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

The minibook class for the UKScrappers 5th Birthday CyberCrop is online here. Or you can have a look at the basics by starting here and clicking through the pictures.

ETA: You can also check out this challenge if you would prefer a layout to a minibook, with a sketch I threw at the Banana Frog team. Of course I love their layouts way more than mine! So it goes.

Happy sewing and sticking—and happy birthday to UKS!

xlovesx

PS: details on new online class by the time the weekend is out!!

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Click the picture to download the prep sheet for the mixed media cybercrop class.

Just don’t go thinking that Bunny and I are revealing anything just yet. You have to wait for the birthday surprises!

xlovesx

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It seems strange how quickly this has come about, but UKS is turning 5 next month. Let’s just say that is a lot less than what I am turning! I’m celebrating my little number with a bouncy castle, and UKS is celebrating with a cybercrop. The good thing being that a cybercrop can accommodate a far greater amount of party guests than the bouncy castle!

I am really excited to share a project with you during the UKS birthday party: a mixed media minibook. It’s a class you can follow with your own stash or you can put it together in a snap using a kit that goes on sale right here at 7am.

The kit includes these basics to form the book:

*6 different sheets of 12×12 patterned paper

*6 sheets of 12×12 cardstock

*2 self-adhesive patterned photo mats

*1 card and envelope set

*1 transparency

*2 book rings

as well as a selection of mixed media materials to match the techniques in the class. These include:

*fabric

*thread

*ribbon

*stationery

*metal

*buttons

Please note that this book is not acid-free and that some elements of the kit vary to make your project unique. That means the picture you see here is an indication of your kit’s contents.

You will need your own basic tool kit, including scissors, trimmer, adhesive, paper piercer, black pen and small hole punch. These are not provided with the kit.

There are a limited number of kits that will be sold on a strictly first come, first served basis. UK shipping is included in the price of the kit, and kits ordered this morning will be shipped this Friday via Royal Mail.

Later today you’ll be able to download a preparation sheet to help you choose appropriate photos for the project, whether you are using the kit or your own stash. Just check back in a little bit after the ordering time.

£15.00, including postage within the UK
Sold out! Thank you so much!!

If you have any questions, just leave me a comment! I must admit I am a little nervous as UKScrappers doesn’t seem to be live just at the moment…so here goes a shot in the dark! A picture will be up in just a minute, but it’s 7:00, so I better put this live!

Thanks so much for your enthusiasm for the cybercrop and this project!

xlovesx

PS: a few of you were just rewarded for being right on time by paying in dollars instead of pounds! Trust me to be this stupid at seven o’clock in the morning. Happy scrapping!

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Goodness, time is getting away from me. Or at least blogging time!

I really must go…as the boy’s brother is getting married on Saturday and I am up to my elbows in squares for a wedding quilt! But not before I say a huge thank you to the girls of the Moxley Massive for playing along in the album-in-a-day workshop last Saturday. They scrapped non-stop and finished a gazillion pages between them. I counted!

(Sorry Zoe, I know you will hate me for the closed eyes, but I think it’s cute!)

As soon as I have eradicated my quilt guilt, I will be back with proper stories to tell!

In the mean time, check this out. Love!

xlovesx

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The kites.

Tiny red kites that have a lot to answer for.

See, the kites have stories I can’t even begin to tell, but I can explain a little bit.

Over a year ago now, we went on our little adventure. A holiday to explore a place we hadn’t been. No real schedule. In fact, the original plan was to camp our way around the country. Which meant it would be a real adventure to me, who had never slept in a tent, despite all sorts of summer camp. For totally boring reasons, we didn’t end up roughing it quite so much. And since this hotel is like the most fabulous place ever, and our tent didn’t exactly have those heated floors, I am totally okay with that. But we did camp. One night. Here.

And the whole thing was extra magical. This place that you can’t even start to describe with this afternoon of small children flying little red kites that turned into this fabulous concert that I have gone on and on about ever since. But for whatever reason, the kites have always stuck in my head. Simple and pretty and free. So that kite picture above sat on my bulletin board for ages, just as a happy thing to put bad days in perspective. And then for whatever reason, it ended up on a scrapbook page, which then ended up in an article about title techniques. (See, I can reduce even the most grand of my own ideas into paper, stickers and glue. Definitely a case of the real thing being a way bigger deal than the scrapbook page—if you know what I mean.)

