Time to crack open this February edition of goodies and get to some scrapbooking – and also a big thumbs down to flu bugs right now, yes? Anyway, moving on.
This starting point is one of my favourite ways to use a subtly patterned background that I still want to be easily visible. Plus I love baby blue (or turquoise) with red. Such a lovely combination – just a twist on classic red, white, and blue. (In fact, I love it so much I’ve written about it already as a scrapbooking colour story.) For this starting point, you just need that background pattern in the full page size, plus three more pieces: one 4×11 inch rectangle (I added some plain white cardstock from my scraps here), one 5×5 square (the red chevron pattern), and one 1×11.5 inch strip (the black and white arrow print).
This design leaves plenty of pattern on show and has a variety of places to start adding your page elements, so it could feature one square picture on the red box, for example, or a landscape photo to the right, or a row of small prints across the top of the page. I chose three photos for my page.
These were originally 4×6 landscape images, but I cropped them to 3.5 square to focus a bit more on what changes in each picture, so they read as the process. In theory, anyway! I like how there is a bit of extra title work here – that the Thickers, the accent card, and the red stickers down the side all contribute to the general idea of the page, but then that ‘remember this’ sticker at the top left leads into the angle for the writing. I wanted to focus on how this is our routine every morning and has been for a few years, but write it in a way that if years from now this ritual has fallen by the wayside for something quicker or simpler, that at least there is evidence of how much this was a part of our day for many years. (I suppose that is a bit of breaking the fourth wall in scrapbooking – when your journaling admits it is in a scrapbook!)
If you fancy a rather ridiculous look at how this page came together, I snapped it with Vine throughout, which you can see here. Vine is a bit like a video version of Instagram, in that it’s a social media app that lets you use your phone to share images, except rather than still pictures, it’s six seconds of video that plays in a loop. You can’t edit it in another app or anything – it’s just six seconds to fill and then you get what you get. Suffice to say, six seconds makes a layout really fast!
How would you finish a page with this starting point? Give it a try and share your results! You’re welcome to use any supplies – you don’t have to use the Best of Both Worlds kit to join in the fun, but of course you can if you would like!
Today, please welcome scrapbooker Wendy McKee to the blog. I’ve always admired Wendy’s ability to build many layers and details into such clean designs. Today she shares her tips for creating that look on a budget. Enjoy!
I am a pattern paper addict. When a line comes out, I head there first. And I tend to buy the whole line. Unfortunately that never leaves much money for the matching embellishments! So after a while of paying for more than I should, I gave up buying all the matching embellishments, the matching stickers, chipboard, and rub-ons. I started to make things myself.
On this page to show you today, I used two of my favourite things that I now buy that fit two simple guidelines:
1. The items are not expensive
2. I can use the embellishments on so many different pages, over and over again.
For this project, I used some really cheap glassine bags that I bought from Ebay for £2.00. There were about fifty in the pack and they are perfect for adding product to to dress it up. You can use it to store extra photos, journaling or add something inside to dress it up.
First off, start with the bag as your guide to sizing up some paper.
Cut out a rectangle of pattern paper and cut the tops off to resemble a tag. Some companies are now doing tags on a sheet of paper, that is another really cheap embellishment if you make it your own.
Once I did that, I slotted the paper into the glassine bag. I then added some really cheap gold stars which I bought from a local craft store for 50p.
To jazz up the outside, I added some matching washi tape to decorate the bottom.
This is really easy to do and as I said before you can add lots of different things into them or dress them up with pattern paper.
The next supply that I buy is washi tape. If you look around, you can find some amazing colours and patterns. Washi tape is used on my page in lots of places. One of the ways I used it was to make the banner on the top of the page.
I then picked out which tapes I wanted to use.
Cut off strips about 9 to 10 cm in length. I placed the strips of Washi tape underneath the thread so the thread was in the middle and pressed down the tape.
To make it stronger, double over some white thread and tie it together at the ends.
After I had added as many sections as I wanted, I started to cut it down to look like a banner. Be careful doing this as the first time I did it I cut the thread. Start your cut at the top near the thread, then you can line up your scissors away from the thread. I then cut it all into triangles.
These are quick and easy to do and are so versatile, that you can make your own pattern or colour palette!
