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

Apparently I have at least two half-term rituals. Going to ArtBase for a major shop and building furniture.

I had not one but two loyalty cards to redeem at Artbase, so I snuck in quietly and filled a basket. Shockingly, I rarely buy cardstock, but I have been on such a green-pink-purple kick that I had to break down and replenish my paper rack. Plus lots of other things. (No, I don’t know why I needed a giant ampersand, but I just do. Actually, that is entirely how I shop for supplies and it works for me.) Emma (on the right in the photo) said she had been missing blog updates (I really need to put up an ‘I’ve moved’ sign over at the old blog!) so I promised her I would blog her! Maybe, just maybe, she’ll come out of her hiding place and say hello in the comments.

So now my shopping is waiting patiently to be unpacked while I finish building and painting my new studio furniture.

There will be pictures, oh yes. It might finally look like I’ve always wanted it to look. Which would be a fabulous, fabulous thing.

{And before you say anything about that awful carpet, please remember that this place is rented! Actually, I’m hoping not much of the carpet will be visible by the time I finish. The carpet is the same throughout the entire place and it really drags the life out of me.}

xlovesx

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Little known fact: just before I met the boy, I had been talking to a publisher about the market viability for a series of travel guides aimed at people with spare income but no long-term life plan. travel guides for loners, perhaps.

Now I travel more but not on my own and we have the 2 camera rule. We both carry cameras, because we have different perspectives, see different angles and are drawn to different things. Okay, we also take a lot of duplicate photos. We giggle and get over it. Inevitably, we also take pictures of each other taking pictures.

I don’t often scrapbook these shots, but they seemed perfect for Ali’s Life Art Challenge this week…photo gathering. Although I use iPhoto and PhotoShop for my photos, I don’t normally get quite this digital…not because I don’t like it but because I just enjoy paper more. But this is a good mix for me…some things you can’t do with just paper, like that frame and the one photo bright while the others are faded, but some things that are real too, like the dimension of chipboard and some frayed inked edges (need to change the blade in my trimmer).

Supplies…papers by Bazzill, KI Memories, Basic Grey and Urban Lily. Border sticker by Making Memories. Rub-on letters by Imagination Project. Letter stickers by KI Memories. Chipboard letters by Heidi Swapp.

So happy for half-term. Feeling alive again.

xlovesx

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i think the ali push for a life-art-a-week may be a very good thing indeed. i just did some calendar layouts for an upcoming project…but this week’s push was to make something reviewing last month…using internal voice…yummy stuff like that.

september was all about creating which is my happiest place. teaching a daily course gets you making something every day so you can work along with your students. the getting messy approach is always the best. never trust an english teacher who doesn’t secretly want to be a full time writer and never trust an art teacher who doesn’t make stuff whenever she gets the chance.

supplies: bazzill cardstock (loving the mismatched background treatment right now. so much.), paper and epoxy bits from mod by autumn leaves (also some paper by all my memories), chipboard letters from heidi swapp and making memories, brads, flowers and the brain stamp i borrowed from cheryl. totally need to give that back!!

despite it being the month that school starts, the biggest thrills were times spent making stuff. cropping with janice and the girls in the woods, learning something new every day, scrap camp in bristol. so good to start and end the month on a creative high. so good to make something every single day.

and something else i love: symbolic stamping. i have had that brain stamp from cheryl for so long. but i love the symbolism of brain = learning every day. for every stamp in the stamp shop where you wonder who would buy that? i am thinking what can that mean? they are my absolute favourites every time.

See more life artists at work here.

xlovesx

Don't just lurk...Comment! :) [9]

simon, garfunkel & i drove back from bristol in the rain last night. such a good little mini weekend…hanging with elsie in her classes and taking tons of photos for the magazine. zipped over to a nearby castle in my family tree…but it’s privately owned so couldn’t go on the grounds. very pretty though. might have to book in and stay there sometime just so it will be okay to wander around and take pictures.

elsie and i had some scary colour coordination going on…pink and black tops, jeans and green shoes. freaky. but perhaps if the whole scrapbook thing doesn’t work out for us, we can open a green-only shoe store?

just gonna finish some details for the new class and the info will be posted here later tonight. so. darn. excited. !!!

xlovesx

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Just finished work—off to Bristol now for a bit of Scrap Camp. I’m really there to take pictures and do some interviews for the magazine…but I’m also hoping to work on this for a little while, even if it is just downtime in my hotel room. So far I am loving my little Atlanta book.

