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

With September drawing to a close and back to school turning to the countdown to half-term break in this part of the world, it seems about right for daydreaming about the summer holidays. Today contributing designer Kirsty Smith shares more about how she relishes travel scrapbooking.

Last summer, I went backpacking in South America, and a real highlight of the trip was the few days I spent in the Amazon basin in Ecuador. It was an incredible experience, living in the heart of the rainforest and seeing first-hand the stunning biodiversity. I also had the most unusual picnic of my life, feasting on catfish roasted in banana leaves in an open fire, fermented sugar cane drink, and, that’s right, roasted weevils on a stick. Disturbingly creamy on the inside.

While I have lots of pictures that I love from this trip, I don’t really want to make lots of jungle-themed pages. Additionally, the pictures go together as set, both visually as they contain lots of lush, green tones, but also thematically as they are all snapshots of a bigger story. It didn’t make sense to me to try and find a way to scrapbook each little idea separately; I think I would have run out of enthusiasm quite quickly, which would be shame as this is an experience I really want to scrapbook!

So today, I’m going to share a way to combine lots of photos, memories and scrapbooking across multiple page protectors into one, deconstructed layout. Trust me: it’s a lot less complicated than it sounds! I thought about what I wanted to include and in many ways it was simple: I wanted a lot of journaling and a whole bunch of photos, I wanted to make and embellish a layout, and I wanted a title that would tie everything together.

First of all, I wanted to organise my photos. I had a large batch of pictures printed as squares, as I like this format for my album, and I pulled out all of the rainforest pictures. Opting to include all my prints meant that the decision process was very quick indeed! I chose one picture to be a focus for my scrapbook page, and gathered the other 16 into a divided pocket page.

I grouped the photos by colour more than anything: the bright greens together and the duskier tones together. I found I had enough photos to fill both the front and back of eight slots of my page protector. This was one of those moments where I let the materials I had influence the design, and so I slotted my pictures into the pockets leaving the middle pocket free. Which gave me a cunning idea for my scrapbook page!

The pocket page of photos influenced my layout design, in that I made sure that the placement of my photo lined up with the empty section of my pocket page. That way, when someone is looking at my album, they will see a tantalising glimpse of the page underneath, but it will line up as though that pocket has a photo in after all!

Once the picture was in place, I turned my attention to the embellishment. The lovely floral motif in Shimelle’s Starshine collection seemed perfectly in tune with the exotic nature of rainforest flora. With the photo carefully in position, I used journaling cards and the cut-apart sheets from the Starshine Collection to create layers around my photo. I arranged flowers cut from patterned paper around the photo and trailing up and down the page to create the impression of foliage. A little camera icon was the last touch, as I like to include something that reminds me of travel.

Finally, I transferred everything onto a sheet of acetate. This is something I’ve done a few times before, and is a great way to sneak extra journaling onto a page. I adhered everything in place, popping up some of the flowers on foam squares. I journaled my story onto the background paper so that it would be visible peeking out behind the design. Placing the acetate on top means that lots of the writing is hidden; it doesn’t overwhelm the page and it seems a more organic part of the design. But it’s still very easy to read the full story by simply lifting the acetate. The page protector will keep the acetate lined up with my background, so I don’t need worry about attaching them.

Most of the elements of the page are now in place, but I had lots more story to tell which was recorded in my travel journal from the trip. I cut a sheet of white cardstock into 4×4 squares and continued telling the rest of my story.

If you prefer not to hand write, you could absolutely save yourself a lot of time and type out your journaling! However, as I was recounting a big adventure here, I was happy to invest the time in doing this. The journaling cards can now slot easily into the pocket page between the photos, with a paperclip indicating that they can be pulled out and read.

On a side note, if I can I like to journal as I travel. That way I know I can scrapbook those memories any time I like; I won’t forget because I have my travel journal to refer back to. In this instance, I simply copied what I had written down last August. I recommend trying it if you think it might take a while to get to the scrapbooking!

