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

Welcome to a new year of Best of Both Worlds – my humble version of a scrapbooking kit! If you’re new to this idea, the name ‘Best of Both Worlds’ comes from the set up. If you want the ease of a kit, you can have it: on the first of the month, I share a list of supplies that I love together, and you can simply add one of each to your basket and check out your order – super simple. But a kit with a subscription doesn’t work for everyone – maybe you would use or can afford a kit some months and not others, maybe you already have a few of the items in the kit or would prefer something different that makes paying for kit items you don’t want less than ideal. If so, this can really help, because there is no subscription and you’re free to use the shopping list as a guide, adding more of what you like and not bothering with the things that aren’t your style. Hence the ‘best of both worlds’ moniker!

And with that, let’s get on to the kit for January 2014! Right now is a great time to go shopping, as there is a massive 25% off sale in the shop for the next few days, so I’ve been able to pack more into the kit than usual. For January, I wanted to mix warm neutrals (like woodgrain, of course) with a rainbow of happy colours to brighten up the short winter days. There are products from October Afternoon, Simple Stories, Fancy Pants (yes, that fancy paper is die-cut in the centre), Studio Calico, Pebbles, American Crafts, and one new addition made just for the kits: new Best of Both Worlds flair badges made by Two Peas.

Click here to shop the January Best of Both Worlds product picks!

_{Paper a-sides and b-sides.}

I am really enjoying texture on my pages at the moment and wanted to include a few different finishes in the embellishments. The pack of chipboard stickers from October Afternoon is literally one of the best scrapbooking products to hit my desk in months. The colours are rich, the pieces are a good size to add detail without overwhelming the photos, and the chipboard is great quality. The woodgrain chipboard letters are that same quality, and the flat green letter stickers actually include two small alphabets in the pack – one with individual script letters and then another in the same colour that is small blocks with the letters on each tile. The washi tape is a different texture and this design is one that could be used for so many things. Plus there are wood veneer and plastic pieces, so there is a real variety. I haven’t added any gems or enamel dots to the kit this month, so if that’s something that has become integral to your finished pages, you might consider a rainbow pack to match.

And then this new bit of fun! Some flair! These are all individual pieces like all the Two Peas flair, so you don’t have to have them all and can just pick the ones that would work for you. (You can get them all though, of course! Go right ahead!) When you click through to the shopping list, you can see the individual pictures of them, so don’t be alarmed by the reflections here in a quick little snapshot from the production line! (The plan is for the Best of Both Worlds badges to be a regular thing every month, but what with today’s earlier announcement, I’m not making any promises about that, just in case!)

Click here to shop the January Best of Both Worlds product picks!

If you need to bring the price down, the stamp set is the most expensive item. It is 25% off its full price currently, but if you don’t stamp, then of course the bargain doesn’t matter!

The shipping discount code for January is 5SSYWX. That will give you a discount on shipping if you have $50 of physical product that is not on clearance (‘phase out’). Most of the 25% off items are not on clearance, just on sale, so they count toward your $50 total.

Everything is first come first served – once it is in your shopping cart, it is not reserved and can disappear if the item sells out, I’m afraid. Two Peas has started restocking items in the kit when they sell out, but obviously when the sale ends, those restocked items would no longer be at the discounted price, so now is a good time if you’re up for shopping!

One thing I mentioned briefly in today’s earlier post was that there will be extra ideas for using the Best of Both Worlds kits this year: each month a guest designer will be joining us to share what she makes with the supplies. In that true good-idea-but-not-quick-enough style of mine, this month’s guest’s kit is currently making its way from Two Peas to her home! But I love what she makes so I have a feeling her projects with these supplies will be fabulously fun… and just a different look to what I’m making with mine! And for mine… yep! I’m scrapping with this too and will be sharing that here throughout the month. (Speaking of which, I’ve been on a huge video editing spree to catch up with all the things I haven’t yet shared here. I think there have been enough blog posts here today so I’ll just give you a sneaky link to one video here, and the corresponding blog post can be for tomorrow, yes? I’ve also been drafting up a big guide that has all the 2013 kits and all the pages I made from them in a nice, easy-to-see format, so I should have that ready to share with you shortly too. It’s a lot of pages even before I got behind with sharing, so seeing it all together boggled my mind a little!)

