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

All told, my January kit (with the help of one extra sheet of cardstock, one of patterned paper, a few paper scraps and some enamel dots) made six single-page scrapbook pages and one card. And just in time, I am ready to roll onto February with new product picks for the month. (And I have a little video to show you both things – all those finished pages from January plus a look at the February kit!)

February and March present something rather interesting: in late January and early February, prices on current scrapbooking products are slashed to make room for all the brand new products that start to hit the shelves over the next few weeks. So this month, we can get quite a bit for our money! Next month will have fewer items but they will be brand new releases. I like that balance – hope you find it useful too!

Click here to shop the February edition of Best of Both Worlds!
(Also, the original cut-apart sheet has now sold out, so I added the second design to the list while it is still in stock. You can see all remaining designs from that line here in case something is to your liking!)

If you’re new to the Best of Both Worlds idea (and don’t worry – this is only the second month I’ve done this!), the basic premise is that you can pick up the whole kit just like I’m using by going here and adding one of each to your order. But Best of Both Worlds gives you the freedom to customise so you get exactly what works for you. If you don’t stamp, remove the stamps and save that price. If you already have some of the items in your stash, don’t buy them again and wind up with duplicates. Or if there is something you really love, add more. I don’t use much cardstock on my layouts, so I don’t include it in the list, but if you want cardstock you can either add it (find it here) or you can replace some of the patterned papers with solid cardstock so you’re not adding to the overall price. There’s no subscription and no obligation. But if you would like something simple to assemble a nice box of goodies for you and you like the sort of things I tend to use, then there you go. All nice and easy.

A few questions that came up last time around…
International shipping
I totally understand that the shipping may not work out to make these the best prices for you in the world. But it might not be as bad as you think. Two Peas is working on improvements in their international shipping system, which often over quotes the price. If you open a service ticket on their site (there’s a link at the bottom of the screen), they will credit the difference if you report it within thirty days. (The thirty days is important!) I know that’s not perfect (and they know too, and are working to improve it), but if you didn’t ever think about the difference in the quote and what was on the box, that is important information so I’m sharing it with you. I do it on my orders too. If you have a local source that makes the shopping better for you, then fair enough! You can replicate the items as best as possible with your own source if that’s a much better option for you. (Several people asked why I didn’t set this up with insert name here shop. I like craft shops everywhere, I absolutely promise. Two Peas goes out of their way to work with me, and they support my crazy ideas. So for me, it’s a good match.)

What if things sell out?
As of the turn of midnight on the first of February, there is good stock on all the chosen items. But that doesn’t mean they will all sit around forever, of course. You can take a look at what is and isn’t in stock from the January kit here to get an idea. Some of those items went out of stock earlier in the month and were reordered because many people clicked the ‘request and notify me’ button so they are now back in stock. If you come to this post later in the month and some of the items you want are no longer available, never underestimate the power of that ‘request and notify’ button.

How do I get free shipping at Two Peas?
You need to subscribe to their free email newsletter (you’ll find that in your account settings). Every month they have a code you can add to your order. If you spend more than $50 on physical, non-close-out items, you qualify for free US shipping OR $5 off your shipping to anywhere else in the world. The kit alone would not qualify you for that, but if you had other things to add to your order, then you’re not ridiculously far from the $50 either, and it might work out better for you to spend a little more on product rather than spend the same amount on shipping. Remember you can always see your shipping cost by going part way through the checkout process – you can see the shipping cost before you pay, so you can back up and make changes if needed.

