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

Recently Alice and I were both a tiny part of a lovely, lovely project from the very talented Kirsty Neale, a new book entitled Hoop-La!: 100 things to do with embroidery hoops. Alice’s contribution is far more noteworthy than mine – the hands that appear throughout the book’s instructions are hers, and she got to spend the day working with Kirsty putting all those step by step instructions together. I mostly got to look at all the finished projects, turning from page to page with various different intonations of ‘oooh, that’s just lovely’!

Here’s a little look at what you’ll find inside the book, and a beautiful capture of Kirsty’s artistic style:

To celebrate the release of Hoop-la, we’re sharing a few embroidery hoop projects of our own!

There are so many lovely projects in Kirsty’s book, I had no idea which one to choose or what to use, how to use it etc… all the typical crafty questions you ask yourself before starting a project! In the end, I decided to narrow it down to two questions: ‘What project out of this book would be most useful? and ‘What project would fit in great with my style?’ This left me with the memo board embroidery hoop.

I am constantly pinning things to my wall, getting through a ridiculous amount of sticky tack or pins with little reminders or shop cards, anything that I think I need to know or remember. This seemed to be a way to perhaps control some of that while still being able to pin up plenty of things. Kirsty’s version of this project in the book isn’t exactly the same to mine, but it inspired my hoop in my own style. I think it’s lovely to add your own touch to it. What materials would make it your style?

I wanted a cute, vintage feel to my little memo board, and by using the tweed fabric and lace, this really helped add that touch. I used bird ribbon for the embroidery hoop and tiny flower pegs to hang those important notes. The stitching was hand stitched and I thought the little button was a great tiny touch to bring it all together! It didn’t take me too long and I didn’t run up a big bill for supplies, and I’m really pleased with this hoop for my wall. I hope you can imagine it in supplies or colours you would love.
-Alice

When Kirsty first asked if I made anything with embroidery hoops myself, this is the project that instantly came to mind. It’s an older project, but a display minibook (meaning it stands open on a counter top or shelf) where each page is an embroidery hoop filled with paper or fabric plus photos and scrapbooking embellishments.

Now my challenge is to create a new hoop that combines Kirsty’s stitched and photo projects from Hoop-la with my current crafting style! What would you suggest for…
…colour?
…types of embellishments?
…colour or black and white photos?

I’m curious as to whether you would choose the same sort of thing for your own room that I might choose for mine. Decision time!

For more embroidery hoop fun, don’t miss Kirsty’s blog for plenty of loveliness, and find more details about the book via Amazon or the publisher.

xlovesx

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Hello, my name is Jessica and today I would like to show you how to add more dimension to your scrapbooking pages. I love pages with a lot depth, little details and things that pop out. Unfortunately this isn‘t always good to see on pictures, but it‘s so beautiful in real life! Even though I hope you get an impression of it with this tutorial.

This is my starting point: Sitting on my floor, surrounded by beautiful supplies. I’ve already chosen a picture and a background paper, and also a cup of coffee prepared, just not visible on the picture :) Perfect to proceed!

In one of my first steps I took stripes of glitter tape and attached these with foam squares under my tag. This is a first easy step to let it pop out of your page more, furthermore glitter always adds a glamorous look and catches your eyes.

Next I started layering some papers. I took various sizes and arranged some straight and some a bit diagonal, also I mixed up straight edges cutted with a scissor and edges ripped with a ruler. Makes it already look a bit more interesting. At this point, I still have everything unmounted on my page, to be able to add something more later, if I want to.

But layering papers isn’t the only way to create more depth on your pages, let‘s go on with the embellishments, I’ve mixed up various materials and shapes and also layered them a bit or rather stuck them between the papers. There’s a stripe washi, a wooden clothespin, cork stickers, punched butterflies (three layers), wooden heart shape, rose out of modelling clay, two labels, a piece of doilie and crinkled tissue paper. Also I plan to wrap around twine on the whole stack in the end, to add one more layer.

