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

Tomorrow is the 25th, so it’s Scrap your Day time for November…and here is this month’s photo fact sheet to get you rolling!

The album prompt will be online tomorrow. Happy snapping!

For more Scrap your Day information, check out:
About this project
Sign up for reminders
Getting Ready
Photo Fact Sheet #01
April Album Prompt
Photo Fact Sheet #02
May Album Prompt
Photo Fact Sheet #03
June Album Prompt
Photo Fact Sheet #04
July Album Prompt
Photo Fact Sheet #05
August Album Prompt
Photo Fact Sheet #06
September Album Prompt
Photo Fact Sheet #07
October Album Prompt
Photo Fact Sheet #08
Our Flickr group
UKScrappers discussion thread
Small image for signature files
Blinking image for blog side bars

xlovesx

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The holidays are just around the corner and in my world that means one thing for certain: it’s time to journal even more.

It’s something that started small. One year it was just me and my pen and my book, trying to take back Christmas and rediscover my love of the holiday after a few years when Christmas lacked a certain sparkle. The second Christmas, I shared the idea with a small group of crafty friends, just to see if this reclaiming idea was something that made sense outside of my head. It did. And from there, Journal your Christmas became an online class that I shared with the rest of the world. And by ‘rest of the world’, I mean we now have Christmas journallers from more than forty countries.

This is the most magical time of the year, so it’s time to make Journal your Christmas just a bit more magical yet.

Like every year, Journal your Christmas includes daily prompts from the 1st of December to the 6th of January, the twelfth day of Christmas. The 37 illustrated PDF files are delivered straight to your inbox so you can read them over your first cup of coffee and mull over each topic for a full day. There’s also an archive of the class materials online in case you can’t get to your email or in case something dreadful happens to your computer. And like every year, you can go it alone or be as social as you like, with a private discussion forum where you’ll find other Christmas journallers who will cheer you on and share your excitement, but if you prefer to stick to the prompts only, that’s completely fine too. And like every year, if you’re participated once, you can join us every Christmas for as long as you like at no extra cost.

But what’s not like every year? Well, there’s definitely a bit of extra kick this year. A few kicks, perhaps.

A kick-start for your writing…
Journal your Christmas isn’t just for crafty types. If you love to write or want to improve your writing, you’ll have thirty-seven different topics for daily journal entries, whether you use your favourite pen, a typewriter ribbon or a blog to compile your stories. Each prompt offers a few quick tips for making your story that little bit more memorable.

A kick-start for your photography…
Rather document Christmas through your viewfinder than by picking up a pen every day? Or just wishing your Christmas photos had a bit more sparkle? This year we’ve got experts on board! Fabulous photographers share their secrets for taking your holiday photos to the next level, from family portraits to Christmas lights to making Christmas morning photos into works of art.

A kick-start for your crafting…
For the past few years, the daily prompts have featured one or two scrapbook pages per day to provide visual stimulation for you crafty types. This year the visuals get a big kick: you’ll see more than 250 amazing pages over the 37 days, and that doesn’t include the hundreds more you can view in real time as participants share their work online.

So can you handle all that kick into the best Christmas ever? Sign ups are open now. I hope you’ll join us this Christmas — or gift the class to a friend!

xlovesx

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Banana Frog Stamps just made some major changes and things are looking pretty exciting for 2009 in Bananaland. To try to contain her excitement, Banana Frog Bev is looking for a few good stampers to join in the mix.

Interested in working on a fab design team? Catch all the details here and then get stamping.

And as much as I try to convince her that anyone who uses my stamps in their portfolio should automatically win, she just ain’t buying it. So stamp with whatever you like, and show it off already!

xlovesx

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Things making me happy on the internets lately:
->This project and a window display based on this dress are both making me wonder why my friends can’t all do me a favour and have little girls. (Or rather, little girls who like girly things.)
->The colours and happiness in this layout are fabulous. I just ordered those loopy letter stickers in practically every colour because clearly my life was less grand without them. Now I am stalking the post box for their arrival.
->Aqua + woodgrain = pretty yet manly enough for boys.
-> The fact that I. Caught. Up. On. My. Email.
-> The perfection of this room. So unlike anything in our home but so lovely. I want to sit there and read a new book and drink tea and film out the window with the super 8 camera that cost me fifty pence, including postage.
-> Possibly the cutest paper I have seen since I left Japan. (Oh stationery and fabric haunts of Japan: I miss you still!)
-> Working on something with this funky girl. So far it does not involve woodgrain. Frankly, I don’t know how long that part will last.

