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

This weekend’s winner is Kerry who wins herself the beautiful Pendant from Dottery Pottery.
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

A few weeks ago I came across an image that made me want to scrapbook. It wasn’t a picture of a scrapbook page, it wasn’t the image itself that I wanted to scrapbook – it was this image from Pink Suede Shoe with its explosion of colour and pattern that made me wonder why I was sat at my computer when I could be cutting and pasting plenty of pretty paper onto a scrapbook page. And so I did what any scrapbooker would do… I pinned it on Pinterest.

I say that in jest, of course, but seriously: Pinterest is fabulous, right? If you’ve joined, I’m here, by the way. If you haven’t joined, think about it! It’s a bookmarking system for images you find on the internet – and those have existed in several forms for a while now. But Pinterest takes that idea and does it very well: first, by letting you create categories for your images so you can go back and find the things you bookmarked so easily, and second, by maintaining the links back to the posts where you first found the image. No more not remembering where you saw something – the image links back to the original source. I use it primarily for bookmarking things I want to try or otherwise want to return to, which makes it quite time-efficient, as it saves me the time I normally waste trying to remember something from six months ago (or let’s be honest: I probably don’t remember even if it was yesterday). There’s also the second side of Pinterest, and that’s following what your friends and other Pinterest members are adding to their boards. That part really does offer up a host of amazingly inspiring pictures and projects on all sorts of topics… but it can also become anything but time-efficient, because there is a near-infinite amount of material you can view. I try my best to save that for little ten minute sessions so I don’t lose myself to the world of pretty things on the internet!

On Pinterest, I do have a scrapbooking category for layouts I see and want to reference later, but it’s the other categories that I really like to use for scrapping inspiration – taking some small element of something and letting it translate to paper and photos. That’s exactly how that image inspired this layout. All those little flags gathered up there in the corner behind the photo – it’s something I’ve already found myself using on additional layouts. And it’s not the only pin that has been making the translation to paper. This image makes me want to try something oversized and in an unexpected colour on a scrapbook page. This makes me want to try something with extra-bold typography and spring colours… possibly with our printing press, which is sitting sadly neglected lately. This photo makes me want to plan a layout in advance and hold the title in the picture. Just a little insight into how outside inspiration works for me.

This week, I want to know how it works for you. I’m hosting a challenge at Two Peas that ends this Thursday. Take inspiration from something outside the scrapbooking world – absolutely anything you like. Use that inspiration to make a paper or digital scrapbook page, a card, a tag or anything crafty. Upload it to the gallery at Two Peas and be sure to select the weekly challenge box in step four of the upload process so you’ll be entered for a Two Peas prize.

And here I would love to hear about how your inspiration process works! Do you prefer taking ideas directly from finished scrapbook pages? Do you like something that gives you a starting point, like a colour combination or a sketch? Do you like taking bits of pieces from non-papercraft things and turning them into a scrapbook design element? Or do you really not even think about all this and just enjoy gluing pieces of paper to other pieces of paper in an aesthetically pleasing manner?

Have a beautiful – and inspirational – week!

xlovesx

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Have you checked out the latest edition of 4×6 Photo Love? In the fourth prompt of the year, we’re scrapping with four 4×6 photos. It’s a design concept that features just three photos at first glance, but the title is actually a card that opens like a door to reveal journaling and an addition photo. This month’s video shows how the page comes together with either portrait or landscape photos and how to customise your page protector to make this page work in your album. Have a look:

I love simple interactive pages like this that allow you to add just a little something unexpected to your layouts – it makes your albums a bit like a pop-up book when you turn the pages.

The first example uses four portrait photos and the journaling tells the story of how Laura was the logical choice for the Cheshire Cat, as I have never known someone to contort their smile into so many silly faces! She will probably kill me for scrapping that, but I figure if she’s going to make those faces for the camera, then she knows they will end up in my scrapbook, right? The pink, turquoise and yellow paper range here is Upcycle by Cosmo Cricket.

And this is the page I walk you through in the video. This page uses a mix of supplies, including October Afternoon, Cosmo Cricket, Jenni Bowlin Studio, Echo Park and Bazzil’s dotted cardstock. I love the baker’s twine for adding a little something to borders on a page. It’s available in so many colours now.

