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

Oh my goodness, you girls really know how to sweet talk!! It’s a good thing I am not picking by the content of the comments, because that would be simply impossible. I want to give you all places! Someday. Thank you so much for all your support.

Random number generator says 24 and 88. So our winners are:

Patty N and Misty D.

Let me know what email addresses you want to use, girlies.

Many sorries to the rest of the hopefuls! Ugh, I could never be Simon Cowell for a living! Thank goodness.

Class starts tomorrow if you’re still thinking about signing up!

Heading up the motorway to Moxley tonight. Tomorrow those crazy girls are making an album in a day…provided I can get everything packed into our little car!

xlovesx

Comment [29]

The most awkward part of school is realising you know no one to sit with at lunch, correct? Totally horrible feeling.

But alas, one you don’t need to have! Comment here and I’m going to draw two names. Each will win a free place on Learn Something New for themselves and a friend – so four places up for grabs.

And as today as been a glorious day of packing album kits, I’m going to recover from assorted paper cuts with an episode or two of Chad Vader. You know, the adventures of Darth’s lesser known little brother and his ongoing employment at the local supermarket.

Educational, I’m sure.

Get commenting…you’ve got until Friday morning in my time zone!

xlovesx

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The kites.

Tiny red kites that have a lot to answer for.

See, the kites have stories I can’t even begin to tell, but I can explain a little bit.

Over a year ago now, we went on our little adventure. A holiday to explore a place we hadn’t been. No real schedule. In fact, the original plan was to camp our way around the country. Which meant it would be a real adventure to me, who had never slept in a tent, despite all sorts of summer camp. For totally boring reasons, we didn’t end up roughing it quite so much. And since this hotel is like the most fabulous place ever, and our tent didn’t exactly have those heated floors, I am totally okay with that. But we did camp. One night. Here.

And the whole thing was extra magical. This place that you can’t even start to describe with this afternoon of small children flying little red kites that turned into this fabulous concert that I have gone on and on about ever since. But for whatever reason, the kites have always stuck in my head. Simple and pretty and free. So that kite picture above sat on my bulletin board for ages, just as a happy thing to put bad days in perspective. And then for whatever reason, it ended up on a scrapbook page, which then ended up in an article about title techniques. (See, I can reduce even the most grand of my own ideas into paper, stickers and glue. Definitely a case of the real thing being a way bigger deal than the scrapbook page—if you know what I mean.)

So this is in Scrapbook Inspirations this month. Which is fine, but then I’m at a loss as to how to describe why the kites are important and blah, blah, blah…nothing works.

This will. The kites are there, a little over half way in. It takes forever to load, but just go make a coffee while you wait. So pretty. And you might spy the place where we camped, when you see a tiny cleared green in the middle of a forest.

So seriously, if you took one look and wanted to know what was up with the kites, that film trailer is your answer.

If you still don’t get it, I can’t explain it to you. And that’s okay too. But oh goodness, is that a pretty trailer.

The film comes out in November, which is shaping up to be a pretty happy month. Like a fly-a-kite-happy kind of month.

xlovesx

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Ready to go back to school?

If you read anything here, you already know I’m a little freaked out because this is the first September in the history of my entire life that I am not going back to school. I’ve also had enough requests to run this class again that it seemed the apt thing to do. So yes, if you’ve been reading for a full year, you’ve seen this before. Don’t start thinking everything is going to be repeats — there’s plenty of new waiting for its moment to shine too!

Learn Something New Every Day is a class to start the autumn term. Over the month of September, we’ll make thirty entries in this small-format book designed to getting your eyes open to observing your world.

Worried about time? Fair enough. It does take time to make an entry every day. But the pages are small (6 inches square) and we’ll use some short cuts to keep your supplies to a nice small collection and we’ll focus on summary journalling rather than documenting each day with a full report. And every day you have the option of just duplicating the example page, so that could even eliminate your thinking time. We’re talking minutes every day here.

