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

This weekend, choose just one photo of all the images you have. Make it a picture you love but a picture you haven’t scrapped. Or you haven’t scrapped enough.

This weekend? Make something of it.

Blog the photo and share what it means to you.

Or scrapbook the photo and give yourself the freedom to love what you create.

Or have it printed and frame it or display it in your home.

Or find a way to carry it with you wherever you go, as a picture in your wallet or the wallpaper on your mobile phone.

You’re invited:
Choose a photo. Do something with it. Share.

Share in the comment below. You can either just write a comment explaining what you did or you can leave a link to your blog or online page gallery so everyone can check out what you made.

I have a lovely prize to share with one or two of you who take up the invitation by the end of the weekend.

As for me, I’m going to scrapbook that photo at the top of this post. From shooting straight into bright sun, it came out of the camera just like that — completely overexposed and not in any way perfectly composed. And yet, I find it somewhat magical. I’ll be back to share the results soon. Can’t wait to see (or hear) what you plan to do!

xlovesx

Comment [44]

In case you didn’t see it late last night on the Frog Blog, we’re starting a new series of videos all about stamping titles on your scrapbook pages. We asked what you wanted to see, and it turns out I’m not the only one with a heap of letter stamps at the ready! So we’re going to walk you through a variety of techniques that focus on the title for your pages. This first instalment starts right at the beginning, with letters stamped in plain black ink on plain white cardstock, then cut out and used just like letter stickers or Thickers.

Coming up in the series, we’ll be sharing stamped titles with embossing, punching, resist techniques, masking and more. I hope you enjoy, and I’d love to see the pages you’re making with letter stamps. Share a link in the comments if you’d like us to check out your pages!

xlovesx

Comment [8]

Starting the new week excited about this news and looking forward to the chance to design with the lovely goodies from Jenni Bowlin Studio. I mean how could I say no to the lady who makes the most amazing butterflies in scrapbooking?

This week, look for a sneak peek at Love your Pictures, Love your Pages, a big Document:2010 update, a stamping video, a giveaway and a quick project you can make over next weekend.

By the way, Two Peas has 25% off a bunch of American Crafts pens for Monday’s Deal of the Day — this brown pen is one I cannot scrap without, so you might want to check it out if you are in need of a brown option for journaling, doodling or details!

xlovesx

Comment [14]

Ready for a summer scrapbooking adventure? I hope you’ll join me for a new online scrapbooking class here at shimelle.com!

Love your Pictures, Love your Pages is a four-week, high-energy journey through July. Each week we’ll be taking pictures and scrapbooking and putting it all together to make something you love.

Starting on Monday, the 5th of July 2010, full-colour PDF prompts come straight to your inbox. There are six prompts each week: the first three focus on photography and the last three focus on scrapbooking — but of course the two go hand in hand!

This is not a technical photography class. There are plenty of amazing classes already out there with people far more qualified to take you through the technical parts of your camera. Instead, we’ll be focusing on options for creative photographs — the kind of pictures that really inspire you to get scrapping. You don’t need a super-fancy camera to take part. The class prompts will show sample images from point-and-shoot cameras, dSLR cameras, toy cameras and mobile phone cameras. No matter what you’re using, you’ll find something just right!

As we start to scrapbook those photos, you can craft with paper or pixels! If you’re new to my classes, it’s worth knowing that there’s never a set of ‘do it exactly like this’ instructions. The class materials encourage you to use the supplies you have on hand and adapt any of the ideas to suit your own style. Of course, if you want to recreate things exactly as you see them, you’re welcome to do that too! Classmates share their work, creating even more inspiration to kickstart your creativity — it’s one of my very favourite things about hosting classes here.

The scrapbooking prompts give you the option of creating stand-alone layouts to go into your existing albums or you can create an album dedicated just to photos you take this summer. Most of the sample pages are 12×12 and can be adapted easily if you would like to work in a mini-book size for this project.

Here’s a look at exactly what’s included in Love your Pictures, Love your Pages:
…24 full-colour PDF prompts delivered straight to your inbox, Monday through Saturday.
…3 resource workbooks: A Month of Sketches with a full complement of detailed page sketches for your scrapping, Camera Basics with an overview of technical basics on a variety of cameras and Photoshop Magic with step-by-step instructions for some of my favourite photo-editing techniques. (Photoshop definitely isn’t required for this class — but this workbook can be useful if you do have it or you install a free trial download.)
…Exclusive designs in printable format for paper scrappers and image formats for digital scrappers
…Members-only access to chat and share your work with other participants, including a special section dedicated to helping you with specific shots you would like to kick up a notch
…Permanent archive of all class materials so you can participate whenever fits your schedule and know everything is always available for you in just a few clicks
…-Special members only discounts to some of my favourite places, including Digital Photography School and Totally Rad Actions.- (Unfortunately these discounts have now expired.)

