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

I almost don’t start talking about Christmas until November, but there’s one exception to that rule and it’s SUPPLIES FOR CHRISTMAS ALBUMS! Today I’m sharing suggestions for supplies if you’re following along with Journal your Christmas or going freestyle making your own Christmas album project. Please keep in mind this is not a list where you’re meant to get one of everything! Each section has notes to explain what you’ll need so you can adapt to your style. AND STAMP PRE-ORDERS ARE LIVE! For just one week, you can preorder your 2022 Journal your Christmas stamp set, so scroll to the bottom of this post to order that directly from me. All the other supplies linked are from Scrapbook.com and linked with affiliate links. Thanks!

Albums:
6×8 is my favourite size for this project, so all these suggestions are that size. Keep in mind you need a decently thick binder if you want to daily entries throughout December – think full album with smaller pages rather than mini book. It’s a classic rookie situation to get to the 15th of December and realise no more pages will fit in your binder. (It’s okay – then you just get a volume 2 and finish that way!) I ordered the pink velvet album earlier this year and earmarked it for this project, but they have since brought out the velvet in red and green so I might change my mind. But right now I am planning on the pink. Choose one album you like and enough page protectors in the styles you like. Some of them fold out which is new this year and I’m excited about that option for including more photos without having to make them all tiny.

Patterned Paper:
Here’s where we get into embracing your personal style! I love that lots of the brands do 6×8 paper pads for these collections now because it means you can mostly just work from a paper pad or two (or more) and not need to worry about cutting down lots of full sheets. Ask yourself if you prefer tradition red and green only colours or if you would like to add in more shades like pink, aqua, and turquoise. That will help you choose which patterned papers are best for you! You can also think about whether you prefer clean designs or things with a more collaged or textured feel. The Echo Park and Simple Stories collections here are cleaner; Vicki Boutin, Prima, and 49 & Market are more textured and painterly. If all of these seem too bright, take a look at the other options from Simple Stories – they have multiple collections but I liked Mix and A-Mingle way better than the others this year. Your personal style might suit the others better and that’s okay! You can still use the supplies the same way.

I’ve added some 12×12 sheets that are cut apart you might fancy even in a smaller album. If storage is an issue, just cut them down as soon as they arrive.

I also really love woodgrains and vellum in my Christmas album, so I’ve included five different woodgrain papers (might be a case of ignoring the other side and that’s absolutely fine) and some vellum options if you like those as well!

Embellishments:
I always find it easier to start with paper then move to the embellishments, so if you’ve chosen your papers already, then you can choose the embellishments that will work best. It can be as simple as adding the embellishments from the collection to match the papers you picked – so if you went for Santa Claus Lane papers, get the Santa Claus Lane stickers and die cuts.

Vicki Boutin’s sticker book is all cardstock stickers (no clear, no washi). Her puffy stickers include tiny numbers! Love that. The Simple Stories sticker book also includes a page of numbers and a page of letters. Make sure you include something for lettering that suits how you scrap: adding some letter stickers, assembling a stack of letter stickers from your stash, or adding a set of letter stamps.

And of course enamel dots! If these two sets sell out there are other options in similar colours, or you could get a whole pack or red and a whole pack of green from the single colour options by Altenew and Doodlebug.

Mixed Media:
If you like working with ink, stamps, and stencils, then this section is for you. These are the colours of ink I use most often in my Christmas journals, but if you have similar colours already in your stash you can stick with those! A red and two shades of green will get you very far in a Christmas style, then add pink, yellow, and aqua if you want to embrace that wider and less traditional colour palette. There are gold, silver, and white glitter options if you like a bit of Christmas sparkle. You can decide if you want all your sparkle to be one colour throughout or if you like a mix. Plus a variety of stencils and boopers and extra booperheads to keep you going!

AND OF COURSE, THIS YEAR’S STAMP SET!
This year’s stamps are a single sheet and they are $15 USD shipped to anywhere in the world. I ship these directly from my house here, so this is a separate purchase from anything linked above. This is a preorder and it will be live for one week only! If you definitely want a set, please place your order now. They will ship out to you as soon as they arrive here so they can arrive with you before we start December.

$15 USD includes worldwide shipping, and if you have any questions on that you can always email me.

Above all else, when you assemble your supplies for Christmas scrapping, remember to stay true to your style and your budget. It is great to use old stash you have on hand. It is also fun to get something new and use it straight away! I’ll help you use what you buy as long as you don’t go too overboard, okay? Awesome.

