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

Today is National (or International) Scrapbooking Day! Because everything in the world needs its own holiday, for sure. For NSD 2015, I’m happy to join in with some lovely scrapbooking friends for a little blog hop. Wilna came up with a quiz for us and I’ve written my answers here, and for NSD I’m going to try to make them into a scrapbook page by the end of the day, so I capture a little snippet of life right now. Would you like to join us? We’d love to have you!

Currently…

1. Favourite youtube clip: Well, I’m not sure it qualifies as ‘favourite’, but it is probably the most played around here these days. Is there a song that almost instantly calms you down? Mine comes from the Coca-cola Hilltop ad, but Wonder Boy’s seems to be Jason Mraz on Sesame Street. I was hoping he would be a huge fan of Shiny Happy Monsters, but he still seems a little spooked by that one. Perhaps he’ll grow into that one day.

2. Listening to: Portuguese! It’s been a while since I’ve gone to an event to teach and my welcome back is an event called Chocolate Quente XL in Porto, Portugal this weekend. Yes, it’s an event called Extra-Large Hot Chocolate. I’m all for more of this naming convention please.

3. Watching: a completely comedy seagull from the classroom window yesterday. It was huge and whenever a pedestrian walked in front of the hotel, it would walk just a few feet behind, a bit like he was mocking them or giving a running commentary. Unfortunately for blog writing, I think this was far funnier from our position almost directly above the pavement, but I haven’t watched much else lately other than the odd episode of Sarah and Duck.

4. Reading: oh goodness, how boring can I get with this list when I haven’t been watching much and my recent reading has been reviewing a lot of early child development texts that I hadn’t read since my teacher training days? I’m making my way through highlighted and post-it noted Montessori and Steiner texts right now and finding it interesting how my thoughts have changed since I was a young twenty-something studying purely to teach in a classroom to now when I am somewhat older than that (ahem!) and looking at how we live on a daily basis rather than in a dedicated classroom. I have quite a few more schools of thought in the stack to review over the next few months. I need to get stuck into a good novel but haven’t yet got to a point where it is enjoyable again because I don’t do well with fiction when I’m reading ten minutes at a time unless it is a book I’ve already read. I think I might be seeing a light where I could read before bed soon. For longer than ten minutes. In theory. Maybe. We’ll see!

5. I can eat this everyday: my beloved cheating square of 90% chocolate. I have ended up with a zillion new allergies lately and have had to go onto a really restrictive diet where I’m basically eating fish and vegetables. No gluten, dairy, sugar, grains, or nuts. It’s not really very fun and I miss cake and coffee. But one square of very dark chocolate doesn’t seem to hurt and it’s my big treat of the day. Here’s to hoping the allergies are short-lived and I can eat brownies again soon! I might need to try ALL THE BROWNIES to make sure they are still good, you know. For the good of humanity, you understand.

6. Favourite drink at 4pm: I would swoon for a flat white from London Grind right about then, for sure.

7. On my Wishlist: extra hours in the day. Always.

8. Enjoying: how much Wonder Boy is learning right now. Cliched, but true. He’s very near to walking on his own now and this week spontaneously said ‘bye-bye’ to another child in a cafe when he waved. Roll your eyes all you want: it’s just lovely.

9. Favourite quote right now: I know the thing I say most lately is ‘gentle hands’. Ha!

10. Smiling about: the amazingly sweet conversation I just had with Manoli, an immensely talented lady also teaching here this weekend, through Maria, a very kind translator.

and….

My favourite project for this year is… my True Stories collection (now available at Scrapbook.com and other stores).

Your NSD challenge is to answer those same questions in any form that inspires you – that might be on a scrapbook page or in a blog post or in your own journal. If you care to share, it would be lovely to see your answers. Leave a link here or tag me on Instagram if you prefer.

Next up, hop over to Nancy Damiano to continue to the NSD fun.

And don’t miss the free download from Wilna.

I hope your NSD is a fabulous and creative day from start to finish!

