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

Today I am delighted to welcome a very special crafty friend to share a project with you: it’s Crafty Jen Schow! You might already know that I love her stamp designs but you might not know that we got to spend some excellent time together at ye old craft trade show in the before times and friends, I MISS HER. So this is my next best thing: getting to see her scrapbook. Enjoy. -Shimelle

I love layers and textures to create interest on my layouts. One of my favorite things to do is create with leftovers and off-cuts from previous projects. I love the sort of “organic” look of torn edges and punched papers sticking out of a bunch of layers.

For this layout, I went through my stash of scraps and my bin where I keep interesting off-cuts, random inked or painted pieces, and embellishments that didn’t find homes on other pages. I layered them up behind my photo letting all of the interesting bits show. In order to keep the chaos contained, I like to add tight layers and keep them right around the photo. This allows room for your eye to rest on the outer edges. The other thing I like to do is make sure to add in lots of neutrals so the colors and patterns don’t become super overwhelming – book pages are a favorite! The last thing I really pay attention to when adding layers is to make sure none of the corners or edges line up – something that I’ve learned from Shimelle!

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For texture, I’ve added stitching, roughed and curled up the edges of the papers, used embellishments with different finishes, and added in stamping, staples, and embossing. Simple things really do make a big difference, so if you feel like your next layout is missing something I encourage you to try some of these techniques!

For me, the most important part of any layout is the story. I had this funny photo of my daughter and when I saw it I thought, “She always does this pose!” It was the perfect jumping off point for a list of the things she’s always doing right now – teenagers change so quickly!

I hope you’ve gathered some ideas for adding layers and texture to your next layout or maybe documenting the things that someone close to you is always doing!

Jen Schow loves documenting her most important everyday stories using words, photos, and pretty papers. She has been scrapbooking since age 12 and has worked in the industry in some capacity for about 12 years. She is most active on Instagram these days, but you can find her popular Use It or Lose It series on Youtube.

Happy March! Please welcome Dana Tatar to the blog today, and she has made a scrapbook page with three of my collections, which has really made me smile. I hope you find it inspiring too! Remember, supplies have affiliate links and shopping through those makes the guest artist project possible, so thank you for your support! -Shimelle

I’ve created a family themed scrapbook layout using a fun mix of Shimelle products and the color wheel as my guide. My sister and her four kids came to visit me over the Thanksgiving holiday, and we had an amazing time together. I took the photo of my sister with her two daughters at a local neighborhood park where we spent time enjoying the full palette of falling leaves, something that they don’t get to see living in central Texas.

I always gravitate to specialty papers. The 12×12 Die-Cut Cardstock from the Field Trip Collection, with the rainbow of colorful punch-out segments, was the starting point for my page design. I popped out the cool tone die-cuts that matched the colors in my photo. After trimming away the white border from each die-cut and distressing the edges with scissors, I arranged the pieces of patterned paper by color onto the base patterned paper.

Once I had the bands of color secured to the page, it was time to embellish! Shimelle’s paper collections are full of color and fun designs that have a lot of texture and dimension, so I had plenty to choose from. I applied puffy and foam stickers, and small images that I cut from patterned papers, into the matching-colored sections on the page. I mixed elements from two collections to create this layout; Never Grow Up and Field Trip.

I applied teal glitter star stickers (from Shimelle’s Glitter Girl collection!) for a touch of sparkle and white chalk ink splatters for contrast before adding a small journaling sticker to finish the page.

Dana Tatar currently lives in Ohio with her husband and two teenage children. She started paper crafting about fifteen years ago and has expanded from scrapbooking since then, now creating a little of everything including cards, tags, mixed media pieces, and small gift and home décor items. Dana has an eclectic style in terms of what and how she designs. She frequently finds inspiration in music, poetry, and pop culture. When not creating art, Dana enjoys baking, reading, listening to music, and spending time outside with her family and basset hound Peach. You can find more of her work on her blog,They Call Me Tatar Salad, and her Instagram feed.

