Write. Click. Scrapbook.

Mixing patterns | Day 1

Hi there! When we came up with this week´s theme: mixing patterns, I hesitated for a second. Seeing that my last pages have exactly 1 patterned paper in between them, you can say that I am a bit challenged with them. But then again, I do love a good challenge! So mixing patterns it is! 

As I mentioned before, I am not big on using many patterned papers on my pages. But when I do, I rarely use them as backgrounds (even if it has happened!). I rather use my circle punch to get smaller pieces of the papers. Today I want to show you two ways I like to mix patterns (read: use patterned papers) on my pages. 

 

 

As much as I love the warmth and sunshine of summer, I do love the first frost. So, ofcourse I wanted to make a page about that! For my page I have used, wait for it, SIX different patterned papers! Yay! I used the papers that came in my Gossamer Blue Christmas kit for the letters of my title. I love how they went great with the wooden pattern of the paper I used as my mat. 

 

Again, I handcut the letters and it doesn´t bother me if they are uneven or anything. I usually use my craft knife to rough up the edges after cutting them too. 

 

 

This page shows just how many patterned papers my creative mind can handle on one page! Ha! I dived into my scrap paper bin for this one. This is a great way to use up all those pieces that are leftovers from other projects that I always save. I used the photo as my color scheme and added the aqua because it goes so well with red. So I cut all my strips and lined them up in the order I wanted and added a piece of tape to the back so that I only needed to adhere one bigger piece and not every strip indivdually. I am really pleased with how it turned out!

 

How about you? Are you a patterned paper lover? Do you hoard pretty paper or actually use them? Please tell me in the comments!

Lisa

Scrapbook: ALL the favorites!

It's Jennifer Larson, and I have a confession to make: I love scrapbooking, so I have a lot of favorite things. On this page I did pretty much all of them. Even though I try to create pages with new ideas, it gives me a lot of satisfaction to go back to those favorite ideas and products and techniques. Here they are:

First, I used a kit, my March Scrapbook Circle kit. Using kits makes my product selection easier.

Next, I picked my favorite colors--yellow, orange, blue, and green.

I journaled in strips.

I sewed on the page.

I clustered embellishments.

And then some details:

Another favorite! I love mixing fonts/products for titles.

And layering embellishments.

Thank you for sharing my page! I know that sometimes we pressure ourselves to create something original each time, but why not just surround yourself with your favorites?

Scrapbook: Three elements

Hello! It's Jennifer Larson. I'm at a very busy time of year--one more month in the term to grade papers, my son's birthday, and the beast called winter. To relax, I love scrapbooking, but if I have to think too much, it slows me down. To stay creative, I remind myself to think only of three elements: photos, journaling, and title. Though I love embellishments, I center the embellishments around one of those three elements to avoid design paralysis.

If I start with those three elements, the rest seems to fall in place more easily. Here's three pages where I did that.

With this page, I started with the photos, printing them all the same, small size to get them on one page. They fit best in one block, so the most logical thing to do from there was to put the journaling above the block. I could have put the title below for balance, but I always try to save the tickets for baseball pages, so I put the tickets in an envelope below and budged the title against the journaling. I embellished to highlight the title and the journaling, two of my key elements with this page.

For this next page, I again started with the photos:

I had two 5x7 inch photos, so I opted for a two page spread, the photos centered along the spread to give them equal importance. I may be the only one in the world with this problem, but I seem to have a bucketload of Project Life cards, so I picked ones with similar natural hues and themes to surround the photos, including a journaling card in the mix. The most logical place for the title was in a line below the photos; I chose to embellish the title, then the other side of the page for balance.

Finally, this page flew out of my brain starting with the title (pardon the pun):

The title was the first thing from my head, so I gave it due space in the bottom quarter of the page. I centered the embellishments around the title. I had many Project Life card-sized photos of this event. My son helped me narrow them to his three favorites. Since they were Project Life-sized, I picked my most autumnal cards from the bucket 'o cards, making sure to include one journaling card.

Thank you for letting me share with you my design process! I hope if you get as busy as I have been, you can focus on these three elements and let the design flow easily from them.!

 

One Layout, Five Challenges

Hi everyone! Sue here today to share a summer layout and suggest five scrapping challenges prompted by this page. First, the layout itself.

 

And here are your five challenges:

#1. STORY: Make a page about a favorite summer tradition.

