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

In what has quickly become a week about charity and scrapbook sketches for some reason, here is the page I wanted to show you yesterday afternoon, but the powers of the internets decided we needed to wait until this morning because they didn’t want to go as fast as I hoped. Just in time for the weekend though – crafty time central!

To create this layout, I started with the same sketch set as a challenge for the contestants and anyone playing along with the UKScrappers Scrap Factor contest. It’s this sketch I shared yesterday. You can see the contestants pages from the sketch here. I know some members prefer to vote for the page that grabs them from the small image, but I really enjoy reading the commentary written by the contestants, explaining the creative choices they made in their details. So I thought I’d share my process for making this page, from the sketch to the finished scrapbook page.

Anyone is welcome to join in the Play Along with Scrap Factor challenge at any time. If you’re not already a member of UKScrappers, you can join for free. The challenges end on Sunday evenings, so you have a couple days left if you would like to participate in this round. There’s a prize each week for one paper layout, one digital page and one hybrid page. Some weeks we don’t have any hybrid entries! ‘Hybrid’ just means a mix of digital and paper scrapping, so if you print out a journaling card printable and include it on a paper page, that’s hybrid. Easy! And next week’s challenge is already posted – a layout inspired by film or television. Play Along entries for that challenge are due the following Sunday – 12th of June.

And there are two posts today because the weekend giveaway goes live this evening – and goodness, it’s a good one this week!

xlovesx

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Over at UKScrappers, the Scrap Factor contest is getting tougher each week! Every week, the contestants receive a new challenge on Monday and have to upload a layout by Friday, then the UKS members vote for their favourite and one scrapper leaves the contest each week. We’re in week seven, so you can imagine it’s getting pretty tough to choose a favourite! But there’s also the added bonus of ‘Play Along with Scrap Factor’ that anyone can join in at any time. You just make a layout to fit the challenge and upload it to the UKS gallery. Each week we have a prize for one paper, one digital and one hybrid layout! This sketch is the current challenge, which is open until this Sunday, the 5th of June. You can see the contestants’ interpretations of this sketch here – and if you’re logged in as a member, you can vote for your favourite too! So there’s a little bonus sketch for this week, I suppose!

Back in April, I taught a workshop at the True Scrap event – a weekend of convention-type classes all available online. But like conventions can be, to get all of the content was a significant price and I know many of you asked if there would be a way to take just the classes you wanted at a more affordable price. And your question has been answered! You can now purchase the classes individually, including my workshop on Creative Stash Diving. Other classes are available on a range of topics, from embellishment to organisation to photography, with instructors Jennifer McGuire, Ali Edwards, Kelli Crowe and many more. The classes are all presented as videos you watch online, so it’s like having your own scrapbooking-themed television channel, perhaps!

A little more info about my workshop: You might remember on Scrapbook Day, I started with some supplies and just kept working through them until they were pretty much finished – paper scraps, letter stickers and so on. That’s a big part of what my workshop shares – how to take a finite amount of supplies and get lots and lots of finished projects as a result, without making all your pages look the same. There are nine finished scrapbook pages (including a double page layout) and a card highlighted in the class. They all come from the same supplies and they all look very different and they don’t just focus on the most brand new of products. The ideas can be easily adapted to your own style and supplies. The pages all feature two to four photos. The class focuses mostly on the process of how to stretch your paper and supplies to lots of pages, so if you’re trying to get the most from your stash these days (be it older papers or a brand new kit) then I think you’ll find it useful.

And here are some comments from those who took my workshop as part of the True Scrap event:
“Awesome presentation at True Scrap. I watched the video half a dozen times. But, more importantly, I cut up an entire BasicGrey collection. It was a favorite but would you believe its discontinued now; tells you how long I’ve been saving it. So far I’ve made 2 dbl-page layouts and 3 single and I’m still going. Thanks for the inspiration.” -Terri T. (Terri went on to post at least 8 layouts from her stash-diving session!)

“Wow! Talk about a fresh new perspective/strategy! This was amazing! To put the whole process in words just clicked in my head! I loved tip #1! so very very true! Thank you so much!” -Mel9252

“Love this idea! I am going to do it. Maybe even tonight. It’s going to be so much fun!” -Hdubarry

“Loved the class shimelle =) got me scrapping right after watching it!” -Nora L.

Click here for more details, more classes or to sign up for Creative Stash Diving!

…and I’ll be back later today with some new scrapbooky goodness! It might just have something to do with that sketch. (ETA: The video is taking forever to upload, so I’ll have to post it in the morning!)

xlovesx

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Thank you for support yesterday. I cannot say that enough.