What’s the deal with the Two Peas customer loyalty programme?
It changed over the past month. They had the same loyalty programme since it started, more than a dozen years ago. This industry has changed so much and I can tell you flat out the profit margins a dozen years ago were far, far higher than they are now. Plus inflation meant the amounts for the levels of discounts were not a fair comparison. I mean… think about what you spent for a cup of coffee twelve years ago versus what you pay today and you’ll know prices are not the same. Patterned paper is the same thing: when I started buying 12×12 scrapbooking paper by the sheet, the retail price was lower than the wholesale price in 2013. That’s extreme. To offer such a high discount at such a low threshold in a market with such little profit margin left must have been dangerous to the bottom line. (Please understand that statement is complete speculation from my knowledge of the industry and a bit of simple maths – I do not have any information about the financial side of Two Peas specifically.) They have revamped their loyalty programme and yes, it means that many people (myself included) had their percentage discount diminished. That is sad all around, but I would be sadder if Two Peas didn’t exist! The difference per order from my old percentage discount to my new discount is less than five bucks. And having just been to California, I paid more than that for a cup of coffee. So I’m trying to use that information to put it into perspective for myself. Short answer, yes, you will likely find your loyalty discount is not as great as it once was. However, there are also opportunities now to get loyalty points by chatting on the scrapping boards and uploading projects the gallery, which didn’t exist before. And there will be special opportunities to earn bonus points throughout the year in all sorts of different ways. I love that the end result will be value added to the scrapbooking community at Two Peas. But yes, there have been changes, no, I don’t have any say in them, and above all I really hope it means Two Peas can continue to offer such a great variety of scrapbooking products all in one place. Also: since late November, Two Peas has offered better sales than they ever have before. Loving that.

*What’s the shipping turnaround right now?
I ordered yesterday. It shipped today. I would say things are pretty in the zone in their warehouse right now!

How long does it take an order to arrive from the US to the UK
Once it has shipped, my orders tend to be at my door in 10 to 14 days. If you order a lot, it may need to go through customs, which adds charges and time, yes.

Can I post the kit contents earlier?
No, it will always be the first of the month, and then I’ll use that kit throughout the month. The videos and blog posts don’t expire, I promise, and you can use them at any time. Because you are not subscribing, I need to have one day when I check all the inventory and make sure everything I will be using is in good stock, so it wouldn’t matter what day of the month that was, the same conundrum would exist. The first of the month to share the product picks and then that month to share the projects keeps my brain from imploding.

I think that’s all! I look forward to sharing projects from this kit with you throughout February!

Click here to shop the February edition of Best of Both Worlds!

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Pretty much every winter for several years, I’ve headed to Anaheim, California, for a week. Except I’ve occupied pretty much every moment of the day with work, and barely had time to breathe and sleep. Every year I would try to find some time to steal away to meet with two localish friends, and we would catch a quick cupcake or lunch, and they would ask if I wanted to go to Disney. You know – that reason why most people visit Anaheim, California! And I would say maybe next year and then forget about it all over again.

Except this year, I remembered. I could only do a little more than five hours, but to Disneyland we went, where we ate pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse and spun the teacups and sang It’s a Small World and drove through London on Mr Toad’s Wild Ride and even played some sort of alien laser tag with characters from Toy Story. Don’t ask me which characters: I have never seen Toy Story. None of the Toy Stories. I know, it’s weird. I just… like my animation hand-drawn. (No, I haven’t seen Shrek either. I’ve seen Finding Nemo and I was sorely disappointed. But oddly, I quite like Monsters, Inc. Anyway, I digress.)

I’ve been saving that piece of BasicGrey paper with the lovely watercoloured-fabric texture. Saving it to use as a lush background for something with lots of layers. Except I didn’t have a lot left to layer, so to finish this last page from the January Best of Both Worlds kit, I headed to my scrap basket and ended up including some paper in the one-to-two-years-old category along with some positively-ancient-KI-Memories paper in a colour that makes me swoon.

I don’t tend to use a sketch with the very last remains of a kit – I tend to just move the scraps around until an idea emerges! If you’re looking for more ideas for what to do with those last scraps at the end of a kit, the end of this video might be useful too. I’ll see if I’m able to share a last look for most of the kits – though sometimes it may just happen that the pieces fit perfectly into the sketches and starting points… we’ll see!

If you watched the last Sketch to Scrapbook Page video, you might remember the two hot pink 4×6 cards I considered throwing into the mix before deciding the colour was just too much. In the end, I put both of them together with a black cardstock card blank and made a simple card with the stamp set and two heart punches. There’s quite a bit going on on the front of this card and I’m not completely convinced that I love the chaos of it, but I do really like all the different word and arrow stamps together in the text bubble. I think I’ll try that on a page soon too, because it could make quite a clever embellishment on the right sort of page. Show of hands: should this be my Valentine card to The Boy or should I try again? Ha! I am definitely a scrapbooker first, but still like to make a card now and then.

