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

You may have noticed, I am rather fond of pretty paper. What you might not know is when I say ‘pretty paper’ aloud, it is almost always immediately followed by a wistful sigh. Pretty paper inspires me. It’s such a simple thing and yet such a fabulous bonus in life. Why yes, I do have significant gratitude for pretty paper. So much that this is all leading to a brand new online scrapbooking class.

If you are also a fan of such things, I invite you to a party. The Pretty Paper Party. A four week celebration of pasting pretty paper to other pretty papers in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Would you care to join me?

The party kicks off next Monday, and lasts four weeks. Specifically, that’s the 17th of October to the 12th of November, but as with all shimelle.com classes, participants have full and permanent access to all the class materials so you can access them at any time. Party favours include…
…25 PDF prompts loaded with brand new and exclusive scrapbook pages and papercraft projects.
…an exclusive video series to show specific techniques step by step.
…members-only message board to mix with other party-goers and share your work.

And of course there are also some other goodies along the way, because the best of parties always have an element of surprise to keep you inspired!

The guest list to the party is shaping up to be rather special too! I’m very excited to be highlighting the work of dozens of my favourite scrapbookers from all over the globe. These special guest artists have shared their love of pretty paper and created brand new scrapbook pages to share with you, and I know you’ll love their tips and the variety of crafting styles they bring to the party! Single pages, double pages, minibooks, cards, simple elegance and artful complication? They are all coming to the party and hoping to meet you there!

You don’t need any special supplies at all. We’ll be using what we have on hand and busting that stash! You will want plenty of pictures ready to scrap, and they can be any theme so it’s perfect for what suits your needs: work on one themed album or make a stack of pages, each on a completely different topic.

Every papercraft lover is cordially invited to the party – but how do you know if this is the perfect date for your social calendar?
…do you want to make more from your investment in your craft supplies (especially your paper stash)?
…do you have a big stack of pretty paper (colours or patterns) that you know you should be making into beautiful things but somehow it hasn’t happened yet?
…would you love to learn secrets of mixing patterned papers, creating colour combinations or bringing new life to the oldest sheets in your pretty paper collection?
….do you love to scrapbook and love paper and would just love the idea of creating with a group of people for four weeks?
If any of those apply to you, then make room on your calendar and join us for Pretty Paper Party!

The party starts one week from today, so send your RSVP by signing up and get ready for all sorts of creative fun! You can register in your choice of British pounds or US dollars – just click the button for the currency you prefer. If neither of those are your currency, you are still welcome to the party! Just choose whichever you prefer and the payment system will automatically convert it to your currency when you pay.

You can pay your class registration by credit/debit card or Paypal account, and both options are shown on the screen that follows. Please be sure to enter a valid email address as part of your payment so your prompts can be delivered to your inbox. If you would like to gift the class to a friend, please provide her email address. (You can email it to me if you like.) Class registrations are processed by an actual person (me!) and can take up to 24 hours, though it’s usually much faster.

I’m proud to donate £1 of every class registration to the Plan Girls’ Fund, which supports girls in developing nations, provided education, improving living conditions and passionately working to break the cycle of poverty and gender discrimination. The donation from September’s class equated to a year of schooling and living expenses for five girls, and I’m excited to continue to support this amazing cause.

I’d love to see you at the party! Get clicking and sign up – for this party, it’s great to be fashionably early!

More details and sneak peeks as the party draws near!

Comment [228]

Congratulations to Elvan, who wins the chalkboard tags and card from Kate’s paper goods.

Elvan, please email me (shimelle at gmail dot com) with your address.

There’s a new giveaway every Friday night, so check back next week for another chance to win just by leaving a comment.

Have a great week!

xlovesx

Comment [66]

Not long ago, SJ upgraded to a camera that included video and I kept asking her if she had shot any video yet. And the answer was mostly no and I kept thinking if she did shoot some video it would be lovely because she has such an interesting style and outlook. So one day she sends me an email to say ‘I finally shot a video! And I’ve uploaded it!’ and I watched it and I suddenly thought: this is such a very, very good idea.

I had no idea what she would be filming with her camera but it turned out she made a scrapbooking video – with a new challenge that had been rolling around in her head and I love it. Also, SJ has a voice that is often so calm I think she should narrate books-on-tape for toddlers at bedtime, but that’s just me. (By the way, what do they call those now? Books-on-iPod just doesn’t have the same ring to it, and audiobooks sounds far too grown-up for fairy tales.)

So first of all – here is her video. Watch and listen and see if this makes a lightbulb spark for you!

I love this idea: go back to your very favourite pages, find a point of inspiration that makes that page special, then use that inspiration point for a brand new scrapbook page. Such a beautifully simply way to stay true to your own style. So I pulled out an album and found a page I made long ago (in days of yore!) and found one point I could take from that and put to use on something new.

I started with this layout, which was actually my very first page created for the garden at Two Peas, and it’s still one of my favourites. I love quite a few things about it, but the idea is of course to take one, and what I really wished I had done more often was the treatment with the patterned paper. Lots of bold mats layered to create a big frame of colour. And I remember when I made this page I had mixed papers that were quite new at the time with some old favourite patterned papers too – and suddenly I was off and running.

