal. And I’m pretty much the opposite. So I just listen and say the necessary ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ and go on with Christmas.

But then I get a picture like this and I have to think ‘yeah right’. This boy hates the holidays? Somehow I don’t think he’s totally accurate on that one.

Click for print-sized card.

The trick for today is that using someone else’s words to start your journaling can make it much easier to get on a roll. After you try it with the words of a friend or member of the family, you might be able to try something similar with a favourite quotation as a lead in to your own words on a related subject.

So today is your chance to find something you hear too often that makes you roll your eyes or otherwise think ‘yeah right’ or any other response that you would like to set straight for once and for all. Be it that you think secretly, someone really does enjoy the holidays or you want to put it right that there are various definitions for ‘clean room’ in your house and it’s only your definition that counts. Whatever it is, it’s time to set the record straight.

xlovesx

Comment [12]

If I am perfectly honest, I have no idea where the idea for titles on scrapbook pages came from. If you read a book, there’s just one title for the whole darn thing. Maybe there are chapter titles, but really the only thing that marks the pages is the page number. Yet somewhere along the line we decided to expand that tradition of writing something on the photo into a title for a page. Maybe that’s it, actually! It seems to make sense: some pages will have titles of names and possibly ages; others will have puns or something that sounded funny to us at the time and a few others will have something that sounds like a heartfelt note or the name of a song. The same stuff we used to write on the back of the pictures. Now that it’s on show, I wonder if those titles get stage fright.

Sometimes I think there are titles that wouldn’t have worked on the back of the photo that make the best scrapbook pages for telling your stories. One of those is ‘Let me tell you about…’ and it works because it leads you right into the journaling. There’s no way the journaling can be dismissed in your creative process if you’ve started with that title, because you’ve made a little promise and you need to keep it. You wouldn’t say ‘Let me tell you about the best shoe sale ever!’ to a friend and then keep it a secret. (If you would, then you must have realised that your friend has the same size feet and is likely to go buy all the shoes you wanted for yourself. There is no other excuse.)

So to start February, pick something that could finish the sentence ‘Let me tell you about…’. Don’t use a name, but a label (if you want to feel like English class, we’re talking about pronouns—words that take the place of nouns—but I promise there will be no test about that stuff here) so if you want to write about your daughter, you would start with the title ‘Let me tell you about this girl’. Take a second to get those last two words right because they are going to form the repetitive part of our journaling.

That’s the little (not-so) hidden message in today’s exercise: throughout the month we’re going to look for little tricks that can help your journaling be polished and stylish. Today’s little trick is repetition: the journaling can have five or more sentences, but they will all start with the same words and have a few other things in common too.

Each day’s exercise can be read on your screen or printed out onto a 4×6 index card if you prefer something tangible. I love my notebooks for writing in, but I often wish I could (easily) print things onto index cards instead of full sheets of plain paper. I think really, I love this idea, as I would be much happier in any meeting with a stack of index cards, a bulldog clip and a few colours of pens than a Blackberry. So it’s just a little something I’d like to try—we’ll see what you think. Just remember you’ll need to click on the day’s exercise card in order to get it at the full print size, okay?

Click for print-size image of the exercise

Each day, feel free to share a link in the comments if you’ve written your journaling on your blog or made a page as a result of the exercise or if you found something that just fits the theme. Or just comment to say what you’ll be writing about—nothing like pledging a little commitment to help you do something you’ve been meaning to do, right? Or take a picture of your notebook and pen and share that! I never tire of the feeling of a fresh new notebook and pen. It’s a beautiful thing.

Happy writing!

xlovesx

Comment [27]

I am convinced that people who write tests for a living are a special kind of people. Basically because I don’t know anyone who admits to liking tests. And having written a few for my classes, I found it to be torture. Even classes that kept me up at night with their…level of challenge, shall we say…didn’t make me relish writing a test. Not in any small way.

But I am convinced there are a few nice test writers out there. Like the person who decided that the written test for your Kansas driving license should be ten multiple choice questions as well as open book. (Actually I worry that person may be a bit too nice for the job.) And the person who decided to put those practice questions at the beginning of standardised tests. I always felt a little better after having one answer confirmed before I started. Not a lot better, but a little better. After all, it was still a test.

Now February is definitely not a test. Nope. Totally for fun. Maybe a bit of a learning experience. But definitely no tests at any time. But…there’s still room for a practice question, right?

