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

Click here for kits! These are limited supply and for UK mailing addresses only.

Kits are now sold out. Thank you!

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Congratulations to Claire S, who wins the Tealight Lantern from Cat’s Ceramics.

Claire, 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.

Have a great week!

xlovesx

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Now I don’t want to cause any alarm or anything, but it won’t be very long until it’s time to turn the calendar to September. The ninth month of the year. A change of season. And around here, time to learn something new.

Learn Something New Every Day is an online class I’ve been teaching every September since 2006. It focuses on just one sentence and maybe one photo per day for thirty days. Learn Something New encourages you to take each day as it comes and find at least one thing in every day that can teach you something. Something big, something small, something funny, something solemn. Some days you might learn a random fact and others might teach you something about patience, determination or reflection. Every day is a new opportunity, and we track it all through things we love: some photographs, a bit of writing and as much pretty paper as we fancy.

I would love for you to join me this September.

Now it its sixth year, this online scrapbooking class encourages you to observe the world around you and learn from your daily experiences and surroundings. We work with a small format album to make thirty daily entries, and we adopt a few short cuts and techniques to make those daily entries possible in even the busiest of weeks. And once you’ve joined, you’re welcome to participate for as many years as you like at no extra cost.

The class includes:
…preparation notes delivered next week
…thirty daily full-colour pdf prompts delivered to your inbox
…printables for paper scrapbookers and a digital kit for digi scrappers
…technique tutorials and other crafty inspiration to keep you creative
…access to a private class forum at shimelle.com to chat and share your work
…permanent file archive so you can come back to the materials at any time

Plus new additions for 2011:
…revamped prompts with a fresh perspective
…a printable mini-book you can create in no time
…two live chat sessions – one to start the class and another to celebrate the end of September
…a few little surprises along the way, of course!

Each of the daily prompts includes full colour photos of pages from a range of albums so you can see a variety in styles, from simple scrapbook pages to looks that use more layers to art journals. There are also hundreds of additional samples to view in the members’ forum, so no matter what your creative style you can always find something right up your street.

There is no set list of required supplies and everyone is encouraged to use their own stash and make the project their own. UK participants, I have put together a small number of kits and these will go on sale tomorrow (Tuesday) at 6am.

Ready to sign up? You can choose to pay in UK Pounds or US Dollars. If neither of those is your currency, you can choose whichever you prefer – you don’t need to do anything special to change the currency from your account.

Yes, that means the price has remained the same. Yes, it still includes permanent access for as many years as you would like to participate. Except this year, your class registration will also help someone else learn too. I will donate £1 for every LSNED registration between now and the 1st of September to the Plan Girls’ Fund, which supports girls in developing nations, provided education, improving living conditions and passionately working to break the cycle of poverty and gender discrimination. Past participants, if you would like to help this cause you can gift the class to a friend or make a direct donation to Plan, of course.

You can pay your class registration by credit/debit card (click on the left of the payment screen) or Paypal account (log in on the right of the payment screen). Please be sure to enter a valid email address as part of your payment so your prompts can be delivered to your inbox. If you would like to gift the class to a friend, please provide her email address. (You can email it to me if you like.)

Participated last year? You don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive a message in the next day or so with all the relevant links for you. If your email address has changed in the past year, however, you will need to update it on your forum account to ensure you receive your emails. If you can’t remember your login details, send me an email and I’ll get that all set for you.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me or ask in the comments on this post.

I look forward to Learning Something New with the class of 2011!

xlovesx

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I spent yesterday at the wedding of a lovely scrapbooking friend, Leanne and her main man, Kevin. Just wanted to share this little jump for joy and send then many, many congratulations and much happiness for their newly married life!

Enjoy your getaway and see you when you’re back!

xlovesx

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When I posted the Starting Point challenge last weekend, I had no idea just how popular it would be! I mean seriously, as I write this there are more than 130 layouts entered! Which is fabulous.

And it also means we should have a starting point challenge every week, right? On Saturdays. Saturday Starting Points. It has a ring to it.

So here’s a new Starting Point challenge for you. Above is where I started with the design for this layout:

_{©twopeasinabucket.com. Click here for supplies and details.}

If you use this starting point to create a layout of your own, share it with us by linking at the end of this post. Next week I’ll post some of my favourites with the new Starting Point page.