I have my first page from this kit ready to share with you tomorrow, so do stop by!

And thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart, for all your sweet messages today. I have felt about a million feet tall reading them all, even if I’m most comfortable curled up on the sofa! I cannot say thank you enough.

Comment [7]

On the first of the year, I tend to get a bit philosophical and extra wordy. Forgive me. There is some important stuff I want to tell you, and my most honest self is just not concise. Thanks for your patience.

In 2013, I shared fifty Glitter Girl videos, thirty-five Sketch to Scrapbook Page videos, and put together a monthly list of product picks – which I was quicker to use and share some months more than others. For those interested in premium content, I also debuted a brand new self-paced workshop, Glitter Girl’s Scrapbooking Survival Guide, and a companion video workshop, Glitter Girl’s Guide to Stretching your Stash, both available at Two Peas in a Bucket. Here at shimelle.com, I ran a reprise of two popular layout design classes, Pretty Paper Party and Scrapbook Remix, and two annual favourites, Learn Something New Every Day and Journal your Christmas. I flew to California for CHA in the winter and travelled to Germany and Italy to teach in person. The funny thing is that all that fits into my designated year of quiet.

Over the past year, there have been many guests sharing their work here. I know some of you are not huge fans of that, and that’s okay. 2013 needed to be my year of quiet. 2012 was a big year here. A lot of excitement. A lot of growth. And the truth is it was not a level of growth that could be maintained by one scrapbooker. It couldn’t even be maintained by one scrapbooker and her (albeit awesome) part-time assistant. I knew that a year ago. Well, more than a year ago. I knew 2013 would not be about growth for me. It would be about giving back, and it would be about welcoming a bit of quiet. If 2012 was a year-long Olympic-sized party, 2013 was my year in an ashram.

In last year’s philosophical post, I talked about how I wanted to be able to recognise designers doing fabulous work in this craft and pay them for their contributions. I know that is really not a concern to anyone who is happy to craft for fun, for a hobby, and not worried about trying to make a living from their work. But having worked in this industry for many years, it was important to me. I do think there are too many occasions when talented crafters are given the opportunity to be ‘honoured’ to share their work and the compensation for all the hours they spend creating things is usually the supplies themselves. That doesn’t keep the lights on, much as I would like to pay my electric bill in the remaining patterned papers from last season. Prior to that post, I had made a personal decision to not take work that paid in paper, because I felt if this was my full-time job, I needed to take things seriously, so I stepped away from the positions that took so many hours without pay, for there was no benefit coming from it – I couldn’t be convinced that a layout on a blog, on a sales booth, or in a book was going to bring crowds of people here to my blog for the first time ever. A lovely compliment to my work to be asked, certainly, but the reward was stress of deadlines and late nights and ridiculous international Fed Ex bills. When I took that stance for myself, my contributing opportunities dropped dramatically. That was okay, but it meant I was really concerned that the commentary I saw in bits and pieces over the internet that the ‘same designers appeared in so many places’ or that surely there must be some up and coming unknown talent hiding somewhere was really part of this predicament: there are many talented scrapbookers out there, but there are few with lifestyles that allow for countless hours of work with no pay. I couldn’t employ them all as a regular design gig, but I could make a step in the right direction. I could give back. And I am delighted that I was able to commission so many different scrapbookers to share their work here with you over the past year. That was my goal there and it didn’t fizzle out. At the start of a new year, that makes me ridiculously happy.