Thank you for backing the idea. Thank you for telling your friends. Thank you for signing up for a class. Thank you for emailing and asking how you can help. Thank you for leaving comments and sharing your experiences. Thank you for proving that girl power can be pretty darn powerful indeed.

In twenty-four hours, with your help, we raised £1200. That’s 1,968 US dollars. Or 1,363 Euros. Or 1,838 Australian dollars. And trust me, I did the adding up several times just to make sure because well, that was a much bigger number than I really expected. And after I did all that math, I just couldn’t stop smiling.

This morning we sorted all the currency conversion and account transfers and I got to call the Plan-UK office and report in with our total and make our donation. And I may have laughed a bit when asked the question ‘So are you that scrapbook girl?’ A little later when everything had officially arrived at The Girls’ Fund, I received this email I wanted to share with all of you.

A few payments came in after the 6am closing time and I went ahead and donated those, but I have now sent the payment so my big drive here is officially closed. However, if you would like to support The Girls’ Fund or any of their other projects, please have a look at the Plan-UK website where you can sponsor a child with a monthly pledge or give a one-off donation. You’ll also find details of how you can host a Girls’ Night In or sign your signature to help protect the rights of women and girls.

Thank you so much for helping me raise £1200 to give to this cause. And thank you to Plan, for using it to help girls go to school and stand up for themselves. May our little bit of girl power go a long, long way.

xlovesx

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This morning I have been processing class registrations and tallying up our numbers for our day of girl power. I will save my gushing message of thank you for later today, when I can post the exact total and show you our donation to Plan-UK, but for right now, let me just say this: it was amazing.

And for now, how about this week’s sketch? Recently there has been a discussion on Two Peas about schools of thought in printing photos. Some people only print the specific photos they are going to scrap, others print everything and plenty fall somewhere in the middle. I print a great deal of photos and will print two or three or even more similar shots if I like them all. Which seems a little silly to some, but there are two reasons it makes me happy. The first is that a library of printed photos doesn’t make me feel behind – it makes me feel inspired. I love that there is a catalogue of printed photos that show our everyday lives, and I prefer images that are printed (like the old days!) rather than just living as pixels on a hard drive. But that’s just me. The other reason is more relevant to this layout: it’s because I like being able to scrapbook the same event from a different perspective. I’ve scrapbooked this day and place before but it has been on my mind recently, and then I passed these photos in the drawer. Perfection: the chance to return to that day with additional (if similar) photos and document some thoughts from the this point on the timeline.

A side note: if you watched that BBC documentary a while back about the girl from the Isle of Wight who is big in Japan, you are allowed to giggle at the title of this layout with full appreciation that I love kawaii kitsch.

Some of the design inspiration for this page comes from that older layout, and the two will live happily together in the same album. I wanted to use the same navy and red colour scheme (but this time threw in grey and a tiny bit of aqua) and wanted to repeat the photo corners, but this time I cut them from cardstock as I don’t have the same supplies from that older layout. I used two 4×6 photos, but you can fill the photo space on this sketch with any number of pictures you would like. There’s really only one area of embellishment – just below the title. If you have that patterned paper by Studio Calico, by the way, the circles fit just perfectly inside the Martha Stewart sunburst punch. (Wait. Did I promise yesterday I would get back to the butterfly punch? Well… sunburst will have to do, I suppose.)

As always, the weekly sketch is no-stress and just for fun! If you use it, I’d love to see, so please leave a link!

Last week was one of the busiest weeks yet, going by how many of you posted and shared your pages! Here is a sampling of pages from that three photo sketch – click the corresponding link to see any page in more detail and get to know the scrapper behind the page!
Top row, L to R: one, two, three, four, five
Middle row, L to R: six, seven, eight, nine, ten
Bottom row, L to R: eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen and fifteen.

Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s sketch. Happy scrapping!

xlovesx

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I know Five Ideas posts are usually on Fridays. I also know that I usually keep the tone on this blog pretty light and I do things like sing the praises of the Martha Stewart butterfly punch on a regular basis. And because you read my blog, I assume you enjoy such lovely, light-hearted things as scrapbooking, paper butterflies and the odd sparkly rhinestone or three.

But today, I actually want to shake that up.