Comment [21]

I find it physically impossible to leave a shop filled with cute Japanese stationery without buying at least a tiny notepad or sheet of stickers, so I’m a little confused with myself when it comes to my scrapbooking style and embracing supplies on the saccharin end of the cuteness spectrum. Even with baby pages I’m not finding myself gravitating toward all things smiley face and kawaii. The more I looked at what I had left from that combination of the Walden and Underground kits I’ve been working through, the more I realised how I kept pushing the cutesy stuff aside until my desk was basically left with just that. Time to take all the cute-yet-random and try to put it together for another page.

I’m sharing these a teensy bit out of order so this was the fourth layout I made with this combination of kits and the page I shared yesterday was actually the fifth. I find this background paper an interesting conundrum: do you feel sky papers should be… sky coloured? I love working with blue sky prints and it took me a little while to come round to the idea of the orange paper with its happy little clouds, but once I embraced the idea of all the cute, then I somehow found it a bit easier to just detach from reality and accept all the colours, patterns, and motifs together on one 12×12 canvas. I will say it’s a little different from the vast majority of my pages, but I hope it is just enough in line with my style that it will work as I turn the pages of the album.

I ended up with a grammar issue again. And had a moment about the definition of cider in two different countries. Those two things combined with the cutesy angle somehow make me feel like this is some sort of time warp and I’ve narrated this video at age twenty, completely in awe of the entirety of the world. Sigh. This ‘as it happens’ concept may be the end of my illusion that I do not obsess about small things with no big purpose in the world, one scrapbook page at a time.

Definitely feeling ready to move on to new supplies for new pages and videos now. What to pick, what to pick!

Comment [13]

I’ve been working my way through those two Studio Calico kits and inevitably I got to a point where I just have less stuff left on my desk than what I would normally pile onto a layout. I’m not the heaviest embellisher in the entire world, but I like my pages with ‘stuff’ and I always get to the same decision point: do I continue to use just the kit and end up with a page that is significantly different in style, or do I supplement the kit with supplies from my own stash to create a page more in line with everything else I’ve been making. Surely this is a pretty common conundrum if you’re using most of your kit supplies, so I posted an ‘in progress’ shot of this layout on Instagram and asked which option you might tend to take. The vast majority said they would add in more stash.

And that makes sense, and was definitely where I was headed because the more I looked at the sparse version of the layout, the more it felt unfinished to me. And it makes more sense when I step back and look at how many supplies I have waiting to go onto pages… there is no need to keep things sparse unless that is a design decision! It seems a little overwhelming now to know that there were so many years when I was scrapbooking with so very few supplies because they were hard to source and my budget was almost nothing, and then I went and did that thing I always said not to do about shopping when I wasn’t scrapping and I’m surrounded by supplies. Like to the level that I pretty much wish I could host a crop at my house and tell people just to bring their photos, scissors, and adhesive and I will provide the rest because we need to work our way through this stuff. I don’t do well with an overwhelm of supplies and would prefer to get pretty things on pages in albums and scale back on the rest of what is waiting! …that was a really long-winded way to say it was really obvious at that point that I should go with the ‘add more stash’ option.

I knew I wanted a grey and pink colour scheme for this page, inspired by raspberries and grey sweatshirts. This was the first time I had actually cooked something for Wonder Boy, rather than steaming some carrots and broccoli, so it was a monumental occasion in my mind, but also a very messy one and I knew we would both be covered in raspberry pink by the end, so this old grey sweatshirt became my uniform for those first few weeks of messy meals and he had a few plain vests with raspberry evidence on the ends of the sleeves, no matter how many times they were washed. This time of year was quite bleary and grey as well so all those shades of grey and the one colourful punch of magenta really stuck in my mind, so I knew from the beginning that’s where I would take this page in terms of colour. I started with those pink cards from the Project Life kit, plus the card that would work well for journaling a list of first favourite foods, and the food-themed sentiments from that tear-apart sheet, all on grey cardstock. The letter stickers and wooden arrow were from the kit too, but then I added the floral tags, some black rub-ons, silver gems, washi tape, and a chipboard border. That seemed to bring things more in line with my style but it all still seemed a bit sparse and I’m sure that’s because it’s on solid cardstock rather than patterned paper, so I cut the background down and added the whole thing to an older sheet of Dear Lizzy paper for just a bit more happy colour. The ‘Ate This’ stamp is from an older Studio Calico kit, I believe, and I have a similar one in a Kelly Purkey set too.