In total, the class comes in at just under 200 pages of material, even before we start talking on the message boards! You can sign up any time in your choice of currencies: £16 GB Pounds or $24 US dollars. Just click the image to join us:

Class starts on the 5th of July and the message board will open a few days before that — you’ll receive an email with all the details on how to sign in once the board opens!

Do keep in mind that the email address you use when you pay is the only way I can get in touch with you, so do make sure it’s a valid email that you can read. If you would like your prompts sent a different email than the one you use to pay, leave a note on your payment (or send me an email if you forget – shimelle at gmail dot com).

Any questions, just ask! And watch for a few sneak peeks of both the photo and scrappy sides of the project as the starting day draws near!

I’d love to see you in class!

xlovesx

Comment [1794]

The summer idea book from Scrapbook Inspirations is available now with its pretty-in-pink cover. This edition features pages about summer, the outdoors, girls, boys, pets, plus workshop articles on outdoor photography, detailed borders, interactive pages and machine sewing. There’s also our regular Sketch Collection, the scraplift feature Take it up a Step and Colour Story with lots of projects in my favourite colour combination for this summer. And more than £28 in free downloads for our readers too!

This edition is stocked at some WHSmiths stores and is available for online ordering as well. I know there were significant issues with the online order fulfilment with the last book (trust me – I was frustrated too!), so I actually held off in posting this until I could place an order and give you an honest account of the ordering process. I ordered my copy from here last Tuesday evening and I received it in the post today (Wednesday), meaning the current UK delivery time is one week. I even ordered under The Boy’s name so it wouldn’t stand out, just in case, so I do think this is an accurate measure of how long it will take you to receive your copy. Orders are being shipped by a different contractor than before: nothing to do with me, but I am thankful for it nonetheless. That same order page will let you send a copy to a friend as a gift or order a copy to an international address. The prices there include shipping: £10.99 for the UK, £11.99 for Europe and £12.99 for anywhere else in the world. Or if you happen upon a WHSmiths who is stocking it, you’ll find it on the shelf for £9.99. (For Londoners, I found it at Waterloo Station of all places! The shop that is right in the centre of the station had it on the bottom shelf behind the regular craft magazines.)

If you’re in the US, it will appear in Barnes and Noble and some Borders stores sometime in the next two weeks I believe. Unfortunately the import/export process seems to mean there isn’t an exact release date, but rather just when it arrives!

On a sad note, this is the last printed edition of Scrapbook Inspirations. It is my favourite of the books we have been working on, so I’m happy it was printed, but of course sad that the series won’t continue. I know there are things that were not ideal about this book, like the higher price when advertising was minimised or the harder-to-find distribution, but those were things that were always outside of my control. On the editorial side, it has been lovely to get to know even more scrappers and publish our favourite pages from all the submissions. And I really must thank Jane, Helen and Jenny who took a stack of layouts and pages of my crazy notes and made it into such pretty books. They are amazingly talented women and it has been a pleasure to work with them over these last six months.

If you had sent in pages for book 3, we are currently waiting on a few things to know what our options are for publishing your layouts in other titles, like our sister magazine Papercraft Inspirations. Your layouts are safe and will be returned, of course. But right now we’re waiting to see how many we can publish in another format, and when I know the result of that consultation, I’ll be in touch with all of you to let you know. Thanks for your patience.

And just to show you exactly how long I could wait before scrapping at least one photo from last weekend’s tea party, I made this page this morning, with pretty papers from The Girls’ Paperie and a lovely older collection – Adele from Rouge de Garance. Now I just can’t wait for the giant stack of photos I’ve ordered to arrive!

xlovesx

Click here to order your copy of the new Scrapbook Inspirations Ideas Book!
UK delivery time of one week.

Comment [29]

With all its pink and turquoise, I had to love Delovely, the newest release from Cosmo Cricket. But everywhere I go I hear people say but it’s so bright! so I must share one little thing…

Delovely has made me fall back in love with Girl Friday. The two collections have similar colours: two shades of pink, turquoise, baby blue and a bit of green, but while Delovely is bright and almost shocking at times, Girl Friday is muted and a little aged around the edges. Together they are my current scrapping heaven and I love them so.

Just thought I would share.

Do you have a favourite combination of two different collections? Do tell in the comments!

By the way, if you attended Scrapamia and didn’t receive your PDF after this class, please email me (shimelle at gmail dot com) and I’ll get that to you. I know we were short a couple email addresses after the weekend.

xlovesx

Comment [11]

_{©twopeasinabucket.com. Supplies: Butterfly rub-on, butterfly stickers, patterned paper and buttons all by Jenni Bowlin Studio. American Crafts Thickers letter stickers, border punches by Fiskars and EK Success, label punch by EK Success (my new favourite thing!) and brown precision pen by American Crafts.}

Perhaps I should call this post Reading between the pictures because there’s a little something special for you today, but it’s quietly tucked away in the middle of this post that is otherwise a bit of a crafty catch-up. I do love to reward those who read closely and pay attention, after all.