#2. PHOTOS: Take pictures of your favorite local summer destinations.

#3. TITLE & JOURNALING: Design a long title for your layout that also serves as the journaling.

#4. COMPOSITION: Create a layout with a vertically blocked design scheme.

#5. COLOR & PRODUCT: Eliminated patterned paper from your layout and rely on other products to build your color palette.

Here's One Final Challenge: Take a layout you've made and pull your own set of five challenges from it. Do this several times and you'll soon have plenty of ideas for all your summer scrapping!

 

In Review

As April draws to a close, we are going to take a moment to look back through our amazing April gallery, Selfies, for one last chance to pick up some journaling, photography, and design ideas. Ready? Shall we go together?

 

We thought these five layouts had wonderful ideas for journaling our own lives. Some give us good strategies for our writing, some give us good ideas. All are helpful to recording bits and pieces of our lives. Let's look.

 

This is So Me | Lisa Ottosson

8.5 x 11 | materials cardstock (Bazzill) + patterned paper (BasicGrey) + enamel dots (Freckled Fawn ) + tag (Evalicious) + journaling card (Project Life Neapolitan mini kit) + clip (Studio Calico) + datestamp (Becky Higgins) + sentiment stamp (October Afternoon)

Tried and true and never out of style, list making is a wonderful way of catching snapshots of our current lives. You can use them as bullet points as Lisa did, or use them as starting points for a much more in depth story.

 

Confessions | Jennifer Larson

12 x 12 | materials cardstock (American Crafts) + patterned paper (My Mind’s Eye, Studio Calico) + buttons (Studio Calico) + gems (Doodlebug) + stickers (Studio Calico, Jillibean Soup) + pen (Copic) + photo turn (7gypsies)

This is such a FANTASTIC idea for a layout. And using a patterned page like this helps eliminate the daunting side as it makes your confessions just snippets of thoughts and happenings, rather than making you feel like you are at the police station having to write down the whole story! Jenny, thank you for a truly clever idea!

 

Hello 32 | Kate Christensen

8.5 x 11 | materials digital kits (Sass Mouth by Valorie Wibbens and Lauren Reid) + kraft paper (Stated by Sara Gleason) + mist (Perfect Amount of Mess V.2 by Amy Martin) + alpha (Clearly by Robyn Meierotto) + style (Digital Glitters by Sahlin Studio) + font (Traveling Typewriter)

Do you sometimes shy away from journaling because you are afraid to write? Kate's layouts reminds us that a few descriptors can be a very effective means of journaling.

 

41 | Amy Sorensen

12 x 12 | materials patterned paper (American Crafts) + pens (American Crafts, Zebra) + date stamp (My Mind's Eye) + font (merge)

Amy's random list is another successful means of collecting details that might otherwise go unstated in your scrapbooks. Having the number coincide with your age helps give you a parameter but it would be just as easy to pick 25 or 100. Another helpful measure if you choose this route for your journaling is to set a time limit on each one (or on the whole) so that you just go with what comes to mind and don't get too caught up in the process.

 

Technology | Cristina C. Scrap

12 x 12 | materials Real Life collection bundle (Digital Design Essentials), Journal Junkie - Bright Heart, Good Harvest, Doodles-a-Fancy Borders and Blessed Beyond Belief (CD Muckosky), The Golden Friends fonts (Heather Joyce)

Many of us have documented our movies and music, but until now, have you thought to document your tech? or your feelings about it? So much of what we do now revolves around it, especially if you are a a techhead. Thank you, Cristina, for the reminder to capture that side of ourselves as well!

 

 

As you look through these next few layouts, notice the awesome ideas for getting some shots of ourselves.

 

Something Cool Like Aliza | Aliza Deutsch

12 x 12 | materials patterned paper (BasicGrey, Studio Calico) + transparency (Studio Calico) + sequins (Teresa Collins) + thickers (American Crafts) + enamel dots (Teresa Collins) + stickers (Evalicious, Skipping 5, Studio Calico, 7 gypsies, October Afternoon) + other (Jillibean Soup, Maya Road, Two Peas in a Bucket) + fonts (Skinny)

This photo reminds us to capture the regular moments of our lives. Here Aliza was scrapbooking on vacation. But it could have just as easily been at home. Set up the tripod or ask someone to capture you scrapbooking. It is a huge part of our lives. And what fun to see your process in front of you? Great idea, Aliza! 

