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

_{2009 Christmas Journal by Alissa.}

With Journal your Christmas starting in just over a week, I love looking through the albums posted last year for inspiration. Throughout the class, there are beautiful pages posted on our class forum. Here are a few of my favourite finished albums from 2009.

_{2009 Christmas Journal by Jen.}

I love how everyone creates their own style for their album, from something bright and whimsical…

_{2009 Christmas Journal by Nikki.}

…to vintage colours and rich textures.
_{2009 Christmas Journal by Karen.}

I love entries that help keep things organised and enjoyable throughout the holidays as well as documenting everything that’s happening during December.

_{2009 Christmas Journal by Julia.}

Also check out books by Lara, Selena, Nita, Amy and Mel for more fabulous finished books all in one spot.

Journal your Christmas starts on the 1st of December, so there’s still time to sign up for gift a class to a friend! I’d love for you to join us for my favourite Christmas tradition!

xlovesx

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Lately I’ve found a new app is taking my iPhone time: Instagram. It’s a photo-sharing app and it’s free, so it seems like something that a scrapbooker or two or ten just might find interesting, right?

Instagram is currently a pretty simple app, and although there is talk about making it more robust, I love the current simplicity. Grab it for free from the app store and create a username and password. Then there are just a few functions that make everything work: feed is a running page of images posted by the users you follow, popular is a page with the thirty-two most popular images currently on the Instagram network, share is where you upload your photos, news lists recent activity like comments on your photos and new followers and your profile has all your account settings. That’s everything – easy enough!

When you share your photos, you can use the camera and take the photo right then or you can select an image from your camera roll, meaning you can use any camera app you like or even photos you’ve taken with another camera and transferred to your iPhone. Within Instagram, all photos are cropped to square images and there are a selection of optional photo processing filters you can choose if you fancy. Which makes Instagram sound a lot like Hipstamatic except there is a big difference: Instagram images are saved at 612 pixels square: that’s a web size, not a print size like Hipstamatic (1536 pixels square). To give you an idea, the images on my blog are 649 pixels wide, so it really is a web-only size and not something you’ll be able to print at a regular size (mini prints might be okay) and then have a clear image for your scrapbook. For that reason, my preference is to take photos with the iPhone camera using other apps (the regular camera function, Hipstamatic and some others I’ll write about soon) because then you have the original image (which is print-sized) saved to your camera roll as well as the new web-sized Instagram image. For those who don’t print their photos, then they would probably think I’m a little crazy for the extra step but I think scrapbookers will understand the method to my madness.

What’s the point of Instagram? Well, it depends. If plenty of your friends have an iPhone, then it’s a great way to keep in touch as a group and share a little about your day. Share what you’ve been crafting or baking, ask for opinions on new shoes or an experimental hairdo or catch up with baby and kitten photos from friends. But Instagram is iPhone only, so if you don’t have an iPhone or your friends don’t, then by now you’re probably completely over this blog post and ready to move right along. Sorry – I don’t have anything to do with the app other than giving it a try!

If you have an iPhone but your friends don’t, there are still reasons you might love Instagram. First you can sync your Instagram with your Facebook, Twitter or Flickr account, making it a way to add photos to your account quickly, even with filters. Or you can jump right into the Instagram community and make new friends or find new photographers to follow and learn from their inspiring images. Take a look at the images under the popular tab and you’ll find amazing images, and most of them have been taken with the iPhone camera. There are some pretty amazing photographers in the community sharing lots of tips for improving your images. I spend the most time on my iPhone while sitting on a train or waiting for an appointment and taking a few photo ideas away from that ten minutes of waiting is just the sort of thing that makes me love this app.

_{Two informal uses for Instagram: Does my hair look okay like this? and I’m standing in front of the building that looks like this. Where are you? for those moments when you end up separated in the crowd.}

Does all this make the app useful for scrapbookers? If you like to capture little details of your day and document them in some way (even if you’re only sharing with a few people), then yes: this is a scrapbooking app. Just be aware of the web-sized images so you’re not disappointed when it comes to actually scrapbooking those bits of everyday life.

One thing I would really suggest is deciding from the beginning whether you want your photos to be private or public. If you intend to share images that you’re happy for the world to see, then no problem. But if you open your account, get a few followers and then decide you’d rather only share your photos with your real-life friends, those original followers – whether you knew them or not – will be able to see your pictures. So if you would rather share only with your friends, open your account then go straight to your profile and change the privacy setting. With your photos switched to private, you’ll get a request from anyone who asks to see your photos, and you can confirm or ignore each request.