I realise ‘this is my jam’ isn’t really a food-related sentiment. Except when the This is My Jam website was starting up, someone sent me an invite when it was in beta and there wasn’t a lot of information in the email invitation. I hadn’t made the leap that it was about music at all, and thought it was going to be a website where people shared pictures of what they were making, like crafts and jam. As in jam in a jar to eat with tea and toast. It turns out I was really wrong about the website, but it has made me forever associate that phrase with food. I’d still join a website with pictures of jam, to be fair.

And there are one million websites to read about parenting decisions so I don’t have any plans to talk about it here, other than to say ‘BLW’ is short for Baby-Led Weaning, which is what worked really well for us with Wonder Boy so far. He loves food and it has been a huge joy! But I don’t want to say anything further really, for fear I jinx myself and end up with a picky toddler who gives me sleepless nights for wanting to only eat choc ice and chips. Since these photos, he has found a few more complex favourite foods, but he is still a big fan of pancakes and asparagus. Not together, necessarily, but I can’t think that I’ve ever tried.

Comment [12]

It is only in the last month that I’ve realised just how few specifically birthday themed crafting products I’ve collected over the years. In fact, I’m pretty sure I have about six times as many products about ice skating – something we do roughly once every three years – than I do about birthdays, which everyone I know does every single year. I may need to do some work on my impulse shopping, it would seem.

With a flurry of first birthday cards to make, not only did I need birthday things, I needed cute birthday things that would work for tiny toddlers! I knew there was a reason I’d been holding on to this lovely Lawn Fawn stamp set with smiling cakes!

I have some cards with this stamp set to share with you as well, but for now, a scrapbook page with a video and some very, very loose colouring of the stamped images!

You can find this Lawn Fawn stamp set at scrapbook.com. Other supplies for this scrapbook page include papers from the Pink Paislee Solstice collection and some older Jillibean Soup papers, plus October Afternoon Tin Pins flair badges and Fiskars punches.

So yes, cards and such to share tomorrow and another scrapbooking video here this Thursday! I might be edging closer to getting my act together or something. Wait. I just looked at my to-do list. I am nowhere near ‘act together’ status at all. But I’m going to continue to move in that general direction – that’s the plan!

Comment [13]

Apparently there is an unwritten rule that babies in our neighbourhood are to be dressed as either a pumpkin or a witch on their first Halloween. I had no idea of the existence of this rule and neglected to dress Wonder Boy as either of those things. Instead, I put him in a red knitted hat and stitched a school uniform shirt down from junior school age to his size, and made him an honorary member of Team Zissou, and knowing that it was a pretty subtle costume, dressed myself to match so that perhaps in some universe there would be a chance that we would appear to have dressed as something, whatever it might be.

And so we went to the local baby and toddler Halloween party, to be met with a room filled with pumpkins and witches and no one really understood that we were dressed up but it didn’t matter. It also just didn’t make sense to me to scrapbook that story with pumpkins, so I went for reds and blues rather than orange and black.

Supplies here are a real mix of old and new, including American Crafts papers from Mayberry and Soho Garden but also the new Crate Paper Craft Market, woodgrain and red glitter Thickers from years ago, Sassafras letter stickers, and small stamps and foil hearts that were more recent releases from Heidi Swapp. But no pumpkins.

For quite a while now, there have been so many products with ‘hello’ somewhere in the design. Now I seem to be collecting things that say ‘happy’ in one way or another. My technique for both words is the same: pile it on with all the different versions of the same word in one place. You know, just in case someone looks at that photo on the right one day and wonders exactly what emotion it is meant to portray… just in case. inserts significant wink here

And thank you for the comments that you don’t mind the vast number of pages featuring Wonder Boy… because I don’t really think that’s going to change all that much at the moment. I’m having far too much fun with it and you know… it makes me able to use all those ‘happy’ stamps AND the ‘hello’ stickers too.

Comment [17]

It is suddenly and beautifully spring here, complete with days where one can go outside for an extended amount of time without an actual coat! Take that, Winter! There are pink trees and baby ducks and ample opportunities for vitamin D. It’s exciting stuff. So I’m scrapbooking autumn pictures of people bundled in coats and hats and blankets. Of course.