To let some parts pop out even more, I’ve customized some things a bit: I’ve stapled the butterfly layers together, added a thin layer glue and glitter to the wooden clothespin, painted the rose yellow with watercolors and added a thin layer gesso to the heart, then a layer of green watercolor, a layer with Glossy Accent and at least I sprinkled over some microbeads. Also you can see that I started to think about the design of the rest of the page. I‘ve cutted out leaves from a pattern paper and grabbed some sequins.

It’s time now to secure the middle part before going on. To keep the soft look I use just spots of glue to secure the papers and embellishments or rather use more foam squares. Now that my middle part is almost finished I’ve added something to the corners, and sewed the leaves just in the middle part, to be able to bend them up.

Back to the background: I wanted to add a bit more structure to it too. I’ve used a brush and green watercolor to apply a soft touch to the background and let the middle part pop out more. I’ve also added a second layer with orange watercolor and a mask. You can see that I tried out the paint in the middle part, that‘s definitely hidden later. It‘s great to use these parts to try out how the paint will look on the background actually, before applying it to the parts that you can see later. I also used a brush and black watercolor to apply some splatters, always a good way to make the page look a bit happier.
In the end I’ve added a bit journaling, some stapler accents (I’ve used a permanent marker to color them black instead of silver) and triangles out of glitter tape.

That was my way to add more depth to a page using different materials and different structures, watercolor, layered paper, little details and customized embellishments. I hope you liked it and feel encouraged to try it on your own! If so, I would love to see your projects, leave a link in the comment section to let me know. Thanks for watching!

Jessica Lohof loves all things creative and started to document daily life stories with scrapbooking in 2011. She is a German girl living in a small town in the middle of the country. If she is not making a huge mess on her crafting table, she enjoys improving her skills in taking pictures and spending quality time with friends and family. Jessica is currently proud to design for Gossamer Blue, Color Hills and Color Conspiracy. She shares her love for scrapbooking on her blog Talk About Priceless and through Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest

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I know from the looks of things here, you wouldn’t guess I’ve been making a big stack of new stuff to share with you, but I really have! I’m really looking forward to truly being back in the swing of things as a blogger with plenty of projects, tutorials, and videos throughout November and onward. Now I need to take all those projects and get them translated into blog posts and get all those edited videos uploaded to share with you! Obviously.

Since it’s the first of the month, I’d love to share my November product picks with you, and I’m delighted to say you really will be seeing how I go from kit to finished projects with these products in a nice timely manner (along with with projects from the remaining earlier kits, in clearly what is not a timely manner, but I still want to share them with you). This is what I’m scrapping with right now. (Well not right now. Right now I’m typing. But when I’m not typing. Also when I’m not eating pumpkin pie. Because I’m not very good at typing while scrapping and I’m even worse at eating pie while scrapping. Therein lies disaster, I tell you.)

Click here to shop the Best of Both Worlds Scrapbooking Kit for November 2013.

This month, I’ve gone with autumnal notes in the form of woodgrain and stitches, but with a turquoise twist on the usual mix of browns, yellows, and oranges. When earth tones were a very big trend in the scrapbooking world, I made more than my fair share of very, very brown pages, and when I look back at them, I’m still happy with the designs, even if they are dated, but the overwhelming sense of brown makes even the happier memories seem sad at first glance. That very limited colour scheme just doesn’t work for me, and yet I find the colours of autumn really beautiful! I’m sure that’s because in the real world outside my scrapbooking supplies, I see those lovely autumn leaf colours against a background that includes blue and grey skies, green grass, and the odd colourful shot of a late-blooming rose. I’m a terrible gardener so I’m very thankful to live in a neighbourhood with more talented people for that and I can just look from a safe distance! But it’s those shots of colours that make the autumn colour scheme really work for me, so that’s what I was after with this kit. I hope you like it too, of course! I also really like that turquoise is a colour that works easily for boys or girls, and it can be casual or more formal depending on what you put with it. Same goes for the bronze color shine mist!

As always, you can shop the kit to suit you. I love that big woodgrain stamp and have been using that for a few months now, but if you don’t use stamps much, that’s a quick way to reduce the price of the kit. If you tend to do double page layouts, duplicate some of the papers to make that easy for you. And if the motifs, fonts, or colours don’t work for you, you can always make a change.

Click here to shop the Best of Both Worlds Scrapbooking Kit for November 2013.

