April Project Life Spread

I realise I am way WAY behind on my Project Life making, and even further behind in sharing my pages here. But I'll do what I can over the next week so catch up a little.

This double page spread appeared in the latest FREE issue of Jot Magazine (which you can download here) and even though I made it ages ago I still really love it.

I think I love the colours most of all. The mix of green and gold and pink is something I haven't used before, and the addition of lots of black and white is now becoming a staple for me after creating this page and noticing the high impact it creates.

The cards are a mix of Studio Calico's April Film Club Documenter Kit, and a set of Amy Tangerine's Better Together cards from her Project Life Core Kit that I got from the Spotlight event when she last visited Australia. I think they work quite well together.



When it comes to embellishments in my Project Life album I'm trying to keep them as flat as possible, but I still love adding a bit of texture, so these puffy stickers, gold rubons and corkboard stickers did the trick nicely on the first page.

I've then also thrown in a few extra embellishments like these diamond chipboard shapes from a much older Studio Calico scrapbook kit in order to make a bit of an effort to use up some stash.
I've got lots of them left over which meant I didn't really know what to do with them in the first place, but I like the extra colour they add here without having to really mean anything at all ;-)

Of course with all my pages I always make sure to leave enough space to add in the stories I want to tell, and since I find handwriting so much easier, I stick with that! Filling in all possible gaps with jouranling!

Anyone else as far behind as I am?!

Jot Magazine Issue 10

The latest issue of Jot Magazine has just been released and as usual it's fabulous! For a free digital magazine you really can't get anything of a higher quality. Doesn't the sneak alone make you want to dive into it's pages?

As a Jot Girl I have two layouts in this issue. The first one features in the "Say What?" gallery which is all about the funny things our kids say. I had quite a few quotes I could have used for this one.

But I settled on a recent story about when Bethany met Amy Tan in March. She had only just discovered the world of Instagram and was gaining a few followers, and therefore considered herself quite famous. She wasn't shy about meeting a real scrapping celebrity either. She marched confidently up to Amy and stated, "I'm Bethany, one of the Elphie Kids. But you must already know who I am."

Yep. True story.

Now it only seemed fitting that if I was going to do a layout about Amy Tan that I should make it with Amy Tangerine products, so I pulled out my Yes Please collection and got to work. By mixing in a few different and newer supplies to embellish, it gives it a fresh look I'm think.

Because this issue of Jot Magazine marks it's 2nd birthday there's also a Celebration/Party gallery which I used as the prompting I needed to finally scrap about Bethany's 8th birthday. Which was in September by the way. Now you know why I said 'finally'!!

For this I used the Poet Society kit and it's Add Ons from Studio Calico. Not for any hugely sentimental reason other than me trying to kill a few of my older kits and this happened to be the first one I grabbed ;-) I keep all my old kits bundled together in separate plastic bags because I do like revisiting them from time to time.

Again, I like to think that if I add in just a couple of different embellishments it gives the kit a bit of a newer feel (even if the other embellishments aren't new themselves), but really I guess that's only in the eyes of myself and anyone else who happens to know obsessively which supplies came in which kit.

My much bigger stroke of genius came when I decided I was going to do my journaling 'interview style' and that I would actually let Bethany write her answers directly onto the page herself. Now it really is capturing this moment in time even better by including her handwriting too.

You can find both my layouts as well as a tonne of other inspirational projects (it's 166 pages long!) in Issue 10 of Jot Magazine right here. And did I mention it's free?!

Happy reading!

Jot Kids Bethany

We love Jot Magazine around here, and we especially love it when school holidays roll around and they release their Jot Kids Mood Board Challenge! My girls really enjoy their scrapping and are constantly raiding my supplies to make their own layouts, despite the fact that I have a box for each of them that I regularly top up with my scraps. I encourage it of course, and even have a separate pile of photos printed out just for them that they're welcome to use at any time. 

So when I told them Jot were going to run another challenge they were very excited. They haven't stopped talking about the first one, and more than once asked about whether there would be more. We were counting down the days in my house for this!  Bethany (who's 7) actually squealed out loud when she saw how pretty the Mood Board was!