Yes, this is a repeat class from 2006. Everyone who signed up in 2006 gets to play again, if you fancy. For free. If you’re joining in for the first time in 2007, you’ll get to see their work as we go. With each prompt, I’ll send you a list of links to their work posted on the internet so you can stay inspired and see that you really can make a page every day for a month.

In this class, you get:

*An introductory shout-out to get you going

*30 daily prompts with full colour samples

*The chance to chat and share your work with other artists

*A Flickr group to post your pictures

Class begins September 1. Don’t be late!

Any questions? Just stick ‘em in the comments & I’ll get an answer to you asap.

Here’s to a great September, whether you’re in school or out!

xlovesx

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This is my new camera.

It is entirely made of plastic, folds into a one-inch cube, requires no batteries and comes with a handy-dandy keyring attachment. Though I am thinking it might be more practical as a necklace.

It also has a sticker of a hedgehog on the front!!!

It runs on film. FILM. Like stuff you have to give to someone in a darkroom. Do you even remember that stuff? But it doesn’t even run on film you can take to the one hour. It runs on the 110 film you probably threw away, and the one hour guys will send it away and you can have the prints back in 10 days. And those prints won’t even be 4×6.

It has no settings. It comes with instructions illustrated with a hedgehog having his portrait taken. The instructions include two pictures: one of a hedgehog on a sunny day with a YES! checkmark; one of a hedgehog on a cloudy day with a NO! cross. And in case you didn’t get that, they add ‘Take pictures outdoors on a sunny day!’

So I will. I won’t know what the pictures look like for quite some time, but for the moment I am in love.

That said, I am also in love with my fancy schmancy camera, even though it doesn’t have a shiny hedgehog on the front. So I am going to take another workshop from Cheryl at FeelGood Photos. Which just happens to me in my neighbourhood, which makes me and all the local hedgehogs extra lucky. But as it is an online workshop, it doesn’t matter if you are human or hedgehog, local or living in Alaska (*waves* to Alaska, which must be too cold for poor little hedgehogs). There are two levels of class—I did the painting with light workshop as a little guinea pig (see Hedgehog, aren’t you glad you’re not a guinea pig?) and now I’m excited about the masterclass, which is all technical and stuff. Don’t go letting a hedgehog see that you bought a fancy schmancy dSLR and now you’re just using it on the green-box-automatic setting! So yeah, check it out (the workshop links are just under the banner) and take pretty, pretty pictures.

Now, please make my day by commenting on this post with just one word: HEDGEHOG!

xlovesx

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This week, Ali has been talking about the entire concept of doing something creative every day. It’s certainly something some people have to do. I remember being told all sorts of stories about the crazy things that creative types—writer, musicians, actors, artists—will do when they are not getting what they want from their art. I mostly remember because I would be told such stories when I had just done something royally stupid and dramatic, or when one of my creative-type friends had done similar and I was pouting about it. You know, like when people stop by your drive-thru window to tell you they just put a guitar and a sleeping bag in their car and they are just going to drive until they figure life out. Oh, and could they borrow five bucks? Apparently, lack of artistic outlet can make you think that rationally, you can drive from Kansas to Oregon on $5 and a guitar. That’s some artistic thinking, even back in 1995.

So maybe the reason I am more sane now is a little bit linked to the fact that I do get to do creative stuff pretty much every day. I would say it was just maturity, but I am the crankiest girl on the street if I don’t make stuff for more than three days. So yeah, there is definitely a link. Now if only I could have the same reaction to housework. Oh sorry I was moody. It’s just that there’s this one coffee cup that needs washing. I’ll be right back.

