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

When did you clear your fridge door? When I took everything off today, I was embarrassed that I was saving things long past their expiry date—and I don’t mean the food inside the fridge, but the notices, letters and coupons stuck to the front. In fact, we recently cleared our entire fridge and cupboards, doing some of that replacing that has to be done now and then…like when the herbs have just had it and you realise you are physically incapable of finishing a bottle of salad dressing before it develops a lifestyle of its own. But we didn’t clear a single thing from the door.

So that is what I did today. Because I don’t know about you, but I have days where I have trouble fitting it all in. (Please don’t tell. This has to be our little secret!) But I need a crafty fix to keep me smiling. Today I had ten minutes, but I also had some photos that were just sitting there, some stickers, some stamps and some fridge magnets. You have all that too, right?

Find a few photos, make a few captions and you’re off. I’m going for the happy kitchen effect. I stumble into the kitchen in the morning (so not a morning person!) so a few happy photos and pretty colours are way better for 6am me than a survey from the electric company and a so-so cherry crumble recipe that I haven’t found a chance to improve. You could even use magnet tape or the magnet cartridge on your Xyron to make your own magnets if you wanted something a bit more permanent. Or take your favourite letter stickers, laminate them on blocks of cardstock, stick magnets on the back and you’ve got your very own magnet letters to spell things out.

But I like using my own magnets because not only do I like my little magnets but then when I switch things around, I could use the captions and photos in my scrapbook easy peasy. So I haven’t wasted supplies. I’ve just made them dual purpose. The joy. (My dual-purpose supplies included Heidi Swapp and American Crafts stickers and stamps from Making Memories and Banana Frog.)

Speaking of photos, my friend, neighbour, magazine teammate and fellow unbelievably tall person, Cheryl, is running an online photography course. It’s ten weeks, with a new topic each week and an assignment to try. It’s not technical stuff and you don’t need a fancy camera. It’s more about what goes through your head when you’re snapping away—how to improve your framing, how to get cool looks with movement and light, how to take a picture with some power rather than something blah. I got a little sneak peek while she ran a guinea pig session and it was a blast. You’ve only got till the 4th to sign up, so have a read before it’s too late. And when her session is finding down, you can sign up for a favourite photos album here too, in case you want to tie the two together.

What are you waiting for? Get off the computer and clean your fridge. Or other central messaging point that needs a happy face. Share the love.

xlovesx

Comment [7]

So here’s the deal:
May is a beautiful month.
It is also completely insane for teachers.
May has two national holidays in this country, so therefore two beautiful three day weekends.
And SATs exams for all of year 9.
May has more weddings than any other month in England.
And the beginning of GCSEs.
May has parades and blue skies.
And lots of paperwork involving HB pencils, small bubbles and triplicate carbon paper.

Clearly I need something to divert me a little each day so I may keep my sanity.
Or lose it entirely.

And with that, I offer you…
A project pretty much every day. For all of May.

It will be a month of things to make with hearts. A different type of project for each day of the week. We have been missing the cupcake love here, so Thursdays are for heart-related cupcakes. Tuesday is for hearts of felt. We’ll scrapbook hearts on a Monday and knit them on a Friday…and so on and so forth. I heart handmade, after all. Little projects you can do with a bit of chill time. Crafts that go with a cup of coffee. Oh the happy.

Starting tomorrow, a project pretty much every day. Oh the goodness. And there is extra goodness I am not even telling you about yet. Super secret!

So rather than go insane with spring fever, let’s get crafty.
Who’s in??

xlovesx

Comment [35]

Down the Rabbit Hole
‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); `now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). ‘Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can;—but I must be kind to them,’ thought Alice, ‘or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.’

And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. ‘They must go by the carrier,’ she thought; ‘and how funny it’ll seem, sending presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the directions will look! ALICE’S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ. HEARTHRUG, NEAR THE FENDER, (WITH ALICE’S LOVE).
Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!’

Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.

Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again.
-Lewis Carroll

Class Supplies
This is definitely a stash project. The only tricky thing you need is the photo—it needs to be the full width of your page. So if you’re doing a 12×12 page, you can use a 12×8 or similar size print. If you need to print on an A4 printer, you can do a 9×9 page with a 9×6 photo. You can even go as small as a 4×6 photo on a 6×6 page.