Also, while we’re talking about kits, a word to those who have made a deposit for a Christmas in a Box kit (either UK or rest of the world): I’m just finishing a few final steps on that and will be sending emails to everyone this coming Monday with all the info you need! Thanks so much.

Have a great weekend, and happy scrapping!

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Next to scrapbooking, my favorite past time is thrifting and hunting for vintage finds. I am always on the lookout for items I can use on my projects and I can never pass up vintage books with interesting covers, perfectly aged pages,or wonderful illustrations! I love the juxtaposition of old and new and that carries through to my scrapping projects as well.

Use as Patterned Paper
When layering patterned paper on a layout, look for opportunities where a page (or two!) from a book could be used instead. On this layout I used a page from a Vintage Girl Scouts handbook, I love the texture the book page adds to the layout and it also carries the theme (books/library) through with not only the use of the page but also through the title at the top which is “Adventuring in The Arts”. Keep your eyes open for words/phrases on pages that support the subject of your layout.

Use Book Pages in Your Cameo or Die Cutter
Instead of reaching for patterned paper or cardstock, reach for a book page to use when cutting embellishments. I used pages from a vintage children’s dictionary to create the autumn leaves with my Cameo on this layout. Layer lots of them for added impact! I chose the pages to cut just as I would have selected patterned paper for my project, the ones I used were black and white with a little red to coordinate with the photo I used of my daughter as were treasure hunting one day.

Create a Project Life Spread
All of the paper I used on this Project Life spread came from vintage books. The orange and red 4×6 cards were cut from the title pages of vintage children’s encyclopedias. I loved the little acorn on the page and made sure to incorporate it into my title card for the week. I also loved the “volume” list and used it behind one of my photos. The “This is Our Life” card was created in Word and printed on a vintage book page, I then cut it with my 3×4 punch and stamped it with the date. I have found that heavier weight papers work better when creating Project Life spreads so keep that tip in mind when selecting books to use.

Book Cover as The Base of Your Project
As you start using book pages on your projects, you will find that you start ending up with book covers which are also perfect for projects. By using a book cover as the base of your layout, you can create projects that can be displayed in a decorative stand or by hanging instead of simply placing them in an album, it is a perfect way to display a favorite photo. I chose this cover as it coordinated with the patterned paper I had chosen and the finished project is now displayed in my scrap room. If you wanted to hang your project you could simply punch 2 holes in the top and hang with ribbon, twine, etc.

Create Embellishments
Book pages can even be used for the smallest of details. I tend to save even the tiniest of scraps and these 3 embellishments can easily be made from those. I punched patterned paper and book pages into circles and ran them through my sewing machine to create the garland. Images were cut and wrapped around small wood picks to create the flags and strips of paper were cut and adhered to small wooden clips.

I hope these ideas have inspired you to try using vintage books in your projects. If you don’t have any books on hand to give these techniques a try they can be easily found at any thrift store and usually for under $1.00. Even if vintage isn’t your style, these projects and embellishments can be created with book pages in just about any style simply through the book you chose to use!

Martha is a crafty stay at home mom who lives in the suburbs of Chicago. She has been scrapping since 2006 and also enjoys sewing, crafting with her 5 year old daughter and is addicted to InstaGram. Martha is part of the Paper Issues design team and blogs at MugsyBoo .

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I am excited to be sharing this fun decorative tape technique with all of you! This technique is great because it is a unique way to use up that endless stash of scrapbook tapes we have all collected! And it will give your decorative tapes a whole new look. Today I am showing you how to use a border punch and decorative tape to create a major design on a layout. It is easy and fun- you will love it!

First you will need to pick out up to 8 different decorative tapes. I wanted a rainbow effect, so I picked out 8 different colors and arranged them from pink to black.

First tear a piece of decorative tape a little bit longer than your actual project. Adhere this piece to the very edge of a scrap piece of cardstock or patterned paper. I have found that papers that are not textured work best.

Then use your favorite border punch to make a border the entire length of your tape. I used just a simple scalloped border punch because I didn’t want my design to get too busy with all of the different colors and patterns of tape I used.

Slowly peel the punched decorative tape strip off of the cardstock. The key is to pull the tape off very slowly and gently to prevent it from ripping.