Here are a few ideas of cheaper embellishments that you can buy that can be dressed up:
Vellum: You can buy multi packs of different colors from Ebay.
Wooden Pegs: These can be painted, add glitter, pattern paper or rub-ons to add detail.
Brown envelopes: These are really cheap and the little ones are perfect for your pages. Add detail with stamps, pattern paper or rub-ons.
Buttons: Go to the local haberdashery shop! you can find some amazing original, ‘one off’ buttons you wouldn’t normally find!
What are your favourite supplies to dress things up without breaking the bank?
Wendy McKee is a UK scrapbooker and crafter. She has designed for Papermaze scrapbooking shop and several manufacturers. You can find Wendy on her blog or via Facebook.
Layering has always been something that has caught my eye. In scrapbooking, in clothes, and in home decor! There is just something that layering brings to the table—texture, variety, and depth. Today I’m going to show you five different ways to layer on your scrapbook pages and cards. I think you will find some fun, simple ways to add layering to your next project! Vellum over Patterned Paper
So I haven’t used vellum in a really long time. I have a huge stash of it sitting in my closet from when I first started scrapbooking forever ago! Now it seems vellum is making a comeback! It’s easy when you have a beautiful patterned paper—you can use a smaller piece of vellum and adhere it to the patterned paper for a softer muted look. You can die cut the vellum and create really soft, neutral titles and backgrounds. Don’t be afraid to layer vellum on top of vellum. Each layer you add makes it a more solid white. You could add vellum lettering over a vellum background.
Vellum over Patterned Paper
So I haven’t used vellum in a really long time. I have a huge stash of it sitting in my closet from when I first started scrapbooking forever ago! Now it seems vellum is making a comeback! It’s easy when you have a beautiful patterned paper—you can use a smaller piece of vellum and adhere it to the patterned paper for a softer muted look. You can die cut the vellum and create really soft, neutral titles and backgrounds. Don’t be afraid to layer vellum on top of vellum. Each layer you add makes it a more solid white. You could add vellum lettering over a vellum background.
Layering Pictures
Yes, you can even layer your pictures! I LOVE layering my photos. Especially smaller ones over the top of larger ones. You don’t have to do a collage to do this—I simply used two photos. Not too busy—just enough layering to give the photos some pop!
I always give my smaller photos that overlap the larger photo some dimension with some foam adhesive. You could do a group of smaller photos layered on top of each other using different dimensions.
Embellishments
We all have a TON of embellishments sitting around our scrap areas! Old ones and new ones—they are SO fun to layer. I like things nice and chunky—like this tag I made. I used a bunch of products from years ago. Never throw things out! Layer frames on top of journaling tags, and ribbon on top of stickers, chipboard on top of paper. You can just keep adding and adding until you think it looks perfect!
I always use hot glue when I’m adding so many embellishments on top of each other. The adhesive on chipboard and stickers will sometimes fail if they are layered to much!
Titles
Oh, this one is fun! Layering titles is so easy and really creates a page that can catch the eye! Die cuts make it super simple and you can create whatever you want to say. I’ve also used stickers of different thickness to do the same thing—flat stickers in the background and Thickers in the foreground. It creates a very similar look.
Stamps
I have a ton of stamps. There are so many things you can do with them… and YES you can layer them! Just start out with your lightest color first and work your way to the darkest. For this card I started with the white ink on the kraft cardstock. Then I stamped the flowers in red and finally the sentiment in black. I added the jute and button for a little dimension.
There are so many possibilities when you layer stamps! There are about a million different designs you can come up with using the same stamp combination!
This has been so fun for me! Thanks for letting me come share on your blog Shimelle! I hope all of you have gotten a little inspiration today and some new ideas!
Kandis Smith lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho with her hubby Brandon and three crazy boys: Logan, Landen, and Cooper. She first started scrapbooking when she was in high school and has been hooked ever since. If you were to spend a day in her life you would be listening to Dave Barnes and Allen Stone, drinking Hot Cocoa, playing a little Dance Central on the Kinect with the boys, wearing yellow rain boots, snacking on sour gummy worms, and snapping pictures the whole way! Check out what she’s up to over at My Creative Treasury.