If you’re on Instagram, say hello! My username is Shimelle so I’m pretty easy to find. Other Instagram members I would suggest following include JoshJohnson, who is a professional photographer by day but also posts ‘Instatips’ with great advice on getting the most from the phone camera and the app, Paatri, who has a fab street photography style and Make_Shift, who does some nifty tricks with abstract composition and exposure. It’s also cool to find a photographer in a part of the world you really like and follow them for a stream of images from somewhere you love but can’t really visit all the time. I’ve been following user Axs for fab shots of Tokyo and I’m watching for an Icelandic Instagrammer to follow through the winter!

If you’re an Instagrammer, leave your username in the comments if you like. Or share your favourites to follow. And if you have an iPhone but haven’t downloaded Instagram, what are you waiting for?

xlovesx

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_{©twopeasinabucket.com}

Two Garden pages to share with you today! One with Hipstamatic photos and a real mix of supplies, including Jenni Bowlin, The Girls’ Paperie, My Mind’s Eye, Martha Stewart and Studio Calico…

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…and the other quite minimal, with just one photo, papers from the Pink Paislee Queen Bee collection and one little square of embellishment, with a butterfly. Of course.

Spent part of today at the doctor’s office getting necessary vaccines for travel. We have our itinerary mapped out, but where do you think we should go? I’m curious!

xlovesx

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Just a quick reminder – Journal your Christmas starts on the first of December and you can sign up now! I would love for you to join us for a holiday season of sanity, happiness and remembering by keeping a journal.

Those of you who have already joined, this year’s blinkies and class graphics are available on the forum, and you can already jump into the conversations about getting ready if you like – or just browse last year’s albums for inspiration!

For today (Monday) only, you can get 25% off anything in the Dear Lizzy Christmas collection by American Crafts, including the Thickers letter stickers too. It’s today’s deal at Two Peas, so don’t wait if you fancy this collection. A bargain is always better than full price, right?

And I would like to thank the Baker’s Dozen, my team of digital girls, for their continued support! They have a great blog hop to follow with a celebration theme. Check out pages by Elisa, ScrapDolly, Taly, Kate, Karen, Sheri, Anso, Yvonne and SJ. Thank you so much for continuing to be awesome, girls!

Have a beautiful week everybody!

xlovesx

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Remember when I may have mentioned that I was head over heels in love with the photo booth at Laura’s wedding? I think I may have made half a dozen photo booth layouts already but have another to share with you today. This one is from the Garden over at Two Peas – just click to see the full page. I used the chalkboard mists from Tattered Angels and decided I like the chalkboard finish more than the regular glimmer mists — it’s a great mix of opaque colour with a superfine dusting of sparkle. I am really fond of the mist + paint splatter look – I think the combination makes it look a little more purposeful. Though my recent habit of splattering paint on many projects is making it a firm requirement to wear dark nail varnish, as I keep staining my nails with the paint!

I’m also hosting the weekly photography challenge and it’s a challenge to kick it old school – by using film! Read all about it here. The challenge ends at midnight Sunday, and one entry will be chosen for a prize so consider it your invitation to go retro!

What crafty project are you working on or just finished? Tell us about it or link us up in the comments! I’d love to see what you’re making.

xlovesx

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This month I am excited to be the special guest of Hambly Screen Prints. They make such unique products and I love the look, so it was great fun to play with some of their newest products and some old favourites.

One thing I did while scrapping with the Hambly goodies was something I find myself doing more and more: scrapping in two page blocks. So simple really – making one layout then making another, unrelated layout while those supplies are still out and the ideas are still fresh. It makes my scrapping more efficient with both time and supplies, as I use a great deal of half or quarter sheets of paper on my pages, so it’s more likely that I’ll use the full page over two layouts.

These two layouts were done just like that. I love how they have some similarities but are certainly two different pages. If you try this concept, I would love to hear your thoughts on how it fits with your creative process.

You can see a more projects I’ve created for Hambly and enter to win a Hambly prize pack on their blog – check it out here.

In other news, I’m looking for a few inspiring guest posts to feature on shimelle.com over the next couple months. If you have an idea for a project, technique or creative process you would like to share on shimelle.com, please drop me a line. I’m not looking for completed projects at this time – just an idea and a link to your blog so I see the style of your work. These projects would need to be completed by the first of December, so please keep that in mind. You can email me at shimelle at gmail dot com. Thanks!

xlovesx

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Every year I tell myself I will make all my Christmas cards and they will be a magnificent crafting achievement and everyone will love them and appreciate them.