Although I never wanted to drive to Oregon on a borrowed five bucks, I did want to run away and join the circus. Obviously. They got to wear cool make-up and sequins and fly through the air with the greatest of ease. They got to see the world! They didn’t have to go to normal school. (I was so obsessed with learning but not so much with traditional school, at times. A personal tutor with the perspective of a circus performer was a fabulous idea!) They lived in happy, pastel shades like Busted Wonder. Everything was always pretty and happy and they ate cotton candy for breakfast, lunch and dinner. (No, at that point I had not read this. And a million other things. Clearly. I read Jill Krementz books, watched things like this and imagined lots of sparkles and cotton candy. I mean seriously, how could you be unhappy if you could do a triple-and-a-half somersault way up in the air, just because?)

{A total aside: that whole series of children’s books are gorgeous. They are both child biography and photo essay and I would sink into them for hours, years after I could read things much more difficult. I only learned this week that she was married to Kurt Vonnegut. And that has explained so much to me.}

Anyway, I never joined the circus. But I do seem to be travelling a bit more and I won’t be going to a traditional school this September. So I need a circus skirt, right? Hence my creative thing for Thursday. With circus colours and polka dots and ruffles. Cotton candy and trapeze flying skills not included. One thing at a time.

Speaking of one thing at a time, check out the Banana Frog blog today. I’ve posted a little tutorial and there’s a contest over there this weekend.

That’s way easier than joining the circus, and with fewer scary people.

xlovesx

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Because this is seriously, without a doubt, the most adorable thing to happen since scrapbooking was invented.

MG: I will send you a valentine every single year. Omglove.

Go here now. She doesn’t just show you how to make it…all the pages are a pdf download that she made…then you just print it on to white cardstock and you’re there. Add what you want (like old polaroids because you can’t find your polaroid camera to put a current one in…but you will), bind it how you want, and then write in it and stick stuff in it.

Seriously girl, it’s fabulous. High school me would print out an extra and mail it to a pen pal. Present time me has no pen pals but might print out an extra and just mail it to some random person in the phone book because I can’t contain myself.

!!!!!xlovesx!!!!

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How random is this…a new place to teach, a totally new format, a new group of crafty girls set to arrive, and what I am worried about? Traffic.

One of the joys of living on the outskirts of London is going pretty much anywhere will likely involve the M25. It’s a ring road, but on a freakishly massive scale. As far as ring roads are concerned, I have but three that I driven enough to tell stories about: the M25, at the extreme of oh my goodness, I am moving an inch an hour but it is illegal to phone anyone and tell them I will be late madness, Interstate 435 that encircles the sprawling metropolis that is Kansas City (as the nice, happy medium) and at the other extreme, Iceland’s Route 1, which is 840 miles around, but pretty much all the accidents are caused by unfortunate combinations of tourists, rental cars and sheep.

But the funny thing about the M25 is as soon as you start to swear about it, there’s no traffic. So I can never totally write her off. Plus, I am useless on countrylanes. Give me big roads. With road signs. And petrol stations are also nice. But last Thursday, it took me about two and a half hours to get home from Creative Pastimes, so yesterday I left very early, thinking it would be worse during morning rush hour.

There were like three other cars on the entire road. At 8:20am. It was uncanny.

And I was there so early that I walked around the countryside, taking pictures of flowers, accidentally scaring a heron and talking to baby ducks. As you do.

And then, when it was a reasonable o’clock in the morning, we had a journaling workshop. With a sparkly layout class in the morning. Then lovely coffee shop lunch with paninis and much discussion of weddings past, present and future, then an afternoon session with a minibook and oreo cupcakes. Plus some shopping! So cool to meet new faces.

There are a few kits at the shop if you fancied one but couldn’t make the day. If you contact them, you can order one for £9.50 and they should be able to post it to you. £9.50 does not include the shipping but does include all the supplies (3 sheets of cardstock, 6 patterned papers, 1 envelope and velvet ribbon) and all the instructions from me, via email. There are only a few, so get in touch quickly if you want one.

My next workshop at Creative Pastimes is Friday, August 24th. It’s all about embellishment, and we’ll be working with ribbon in the morning and chipboard in the afternoon. It would be fabulous to see you there for a girly day out!

Thanks again to all involved yesterday.

xlovesx

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