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

Sometimes I love a project that focuses on one specific story for several weeks. And other times I feel like my list of things I want to do is so long and unconnected, I might as well be chopping it up and putting it in a hat. I’ve often thought about that in my head, but this is really the first time I decided I would really and truly make it work in a literal sense. It’s called The 20 Project.

20 items on my scrapping to-do list.
20 new scrapbook pages.
20 videos, each 20 minutes long.
And you’re welcome to join me for the full adventure – it’s $20.

When I chopped up my to-do list to go into the hat, it included things like
…using a kit I purchased but have let sit on my shelf ever since it arrived.
…whittling down a day of 100+ photos to a feasible number that still tells the story in full.
…sorting out an overflow of paper scraps into quick and easy page kits.
…stamping enough to get past my ‘I maybe bought too many stamps’ guilt.
…becoming happier about using portrait and landscape shots on the same page.
…scrapping with a colour wheel to get more interesting combinations from my stash.
…making a dent in my collection of Project Life cards.
…switching up my title techniques to have a bit more variety without completely changing my style.
…and twelve other everyday scrapbooking dilemmas that sometimes leave us all stumped at our desk when we wish we were actually sticking bits of pretty paper to other bits of pretty paper.

This class is primarily video based, but each video is accompanied by a short PDF with photos of the finished layout and a few brief notes, so it’s easy to remember the key elements covered without having to watch the full twenty minutes again.

The pages created cover a variety of topics, including baby and toddler photos but also travel (both people and scenery), home and neighbourhood (cooking, collections, parks and gardens), wedding, hobbies, and everyday life documentation. Some pages include supplies from my own collections with American Crafts, while others do not and use a range of brands across the scrapbooking and stamping industries. You do not need to use the same supplies to follow along with the challenges and techniques. Most of the pages are single-page 12×12 in format, but there are a few double pages either as two 12×12s or as one 12×12 and one pocket page.

The photos shown here are indicative of my scrapping style but are not the twenty pages created for The 20 Project. I’m excited to share all-new material with you in class!

The 20 Project starts on Wednesday, 3 August 2016. You may join at any time, including after the class has finished, but signing up before the third will give you the full live experience of receiving class materials by email and joining in the conversations on the private classroom forum as we go through the twenty days of materials. The final video will be sent on Friday, 26 August. (There are no videos on Sundays or the first Saturday.)

You can sign up now and pay by credit or debit card or from your Paypal balance (you do not need a Paypal account to join in). It’s $20 in US Dollars, and xe lets you see that amount in your currency if you need to check. You’ll receive a welcome message within 24 hours, and if you don’t, please do not hesitate to email me. If the email address on your Paypal account is not the one you want to use for receiving class materials, please let me know either by email or leaving a ‘note to seller’ when you check out.

Any other questions, just let me know! And look forward to a short video on YouTube this week that shares the style of this project. I’d love for you to join me in making August crafty and productive!

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Ready for the weekend? I’m so happy contributing designer May Flaum is here to share a little Disney scrapping love. I hope you enjoy her page tutorial, and I promise you can actually follow it with non-Disney photos too, but maybe don’t tell May. Put your Mickey ears on for May. It’s something I have learned.

If there’s one thing I adore, it’s scrapbooking Disney vacations! May Flaum here, and I’m going to share my go-to recipe for theme park and vacation scrapbooking today. The great thing about this is that no sketch is required! It works best with a bold patterned paper partnered with a neutral cardstock – and from there you can add any embellishments you like.

First step – a square or rectangle of cardstock will be your base. I used 9 × 10 kraft cardstock, and tore the bottom as well as stitching the edges for contrast. After adhering to this lovely camera patterned paper I am ready to rock with photos!

You could alter the size of your cardstock mat to any size photos that you have or want to use – I went with four 4×4 pictures. This will be a title page for my Disneyland trip, so I knew the journaling would be light. If I had more of a story I would cut down the number of photos used or use smaller photos.

This is my favorite part of this design: Photos + paper and we’re ready to decorate! Choose a few strategic spots to cluster some stickers, and use some of the fabulous rub-ons from Shimelle’s line of course!

To add some dimension add in some sequins, buttons, beads, or glitter glue. For a little more layering add in a few stickers or strips of patterned paper as I did on my layout.

Often the photos for theme park pages are so busy, I just love this very simple design and set-up that doesn’t compete with the pictures but still allows me to cluster a few embellishments and have some creative fun.