But I know many of you have wished there was more of ‘me’ on the blog. Sometimes I have too. At first, I made a big effort to try to match the contributed content with my own posts, and soon I knew I had fallen into a hole. Blogging is a very different writing process than writing a book or writing for one’s self or even the way I write my content for classes (be that online or in my days of teaching teenagers). Blogging is so quick and instant – write it, publish it, move on. The revision process is often more like proofreading than redrafting. Readers know that blogging is quick, so readers make requests, and that is sensible and fair. ‘I bought this product and I don’t know how to use it’ is a common request that comes my way lately and I started trying to reply to all sorts of things like that by writing about them on the blog. That sort of technical explanation of craft is easy and quick and that makes a blog a great place for it. Except I was forgetting why I write. I had lost the sort of in-depth I needed to retreat to the mental ashram (or as it’s Sherlock Day, perhaps I should opt for ‘mind palace’) and rediscover my own voice.

Since the spring, I have been writing for myself. I have written reams and reams. When I started, it was all entirely rubbish. Be glad I didn’t share it on the blog. If you think the long rambling posts I write on message boards are long and rambling (or indeed this post), you have no idea how horribly disconnected from reality that writing was. But I would return to it and look at it without the pressure of sharing it with the world. I could spot what wasn’t working rather than just publishing it and moving on to the next topic. Day by day and week by week, I found what I was missing and I got back to a point where I could write things I felt worth sharing. I just didn’t want to start putting it all out there until I was ready to step outside the ashram. I really wasn’t ready to do that until about three weeks ago. I decided to wait until the new year just to be extra sure.

I have never stopped loving scrapbooking. It still makes me want to get out of bed in the morning (or more accurately, makes me want to stay up all night) and I honestly don’t mind if someone doesn’t like the visual style of my pages or disagrees with my feeling that a page without writing is incomplete or if someone wants to laugh at the sheer number of albums I have. All hail variety. It can be just as odd as that blogging writing process to be constantly sharing the scrapbook pages I make, and usually I am sharing absolutely every layout I make in some way or another. But just lately, I have been scrapbooking a little more that I’ve been keeping to myself too. It’s a bit of a game changer.

So… this? This is why I needed a year to welcome quiet. For every time someone would say something encouraging to me about how they admired how I would represent for the scrapbookers who chose to live a child-free life, I would smile on the outside and die a little on the inside. Choosing a child-free life and choosing to embrace a child-free life are two different things in my world. I respect both, but I have lived one a lot longer than the other. I lived it long enough that I kept waiting to say anything. I’ve kept this secret a pretty long time. And that little boy is scheduled to join our family this April. I expect that arrival means 2014 is not at all my year of quiet, and I’m perfectly perfectly happy with that.

I have no intentions to become some sort of parenting blogger. I am going to mess up at this parenting thing a lot and if for two seconds I start to say I know anything about parenting, please slap me in the face. (I may admit my year of quiet has included a lot of reading on the subject and even sitting in on a few lectures, but I have no intentions of declaring myself any sort of expert on that subject at all.) I still want to be a scrapbooking blogger. While I am of course excited to scrapbook this entire new adventure of life, I’m curious as to what my page balance will become. There was a time when there was just me on my pages, then when The Boy started appearing on my pages but quite a few of them were still about me. Maybe this will naturally become a next step with a third of each? We shall see. But my intention right now is still tell a mix of stories, and I have plenty of memories I still want to add to my albums, including quite a few represented in all those reams of writing I’ve scribbled in 2013. (By the way, I realise the name ‘The Boy’ has the potential to get extra confusing now. Give me till spring or so, and maybe I’ll figure that all out.)

Shortly I shall be heading to California for CHA (in nine days! Oh my!) and that shall be an adventure all its own. It’s also a good thing that I remembered how to write, as I’ve committed myself to a pretty major writing job that will result in something you can hold in your own hands at all good bookstores (well, all good bookstores that import paperbacks, if you’re outside the UK) toward the end of spring or beginning of summer. And a few other big projects I still can’t talk about. It turns out that my year of quiet also meant growing ideas when I had a bit of spare energy from growing a tiny human. 2014 will be a whole other kind of year.