So here is what remains of my January kit, six pages and one card later: the stamps and tape that I’ll continue to use for quite some time, three alphabet sets that can each do a bit more (some more than others – the navy is particularly spent of some key letters), and some too-small-to-save paper scraps that have now gone in the recycling bin.

Onward to February then!

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Just a few years ago, square photos were only for special occasions in scrapbooking terms – it was so rare to see them on a page or a sketch. Since the dimensions of phone screens changed our design norms and brought apps like Hipstamatic and Instagram to the world of the scrapbooker, square is definitely on the map. So this week, how about a scrapbooking sketch that can work with square or 4×6 photos?

I printed my photos at home this time around, and my computer will default to printing a 3×3 inch image on its own sheet of 4×6 photo paper, but if I change the size to 2.8 inches square, it will print two up without any extra fuss. So I used three 2.8 inch square pictures, but I promise there was no real design reason behind such a specific measurement. If you want to print square images from your phone through an online printer, you can certainly do that too. I normally use this process, which I originally posted with my Hipstamatic notes, but Instagram and anything else with a photo cropped to a square works just the same. (If you don’t tend to scrapbook square images, don’t dismiss this sketch: today’s guest artist didn’t go for squares and it still worked!)

This is yet another project from the January kit, and it’s starting to get a bit depleted now but I think there are two or three projects to come before it’s totally done and dusted.

I took quite a few photos of the wildflowers at the Olympic park this past summer, as did pretty much everyone else there it seemed. There were always people posing in the flowers or brave souls zooming in on the visiting bees. In addition to these small photos, I think I will order my most favourite shot as a 12×12 print and place it on the facing page for my album. Not completely committed to that idea, but it’s something I keep considering. I definitely want a large photo of the flowers in there somewhere, so either the full page option or something more like the sketch from earlier this month with the large photo across two-thirds of the page.

Today’s sketch guest is Megan Klauer, who always amazes me with her eye for detail. I really wondered what she would do with a sketch that was quite minimal – and she did not disappoint!

Sketches are often the perfect boost my creative juices need to start flowing. Although I typically use them pretty loosely, they are always the base of my design. When I see a sketch, oddly enough I usually make another sketch from it, putting the sketch into my own words, so to speak. From there, I gather the photos, papers, and embellishments. With this particular sketch I used two vertical photos as opposed to three square images. The vertical tabbed portion became the center stage of my design where I later layered & embellished to my hearts content. I stayed true to the sketch in terms of the title work, but added my journaling above instead of beneath it.

Megan Klauer is a momma of three and wife to her high school sweetheart. She currently designs for Crate Paper, Bella Blvd, Elle’s Studio, Jenni Bowlin, & A Flair for Buttons Etsy shop. In her spare time she does on location photography & works full time as an office secretary.

And now it’s your turn! Create a page in your style with this sketch, post it online, and share it with us. You can upload to your blog or to a scrapbooking gallery like Two Peas or UKScrappers, then just follow the steps to link to your project wherever it can be found online!

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Today I’m thrilled to welcome Mandy Koeppen to the blog to share five beautiful ideas for sewing on your scrapbook pages. I love the looks Mandy has created to share with us, and hope you find some inspiration for a project of your own! -Shimelle

I love to stitch on my projects: it gives that added personal touch. I hope one day when my great-grandchildren rub their hands over the page, they’ll feel the love and time that went into documenting our memories. I know hand-stitching time consuming and it might be easier for you to run your project through the sewing machine, but after you see what I’m going to share with you I think you might change your mind and give the old needle and thread another look. I’m going to share five different ways to create beautiful hand stitched details on your projects. Let’s get started.

