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

A lovely Monday to you, and a new starting point to jumpstart your scrapbooking this week! The last few days I’ve been pulled back to travel photos for some pages, so the kraft cardstock has been out on my desk again.

I’m working my way through the Pieces of Me kit at the moment. This is the second layout to come from my kit, since Glitter Girl stole her favourites last week to make this page. But I’m aiming to use everything she left me! For this starting point, I added a sheet of kraft cardstock for my background, but the papers are from the kit, including a 4.5×12 vertical strip, two small strips for that vertical border (one punched with a large scallop) and one 4.5×6.5 box. Those two sizes give you some flexibility in where the photos will go. Does your eye go to a photo on the green box? Or photos on the pink strip? Or both? So potentially you could include three 4×6 prints here, or any number of smaller images of course.

I went with two portrait 4×6 prints, then used the space at the right for my title, writing and more embellishment. Aside from the supplies, this layout has quite a few things in common with Glitter Girl’s page: two 4×6 photos, writing on a tag held in place in a paper pocket, and a triangle of accents in a contrast colour. Glitter Girl used that pop of red, but I went with aqua this time, creating a little triangle on the right side of the page between the aqua paper block, the aqua bow on the paperclip and the aqua sequins at the bottom of the page. If you like scattered embellishments but have trouble finding just the right spot for them to balance, that might be something you want to try.

I love that I could get such a varied title for this page without adding anything else to the kit. The large letter sticker sheet includes two colours in both upper and lower case, so they work as two different alpha styles here, plus the small tile letter stickers and the lettering in the stamp set. This time I stamped with Versamark ink and heat embossed with Zing powder in leaf green. (If you’re keeping track, the only things I added to the kit for this page were the kraft background cardstock, the ink and embossing powder and the coordinating leaf green Mister Huey spray.)

Last week’s starting point inspired a range of looks from one to three photos on a single page. Check out these pages and say hello to the scrappers who created them: one, two, three and four.

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Lisa Truesdell just launched her mini-workshop at Two Peas. It’s called Divide and Conquer and it’s all about scrapbooking with pockets, creating a smaller format album and making sure you actually finish that mini project you keep saying you’ll start! It’s normally $12 but this weekend I have one free place to give away to a reader.

To enter, just leave a comment on this post listing something (anything!) you would like to finish.

Entries close at midnight Sunday UK time this week, so don’t wait to enter.

Good luck!

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Congratulations to Sue SG, who wins last week’s prize provided by adorable bead company Cute Cornwall. (By the way, Cute Cornwall have added some very sweet rubber stamps to their shop and I adore their crazily cute Hello Kitty charms!)

Sue, please email me (shimelle at gmail dot com) with your address.

There’s a new giveaway every Friday night, so check back next week for another chance to win just by leaving a comment.

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I know: calling it scrapbooking sketch of the week at this point is entirely too cheeky. But I don’t know what to change the graphics to say, so for the moment let’s just say I have a really creative definition of a week. Or something.

This time around, I had a few bits and pieces left over from working with the May papercrafting kit from JBS Mercantile, including most of a printed transparency sheet. I love transparencies but don’t love just layering them all the time – sometimes I like keeping the transparent element in the album, but that takes a little thought about what can go on the back of that page, else it can end up pretty awkward as you turn the pages. So this sketch was designed with a transparency in mind, with a simple design to the rest of the page so it can be repeated on the back to keep that transparent element in the album. Of course, that works best with a pattern that works from both the front and back of the page! Stars, chevrons, lines, checks, polka dots, clouds and all sorts of geometric patterns work better for that than anything with text!

Of course, you don’t have to use a transparency to use the sketch. You could simply piece together the background layer with two pieces of cardstock or two patterned papers. Easy enough! But if you do have a transparency kicking around that needs to be put to use, consider this your challenge!

(Oh, and I may have posted things in a different order to what I expected, so that starting point is already live for you! Find it here.)

As this goes live, a few each of both the main kit and the dime store kit are still available. You can find the main kit here and the dime store kit here, and you don’t have to subscribe to order either kit.

I loved the absolute variety of page themes posted for the last sketch. Here are four favourites: one, two, three and four. Give them a look to see each page in more detail and meet the scrappers who created them!

Sketch of the Week (or whenever!) is always just for fun, and you’re invited to join in with some photos of your own. Grab any supplies you want to use, create a page and share it with us via an online page gallery or your blog. We would all love to see where this sketch takes you on your scrapbooking adventures!

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I’m sure Glitter Girl was born with all her scrapping skills fully developed, but that is definitely not the case for me. Especially when it comes to handwriting. I got in so much trouble at school for terrible handwriting. Even though it got so much better with repetition, I had such a complex about it, thinking it still looked like that third-grade scrawl that I would have to rub out and trace again, over and over. On my first few years of scrapbook pages, everything is carefully pencilled and printed. Then I gave up handwriting entirely and typed every bit of journaling for the next few years after that. It was only when I was faced with life without a printer that I started to write by hand again and since then, I’ve never gone back really. I think I’ve printed my words three times in the past seven years? Something like that. I still don’t think my writing is perfect but I have reached a point where my penmanship and I are on speaking terms and we understand each other. I’ll take that as a win.