Today I am delighted to welcome the ever-talented and ever-gracious Jen Gallacher to share a tutorial with one of her favourite scrapbooking techniques. Jen always inspires me, through both her work and her beautiful personality, and I hope she has the same effect on you. -Shimelle
Right now the art of layering is super hot. I especially love it when designers layer patterned paper behind a die cut shape or a “window” in a sheet of paper. I wanted to give this technique a little twist. Inspired by a sheet of perforated paper from Jenni Bowlin Designs, I knew that I could remove a few of the rectangles to create a “peek-a-boo” effect. Today I’d love to share with you how I achieved this look.
Step 1: Gather Supplies
Determine what patterned paper you’d like to peek through from the back of the Jenni Bowlin paper. I suggest using 6×6 paper pads as the prints are typically a smaller scale than a full sheet of 12×12 paper. You will also need a kraft knife and a cutting mat to protect your work surface.
Step 2: Cut Out the Paper Rectangles
Place the patterned paper on the cutting mat. Using the craft knife, carefully cut around the perforated edge of the kraft patterned paper.
Step 3: Determine Paper
Place the patterned paper you’ve selected behind the open windows to determine placement of the paper.
Step 4: Trace a Rectangle
Use a pencil to trace a slightly larger rectangle onto the patterned paper. 1/8” to 1/4” wider than the window will suffice.
Step 5: Tape Down Patterned Paper
Using decorative tape, adhere each rectangle from the patterned papers onto the back side of the kraft patterned paper.
Step 6: Check the Paper Placement
Turn over the kraft sheet of paper to ensure the placement of the patterned paper is to your liking. Adjust as needed.
You can use this same technique for die cut backgrounds. You can fussy cut any shape printed on paper and then layer a second paper behind. As you’re adding layers to your layouts, don’t neglect the opportunity to layer beneath as well.
Jennifer Gallacher has been a part of the paper crafting industry since late 1997. Over the past 16 years, she has served as a Design Team member for several manufacturers. In addition to working with manufacturing design teams, Jennifer served as the Contributing Editor for Scrapbook Trends Magazine, the Creative Editor for the Create Idea Book series, followed by the Assistant Editor for both Cricut Magazine and the Cricut Idea Books. Currently Jennifer serves as a Garden Girl for Two Peas In a Bucket and the Marketing Coordinator and Managing Editor for Echo Park Paper Co.. Jennifer enjoys photography, stamping; and of course, scrapbooking. As the mother of three children, she finds she has a lot to keep her busy and many memories to share. When she isn’t busy designing, writing, teaching, or editing she’s hanging out with her family because making memories is even sweeter than documenting them! You can find Jennifer’s work on her blog In-site-full or through her gallery at Two Peas In a Bucket here.
I’m delighted to welcome Cindy Stevens to shimelle.com today, to share five ideas with a supply for which I have much, much appreciation! I hope you find her ideas inspiring, perhaps for a Valentine project this month!
An ongoing trend that I have fully embraced is the paper doily. Not only is it affordable and readily available at most big box and bargain stores, it is a pretty little embellishment that really adds a bit of something extra to a paper project. In this economy, I like finding little gems like this as it allows me to add to my scrappy stash and spend my money where I think it really counts: paper!
Cover a background
For this first scrapbook page, I started with a neutral card stock baseand added doilies in different sizes (trimmed to flow off the page) and made the doilies my main focus. I then added little embellishments from the American Crafts Dear Lizzy line in soft shades to finish off my layout. The texture the design of the doilies gives my little project a little extra something.
Make a fancy paper mat
This layout is a bit different. I chose a vibrant paper pattern (BasicGrey), mixed with smaller scale polka dot papers & (My Mind’s Eye) black and white striped elements (American Crafts). I used a white, rectangular paper doily as my background element (inking, sponging or misting is a great way to change the colour on paper doilies as well). This allows the bright patterns to really shine without making my LO look too fussy, frilly or feminine.
Anchor your design elements
On this happy card, I used the doily as a way to anchor my sentiment & embellishments. Anchoring draws your eye to the focal point.