As for what you’ll see here: I don’t want to commit to a big master plan of what will happen in the whole year because something tells me that I need to be ready for the unpredictable and I need to embrace ‘winging it’ in terms to when I will work and when I will not! But you’ll see a lot of scrapbooking here this month, at the very least. I think it will continue, though I may obviously need a little break at some point. Those guest contributors will continue in a bit of a different way: I’ve asked them to help me illustrate all this crazy writing I’ve been doing for so many months. You’ll see their pages and mine together in articles on topics that give me the chance to offer some organised depth. You’ll see layouts, step by step photo tutorials, and videos. I’ve also done some revamping to Best of Both Worlds to make it work better for everyone in 2014, including bringing in some help to show you more than one way you can use the supplies. (More on that here later today!) I’ve also blocked in two posts a week, in theory, to share some non-scrapbooking things too: one column from me and one from Alice, who will continue to keep my sanity and also share some crafting tutorials with you outside the realm of paper. Glitter Girl is back for 2014 too, though in a slightly different format. She still has a weekly video every Wednesday, and has a long list of things she is very excited to share with you in 2014. (Her first episode of 2014 is next Wednesday, the 8th of January.) Plus the first shimelle.com workshop of 2014 has been announced: Return to the Collection starts on the 20th of January, and you can sign up now at a bit of an early bird discount if you like.

I loved my year of welcoming quiet and it was exactly what was needed around here. And now I’m a bit ready to begin a year of embracing the new. I hope you’ll stop by now and then throughout 2014 and be pleasantly surprised with what you find here too.

Thank you, as always, for all your support.

Comment [267]

In 2012, I taught one of the sessions for True Scrap 3, and my contribution was a forty minute video workshop entitled The Perfect Collection. The idea was to take a collection pack of patterned papers and use it until it was all gone, creating a stack of layouts that stretched that paper investment to lots of scrapbooking! That workshop remains available, but it is time to return to that idea with something new.

Return to the Collection is a new workshop here at shimelle.com. Unlike many of my workshops which are PDF based but with some accompanying videos, this one is video accompanied by notes. Those of you who prefer to watch will find plenty of new material here – none of the video in this workshop has been shared in any other class nor on the blog – it is all exclusive to the workshop. There are also some printable notes to help (and so you can have still shots of the completed layouts) but these notes support the PDFs rather than the other way around.

Return to the Collection showcases six layouts from start to finish, using one collection pack – Wild & Free from Glitz Design – but instead of the limited embellishment focus of The Perfect Collection, this time the pages feature a more embellished style and a range of techniques.

…Examples include both single and double page layouts and a variety of numbers and sizes of the photographs. My pages are all 12×12 (making a 24×12 double page) but you could adapt the ideas to other page sizes if you prefer.
…Techniques and design ideas are easily adapted to the collection of your choice. You’re welcome to follow along with Wild & Free, but my aim is to give you the confidence to use these tips with the papers you love.
…The design process for each layout includes building and embellishing, with all of that explained on video, including my reasons behind each choice. I do not teach in a ‘glue this here and stamp that there’ fashion, and always value the ‘why’ more than the ‘do’ in sharing my scrapbooking process.
…The page designs can be used together for a cohesive series of pages or separately across a variety of photos and albums – whatever suits your needs best!

Return to the Collection will go live after CHA (and indeed a few days after CHA so I am not trying to attempt something complicated while still jet lagged!) but you can sign up now with an early bird discount. When the class is live, you will have access to everything all at once – it’s not a daily email class. Like all shimelle.com classes, you’ll have permanent access to all the materials so there is no rush to work through the videos. You can view them any time you like.

Return to the Collection will be live on Monday the 20th of January 2014. From then, it will be the full price of £12 Sterling or $18 US Dollars. Before then, you can sign up with an early bird discount making the price £10 Sterling or $15 US Dollars. Just keep in mind, you are paying for the class to go live on that date – signing up early doesn’t mean you’ll sign into the class materials today, just to be clear. (But I know a few of you have been holding on to discount codes that expire at the end of 2013. I will extend them until the end of Sunday 5th of January 2014, but that is a firm deadline. Thanks!)