I am usually quite good about my paper stash: use what I love, give something away if I don’t love it anymore – don’t collect it just to look at it in a stack. But we all have our weaknesses, and mine comes in old KI Memories papers. I have so much old KI (both their regular line and the Love, Elsie collections) and there is no way I’m giving it away. I still love it. The trick is to find ways to make it work so the pages stay true to my current style even when I’m using papers that have very old dates on them. The Love, Elsie papers I used on this page are most definitely labelled as 2006. But I love how they work with more current collections, like the Amy Tangerine paper and stickers, the new Eclair Thickers, all the labels and stickers from October Afternoon.

Take One was a fabulous challenge for my creative process: I’ve been meaning to get these two photos on a layout. I’ve been meaning to use these papers that aren’t getting any younger. Finding something I love about an old favourite page meant making this page was such a lovely adventure.

You can join in SJ’s Take One challenge any time. She’s going to post a new video tomorrow, I do believe!

xlovesx

PS: Just a little heads up in case you like the recent collections from American Crafts. Two Peas is running a one day sale with 25% off more than 300 AC products, including albums and brand new lines like the Amy Tangerine collection. It’s not often that the new stuff is on sale so soon, so today is a good day to go shopping! Plus my stand-by the 12×12 3-ring album in black fabric is in the sale too. Perfect. Find the sale here. But it’s today only so don’t dilly-dally, okay?

Comment [9]

I was born in October, a long, long time ago. Or maybe not so long ago. Maybe like the perfect number of years ago. October is the tenth month of the year. So if today is your birthday, you could share ten birthday things on the tenth of the tenth month. That would be cool.

But I was born on the eighth. The eighth of the tenth. And I’m going to call that close enough and share ten things on the tenth – ten things that happened on my birthday this year. It would be cooler if today was my birthday but it also wouldn’t have given me time to write the post in advance. And also eight is my favourite number. So I’m okay with this ten things on the tenth of the tenth about the…. eighth. Did ya catch all that?

You are very welcome to join in with ten of your own things today – this tenth day of the month. On any theme you like. We do this every month, and it’s a great way to come up with topics that work for both your blog and potential scrapbook pages!

So I bring you: 10 things that made my birthday awesome this year.

1. I accidentally opened one present early and had to wrap it up again with a bunch of packing tape so I could open it again for real. I say accidentally. I mean I received an unexpected parcel with a return address. I emailed the person who lives at that return address and said ‘oooh, surprise parcel!’ and she replied with OPEN IT OPEN IT OPEN IT. Okay, maybe not all in capital letters. Maybe not three times. But she definitely told me to open it. So I did, and I found this amazing present inside. But it was a joint present and the other gift giver was not impressed. So I promised to wrap it back up and open it again and STILL BE SURPRISED. And I love it so very much that I did just that and it was just as exciting to open the second time. Oh happy day, indeed.

2. The Boy made me pumpkin pancakes for breakfast. And they were amazing. (He says if you want a fine gentleman in your homestead to treat you with such things, you will want to suggest to them that Martha Stewart’s website is not just for girls and also find the pumpkin in the store because not all boys understand where this is located. The rest is easy, he reports. And totally yum, I report.)

3. We hit up Renegade, the first London event from the hippest of craft fairs. Yes, The Boy went to a craft fair. He bought me the new London Neighbourhoods print from Ork Posters, which I love because it has our neighbourhood on it and I am a bit sappy like that.

4. It was a day of many flat whites. This was the second of the day, at MilkBar in Soho. When it comes to good coffee, there is no such thing as too much of a good thing. (Which is easier for me to say because I drink decaf. The Boy may have been a bit jittery.)

5. If I don’t have to work, Saturday is dancing day. Or more specifically, dance-till-you-can-barely-stand day, because I stay for an extra class on Saturdays and usually find I pay for this on a very weary Sunday morning. And since we had plans in the morning and plans in the evening Saturday afternoon could still be dance-till-you-can-barely-stand day and this made me very happy indeed.

6. In the break between classes, we had cupcakes. With sparkles.

7. And when I could barely stand, I tried to change back into clothes that did not make me look like I just ran a marathon in a rainstorm so we could go out for food that is fun to say. Seriously, food tastes better if it is fun to say, right? So okonomiyaki has to be pretty awesome just by that rule. The first time I ever had okonomiyaki was from a street vendor in a park in Tokyo and it was horrible. It was actually our first meal in Japan and I was instantly terrified that this would be true for all the rest of our food in Japan and I instantly had flashes of YOU ONLY LOVE FAKE JAPANESE FOOD AND YOU WILL NOT ACTUALLY WANT TO EAT ANYTHING HERE. I imagined going home looking like I’d been on the most amazing two week diet. Instead, I found it was just one oddity and I spent the rest of my time in Japan mostly ordering mystery foods and marvelling at how fabulous they were. Not so much the diet country for me. So anyway, okonomiyaki is not horrible. It is completely lush and they cook it for you on the table, which means it’s not only fun to say, but it’s fun to watch. Love it. Also there was a dessert that involved brandy-soaked biscuits, cinnamon ice cream, coffee jelly and whipped cream. Oh coffee jelly, how I miss your combination of what is at once completely wrong and completely right. But you can get coffee jelly and okonomiyaki at Abeno. So we did.