A couple of questions to answer: *Yes, there is a new class coming up—you may have seen a teaser from Klala. Details posted by the end of the weekend. *Yes, of course we will be Journaling Christmas again! That starts December 1st…I’ll put the sign up button up at the beginning of November.

Enjoy your weekend…and go make something!

xlovesx

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Are you getting Ali’s life art newsletter? Cuz it is pretty darn lovely, ya know. this week she has been talking miniBOOKS, to use her capitalisation. When I see it that way, I always want to whisper the ‘mini’ like the kid on the skittles advert, then shout the ‘books’ like I might very well be thrown out of the library. Anyway, on Monday, she challenged anyone out there to make a little something highlighting their five fabulous favourites of the moment, with the idea that we would all start posting them today. this, clearly, is mine.

my book is a tiny concertina from bazzill basics, with a fab green and pink print paper designed by rhonna farrer for autumn leaves, a label stamp designed by tia bennett for fontwerks, a daisy stamp that is the part of the current free gift with scrapbook inspirations, those classic PSX letter stamps, diddy flower jewels from heidi swapp and some pink ric-rac, ribbon and staples.

Just got a new printer as the old one has given up the ghost, so to pick my favourites, I went through my ‘favourites’ folder of photos and got excited to print them right then rather than burn them to a CD and take them to be printed. Instant gratification. I let the photos dictate the favourites, but five grabbed me pretty quickly so that worked. {My favourites shown here…favourite coffee – pret is totally winning me at the moment, favourite band – love this shy photo from the little summer gig, favourite treat – my favourite cupcake photo so far…always trying to beat it, favourite flower – all about daisies lately and the easy, gushy one…my favourite person. Aww.}

Gotta love this little book for fitting in the palm of your hand but still having mega space for journaling. The back of each panel carries a little status report on how long each thing has been a favourite, how I discovered it and how long I think it will last.

I am going to use this idea again next month when I start my kitchen-counter-album-collection. Which is fun to say, but really just means I want a little set of paper things with a home in my little kitchen. I’m working on my cupcake book, but that’s a bigger album. I want some little things on my kitchen counter. Before we had furniture (which was almost the first year I lived here…it’s a long story) I used to sit on the kitchen counter to read while I heated something in the oven (see, we are also talking pre-cooking days). Now that it’s getting cooler, I love to stay in the kitchen while things are cooking…so some reading material would be cool. Random perhaps, but fitting.

You can see more life artists at work here.

Thanks for the push, girl.

xlovesx

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You might have seen this album in ScrapBook Inspirations — it was in the August issue. It’s my DIY album, where I keep a photo and a few notes about any craft projects (particularly the first time I make something new). It also has a place to keep plans and ideas for things I want to make but haven’t just yet. I actually use this album because it’s a cinch to add things, and even the initial assembly is pretty easy.

Supplies

*8×8 album {Mine is an olive green linen album from the classic collection at We R Memory Keepers.}

*Page protectors

*Three colours of solid cardstock, including one light shade for writing {I used Bazzill’s Admiral blue, Pesto green and Vanilla cream.}

*Three 12×12 sheets of coordinating patterned paper {Mine are from Chatterbox — buy a few extras if you will want to keep this album going for a long time. You won’t need them straight away, but it would be frustrating to run out just as they aren’t in stores any more!}

*A yard of printed ribbon to match {Chatterbox here again.}

*Writing implements: Computer & printer, black pen, letter stamps with green & black dye inks if you prefer stamps to electronics.