So for those who didn’t see the lead in to the February journaling project, here it is:

• * * * * * * * reprinted from ScrapBook Inspirations – February 2008

  Looking back at old photos can be fascinating – be they ‘old’ photos that reveal scary 1980s haircuts or old photos in a Victorian sense. Of course there’s one big difference: there’s a fair chance the person with the scary hair in 1982 can still tell you a little something about that hair, the outfit and the other people in the picture. The Victorian photo? No chance. That is why I think journaling is at the heart of scrapbooking…if only because you want to defend your scariest haircuts a few generations down the line!

  I’ve seen many a scrapbooker shy away from journaling over the years, and I have to admit things are getting better! It makes me excited to see layouts that do more than label names, places and dates. Fewer and fewer scrapbookers are leaving their journaling at ‘We had so much fun at the park!’ and adding a bit more detail to complement the photos with an actual story. But now what we hear at ScrapBook Inspirations is ‘I want to journal…I’m just not sure where to start!’

  My best suggestion is to start with a notebook. Get something small in a style you like and a nice pen. This is the easy part – scrapbookers usually enjoy buying new stationery! With a small set, you can keep it in your handbag and be ready for ideas to hit. Don’t worry about the pressure of filling the notebook – I have some great ideas to get you going. Here’s a favourite:

  Start a new page and number 1 to 9. In each of those spaces, write down something you love. They can range from your spouse to your favourite soup! Once you’ve made the list, go back and add some description to each one. A bonus if you can play with alliteration—adding words that start with the same sound. So you might have ‘sunsets’ on your list, and transform it to ‘shimmering summer sunsets’. Once you’ve added a little something to each word, you’re ready to turn your list into some fabulous sentences. Just fill in these blanks with the phrases on your list:
  I love _____, _____ and _____.
  I love _____, _____ and _____.
  I love _____, _____ and _____,
  but I can’t stand ______________.
  Add something you don’t like to the last blank for a punchy element of contrast.

  Once you’ve finished the exercise, you’re ready to start a scrapbook page. Find photos that fit what you’ve journaled and enjoy your crafty process with paper and embellishments. When it’s time to add your journaling, it’s ready in your notebook to be copied out or printed on your chosen paper. Hey presto – a well-journaled layout to give someone else a better idea of what’s going on in your photos…or a balanced explanation of the strange hairstyles of the late twentieth century!

• * * * * * * *

And oh my goodness, I actually write things like ‘hey presto’. I’m not sure which is funnier: the pigtails or the presto.

Something to get you started, and give you an idea of what’s to come. 29 days, 29 ways to write it down.

And a few embarrassing haircuts along the way. Maybe you’ll share yours.

To make me feel better.

xlovesx

ETA: Now that February has finished, here’s an index of the whole month of Write it Down prompts so you can find them any time.
01.02.08: Let me tell you about
02.02.08: Setting the record straight
03.02.08: Parts of speech
04.02.08: The word is (and also a blank card)
05.02.08: Not because
06.02.08: Dear Sally
07.02.08: Checking it thrice
08.02.08: Overhead
09.02.08: Retrocake
10.02.08: Grey can be beautiful too
11.02.08: Pressed pages
12.02.08: Round and round
13.02.08: Also on index cards
14.02.08: In which I talk way too much about teaching English
15.02.08: Pinecones and kitty cats
16.02.08: In response
17.02.08: Chalk, paint & shoes
18.02.08: Control
19.02.08: Mapped disagreement
20.02.08: For the love of thin mints
21.02.08: Now with space for brainstorming
22.02.08: Girl Power
23.02.08: She made me do it
24.02.08: Who’s there?
25.02.08: Planning for travel
26.02.08: Predicting things
27.02.08: Bad girl bumpers
28.02.08: Really I know how to spell ‘you’
29.02.08: Progress review

Enjoy!

Comment [18]

Somewhere along the lines of teaching the stick-and-go philosophy, I have managed to rewrite Will Smith into ‘getting sticky with it’, and let me tell you that is just plain wrong. But as those annoying refrains do, it is stuck in my head now. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na. (If you do not know this song, don’t feel out of touch. Feel grateful. The rest of you: you now feel my pain.)

If you can manage to put that aside, you might be interested in this, which takes a step-by-step look at stick-and-go scrapbooking.

Things that are inspiring me right now:
...this quilt in progress
...this project between two friends
...this artist’s process
...this girl’s style
...this chair.

The last one being one of those long-running obsessions that sits at the back of your brain saying ‘you really love this’ for a long time until you can’t stand it anymore and everything you see reminds you of it. So now I am contemplating how to put that chair on our wedding list. In blue, perhaps. But maybe that’s a crazy idea.

Much creative energy to you and yours.

xlovesx

Comment [5]

If January has been my calm, February may be a bit of a storm. But hopefully that good kind of storm…the kind where there’s nothing really to worry about, but it’s lovely to watch, curled up with a blanket and a good book next to a window. That kind of storm.