Thanks friends! See you in November to talk about Christmas more!

Thank you so much for your wonderful enthusiasm for the Use What You Buy concept and this first set of videos featuring stamp sets.

The next focus in this series will be stencils, and it will be available this weekend! Same format: four videos about the same length, around 22 minutes, each featuring a stencil originally featured in the Best of Both Worlds shopping lists, but easy to use with any stencils you may have purchased and not used enough yet to feel like it was a strong investment.

Again I’m trying to steer clear of big specialist tools and extras – best to be able to use your scraps of paper and the ink pad collection you already have, I think! So with the stencils, most of the ideas stick to Distress Oxide inks again. There is some use of acrylic paint and one option to use something thicker like texture paste/embossing paste/thick gesso/glaze, but I include thoughts on what to use for a similar effect if you don’t have those in your stash. You shouldn’t need to do any extra shopping, just use what you’ve already bought!

Just like the stamping class, it will be $5 to buy through September, and once we hit October, it will be $10. So you can sign up right now for $5 and you’ll receive access automatically when it’s live next weekend! (Class pass holders – you do not need to do anything. The class will be added to your account as soon as it’s live.) OR if you missed the stamp class, you can pick up the bundle for $15 (same price – you just don’t need to check out twice) so use the second button for that!

$5 September price for Stencil Focus

$15 Stamp and Stencil bundle

I scrapbook most days and generally scrap about the lives and adventures of my partner, my two best friends who I live with and me. But in January 2022, something very special happened – we adopted THREE dogs! They’d lived together their whole lives and were looking for a forever home. They’re quite old and best buddies. So, Mick, Tom and I decided to go for it and they’re now home with us. Chris, my partner loves to visit regularly – and the pooches love us all so much and have settled incredibly well.

So I now have a whole new topic to scrap – the dogs! We’ve nicknamed them “The 3 Pawmigos” and they really are best of friends. I wanted to create a layout that documented their new adventure and a page all about adopting them so I knew I’d want a lot of journaling and three photos – one of each.

I decided to go with a superb Shimelle design – the half and half! But I wanted to do it a bit different and so I chose my two papers and then adhered them to white Cardstock but on the left, I only adhered the top, bottom and left side, leaving the middle free of adhesive. I then went about layering a ton of florals from Shimelle’s brilliant Never Grow Up from top to bottom in the middle – being careful to only put adhesive on the left sides so it stuck to my left side paper but not the right side.

Once complete, I was left with a big 6×12” pocket, easy access and ready to hold my journaling! I used two sheets from Shimelle’s Journaling Pads for my main journaling – two full pages – one documents them all individually and their characters and the other the tale of bringing them home from Cardiff, South Wales to Manchester, North of England.

To make it easy to pull out the journaling, I added a stitched tag from Shimelle’s Go Now Go collection – the perfect addition! Then I went about about matting my photos – each 3×4” and used some rainbow lined paper from the same journaling pads. I used foam tape around three sides of each photo to lift them off the page.

This then allowed even more journaling in the form of three more tags from Go Now Go and a hello from each dog! I also added a cute mini puffy sticker on each tag from Shimelle’s Box of Crayons!

That left me with one quarter of my half and half grid design layout and I knew I wanted a title incorporating multiple words and the awesome travel board letters from Go Now Go. So I decided to use it as an embellishment area, starting with a stencilled sun burst (which I then proceeded to cover most of up, as we do!) and clustered lots of pieces from various collections and added my title – Departing for Manchester.

This layout was so much fun to create and was really important for me to document – those initial characteristics of our new furbaby’s and how they got here to their new home. I also wanted this layout to be a celebration of my love for Shimelle collections. Because I started scrapbooking only a relatively short time ago, I missed a lot of Shimelle’s collections but I hunted high and low to build up my huge box! Creating this layout, I used pieces (some more than others) from the following Shimelle collections: Never Grow Up, Field Trip, Go Now Go, Glitter Girl, Box of Crayons & Little By Little.