 

Me & My Friends | Monika Głód

12 x 12 | materials cardstock (American Crafts) + patterned paper (Studio Calico) + alphabet (Studio Calico) + badge (Studio Calico) + mist (Studio Calico) + stamps (Studio Calico) + printables (Studio Calico)

Remember how awkward it used to be to ask someone to take a photo of you and your special girlfriends when you were out on a girls night? Remember how now in the time of camera phones, no one thinks twice about taking one themselves or asking someone to do it for you? No more, here is my big camera that will scare off any passerby. No more here is the button you push. Nope. Now just hand over your phone. Everyone knows where the buttons are. Everyone knows what to do. It's awesome!! 

 

Currently | Christine Newman

12 x 12 | materials cardstock (Bazzill, Strathmore) + patterned paper (Studio Calico, Bella Blvd, Hambly, Lily Bee) + wood veneers (Studio Calico) + enamel dots (Twine + Ink) + printable labels (Studio Calico) + mist (Studio Calico) + ink (Hero Arts, Studio Calico, Tsukineko) + stamps (American Crafts, Evalicious, Technique Tuesday, Studio Calico) + tag (Elle's Studio) + twine (The Twinery) + washi tape (Studio Calico) + plastic hearts (Hello Forever for Studio Calico) + doily (Royal Lace) + adhesive (Scotch, Glue Dots) + pen (Sharpie, Sakura) + fonts (Lobster 2.0, PT Sans Narrow) + software (Rad Lab, Adobe Photoshop) + printer (Canon)

We love how Christine took one photo and added different filters and washes to create three different looks. And while at first you might think that it is still just the one photo, upon looking closely, you will see that the different effects create different images. One is happy and sunny. One is reality. And the other is artsy and contrasty. The filters you pick tell a little about yourself and help add to the story. A quiet and cool hidden bit of the story.

 

Days Like These | Amy Coose

12 x 12 | materials cardstock (Bazzill) + patterned paper (Fancy Pants, Crate Paper) + mist (Studio Calico) + die cuts (Fancy Pants)+ pen (American Crafts) + cut file (Silhouette Online Store)

How much time do you spend in the car? Let us count the hours. These photos are priceless. Such a wonderful way to capture a slice of life and to tell the story of a busy mom. Sometimes in the passenger seat with a whole family behind her. Sometimes in the driver's seat with a tiny in a carseat. But always surrounded by love. It makes you want to hurry to your car and take similar photos, right?

 

My Fave Things | Jennifer Hignite

12 x 12 | materials template (Nettio Designs) + circle labels (Karla Dudley) + chipboard (My DeLeon)

This is the perfect photo challenge, summarized in one layout. Take your camera (phone or otherwise) and for one week (or a day) capture all those things around you that you love. Or be more precise. Photograph !% things you love. And then use the sketch from last week to recreate Jennifer's layout so you can showcase your favorite things. It's like a tiny little pinboard. And who doesn't love pinterest? It pinterest for your own life!

 

 

And last, but not least, we selected these six layouts for the design tips they inherently offered. Get your pencil out, you are going to want to make a list of these!

 

#planneraddict | Francine Clouden

12 x 12 | materials cardstock (Bazzill Basics Paper) + spray ink (Kesi’Art) + patterned paper (Sassafras Lass for Studio Calico) + journal cards (Studio Calico, Kesi'Art, Callaloo Soup Designs) + stickers (Studio Calico, Sassafras Lass for Studio Calico) + paper doily + glassine bag

All the rage right now is writing with a paintbrush. It isn't as easy as you might think, but it is a lovely way to be artistic, have fun, and brighten up a page with the perfect color of title. And just like most things in life, practice makes perfect!

 

It's A Keeper | Sue Althouse

12 x 12 | materials cardstock (American Crafts) + patterned paper (Elle's Studio, Jenni Bowlin) + chipboard letters, stamp, enamel stickers (October Afternoon) + tags, frame (Elle's Studio) + floss, vellum (We R Memory Keepers) + paper clip, camera transparencies (Maya Road) + staples (Tim Holtz) + fabric corner (Amy Tangerine) + ink (Hero Arts) + border punch (Fiskars) + typewriter (Remington)

Sue's pages are such studies in balance. She truly is a master. Though, today, we are focusing in on another well done technique. Look how she created a polaroid overlay that is sitting vertically on her horizontal photo, thereby "cropping" out the superfluous and drawing your eye in to the important part of the photo.  Then she smartly layered other bits and baubles around and under her photo providing depth and texture to the photo. It was so well done, we bet some of you didn't even see the rest of the photo peeking out the sides. (It's okay, we missed it the first time, too!) Isn't it magical? Purposeful magic makes for wonderful pages.