Making Your Title Pop
If you know my style, you’ll know that I am into enlarged photos and long titles. I think they make a big statement and are eye-catching in galleries. Sometimes the color of the letters used on my projects look like they need a little something more, so one day while creating it hit me: stitch around the Thickers in another color to make them pop. For those who don’t have patience, this might not be a good one for you to try unless it’s a one word title. This technique admittedly takes a long time, but it’s truly beautiful when finished.

Borders
This is an easy and fun way to mix up your stitching. Yes, it’s faster through the sewing machine, but I love that chunkier look the hand-stitching gives and the different stitches you can use without changing settings because you’re using your hands. For example, this card has a straight stitch that you only see every other stitch but I could have added the cross stitch, swirly stitches, and more to the border. You could mix colors and stitches for another look too.

Holding Those Pesky Letters Down
I know we have all had this sort of problem: you open a package of letter stickers or Thickers and they don’t stick or you have moved them around on your page so much they loose their stick. Guess what I do when that happens? You got it: I stitch across the letters to keep them in place on my projects. This doesn’t have to be just for stickers either. The ‘LOVE’ on this layout was cut from patterned paper, so to hold it down and give it a pop of color I stitched the letters to the page.

Shapes
With hand-stitching, the sky’s the limit to the shapes you can stitch. You can make your own templates or Miss Amy Tan has released a fab new set of templates to make it easier (I saw these at CHA and they will be in stores soon). Stitching around cut shapes gives your project added dimension, and following the design of the patterned paper makes all sorts of shapes easy to stitch.

TIP using your own template: before you start putting holes in you project, print, draw, or cut out your shape on cardstock, then punch your stitching holes with a paper piercer into the cardstock. Once you have the look you want, place your template on your project and re-pierce the holes through the template onto your project. That way you can make a rough draft before punching any holes in your almost-finished project.

Stitch Anywhere on Your Projects
Hand-stitching gives the option to stitch and create anywhere on your projects, unlike your traditional sewing machine that you have a set amount of space you can get to with the needle. On this layout I was able to hand-stitch the flight pattern on the map. With my sewing machine, I wouldn’t have been able to do this (some of you could – I just haven’t mastered the machine so this is easier for me). This little detail only takes a few minutes!
I love how hand-stitching has so many options: colors of threads, thickness of stitches, patterns, tools, where you want to create on your project. You can do a little or a lot! Hand-stitching shows the love and hard work that went into creating the project.

A few tips before I say goodbye:
…A paper piercer is a great tool but you can substitute a push pin if needed.
…Pushpads are awesome – they make piercing your holes much easier, especially on lots of layers. A mouse pad will work too.
…There are so many sizes of needles. Try different ones and see which you like best.
…Threads? Oh my goodness! There are so many varieties and colors that again you will try different ones and find your faves. I have a enamel pan full of threads that my grandma gave me from her punch needle & crocheting days.
…Templates are so easy you don’t have to buy them. Make your own or just stitch freehand on your project. It’s easy and fun!

Good luck with your all your stitching projects!

Mandy Koeppen is a 30 something mom of 3 who juggles many job titles in her everyday life from chauffeuring family accountant to zoo-keeping therapist. She lives a small town, country girl life in Michigan with her Mr. K, raising their three children Teagan, Mavrick, and Avery. When she has time, Mandy loves to get creative with paper, browse her local antique shops, raise autism awareness for sweet Mav, and have fun with family & friends. Mandy’s work has been published in Creating Keepsakes, Scrapbook Trends, Scrapbooks Etc, and Somerset Memories. Mandy currently designs for Cocoa Daisy Kits. To see more of Mandy’s work or to get to know her better you can visit her blog or follow her on Twitter or Instagram.

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_{class content ©twopeasinabucket.com.}
Inspired by this conversation on the General Scrapbooking message board at Two Peas, Glitter Girl brings you thirty minutes of scrapbook talk this week, all about journaling. She shares her tips for product choices that will make journaling easy, designs that allow you to incorporate your writing without losing other page elements, and other tips for seeing your writing as an integral part of any page. I hope you enjoy!

See this post for all the supplies for this project, plus further details including Glitter Girl’s challenge to you this week.