She jumped up and wanted to get scrapping straight away. I negotiated and decided we should at least get out of our pajamas first. I know right? No fun at all ;-)

The first step was all about going through The Stash together and deciding on what she should use. She eventually decided on this mix and match of Amy Tangerine papers, checking out the b-sides and comparing the colours until she had carefully culled down her choices to the final dozen... or so. She also used some of the free Printables found on the Jot Blog, and she took inspiration from these to chose the theme of her page.
Yes, it's about ice-cream!

It was really amusing to watch her process... as she seems to display many similar scrapping traits to me! First she layered up papers and cards making sure to consider where she would journal.  Next she freaked out about what title it should have and how on earth she was ever going to line up the letters. Lastly it was all about adding the finishing details like the punched hearts with sequins, and then wrote out her journaling...

Shall I translate?
It reads, "Summer is great when..... 1. Ice-cream 2. Go to Athletics 3. Swimming in the pool 4. Going to the Beach 5. Jumping on the Trampoline"

Couldn't agree more!

Thanks Jot Magazine for the great challenge. My girls absolutely loved it, and I hope it continues to be a regular school-holidays feature!

The Story of the Glitter Album

Back in February when I was a Guest Designer for American Crafts one of the things they asked me to make was a mini-album. Still reeling from my dismal failure at completing (AKA: barely even starting) my December Daily, I thought this was going to be one of the harder parts of the assignment. 

I have to admit with the DD attempt still fresh in my mind I said to myself "better make this fairly simple then, if I'm going to make it through" :-) One thing that really helped was working with fabulous product. Give me all the Guest Designer gigs in the world..... but only if I actually enjoy working with the supplies and love the designs. It's just not worth it otherwise.

So inspired by two main products, the Amy Tangerine Stitched Vellum Pockets, and American Crafts Glitter Tape (it was Glitter Week after all) I set to work creating my quick and easy mini-album in a flash!

The album really is actually "mini", measuring only 5x4" with the base of it simply being two long strips of patterned paper (5 x 12") folded up accordion style and stitched together. Then I alternatively adhered photos and the Vellum Pockets to each page.

Inside each pocket fits a journalling card so there's plenty of space to write down all my rambling thoughts. I say rambling thoughts specifically here because I've just chosen a bunch of fun random photos that haven't made it onto any of my layouts. Not really what you'd call a proper theme! But happy to be getting them out of my pile and into a project all the same.

I've decorated each Vellum Pocket with Glitter Tape that's been cut into different designs. Some more intricate than others. The Glitter Tape comes in different widths, so if you're thinking about cutting it up then I suggest the thicker ones. But what I love most is that when you're done snipping and chopping you simply peel off the backing and it's adhesive.... so no fussing around with fine-tipped glues!

Most of the other paper details come from the Amy Tangerine Cut & Paste collection, with just a touch of the Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm collection. Both are equally awesome and can mix and match a little.

Ultimately this mini album ended up only taking me an hour or so to make. Waaaayyyy shorter time that my average layout ;-) So I'm quite happy that I came to the realisation that they don't have to be overly complex or complicated to be effective. Occasionally I can do clean and simple too... in fact, might need to do more of it now!

xxx

The Story of the Brushscript Class

Are you someone who takes a lot of online classes and enjoys learning new tricks and techniques that way? I have to admit that it takes a pretty amazing-sounding class description to get me to sign up for these sorts of things. Only because I know my time is fairly limited so I have to choose carefully.  

Oh, and really... it's also because I often lack the enthusiasm to see it through all the way until the end. I'm too inpatient I think. I'll take the first few lessons and then decide I've learned enough and I just want to do it my way now ;-) I admit... not really the best tactic!

So with that insight into my thoughts about online classes then you must believe me when I say this..... the Kal Barteski Life Scripted class at Studio Calico is one of the best classes I've ever taken! It's totally rocked my scrapping world! Yes I saw it through to the very end. I watched every video, taking notes as I went. I bought some supplies and I've practiced the techniques she taught. And then I've actually applied what I learned and included brushscript into a number of projects now.