ADDED 20th January 2014: Class registration is closed from today until Sunday. It will reopen on Sunday 26th January and remain open after that. This week is early birds only. Thank you!

Choose your currency and click to sign up for the class. You can pay by credit/debit card or by logging into your PayPal account. The email address on the payment is where your registration will be sent. If that email address is not correct (or if you want to give the class to a friend as a gift), then leave a note in the ‘notes to seller’ section with the correct email address. If you accidentally forget that step or have any other problems, email me. You’ll receive a PayPal email receipt when your payment has been made, then class materials on the 20th!

Questions and Answers
Do I need to take The Perfect Collection first?
No, it’s not a requirement. There are a few references in the dialogue of the class, but they are simple enough to understand without having taken the class. If you prefer more embellished styles, The Perfect Collection may not be the best class for you – it is more aimed at stretching a collection page to many layouts without having to sacrifice colour and pattern. But of course you are welcome to take both! The Perfect Collection is still available here.

Do I have to have the same collection pack for the workshop to make sense?
No, not at all. The papers are all referenced with explanations and descriptions that make it easy to apply the same tips to any paper collection of your choice.

What other supplies are you using in this workshop?
For the embellishment, you’ll see many little things from different manufacturers and collections. The idea is to start with a collection pack of papers, but not to feel you have to then buy every pack of embellishments in the line. Instead, pick from your existing stash to find frames, die-cuts, stickers, brads, and stamps to create unique combinations. You don’t need to use the same exact products as in the video. For example, there is a fabric-covered brad by Cosmo Cricket in the sneak peek image above. You wouldn’t need that pack of brads specifically. You might have fabric-covered brads in your stash, and if so it’s easy to select one that will work. If not, that’s still fine – use a plain or epoxy brad. No brads? No problem – substitute an item that is of a similar shape and size – like a button or a maybe a flair badge. And all that sort of substitution is covered in the class materials too. This way you are free to use what you love and what you have on hand, while at the same time learning to embellish on your own so you can add as much or as little as you like without needing to keep looking back at a reference point once you have the hang of it. That’s the goal!

Any other questions, please feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer. Thanks so much!

Comment [40]

Throughout this year, I’ve been delighted to share the work of so many talented scrapbookers with you, through their step by step scrapbooking tutorials, Five Ideas posts, and their interpretations of scrapbook page sketches. Each of the guests you’ve seen here is a crafter whose creativity inspires me to try something new and reach for something a little better, and I hope they have brought some of that same inspiration to you, as well as teaching you one or two new tricks!

Before the clock ticks over to 2014, I’d like to thank all the scrappers who have shared their work here this year. As there are now fifty-two entire weeks of tutorials and Five Ideas posts, I’ve put together two Pinterest boards as a visual index so you can find their tutorials easily. 2013: A Year of Scrapbooking Tutorials includes all the step by step posts, and So Many Scrapbooking Ideas includes all the Five Ideas posts.

(As a little aside, I am really pleased we were able to come up with so many different topics for Five Ideas. At one point, I feared it would be all focused on a single product each week, and while many are product-centric, there were also a lot of other great ideas that didn’t require any shopping, and I love that.) Of course we appreciate anything you repin for your own bookmarks to come back to it later or share your favourite ideas with friends! Thank you for pinning – always! But mostly these two boards should help as a bit of a visual reference for finding an older post that you might remember by imagery more than words. When we roll over to the 2014 design here on the blog tomorrow, you’ll find these two pin boards linked in the sidebar so you can get to them any time.

Of course that omits the sketches at the moment, but that is just for now. There is a lot of new coming to this space imminently, so I’ll just leave that for now and share more with you shortly on the sketch front!