Those photos were taken in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, inside a market hall. I know the colouring looks a little blue, and I toyed with ‘correcting’ it, but the light truly looked like this inside and in the end I decided I wanted to stay true to the look and feel of the memory rather than changing the colour to look like it could be anywhere. But the story is about our adventures in drinking beans, which sounds strange, but I assure you is actually pretty fabulous. We were introduced to this idea in Vietnam when part of a cooking workshop took us through the local market to sample different local ingredients. There we met someone who was introduced only as ‘The Bean Lady’, and she sat outside the market with half a dozen pots of different slow cooked beans. This summer concoction is made with azuki beans that have been slow cooked with sugar until they are very sweet, then layered with sweetened condensed milk, shaved ice, and caramel. (In the winter, there is a warm version with similar ingredients.) Different regions have different ways of making and eating this and indeed different pots of different things from all the local bean ladies! As we went further south in Vietnam, bean ladies became harder and harder to find, so when we stumbled upon one in Cambodia, we were excited to try her version, which happened to be the sweetest we ever tasted. So for my journaling on this page, I didn’t just want to focus on the moment at hand, but also include some of that backstory – the context of other memories that makes you see why I felt these photos were worth taking and why they are something I want to preserve in my scrapbooks.

For more inspiration on journaling at Two Peas, follow this Pinterest board, where I’ll continue to add my favourites as I spot them in the gallery and other resources there.

If you’re looking to take your writing further in your scrapbooking, True Stories is a resource you might find useful. It’s my journaling class and I’m joined by guest artists and a guest teacher (Relly Annett-Baker, who is a writing expert outside of her scrapbooking side, and contributed a second point of view to each prompt, which provides a great balance and extension of ideas). The pages I made for True Stories are probably my favourites I’ve ever made for any class, because the chance to focus on the writing (but still have fun with photos, patterns, and embellishment) made these pages dear to my heart. I worked on them when we were at an interesting cross-roads in life, as well, and I am grateful that I took the time to document things like decision making processes and conversations between old friends. This class is available any time as a self-paced project, with fifteen prompts for £10 or $15, and you can sign up here.

Onward, covered in glitter, my dear scrapbookers!

The Adventures of Glitter Girl is a weekly series on Two Peas in a Bucket, and goes live every Wednesday. I’ll share each adventure here shortly after that. I hope you enjoy her quests for crafting happiness, and if you ever have a scrapbooking dilemma yourself, you can always call her to action on the message board.

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It’s time for the gardeners’ digest – a monthly blog hop through the Two Peas in a Bucket designers, the Garden Girls.

Since last time, it’s been my sparkly friend contributing to the garden, of course. Last week Glitter Girl got the chance to give the brand new Amy Tangerine stitching templates a whirl, even though they don’t hit stores for a couple more weeks. You can see that new item plus Glitter Girl’s tips on unlikely colours in her adventure on Colour Coordination.

The new year has brought a huge change to how the garden works at Two Peas – and now there are six new videos every week. Each day has a theme, and Mondays belong to 213 in 2013, which is a new take on the old weekly challenge idea. Each video includes three or four different creativity prompts so the full year adds up to 213 different ideas, from design to photography to product to colour choice and so on.

This video is from new Garden Girl Corrie Jones and I know how nerve-wracking it is just getting started with videos… even at this point I feel like every video is a new learning curve! I love Corrie’s page and I’m really excited to try some of the ideas she presented, so I thought this might inspire you too. See her full project here.

For my product picks this month, I’m really drawn to stamps! You’ve seen my last few projects including this set by Kelly Purkey, which is exclusive to Two Peas. I’ve also ordered this set by Mama Elephant, this camera background by Hero Arts, the interlocking backgrounds by Lawn Fawn, and these BasicGrey arrows. I guess I’m on a bit of a stamp kick!

This month, I’m delighted to giveaway a class pass to Julie Campbell’s new workshop, Journey into Cardmaking. Whether you’re a seasoned card maker or have yet to make your first card, this workshop will take you on a journey to create handmade cards that your friends & loved ones will cherish.