Now… I don’t have a prize lined up for this regular Starting Point challenge just yet – but if you click here, this layout is the weekly challenge at Two Peas. It’s a take your pick challenge – you can enter by creating a page with either paint, hidden writing or trying this grey/turquoise/yellow/black colour scheme. And there you can win a prize. So consider the starting point a little kickstart toward that challenge perhaps!

And don’t forget, there ARE still plenty of challenges with prizes open for entries! Most of them close tomorrow night (Sunday) at midnight. You can find the full list here and pick whatever you fancy!

Have a beautiful and creative weekend!

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This weekend, one commenter will win a Tealight Lantern from Cat’s Ceramics.

Cat’s Ceramics is a beautiful shop full of hand crafted items in clay, ranging from jewellery to little ceramic snails, all finished with complementing glazes.

Cat started working with clay purely by chance when an American clay sculptor asked Cat to be her apprentice. “She trained me up and taught me the techniques, and I helped in the studio with her sculptures. It was one of the luckiest of adventures, not only for the experience, but there and then I found out what I was meant to do.” You can read more about Cat and her Ceramics on her blog.

To enter, just leave a comment on this post describing to us where you would put this beautiful lantern.

Entries close at midnight Sunday UK time and the winner will be posted Monday evening, so be sure to check back to see if it’s your lucky day!

Good luck!

xlovesx

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Two things that came out loud and clear from the comments at the weekend? A bunch of you love the sketches. (Yay!) But you wish there was a way to go straight to all of them. (Oh.) Well, actually there is! All the sketches are right here, and there’s a link at the bottom of each individual sketch post to take you there, but maybe that’s not very clear… so I’ll get a button added like the 4×6 Photo Love button and that will make things easier.

And if you have two landscape 4×6 photos, that will make participating in this week’s sketch challenge easier. Plus this week there is both a video and a prize! Oh, it’s just happy crazy scrap land here, I tell you.

The printable camera I used is from a kit called Picturebox and you get thirteen printable camera images for £1.50 (about $2.45 in US dollars). Then you can print them at any size, on any paper and use them on as many pages as you like. (Digi scrappers, you can also paste them into your pages, of course.)

As part of the week of giveaways, this week’s sketch is sponsored by Little Musings and one participant will win a collection of free goodies! Please like them on Facebook here to keep up to date and thank them for supporting this week of scrapbooking fun!

To enter the challenge, create your page based on the sketch and upload it to your blog or a scrapbook page gallery. Copy the URL for your entry and paste it into the linking box below! The deadline for this challenge is the end of next Tuesday – the 23rd of August 2011 – at midnight, UK time.

Since the last sketch is still open for a prize until this Sunday night, I’ll wait to share my favourites from that and next Wednesday I’ll share both lots together for double the fun!

xlovesx

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Oooh, I do love a little hot pink. It can brighten up the greyest of days, and once someone said something that really stuck with me: ‘I think the reason I always think you look younger is because you wear hot pink’. Ladies, someone only has to say that to you once to make you a believer, right? Hot pink it is. Also, I just really like the word ‘hoopla’ because it is fun to say and I will find any reason to throw it into a conversation. Sometimes that’s the only reason you need.

Today’s bit of hoopla in hot pink includes the chance to win a prize pack of Cosmo Cricket scrapbooking supplies! And I tried to meet a challenge from SJ, who suggested I try to scrap in a 7×7 square on the 12×12 page. Find out how well I stuck to that rule! Watch the video to see this page come together.

To enter the challenge, you need to create a project somehow inspired by this scrapbook page. It can be very similar or quite different, as you could use the entire layout as inspiration or you could pick just one thing – a hot pink background, using the Upcycle collection, starting with a 7×7 square, misting the background, scrapping that one photo that doesn’t go with anything else… or anything else that caught your attention!

Create your page and upload it to your blog or a scrapbook page gallery like Two Peas or UKScrappers. Then leave a link to that page (not your main blog address) in the box below. One entry will be chosen to win a prize pack of Cosmo Cricket scrapbooking supplies! (Please follow Cosmo on Facebook or Twitter to help say thanks!) Entries close this Sunday (21st August 2011) at midnight UK time.

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