Aside from your photo, you’ll need the cardstock for your background, some patterned paper, some lettering for your title and some accents to match. I used scraps for everything aside from the cardstock rather than cutting into new sheets. I also used a journaling stamp from Banana Frog.

Instructions
This will definitely be less frustrating than stretched out Alice right now. The sketch is simple—one giant photo, plus a place for a title and a place for an accent. Your journaling can go in either of those two places, or in the gaps left either side. You can use the sketch for a landscape (horizontal) photo, or turn it for a portrait (vertical) one. The instructions are written for the horizontal orientation.

Choose a colour for your background and some patterned paper to coordinate. Cut a two inch strip of patterned paper as wide as your page. Place this along the bottom of your photo and place both of those on the page to judge the spacing. With a border of background at the bottom, adhere the patterned paper, then the photo over the top to leave enough pattern showing for your liking.

Cut a rectangle of patterned paper for the opposite side of the photo, where your title will go. Adhere this so it overlaps on top of the photo.

Choose one or more styles of lettering to layer your title on top of the patterned rectangle. Try letting some of the letters go beyond the patterned paper.

Choose some accents and secure them to the other side, overlapping on top of the photo.

Add your journaling. I stamped a box with lines on patterned paper, then cut it out. On this layout, I placed it with the accents, but on the second it fit right into the title box, so try it in both places to see what looks best with your photo. You can also journal straight onto the cardstock in the empty corners. Feel free to embellish to your heart’s desire, but this one is done! Go take a photo, upload and claim your points!

Here’s a second take, using a portrait photo and using a bit more embellishment. Adapt to your style however you like: the challenge is to use a BIG photo with two areas of embellishment to the page.

I hope you enjoy something bold but fast to create!

If you upload your page and post a link in the comments for the Box of Sweets post at shimelle.com, you will be entered in the draw for a bonus prize. Good luck!

For more information about the cybercrop, visit UKScrappers.

xlovesx

Comment [121]

Down the Rabbit Hole
It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked “poison” or not’; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

However, this bottle was not marked ‘poison,’ so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.

‘What a curious feeling!’ said Alice; ‘I must be shutting up like a telescope.’

And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this; ‘for it might end, you know,’ said Alice to herself, ‘in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?’ And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.
-Lewis Carroll

Class Supplies
If you have a kit, you should have a blank minibook, a strip of three transparent overlays, a strip of journaling words, a strip of three printed boxes, tulle netting in two shades of pink, some bright green dyed fabric, a length of ribbon, some buttons and a tiny glass bottle.

If you don’t have a kit, you can make a similar project using a few sheets of cardstock, some patterned paper from your stash, some buttons and ribbon.

From your tools, you will need scissors, trimmer, strong adhesive or needle & thread for the buttons, glue stick or other clear adhesive for the overlays, a black ink pad and a black pen.
You will also need 8 to 15 photos of things you like, printed or croppable to no more than 2.5” square. I found my photos didn’t lend themselves to square cropping, so I kept the standard ratio. I used iPhoto to print 9-up on a 5×7 and this size worked well.

Instructions
Let’s get all the trimming done straight away. Trim the excess from the three overlays to leave you with the frame. Trim on the black lines on the boxes printed on white cardstock. Trim the journaling words to a rectangle for each phrase. Trim your photos to size while you’re at it.

Use a black ink pad to ink the edges of the words and the cardstock boxes, and leave them to dry while you go on.

Next, we’ll make the cover. You need one photo to go in the space, so try a few until you get one you like. Stick it in place by putting adhesive inside the cover, so you don’t have to put it straight onto the front of your photo and risk getting glue in the wrong place. Then thread the ribbon through so your front cover is closed. Choose a word to put on the cover, and cut some netting as a mat for the word (don’t stress about getting the netting straight…you might be there all night) and add it to the bottom right corner. Add a button or two, then use a fine tipped pen to date your book or doodle.