Place the punched decorative tape onto your layout as you normally would. I used multiple punched borders to create one large design onto white cardstock, but your possibilities are endless!

I love that this technique is so versatile- you can use just about any border punch you have at home! And you don’t have to create a large design. If this concept seems a little overwhelming, start by punching out just a single piece to use. You can use it as a plain border like I did here or you can use a piece to adhere any flat embellishment to your page. I hope I have inspired you and helped you to use your decorative tapes in a new way!

Tegan lives in northwest Indiana with her husband of 12 years and their 2 furbabies (a Yorkshire Terrier and a Cairn Terrier). She discovered scrapbooking about 13 years ago and it has evolved into a huge passion! Layouts and altered projects are her favorite things to create right now, but she enjoys ALL types of paper crafting. You can see more of her projects on her blog. She also loves being a design team member for Carta Bella Paper and the Paper Bakery Kit Club!

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Hello there. Yes, you’d be right: I do have a notebook in my hand. You won’t have known me for long before you realise that I’m a good listener – and that’s because I like to record what people say. Funny, sharp, profound or though provoking, if I like it enough to write it down, then I try to scrapbook it too. And I enjoy the challenge of finding different ways to pin down a word or two. These are my current favourites.

Go Stamp
I stamp directly onto my photo. For this to work you need a picture with plenty of negative space – a wall or some sky is good – and Staz On ink so your stamping doesn’t smudge. You can create a mood for your quote depending on the style of font you choose: this is a little stamp set from the local discount store. When I’m stamping a whole sentence or more, I line up the letters and stamp a word at a time. The quicker you work the easier it is not to make a mistake – try it, you don’t have time to think about it! I’ve made a layout here, but this idea would also make a great addition to Project Life pages.

Go Ahead
Prepare your page ahead of time. See the layout on the left of my pairing? I could have added anything at all she said to it. It’s a blank canvas page and I’ve started making up a couple of these when I don’t have anything else I want to scrapbook. I keep it simple with embellishments I can add to when I add the words. The completed version with a stamped on quote is on the right. I’m thinking I could turn this idea into a mini album, with lots of pages prepared in advance.

Go Small
These are speech bubble embellishments. I stamped onto felt, stitched over the stamping line with six strands of embroidery floss and cut it out. ‘Enormously yes’ is what my nephew says when he is absolutely agreeing with me, so to record it I typed up a couple of word strips to add to my bubble.

Go Large
This is another speech bubble – large this time – I’ve prepared, ready for just the right words. I drew it onto dotted patterned paper – graph or ledger would be good too: something you’re going to want to fill in – stuck it onto the red for a brightly coloured contrasts and stitched round the edge. Use it like a notebook page to record what your family says: it doesn’t even need a photo because the big bubble tells everyone what’s important about this page.

Go Send a Card
I don’t just note down things my family say. Sometimes I’ll see a great quote I’d like to remember too and it can be a nice idea to pass it on as a stamped greeting on the front of a card. Here I have used some words from F. Scott Fitzgerald, stamped onto a background patterned paper I had prepared with a light dry brushing of white paint. It’s also fun to give someone a card stamped with one of their own quotes. Give them their words back… or keep them to yourself to bring out and enjoy some rainy day in the future.

Go on: I bet if you ask around someone will remind you of the time you said… what? write it down! and then scrapbook it.

Sian Fair has been making stuff since she first discovered how to hold a pair of scissors. When she isn’t scrapbooking, she loves to stitch or knit and she’s happiest when she can do more than one of her favourite hobbies at a time: that’s a lot of sewing on paper, then she lives with her family in a very tall house in the city. Her crafting space is on the fourth floor and that’s why she blogs From High in the Sky. Sian currently contributes to Scrap 365 and Jot magazine and is a member of the Get It Scrapped Creative Team for 2013.

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On the twenty-second of every month, the Garden Girls from Two Peas in a Bucket check in with a blog hop showcasing our projects, what’s inspiring us, and our favourite products of the month. Welcome to the October edition of Gardeners’ Digest!