Dress up a banner
These last two projects, I am thrilled to say, finally put a slight dent in my paper doily stash. If you look closely, you will notice that most of the banner pieces use two or three individual doilies. This project came together in about two hours since I didn’t have anything to cut and very little to glue. I used staples to keep everything in place and foam adhesive to adhere the strategically placed letters.
I sewed the bow embellishments to the ribbon.
Make a stunning paper wreath
This paper doily wreath was probably the fastest and easiest project. I started with a 3” MDF ring piece. I then used double sided super-adhesive tape (American Crafts) and placed the folded doilies around the outer circumference of my form. I then layered a second, smaller row on top of the first row. Using Glossy Accents, I added two rows of plain, wooden buttons (in two sizes) around the inside circumference of my wreath (see image for placement). I finished it off with a polka dot bow and a third row of folded doilies on the underside of my wreath to add fullness. Florist wire (doubled) & adhered with the sticky tape, finished my project.
These projects were a lot of fun. Keep paper doilies on hand for a quick, easy and affordable project.
If you don’t have a stack of paper doilies in your crafting stash, you might check the cake decorating section of your local craft store. As their more traditional use is to dress up a party table, you can often find them in affordable packs and in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours.
Cindy Stevens lives on the East coast of Canada and keepsher days full by volunteering at the local school, working on her family’s business, catching up with friends on the playground, and crafting, of course. Find more of Cindy’s work on her blog, CinCin’s Happiness.
All told, my January kit (with the help of one extra sheet of cardstock, one of patterned paper, a few paper scraps and some enamel dots) made six single-page scrapbook pages and one card. And just in time, I am ready to roll onto February with new product picks for the month. (And I have a little video to show you both things – all those finished pages from January plus a look at the February kit!)
February and March present something rather interesting: in late January and early February, prices on current scrapbooking products are slashed to make room for all the brand new products that start to hit the shelves over the next few weeks. So this month, we can get quite a bit for our money! Next month will have fewer items but they will be brand new releases. I like that balance – hope you find it useful too!
Click here to shop the February edition of Best of Both Worlds!
(Also, the original cut-apart sheet has now sold out, so I added the second design to the list while it is still in stock. You can see all remaining designs from that line here in case something is to your liking!)
If you’re new to the Best of Both Worlds idea (and don’t worry – this is only the second month I’ve done this!), the basic premise is that you can pick up the whole kit just like I’m using by going here and adding one of each to your order. But Best of Both Worlds gives you the freedom to customise so you get exactly what works for you. If you don’t stamp, remove the stamps and save that price. If you already have some of the items in your stash, don’t buy them again and wind up with duplicates. Or if there is something you really love, add more. I don’t use much cardstock on my layouts, so I don’t include it in the list, but if you want cardstock you can either add it (find it here) or you can replace some of the patterned papers with solid cardstock so you’re not adding to the overall price. There’s no subscription and no obligation. But if you would like something simple to assemble a nice box of goodies for you and you like the sort of things I tend to use, then there you go. All nice and easy.
A few questions that came up last time around… International shipping
I totally understand that the shipping may not work out to make these the best prices for you in the world. But it might not be as bad as you think. Two Peas is working on improvements in their international shipping system, which often over quotes the price. If you open a service ticket on their site (there’s a link at the bottom of the screen), they will credit the difference if you report it within thirty days. (The thirty days is important!) I know that’s not perfect (and they know too, and are working to improve it), but if you didn’t ever think about the difference in the quote and what was on the box, that is important information so I’m sharing it with you. I do it on my orders too. If you have a local source that makes the shopping better for you, then fair enough! You can replicate the items as best as possible with your own source if that’s a much better option for you. (Several people asked why I didn’t set this up with insert name here shop. I like craft shops everywhere, I absolutely promise. Two Peas goes out of their way to work with me, and they support my crazy ideas. So for me, it’s a good match.)
What if things sell out?
As of the turn of midnight on the first of February, there is good stock on all the chosen items. But that doesn’t mean they will all sit around forever, of course. You can take a look at what is and isn’t in stock from the January kit here to get an idea. Some of those items went out of stock earlier in the month and were reordered because many people clicked the ‘request and notify me’ button so they are now back in stock. If you come to this post later in the month and some of the items you want are no longer available, never underestimate the power of that ‘request and notify’ button.
How do I get free shipping at Two Peas?
