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

This week I was guest on the Paperclipping Roundtable podcast, in an episode all about ways to start a page, like sketches, starting points, and flexible templates. (You can listen to the episode here, or find it on iTunes. It’s free.) Allison Davis also joined the panel and if you know Allison’s work, you’ll know our sketches are quite different: she often does double pages, she tends to include many photographs, and her sketches include lots of little details and measurements for making it all fit together. Noell, the PRT host, uses a system she calls Flexible Templates, which is something different yet again: there is no sketch drawn on paper or screen, and instead she keeps a general idea of page structure in her mind as she works, then makes changes as she goes to make each page unique. So in preparation for recording the show, I decided to do a little homework: I tried one of Allison’s sketches and one of Noell’s flexible templates and filmed both so I could share how those concepts worked when combined with my own scrapbooking process.

You can find this sketch in Allison’s post on the Simple Stories blog. There is a link right under the image of the sketch that takes you to a full PDF with all the measurements and details, which scarily means you can also see all the extra photos and details I didn’t include on my page!

The supplies for this layout are mostly from the June Best of Both Worlds kit, plus a few extras from the supplies I’ve used several times throughout my backpacking albums, to help add a little continuity. I added a second sheet of the camera patterned paper from the kit to make a double page layout, but in the end there is so little of it showing that I think you could omit that sheet of paper without any trouble if whatever paper you wanted on the left didn’t have a twin in your collection. (Of course, you can also create the right side with a divided page protector and forego the 12×12 background completely.)

The original sketch includes nineteen photographs, and that’s just a bit too far for me, so I went with eight in the end. Six of these are just shy of 4×4 and two are 4×6, and it’s those 4×6 images that led me to make some bigger changes on the left side of the layout than I first imagined, but it worked its way out I think! Neither of those photos were images I wanted to crop, and that led to my first big realisation with working with this sketch: I prefer the composition of photos in the 4×6 set up. I certainly have square photos! But they tend to be just an image or two of any given event, as I will always use my traditional camera, not my phone, for the more photogenic stuff of life. I’ve spent years trying to improve my composition in that format, especially trying to find a good shot quickly, as all the photos on this layout were taken from the side of a relatively speedy boat. I looked at several different sets of photos trying to find images that would be improved by cropping to a square, and they were hard to find, so in the end I kept two of the images at their full size. I felt bad that I was cheating Allison’s sketch in what was supposed to be my homework, but at least it came with a little caveat that I was happy with how my photos were coming out, straight from the camera. I know that when I put a sketch together, I’d always be okay with changes like photo size or number, so I hoped Allison would be the same, knowing the sketch was still tremendously useful in putting everything together! (If you listen to the show, I think we’re on the same path with that one. Fabulous!)

One thing I really liked from this sketch that I don’t think I would have put together without it was the balance of the large, simple motifs on the cards on the right side with the smaller, more detailed embellishments on the left side. It’s the kind of balance that depends on something being the same but different, and also that several small somethings can add up to equal one big something. That’s definitely something I want to remember for future designs, as this is a bit different to the double pages I tend to create without a sketch, and I really like this look. Plus I have plenty of 3×4 cards, especially for a scrapper who doesn’t keep a regular Project Life album or anything! I’m all for bookmarking different ways to include 3×4 cards on a 12×12 (or 24×12) page.

As this sketch isn’t my own, there’s no guest or link up here, but you can find Allison’s interpretation of the sketch, complete with thorough notes, on the Simple Stories blog, and if you give this sketch a go, I know Allison would love to hear from your in the comments there. And see more of Allison’s work on her blog.

Next up, I give one of Noell’s templates a try! And you can hear us all talk about this entire process on PRT episode 166. I hope you enjoy!

Comment [10]

After a few sketches that focused on bringing square and rectangular photos together on the same scrapbook page, it was time to move on to something else, and the next four sketches all have something in common: they start with mist.

Of course there is no way to accurately depict the random splatters of mist on a sketch! So do please excuse my artistic limitations when it comes to drawing things like this, but the general idea of where to aim with droplets of mist is there somewhere! In this case, it also comes with a large embellishment in the middle of the page as a bit of a different design to what we’ve tried so far.

