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

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Finding inspiration at the park

Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos

What could be more inspiring than a picnic blanket and a beautiful day in the park? Now… Why didn’t I pack my crafting supplies in that basket?

Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos

I took these pictures with the Hipstamatic app for the iPhone. Look for a post next week about printing and scrapping Hipstatic pictures.

Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos

xlovesx

Scrapbooking an adventure

scrapbook page

A new challenge for you… scrapbook something you define as an adventure!

I’m curious to see what all our adventures will be!

Leave a comment with a link to your project to enter! Entries close at 6am UK time Monday morning.

One randomly chosen entry will win a shimelle.com class pass good for your choice of any class past or future!

xlovesx

A little humour for inspiration

funny pictures of cats with captions
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Well, I wanted to show you this because it never fails to make me laugh, but the powers of legality on the internet say no, so have a lolcat instead!

Now…stop your giggling and get back to scrapping!

xlovesx

Scrapbooking your neighbourhood with Studio Calico

scrapbook page

Your next challenge? Scrapbook about your neighbourhood! It can be anything you fancy – what you love about your neighbourhood works just as well as what you dislike! If it’s a nice day in your neighbourhood, you could even take your camera out today!

For this page I used Studio Calico supplies, and the winner of this challenge will receive a prize pack with SC stash! You don’t have to use Studio Calico products to enter the challenge.

To enter, make something, take a picture and upload it to your blog or page gallery. Leave a link in the comments on this post before 6am UK time Monday morning. One entry will be randomly selected to win the Studio Calico prize pack.

Can’t wait to see a snippet of your neighbourhood! Is it anything like this one?

xlovesx

Finding inspiration from girls who wear glasses

A funny little inspiration point to share with you this morning! I’ve worn glasses since I was about thirteen and to me, they are just part of who I am. If I look in the mirror without my glasses I see a stranger instead of a reflection! But I never realised that some people have such a bias against glasses until the time I was innocently browsing a wedding fair and a make-up artist grabbed my arm and used me as an example to a crowd of listening customers. Obviously she’s not going to wear her glasses for her wedding, because if you wear glasses all your guests will talk about is how you look as ugly as a librarian.

Seriously? Of course this woman was crazy (as well as rude!) but I couldn’t think of an end to the number of things she said that were wrong! Librarian does not mean ugly! My guests are going to be my family and friends and they all know me with glasses, so why would they talk about it? And no, it’s not an obvious that I wouldn’t wear glasses. Sheesh, what a strange thing to say at all! (Never fear, instead of not wearing my glasses, I got new glasses which was far more fun!)

Anyway, I find girls who wear glasses to be inspiring. A bit empowering. A teeny little reminder that we all have little things that make us unique and what others see as a negative might actually be a positive if we want it to be.

Plus it probably took me at least ten years of growing up to realise that the biggest bit of teasing I got at thirteen and fourteen was that glasses were for brainy people. You know what?

I am really okay with that!

What funny little thing in the world do you find empowering? Do share!

xlovesx

Scrapbooking with a sketch

scrapbook page

Good morning and welcome back to the third and final day of our scrapbooking party! Time to put the music on and get back to the scrapping. I have an easy challenge for you this morning so you can party along even if you’re a little bleary-eyed! It’s a sketch with plenty of white space and a few clusters of embellishments.

sketch for scrapbook page

Simply use this sketch as the basis for a scrapbook page, then upload your page to your blog or page gallery and leave a link in the comments of this post to enter.

One randomly chosen entry will win a shimelle.com class pass good for your choice of any class – past or future.

Entries close at 6am UK time Monday morning, so you have all of today to create!

xlovesx

What are your favourite scrapbook pages?

scrapbook pages
~See these pages here, here, here, here and here.~

For our final Saturday night challenge, all you have to do is think – no actual scrapping required!

What are your five favourite scrapbook pages? And why are they your favourites? Do the photos make them extra special to you? Or a story about a special moment or person? Or does the creative design just make you so happy you created that?

I think this is a ridiculously hard challenge but I’ve chosen the five pages above. They represent the two things I scrap most often — the two of us and places we go. They are favourites for a mix of reasons and I find sometimes all three things come together on a perfect day of scrapping: an amazing moment inspires you to take a photo you love and that inspires you to kick it up a bit with your design and make something extra special.

I’d love to hear about your favourite pages. You can write a blog post about this and leave a link or you can just answer in the comments. If you’re posting more than one link, your comment will go into moderation but not to worry as I will approve it in the morning, I promise.

You have until 6am Monday UK time to answer this challenge, and one randomly chosen entry will win a gift certificate to Two Peas in a Bucket.

And just in case you think I am the only one in this house with crazy ideas, I’d like to share a conversation from today. This morning I got up and The Boy asked what I was doing today and I said I was throwing an online scrapbook party. I asked what he was going to do and he said he fancied walking a marathon. You know, just on a whim. So he did: 26.2 miles walked in London today! I met him for lunch in the West End and I walked the last four miles with him and he’s just asked if the party was still going. So if you’ve been scrapping all day, just to let you know: you could have completed a marathon by now!

Well, you know… if you woke up as crazy as The Boy. Bless.

See you at 8am tomorrow for the next challenge. Have a lovely evening!

Oh, and I thought this was a party!

xlovesx

Finding inspiration in Japan

streets in Tokyo, Japan

And now for a little photo break: some of my favourite images from a trip to such an amazing place. I find Japan positively magical.







Where do you find magical — or imagine it would be magical if you got to go there? Let me know… then back to your scrapping!

xlovesx