So this is in Scrapbook Inspirations this month. Which is fine, but then I’m at a loss as to how to describe why the kites are important and blah, blah, blah…nothing works.

This will. The kites are there, a little over half way in. It takes forever to load, but just go make a coffee while you wait. So pretty. And you might spy the place where we camped, when you see a tiny cleared green in the middle of a forest.

So seriously, if you took one look and wanted to know what was up with the kites, that film trailer is your answer.

If you still don’t get it, I can’t explain it to you. And that’s okay too. But oh goodness, is that a pretty trailer.

The film comes out in November, which is shaping up to be a pretty happy month. Like a fly-a-kite-happy kind of month.

xlovesx

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Because this is seriously, without a doubt, the most adorable thing to happen since scrapbooking was invented.

MG: I will send you a valentine every single year. Omglove.

Go here now. She doesn’t just show you how to make it…all the pages are a pdf download that she made…then you just print it on to white cardstock and you’re there. Add what you want (like old polaroids because you can’t find your polaroid camera to put a current one in…but you will), bind it how you want, and then write in it and stick stuff in it.

Seriously girl, it’s fabulous. High school me would print out an extra and mail it to a pen pal. Present time me has no pen pals but might print out an extra and just mail it to some random person in the phone book because I can’t contain myself.

!!!!!xlovesx!!!!

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How random is this…a new place to teach, a totally new format, a new group of crafty girls set to arrive, and what I am worried about? Traffic.

One of the joys of living on the outskirts of London is going pretty much anywhere will likely involve the M25. It’s a ring road, but on a freakishly massive scale. As far as ring roads are concerned, I have but three that I driven enough to tell stories about: the M25, at the extreme of oh my goodness, I am moving an inch an hour but it is illegal to phone anyone and tell them I will be late madness, Interstate 435 that encircles the sprawling metropolis that is Kansas City (as the nice, happy medium) and at the other extreme, Iceland’s Route 1, which is 840 miles around, but pretty much all the accidents are caused by unfortunate combinations of tourists, rental cars and sheep.

But the funny thing about the M25 is as soon as you start to swear about it, there’s no traffic. So I can never totally write her off. Plus, I am useless on countrylanes. Give me big roads. With road signs. And petrol stations are also nice. But last Thursday, it took me about two and a half hours to get home from Creative Pastimes, so yesterday I left very early, thinking it would be worse during morning rush hour.

There were like three other cars on the entire road. At 8:20am. It was uncanny.

And I was there so early that I walked around the countryside, taking pictures of flowers, accidentally scaring a heron and talking to baby ducks. As you do.

And then, when it was a reasonable o’clock in the morning, we had a journaling workshop. With a sparkly layout class in the morning. Then lovely coffee shop lunch with paninis and much discussion of weddings past, present and future, then an afternoon session with a minibook and oreo cupcakes. Plus some shopping! So cool to meet new faces.

There are a few kits at the shop if you fancied one but couldn’t make the day. If you contact them, you can order one for £9.50 and they should be able to post it to you. £9.50 does not include the shipping but does include all the supplies (3 sheets of cardstock, 6 patterned papers, 1 envelope and velvet ribbon) and all the instructions from me, via email. There are only a few, so get in touch quickly if you want one.

My next workshop at Creative Pastimes is Friday, August 24th. It’s all about embellishment, and we’ll be working with ribbon in the morning and chipboard in the afternoon. It would be fabulous to see you there for a girly day out!

Thanks again to all involved yesterday.

xlovesx

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Trying to make it a non-working weekend, but didn’t quite manage it. But a pretty carefree Saturday and a trip to the cinema today. Not too bad.

Also in much denial about someone moving back to America. I hope she finds much happiness, but also manages to visit, or something. I also hope she finds some scrapbook stores in her neighbourhood, since she’s such a convert now.

Hope you’ve had a fabulous weekend. See you in class tomorrow, perhaps!

xlovesx

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