The creative Karen Moss is my special guest this month, and she used this month’s design concept to create both a paper page that follows the steps in the video but also a genius digital page that layers two printed copies of the same digital page (with just one change – swapping the title for the photo) to create a page that is both digital and interactive. I so happy to share her work and I hope you will add her ideas to your bookmarks.

So now it’s your turn! Throughout this month, I challenge you to create a page with four 4×6 photographs and an interactive title box. As an added incentive, you have two chances to win a prize too! When you upload a picture of your completed project to the scrapbook gallery at Two Peas, make sure to check the box for the 4×6 Photo Love challenge in step four of the upload process. Then come back to this post and leave a link to your page here in the comments. One person from all the entries at Two Peas and one person from all the links here will be chosen and each wins a gift certificate to go shopping for your favourite stash! You need to upload and link by the 29th of May for both chances to win. (I also have winners to post here for earlier class participation – look for those later this week!)

Would you like to receive an email reminder each month when my class is live? If so, please send an email to shimelle at gmail dot com with this subject line: 4×6 Photo Love Reminders. (Copy and paste that subject line, as you won’t get added to the list unless it’s just like that! Thanks!) You’ll get one message each month when the class has been posted – no other mailings and I would never, ever sell your email list or anything else evil, I promise. This month’s message will go out later today.

So what four photos will you choose? Can’t wait to see what you create!

xlovesx

PS: As this is a free class and it lasts all year long, I’d love for you to invite a friend to join in the fun. Click the share button, reblog the video or grab the badge there on the left for your blog’s sidebar. Thanks!

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This weekend’s giveaway comes to you straight from the studio of Dottery Pottery. It is a beautiful glazed pendant stamped with leaves and on a chain. Very summery!

Dottery Pottery is run by Sarah Duke who says:
I am the dottery potter and I work from my little studio in Hampshire creating fun, bold ceramics.
I draw inspiration from a wide variety of sources but particularly enjoy using imagery from nature, dreams and fairytales. My love of bright colour and texture dominates much of my work and I like things to be very decorative and eye-catching.

To enter, leave a comment on this post about something that inspires your creativity.

Entries close at midnight Sunday (UK time) and the winner will be posted Monday night, so be sure to check back and see if this was your lucky weekend!

xlovesx

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You may have noticed I am rather a fan of bunting. I know it’s become more and more on trend, but this hasn’t made me love it any less. There are over a dozen posts on this blog about bunting. And today, there’s one more. It seemed just the right thing to do this Friday as part of the virtual street party hosted by The Making Spot (a relatively new general crafting blog that is pretty darn cool). So don your royal wedding attire and join me for five ideas with bunting!

Scrapbook with bunting stickers
Have you checked out these bunting stickers that come in all different colours and patterns? One, they are totally cute and two, there are so many stickers on the sheet it’s kinda crazy. They all fit together so almost every part of the sheet is a sticker rather than waste. Very cool. So for this page, I chose different pieces of those stickers to hang bunting across the top left corner of my scrapbook page. (For the record: that is a title you shouldn’t try to spell with letter stickers. One word and now the sheet is completely devoid of the letter A. Oh well.)

Stamp a bunting background
Of course there are plenty of bunting stamps to choose from, and I’ve been using this set recently. It includes cakes, cake stands and three different kinds of bunting! Definitely a winner.

To make this card, I stamped one of the bunting designs repeatedly on the background, with black ink. Then I stamped the cake and cake stand on white cardstock, inked the edges in pink and matted it in grey. The greeting is machine-stitched to a punched circle backed with pink washi tape, then splashed with ink in pink and white. I love how the bunting adds another layer of dimension in the background that works well with the simplicity of the central design. Plus, this card took less than fifteen minutes to complete!

Dress up a gift with fabric bunting
Fabric bunting is so easy to make and perfect for even tiny scraps of fabric. I’ve made it in black, white and blue for our wedding. I’ve made it in red and black for my birthday and red and green at Christmas. I dream of finding fabric that looks like a very old map and making bunting that will make my world happier than I ever knew it could be. And I also spend so much time thinking about bunting that I almost always forget to think about wrapping paper. As a result, I wrap gifts in plain brown paper and then try to make it look pretty… and mini fabric bunting wrapped round and round would make me squeal in delight. Giving it to someone crafty makes me hope their bunting ends up hanging somewhere in their home, at least for a little while!