And pretty much every year I never find the time to make that happen and end up with a variety of alternatives:
a) At the last minute, I buy a box of cards at the store and feel tremendously beaten as I sign and address them.
b) At the last minute, I make a few cards only to then stress about who should receive them.
c) I don’t end up sending cards at all.

Somebody tell me that it isn’t just me. Please?

Anyway, I am slightly ahead of the game this year and it’s not because I’ve just given up and purchased cards already (although I must admit I have been swooning over some of the designs at Paperchase this year, as always). Instead, it’s because I’ve taken a half-way handmade stance and gone with hybrid cards. By using digital scrapbooking kits, I could design a custom card once, then print it onto paper and have just a tiny bit of the papercrafting part to finish. And it’s part of the Two Peas Holiday Cardmaking event, which is happening all through November. Each weekend there are new projects to try.

You can see my miniclass here, complete with a PDF of instructions for the digital process and also a challenge to you! To enter the challenge, all you have to do is create a holiday card without red and green – try a twist on the traditional colours by using red and winter blue or green and brown or another combo of your choice. You don’t have to use hybrid techniques on your card to enter – but you do need to upload a picture of your project to the Two Peas gallery and check the box in step 4 to enter the challenge!

SJ took the challenge as a guest blogger during the cardmaking event and I adore what she made. Check out her creative cards here.

Right now, all digital kits, fonts and classes are 25% off at Two Peas, so if there is anything you’ve been considering, go get it now! (This offer includes the two classes I taught through Two Peas – Here, There and Everywhere and Go to Press, both of which you can sign up for in an archived form and have full access to all the class materials. But hurry, because I think this offer ends at the end of today or maybe tomorrow.)

And how about our Jenni Bowlin prize winner? Here’s the winning comment:
MandyK Says:
3 November 2010, 12:58
I think everyone should watch Parenthood Tuesday nights on NBC.Oh and check out Raising Hope Tuesday nights on FOX after Glee it’s so funny!
Love this new collection!

MandyK, please send me an email with your posting address so Jenni can send you some delightful goodies! By the way, the new Jenni Bowlin products are now in stock at Two Peas – find them here.

I hope you’re having a lovely weekend!

xlovesx

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With albums covered, the other big choice for preparing a Christmas journal is choosing the papers and embellishments. Thankfully we are spoilt for choice with plenty of good Christmas ranges in a variety of styles. Just like yesterday, I’m going to start with specific ranges that are available, then cover some general tips for what you might need throughout the Journal your Christmas project.

Above is the Dear Lizzy Christmas line from American Crafts. It’s crisp and light-hearted without being overly cutesy. I’ve ordered quite a bit of this range for my album. I have a lot of last year’s American Crafts Christmas collection (Merrymint) and the two do mix and match quite well. I want to sit down with my stash and last year’s album so they will be sure to have a different feel. I used a lot of the Merrymint last year but it was a big stack of paper so I’m sure I have duplicates of everything!

If you fancy something a bit more traditional, the Noel collection from Making Memories is a good bet. Lots of rich reds and greens and plenty of different embellishments. I’m not sure how it would work in an album but the Noel Advent Calendar is quite cool. There’s also a Bo Bunny Noel collection that coincidentally would coordinate quite easily!

BasicGrey’s Christmas release is called Jovial. I ordered this in the 6×6 stack so I can use it as accents rather than full backgrounds. I love BasicGrey designs but I don’t like to cut them up quite as much as other papers because they tend to have lovely shading at the edges which is lost when you cut a 12×12 down to a smaller size. So we’ll see if the 6×6 is useful in this case. (I’m on a 6×6 kick at the moment having rarely purchased them before. I bought one in a line not long ago purely because the 12×12 collection pack was sold out. Turns out I’ve used nearly the entire stack of papers and I never do that with a 12×12 collection pack, so I’m thinking perhaps I should pay more attention to the 6×6 sets, as they can be a good price too.)

If you love vintage style, your best bet is Tinsel and Twig by The Girls’ Paperie. Seriously lovely collection with reds and greens balanced with white and cream, and a look that feels cozy like a favourite quilt. The Girls’ Paperie sticker books are a great deal – you get a ton of stuff inside – and there is one for this collection too.