I suggest utilizing background/ok to cover space on your photos to cluster and add some embellishments over since this page is so photo heavy. I also recommend using up some stickers (layering is your friend!) and details in just a few spots.

This layout was so much fun to make, and I hope you’ve enjoyed sharing in my process today.

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Thank you so, so much for all your kind responses to Go Now Go. You can watch this first look video if you’d like to see more. It will be shipping very soon, so be sure to ask your favourite scrapbooking retailer to order it if you fancy! But for now, let’s use the stash we have on hand to make way for some favourites from all the summer releases coming out right about now. I know I have a stack of papers and stamps I really, really want to use but I just haven’t got there yet. This week seems like a great time to do that.

And now, on to the challenge! This week I challenge you this week to hand cut the design elements on your next scrapbook page. That might mean cutting lettering for your title, stamping something and cutting out the design, or detail cutting motifs from patterned paper instead of turning to stickers and other pre made embellishments. Everything else is completely up to you, so you can take your inspiration in any direction you like, just get those scissors or craft knives to the ready! You might find this chunky title or this delicate lettering useful from our archived tutorials, but to get you started on this week’s challenge, take a look at these examples from contributing designer Nicole Nowosad and guest artist Jen Campbell.

I love the idea of hand cut items on my projects because it adds a fun bit of whimsy. I decided to hand cut some letters for the title on my page. Instead of using the positive letters, I trimmed blocks of patterned paper and used the negative shape of the letters to create my title. To create the letters I flipped the paper to the backside and then drew out good old bubble letters in reverse. I cut them out with a craft knife and some scissors.

Once the letters were all cut, I adhered them with foam adhesive for some dimension. They are a great (and easy!) embellishment on the page and a great focal point too.

I hope you are inspired to add a little whimsy to your projects and create your own hand cut items for your projects! The possibilities are endless.
- Nicole

As always, I started my page with photos that I love and a story to tell. These bright shots from swim team practice with all the neighbourhood kids were prefect to use with the cheerful paper and embellishments from Shimelle’s Starshine collection. I knew immediately that I wanted to use the large number five in the title of my page. I used that as a jumping off point for my colour scheme and quickly decided the stars and clouds as well as the word flags from True Stories made fantastic choices for hand-cut embellishment clusters.

I stared by cutting stars, clouds, and word phrases and setting them aside to add as I built the page. Then I layered some paper horizontally to fit behind the pictures. Although I initially planned to just use the neutral word paper as my background, once I got going I realized I needed a bolder colour to ground the page, so I matted the whole thing with a quarter-inch border of the hot pink and then inked the edges of some of the paper and embellishments to tie everything together. I finished my building two embellishment clusters along the top and building a horizontal line of embellishments below the title and pictures and around the journalling box. Final touches to the embellishment included chipboard star and hearts as well as enamel dots and stars.

My go-to title technique: I cut a thin strip of plastic packaging from some scrapbook embellishments and adhered the black chipboard letters to that. Then I used foam 3D adhesive cut into thin strips on the back of the packaging to help me layer the word “hurricanes” over the top of the “5” and overlapping the bottom edge of the “homestead” in glitter Thickers. I like how this technique helps build a cohesive title grouping while keeping all the chipboard letters at the same level.
- Jen

You have a week to complete the challenge and share a link – but of course you’re welcome to set your own time schedule. Whatever keeps you happy and creative!

Today’s Guest Artist: Jen Campbell loves coffee, summer days near the water, and everyday adventures with her three boys. You can find more from Jen on Instagram.

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Not to let Go Now Go take all the fun today, I’m excited to share this brilliant technique from Heather Leopard, complete with a step-by-step tutorial. I hope it inspires you to get stitching!

When I think of summer, the things that come to mind are bright cheerful colors and sandy beaches so naturally, I made that the focus of my layout. I didn’t just want to include a nod to summer, I wanted to scream SUMMER! I knew I had to go with a big, bold title so I went to my trusting die cutting tool and pulled out 6 bold colors that coordinated with Shimelle’s Starshine collection and went to work.

To get started, I created the entire design for my layout in the CAMEO software, including my photo and layering around my photo. I created the letters using Franklin Gothic font in varying sizes between 460 – 525. I simply enlarged the letters, overlapped them and scaled them up and down until I liked the look.

For this next step you have many options for practically perfect holes for stitching but I’m going to talk about two of my favorites. The first one is to draw the design onto your paper using your CAMEO and sketch pens, then poking the holes yourself. The second option is a little more complicated but well worth it if you ask me. Take a look at how I added dots onto my letters in the image below.