Because I also figure that if you’re reading my blog you’re most likely a girl. (No offence boys, but you are the vast minority of my readers, you’ll understand.) And because you’re reading this, you can read. And you have internet access. And you probably even have at least a little spare cash that you use on super fun but not really important things like the Martha Stewart butterfly punch. And all that adds up to mean you are one of the luckiest girls in the whole world.

Today, I am really hoping you’ll help me with something a little different. Can we – all these lucky girls around the world who read things on the internet and craft with photos and paper and glue – can we get together enough girl power to help some of the girls in the world who don’t get all the things we take for granted? Not even butterfly punches. Things like a basic education and a way out of poverty.

Recently I got to speak with someone who works with the charity Plan-UK, who told me a lot about their Because I am a Girl campaign. I was so impressed with everything they explained. They are passionate about helping children in the world’s poorest countries get on their feet, get educated and break the cycle of oppression. Last year they worked with over 27 million children in poverty. They inspired me to be thankful for my luck in this world and to try to use what I know – scrapbooking – to help others. So today, I bring you five ideas for scrapping with girl power… but also, a little something else.

Scrapbook your inner super girl
What? You don’t have a photo of your three-year-old self in a super girl swimming costume? And you weren’t obsessed with Wonder Woman for the vast majority of your childhood? (Two words: invisible plane!) Then perhaps you’ll need to get more creative, but I’m sure there is an inner super hero just waiting to go from the depths of your personality onto a scrapbook page. Find your finest qualities and immortalise them in writing – be proud of your strengths, even if the flying over buildings part of super hero life is still leaving you perplexed.

I don’t even need to explain that just the fact that I watched super heroes on television and played in a paddling pool in the back garden means I had a pretty charmed life compared to girls whose families can’t afford clothes, books or transportation to the nearest school.

Scrapbook the girls who know your history
These two lovelies literally were the girls next door – their family moved into the neighbouring house in the summer before I started fourth grade, and they had two girls my age. Scrapping an old photo of the three of us was so much fun and brought back so many memories. And it reminded me that I’m lucky to still be in touch with some of the girls I have known for years (thank you, Facebook).

A little perspective: we were about twelve and thirteen in this picture. We had nary a care in the world. But in some of the world’s poorest countries, up to one in seven girls are forced into marriage before their fifteenth birthday.

Scrapbook your own baby photo
I don’t think I had even seen this picture until a couple years ago when it surfaced on a DVD of family photos. I wasn’t quite sure exactly how to scrapbook a photo of something I clearly can’t remember in any way, but after a while, it seemed like a lovely page to do a bit of wondering and contrasting all those years ago to where I’ve ended up today. Whether you still live in the same town or you’ve moved thousands of miles away, I’m pretty sure there’s a story in there from baby you to today’s you!

And in case you weren’t already thinking it: I was not exactly malnourished there at my first Christmas. Unlike the estimated 925 million people in the world currently suffering just that.

Scrapbook a girls’ getaway
Have you scrapbooked your gratitude for the girls in your life from day to day? Almost all of these ladies blog, so it may come as no surprise to see us all on yet another scrapbook page but my scrapbooky friends and the times we can get away from real life to get together and scrap? I never want to take those good times for granted. All our group photos remind me that I am a lucky girl indeed.

Let’s not even start on cultures where it would never be a girl’s choice to spend time with friends or loved ones… because she isn’t afforded choices at all.

Scrapbook the reasons why you’re happy to be a girl
And of course, there’s always that trick of a numbered list. You could take this really seriously and come up with a stack of reasons why you are happy to be a girl or happy to be a girl today and I think the resulting page would be very moving. Or you can just get show tunes stuck in your head and decide to go with sillier reasons why being a girl is awesome.

But here’s the serious side:
More than seventy-five million girls in the world don’t get the chance to go to school. It’s something that broke my heart, especially in Cambodia – to see children encouraged to sell things to tourists because the immediate income was more ‘important’ than the long-term good of an education. As a teacher, it also brought a new definition to the words ‘teacher shortage’ to my understanding. When my class sizes were climbing and I had to send students out to find spare chairs, I worried about where things were headed, but I never once thought of turning a student out of my classroom. We talk about teacher shortages here, but we have teachers who are trained and qualified and do their best. There are places in the world where there just aren’t people to fill that role. What happens if no one in your village is literate? How do you end that cycle? You can’t do it without some sort of outside help.

I really want to help.

For the next twenty-four hours, I’m going to donate 100% of my class sales to Plan-UK and their efforts to help these girls. You get a class (for you or a friend or a sister or a daughter or a mother) and all of the class fee will go to these girls who need a hand. I’m going to make my own donation too, but the more of us who can get together and help, the better.