I love crafting and scrapbooking because it’s an activity that relaxes and reconnects me. Keeping memories through scrapbooking is magical and fun. What I like most is being able to mix different types of art and techniques, making that memory even more interactive and alive for my family and friends to remember the moments we spent together.

For this layout, I decided to challenge myself to do something I rarely do: mix products from different manufacturers. I selected a few collections that I thought had a similar color palette and that somehow would have elements which could support the photographed moment. I started with Shimelle’s Sparkle City and Paige Evans’ Bloom Street collections, then added a few other elements as well.

I like to choose my supplies and techniques first and let that guide my plan. I wanted to use sequins with Polaseal, which is very trendy here in Brazil. It’s a way of using laminating supplies to create windows of sparkle. I chose this patterned paper because the frames of the design let me create three kinds of windows: some filled with photographs, some filled with embellishment, and others left intact with the original travel-inspired design.

The photos I chose were from the last trip I took with my husband to a beautiful and peaceful place, in the middle of nature, so that we could rest and get out of our routine a little bit. This place is in the countryside of São Paulo, Brazil; a few hours by car from the big city.

If you enjoyed how this layout came up, my suggestion is that you find a patterned paper with frames or shapes printed on it, then carefully cut out the inside of some of the frames. Then you can fill each spot with photos, Polaseal, beads, journaling, and whatever else you find interesting… I love die cuts and mini puffy stickers too! See what special embellishments you can find that are frame-worthy to you!

Aline Martins, also known as A Scrapper, is from from Brazil, and scrapbooks full time as the owner of a scrapbooking store, teacher and designer. She holds a degree in Tourism and Pedagogy, and I found herself making scrapbooks when she was a kindergarten teacher. Aline loves the freedom of expression and the countless possibilities found in scrapbooking and art. Find more of Aline’s work on her Instagram feed.

One November day we were walking with the whole family, just like that, for no reason. We had fun, drank coffee, laughed. I took a lot of photos and decided that I must definitely keep the memories of this day!
The photos turned out to be different – dark and light, so I decided to make a mini album where the most favorite shots were included.

To begin with, I sorted by color the remnants of embellishments from different collections. Then I prepared the basics of white cardstock in the form of tags

Each of the tags was embellished in one color surrounding one photo.

The back of each tag includes the journaling along with a bit more embellishment in the matching color. When each tag was complete, I added it to a string so it’s easy to see both sides of each tag.

Next, the cover was made using thick cardboard and patterned paper, plus a few embellishments and letter stickers. It’s all held closed with a bulldog clip. I really like the result! I’d love to see what you enjoy making with tags when you’re scrapping your stories!

Alena Grinchuk lives in the beautiful city of Saint Petersburg, Russia, with her husband and two sons. She loves photography, scrapbooking, shopping, and travel. When not crafting, you can find Alena cooking and baking and cuddling up on the sofa listening to a good audiobook or watching Netflix. When it comes to scrapbooking, traditional layouts are her favorite but she also loves working in Life Crafted albums, creating mini-albums, and documenting in a Project Life style. Find more from Alena on her Instagram feed.

Happy Thursday! Today’s guest artist has made an adorable project that’s something a little different and just right for a gift, a mini book, or a journaling addition to a traditional page. Get your vellum at the ready and have a look at this project from Nelly & Clem’s Danielle Jensen. -Shimelle

(Supplies linked with affiliate links; thanks for supporting this project!)

Colour is very important to me. I’ve always been obsessed with mixing and matching my favourite shades to get cheerful results. There’s something very special about adding colour pops to a project that is mostly white too, it just really helps those bright shades to stand out if you have a neutral background, like white vellum.

I’ve recently purchased a sewing machine, so every project I touch at the moment has some sort of stitching involved – this one is no different. I couldn’t resist creating a vellum pouch using a border of white thread. I then filled that pouch with a bunch of sequins in my favourite colours – pink, yellow, blue and turquoise to create a giant transparent shaker background.