Usually when I want to stitch a cut file, I skip steps 1 – 3 but you have to do steps 1 – 3 this time because you can’t add text to text. So 1st step is to create a png or jpeg of each of your letters. Separate your letters and use your favorite snipping to to do a screen capture.

Import the png or jpeg back into your Silhouette designer. This turns it into a “shape” instead of editable text.
Trace each letter and release the compound path / ungroup them.

4. This is where you’d normally start if you were using a cut file. Using a text box and Times New Roman or some similar font, type in dot after dot after dot until you’ve filled up an entire row or two of dots. I prefer using a period for my dots but others use an “o”. The actual number doesn’t matter because you can add more dots to an image in step 6.

5. Change the font size to 24 or 36.

6. Click the “Select” Arrow in Silhouette and then double click the text box.

7. The text box turns to a green outline and you will see circle with a plus sign inside. Click the circle and hold it down while dragging it to the cut file. In my case, that’s the “S”.

8. Your image will look similar to this. If there aren’t enough dots to cover the entire image, just click in the text box and add more. It’s as easy as that.

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9. Repeat until everything you want to stitch has dots for holes.

10. Cut your files as you normally would. A few of my holes were just barely hanging on so I’ll be using the double cut option next time and recommend you do that as well.

11. Put a good movie on and stitch away!

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What’s on my desk? Something so exciting for me!

Go Now Go is my newest collection with American Crafts, and it makes its debut today on the AC blog. I’ve just been able to start to work with the actual products and a bit later today, I’ll share a first look video with you on YouTube.

I made one page as soon as I turned off the camera from filming with that, and I’m loving the rich colours and blue skies. Colour, colour, and more colour please and thank you.

I can’t wait to share more with you, so I hope you’ll stop by again soon!

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There may be no fireworks in my part of the world right now, but we can all embrace a bit of starstruck love. There is no such thing as too many stars in your stash, right? This week, I challenge you this week to go overboard with stars. Start with one, add a few more, and then let the stars just take over! Everything in your design is completely up to you, so you can take your inspiration in any direction you like! To get you started on this week’s challenge, take a look at these examples from contributing designer Leigh Ann Odynski and guest artist Sherry Coogan.

I had so much fun seeing how many stars I could get on the page for this week’s “Go Overboard with Stars” challenge.

For the first layer of stars, I used Whipped Spackle texture paste, and a Silhouette cut file to create a star stencil.

Then I layered several other textures in star shapes as shown. When you look through your own stash, think about vellum, patterned paper, stamps, stickers, and embellishments like the acrylic stars. In the photo above I used an X-acto knife to trim around the acrylic star, and don’t you love how it is adhesive backed like a sticker? I do!

Next, I wanted to create more dimension, so I used the Counting Stars cut file from the Cut Shoppe, and backed it with True Stories and Starshine papers. Make sure to leave some of the stars open to add another layer of interest.

Using the Minc Machine to add gold foil to the Starshine cards created more texture on the page and repeats the star shape. Going for lots of repetition here!

Next some stamping near the three embellishment clusters around the page in navy and aqua for another layer of stars!

Here you can see a close up of the title and photo layers. The Fitzgerald Thickers are a favorite font of mine. Stitching down the vellum stars with a zig zag stitch, and adding the punched cork stars, gave lots of interest to the page with a variety of textures.

Choosing to add the stars in different textures around the page was a lot of fun! How many different layers of this repeating shape can you get on your layout? I can’t wait to see what you all have to share, and your take on this challenge!

Have fun!
- Leigh Ann

Stars are one of my favorite design elements, in scrapbooking, and a July 4th layout is the perfect opportunity to use them. Shimelle’s Starshine collection was the starting point for this layout, along with a cut file from The Cut Shoppe. to make the background.

I backed the die cut background with a fun mix of patterned papers and popped up the collage of photos to let the photos shine. A few acrylic stars were scattered across the layout. I used puffy letter stickers for the title. I love this layout for many reasons; especially seeing the changes in my children throughout the years.
- Sherry

You have a week to complete the challenge and share a link – but of course you’re welcome to set your own time schedule. Whatever keeps you happy and creative!

Today’s Guest Artist: Sherry Coogan loves creating, pretty paper, and paint. You can find more from Sherry on Instagram, YouTube, and her blog.

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Hello July! And hello to contributing designer May Flaum, who has a perfect project for this weekend: use just scraps, finish it quickly, and making something simple into something special? Sounds like a winner to me – and you can go red, white, and blue if you wish, or recolour if you don’t have an excuse for fireworks coming right up! Take it away, May.