So you can help in a few ways:
…sign up for a class. If you want to gift it to someone else, just let me know via the notes or an email. I’m happy to send the class to anyone you would like! And you can sign up for any shimelle.com class – they are all over there on the right and they all include permanent access and the classes that run every year (like Learn Something New and Journal your Christmas) include membership every year at no extra cost.
…help spread the word. If you tell a friend about any post I’ve ever written, let it be this one. Email someone you think can help, tweet a link, share it on Facebook, pin a layout to Pinterest, tell your message board friends – whatever works for you. If you want to reblog any of these images, go for it – any way we can spread the word and generate a bit more girl power is a great thing in my book.
…check out Because I am a Girl and see the ways you can help, like signing a letter to your MP, pledging your own direct donation or reading about the specifics of the different things they are doing to help girls break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy.
…make your own girl power layout and share it on your blog or in a page gallery. SJ has already started us off, and if you let me know about your own blog post, I’ll link to it.

I promise I will get back to posting things that are light-hearted and I will return to my vast overuse of the Martha Stewart butterfly punch. But today, I just want to help these girls.

And it would be awesome if you do too.

xlovesx

UPDATES
Thank you to ScrapDolly, Natalie, Debbie, Sally, Jenni Bowlin Studio and The Making Spot for blogging their own girl power today. And more blog posts from Kat, PaperCraft Inspirations, Vicky, May, Lisa, Abbey, Dina, Ali, Mel, Rhonna and Danielle. And many thanks to those who have tweeted, pinned, emailed and shared links with your Facebook friends. Every bit of help is so very much appreciated! Thank you.
Look here to see the end result of our day of girl power!

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We have TWO winners for you today.
The first up is Abigail Rose, who wins the Acrylic Photo Block from Bags of Love.

AND our second winner is Be(e) who wins the butterfly goodies from Jenni Bowlin.

Congratulations! 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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_{All class content ©twopeasinabucket.com. Click here for supplies and here for this month’s message board thread.}

It’s the 30th of the month, which means a new edition of 4×6 Photo Love, a free online scrapbooking class I’m teaching all year at Two Peas in a Bucket. As it’s the fifth month of the year, we’re scrapping five 4×6 photos. This month’s design is… gasp… a double page! So something a little different than the four prompts so far. It’s not all doubles from here on out though – some of the pages later in the year pile on a surprising number of 4×6 prints on a single 12×12! But this month, I’m hoping you’ll give the double page layout a try.

The design concept this month includes four of the photos as landscape, so they can create a straight line all across the double page. Then borders go above and below the photos, and a fifth photo is added above the line. That picture can be either portrait or landscape, and it’s a great way to give a bit of special treatment to a single photo.

These two layouts follow the same principles, and it’s this second layout that I create step by step in this month’s video. Grab the beverage of your choice and have a watch! And don’t laugh too much when I start dropping things on the floor. (Live television presenters: how do you not fall to pieces on an hourly basis, I ask?!)

Click here for a printable PDF, full list of supplies and more details on the class page at Two Peas!

This month I have two special guests playing along with the class. This first page comes from May Flaum, who you might remember from her five ideas post not too long ago! May opted for embellishing the middle border, all the way across the page. Perfect for lots of little bits and bringing in plenty of colour and texture! Check out May’s page and supply list here at Two Peas and if you like her style, be sure to check out her blog and Etsy shop too.

My second guest is Melissa Stinson, often better known as the Scrappy Jedi. I love how she added her embellishment to the top left corner of the layout, so that’s a third option while still using the same basic outline for your two page layout. Click here to see Melissa’s supplies and to add her page to your Two Peas bookmarks.

Every month, there are two ways to win a prize for participating in 4×6 Photo Love! The first is at Two Peas: create your page and upload it to the gallery. Be sure to tick the box for this challenge in step four of the upload process. One participant will win a gift certificate to Two Peas to go shopping for whatever you like. But there’s a second chance to win right here: on this post, leave a comment with a link to your page (in the gallery at Two Peas or on your blog, whatever you prefer) and one of those links will win Two Peas shopping money too! The deadline for both is the 29th of June.

And it’s time to catch up with some winners while I’m on that subject! I’m happy to announce Jen, Charity and Lisa all have 4×6 Photo Love prizes coming their way!