I went through all of the die cuts I own (stored by colour, of course) and dug out all the yummy bits in my top colour combo. I did the same thing with my papers and used the dies to embellish little lists, photos, and a shaker pocket. I found some polka dot tulle and created another vellum pocket on top of my pouch to hold all the little mini projects.

Although this is just a super cute pocket I created to pop on my desk and make me smile, it could easily be replicated as a little happy mail gift to fill with treats and send to someone you love.

Danielle, or Nelly to her friends lives in Sussex, England, with her husband Chris and their great big fluffball of a cat called Clem. Scrapbooking since Sept 2018, she’s obsessed with bright and cheery colours, candy stripe patterned papers, and enamel dots. By day she works at a law firm filing patents and designs to protect people’s Intellectual Property, and by night she sits in the tiny box room creating paper projects and designing and selling her own printables on her Etsy store. Find more of Danielle’s creations on her Instagram feed.

Today’s guest artist brings us a project that might inspire your next 12×12 page or might be something far smaller: this is actually a double page spread in a small notebook! Please welcome Diane Williams, and remember affiliate links are used at no extra cost to you and shopping through them makes this guest artist series possible. Thank you and enjoy! -Shimelle

There is something so therapeutic about cutting paper and glueing it down with your photos and stories. I love all the colours and patterns. I also love working at the slightly smaller scale of Traveller’s Notebooks. Because these notebook layouts literally fold down the middle, I just adore any of Shimelle’s half and half layouts. They are almost perfect inspiration to be scaled down and added to the pages of my notebook. I especially loved the colours of this layout by Shimelle and wanted to translate it into my own style. You can watch Shimelle’s tips for creating her 12×12 page on the Scrapbook.com blog.

I started with two different patterned papers from the Garden Party collection from Maggie Holmes and Crate Paper. I added the darker pink polka dot piece to the left-hand side of my spread and then the lighter and simpler blue stripe to the right-hand side. To create the anchor point to build my photo layers, I added a strip of dark teal paper, making sure to add it to one side of the fold. It’s important with these notebooks to keep the fold free of paper and embellishments so the notebook continues to function properly.

The same goes for creating the layers under my photo. I made sure to add pieces of paper and die cuts without crossing the fold. If you want something to cross both sides of the spread, you can easily cut it and add one half to each side. I tried to balance out the colours by adding little pops of chartrese as well as the pink and blue.

My story and photo is all about my weekend coffee dates with my husband, so it made total sense to use a few little puffy sticker cups around my layers. As well as a few tiny little puffy stickers, I added a gold scripted word sticker as my title. I am terrible at making up titles for my pages so this is a super easy way to add a fun title and finish up my page! This fun and colourful layout took less than 20-minutes to put together and I know I’ll be able to use Shimelle’s layout as inspiration for many, many more pages in my Traveller’s Notebooks!

Diane is a paper-loving, coffee-drinking, designer from New Zealand. She lives with her husband and two pets. Scrapbooking since age fourteen, nine years ago Diane switched to Project Life and Traveller’s Notebooks and they remain her memory keeping style. Find more of Diane’s work on her Youtube Channel, Patreon, blog or Instagram feed.

Here’s little something floral and dimensional today from our guest artist, Claire Hawkins. And a heads up that there’s a free shipping code for shopping today! You could use it for the March Best of Both Worlds kit or anything else you fancy! You can find the kit shopping list (affiliate link!) here and add code LOVESHIP22 for free US shipping or LOVE7OFF for $7 off international shipping. Both codes are good once you hit a $70 total. Okay, enough already of that stuff! Let’s get onto Claire and her project ideas! -Shimelle

Hi everyone, Claire here and I’m delighted to be participating in this exciting project with Shimelle! I’ve loved pretty paper for as long as I can remember and have always enjoyed being creative in one form or other. As I grow older, I really cherish the opportunity to scrap my favourite moments and love the escape it provides.