What else new? Oh… maybe some long-awaited class news! Maybe an exciting new year ahead! Maybe I should stop with this post and get all that stuff ready!

Thank you so much to all of the guest artists who have worked with us this year. Thank you for making things and sharing ideas and being so lovely to work with! And thank you to all of you who stop by to read whatever you might find on the blog on any given day. I can never thank you enough.

I’ll stop gushing now and get back to all that other stuff I need to post for you, but truly: thank you for a lovely 2013.

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One of my favourite techniques that I use on every project in some way or the other is layering. I love working with different patterned papers and other elements to create subtle details and add depth or dimension to a layout. There are so many way to incorporate layering into projects. Here are five ideas on layering.

Create Subtle Layers with Stamps
There are so many amazingly pretty stamps out there and I have loads of them in my stash. For each project I make I usually pull out at least 2 stamp sets and I find myself just using one stamp image. For this card I used different stamps from stamps sets created by Amy Tangerine. I started of by stamping the polka dot background placing a punched out circle in the middle which acts as mask. Then I added a layer with two potty people. Using some light pink chalk ink I stamped a couple of hearts onto the tag as well. Using different stamps in layers is a fun way to add detail and even create unique embellishments.

Washi Tape
As it is translucent, it lets the designs that are below show through. I decided to spruce up an envelope by layering different sizes and designs of washi tape, finishing it off with an overlayer from Crate Paper and a couple of embellishments.

Layering Alphabets
Sometimes placing alphabet letters side by side is a bit to simple for me. I love adding dimension to a project and have found that by layering the letters over each other I can create a different look.

Layering Embellishment
When creating this layout I was confronted with a dilemma. I really wanted to add lots of embellishments but didn’t want to cover the hearts of the patterned paper. I decided to layering the embellishments and place them on the photo. I built up layers using wood veneer, vellum, a paper clip, a doily, a tag and some buttons. I love how the embellishments draw the eye towards the photo.

Layering Patterned Paper
I love patterned paper and have a hard time just using one or two designs. I often use one design as background and cut strips or squares in different sizes using other designs. On this layout I started off with my patterned paper as background and picked a 6*6 sheet as starting point. I tucked in journalling cards cut out from another sheet of patterned paper and then set about creating an embellishment by layering punched out circles of patterned paper. To finish it off I added a button and a couple of arrows. This is a great way to use up scraps and create homemade embellishments.

I hope these projects inspire you to layer on your creations.

Lilith Eeckels lives in Belgium and is mother to 4 boys. She is a foreign language teacher and loves to scrapbook in her free time. Her passion for scrapbooking has also triggered a passion for photography. Lilith isn’t afraid to try out new techniques and is always up for a challenge. She can’t quite describe her style as it varies depending on her mood or the products she uses. You can see more of her work on her blog.

Comment [9]

I don’t know what I would ever do without my home printer(s)! I use them for so much more than just straight forward photo printing or even printing my journaling. Not only are home printers pretty convenient for when you are ready to scrap and need a photo, you can also experiment with the surfaces you print on for extra interest on your pages. I have two printers I use; a small HP Photosmart photo printer and a large Epson all-in-one office printer. Besides your basic home printer all you will need is some removable adhesive (washi tape works for this too) and a computer editing program, like Photoshop. Here are five of my favorite “outside the box” ways I use my home printer.

Print on Wood Veneer
I absolutely love wood veneer! I picked up these thin sheets of wood veneer from a paper goods store a few years ago and have been hoarding them ever since. They are great for printing on and slide right through the printer on their own. Here I printed a whole 4×6 photo on the wood. I chose this image because the tones and subject matter went well with the wood grain. I find that this technique works best with pictures that are less busy or more abstract like close ups or landscapes. You can even print your own wood veneer journal cards using text, digital brushes, and graphics.