Hi Scrappy Friends! I’m Adam, aka ScrappyAdam in the scrapbooking world! I’ve been scrapbooking almost three years now and it all started with an awesome Disney trip in 2019. Since then, scrapbooking has white literally consumed my life and is firmly a passion, a hobby – and now a job and I couldn’t be happier. It quickly become a hobby to search for all the scrappy goodies and I quickly built up a good stash of goodies – including a huge box dedicated to the wonderful Shimelle! Since then, I’ve started my YouTube channel and quickly passed the first one thousand milestone and my passion for scrapping and the community remains so very much! I own Dotty About Flair, a small UK Based business selling ‘flair’ for the scrapbooking and crafty people out there. I’m also the face behind The Cut Hut, an exciting new venture for 2022 with Paige Evans and myself, bringing pre cut cut files from Paige to the UK and Europe! You can find me on Instagram and YouTube.

I’ve always loved symmetry in designs. There’s a underrated beauty to it. In scrapbooking, I love me a good grid layout. I had just gotten in some Never Grow Up, and once I saw the gorgeous deep and bright colors, I knew I had to make a page with all of them!

Instead of a traditional grid — I opted for a simpler 4×4, using different colors to create a complementary grid. I used a couple of photos from my kiddo helping me in the garden last summer. She lives any excuse to play with water!

Sometimes, when I feel I’ve used too much color and need help bringing in some balance, black always helps. I backed my photos with some black striped vellum, which did the trick!

I “fussy bladed” a couple elements from the cut apart paper, as well as “Go With The” to add to my title “Go With The Flow.” Also, I brought in a wood grain branding strip to pull some of the color from kiddo’s skin, and some acrylic water drops from my stash to add movement to the alphas. I hope this page brings you some inspiration today!

Hi! My name is Erika. I’m a San Diego-born, Seattle transplant, rescue animal mama of two girls. I started scrapbooking three years ago after watching Shimelle’s colorful and achievable approach, and have been hooked ever since. I love physical and digital work, and mainly document in 12×12 and 8×6 formats. I’m game for learning new techniques, playing with new designs, and meeting more of our incredibly supportive scrapbooking community over on Instagram and Youtube.

Today’s guest artist is right on board with the Use What You Buy attitude: she’s been making a point to scrap with the stash she’s held onto for a while to make sure it goes from her supply collection to finished pages in her albums! Check out this page design and see if it can come together with things you’ve been stashing too! -Shimelle

I love scrapbooking old and new photos. For me scrapbooking lets me combine my love of photos, journaling and pretty paper into one hobby that helps me destress and be creative. For this particular layout I felt like I hadn’t scrapped any very recent photos lately. I try to balance scrapping older and more recent photos.

For this layout recent photos won out! I selected and printed out four different prints. Two prints that were of Gareth and Bryce going camping and two prints of Rhiannon and I exploring the Machu Picchu exhibit at our local museum.

The photos with the boys were jumping out to me more than the photos of Rhiannon and I. Gareth has always wanted to take our kids camping and an opportunity came up for him to go camping with Bryce. He went and got all the gear to go camping (including the sun protection)! I was so excited for them to get to go. Got to be honest I’m not a camping girl but glad that he will take the kids so they can see if they like the experience. Spoiler – Bryce really enjoyed the camping experience!

I approach almost every layout I create with one of three approaches as my jumping off point: sketch, photo, or product. Over the past several years I’ve been very conscientious of using my stash up (probably from all of our moving). For this layout I started off with my photos. I then went through my patterned paper looking for papers I felt went with the color and or story the photos tell. I then went through some of my 3×4 cards and pulled a couple that coordinated. My papers are from Paige Evans collections, a Crate Paper collection, and a Shimelle collection. My 3×4 cards are from Citrus Twist. I then went looking through my printed sketches to see if one worked with the amount of photos and papers I pulled. From there I start cutting up my paper and playing with the base layout using the sketch. Then I create my embellishment clusters.

I usually like to have a base for each cluster. The base may be circular elements, tickets, labels, frames etc. I chose to have circles as the base for each cluster partially because of the sketch and because it allowed me to use more of my patterned paper. I then went through my embellishment stash and stickers to see what coordinated with the papers and helped to tell my story.

I ended up using a Vicki Boutin sticker book, chipboard phrases, and ephemera; Citrus Twist puffy stickers, labels, and ephemera; Shimelle stickers; and American Crafts word phrase Thickers. Once I pulled out what coordinated I then start sticked things onto each embellishment cluster base. I try to make sure I have the same colors, icons and word phrases represented in each cluster, which can help all the pieces of different collections feel like they belong together.