Everything’s starting on the west coast. And I figured if you’re gonna be in California, you might as well make a statement, right? So when the girls at The Scrapbook Oasis asked me to teach in their tiki hut, I asked if I could share a little book I call Kill your Television. It’s one of those books where making it is just half the fun. In class, we’ll make a mini with half the photos already included, then you finish the book with your own photos…the idea being that you try to switch of the TV in the evenings for just a week and see what you get up to. I haven’t had a television for about five years now and I love the stumped look that people have when they learn that. It wasn’t a purposeful thing, just happened by chance and I haven’t regretted it for a second, but I also know it is a bit extreme for some. But one week of TV-free evenings isn’t extreme or troubling, and if you pick a week with nice weather, you can (re)discover some things that are probably free and nearby, even if it’s just going for a walk. So if you’re within a do-able distance to Irvine, join us for a night of crafty fun (the kits are starting to look so cool for this…it’s like chipboard heaven here at the moment!) and I will dish the truth on how and why I ended up ditching TV. Kill your Television is Sunday night, the 10th of February—following the first day of CHA—and you can find all the details here.

After CHA (which still has some surprise news to come, let me tell ya), I’m heading out to the East Coast for ScrapBowl, and my goodness does it look like these girls know how to party. So many croppers! The weekend crop experience places are all filled but they let you sign up for workshops without coming for the whole weekend, so if you’re in the DC area, you can still make your own scrap weekend with classes from crazyfamous scrapbook people. And me. Seriously, my mind is still boggling with this one. But so cool. You can see all the classes here. I’m teaching four: a 9×9 album workshop with lots of pink and Japanese stationery, a minibook workshop to record a weekend in your life, an artsy paper-quilting class that you can frame and a class with four layouts that includes my top ten tips for never falling out of love with scrapbooking.

But you know with a storm, there is always the good and the bad, right? (Growing up in Kansas, I remember the good being we need the rain and the bad being a tree just fell on the car...or something like that.) In this case, all that stuff and a few other things…very good. The bad: I am missing both Valentine’s Day and (more importantly) The Boy’s birthday.

Ouch. Yes dear, I know I am rubbish. I know, I know, I know. I’m sorry that I have done this two years in a row. Rubbish, I say!

(Sadly, I don’t think he’ll be quite as excited with pictures of all the new product lines from CHA. There’s just no pleasing some people, you know.)

And then you know what? I think after that I will come home and sit on the sofa for a little bit. I am not above grovelling to get someone to sit next to me. But I promise, it’s just a little temporary storm. That’s the plan.

(On a silly side note, we’ve had a really lovely weekend here. I hope yours was just as fabulous!)

xlovesx

Comment [5]

So we came back from the snow and the mountains to find…we had no internet.

As if this mere fact was not annoying enough on its own, we also found that due to some massive clerical error on behalf of either the phone company or the internet company (each blames the other), we will be without internet for an undefined number of working days. All I know is that I spent pretty much the entirety of two working days on the phone to various support numbers trying to get an answer from someone, all the while getting very, very frustrated by knowing we were actually paying for internet all these days. It’s crazy and stupid and I will stop talking about it now before I explode.

Suffice to say, I am back to hot spots and open networks. But we’ll make it work so my head can stay intact.

The boy was out with the (other) boys today so actually, it was okay for today to be a working day to make up for those days on the phone. And oh my goodness, my frustration must have fueled some sort of get-up-and-go, because it has been a hive of productivity around here. Sorted all sorts of logistical things that needed sorting for CHA (exciting news about that but…can’t share just yet! Soon!), worked on kits and such for classes at The Oasis and ScrapBowl (big post about both of those tomorrow!) finished six layouts that I can photograph in the morning when there is light, some emails caught up on…and then lots of work done toward the little project you might have heard about in the magazine this month.

If you didn’t see it…the fine print right at the bottom of that We {heart} Journaling article mentions that every day in February, there will be a journaling exercise here on shimelle.com. Yep, every single day! (I’ve even learned how to load everything up early so, fingers crossed, it should work even without internet in our house every day!) So if you want to follow along, you’ll have 29 pieces of writing by the end of the month…that you might like to turn into 29 layouts or art journal entries or blog posts or pages in a diary. The artsy part is totally up to you. But every day there will be something to focus your pen on making it easy to write something that sounds polished. To find your voice. Which makes me all giddy, just thinking about it. I hope some of you will join in. After all, it’s a great excuse to go buy or make a pretty notebook. And I know how you like pretty notebooks.

You have until Friday to find a pen.

xlovesx

Comment [18]

Snow is amazing.