Lately I’ve been scrapping away to a crazy extent but I haven’t posted much here to show for it! So here’s a little look at just a tiny bit of what I’ve been creating – my projects for Two Peas and Banana Frog over the past week or so.

I’ve been scrapping up a storm with Jenni Bowlin’s last few releases, and although I can’t share it all just yet, I do want to show you these butterflies. Yes, I’m a total sucker for butterflies on scrapbook pages, but I must admit I had been quite afraid of these rub-ons because they are huge and we all know what a mess can happen if a rub-on goes a bit wrong in the process. So I’m hoping you can see just how perfectly these designs transfer from this close-up shot. Seriously amazing – not a worry or a problem at all. Just thought I’d share in case you were looking at them with similar concerns.

_{©twopeasinabucket.com. Supplies: patterned paper by K & Company and KI Memories, American Crafts Thickers in brown and white, embellishments by KI Memories, border stickers by Doodlebug and Narratives and Studio Calico journaling cards.}

But really the reason I have been scrapping up a storm and not sharing so much is because I’m working on two big projects at the moment: my summer online class and also a smaller project that is going to a very good cause. More details on the smaller project soon, but let’s talk a little about this summer’s online class, yes?

I don’t want to give everything away today, but I do want to give loyal followers of shimelle.com classes a little something special, so here’s the deal: today I’ll give you just a few hints at the class content and the chance to sign up at a discount. Later this week I’ll post all the formal details too, so you’re more than welcome to wait for that and sign up then! I just wanted to give a little something special for those who read carefully and those who happily come along for all my online class adventures, hence a few days of some mystery and a special price!

_{Click for details at the Banana Frog blog.}

If you haven’t guessed by the increased picture posting lately, this summer’s online class has a photography focus — but it’s not a technical photography class, nor is it a class that is just about taking pictures. It’s definitely a scrapbooking class, with projects that can be created in your choice of paper or digital formats. It’s a four week course with 24 full-colour PDF prompts, 3 resource workbooks, exclusive designs for printing or digiscrapping and more goodies along the way. You can participate from anywhere in the world with any type of camera and any scrapbooking style. And of course there are all the things you expect: prompts are delivered to your inbox and you have permanent access to them online, there’s a private message board and gallery and so on. This class will cost £16 or $24, and starts on the 5th of July.

Like I said, I’ll be posting the formal details later this week, but if you know you want in now and you fancy a bit of a discount, you can sign up early for £12 or $18. Sound good?

Sorry, this offer has now ended. Click here for full class details.

If you’re reading this in Google Reader and you’re just about to click over so you can use one of these buttons, just click here instead, because for some reason Google Reader is sending people to some weirdo address instead of the actual blog post. Cheers!

Later this week, these early bird buttons will be turned off when the class is formally launched — they are just something special for those of you who have been waiting for something new and are ready for whatever it may be! I wanted to say thank you for your loyalty and your enthusiasm, and I can’t wait to see you in class!

One last little note: Tomorrow I’ll be hosting a live chat at 4pm UK time, 10am Central time and all corresponding time zones from there on out. You can find it on the Two Peas message board here — when the chat starts tomorrow you’ll see a new thread that invites you to come and say hello! It’s hosted on their digiscrapping board but ALL scrappers are welcome – I’m more than happy to talk paper as well as digital at those chats. In fact, sometimes we barely talk about scrapping at all and talk about other things instead! If you have a question or just want to say hello, I’d love to see you, so please stop by and give us a wave! The chat winds down after an hour, and you’re welcome to just stop by for five minutes if you prefer. Thanks!

xlovesx

Comment [36]

This weekend was truly magical – a trip down the rabbit hole to a tea party in Wonderland, hosted by the lovely birthday girl, SJ.

Because after all, if the Red Queen summons you to tea, it’s best to attend if you value your head!

While there, we saw the Cheshire Cat, from time to time…

and the White Rabbit reminded us of the time.

The White Queen was radiant and her knave was ready for battle.

This pack of playing cards painted the roses,

and we all gathered for tea and cocktails and a barbecue on a beautiful summer’s day!

We sat round a beautiful table of tea cups and flowers.

And ate magical rainbow layer cake.

Then took a little walk.

And wandered along the beach.

Something tells me you might see a few scrapbook pages about this, given all these ladies were in attendance! (That’s Rachel, SJ, Jen, Laura and Leanne as well!)

In other news, the past week has been a bit of a whirlwind, but I have so much lined up for you now! On Monday, get your first chance to sign up for the new class, and more every day this week. Good stuff to share!

…and for now, I shall dream of magical days with a boy who is just a little bit mad indeed.

xlovesx

Comment [28]