Finally, I created a hand-cut title to introduce the whole topic. I wanted the title to invite the reader to head “deep in the Amazon rainforest” with me, and to indicate that the reader can turn the page and find more and more layers of detail about this adventure. An overlay, or die cut would work just as effectively here (I simply don’t own one so I rely on what I can do by hand!) and allows you to peek through to the next layer of the page.

I like to think that overall, the reader gets a whole experience from this scrapbook layout. As they turn the page, they are pushing back the overgrown foliage with me, and exotic flowers trail around the design. The title reveals photos and the odd hidden detail; a paperclip indicates hidden journaling. The photos themselves give way to a scrapbook page which can be glimpsed through the pocket page, and the acetate of the page itself can be lifted to disclose further rainforest secrets.

I loved putting this project together, and while it’s not something I would do for every page, it’s tremendously satisfying to feel that I have all the pictures and journaling recorded in my album. And the fact that I was able to do it in one project, even if that took a little longer than usual, meant that I don’t feel I need to go back and create more and more pages about the rainforest. The memories are all there!

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Excuse my giddiness, but I scrapbooked a back to school photo! Okay, he’s two. Okay, it’s not really school. But it was pretty close and he was beyond excited for the summer break to be finished and to go back to see friends and try his favourite things. It’s a session we attend together once a week at a local Montessori school, and through the summer, barely a day went by when I wasn’t asked ‘school open again? Or school still closed?’ He was very excited indeed, and the happiness in this big grin was very real.

And I was a little extra giddy to have a back to school excuse to pull out the apple papers from Go Now Go and get to work on a school themed page. The ‘so’ in the title is taken from a larger word in the departure board patterned paper, which can be used as a full page or cut apart to make plenty of titles and sentiments.

The apple embellishments came from a Martha Stewart apple punch – I knew there was a reason I was hanging on to that! I just punched the same shape from three different pieces of paper then cut the small pieces apart and glued them on top of the full red apple. The stamped leaves are from an autumn-themed set by Lora Bailora.

Of course back to school doesn’t have to be apples, and guest artist Jane Ratanapol has a second look to share with you today.

For this layout I used a lot of products from Shimelle’s Starshine collection. I find that this collection is versatile for many occasions – not just specific themes, and I love working with 12×12 paper pad and the cut apart sheets. I found arranging embellishments on my layout a challenge yet very relaxing. I chose this picture of my son’s preschool graduation because the color scheme goes together well with Shimelle’s Starshine products.

It’s not often that I get to use larger photos on my layouts, but this is one special layout, and a special occasion! I wanted to focus on his success and really tell the story of this big milestone in his life. I wanted to use a lot of embellishments that can tell story of the photo and I loved layering them. I didn’t really have a lot of space to journal but I think the photo and all the embellishments tell the story behind this photo very well.

We’d love to see what you’ve been making with back to school photos. Care to share in the comments?

Today’s Guest Artist: Jane Ratanapol loves crafting, hanging out with her three beautiful children (but they are a handful!), and a good cup of coffee. You can find more from Jane on Facebook.

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Thanks so much for sharing all your painted pages last week! This week, we’re thinking all things travel and autumn, but don’t worry – there is room to take this challenge to any topic you’d like to scrapbook. We’re looking back at an older page and video and taking inspiration to make something new.

Every once in a while, I find it really interesting to look at how my process has changed over the years by reviewing old videos. (Not too much, mind you, because it is easy to just look at all the things I would do differently now and there’s no sense in that!) That’s the same desk I use now and I’m amazed at how much I managed to keep on the table. Today I’d be afraid it would all fall off and, with my luck, I’d smash a bottle of mist and paint everything in sight. Whoops!

I made this page more than four years ago as a guest artist for Studio Calico, and it’s one I still really like. Yes, it has plenty of embellishment, but there’s also that big focal area across the middle of the page that lets the photos stand alone. And it’s an easy design to adapt to your chosen level of embellishment – just use more or less in that bottom right corner as suits your style! But you could also take inspiration from just one little detail and have a very different page design: pop tags into vellum pockets or string small embellishments on twine, or place your title on a stack of paper strips, perhaps.