Julie will start out by teaching you card making basics; you will create a card organizer to file away all the new cards you’ll be designing! You’ll then travel on to gain greater design skills. You’ll dive into design principles and learn how to create an eye pleasing design. You’ll learn all about composition & balance in a way that will take your cards from good to great! Become adventurous and explore some of the hottest trends in paper crafting! In this workshop, you’ll also learn how to incorporate colors in your projects & how to create cards in several unique styles. Included in this workshop are over 30 brand-new card samples from Julie and her contributors. The three chapters contain a printable PDF for a total of over 40 pages, and 80 minutes of coordinating video tutorials.

To enter, leave a comment on this post! Entries close at 11:59pm GMT on the 31st of January 2013, and the winner will be contacted and posted here shortly thereafter. But you don’t have to wait to sign up if you’re interested: if the winner has already purchased the workshop, the purchase price will be fully refunded (or you can choose to gift it to a friend, of course).

Once you leave that comment to enter, your next stop is Julie herself! So do go there next!

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Today I’m delighted to welcome Jaime Warren to share the creative process behind her beautifully delicate scrapbooking style.

I have something to confess. I am, quite literally, all over the place when I scrapbook. Everything is scattered and chaotic. I have never been able to sit down at my desk and pound out a layout based on a plan. Never. Typically this is how it goes down:

1. Print photos
2. Stare at photos.
3. Pick out patterned paper.
4. Stare at patterned paper.
5. Walk away from desk, fold laundry, come back to desk.
6. Stare some more.

See? Chaotic scrapper. I am also not a technique based scrapper. The most I do technique wise is fussy cutting (which I love) and splattering some mist haphazardly on my page. I look at those who can scrapbook with the latest techniques and I wish that I could…but, I am a very basic scrapper. I have major love for patterns, pop dots and stamping. Take me outside of my little box and I scramble right back in! For those who are also chaotic scrappers, you totally get it. So, while I won’t be sharing a trend setting technique, I hope that you will enjoy a glimpse into how I create. No, it’s nothing special really, but it’s my crazy (and I hope fun!) way of putting my memories, thoughts and photos onto paper.

I recently started using my Silhouette Cameo – honestly I was intimidated by it for a while. Now it is part of my scrapping routine, I can’t live without it! I have always struggled with title work, but, the Cameo makes it super easy. I love cutting out large pieces and using them for my titles. With this layout in particular I knew that the photos I had picked out and the cut out phrase were perfect together. As you can see, I have my patterned paper, my phrase and my photos all picked out. Commence staring.

I print my photos, at home, on 4×6 semi-glossy photo paper. Typically I print 2×3, it works best for my style of scrapbooking. I trim them so that I leave a small border of white around the edges. I love how it creates a natural border around my photos and helps the photos pop off of colored and patterned backgrounds. After trimming the photos, I drop a few splatters of mist on my page. There is no real rhyme or reason to how I do it…sometimes it gets covered up and I have to add more. It’s not a perfect system by any means, but it gets the job done!

I struggled with what I wanted to put on this layout. After pulling out every embellishment in my stash I couldn’t find anything that seemed to fit. I happened to come across this sheet of patterned paper with the butterflies on it that were screaming to be cut out and used as my embellishments. Yay! It took a while of moving them around on my page, but finally I found a flow that I liked. I attached them with foam adhesive (my favorite is the kind you cut out yourself) for lots of dimension.

I love using bits and pieces of things on my layouts, especially around the edges. I will often cut things up and use a teeny tiny piece of it as my embellishment. Strange, right? For this layout I trimmed the edge of a doily and attached it with my Tim Holtz stapler (that thing is so awesome for attaching small embellishments). I tend to layer as I go. I might staple something one minute and then come back five minutes later and add something else. Now you see why I consider myself a chaotic scrapper! I can be finished with a layout and then decide, oh: it needs this tiny scrap of paper, right here!

I ended up trimming the doily twice and using one piece at the top of the layout and one at the bottom. From there I started adding to right side of my layout, just below my photos.

I started out with two stickers and then ended up cutting a frame in half and layering it around the stickers. I told you I loved cutting things up!