Maybe all this spring outside my window is what made the green leaves feel completely appropriate with the autumnal theme. I can even make a leap to think I might have been inspired to use the black and white background paper with the brightly coloured photos and embellishments by the leap from the grey of winter to the colours of spring. Possibly. I’m not sure at what level of my consciousness that thought was present while making this page, but it seems completely plausible. And you can hear whatever else stumbled across my consciousness as I made this layout in the latest As It Happens video – it’s about sixteen minutes this time.

This page is the third I’ve made from the combination of the Walden scrapbook kit and the Underground Project Life kit, both from Studio Calico. I don’t have a monthly kit subscription as I like a bit more freedom in my supplies (and I enjoy shopping piece by piece when I can!) but I also like to change things up and work within the confines of a kit now and then. I tend to be most inspired to work with kits when there is a sale or a special offer. Funny how that works!

I could try to impress you by pointing out that I have technically scrapbooked a non-baby photograph here! Look! That photo on the right is just trees! But apparently it doesn’t count when I stick the tree photo next to a baby photo. Well, I’m calling the tree progress. Just the right amount of progress. I think I’ll scrap a non-baby layout soon, but probably not the next page. Or the one after that. But soon.

Have a happy weekend filled with crafting or baby ducks or something just as exciting.

Comment [13]

This week, it has made me giddy to see what the talented design team at American Crafts created with the True Stories collection. You can find a whole week of scrapbook pages, cards, and home decor ideas with all that saturated colour and pattern on the AC Studio blog.

There’s also a little bit of the surreal for me in that week of posts, as we filmed quite a few videos with the new collection in January just after CHA, and it’s time to share them now! I usually share videos with you a few days after they are filmed, so it feels a little different, but it was lovely to film with the whole crew in the AC studio. There was even someone to remind me not to make stupid faces while cutting and sticking. I know, that probably would have been your favourite part. Let’s just say sometimes the concentration face is right to be hidden away with just my hands on show! My hands never stick out their tongue to concentrate.

True Stories products are just starting to ship – there are a few that have made an early appearance at Hey Little Magpie here in the UK. I’ve been keeping an eye on the US retailers but haven’t seen it show up just yet. Very soon – and I will shout when it does! And I’ll have plenty more ideas and videos to share with you as it hits stores and kit clubs.

And because I truly believe in the power of hot beverages and baked goods, please feel free to save this printable! Click here to download as a full size PDF.

Wishing you a fabulous weekend with any problems cured by tea or the remainder of the Easter chocolate. Happy scrapping!

Comment [10]

If it’s working, carry on with it, right? And so goes the idea of just turning on the camera to capture a scrapbook page as it happens, the supply set of Studio Calico’s Walden scrapbooking kit and Underground Project Life kit, and the idea of scrapping Disney in colours other than red, yellow, black, and white.

I said last time that I made one terrible error in taking Wonder Boy to Disneyland. It was not remembering that the Peter Pan ride is entirely in the dark. It was the first thing we took him on and it scared him to bits. Apologies to the lovely, well behaved young ladies in the next ship who wondered why someone was screaming as if it were a death-defying roller coaster! But he soon recovered in the sunshine and that was really our only meltdown of the day. (Truth be told he wasn’t hugely keen on Dumbo. But he loved-loved-loved the Toy Story laser tag thing. A story for another page.)

Thankfully the queues weren’t all that bad since January is the off-season, but in truth, the queue was pretty fun with the combination of baby and friends! Plenty of conversation and plenty of giggles, and of course plenty of him flirting with strangers. We took quite a few of our photos while we were waiting for rides, and that difference of what sometimes seems like drudgery was something I really wanted to record somewhere in these pages. This seemed as fine a time as any!

So many thanks for the amazing response to Monday’s flash sale on classes. All registrations have been processed now, so you should have a welcome email and the ability to see your classes at our forum. There are a few orders here and there that didn’t specify a class or the email came up as invalid and I’m trying to track all of those down. If that’s you or you don’t think you’ve received what you should have, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. If you missed the sale, I’m sorry to hear that, but I hope you’re happy to hear there are new classes on the horizon. All existing classes are always open for registration, always include permanent access, and I always endeavour to make sure you’re getting good value for the purchase price, not just on sale days. Thanks again for your support!

Comment [11]