Growing up near big cities, I was never an outdoorsy girl, but since moving to the countryside a few years ago, one of my favourite things to do is walk in the forest. My layout captures one of these walks and the silly photos we take along the way. Paige Evans’ Bungalow Lane collection was perfect for this project – I’m always drawn to the smaller patterns (usually found on the b sides). They provide a great splash of colour without being overpowering which gives so much flexibility when creating. The beautiful patterns and colours in this collection really remind me of my local woods.

I started with plain white cardstock and added a brushed Distress Oxide background with leaf stencilling on top.

To that, I added two semi-circles of patterned papers, a large detail cut tag and a long banner to act as an anchor for my page. I distressed the edges and stitched around each piece to add interest and texture. Next, I rolled some paper to imitate twigs and positioned these at the bottom of my papers, almost acting as a shelf for my photo to sit on.

Alongside my photo, I created a mini envelope using a template from Cricut to hold some extra journaling. Once all these pieces were in place, I embellished with floral clusters and leaves, to which I have added a few coordinating Nuvo Drops for texture and shine.

As a final touch, I used large but subtle white letters for my title and added a patterned paper border with stitched edges to frame the page.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this layout. The techniques I’ve used here like the rolled paper and combining basic shapes like circles, tags, and banners are so versatile they can be applied to any layout theme or design. I hope it has inspired you to get creative!

Based in the UK, Claire fell in love with papercrafts over 15 years ago. Originally drawn to card making, once she discovered the world of scrapbooking, she never looked back. Her layouts often capture her travels, as well as everyday moments with her family. Today, she lives on the South Coast and enjoys exploring the forests and beaches on her doorstep. When not creating, she loves to travel and explore new cultures. You can see more of Claire Hawkins work on her Instagram feed.

You know by now that I love a bit of MOAR when it comes to page design, and I adore how today’s guest artist has chosen one shape and then embellished more and more with that idea! You could make a version of this with hearts for Valentine’s Day, with apples for back to school, and on and on it goes. Please welcome today’s guest artist, SaraScraps! A little reminder that supplies are affiliated linked to make this series possible. Thanks as always for your support! -Shimelle

Hello Everyone! Sara with you today! I have a fun project to share featuring my favourite crafting tool- stamping! I love to create my own stamped backgrounds so I thought today I would share some of my go to tips for creating a fun, inky background.

I started my background by printing (Yep, this layout is hybrid!) one of the patterns from Shimelle’s first collection’s digital kit. I matched two shades of Catherine Pooler ink to my background, pulled out two star stamps from my significant stamp collection and got to stamping.

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My Memory MISTI is a workhorse in my craft room so I started by stamping a star border across the top of my page. I loved the idea of creating a background that looked as though the stars were “falling” down my page. To give my solid star stamps some unique coloring, I use a very simple technique. I stamped the image with my lighter shade of ink and then took the darker shade and just swiped the stamp pad around the edges. around the edges. Stamp and done. Just a little texture on an otherwise flat stamp!

Journaling, title, and lots of small sparkly details, and this layout is done! I added lots of different textures using Shimelle’s foil and sparkle Thickers and glitter enamel dots. Those little additions pack a punch on my layout so I kept the colors to shades of blue so your eye isn’t overwhelmed. This is also why I kept things to a few simple shapes . I like my layouts to be interesting but not too busy.

Next time you are in your craft room, how about trying a stamping background? Pick a shape, add some texture, and have a fun time getting inky! If you give this a try, I’d love to see!

Sara is in her early 40s. Married to her best friend for over 20 years. Mother to 2 boys and 2 furbabies. She is an autism mom, home-schooling mom, and is also a lupus warrior. When not papercrafting, she loves to curl up with a glass of wine and get lost in a good book. Sara has a Youtube Channel and is on Instagram and Facebook.