I loved the little butterflies but felt they needed something more to liven them up. Aha! Gems! Sparkly stuff always does the trick, right?

Remember when I mentioned that I tend to come back five minutes later and add something to a section that I thought I was finished with? Well, this is a perfect example of that. I attached the doily and then came back and started layering on more bits and pieces. A sticker and some trimmed graph paper. Go ahead, shake your head at me, I don’t blame you!

I love stamping in random areas on my layout. I love date stamps, graphic stamps, border stamps..all of them! For this layout I used two of my favorite stamps and a date stamp. I used three different colors of ink – green, pink and black, changing up the colors for each stamp. I stamped along the bottom edge and top edge, using all three stamps on both sections. I also love embossing stamped images, it really makes them pop off of a page!

I tend to handwrite my journaling, although I will sometimes type it out…it totally depends on the layout and the “feel” of it. I can’t draw a straight line to save my life, so I used my stencil to draw my journaling lines.

I love the journaling aspect of scrapbooking. If I have a lot to say, I will write it on a journaling card or tag and slip it into a glassine envelope, tucked behind a photo. Sometimes I journal on the back of my layouts. I want my girls to look back and know my heart.

The finished product took me two days to complete (sad, yes?) a lot of rearranging, a lot of last minute additions and a lot of love. I hope you enjoyed this little tour of scrapbooking chaos. If you are a totally random, chaotic scrapper like me, well, know that you aren’t alone. I know that there are plenty of us out there. Regardless of the latest trends, techniques or product out there, the most important thing is to just love what you do…no matter how you do it.

If you’ve been reading a while, you might remember this post where I channelled my inner Jaime and challenged you to do the same. Having this additional insight into her process of creating those scrapbook pages, I’m inspired all over again – and I hope you might be too. Thanks so much for sharing this with us, Jaime!

Jaime Warren is a scrapbooker and photographer who lives in a tiny little town in Georgia. She has three girls, ranging in age from 12 to 5 who keep her on her toes and keep her scrapbooking. She is married to her best friend who happens to be the only one who could put up with her chaos. She has been blessed to design for several manufacturers over the years including Crate Paper, October Afternoon, Prima, Chic Tags, Technique Tuesday, Pink Paislee and more. She was a 2009 Memory Makers Master and has been published in Creating Keepsakes, Cards and several scrapbooking books. You can find Jaime at her blog, 3*2*5, or bookmark her scrapbook pages through her gallery.

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This morning I had every intention of being on the train into the city nice and early so I could do one of those very rare things in my world and work with people actually in person instead of through email inboxes. Except it has snowed and snowed and snowed some more this past weekend, and the trains in our corner of London are not running. So instead, I am scrapbooking. I think I can cope with that idea, provided we can reschedule our day of working in person for sometime soon.

As a result of that, here’s a starting point! It started with a full sheet of patterned paper for the background, two narrow strips (they were the two off-cuts from that large square on the last sketch layout), and two 4×6 cut-apart cards, plus an off-cut of what was left of the camera print in the middle. Everything here is still from my January kit of supplies – this is the fourth page to come from that stack of goodies so far.

_{Oh snow, you have taken away all the natural light. Perhaps I can rephotograph this soon.}

Almost everything on the completed page is still from those supplies – including lots of the button card used to create the bunting. I added the thread to finish that detail plus gold and black mists and three pink enamel dots for that little row of embellishments in the middle. The stamped ‘Happy’ words at the right are just stamped with regular black ink, but faded to match the ombre pattern of the striped paper by simply adding more pressure or stamping off some of the ink.

Once this was finished, the combination of the tall narrow strips and the small photos reminded me of this sketch, though there are certainly a few differences. Worth a comparison if you have more narrow strips left than larger boxes.

If you want to give this starting point a try, choose any papers you want and arrange them in a similar fashion to the second image in this post. Then ignore my finished layout and complete your page to suit your style and photographs. When you’re done, share your project with us so we can see all the different ways that same starting point can continue to a completed design.

Have a great week – and if you get snowed in, at least you can always scrapbook!

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