You need to subscribe to their free email newsletter (you’ll find that in your account settings). Every month they have a code you can add to your order. If you spend more than $50 on physical, non-close-out items, you qualify for free US shipping OR $5 off your shipping to anywhere else in the world. The kit alone would not qualify you for that, but if you had other things to add to your order, then you’re not ridiculously far from the $50 either, and it might work out better for you to spend a little more on product rather than spend the same amount on shipping. Remember you can always see your shipping cost by going part way through the checkout process – you can see the shipping cost before you pay, so you can back up and make changes if needed.
What’s the deal with the Two Peas customer loyalty programme?
It changed over the past month. They had the same loyalty programme since it started, more than a dozen years ago. This industry has changed so much and I can tell you flat out the profit margins a dozen years ago were far, far higher than they are now. Plus inflation meant the amounts for the levels of discounts were not a fair comparison. I mean… think about what you spent for a cup of coffee twelve years ago versus what you pay today and you’ll know prices are not the same. Patterned paper is the same thing: when I started buying 12×12 scrapbooking paper by the sheet, the retail price was lower than the wholesale price in 2013. That’s extreme. To offer such a high discount at such a low threshold in a market with such little profit margin left must have been dangerous to the bottom line. (Please understand that statement is complete speculation from my knowledge of the industry and a bit of simple maths – I do not have any information about the financial side of Two Peas specifically.) They have revamped their loyalty programme and yes, it means that many people (myself included) had their percentage discount diminished. That is sad all around, but I would be sadder if Two Peas didn’t exist! The difference per order from my old percentage discount to my new discount is less than five bucks. And having just been to California, I paid more than that for a cup of coffee. So I’m trying to use that information to put it into perspective for myself. Short answer, yes, you will likely find your loyalty discount is not as great as it once was. However, there are also opportunities now to get loyalty points by chatting on the scrapping boards and uploading projects the gallery, which didn’t exist before. And there will be special opportunities to earn bonus points throughout the year in all sorts of different ways. I love that the end result will be value added to the scrapbooking community at Two Peas. But yes, there have been changes, no, I don’t have any say in them, and above all I really hope it means Two Peas can continue to offer such a great variety of scrapbooking products all in one place. Also: since late November, Two Peas has offered better sales than they ever have before. Loving that.
*What’s the shipping turnaround right now?
I ordered yesterday. It shipped today. I would say things are pretty in the zone in their warehouse right now!
How long does it take an order to arrive from the US to the UK
Once it has shipped, my orders tend to be at my door in 10 to 14 days. If you order a lot, it may need to go through customs, which adds charges and time, yes.
Can I post the kit contents earlier?
No, it will always be the first of the month, and then I’ll use that kit throughout the month. The videos and blog posts don’t expire, I promise, and you can use them at any time. Because you are not subscribing, I need to have one day when I check all the inventory and make sure everything I will be using is in good stock, so it wouldn’t matter what day of the month that was, the same conundrum would exist. The first of the month to share the product picks and then that month to share the projects keeps my brain from imploding.
I think that’s all! I look forward to sharing projects from this kit with you throughout February!
Pretty much every winter for several years, I’ve headed to Anaheim, California, for a week. Except I’ve occupied pretty much every moment of the day with work, and barely had time to breathe and sleep. Every year I would try to find some time to steal away to meet with two localish friends, and we would catch a quick cupcake or lunch, and they would ask if I wanted to go to Disney. You know – that reason why most people visit Anaheim, California! And I would say maybe next year and then forget about it all over again.
Except this year, I remembered. I could only do a little more than five hours, but to Disneyland we went, where we ate pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse and spun the teacups and sang It’s a Small World and drove through London on Mr Toad’s Wild Ride and even played some sort of alien laser tag with characters from Toy Story. Don’t ask me which characters: I have never seen Toy Story. None of the Toy Stories. I know, it’s weird. I just… like my animation hand-drawn. (No, I haven’t seen Shrek either. I’ve seen Finding Nemo and I was sorely disappointed. But oddly, I quite like Monsters, Inc. Anyway, I digress.)