The supplies for this page came from the June Best of Both Worlds product picks, plus two shades of mist, some enamel dots, and a date stamp.

Early in 2013, I made a conscious decision to start scrapbooking more about the places we eat. I’ve photographed food off and on for quite a while, but one thing I liked seeing pop up in friends’ Project Life albums was the record of going out to eat somewhere lovely. I don’t necessarily want to record every place like that, and if I tried to make a page from everywhere I’ve photographed the food, I would be looking at a very long to do list. Instead I wanted to focus on the stories of these places, and I’ve found this to be quite a rewarding addition to my albums this year. I’ve recorded our appreciation for the unique flavour choices at our favourite ice cream gelato place, documented my habit of going to three specific places nearby whenever I decide to make the trip to the far side of town to visit my favourite coffee shop, and on this page I wanted to tell the story of a place we discovered just before it was discovered by the media, and how we managed to go there and walk right up to a table, no problem, and a week later there was an hour long wait because it had been featured with great reviews in all the papers. I read a lot of those reviews, and it’s a pretty rare occasion to just stumble upon a great find before it’s well and truly found by everyone. So that seemed story enough!

Please welcome a very talented lady who goes by just one name! Ewa comes to us from Norway, and I love her bold and artistic style, perfect for showing us what we can really do with a sketch that starts with mist.

When I start to work with a sketch I like to take it seriously. I try to imitate what I see in the sketch with what I see on my work. I also love to throw in a lot of embellishments, tags, and additives, so I usually go beyond what is in the sketch. These photos allude to my first glasses, which I started wearing a few days ago so I tried to make this theme in different ways.

I started working on this scrapbook page by making a choice of photos and paper background. Then I chose the rest of the papers, which I looked through making sure that the colors fit together. When I have selected all the papers which I wanted to use on my work and I had the initial composition I prepared a background. In this work I used gesso and star mask from The Crafter’s Workshop. I cut the title, film strip frame, and the ampersand with a Silhouette Cameo, which I splashed with Overdue Mister Huey’s mist. I decided to gently cover up the main star from the sketch so that it was not the main element of the layout and I decided to do that with vellum. When I glued all the papers I looked through all my embellishments and chose anything to fit. I tried to create a lot of interesting places on the page which catch the eye – including My Mind’s Eye’s buttons, star-shaped mistable Thickers, flair badges and printable journaling cards from Studio Calico, and washi tape. At the end I splashed the whole page with different shades of Mister Huey’s mist, and added some yellow paints and stamps from Scrapperin, called ‘Form & Feder’.

I encourage you to experiment with the amount of additives – do not be afraid of extra embellishments – they look much better at work than on the bottom of your drawer!

Ewa currently living in Oslo, Norway with her husband. She is a kindergarten teacher who loves all things crafty but scrapbooking forever stole her heart. She began scrapbooks in 2011 because of her love for paper and cute embellishments. She creates mainly layouts, and 12 × 12 inch is an ideal working size for her. Ewa’s style is bright with lots of colors and embellishments. She has been on several design teams and now she currently serves on teams at Sketchbook365 and Scrap It Now. You will find her at her blog.

Comment [6]

I’ll be honest: my scrapbooks as a whole are certainly about the stories. I refer back to my albums as I make each and every page to see how the story unfolds, and that is my long-term love with this craft. But my short term love is patterned paper, and when I find a design I love, I don’t always want to cover it with other page elements. I fall back to a handful of designs that work as some sort of compromise between those two points – room to tell a story, but also a place to include much of a pretty paper design.

This sketch is another intended to mix a rectangle and square photo, but this time at 4×6 and 4×4, so it could work well for two photos that both started at 4×6 and one just looked better cropped to a square. This design also works perfectly for patterned papers you don’t really want to cover entirely, as there is plenty of open space to let a pretty pattern appear without interfering with your photos.

The supplies for this page come from the June Best of Both Worlds kit, and I’m still a little amazed at how much I like this title with just small, flat letter stickers and not Thickers. My love for Thickers has not gone away, but given the challenge, I like how this title is a bit more delicate and understated, though not in any way script or fancy.