This week, I challenge you this week to take inspiration from this page. There’s so much room to interpret this challenge that you might find you’re not even making a scrapbook page, but rather a card, planner layout, or gift tag! To get you started on this week’s challenge, take a look at these examples from contributing designer May Flaum and guest artist Sandy Lewis.

When I was looking at the sketch I made from this scrapbook layout, I got to thinking it would translate beautifully into a card design. I didn’t have three little tags, so I went to my Shimelle die cut stash and found a few little things to cluster in a similar area. Using the big strip of white cardstock to hold my big sentiment? Perfect in lieu of photos!

All ready for fall and inspired to try more paper crafting cross inspiration where sketches are concerned, I’m really loving how this turned out!
- May

(By the way, don’t miss May’s beautiful autumn star project – it’s gorgeous!)

My only grandson turned one on my twenty-fifth anniversary, and photos of him and his family are some of my main inspirations for scrapping. Having watched Shimelle and Glitter Girl scrap for the past however many years, I often scrap lift from the videos. I used many of her lines on this layout that I scraplifted and made my own, and they work so well together: Go Now Go Journey paper, Starshine Orion and Hubble papers, washi, tiny letter stickers and embellishments. I used a wood word and rubber faces from Freckled Fawn, and Versamark and Hero Arts white embossing powder, along with Distress Ink in Peacock Feathers and the Tim Holtz applicator.

_My layout features my adorable grandson with his family at the beach for the very first time. I wanted to tell the story from the ‘I’m home every time I’m with you’ angle, rather than a vacation or travel topic. It seemed apt to work with the concept of ‘home’ with such a little one, as ‘vacation’ is a pretty complex topic for a baby. _
- Sandy

You have a week to complete the challenge and share your page – but of course you’re welcome to set your own time schedule. Whatever keeps you happy and creative! By the way you don’t have to link to your page on a blog if that’s not your thing! You can simply upload a photo of your page when you click to add yours or you can link to any site, including Instagram, Facebook, and scrapbook page galleries. We’d love to see what you’re making, no matter where you prefer to share!

Today’s Guest Artist: Sandy Lewis loves family, scrapbooking, and Chihuahuas. You can find more from Sandy on Instagram, Pinterest, and her blog.

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The seasons are a-changing. One of my intentions when designing Go Now Go was that it could be used for autumn adventures, even if they were close to home, as well as travels further afield. Today contributing designer Meghann Andrew shares how she put Go Now Go to work. She has a little trick up her sleeve for this week’s paint challenge too, so don’t forget to join in if you’re inspired!

Although we live in the height of suburbia, we try to get out in nature as much as possible. Sometimes with little ones, this just means a paved walk through the woods, like the occasion that I’m documenting today.

I started this layout by selecting a few patterned papers from the new Go Now Go collection. Since this layout records a walk in the woods, I couldn’t stay away from the beautiful woodgrain pattern, and I knew immediately that I wanted tocut the trees from the Park pattern to use as embellishments.

I was immediately drawn to the bright and cheerful scalloped edge strip on the Race patterned paper, but since the dark background behind the scallops seemed to heavy for the top of my layout, I cut each of the scallops from the background and topped this piece with a thin strip of the Pond woodgrain.

Next, I detail cut my little trees, using the same colors that the children in my photo were wearing. I wanted to place them below my photo, but they seemed to just “float” on the page, so I decided to adhere them to another strip of white cardstock to give them a home. However, I wanted this piece of cardstock to stand out from my white background, so I decided to use the Shimelle woodgrain embossing folder to give it some texture.

At the bottom of my layout, I added another, wider strip of the Pond woodgrain patterned paper, along with the Botanical pink chevron and teal and green manufacturer’s strip from the Race paper. It was on this block of patterned paper that I decided to add my title, using two different types of Thickers.

After embossing, the woodgrain texture still wasn’t very apparent, so I used a stiff brush and gold acrylic paint to drybrush the raised grain on the paper. By applying just a tiny amount of paint, I still kept the white background and made the woodgrain stand out with a metallic sheen.

Since I already had quite a few colors and patterns on my page, I decided to add a few die-cut white cardstock leaves around the page. I love the dimension of tone-on-tone shapes.