Print on Vellum
Vellum is great for layering, and when you print your journaling or photo on it, it is even better! You do have to be a bit cautious about smearing the ink since it doesn’t soak in like regular paper; I just give things printed on vellum longer drying time. If you print a photo on vellum it is best to choose an image that has a lot of light tones, versus one that is dark or very saturated. To print on vellum I usually adhere it to plain white photo paper using a small strip of washi at the top and bottom to hold it in place.

Print on a Glassine Bag
A great way to customize a glassine bag in by printing right on it. You can use a digital brush, like I did here, or use a pattern, graphic, or regular text. Printing on these baggies is just like printing on vellum, and the print will usually be a little imperfect which I don’t mind. These custom bags are a clever way to add some interest to a pocket if you do any pocket style scrapbooking, and are also a great place to hide some private journaling on a tag. I popped some punched confetti in mine, sewed it up and made it into a card for my hubby.

Print on Canvas
I have been getting canvas prints of my professional photography work for years; one day it dawned on me that I could incorporate this in to scrapbooking as well! I love love love the texture that canvas brings to a photograph especially. I think this look suits portraits, snapshots, landscapes, you name it. It is also really easy and cost effective to do at home: I purchased a 12×12 sheet of flat canvas from my local craft store for around $1 and cut it into (6) 4×6 pieces. I used a free template from Paislee Press to place my picture and then attached the canvas to my paper sheet using removable adhesive. After it printed I sewed around the canvas and frayed the edges for texture.

Print a Stitching Template
You can do this on just about any surface. For this project I chose to print my stitching guide, an arrow, on a journal card cut from a Dear Lizzy patterned paper. I used a digital brush from Studio Calico. I just resized it to the size I wanted in Photoshop and printed in a light grey so that you wouldn’t notice the lines after it was stitched. I am not so great at stitching freehand, so this technique is perfect for me, not to mention with all the digital brushes, cut files, graphics etc. available the possibilities are endless.

All of these techniques are so versatile, you can use them for printing photos or journaling, for traditional layouts or cards or pocket pages. I myself have used several of these ideas for my December to Remember 2013 project and I love the extra touch it adds to my album. You can see my album and my home printer techniques in action here Studio Calico in my gallery at Studio Calico. I hope you have fun thinking outside the box and experimenting using your own home printer.

Tami Brundage is a dreamer. Besides being a professional photographer, she enjoys finding vintage treasures, cooking healthy local food, organic gardening, the smell of fresh cut grass, road trips, running bare foot, the beach, salted caramel anything, paper crafting, and sing-a-long music. If she had to pick a theme song to her life it would be “Wildflowers” by Tom Petty. She raises a small flock of backyard chickens in the suburbs of Washington state, but would love to live on a farm someday (soon!). In the meantime she enjoys finding ways to simplify her life with her husband and two children, Avery and Sawyer. Tami has been honored to be published in Scrapbook Trends magazine, design for Crate Paper, and be a class contributor for Studio Calico. You can see more of her photography on her blog or on her facebook page

Comment [8]

I love the look of gold foiling on holiday cards. It makes any project look more rich & festive. Today I wanted to show you a really simple way to add foiled accents. I’ll be creating a card, but this same technique would look beautiful on a layout & would really dress up those last minute holiday packages.

I hope this inspires you to break out your digital die cutter & try some designs of your own. Of course, if you don’t own a digital machine, this same concept would work perfectly with metal dies or punches.

Julie Campbell is a 30-something mom to two energetic boys. She lives with her husband & children in an old farmhouse in rural Indiana (USA), where she sees almost as many tractors pass by as cars. Julie works part-time as an operating room nurse at a pediatric hospital, but she’d rather be stitching on paper than people. Being creative energizes her spirit & she loves the instant gratification that card making brings. Julie is a part of Studio Calico’s Creative Team & you can find her gallery here . You can find more about Julie on her blog, Stamped In His Image, or follow her on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, & Facebook

Comment [5]

I have fallen madly in love with watercolors and using them on my projects. I will be showing you five ways to use watercolors on your creative projects using a simple watercolor palette. There is something perfectly imperfect about the way the color flows when working on a piece of paper. I find it to be a relaxing exercise of creativity and find myself losing all sense of time as I experiment with putting watercolor to paper. I find inspiration everywhere from images on Pinterest to stretching my creativity as I pore over Wilna Furstenburgs Art Class at Two Peas in a Bucket.