*A few little extras for your cover: I used a Making Memories tin frame, an extra sheet of patterned paper wrapped around a chipboard frame, a silk flower with a brad centre, with scraps of ribbon and lace trim. I also tabbed the sections with ribbon tabs from Scrapworks.

*And this download: the blank project card! Just click and it will download as a pdf for you to print.

How-To

*Make your title and section pages first, as they are the only ones that use the papers in different sizes. Follow the pictures as a guide or make your own design.

*Trim the two coloured cardstocks to 8×8 to make your blank pages. You’ll need enough to fill your page protectors – so it depends on how many pages you want in your album. My project entries have one colour on the left side and one on the right — so I am not working on the both sides of the cardstock. I like everything extra sturdy! But obviously you can use half as much cardstock if you would prefer to work on both sides.

*Print the blank project card on your light cardstock and trim down to just outside the box. Make a bunch so your album is filled with cards waiting to be filled — that will help you actually use this album! By the way — the template as is will print in navy blue. If that doesn’t match your colour scheme, set your printer settings to black and white and it will print in black. Best of both worlds.

*Use the off-cuts of your darker cardstock to make a partial mat for your project card.

*Trim your patterned paper into 1“x1.5” rectangles. These go along the left side of your project card. You can sew them if you want — if your craft projects involve sewing, then it fits the theme of your book.

*Add a ribbon loop to the top right corner of the entry. These don’t go off the top of the page, although the ones on the section pages do in my album.

*Organise all your pages into the page protectors.

*Put all your spare matching supplies in a bag with a label so you can come back to them when you run out of pages.

*When you complete a craft project, take a photo or two. Fill out the card for the right side of the spread and mat the photo on the left. You can add extras (I add one of those silk flowers like the cover – but only if it doesn’t clash with the project) or just leave it plain. The entries only take a few minutes and that way? This album ends up filled for real.

xlovesx

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i have a real love for quality advertising. not all advertising by any means, as i am reminded whenever i visit a place with a television or i leaf through any martha stewart publication, trying to separate content from adverts for cling film. but advertisements you remember for ages, or that give you some sort of inner peace. the boy and i were talking about this last night…how proportionately, there are so few good adverts, and how that makes the good ones even better. i still can’t look away from the honda cog. i think of the vw golf every time i see a chair put out with the rubbish. and some days, i really would like to buy the world a coke and keep it company.

{actually, during the last school year i got to sit in on a seminar led by the team that create the honda ads—the cog, as well as ‘what if?’ and ‘hate something, change something’. they shared their process, going from a grumpy engineer and a music video to their animated advert, and so on. these people are just fascinating. it’s no wonder they make good stuff. i try to think of the mix up of their team whenever i am in one of those ‘if you want something done, do it yourself’ moods. which is too often, i must admit.}

anyway, i’ve been keeping an ad related thing a secret and today i found out i don’t have to keep schtum anymore, so i’m not. fiskars make things that cut. lots of things that cut lots of other things in lots of shapes and sizes. obvious things like scissors and paper trimmers, but also the not obvious things like paper drills, garden gadgets and things that make primary school teachers smile all day long. {i’m thinking maybe we should bring back a bit of old fashioned cut and paste to secondary school though. especially in administrative meetings.} last year fiskars started this print&web campaign, wherein crafters of the paper and fabric varieties along with gardeners shared their views on creativity with others via a journal. some individual pages made it to the big time to become glossy print ads. but you can see a gallery of these journals here.

so if my excited and gushy praise of thought-provoking advertising hasn’t made this completely obvious, i filled in this over the summer:

they pick some people (and i have no idea how) and if you say yes, they send you a blank book and some questions to prompt your responses. some i knew the answers to straight away. some took ages to think of anything that would work. the page i like the most looks like something out of a comic. well, a comic that’s in pink and black and has no people. but i’ll post more later in the year, when it appears on the fiskars site. yay.

in other news…there are new things afoot for the website. classes are just the start. i’ve been working SO HARD this week! fabulous. and very pink, i must say.

xlovesx

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