Once you’re ready to start your pages, you’ll fly right through this. Put all your pictures in front of you so you can pick as you go through—the overlays may look better on some pictures depending on where the light and dark happens to match up with the text, for example. Here are some options for your page designs, layered from the page up to the top:

*Photo + caption + button

 *Photo + overlay


*Netting + photo + caption


*Box + photo + caption (play with tearing photos, cutting with edges, stapling, etc)


*Netting + photo + caption + button


*Box + handwritten journaling


*Box + handwritten journaling + caption + button


*Netting + box + photo


*Netting + box + handwritten journaling


*Fabric + photo + caption + button


*Handwritten journaling + netting + photo


*Box + photo + handwritten journaling

So it’s definitely a game of mix and match! Here are the pages from my book:

To finish, find a way to customise your tiny bottle. I found a few little silver beads in my stash, so added a few of those plus a tiny strip of cardstock where I had handwritten ‘smile’.

You might sign your name, cut a strip from a photo or two or have another idea completely. I also liked how it looked with cake sprinkles inside! Tie this to the ribbon closure or the centre. Be careful, as the tiny corks are pretty fragile, and the hook will fall out if pulled too much. You can always glue your cork if it needs a bit more stability.

To add your length of ribbon, pull the ribbon at the centre binding just enough to pull your ribbon through and knot it. Then you can knot the other end and have a way to tie it to something so you can see your book and smile often! You could even tie it to a handbag so when you fall down the rabbit hole, you won’t be quite as worried as Alice.

Tips for using your own stash
The pages inside this book are 2.5×5 inches. Cut as many of those as you would like, then score in the centre so they fold in half. Cut one slightly larger for the cover and bind with ribbon, stitches or a stapler. Then follow the basic idea using your own stash.

Prizes
If you upload your book online and post a link in the comments to this post, you will be entered in the draw for a bonus prize. Good luck! Drawing will take place on this Sunday evening, London time. You do not have to be in the UK to win.

xlovesx

Comment [101]

Don’t get confused: this is not a class teaser. Those will start on Monday though. Giddy!

But this weekend I’ll be at Olympia for Stitch & Craft and if you come along, you can make 6×6 pages galore. I’ll be there along with girls from the SI team—Anne, Cheryl, Jane and Mary Anne.

If you come for the shopping, you better at least stop to say hello!

Have a fab weekend.

xlovesx

Comment [9]

{book by Theresly}

So happy to see books being made. I just had to share Theresly’s book with you—she added calendar pages to the bottom of the book. Bev made a calendar too as a gift for Mothering Sunday.

Sarah has been busy making two books this weekend AND knitting socks. And Kate posted her book here. And Tracie made a fab book too…hurrah, hurrah.

Just a little reminder: if you make a reasons I’m a lucky girl book, layout or other project and post a link to it on this post, your name will go in the hat for two prize packs to be sent to you so you can make more stuff. Gotta love that Fiskateer motto—Practise Random Acts of Crafting. And gotta love British spelling too.

xlovesx

PS: What if I said you could sign up for the next class ...tomorrow?

Comment [19]

Because I know you want to make MORE little books, here’s a little inside scoop: I’m the weekend guest of The Fiskateers. Check out their site tomorrow and make a little book. There just might be things to win!

ETA: Here’s a direct link to the project!

xlovesx

Comment [20]

No really. This never ceases to make me laugh that we all loved them. Then we hated them. And now we love them again…just not as many of them as the first time. Hurrah for pretty things.

But if you are ready to laugh, you can now tune into FiskarsTV and learn how to make this book. And you can win stuff! And you can struggle to hear me whisper! And you can hear me say random British things like ‘higgedly-piggedly’! And you can admire the manicure I got just for the show! And if you look closely you can see how I totally messed up that manicure! And various other things that cause me to use excessive conjunctions.

(Because they are conjunctions. And, but and or. Conjunctions. As in Conjunction Junction, What’s that Function? Despite the fact that the new teacher language that I speak calls them connectives. Conjunctions. There we go. I feel better now, but it will annoy me in class tomorrow. Ha.)

But most of all, you can turn five sheets of cardstock, 15 photographs and a pair of decorative scissors into a book. And that is always a good thing.

xlovesx

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