If this inspires you, I encourage you to scraplift the layout using items you’ve kept in your stash for a while. You could use the sketch I used. You could also just be looking for similar papers in your own stash. Another idea is to scraplift the color scheme, the patterns, or the placement of everything! Lastly, you could use my process of selecting photos, then patterned paper, and then embellishments to document your own story.

Brittany Kielar resides in South Florida with her husband, two kids, and two dogs, and enjoys living so near her extended family. Brittany owns an education consulting company. When not working, you can find Brittany unwinding by scrapbooking, reading, and baking. She also loves watching her son in soccer and tennis and her daughter in dance. Her family loves going on walks and hikes, playing pickleball, doing puzzles, watching movies, and exploring. You can see more of Brittany’s work on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.

Many of you scrapbook along with me through the Best of Both Worlds project: it’s a shopping list each month to create a scrapbooking kit, either by shopping for new stash or choosing similar items from your own stash to use what you have. Then I scrapbook live on YouTube on Monday and Friday so you know you’ll always have ideas for what to make with those supplies.

The whole concept behind Best of Both Worlds is something near and dear to my crafty heart: my hope that we will all use what we buy. Years and years ago I wrote down my story of the special paper about the time I spent far too much on a paper I deemed far too special to use, continued to save, and eventually realised I didn’t like it at all. Not one bit. But when I use what I buy while I still love it, it goes into my album where I can look at it for years instead of just sitting in my stash and eventually making me feel like I made poor shopping choices. Sigh. It’s way more fun for me when I make sure to use what I buy!

Part of each Best of Both Worlds shopping list is what I call stash building items: ink pads, stamp sets, and stencils are all items I hope you will continue to use after all the paper and stickers from that month have gone from stash to finished pages. Plus I don’t know about you, but it’s not a rare occasion that I fill up my shopping cart and then add another stamp set or stencil or ink pad somehow. I always have the best of intentions but it’s easier than I care to admit to add those items to the drawer and forget to come back and use them as much as I hoped!

ENTER A NEW CLASS SERIES. Choosing one category of stash item at a time, four videos with four specific and versatile techniques you can use to put those purchases to work. To use what you buy! We’re starting with stamp sets, and the four stamp sets featured are all from previous Best of Both Worlds shopping lists, so you might already have all four sets in your stash already. But no worries if you don’t: each of the ideas is easy to use with other themes, motifs, or colours. Plus they are designed to be ideas you can use over and over again and each page will look unique when you try it with another set of stamps or another colour scheme.

Each of the videos is about 22 minutes, so you don’t need to watch for hours and hours to get started. Everything is focused instruction (as opposed to the livestream situation and our discussions of random rubbish!) and you can watch either by streaming or downloading and saving the videos. You can share what you make right there on the same forum where you watch the videos. And all four videos are right there ready and waiting for you now: it’s not the same format as a longer class where the messages are delivered by emails throughout a longer time frame. Like all my classes, your access to the materials is permanent so you can work on it this weekend and you can come back to it in a few years if you get stuck and realise it might be helpful again!

During August 2022, the stamp set edition is just $5 US dollars. Once we hit September, this will go up to $10, so if you want to sign up at the best price, that’s right now!

If US dollars isn’t the right currency for you, you can still click to sign up and the payment will be automatically converted to your currency. You can check XE for up to date exchange rates around the world.
If you’re a current pass holder, this class is already available for you – just sign into the forum and watch whenever you would like!

IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST CLASS, PLEASE BE AWARE: class registrations are not automatic! I add everyone to class myself. It can take up to 48 hours but I try to be much faster than that. If you don’t receive an email within that time, please get in touch. You can also use that same email to let me know if your PayPal email address is not where you would like to receive your class info.

If you signed up as an early bird, THANK YOU! You can already access the class now when you sign in at the class forum. Scroll down and it’s under the ‘Use What You Buy’ heading. If you’re signed in and still don’t see it, again send me an email and I’ll help you out!

Thanks so much and happy stamping and scrapping! Let’s use those stamp sets we’ve purchased so we don’t have any stamps left that haven’t been inky!

We’ve entered a funny time of year in the northern hemisphere: is it summer and school is still out and you’re enjoying the sunshine and the odd adventure? Or is it autumn and school is back in session, life has a more predictable schedule, and you’re ready for the temperature and the leaves to both start dropping? If you’re leaning in to autumn vibes, today’s guest artist Valeska Guimaraes is here for you with a shift to autumnal colours and botanicals. As usual, supplies have affiliate links where possible. Thanks! -Shimelle

My name is Valeska Guimaraes and I’m so happy to be here with you today. I was inspired by Shimelle’s layout A Border of Scraps (Best Pals), which she used a simple technique that works so well! The composition she explained was to find a rainbow of paper scraps and line them up to make a border on your page. So easy and pretty, don’t you think?

