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

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I know I do a fair few single-photo layouts, but my favourite is actually two 4×6 photos in the same direction. This is the one photo combination that doesn’t leave me looking at the background trying to figure out where things should go — they just seem to have a natural home!

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For this challenge, see what you can do with just two 4×6 photos! You can take inspiration from these two pages or you can create something entirely different. Load your page to your blog or a scrapbook gallery and leave a link in the comments on this post to enter.

One randomly chosen entry will win a photo printing gift certificate to order more pictures! (I’ll arrange for it to be a company that prints in your country, wherever the winner may live!)

You have until 6am Monday UK time to enter.

And you need some music to keep you going, of course!

xlovesx

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For all my love of colour, I find black and white such an inspiring combination. We used black and white as our accent colours at our wedding and asked all our guests to wear their black and white. I love how everyone looked together, all coordinated!

And of course we needed a black and white dance floor! I have always wanted a floor like this for my kitchen but maybe some day! This one was so fantastically chess-board-like.

So votes on black and white: yes or no? Does it make you want to scrapbook? What one colour would you pick to offset the black and white? When was the last time you took some black and white photos?

Wedding photos courtesy Ben Roberts Photography.

xlovesx

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I am so glad that a few years ago I made the decision to switch from printed journaling to handwritten journaling on almost all my pages. It was hard at first — no one instantly likes the way their writing looks and I found the search for the perfect pen to be more frustrating than I imagined, but eventually I got there and embraced it. Now I love that it’s so much quicker than fiddling with margins and fonts and printer cartridges plus it makes my pages more handmade. I love seeing scrappers use their own writing on a variety of projects and I think it gives you a bit of an idea about each crafter’s personality!

I like to include handwriting on digital pages too so they don’t seem overly mechanical. There’s a step-by-step tutorial for this page, including the handwriting element which just requires a piece of paper, a pen and your camera, right here.

Your next challenge is to create a scrapbook page or other project with your own handwriting! It can be about anything you would like.

Make something, take a picture and upload it to your blog or a page gallery. Leave a comment on this post with a link to your project to enter.

One randomly selected entry will win a shimelle.com class pass good for a class of your choice – take a class from the past or save it for something new in the future!

If you stress about your handwriting, maybe some tunes will help you chill and find your inner best penmanship? (But seriously – just start writing and it will get easier, I promise.)

xlovesx

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I may have grown up in the countryside, as we say it now – or hicksville as we said it then – but I am truly a city girl. Whenever I find myself somewhere that runs at a slower pace I have trouble adjusting. The overwhelming nature of so many things going on and so many people milling about…that is exactly what I love about cities!

This week I took my camera along to a place I find myself often: Seven Dials. It’s much quieter here than Oxford Street but has the most amazing selection of shoe stores and vintage boutiques and a good helping of Japanese fashion too.

Plus the best place to get freshly roasted coffee beans in the West End – Monmouth.

This little neighbourhood is the same place where I have ordered coffee next to Dave Grohl, bumped into Nigel Slater and had a minor freakout when passing Evanna Lynch (better known as Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter films). And the people watching is only part of the fun!

Plus, it’s amazing how many people come to Covent Garden and don’t realise that Seven Dials is mere steps away.

Though I could see why Covent Garden might be enough to hold your attention. Especially if you want to, you know, eat cupcakes, listen to opera and photograph bunting all at the same time.

What do you find inspiring in your neighbourhood?

xlovesx

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One of my favourite ways to scrapbook is just with the bits and pieces left on my table from other projects. If you’ve been partying along this weekend, you must have some of those pieces by now! See if you can put them to use!

Your challenge: create a scrapbook page or other project that uses up the scraps from recent projects!

Make something, take a picture and upload it to your blog or a gallery and leave a link in the comments on this post.

One randomly chosen entry will win a shimelle.com class pass — good for any class of your choice, past or future! Entries close at 6am UK time, Monday morning.

Here’s something to listen to while you get your scraps ready to go!

xlovesx

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1. My Love (and Yours), 2. Curious hedgehog, 3. Espinete, 4. baby hedgehog – iriqi

I interrupt your scrapbooking to bring you this dose of insanely adorable hedgehogs!

That is all. Now back to the scrapbooking.

xlovesx

PS: You can find out how to help hedgehogs here — sadly they are threatened by more than just a lack of hedges these days.

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When Cosmo Cricket jumped on the scene I think I missed the memo. La, la, la I went on about my life without knowledge of the Cosmo. And then one day I picked up some paper, started scrapping with it and someone asked me what it was. I nearly fell out of my chair because I didn’t know off the top of my head – because there may be some people with minds that can count the number of toothpicks that fall to the ground, but I can merely spot patterned paper brands at fifty paces – and I had to look. ‘Well, it says Cosmo Cricket!’ and no one at the table had ever heard of that company at all. So we all went back to the shop where I found it, had a look around and pretty much bought everything else that Cosmo Cricket place had put out for sale!

Years on I am loving Cosmo more and more. Woodgrain in bright colours! Woodgrain on chipboard letters! Paper airplanes on patterned paper! Amazing colour schemes like the Girl Friday collection! Seriously, it makes me use lots of exclamation points! You can find daily inspiration on the Cosmo Cricket blog too.

Also, Cosmo is even better when enjoyed with party tunes!

Your 2pm challenge: choose any of the four layouts above to scraplift. They all feature Cosmo Cricket supplies but you don’t have to use Cosmo stash to participate. Make something, upload it to your blog or page gallery and leave a link in the comments of this post.

One randomly chosen entry will win a prize pack of Cosmo Cricket scrapbooking supplies.

You can enter any time between now and 6am Monday morning UK time.

Happy scrapping!

xlovesx

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1. Dinning_1.jpg, 2. guest room, 3. eames side chair, 4. My Living room, 5. the map, 6. busy green, 7. Waiting, 8. cold electric feeling

A little in-the-home inspiration… my adoration for Eames chairs. Midcentury, perfectly coloured and just a tiny bit kitschy. I have never met an Eames chair I did not like. And I find the creative story behind Charles and Ray Eames quite inspiring too – creative couples can be so intriguing!

People say you should always put one crazily amazing thing on your wedding gift list, just for fun, and this was what I filed under that heading. The Boy’s office all clubbed together to get it and it never fails to make me smile. I have scrapbooked it and I tend to look up if I walk past that window outside, just to make sure it is still happy…even though if I am walking past that window I am mere seconds from the front door!

Both American Crafts and Studio Calico featured Eames-inspired designs on recent papers…so of course I may need to scrapbook this chair again. I think I might get in trouble if I bought another chair just because I had some patterned paper!

Is there anything in your home that inspires you to create? Share with us!

xlovesx

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