Make the cutest of cakes
Parties are far more fun with a random theme, and last autumn I went fully oddball with a lumberjack-themed birthday party. Lots of manly, American foods for dinner that wouldn’t have been out of place on a lumberyard. But even as a lumberjack, I needed something girlie – and that was the ruffle cake. But wait – it’s a black forest ruffle cake. Trust me, I was the only one laughing at my own joke then too. Tinting the Swiss meringue to a shade of grey was an interesting adventure, but my favourite thing was this little bit of bunting across the top. It was made with the same fabrics as party decorations, just in a teeny-tiny size, then tied to two chopsticks or lolly sticks.

Secret info: I chopped up a pair of old pajamas and a skirt that was a million sizes too big to make all the party bunting.

Bonus idea alert! Of course I kept the bunting from the cake and popped it on a scrapbook page. Of course!

Go for the sparkle
I love bunting enough that several years ago I designed Paper Chains, a set of stamps that lets you make your bunting just the right length and even has a teeny little alphabet to sit inside. It works great with patterned paper, but if there’s one thing I like more than patterned paper, it just might be glitter. By the way, if you like that idea but want to stamp much bigger bunting, try these stamps perhaps!

I’ve written about this minibook before, but here’s a little video that shows you exactly how these stamps work with the layers of sparkle.

Now… if you can keep yourself away from the kitchen or the sewing machine just a bit longer, Lara is up next. Go see what she’s up to a A Month of Sundays. And if you happen to collecting letters in search of the big prize, consider this post brought to you by the letter E.

Speaking of prizes, it’s Friday so that means there’s a weekend giveway that starts here tonight. Pop back to leave a comment and enter.

And with that, I’m off for a weekend of craftiness in a cottage with friends. So excited to catch up with everyone – most of them I haven’t seen since we took off in December! Have a beautiful weekend!

xlovesx

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I have a feeling you’re going to tell me two things about today’s sketch.
One, it’s a day late.
Two, it only has one photo.

And some of you just don’t do one photo.

But here’s the thing… I like one photo.
I like that I can show more pattern and colour from a lovely piece of paper. I like that the photos don’t fight for attention. I like that there’s more room for journaling. I like that no matter what the size of the photo, provided it’s 12×12 or smaller, there’s a way to make it work.

Then again, I have not a nerve in my body that urges me to catch up with what I scrapbook. Because if I did, this would be pretty scary:

Ever wonder what 691 photos would look like? Now you know. That is the order I placed late Tuesday afternoon and bright and early today it arrived at my door, including the first few hundred prints from our trip. You know, the first few hundred of the nine thousand. But I am not in a panic. I look at that giant stack of photos with much glee! All the different images, all the different opportunities. All the pretty papers with which they will coordinate! And thus I could sing from the rooftops.

I guarantee some of them will become single photo layouts. Not all. But some. Because I just find single-photo pages to be fun. End of story.

So when the JBS team were asked to share something that helped define our style, I chose this. Because it has colour. Because it has pattern. Because it has lots of detail in just one little part of the page. Because I have scrapped a great deal of Alice in Wonderland. Because it has one single 4×6 photo. (Oh. And a butterfly. Of course.)

But I will make you a deal:

If you like single photo layouts, follow this as it is. If single photo pages make you break out in hives, look at this sketch and imagine that there are additional photos. Maybe another directly above the picture that is there. And a third to the left of that. Or print the photos smaller and include even more, like a strip of photos all the way across the middle of the page.

In a world full of people who like single photos and people who don’t, I am convinced we can just all get along. Especially if we can find some pretty paper as common ground.

So here’s this week’s sketch, and I’d love for you to play along – with one photo or as many as you dare.

Since I got the links all mixed up last time, I’ve just picked four from last week’s sketch – let’s see if I can get them right! From left to right, Claire, Jenna, Veeruliiru and Cheryl. That should take you to more details and bigger pictures!

This week we’ll try a Mr Linky and see if that works better! So if you play along, please leave a link below… though you can still use the comments if you prefer. Let me know which you think is best for future, perhaps.

Happy scrapping!

xlovesx

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A little project with the Beyond Blogging class today. Click any thumbnail below as their days appear online. If you’re viewing this through a reader, please click here to see the full post.

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This is one of my favourite pages in quite a while. It’s all about this. And it doesn’t even have a single butterfly.

It’s here in the Garden this week. Just wanted to share.

xlovesx

PS: excited about a little project happening here tomorrow!

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