Happy Saturday to you!
xlovesx

Long-time blog readers and those who read Scrapbook Inspirations will know I scrapbook about a particular band far too often. Perhaps it’s a character flaw. I like to think of it as more to do with pretty pictures and pretty music, but think of it what you will.

Scrapbook pages aside, they started a European tour last week and I was thrilled to score a photo pass to opening night, so not only pretty pictures and pretty music, but pretty pictures without tall people in the way! This was pretty exciting for short little me.

Anyway, now that the images are up on the band’s website, I can share a few here.

The rest of the set is here and their new album is here.

And just to make this scrapbook-related in some way, here’s the last time I scrapped them, as seen in Scrapbook Inspirations!

And two other little bits of housekeeping:
Journal your Christmas alumni should have received a welcome message yesterday. If you have changed your email address since last year, you’ll need to change it on the forum or by emailing me please.

The sneak peek from the last post is a quilted title page for a scrapbook—sewn straight onto a page protector. Click here for details including a free tutorial to download and print that walks you through, step by step.

And for the record, I am very sad about the disappearance of the Eggnog Latte from the world of red cups this year. Is this everywhere or just in the UK? Not that I will fly to America for a coffee, mind you. I promise.

xlovesx

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©twopeasinabucket.com

Just a little note to say I’ll be chatting here at TwoPeas today (along with superstar Tia Bennett) at 5pm British time/11am CST. We’ll be talking Christmas and home decor and all sorts of seasonal goodness, and we’d love for you to join us.

It’s my first official duty as a Garden Girl, oh my!

xlovesx

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That’s better—we have a bit of light now so we can have some pictures! Next weekend I am teaching four classes at the Skrapztacular Christmas weekend—two layout classes and two project classes on Saturday.

Yuletide Magic is the first layout class—and we actually make two pages in class because we’ll use die-cut paper and cardstock lace to create two pages back to back, so when it goes in your album you can see right through it. There are two colour options for this class (you choose when you arrive) so although one is certainly Christmas themed, there is also a second colour option that could go with a wider variety of photo themes. And this is a class that you can add the photos either on the day or later (which is a bit rare for me!) so you don’t really even need to plan anything. The kit includes everything you need to make the double-sided die-cut layouts plus an additional 12×12 page to construct outside of class. Click here to book.

Sing, Sparkle & Shine is the other layout class and it too is two pages, and you’ll even have more left over in the kit to make two more after that, so it’s a blingy kit for four whole layouts. We’ll be working with a mix of new and vintage bling as well as glass, paint and a few other little tricks. Again there are two kit options so on the day you can choose something in Christmas colours or brighter florals. There are only a couple spots left for this one, so click here to book if you fancy!

I want to show you a bit more on the two project classes—one is a fabric book (I’m packing my sewing machine!) and one is linked to Journal your Christmas, where we’ll make the album together so you’re ready to go when December hits…so I’ll share those two classes with you tomorrow!

More info on the retreat is here and there is a chat thread here if you want to say hello to others who will be there!

xlovesx

PS: Tomorrow I am going to get caught up on all my email from when I was away, so if you’re waiting for a response, you should hear from me soon! Thanks for your patience!

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Somewhere along the insanity of getting back to a gazillion hour time difference, a huge drop in temperatures and that autumn shock that is ‘my goodness, when did it start getting dark so early?!’, we decided we needed some Halloween festivities and hosted a party with pumpkin cupcakes and pumpkin carving and pumpkin pie and that not-so-pumpkiny food: burritos. While our guests were super cool, can you believe we had not a single trick or treater?! We have decided we will have to eat the entire contents of the trick-or-treat bowl ourselves in order to find some solace for missing this vital part of the holiday!

(Also about solace: we braved the stupidly long walk in the rain today to see the new Bond movie. Hmmm. For once, can he just drive the exceedingly pretty car without killing it in every possible way? I suppose not. We didn’t like this one as much as the last but I loved the opera scene. Spies! It’s like miles above the rock & roll lifestyle! And with Tosca!)

Now that it is November, it’s time for my brain to shift from Halloween and autumny goodness to Christmas! The best time of year! I’m ringing in my start to Christmas with a Christmas themed cropping retreat next weekend in Shropshire—Skrapztacular! I’ll share photos of those projects with you tomorrow morning as the light went about ten hours ago and try as I might, I can’t get a decent photo to save my life right now! So I’ll be right back with those as soon as the sun comes up! Happy weekend to you!

xlovesx

Super fun Halloween photo frames are here, here and here, respectively! It seemed appropriate since the 1st of November is Official Digital Scrapbooking Day! Who knew?!

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