8. Notes Music and Coffee opened while we were away and we’ve been meaning to go there properly and hadn’t. So we went there for our final round of flat whites. And we shall return. This place used to be a classical music store, basically, and when that closed, instead of just opening it as something entirely different, the new owners have kept the music and films but added coffee plus food, wine, the whole shebang. I want to go back in the daylight and take some real pictures because the refit of the space is gorgeous. I can’t believe such a lovely space was there all along. Anyway, highly recommended.

9. Eventually we headed home and hooked up one of my presents: an old rotary phone. I am very excited about this and hope people other than random sales robots phone it. Also we have realised we have a printing press, a typewriter, plenty of vintage cameras and now a rotary phone as working items in our home… so now I’m wondering what other obsolete appliances we need to collect and put to work. Suggestions on a postcard, please.

10. Throughout all this and all the other good things that didn’t fit in this list of ten, I was thoroughly spoilt and reminded that life is good and people are sweet and kind and inspiring. And sweet messages from near and far helped me put aside a few things that have been occupying too much of my head lately and for twenty-four hours, I didn’t think of them at all. Like the best present of all was this collective energy from everybody else putting my thoughts in order. And that may have left my brain clear enough to going around singing It’s my biiiiiirthdaaaaaay! with much excitement.

And these ten things made this day very good for my soul.

Now… what ten things are you going to share today? It can be absolutely anything as long as it’s ten!! When you’ve posted, leave a link below and have a very fabulous tenth of October!

Comment [37]

I know: you thought it was going to be a Halloween page, right? But it turns out I have scrapbooked all the Halloween photos in my possession. Sad times. We are seriously considering it time to throw a Halloween party in order to rectify that situation! But it turns out if you throw enough yellow and blue into the mix, you can go from this very Halloweenish start to something not requiring a pumpkin in the embellishment!

This is a bit of a funny page though, and this photo makes it look even more the case. The two pictures are Instax photos from several years ago when I had a pack of film that just didn’t expose very well. On this image, it looks like the photo on the left is completely black – it’s not, I promise. There are indeed three people in the picture and they were sitting in bright sunlight but for whatever reason, the shot came out very dark. But there’s something about instant pictures that makes me never discard the mistakes, and I figured actually that is part of the story: I love that amount of imperfection that comes with instant film in a world full of ever-climbing megapixels and accuracy. I don’t play roulette at a casino, but I do like the crazy gamble of instant film. So out of the drawer and into the album they go, overly dark exposure and all!

Here are six of my favourites from the scrapbook pages submitted throughout this past week. They started with this starting point but ended in such different layouts! Click the corresponding link to see any of these pages in more detail and get to know the scrapbooker behind the project.
Top row, L to R: one, two, three.
Bottom row, L to R: four, five and six.
Thank you to everyone who participated in this week’s challenge!

So whether you’re scrapping beautiful pictures or something completely imperfect, happy crafting!

xlovesx

Comment [6]

Not sure it can get much simpler than this starting point! 12×12 for the background, 4×12 for a border piece then add a mat behind that and use a border punch on one side, plus a length of ribbon along that punched border!

But now… where do you take it from here? Make something and let us see!

Back later – feeling better but now off for some birthday fun!

Comment [19]

This weekend, one commenter will win this ever so crafty set of chalkboard tags and pretty thank you card from Katespapergoods

Kate’s etsy store is full of stationery, greetings cards and pretty tags all of which she has hand painted. “My long time love for stationery and paper led me to open my little etsy shop. Although I studied Interior Design, I realized that I was also really passionate about painting and illustration. I enjoy all things paper and am happiest when I’m painting. I think hand-written notes are truly the best!”

You can read more about kate on her blog or follow her on twitter.

To enter, just leave a comment on this post describing the last thing you drew on a chalkboard!

Entries close at midnight Sunday UK time and the winner will be posted Monday evening, so be sure to check back to see if it’s your lucky day!

Good luck!

xlovesx

Comment [76]

I’m running a little behind on this week’s sketch between some deadlines and a bit of not being so well – so just wanted to post a little something until I can finish the video for this week! So how about a bit of double-page fun? I find it hard to believe there was a time when all of my layouts were double-pagers, but it’s really true! Then I transitioned to pretty much all singles for assignments and now I’m happy with a mix of both. This page is one 8×10 and two 4×6 photos, and some journaling about how I met The Boy in a record store and more specifically how he had a song stuck in his head on our first date but he didn’t know who sang it or what it was called and he actually had the words all wrong, but I still managed to identify it in a few notes and apparently this was a pretty good party trick!

I’ll be back with the sketch as soon as I can. In the mean time, there’s a little more time to submit your page for last week!

xlovesx

Comment [14]