Echo Park has two Christmas collections – one in traditional deep reds and greens and the other in brighter tones, plus a third collection that is winter (but not necessarily Christmas) themed. I ordered some individual sheets from the bright collection and it will go well with the Dear Lizzy Christmas.

Crate Paper released Snowy Days for Christmas and it’s in jewel tones rather than traditional colours. I like it! Crate Papers are always excellent for cutting and layering. Again, I ordered this in the 6×6 size. (I did say I was on a kick!)

I lovelovelove Cosmo Cricket papers. Mitten Weather is a great collection of reds and the less traditional colours, so I think this will pull together everything else I’ve chosen.

If you’re a fan of clean and cute, go for Doodlebug’s Happy Holidays collection. I love to look at this range but it’s not the right tone for my album. To me, this is collection is very Christmas-with-children and well, that’s not Christmas in our house right now! But it might be for you.

Okay… now to figure out what you actually need to get ready. I rarely use just one collection in my scrapping – for me the fun is mixing all the different looks together. So when I go through that list and tell you I’ve ordered a little something from most of those collections, that makes it sound like you need a huge stack of supplies. You really don’t. First off, I know I have ordered too much. I can say that because it’s all over my table right now and I’m thinking um… did I really think I would need all that? But also I plan to do way more than just my Christmas journal with those supplies so I hope that will put more of them to use. I’ll have plenty for regular 12×12 scrapbook pages but also cards, gift tags, paper garlands and so on.

What you really need is enough paper to do between twenty-five and forty entries if you would like to make a page each day (obviously it depends on how many days you want to continue in your album). Unless you’re working at 12×12, it’s unlikely that you’ll need a full sheet of patterned paper per day. I love patterned paper possibly more than should be legal in most regions of the world so I know I will use more than forty sheets because I want to include more than forty patterns, but I will end up with tons of scrap pieces left over. (I have a basket for scraps like that next to my table, so it’s easy to gather the left overs and use them for something else.) When assembling your supplies, I would ask yourself how much you love patterned paper and figure out what fits your style. If you like everything to match, pick one collection and stick with it. If you like to vary things, then gather a bit from various collections. If you have plenty of stash on hand from earlier years, then make a goal to use it up this year and don’t buy anything new! In general, use one pattern per day as your rule of thumb: if you really love patterned paper, up the number to more than one pattern per day; if you’re not a patterned paper fan, chop that number in half. Got your number? Then collect that many different sheets from your stash or your order and create the base of a kit for yourself. (I’m not ignoring solid cardstock – I just think it’s easiest to sort that with your album so you can cut everything to the right size, etc, before you get started.

The other paper requirement is something for your writing! If you’re going to handwrite, choose a set of journaling cards or ledger paper or tags or something that will make the writing easy to include. Or include envelopes if you’re going to want to write more than will fit on a selection of journaling spots. Think of this element before you get to the embellishments and you’ll find things far easier along the way. In gathering your journaling items, remember you’ll need one for each day and you’ll also need a good pen. My favourite is the American Crafts Precision Pen in .03 in black or brown.

Now… with album, cardstock, patterned paper, journaling cards and pen sorted… then it’s time to collect the fun stuff. Choose your favourite embellishments – stickers, stamps, buttons, ribbon, die cuts, gems and so forth. If you use punches, you might want to decide if you want to punch things now or just keep your favourite punches out throughout the project.

Whether you need to pack up your crafting supplies during the holidays to make room for other things or you can leave everything out, I really suggest assembling everything into a kit for yourself and popping it into a basket or box to make things easy. When you’re making an entry with fifteen minutes for your sanity, you do not want to search through every sheet of paper you’ve ever purchased just to find the one you have in your mind. If you select everything now, you can make the rest of your stash out of bounds for this project. You can also be flexible and move to another room or take things on the road if you’re traveling during the holidays.

Add your scissors and your favourite adhesive to your basket and anything else that is a requirement for you, like a black/brown ink pad for edges or a clear block if you want to stamp for example. You might want a trimmer or you might not need one if you precut all your papers. Totally up to you!

And that is really all there is to it. Seriously, choosing the papers is what takes me the longest. There is too much loveliness to choose! So good luck with that hurdle… and from there, follow two guidelines: use what you love and create a kit so you’re not searching through all your stash every day!

Journal your Christmas is an online scrapbooking class for the holidays. It starts on the first of December and you are welcome to join us!

xlovesx

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