Because my page was already well balanced, I only added the “go somewhere lovely” sticker to the bottom right corner, offsetting it with the date tab at the top left corner of my photo. I also added a few enamel dots around my leaves for good measure.

I love that our time outdoors has been documented in such a fun and colorful way on this layout!

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Be honest with me: have you put some sort of paint on your desk this week yet? Acrylic paint, watercolour, a bottle of mist? Anything? Today we have two more ways to splash paint on your page, and we promise it isn’t really that scary at all!

Lately I’m using paint for lettering more and more. It’s something that started when I was working on The Scrapbook Process and it showed up in my Olympic album there in particular. Then it kept appearing while I worked on The 20 Project and I think it’s here to stay for a while now. I love that this feels like a full circle for me. I fell into scrapbooking because a group of us wanted to make a book about a particular event (without knowing that ‘scrapbooking’ was a word) and was given the project because I liked doodling words and writing things with pretty pens. I fell for the hobby when I picked up my first Lindsay Ostrom book of letters and doodles. In my early days of working with Creating Keepsakes and Paperkuts magazine, I was hand lettering so many of my page titles, and we often talked in the assignment process about how this was really catering for the part of the scrapbooking audience who weren’t able to spend constant cash on letter stickers and didn’t want to use lots of computer-generated lettering on their pages. But then handmade titles went a bit out of fashion in print and of course I fell in love with Thickers, so I didn’t really miss the lettering on my pages so much as I was having fun with something different. Now I’m not giving up my Thickers in the slightest, but I am just enjoying the freedom of mixing in painted titles that can be just the right size and colour for the space available. And while accepting your own handwriting is its own creative challenge, this isn’t a scary technique because I always paint the title on another sheet of paper and cut it out to put it on the page. I have zero worry that I will mess up the rest of the layout since I’m not working directly there and I can write the same word three or twenty times until I get one I really like. Not scary!

(By the way, I really hope you’ll embrace the fun of Go Now Go for things close to home as well as far away. I find it funny how many of the same phrases apply to life on the road or life at home with a toddler. It’s definitely down to perspective when we classify what’s an adventure!)

Now, if you do want paint on the background but you still want to veer far from the scary, guest artist Valerie Bishop is here to help! Her beautiful page was made by doing the painting first, so there’s no worry about spilling paint on your favourite pack of embellishments… provided you keep your desk relatively tidy. Though where is the fun in that?

I love using watercolors because I can create a background color that matches my photo if I can’t find any patterned paper that will match it! I used a heavy weight cardstock as my base of this layout to keep it from buckling from the watercolor. I simply estimated where I wanted my to photo to be on the layout and swiped some watercolor that I mixed to highlight the flower in my photo across my cardstock.

After it was dry, I used complementary colors of embellishments and papers to layer under my photo and around my page. I also used the watercolor paint to change the color of one of the arrow shapes and to edge a couple of the Shimelle die cut cardstock shapes the I used to embellish my layout.

I used embellishments and patterned papers from Shimelle’s first collection as well as items from American Crafts, Elle’s Studio, We R Memory Keepers, and Chickaniddy.

Today’s Guest Artist: Valerie Bishop loves making memories with her family, bicycling, and creating layouts about both activities. You can find more from Valerie on Instagram, Twitter, and her blog.

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With even more ideas for this week’s paint challenge, please welcome guest artist Emma Callagher, here to encourage you to get your stamps in on the painted action!

ome is where the heart is”, they say. Whoever they are, I totally agree. I think it’s important to remind yourself every now and then, that the most important things in life are not usually physical possessions but rather, the people you share your life with. For me, wherever my lovely mum is feels like home. Mums have that way about them don’t they? I love this photo of my mum. It was taken when I was about four or five and I love the flowers and the colours all around her.

To highlight this, I pulled out the small flower stamp from the Shimelle Starshine stamp set and stamped in Versamark ink so I could white heat emboss for a resist technique. I used Kuretake Gansai watercolours over the top so the flowers stood out and I thought the colours worked really well with the photo. I think stamping gives awesome texture to a layout. I then embellished the layout using word stickers from the Starshine collection as well as other elements from my stash including stickers from the Dear Lizzy Saturday collection.