And yes, this page is about making cottage-inspired cakes at Cath Kidston headquarters! Workshops are something new at Cath Kidston, and something tells me this was a bit of a research and rehearsal opportunity for their upcoming flagship store on Regent Street, reported to include a classroom space. I’m saving my pennies now, because I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to say no to crafting and baking workshops in the land of pretty fabric and flowers.

Please welcome Mendi Yoshikawa as today’s guest. Mendi has some great ideas for adapting a sketch to work with your photos when they don’t fit the design exactly, and she was able to make that journaling-between-the-photos element work too.

As soon as I saw this great sketch I immediately thought of some recent family photos my family had taken this past Easter. Unfortunately when pulling them out I realized unlike the sketch my photos were vertical and square. With a little creativity I was able to alter the design to fit my needs by enlarging my square photo and making my vertical photo the same height. In the sketch the mats which framed the photos in varying sizes inspired me to cut small strips of Doodlebug papers in a fresh blue and green color scheme to compliment my photos. In my planning I had originally planned for this to be a border made up of washi tape, but in the end my tapes weren’t quite the right hue and I went in a different direction. To add a bit of frill and softness to my intense color palette I decided to cut some doilies from KI Memories Doily Transparency sheet using them in place of the stars in the sketch to form my visual triangle. For my title, it somehow felt like it was floating out there all alone so in an effort to ground it I created a washi tape border cut into pointed arrow tips to tie it all together. To complete my layout I stitched a simple white on white border around the perimeter of my page for a small subtle finishing touch.

Mendi Yoshikawa lives in Washington state with her husband and two girls. She has a passion for using sketches, loves linear designs and brightly colored tone-on-tone patterned papers, and has a self-described addiction to her sewing machine. You can find her at her blog , pinterest , and see more of her work at her online gallery at Two Peas In A Bucket.

Comment [19]

Since making the transition into sharing most of my pages through video, I’ve found I get feedback on things in a slightly different way, since it’s easier to see what I was thinking when I made a decision to add this here or that there. Maybe before it was more likely to look at something unexpected on a page and just say What was she thinking? but now it’s all there, readily explained! One thing I didn’t realise was just how many scrappers squirm at the idea of putting anything on top of a photo. On my own pages, it’s been rare for me to not have some element of the page overlap a photo somewhere in the design. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but it’s always a stylistic choice of how to connect the different parts of the page and have less separation between paper and pictures. I like the flow of one to the other, without a straight line of division between the two. I understand the idea of wanting the entire photo on show and I wouldn’t start sticking pop dots on top of a one-of-a-kind photo from a hundred years ago, but maybe digital photos have just made me brave! But with this next sketch, I decided it was time to just embrace the over-the-photo idea in a pretty direct way.

This sketch is another that can be used with a mix of square and rectangular photos – so the square photos are from my phone and the 4×6 photo is from my standard camera. The squares below the photo are shown as patterned paper, but if you had additional square photos, you could add them here. Likewise, this sketch could be followed directly with just the one photo in the centre and all the boxes from paper.

The supplies for this page are mostly from the June Best of Both Worlds product picks. If you haven’t seen other pages from this album, Glitter Girl’s Wedding Album Answers episode covers the set-up for this book, including picking the colour scheme and supplies.

One thing I think I would do with this sketch in a second interpretation is to dress up those three squares of patterned paper. Perhaps keeping the embellishment around the edges simpler, this would be a great place to stack up layers of punches and labels or add something dressy like flowers, but with the smaller details and textures included in those three areas of embellishment around the edge, I felt extra embellishment on the squares would just be too much, especially for the feel of this particular album. But I do like the lettering right on top of the photo, and pictures that have space for that like this image work really well. I can also imagine placing the title in the centre of a 4×6 photo of a beautiful sky, surrounded by six square snaps from a hike perhaps. What type of image would you be happy to use as a base for the title?

Please welcome Shanna Noel as today’s guest artist. I love how she added an unexpected twist to this sketch, and the more varied embellishment she included has such lovely detail.