Use up the scraps and get your scrapbook paper to make pretty treats and favours: that’s my agenda today!

I noticed that some of the colors in the Starshine collection would work great for some Fourth of July treats that I’m wanting to dress up for a party. Taking scrapbook papers and dressing up simple and inexpensive treats and favors is one of my absolute favorite things to do! Today I have a video tutorial showing you exactly how I made mine.

In my video example I have used candy and chocolate, however you can use this idea in a number of ways:

• Gift boxes
• Around a gift bag
• Fill a box with treats with a theme, then wrap papers around that box
• Gather a few items then use paper to bind them together
• Create a layered bow or topper for a scrapbook page or card

Whether candies or a box of homemade cookies, for a gift or for fun – there are so many ways that you can dress up packages and gifts to create unique things with your homemade touch on them! What I love about this is handing someone a chocolate bar is nice, but the extra time spent dressing it up a bit lets them know I really put some energy and thought into it. A bonus? This is a great way to use up various sized scraps and bits of papers, stickers, and embellishments that I want to get used!

What weekend crafting is on your agenda? We’d love to hear from you.

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This week’s scrapbooking challenge comes from one of my favourite guests posts in our archives: a washi technique from Tegan Skwiat. While Tegan shares steps for creating the look above, this is a challenge that allows for following directions or going off on a complete artistic tangent.

This week, I challenge you this week to take inspiration from those colourful borders. Follow the same look or just let the idea take on its own format on your own desk. To get you started on this week’s challenge, take a look at these examples from contributing designer Gina Lideros and guest artist Anna Bradshaw.

I’m excited to share my challenge project with you today! I chose to take my inspiration from the supplies rather than keeping it contained to a border. This is a great way to give new life to your tapes and punches. To create my project first, I picked out an assortment of decorative tapes that coordinated well with the papers and embellishments that I wanted to use.

Then I tore two pieces of decorative tape and adhered them to a scrap of white cardstock in a horizontal pattern. Next I punched out circles using a one inch circle punch. This is the fun part where you can get creative – I repeated this step and punched out different washi designs using an assortment of patterns. I also punched out an assortment of patterned papers using different sized circle punches.

Once all of my shapes were punched, I adhered them to a pattern paper background. I used stamps, ink, paint, and hand embroidery around the title to complete my page.

Tip – don’t limit yourself to just red, white, and blue when working with Fourth of July layouts. Fireworks are colorful so your projects can be too! Instead of working with just one collection, I chose to bring in coordinating papers and elements from three of Shimelle’s collections.

I hope this challenge allows you to get creative with decorative tape and get creative with your punches too, whether you create a border, an embellishment, or an explosion of color across your page.
- Gina

After a recent washi-swap, I came home with a clear but now colorful acetate sheet of shared tape strips, and, while staring at a handful of manufacturer’s branding strips that happened to be lying near my photo, inspiration struck; I could use a few manual punches to create some custom embellishments with meaningful-to-me layers on this page documenting a recent road trip with my family.

Alternating branding strips from the Simple Stories’ I Am collection with WeR Memory Keepers aptly named Road Trip, and even a few from Shimelle’s first delightful line of papers, I also punched some sentimentally appropriate hearts in a variety of sizes from a wide gold polka dot pattern of tape and the new We Are Family washi tape strips, also from Simple Stories. A popular EK Success border punch with a thinner black and white polka dot washi pattern grounds that busy block at the bottom of my page. It’s awesome when we can use those tried and true tools and still get excited, no?

In Tegan’s example she used plain paper to back her tape before punching, and I’ll be honest, the clear acetate sheet as a punching mount did not give me a clean look – but I’m okay with that. Just like using ephemera and products with brand names that relate to my story, having a bit of the imperfect represented on this layout reminds me more of my “why” for celebrating this fun day alongside my mom and brother with a place in my scrapbook. It was our first road trip together, just the three of us, in ages, and I enjoyed it so much. The bouts of unrestrained laughter, seeing my brother trying not to enjoy making greeting cards and shopping for scrapbooking supplies, the unwanted advice-giving…yep, these are the perfectly imperfect moments that I want to remember in my family’s (many, many) albums.
- Anna

You have a week to complete the challenge and share a link – but of course you’re welcome to set your own time schedule. Whatever keeps you happy and creative!

Today’s Guest Artist: Anna Bradshaw loves where she lives, teaching, and being with her biggest source of inspiration: family. You can find more from Anna on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and her blog.

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