Will you be next? Just choose five 4×6 photos to scrap and follow along with this month’s class prompt. I hope you enjoy a bit of double-page fun!

xlovesx

PS: Feel free to grab the button there on the left for your blog or to share this class with a friend – since it’s free, the more the merrier! And you’re welcome to use any supplies and any photos, so there’s no boundaries to your scrapping with this year-long project.

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In school, the biggest sewing project I had to complete was a set of pockets designed to hold a reading book, notepad and pen on the edge of a bed by tucking a long tail of the pocket beneath the mattress. A nifty idea, perhaps, but it was ironing rectangles of fabric and sewing them together, and I can’t say I’d ever sat in bed really searching for a place to keep my reading book. So when a reader emailed me recently to say her daughter wanted to learn to sew things for herself but was finding her school sewing lessons a bit less than inspiring, I totally understood. She is thirteen and just getting to grips with the sewing machine, so I thought this might be a good starting project, as turning an old t-shirt into a new skirt is super easy, and you don’t even need elastic or a zipper. All you need is the shirt, plus scissors, thread, iron and sewing machine (or needle and patience). Plus an optional second piece of fabric for the waist of the skirt, if you prefer a contrast trim. In case it’s useful for you or someone you know, I’m posting it here too!

A few Sunday reminders: There are two giveaways that close tonight: the butterfly prize pack from Jenni Bowlin and the Acrylic Photo Block from your own picture. Today is also the last day to enter to win prizes for April’s 4×6 Photo Love challenge both here and at Two Peas. And you can vote or play along with Scrap Factor over at UKScrappers. Who knew it was such a busy day in the crafty world?! And now, on to the ridiculously easy skirt!

You’ll need a t-shirt to start. I had this shirt that has been bothering me – the very first time I wore it, tiny holes started to appear in the fabric. Clearly I fell for a bargain price that wasn’t actually a bargain. But all the holes were at the very top of the shirt, so it seemed something could be done from the rest of the fabric. Make do and mend, as it were! Start by making sure the work surface is clean (which seems obvious, but I can’t be the only person in the world you might have inked or misted on the same surface where they lay out their fabric? Oh. Maybe it is just me.) and iron the shirt to make it easier to cut and sew.

Cut straight across the shirt, right under the arms, so now you have a tube with an unfinished top edge. Go try it on. The bigger the shirt, the looser the skirt will be, of course. Unless you’re sewing this for someone quite young, you’ll probably find the top edge of the skirt is way too loose for the waist, even if it fits at the hips. Make a note of roughly how much you need to take in by pulling the fabric at the sides and marking the spot that would make it fit.

Then take the skirt off, turn it inside out and sew a diagonal line on both side seams that will take it in to a good size for the waist. You don’t want to make this too tight, since you’ll need to get the skirt on and off without a zipper (we’re going to add a tie to keep it snug while it’s on). Try it on again to see if it’s a good fit. If not, rip out those stitches and sew again. When you’re happy with the fit and you’re sure these stitches are secure, go ahead and cut off the excess fabric.

Next we’ll add a sash-styled waistband. For this, you can use a piece of contrast fabric or you can use the leftover fabric from the top of the t-shirt. You need a length that will go around your waist and tie. If a measurement will help, grab some string or ribbon and find your own waist + bow measurement! You can also decide how wide to make your waistband. The fabric will be folded in half, so cut a strip that is twice as wide as what you want. If you use a different piece of fabric, you may be able to cut this all in one strip. If you use the t-shirt leftovers or scraps of fabric, you’ll just need to patch and piece it together to make the length you need.

Fold the strip in half, right side out, and iron in a crease. You can also hem the very ends if you would like.

With the skirt and the sash right side out, find the centre of the sash and the front centre of the skirt. Pin the unfinished edges together, then pin around the edge of the skirt if you like. Jersey will curl around the unfinished edge, so either pin or go slowly while you sew to uncurl those edges.

Sew all the way around with a plain running stitch on your sewing machine. You’re sewing the unfinished edges together, right sides facing – the sash is going to fold up from this seam when you’re done. Leave an inch or two unstitched at the back centre of the skirt. That will let you pull in the waist of the skirt when you tie the sash.

Trim any loose threads and iron the waistband so the join of the two fabrics are smooth. And that’s the basic skirt done! Of course, you can further customise it with patches, bling, embroidered butterflies… whatever your style may be.

And if you have extra fabric left over from the top of your shirt? You can cut that up to create fabric flowers or an alice band or something else lovely to match your new skirt from your old t-shirt.

…and I’m not sure which is better: super easy projects or projects that work for both youngsters and grown-ups!

So… what have you been making this weekend?

xlovesx

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