Color Plain Die Cuts
For a Fall inspired layout at Two Peas in a Bucket used watercolors to custom color leaves that I used to frame my project. I used various Fall inspired colors on each leaf, even including some veining of the leaves by using a smaller detail brush. For a complete supply list of items used on this layout, visit my Two Peas gallery.

Create Drips
I created this simple ‘Hello’ card by loading my brush with each color and lots of water, then allowing the color to drip down the paper. I was able to create a fun rainbow effect with the colors. You may need to go back and add more color to each drip depending on how vibrant you want your colors to be. I added a stamped hello image, exclusive stamp by Studio Calico, and typed ‘friend’ underneath the image that made this card simple and quick to make.

Create a Custom Background Paper
Creating a custom background paper has endless possibilities when it comes to using watercolors. On this layout I was able to achieve a bit of an ombre look by starting with my color at the top of the page and blending it down until I was happy with the overall look. You can choose to use a nice weight cardstock for this or you may want to invest in some watercolor paper or mixed media paper that can be found at your local craft supply store. Watercolor and mixed media papers are designed to withstand the use of water and liquids that will help reduce warping. I finished my layout with simple gold touches using Heidi Swapp Color Shine mist in gold lame and gold rub-ons from Studio Calico. I backed my layout with a woodgrain paper by Crate Paper and Maggie Holmes’ Flea Market collection and machine sewed the pieces together.

Color Cards/Create a Mosaic Effect
I was inspired by this image that I found on Pinterest for my next layout that I created for Two Peas in a Bucket
All About Me October theme.
I used this inspiration image as a springboard for my entire layout. I used watercolor artist trading cards that I found at my local craft store to help create the mosaic effect on this layout. I experimented with mixing different colors on my palette, then applied each custom color to my individual card. I finished the layout by adding small, light embellishments to keep the focus on the watercolor technique and feel that I wanted to achieve. For the full supply list on this layout, visit my
Two Peas gallery.

Custom Color Embellishments and Titles to Frame your Photo(s)
I used my Silhouette Cameo to create the title ‘Lovely Moment’ and cut it out of heavy white cardstock. I used a blue, green, yellow watercolor gradient color palette for the word “lovely” being careful as I worked, blotting with a paper towel as needed. Keeping a paper towel nearby is helpful when working with watercolors because you can easily fix a mistake, or make it less noticeable while it’s wet. The ‘Moment’ portion of the title was colored with grey watercolor.
Next I wanted to custom color an embellishment using Amy Tan’s Cut & Paste line pencil rub-ons. First, I applied the various watercolors to my white cardstock, being mindful of colors that I wanted to use. I allowed those to dry, then applied the rub-on.
Once the rub-on was applied I used my scissors to cut out the design and use it as additional framing for my photo. Lastly, I created a simple yellow ombre office supply tag, blending the color from darker to lighter, as another framing element to my photo.

The possibilities using watercolors are endless! You can even experiment with your handwriting using watercolors or painting your own custom drawn embellishments.
All you need is a simple watercolor palette, a brush of your choice, some water, and your creativity and imagination! Have fun experimenting with watercolors and adding them to your projects. I hope you find it as relaxing and inspiring as I do.

Jen is a wife, mom, maker of pretty stuff, lover of photographs, and keeper of her family’s precious memories. Jen has been scrapping for over 15 years, since the birth of her second daughter, but it hasn’t been until the last couple of years that she has found herself in the world of scrapbooking design. Jen is a Garden Girl at Two Peas in a Bucket and is also a designer for Basic Grey and Oh Deer Me kits for Freckled Fawn You can visit Jen at her blog, on Pinterest and Instagram and Twitter: @jenkinkade

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