I’ve been saving that piece of BasicGrey paper with the lovely watercoloured-fabric texture. Saving it to use as a lush background for something with lots of layers. Except I didn’t have a lot left to layer, so to finish this last page from the January Best of Both Worlds kit, I headed to my scrap basket and ended up including some paper in the one-to-two-years-old category along with some positively-ancient-KI-Memories paper in a colour that makes me swoon.
I don’t tend to use a sketch with the very last remains of a kit – I tend to just move the scraps around until an idea emerges! If you’re looking for more ideas for what to do with those last scraps at the end of a kit, the end of this video might be useful too. I’ll see if I’m able to share a last look for most of the kits – though sometimes it may just happen that the pieces fit perfectly into the sketches and starting points… we’ll see!
If you watched the last Sketch to Scrapbook Page video, you might remember the two hot pink 4×6 cards I considered throwing into the mix before deciding the colour was just too much. In the end, I put both of them together with a black cardstock card blank and made a simple card with the stamp set and two heart punches. There’s quite a bit going on on the front of this card and I’m not completely convinced that I love the chaos of it, but I do really like all the different word and arrow stamps together in the text bubble. I think I’ll try that on a page soon too, because it could make quite a clever embellishment on the right sort of page. Show of hands: should this be my Valentine card to The Boy or should I try again? Ha! I am definitely a scrapbooker first, but still like to make a card now and then.
So here is what remains of my January kit, six pages and one card later: the stamps and tape that I’ll continue to use for quite some time, three alphabet sets that can each do a bit more (some more than others – the navy is particularly spent of some key letters), and some too-small-to-save paper scraps that have now gone in the recycling bin.
Just a few years ago, square photos were only for special occasions in scrapbooking terms – it was so rare to see them on a page or a sketch. Since the dimensions of phone screens changed our design norms and brought apps like Hipstamatic and Instagram to the world of the scrapbooker, square is definitely on the map. So this week, how about a scrapbooking sketch that can work with square or 4×6 photos?
I printed my photos at home this time around, and my computer will default to printing a 3×3 inch image on its own sheet of 4×6 photo paper, but if I change the size to 2.8 inches square, it will print two up without any extra fuss. So I used three 2.8 inch square pictures, but I promise there was no real design reason behind such a specific measurement. If you want to print square images from your phone through an online printer, you can certainly do that too. I normally use this process, which I originally posted with my Hipstamatic notes, but Instagram and anything else with a photo cropped to a square works just the same. (If you don’t tend to scrapbook square images, don’t dismiss this sketch: today’s guest artist didn’t go for squares and it still worked!)
This is yet another project from the January kit, and it’s starting to get a bit depleted now but I think there are two or three projects to come before it’s totally done and dusted.
I took quite a few photos of the wildflowers at the Olympic park this past summer, as did pretty much everyone else there it seemed. There were always people posing in the flowers or brave souls zooming in on the visiting bees. In addition to these small photos, I think I will order my most favourite shot as a 12×12 print and place it on the facing page for my album. Not completely committed to that idea, but it’s something I keep considering. I definitely want a large photo of the flowers in there somewhere, so either the full page option or something more like the sketch from earlier this month with the large photo across two-thirds of the page.
Today’s sketch guest is Megan Klauer, who always amazes me with her eye for detail. I really wondered what she would do with a sketch that was quite minimal – and she did not disappoint!
Sketches are often the perfect boost my creative juices need to start flowing. Although I typically use them pretty loosely, they are always the base of my design. When I see a sketch, oddly enough I usually make another sketch from it, putting the sketch into my own words, so to speak. From there, I gather the photos, papers, and embellishments. With this particular sketch I used two vertical photos as opposed to three square images. The vertical tabbed portion became the center stage of my design where I later layered & embellished to my hearts content. I stayed true to the sketch in terms of the title work, but added my journaling above instead of beneath it.
Megan Klauer is a momma of three and wife to her high school sweetheart. She currently designs for Crate Paper, Bella Blvd, Elle’s Studio, Jenni Bowlin, & A Flair for Buttons Etsy shop. In her spare time she does on location photography & works full time as an office secretary.
And now it’s your turn! Create a page in your style with this sketch, post it online, and share it with us. You can upload to your blog or to a scrapbooking gallery like Two Peas or UKScrappers, then just follow the steps to link to your project wherever it can be found online!
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