I have a difficult time working in graph designs and always look forward to pushing myself to work ‘outside the box’ and work in ways that I wouldn’t naturally. Many of you might feel very comfortable working in graph designs and if that is the case I challenge you to find a way to mix it up a bit to work outside your box! To get started, I got out my square punch and punched six squares from random papers in my stash. I found myself going for some browns and greys and decided to continue that theme throughout the layout. From there I laid the squares on my layout and decided on my photo size from there. I work mostly with 8 × 8 pages and chose a long and lean photo space. Gathering some of my favorite products from around the room, I paid attention to texture and weight of my elements I was adding, making sure to keep it all as balanced as needed. I like that the alpha, cloud, and heart are all wood and form a triangle on the page. I then added some metal with the locket and metal paper clip, and I finished off that triangle with a piece of flair. At this point I decided that straight on design was just not cutting it for me and this layout, so I decided to put it all on an angle. Now that I had the bones of my layout, I wanted to add some mess to it! I made the base of my layout in Photoshop using some elements from CD Muckosky and Amy Martin to match the colors I had already put together. I love how paper and digital elements come together in such a customizable way! I can’t wait to see what you all do with the sketch.

Shanna Noel lives in Northern California with her high school sweetheart and husband of 14 years. They are loving having a house full of laughter that includes their two children Jaden (11) and Addison (6). She discovered digital scrapbooking when she was pregnant with Addison and just loved capturing her families memories in such a creative way. In June 2011 she ordered her first paper kit, and never looked back! You can now find her work in the gallery at Studio Calico as well as a peek into her daily life on her blog and instagram.

Comment [7]

Does your calendar tell you today is called Sunday? This week it’s wrong: today is called Sketchday! All day today I’ll be sharing new scrapbooking sketches, pages, and videos right here. I hope you enjoy!

Several of these sketches include ways to mix square and 4×6 photos on the same layout, perfect if you find you have photos on your phone and your ‘proper’ camera from the same event. Of course you can really crop photos from any camera to any size you want, but I know my photos often fall into those two categories – rectangles from my camera, squares from my phone. I’d like to use them together more often.

For this page, I used a couple sheets of older Sassafras papers and some current Cosmo Cricket papers, plus Doodlebug letter stickers, Junebug Thickers, Amy Tangerine stamps, and tapes from October Afternoon, Glitz, and Freckled Fawn. (Not to worry if you’re looking for pages with Best of Both Worlds supplies – there are those coming up today too.)

On choosing supplies for this page, I found I have really started to associate a few paper collections with specific people, and this is one of those cases. Several pages featuring this particular friend and her family feature Sassafras papers, and the more I looked at different papers, the more Sassafras just felt like it was right for continuing that story! (It may be influenced by the fact that the friend in the photos also scrapbooks and is a Sassafras fan.) Do you have any paper collections that you connect with the people in your photos? I’m thinking I have a few more of these connections, but as I hadn’t really thoguht about it before this page, I’m not sure to what extent I’ll find this in my books. I’ll be sure to report back with empirical evidence, obviously!

I’m delighted to welcome our guest artist Tara Anderson to share the beautiful page she created with this sketch. I may have given her something out of her comfort zone on purpose: I wanted to find out what happened when an artist known for beautiful layers and soft edges went to work with a sketch as boxy and linear as this. I love what she created, and I hope it inspires you too.

I’ll admit that initially upon seeing this sketch, the straight lines were completely intimidating for me. I’ve always viewed straight lines as too formal for me. So, after a bit of playing with the arrangement of the photos, I found that by slightly off centering them, it gave my layout a more casual and collage type feel – which I really loved! It was one of those “a-ha” moments, and then the sketch became totally do-able and a lot of fun to quickly pull together. Since this page was about traveling, I really wanted to somehow include map pages but quickly realized that the bright map colors were too distracting, so I chose to tone them down by ‘white-washing’ them with a little gesso. I also created a visual triangle, although it’s quite subtle, using pieces of a paper doily. You’ll notice that all of my accent papers were light and or white. This way I was able to layer many papers together and still keep the focus on the five vacation photos I used!