Since we last caught up, Glitter Girl has been on four new adventures, covering ‘Right Now’ pages for scrapping yourself, childhood pages for photos that don’t necessarily have direct memories that come to mind, a return to creating clustered embellishments, and some ideas for black and white photos. You can watch those four adventures (and more) through the playlist above, and find all her adventures here at Two Peas in a Bucket.

This project from Corrie Jones is one of my favourites in recent weeks. So pretty – and I’ve definitely inspired to try more with frames, especially with lighter colours, and maybe with a black and white photo too. Corrie’s work is always such a beautiful mix of creative freedom and great design.

In terms of products, I’d be silly to not say my own is one of my picks this month, right? If you haven’t signed up already, Glitter Girl’s Scrapbooking Survival Guide is ready for you to join in any time you want. It’s a new self-paced workshop with ten videos and five PDF chapters. There’s also a slightly different product in the shop from Glitter Girl: her guide to Stretching your Stash. This was offered as a bonus for earlybirds who signed up for the Survival Guide by the 2nd of October (if that’s you, you can access it under the workshops tab any time!) but it’s also available as a separate purchase any time for $10. Glitter Girl’s Guide to Stretching your Stash is all video – it’s over ninety minutes of video, in fact!

And for paper products, my desk has been covered in the latest Amy Tangerine collection for at least the last ten days. It’s lovely – I always love Amy’s autumn colour schemes the best, and I love it on its own or mixed with the older collections. You can find that here.

So… it would be lovely to hear from YOU! Who or what in this wide world is inspiring your creativity right now? Share with us in the comments, then your next stop on the hop is Michelle DeLeon, with beautiful paper goodness to share with you! Have a lovely day, wherever you may be.

Gardeners’ Digest is a monthly update from the Garden Girls, the design team at Two Peas in a Bucket. To keep up with the Garden Girls throughout the month, check out the garden gallery any time!

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Lately I have really been admiring the sheets of patterned paper that are covered in beautiful handwriting and text. They look elegant and make lovely backgrounds. The only downside is that the words aren’t my own. So I set out to put together a page that both features text as a design element and tells a story that is meaningful to me.

The design concept is simple; to fill a 12×12 sheet of white cardstock with writing. This can seem an intimidating, daunting task, but don’t be put off! First of all, you could always type out your words in a favourite font, or copy passages from a favourite book if you prefer. That way, the words can still be personal to you, but you don’t have to sit down and write an epic novel!

However, I did decide to take the hand-written approach as I had a very special memory to record; it seemed appropriate for the page as I didn’t really have any pictures to go with my tale, and making the text the focus of the page really draws attention to the words.
With your story selected, get writing, get typing…whatever you choose, keep going until the page is filled. A border around the edge of the cardstock is a nice way to draw the design together and if you’re anything like me, a few pencil guidelines will help keep handwriting in straight(ish) lines.

With the background complete, it’s time to think about the rest of the page. Text as a background can be very striking, especially if you’ve gone for black ink on white paper as I did. So I kept the colour palette simple with pastel yellows, pinks and greys. The design is a classic 2×2 grid comprising a title block, a photograph and two embellishment blocks. Repeating the Polaroid-style element makes the design cohesive and the formality of the grid is softened by little details such as miniature wooden clothes pegs and layers created with tabs, twine and die cut shapes.

The trick with this design lies in a sheet of 12×12 clear acetate. I adhered each element of the grid design to the acetate and embellished with a few wood veneer hearts. To complete the page, I simply placed the acetate over the top of the handwritten background. The page can then be slipped into a page protector.

This layout can play two roles in your album. At first glance, the casual reader sees a pretty design mounted over a page of text. However, someone who looks further will be able to slide away the foreground and read the full story that lies beneath, suddenly revealing something very significant.
I hope you’ll try making your own text backgrounds, whether you use a few sentences in large, loopy letters, or pack a page with close-knit phrases, you can fade a lot of story into the background, but still have the memory recorded forever.

Kirsty is a maths teacher living in North London and she loves to scrapbook and drink tea. If you enjoyed this tutorial, you can see more of Kirsty’s projects on her blog Journal of Curious Things and if you’re so inclined, send her an email to journalofcuriousthings@gmail.com. Who doesn’t love getting mail?

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