Back {too} soon.

xlovesx

Comment [16]

{preface: photo does not show the special paper in question.}

Forgive me if you have heard this story in person over the last few months. It’s time for me to write it down. First, we need to set the scene. It must have been late 2000, early 2001. For those of you who weren’t around here then, scrapbooking supplies weren’t so easy to come by in merry olde England. When any scrappish girl found some supplies, she would first buy as much as she could justify, then immediately inform the few members of UKScrappers, which was then a tiny Yahoo group, so they could go buy up the rest of the goodies. From time to time, we would all go ‘crazy’ and buy a box of supplies from the states. But most of the time we would just craft with what we had and keep our eyes open for the next great find. I moved house around that time and my entire crafting stash fit in two medium sized tupperware boxes. Seriously. Yet I was scrapping any time I had five minutes to spare.

Then there was the moment I saw the special paper. It wasn’t just 12×12, which was special enough. It wasn’t just acid-free, which was special enough. It was 12×12 acid-free printed and embossed scrapbooking paper.

Oh my goodness, I about passed out in the store.

Everyone who was scrapping knew this paper at the time. It was the paper to buy. If you could find it, you must have had the gift. It only existed in a few special places, and wherever it did exist, it was priced at £2.50 a sheet.

So when I found it and it was only £2 per sheet, I looked over both shoulders to make sure there wasn’t a crowd of scrappers running in to buy up all the special paper. And then I bought ten sheets.

Ten sheets! Ten sheets at £2 a sheet when I had no idea what I was going to make with it and I really should have spent my £20 in other more practical ways. But this paper was just so cool and it was on sale, so I figured that crowd of scrappers could arrive any moment and I bought it up before anyone else could get to it.

For several weeks I kept it on the top of my paper stack, ready to become a masterpiece. I put every photo in my collection next to it, and each time I went for something else because that photo just wasn’t special enough for the special paper. The special paper demanded something…amazing.

Weeks turned into months. I still didn’t find the photo that would special enough for the special paper. Much less ten special photos. Since I had ten sheets of the stuff. Since I bought it like it was going out of fashion.

Trouble is, it was. So out of fashion. That was 2001. This is 2008. I still have ten sheets of that special paper. I still don’t have any photos special enough for the special paper. Because now that paper is ugly. A special level of ugly. {I will not show you the paper because I wish to protect its innocence.}

Now those ten sheets of paper serve as a reminder for me: use the stash while you still like it! Otherwise you will realise that you really should have put that £20 toward your student loan at the time and not ten sheets of paper that you would take through several house moves, clinging to it for no other reason than “I spent £20 on this and I sure as heck ain’t gonna throw it away”.

Now aside from those ten special sheets, I have found new homes for many sheets of paper recently. I’m not quite sure why I had so much paper stacked up that I didn’t like and was never going to use, but I did. It felt wonderful to free it up for people who would appreciate it. But old stash doesn’t always mean ugly stash, so I also have a rather large stack of papers and embellishments that are not the latest and greatest, but I still love them. And I don’t want to get to the stage where I don’t love them before I use them. So this is my new routine.

I splurged on the Designing With calendar this year. Haven’t had one in ages and just decided it would be a treat. Every morning when I get up, I’ve got an instructional manual on doing a quick page for myself, just by looking at the new calendar page and following the directions. The process helps with the fact that I am not a morning person by forcing me to just get going with the cutting and the sticking. And to shake it up to fit my needs a little more, I have to start with the big old stack of old stash. So day by day, I get pages that are just for me and I use up the supplies I spent my hard-earned pennies on, so I will never again have the guilt of the stack of special paper.

That’s all. It’s not rocket science. And the pages I’ve made so far aren’t the most fabulous works of art in the world. They are not my sit-down-and-journal-for-half-an-hour routine. They are simple and quick, which is what I need in the morning. They are a mix of old stash (and my stash has levels of old) and new stash that will stretch to more than one layout. Because the thing that annoys me most about my supplies is that just because I use it doesn’t mean I get the space back. You buy a sheet of stickers and use up even half or three-quarters of the sheet…it’s still there and it’s still the same size! Books of rub-on letters…they never get any smaller. You can get to the point where you can’t spell anything because you’ve run out of vowels and you’ll still keep the whole book because it might come in handy for a mixed-up title. But I have to draw the line somewhere. These rub-on letters that I used on this page were so crackly from being carted back and forth to crops in the bottom of a tote bag. It’s use ‘em or lose ‘em time, and I know I’ll feel a lot better if it’s the former.

So there we go. It’s not particular a resolution, but a new little bit of routine…and a little more routine and a little less special paper probably won’t hurt.

xlovesx

Comment [38]