Tara Anderson resides in Arizona with her family. She has been a designer and challenge coordinator for various manufacturer design teams, and contributed to scrapbook publications from around the globe but is more widely known for her colour combinations. Tara’s scrapbooking style is full of mixed media, combining a love of vintage paper products with traditional scrapbook products and a few art supplies to create a layered, eclectic style. She loves spending time in the classroom during the school year tutoring math and summers spent traveling with her kids, taking photos with an antique Anscoflex camera and creating new memories. You can find her blog here & make your way around her Etsy shop here.

Comment [29]

Journaling and/or sentiment cards and those of the Project Life variety have become increasingly popular in the scrapbooking world. It seems that more and more companies are producing items to make scrapbooking quicker and easier. I really like that manufacturers have created sheets of journal cards and booklets of cards with journal prompts and sentiments as well. I have built up a little collection of these quote card booklets and would like to share with you today how to make the most of them.

Many scrapbookers tend to have quite a large supply of product. I am not immune to hoarding papers and embellishments and sometimes spend more time searching through supplies than actually creating something. I think that it can be overwhelming to have so much and it is so much easier, at times, to create something with a limited amount of product. I challenged myself to do that on this layout that I share with you here today.

First off, I gathered the supplies that I would use on this scrapbook page: 2 wallet-sized photos, Quote Cards, patterned paper for base of page, scissors, journaling pen, paper punches, alpha stickers, tape runner, foam adhesive and miscellaneous other embellishments I would use for my layout.

The great thing about many of the journaling and sentiment cards/booklets on the market today is that they are double-sided. Oftentimes they have a phrase/journaling area on one side and a pattern on the reverse. I used the patterned papers on the back sides of the cards to build the background of my page instead of using patterned paper since the colors in the collection I used coordinated perfectly with the colors in my daughter’s uniform. You can use the patterns as-is or dress up the pieces by using border punches or a corner punch as I did. There were some quote cards that didn’t fit the theme of my page as well as others so I leaned toward those cards when choosing which papers I would use for the background.

The cards in this booklet were mainly quote cards, as suggested by the product name, so I used a large scalloped punch to create a journaling spot. I also used a piece of one of the lined quote cards to create an additional space for journaling at the top of my layout. I made a pen outline on the scalloped spot to add a handmade touch to the page.

In addition to using the patterned backs of the quote cards for the page background I also used it for page embellishments. The stars were cut using various patterns and my star punch. The little heart on the right-hand picture was cut from one of the quote cards as well. I cut the orange polka dot strip from a quote card and trimmed the main embellishment ‘You make me happy’ from another card. Don’t be afraid to trim the cards to fit what you’d like to do on your page. This one was a little large for the space on my page so I simply trimmed it down. The scraps that you don’t use on this project can be used on something in the future.

Dress up the cards with twine or stickers, tape, pen work, stitching or whatever might strike your fancy. This is a great way to add a personal touch to your project.

This layout was created one sheet of patterned paper, the quote card booklet, alphas and a few miscellaneous embellishments. By making good use of punches and the reverse sides of the cards I was able to do a small amount of supplies.

Do you own any of these journaling/quote/sentiment cards? Pull them out and try to create a layout using only those and a few other supplies you have on hand. You’ll be surprised at the great projects you can create with only a small amount of supplies.

Becky Williams lives in west Texas with her husband of 12 years, her four cute daughters and basset hound, Bella. She began scrapbooking as an early teen and went on to work on her high school yearbook which further fueled her passion for design and scrapbooking. She has been blessed to be a part of various kit club and manufacturer teams and has been published in both print and online magazines. She currently designs for American Crafts, Bella Blvd and Lily Bee. You can see more of her work on her blog.

Comment [10]

Here we sit half way through the year, and it’s high time I share some of my favourite scrapbooking projects you’ve posted in responses to the sketches and so forth here. I’m hoping to make this a weekly thing, so fingers crossed it will work!

Heading back right to the beginning of 2013, the first sketch of the year challenged you to scrapbook with a large photo , and you were certainly up to the challenge. A few favourite pages shared from this sketch include this page by Jamie Leija, this page by Avinash & Nandini, and this page by Alinor.

One of my favorite element from these pages is from Jamie Leija’s layout ‘The Great Wall’. I particularly like how she carried the brick print carried down from the photo onto the background: great detail! Avinash & Nandini’s page shows something different to the other two. I love that the photo has been split up, like a jigsaw puzzle, to fit a divided page protector. It’s an awesome way to use a larger photo and incorporate a sketch even if you keep a Project Life album rather than full-size 12×12 pages.