Well, I decided to try this with some flowers, tags and embellishments. It is not exactly a rainbow but I love those autumn colors from Paige’s Bungalow Lane collection. I think it can be easily done with scraps, die cuts or stickers too.

I also used a layering technique with 3D foam adhesive that will give some dimension to my layout. I really enjoy this technique, in fact is one of my favorite and I use it in most of my projects.

A round title is a very good way to get your attention. I used the colorful alphabet stickers from Paige Evans and I decided to use two pictures of my family. The photos were taken in a sunny autumn day in our trip to Salamanca, Spain. My family loves to travel together and discover beautiful cities around the world. That day we found a local Starbucks which made me really happy! I finished my page by adding some white acrylic paint splatters directly on the paper, but I protected my photos from the paint.

I really hope you enjoy it and get inspired to try this new “technique” and remember to share your work with us, especially if you make some rainbows with any season’s colour palette (#scrapbookrainbows)! It was an honor to be here sharing a little bit of my work and my life with you! Thank you for stopping by!

Valeska Guimaraes is a Brazilian living in Portugal with her family. They have lived in Panama and Peru for fifteen years and have now started a new adventure in Europe. Valeska loves scrapbooking and everything about paper crafts. She is a dentist but stopped working to spend more time with her family and ended up falling deeper into the love of scrapbooking. Valeska loves to spend hours in her craft room, making things and drinking coffee. Mini albums and layouts are definitely her favorite projects to make. You can see more of Valeska’s work on Instagram or tutorial videos on Youtube.

When you set out to make a new scrapbook page, what comes first: the photos, the story you want to tell, the products you want to use? Today guest artist Sheena walks us through a page she made by choosing the photos first and letting that dictate what she selected through her creative process. Sometimes I find it helpful to remember that the end result doesn’t need to make this obvious: if one thing leads to another on your layout and you’re happy with the end result, it’s okay if no one else clocks whether you started with the photos, the words, or the products, or something else. Paying attention to your creative process can help each of us make more wonderful things, but those who enjoy flipping through the pages of our albums might just appreciate the final project, especially if they aren’t crafty themselves. A little thought ramble for you today, but one that might ramble the right way for some of you as you work on the next project on your desk! Right, onto Sheena, with a reminder that supplies have affiliate links which make all of this series possible. Thanks! -Shimelle

Hello Summertime. This layout began with the photos I, which is not always the case for me, it could be the story or a certain paper, but these pictures of my Daughter are from our last family holiday in the winter sunshine in Morocco and I wanted to scrap them. Exploring the world is something we all enjoy, and I have lots of holiday photos from far and wide.

As I like to scrap our trips, I keep all travel type supplies together in my craft space so I can pull them out and make a start and this way the collections get mixed together and papers and embellishments get chosen more by their colour than the manufacturer. Taking my inspiration from the photos, I picked out everything in pinks, reds and greens. This layout features three different Crate Paper collections, some Pinkfresh Studio, and a Making Memories paper from 2008!

The background was easy to make using gessoed cardstock as my base. Then stamping onto it using four different Ink Oxides – Evergreen Bough, Iced Spruce, Speckled Egg and Bundled Sage using tropical leaf stamps in three sizes. The stamped images were sprayed lightly with water allowing the edges to blur creating a softer effect.

When the background was dry I added my torn papers and created the clusters, around the photos and my journaling on the tag, sticking with my colour combo and creating a diagonal line to lead your eye down the page.

Sheena Rowlands is a UK mum to grown children, part time nurse, and lifelong crafter. Scrapbooking has been her creative release for over sixteen years and for the past twelve years she has also recorded her family’s story using a Project Life format. She scrapbooks her family, travels, and furry grandpup. Her pages often feature machine and hand sewing, ink work, and clustering of embellishments. Sheena runs a small scrapbook embellishment business Sheenanigans and with two friends a retreat and workshop company Birds of a Feather . Presently Sheena designs for the Hey Little Magpie store and Just Nick Studio and have previously designed for shops, magazines and Shimelle. You can find Sheena on Facebook, Instagram, Sheenanigans.