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

You probably already know Pencil Lines is a sketch challenge blog that delivers beautiful layouts every week to keep you scrapping and inspired. Now they have a lovely new book with 40 new sketches and layouts to match. It’s hardbacked and spiral-bound so it lays flat on your scrapping table too. You can find more details here.

I was honoured to be featured in their book and even more fun, I have a copy to give away!

To enter, just a leave a comment on this post answering this question:
What is your favourite topic to scrapbook?

Comments will close at the end of this Friday, UK time.
Entries are now closed. Winner will be posted Saturday evening!

Good luck!

xlovesx

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This week I’m hosting the photography challenge at Two Peas and the challenge is Cloudy with a chance of…. Just point your camera toward the sky and see what magic you can find. It’s a challenge that’s easy to participate (well, as long as it’s not chucking it down with rain at your place like it has been here today!) but there’s plenty of room to get creative too. And one lucky sky-snapper will win a prize too!

You can check out the challenge here and be sure to tick the box for this week’s photo challenge when you upload your images to the gallery so you can be entered to win!

In other news, I’ve set up a Q&A page here and I’ll have a giveaway here tomorrow, so be sure to check back!

Have an amazing week!

xlovesx

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For the past week, this scene has been pretty constant around here. Lots to get done, not as many hours in the day as I would like and of course there seems to be more to life than work too! But I can’t complain as it has all been very exciting work and it’s probably a bit difficult to pull me away from it right now. Let’s see if I can do a bit better with posting now that the pages are in from the call (I’ll start sending those happy emails later today).

One little bit of excitement has been a big change over at Two Peas. There used to be two major places to go to see layouts there — the gallery (open to all members) and the garden (just the design team). Now the two have merged and the Garden Girls’ layouts are right there in the gallery — they just have a little frame around them so you can spot them quickly. Which means for the first time, you can leave comments on these pages and tell us what you like or ask us questions when you want to know more. Our pages will also be spread throughout the month so there is something new every single day rather than just lots of stuff on two set days each month. (By the way, if you go to the gallery and look over at the options on the left side of the screen, you can click Designer Projects and find all the Garden Girls’ projects with just one click.)

My first page in this new system went live yesterday, and it features a quick tutorial on making a fabric flower from the Studio Calico FabRips, which are a bit like border stickers but made with fabric instead of paper. You can check it out here!

I also posted this card on the Banana Frog blog. Check out this post for all the details on making a quick and cute rocket ship card! (And to find out if you won last week’s Banana Frog giveaway!)

By the way, all my Banana Frog stamps are in stock here if you are looking for them. I need to get thinking about some new designs actually!

In addition to those projects, I’ve obviously been working on the books and also preparing for upcoming workshops in London, Southampton and Germany... but what if I said I was also working on a new online class? And sign-ups would start next week? Would that be a good thing, perhaps?

xlovesx

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With book one nearly ready, I’m currently on the lookout for layouts for our second volume which will be in stores this summer.

If you’re interested in submitting to this call, please email me with a photo of the pages you would like to submit. An image around 600 pixels wide is ideal — please do not send full-size photographs straight from your camera. (If you don’t know how to resize the image with your own software, you can do this at Picnik online.)

Submissions of both digital and paper projects are welcomed from anywhere in the world. Please keep in mind that paper pages will need to be posted to the UK for photography. Your pages will be returned when the book goes to press.

I’m currently looking for layouts for these themes and techniques:
Girls (any age)
Boys (any age)
Summer
Outdoors
Pets
Love
About Me: Crafting (layouts about your crafting projects, be they scrapping, sewing, or anything else creative)
Pages with machine stitching
Pages with detailed borders (the border can be anywhere on the page)
Pages inspired by this template (paper or digital)
Interactive pages
Pages with an interesting focal point, like a unique frame or large photo or anything else that draws the eye to one point on the page

Please keep in mind that all submissions should be unpublished and your own work. A little clarification about whether pages posted online can be submitted: yes, given a few guidelines. We would prefer pages with fewer than 100 views in a gallery or on your blog but will consider those with up to 1000 views. You will need to be able to take your pages offline until the book is out if your pages are chosen. Pages shouldn’t have won contests or been posted on websites where you can’t take them offline. If your pages posted online fit those guidelines, you’re all good to go!

This call closes on the 17th of February. Successful submissions will be requested on the 18th and 19th via email.

Looking forward to seeing your favourite pages!

xlovesx

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The response to the This is Why project has been so exciting to see throughout the past month. I lovelovelove the spins crafters have put on this idea. And now, it’s time to pick a winner!

Here are our entries! They are listed in the order they were posted. Please have a look at their fabulous projects. I know you will find so much inspiration from these talented ladies.