So this week, Glitter Girl takes on a question about what to do with written mistakes. The simplest answer? Write it again and paste it over the top! Easy. Again something that would never happen to Glitter Girl, but one of my most embarrassing moments demonstrating at a craft show involved a customer looking closely at a sample page for ages, then announcing that she had counted and there were thirteen layers on paper in one spot. And I immediately knew why: I had made twelve mistakes. Sometimes less is more, but on my scrapbook pages? Usually more is more. More mistakes, more second chances, more layers, more patterns, more colour. All sounds fine to me!

Today’s video has three parts – the kit of supplies at the beginning, then the step-by-step process of the layout and then we start talking about handwriting once the layout is about two-thirds complete. (If you’re only interested in certain parts, you can of course skip to what you want to see!) If you fancy crafting with that specific kit of goodies, you can find the Pieces of Me kit listed here. Just scroll down the pages until you reach the supply list and pop it in your bucket! Glitter Girl also shares some of her top tips for handwriting on that page too. (And if you’re interested in learning more about what to write rather than just how to write the alphabet in an aesthetically pleasing fashion, you might consider True Stories, my journaling workshop that can be taken any time in a self-paced format.

This week Glitter Girl challenges you to use your own handwriting on a crafting project- no matter what happens – and share it in the Two Peas gallery. You can also leave a link in the comments here if you like.

Onward, covered in glitter, my dear scrapbookers!

The Adventures of Glitter Girl is a weekly series on Two Peas in a Bucket, and goes live every Wednesday. I’ll share each adventure here shortly after that. I hope you enjoy her quests for crafting happiness, and if you ever have a scrapbooking dilemma yourself, you can always call her to action on the message board.

PS: Glitter Girl will be looking for a few extra good topics over the next couple weeks, so don’t be afraid to ask away!

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Last month I put together a little video that I thought would make quite a few people roll their eyes. It’s just forty minutes of me scrapbooking, starting with a kit and working on pages until it’s all gone. That was eight layouts later, starting with a kit of about $40 (including two long-term items – a stamp set and a bottle of mist). I had no idea that it would strike such a chord.

First Jenn at Live.Teach.Create. started this challenge and invited her readers to create a similar kit from their own supplies, then scrap until it was gone. And this month, the Counterfeit Kit Challenge decided to make it their June project, and they invite you to join in the fun and see how many pages you can make… all by choosing things from your existing stash of scrapbooking supplies.

Now, just in case you use those supplies and fancy something a bit new, you can also purchase the original kit in my video here. Just add one of each element that you want, and presto: a kit for getting crafty! (And just a little advance notice: I’ve just picked out the supplies I’m using for a new project along these lines, so this sort of flexible kit may become a regular thing at Two Peas if enough people like the idea!)

Anyway, I just wanted to say how humbled and thankful I am that so many scrappers find the videos like this to be useful and helpful in using that stash. I love to hear scrappers say they are creating more and collecting less. (Not that there’s anything wrong with collecting if you have plenty of space to save all that pretty paper! I have days when I am definitely envious of a big space to store such prettiness!) If you found this idea useful, I hope you’ll take up one or both of those challenges and I hope your stash proves exceptionally useful!

xlovesx

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Oh I do love a good patterned paper that can be cut into pieces and used for pretty much anything. Like the dreamy days paper in the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection, which has plenty of little Polaroid-style frames, each with something different in the centre. There are also a few in the chipboard pack, but with the sheet of paper there are so many just for the sheet of a single piece of paper, so that wins my vote. So when American Crafts asked me to come up with a way to use one of their products for a series of different handmade cards, they probably expected me to pick a pack of embellishments or a 6×6 paper pad or a sticker book. Instead I chose that single sheet of paper. Whatever works, right?

Here’s my answer to three cards that would be similar in design but each unique: each one uses that not-quite-a-square rectangle as a central feature, then has a different arrangement of other papers and embellishments. I used Neapolitan for all these cards, but you could certainly use the same sketches with plenty of other collections.

For this one, the repetition of circle embellishments, plus some little heart motifs and word blocks. If you like the idea of more scattered-yet-small embellishments, you might like this post from May Flaum, by the way. She uses sequins and I’m looking forward to giving her tips a try.

Speaking of sequins! These come on the ribbon card in the Neapolitan collection. And a chipboard piece adds texture and dimension. Plus this card is a flash to create, so a great sketch to keep handy for emergency cards!

And something a bit more plain that can be easily worked to be more masculine than the other two or just less embellished for a recipient who is a bit no-nonsense! That greeting stamp is from one of the Amy Tangerine collections and works great for non-specific cards.