Today’s Guest Artist: Emma Callagher loves reading, crafting, and playing with paint. You can find more from Emma on Instagram, YouTube, and her blog.

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Need more inspiration for this week’s paint challenge No problem! Contributing designer Gina Lideros shares her steps for using paint to highlight the photo on your next scrapbook page.

My routine every morning is to get up early and enjoy a nice cup of coffee before the rest of the house awakes. There is something about having that quiet time each day that sets the tone for the rest of the day. It’s kind of like a meditation of sorts to me, plus caffeine.  The best of both worlds!  I chose to document my morning routine for this week’s post.  

To get started, I chose a favorite photo, a stencil from Heidi Swapp and Craft Smart Navy blue acrylic paint. I specifically chose a photo that had a lot of negative space. I placed my stencil over the left side of my photo.  I carefully applied my paint to the left side of the stencil, leaving the right side open.  By only painting one side of the diamond shape, my design became a chevron. After applying paint I was careful to lift my stencil up in slow motion (to not smear the design).  Next, I used a heat gun over my design to speed up the drying process.  

While my photo was drying, I created my background for my layout.  I used the Half Hearted cut file from The Cut Shoppe to cut my background out of white cardstock paper.  I then chose a selection of favorite patterned papers from Shimelle’s True Stories and Starshine collections.  

Lots of fun embellishments such as buttons, stickers, Thickers, and stickers helped finish up my page.  I even added some paint splatters and machine stitching for a more homemade feel.

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I love colour on my scrapbook pages. So much. And usually I go to patterned papers for the start of all that colour, but then a page like this comes along and reminds me the colour can always start somewhere else, like paint:

It’s a page Corrie Jones shared here in an article about scrapbooking with paint absolutely ages ago, but it’s one that pops into my mind often and I always find something on that beautiful page to inspire me.

This week, I challenge you this week to paint your scrapbook page. If more specifics help you, paint the edge of your page. It’s an easy way to introduce paint of any kind without feeling you need to be Matisse or have special brushes or absolutely anything complicated. Watercolour, acrylic, or mist can all be painted on with either a brush or a sponge, and going around the edge can be bold or subtle depending on how much paint you use and what colour you pick. Everything else is completely up to you, so you can take your inspiration in any direction you like! To get you started on this week’s challenge, take a look at these examples from contributing designer Sheena Rowlands and guest artist Jeanna Cata.

I love it when a challenge gets me scrapping something I’d not got around to documenting up to now. When I saw the challenge was sport I was reminded of a visit my husband and I made to the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament a couple of years ago. This trip was made even more special as we used to live there many years ago and actually got married there too and we could see the church from the Tennis Club, which got us reminising together.

As my photos from the day aren’t that great I’ve printed them small and incorporated four into this grid design. To emphasise the tennis feel I’ve stitched white lines through the grid and dry brushed a white paint border around the edge. All my supplies are from the Go Now Go and Starshine ranges and they coordinate together beautifully.
- Sheena

I’m always up for a challenge, and with this week’s project I explored new techniques and stepped a bit out of my comfort zone. I’m only just now exploring mixed media, so had some acrylic paint on hand; however, I hadn’t ever considered painting the edges of my page with it. The thought was a bit terrifying once I realized that I only had one page of Pathfinder from Shimelle’s Starshine line on hand. Eek!

Since I decided to record our trip to Lincoln to watch Nebraska football play last fall, I wanted to stick to a very specific color palette and I’m grateful that the various American Craft lines, those of Shimelle and Amy Tangerine, included so much red, white and black, and that they were complimentary. Of course, the final project wasn’t what I had first envisioned, but I like how it turned out. My story can be found on the backside.
- Jeanna

You have a week to complete the challenge and share a link – but of course you’re welcome to set your own time schedule. Whatever keeps you happy and creative!

I’ll see you tomorrow to share how I took on this challenge!

Today’s Guest Artist: Jeanna Cata loves to travel, read, and laugh. You can find more from Jeanna on Instagram, Pinterest, and her blog.

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