If you find that you prefer to scrapbook with one large photo then take a look at the other layouts that were shared as they show some great ideas! You can view them here and scrolling down to the bottom of the post.

Sketch two for January follows on with scrapbooking two portrait 4×6 photos, and the layouts you all made were lovely! I’m particularly fond of Cal’s Page, Lythan’s page and Christy’s Page. It was so hard to chose my favourite three!

Christy’s page definitely made me smile. It’s vibrant, colourful, and has a simple charming theme! Very much like Lythan’s layout, the colours and patterns run throughout the page, making everything link smoothly.

It was fabulous looking at all your layouts for these sketches and I can’t wait to share more with you next week! If you have some scrapping time this week, take a look at the current sketches. You still have a few days to share your interpretation of sketch 18’s sunburst design. I’d love to see and share your work! Happy scrapping.

Comment [4]

Hello everyone! I am excited to be here with you today to talk about one of my favorite scrapbooking must-have’s – string! It may sound odd, but I have been using string in my scrapbooking since I started 11 years ago. It is colorful, thin, manipulative, and adds the perfect finishing touch to any project without taking the focus away from your project. I have been tying sting on my pages since the day I started and today, I want to share with you five easy ways to add it to your own projects.

The first idea is pretty self explanatory – tie string around your project and into a pretty bow. One reason why I love using string, is because it is visually very lightweight and adds that little feminine touch without being as ‘heavy’ as ribbon can sometimes appear. On this simple card, I wrapped the pink string around the card two times and tied in a bow. The recipient will have fun untying the bow to get to the message inside.

This card is simple, yet has great impact! I gathered 5 colors of string and wrapped them around a stamped card numerous times. I tied the yellow string in a bow on the front. The card is simple in design, but it has a lot of texture and color.

Whenever I attach buttons to a project, I have to add string through the holes! I always joke that a button is naked without string in the holes! On this card, I added a bunch of clear buttons and varied the colors of strings that I sewed them to the cardstock with. It is a fun surprise to see the colored thread and it finishes off the card perfectly. Simply place your buttons on the card in the design you want, pierce holes through the buttons, and then sew on the buttons with needle and thread. Simple, but it adds so much!

You may of seen all the fun artwork around the web and Pinterest where you use nails and string/yarn to create words or shapes. Such a fun idea! I wanted to use that same idea here, with my brads and string. I punched the heart shape, stamped on it and glued it to the heart embossed card base. I then pierced holes around the heart and added the silver brads. I took the aqua string and simply wrapped it around the brads on the outer edge and then tied in a bow at the top. It looks so fun to see that string looped around the brads! Give it a try!

This card is super simple but I wanted to show another simple technique with string that can be fun for any project. I punched out the banner shape with white cardstock and added some glue runner to the top. I then laid down pink string, row after row, to create a border of the string. I then cut the edges so it was flush with the punched white shape. To help the string stay in place and not un-wind on the edges, I added some glossy accents glue to the top and let it dry. It looks like enamel once dry and yet you can still see the texture of the string underneath – such a fun look! Simple, yet dramatic.

I hope that you will give some of these fun techniques a try on your projects. Go to the craft or fabric store and grab some fun spools of string. They look darling in a cute box on your desk and they will add the perfect touch to any project!

Thanks for having me today!
Robyn Werlich

Ever since Robyn was a little girl, she has had a huge passion for art. A month before her first child was born, Robyn fell in love with scrapbooking and stamping. She has now been involved in the industry for over 11 years. She has had many wonderful opportunities being on Design Teams for Making Memories, Autumn Leaves, Hero Arts, a Garden Girl at Two Peas in a Bucket, 2008 BHG Scrapbooks, etc. magazine Creative Team and more. Robyn and her husband, Ryan, have three kids: Madisyn (11), Hudson (9) and Jaxon (5) and reside in Arizona. You can catch up with Robyn on her blog at BeCreative-Everday and on her Twitter & Instagram: RobynRW.

Comment [5]