I was just mentioning this on the Studio Calico forum, but here's some of the reasons why I loved this class...

1. It's obvious Kal is completely in love with the process, and her enthusiasm is contagious. I've never seen anyone so excited about stirring paint around before!

2. It is a new skill. It's something completely different than many other classes. So once you've learned it, you've got the opportunity to really change the way you create. At least, that's what I've found. 

3. Apart from the class, you really don't need to invest in a whole lot of new tools or other equipment to keep it up. Kal will take you through all the materials she prefers to use, and she's got lots of good reasons for that. But in all honesty, I've had just as much fun using an ordinary paint brush, black ink (misting ink.... like Mr Hueys) and some ordinary printing paper (although I do like the drawing paper better).

I was practicing my newfound skills at my recent Escape 2 Create retreat and it caught the attention of lots of interested bystanders, including my fellow teacher Kim Archer. Earlier this week she published a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at my practice and process of creating this layout on the Jot Magazine blog. You can see that feature here.

Even though the Kal Barteski Life Scripted class has finished running in real time and the message boards have closed, you can still sign up for the class today. It's proved so popular (with good reason) that Studio Calico are going to continue to provide you access to it. You'll still be able to watch all the videos, download the PDF's, get the digital files etc etc, so I think it's definitely still worthwhile investing. You can find out more information and sign up here. If you've taken the class already... what did you think?

The Story of the Americanism

Oh dear... so what to do when your pre-packaged embellishment set comes with a great big gorgeous sentiment that's spelled in the American way, leaving out the 'u' which us Aussies include? It's quite the dilemma isn't it? And one that we face not all that rarely. 

On the one hand I've got the patriotic side of me which says, "don't buckle to the pressure, don't let our Aussie culture be completely replaced by the American one!" and, "don't let people think you don't know how to spell!" But on the other hand I've got the scrapbooking side of me which says, "but it's soooo pretty and everyone will know what you mean anyway." Plus, it would be such a shame to let this one sentiment on the set of Dear Lizzy Polka Dot Party Dimensional Stickers go to waste when I'd already used so many of the others.

Ha! I guess you can see which side won the argument!

PS. What ultimately turned out to be a little embarrassing was when Munchy chose this card to give to her teacher for Valentine's Day. Out of all my cards, and out of all the people to give it to... she chose the card with a 'misspelling' on it to give to her teacher. I had to laugh!
And then I quickly augmented the front of it to stick a 'u' over the top ;-)

The Story of the 10th Anniversary Album

At the very last minute I've decided I might try and attempt another December Daily this year. Not too sure how successful I'll be. Maybe calling it a Documenting December album will be more accurate. Possibly.

This is not it of course...

When I say I decided at the last minute to attempt a DD I mean here I am on Dec 1st and I've managed to finish the front cover but not even photograph it, and I certainly haven't done anything inside it! So instead I thought I'd share a different mini-album I completed earlier in the year that I never blogged (because it was published before I ever had a chance to get it up here!)

Back in January The Man and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. We had originally planned a trip to Japan, just the 2 of us. But upon further contemplation of the fact I had the biggest exams of my life pending in February, and then again in October we thought it wiser to hold off. He still took me on a romantic weekend away though, and this album tells the story of that.

Not your ordinary album with pages, I took a little twist with this one. The album base is all one piece of folded card with a series of pockets into which I've placed tags and cards to pull out individually. That allowed me to tuck in all the photos (with journaling on the back) as well as little bits of ephemera we collected on the trip. And when it started to get a bit bulky I tied a ribbon all around it to make sure it stays together securely.

All the patterned papers are from the Amy Tangerine Sketchbook collection (yep - still digging this!) I needed to keep all the embellishments fairly flat so I've stuck with plenty of Silhouette cuts and stickers.

Hopefully I'll be back soon blogging my Documenting December album.
Or at least my front cover ;-)

Welcome to the festive season!!