Madeline at It Is What It Is
Kate at Liberty Cottage
Cal at Clearing the Brambles
Mel at I Speak Melsh
Helen at Loving the Traditional
Jannet at My Tammy
Kirsty at Handmade by Kirsty
Alissa at {a} my world
Dana at Leaf Puddles and Airplane Stars
Christine at Ink and Scissors
Brittney at Brittney Unwritten
Tilla at Scrapwow
Sarah at Craft among the Landrovers
Lara at A Month of Sundays
Mabel at Stitches and Others
Annie at 365 Creative Days
Megan at MeganKathrynP
Nikki at her Flickr
Emy at her UKScrappers gallery
Iara at Baersgarten
Shannon at Paper and Glue Love
Katy at her Flickr
Michele at Zosa13
Carolyn at Mess Muddle and Fun
Kelly at The Daily X
Angie at The Artsy Cottage
Genevieve at Life and Layouts
Jamie at Paper Heart Project
Jennifer at Jennifer’s Jumbles
QSOgirl at Vegetablog
Christina at Coffee Girl Crafts
Steph at Mrs Geek

Once you’ve decided on your favourite, cast your vote! You can vote once per day and entries close at the end of February. The winner with the most votes wins a $100 gift certificate to Two Peas in a Bucket and runners up will win additional prizes like stamps, online classes and digital kits.

Feel free to cheer on a friend! Share the link on your blog or Facebook or whatever else you would like to help encourage your favourite on to the grand prize! (I am very glad it is all of you picking, because there is no way I could pick just one favourite!)

And to our entrants: thank you so much for sharing your inspirational work with all of us!

ETA: No, you are not losing your mind: originally, you could see the vote tallies with who was in the lead and so forth. Unfortunately this has caused a few problems. Of course, behind the scenes of the poll it is possible to see each voter’s location to identify where there are problems so the votes may be set right. In order to not fuel these problems further, I have simply turned off the option to see the results. Please vote for the entry you like best and you can happily vote once per day until the end of the month. When the poll closes, I will post the full results along with our prize winners!

xlovesx

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The Hambly Screen Prints booth is always filled with gorgeous candy-coloured products and projects. You know they had me with the first of the new overlays: oh be still my cupcake loving heart.

The lovely Alison who makes all this stuff happen helped everyone with the most adorable make and take – a wooden bangle bracelet with doily rub-ons then sealed with diamond glaze. I adore mine and will show it to you one day when I happen to wear the perfect outfit to match, I think!

Plus more transparencies, including doilies, hearts, stitches and peacock feathers. These all come in an array of colours on both paper and transparency, all hand screen-printed in their California studio.

New rub-ons too: doilies in both whole images and lacy borders, swatches (which includes some woodgrain), and stitches.

They also have wall decals (though if you are Laura you just stick the rub-ons and transparencies to your house, and I think this is perfectly wonderful!)

And this is my Must-Have! Oh those little letters! I may be predictable but they are so perfect with their turquoise outlines! And all of these are stickers so easy-peasy!

And here is a look around their gorgeous space:

Click here to purchase Hambly products!

xlovesx

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Cosmo Cricket released three new lines at the winter show: Joyride, Material Girl and Variety. After last year’s releases with collections like Early Bird, Jolly by Golly and the multi-coloured woodgrain wonder that is Nutmeg, these have become some of the supplies I keep closest to my crafting table! So the question of the day: will these be as versatile?

Joyride is a youthful take on a travel line, with cute and quirky cars, roads and so forth. The circle patterned paper in that first picture is my favourite, as it can be used for absolutely anything! Love it. (I loved the circle paper in the Snorkel line too — this is still one of my favourite pages.)

My Must-Have from all of the Cosmo release has to be the addition of more fonts in chipboard letters with a woodgrain pattern! Hurrah! I am very keen on the carnival style font, as I’m not a huge font of rounded letters…but the woodgrain might persuade me. You never know.

I’m not sure how I missed photographing my favourite paper from the Material Girl collection, but imagine a dark green with little vintage scissors in cream! So lovely. This is a very pretty collection.

Variety wraps things up with a bit of the look of Early Bird from last year but with a new summers-in-the-garden twist! It does make me wish I had a garden instead of a little concrete balcony, but I’m sure I can find something worthwhile. I’ve been meaning to scrapbook about our local farmers’ market actually, and this would be a perfect fit.

Cosmo always has beautiful layouts on their booth and on their blog so I can’t wait to see more creative uses for all these new designs.

Click here to shop for Cosmo Cricket products!

xlovesx

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Walking past and seeing this made me so very happy. I absolutely love Heidi Grace products: the fonts, the colours, the quality — everything just so perfectly ready to use. (This is one of my favourite made-with-HG products from last year.) For several years the Heidi Grace line was available through Fiskars, but last year when Fiskars decided to regroup and go back to their tool-based focus, it meant that the Heidi Grace line disappeared along with all the other paper and embellishment collections they had previously offered.

But as of now, Heidi Grace is back! The line (along with Cloud 9 Design, also previously with Fiskars) is now available from Colorbok and there are lots of new supplies that ring absolutely true to Heidi’s look since the very beginning.

Here’s a look at what we’ll see soon!


Those rosettes at the bottom right corner? Definitely my must-have. Just imagine how fab those will be layered up in detailed flowers!

Those giant letter packs on the floor have me intrigued! I don’t usually go for giant letters but I keep coming back to them in these pictures and wishing I could see more…so maybe!

Die-cut bird cage paper? I have no idea what I will use it for, but I know I need it! That’s perfectly normal, right?

Sadly when I was around, there was no one available to tell me when this would be available, but suffice to say it will be at some point and that alone makes me very happy. Also, HG fans will notice the fonts (like that alpha toward the right in the last photo) and colour palettes are pretty true to the existing line so if you, like me, have been hoarding some of your favourite Heidi Grace supplies, you can mix and match without worry.

This excites me to no end!

xlovesx

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