Any favourite cards you’ve made recently? Or do you have a patterned paper you love cutting into pieces to make all sorts of goodies? I’d love to hear!

xlovesx

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After last week’s Paperclipping Roundtable, I’ve been having all sorts of discussions about scrapbooking in random locations. The knitters get organised with this sort of thing and celebrate with worldwide Knit in Public day, but we seem to be less ready for such an event… but I promise it really isn’t all that difficult in the slightest.

With my crazy over-zealous page kitting recently, I know just reach for my most basic of tools when I head out for some away-from-home scrapping. If I want to scrap in the park, I will a) celebrate that it has finally stopped raining and b) pop my scissors, pens and adhesive roller in my handbag. If I can manage it, I’ll also take either my brown or black ink pad and applicator, since I tend to use that on pretty much everything, but it does require the added step of putting it in some sort of protective bag otherwise everything in my handbag shall be covered in ink. I’m all for organic art, but that’s a step too far.

But there are other times when I don’t have page kits ready and that’s when I take my lunch box. It’s filled with basic tools plus an assortment of things that can be useful, so I can pretty much make something with only a little bit more. Add just the journal itself for journal entries, or some card blanks and a 6×6 paper pad for making cards, or larger papers for scrapbook pages. When I used this on a regular basis, I also kept a small tote bag (really small – not something heavy, just something small and easy!) with scrap papers, and that would be plenty to work on whatever projects I had in mind. That was probably the start of my good use of scrap papers, actually. Before that I spent a lot of energy keeping them separated by colour and pattern and although I spent a great deal of time putting things away, I very rarely took the scraps back out again!

I emptied the lunchbox just as it is – untouched for several months really – and this is what was inside, starting from the top left. A journal. Mister Huey spray ink in white. Empty mini spray bottle for mixing up different colours, walnut ink, etc. Pack of mini brads. Square of sandpaper. Mini stapler. White eraser. (Moving to the second row, from the left.) Jenni Bowlin paint dabber in chewing gum pink. Selection of pen-sized tools, including nail file, craft knife, stylus, paint brush, mechanical pencil, brown and black writing pens, foam paint brush. Set of letter stamps. (Back to the left for the next row.) Post-it notes and mini to-do list notepad. Super duper silver Pritt stick (still my favourite for paper to chipboard). Two rolls of decorative tape. Mini adhesive roller (this kills me: it’s Kokuyo in star shaped dots instead of the normal little circles. I picked it up on holiday.) Glossy Accents liquid adhesive/gloss finish. Double-sided tape (on the large roll). Turquoise glitter. Black and brown embroidery floss and a sewing needle. Scissors (smaller than my usual pair). Distress Ink in vintage photo brown. Random little accent of several tiny file folders. (New row.) Bag of 7gypsies scrabble-style letter tiles. Pack of Making Memories metal frames with brads. Staz-On ink pad in black. Adhesive ribbon-finish tape from Martha Stewart. Black rick-rack. Cotton wool. Assortment of small die-cut circles and tags. A few coloured paper clips and some buttons.

That all fits into the lunchbox without any trouble! I’ve packed more in there by piling stuff into the space at the top, like a watercolour set, a roll of coloured pencils, a pack of odd playing cards… but really there is plenty here to make quite a bit!

So I promise you really can have a lot of creative freedom even while you’re on the go… but what would you pack in your lunchbox? And I think the answer of ‘lunch’ is considered cheating.

xlovesx

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Good morning! Kicking off the new week with a new scrapbook starting point, and something a little different this time – one area of the page already more embellished than the rest. This is my final layout to finish from this JBS Mercantile kit, mixed with the minibook kit. But of course you can select any supplies you fancy!

I started by trimming a half inch from two sides of the chevron patterned paper and attaching that to the middle of a sheet of kraft cardstock. Then a patterned border across the whole page, about three inches from the bottom, topped with an 8×10 portrait piece of patterned paper. Then to start this area of embellishment! Working from the bottom layer to the top, it is: a strip of patterned paper, washi tape, a vintage hotel registration card, some dark kraft cardstock, part of a border sticker with a notebook paper edge, a sticker, a journaling card, a few layers of vellum, some baker’s twine and a big sticker right on the top!

I finished this scrapbook page with two 4×6 photos – one portrait, one landscape – and a smaller area of layered embellishment with the writing at the top left. Most of the pieces included there are repetition from the starting layers – the large camera repeated with a few smaller cameras in the same style, the rest of a border sticker first used at the bottom right, and so on. So although there are plenty of layers, it’s actually pretty kind on the supplies as most things can work as a little here, a little there. And I liked that there was still enough room for a title in some smallish letter stickers.

So many lovely pages were shared from the last starting point. Here are a few favourites. Click the corresponding link to take a closer look and get to know the scrappers behind these pages: one, two, three and four.

If you use this week’s starting point to create a scrapbook page of your own, I’d love for you to share it here! (By the way, I’m always looking for a nice detail shot for the round-up!)

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