 

I Love Color | Diane Payne

12 x 12 | materials patterned paper (Studio Calico) + buttons (Studio Calico) + brads (American Crafts) + flair (A Flair for Buttons) + die cuts (American Craft, Studio Calico) + bows (American Crafts, Studio Calico) + paper clip (Freckled Fawn) + stickers (Freckled Fawn, Twine & Ink) + pen (American Crafts)

Amazing! We are going to look to four specific things that Diane does to make this layout sing. First, to balance ALL that color, there are two wide expanses of white space. And bit of blacks for grounding. This layout would have been frenetic chaos without these two things. Next, while Diane uses all five rainbow colors, she doesn't use shades of each as well, thereby maintaining the actual number of colors to 5. Third, the hearts, while plentiful, are small and repeating. Think of her having spilled a colorful button jar along the middle band. While lots of sizes, really only two shapes (hearts and circles) which again created controlled chaos. Lastly, Diane switched her photo to black and white (and a very blown out black and white) which eliminate any competition between the colors in the photo and the colors in the layout. You may want to rebuild this layout, but go against any of these four techniques, to better understand how smart they are for helping keep a neat and tidy layout. Diane, you get a gold star for this one!

 

Me At This Very Moment | Amy Kingsford

8.5 x 11 | materials patterned paper (Seize by Allison Pennington) + buttons (Seize by Allison Pennington) + brads (Seize by Allison Pennington) + alpha (Seize by Allison Pennington) + die cuts (Seize by Allison Pennington) + flowers (Seize by Allison Pennington) + cork (Happy Go Lucky by Allison Pennington) + other digital elements (Seize by Allison Pennington) + Template (One of Each 2 by Amy Martin) + fonts (KD Everyday)

This layout is in our scrapbook section as we were completely beguiled by the diagonal cut on Amy's photo. Brilliant! Do you see the subtle arrow drawn below the title? Built bu the box, the two triangles comprising the square, and the two triangles placed to create the arrowhead? Then look to the left and down a little and you will see that there is another arrowhead facing left. And then the circle with the dangling key in the center brings your eye in and holds the balance perfectly. This layout is art. Truly a mini masterpiece. Brava! Amy, you are amazing! 

 

Selfie with Flower | Jina Jean

12 x 12 | materials patterned paper (American Crafts) + stickers (American Crafts) + glitter label (Studio Calico) + labels (October Afternoon) + tag (American Crafts) + ribbon (Gossamer Blue)

Jina does color washes unlike any other. And she is SOO good at the little details. The stamped feather blowing in the breezy clouds. The stitching in the clouds for added texture. The loose threads hanging off the end provide movement and help you feel the breeze you see in the photo. The droplets of water on the patterned paper that reinforce the water in the photo. The repeated bits of loveliness in the pink scattered here and there. The addition of the little yellow bow to the flower in the top left hand corner repeats the color of the journaling strip by the photo adding cohesion. Do you see how all the random bits are anything but random?

 

Love Me My | Marnie Flores

12 x 12 | materials patterned paper (Glitz) + tags (One Little Bird) + arrow (Glitz) + flair (Pixels & Co. Collaboration) + fonts (The Maple Origins, Montez)

Going digital gives you the freedom to play with hues. Liking making all the blues in your papers a tiny bit more green to make you eyes stand out? Or making things a little bit lighter here and a little bit darker there to better tie them together. If you are digital, don't be afraid to play with the depth or shade of the colors in your kits so that you can create the perfect hue for your layout.

 

Thank you, for stopping by and for being a part of our write. click. scrapbook. reading family! We love having you and hope that you have enjoyed our look back through our gallery! Only four more days til a new one!

Scrapbooking & Other Crafts | Cross-Stitch and Embroidery

Do we have any needleworkers amongst us? I learned embroidery around age 11, but quickly dismissed it as one of those things I just didn't have patience for. After getting back into the crafty world as an adult though, I picked it back up, mainly to use in scrapbooking. Using cross-stitch and embroidery, you can create some unique and customized page accents, and even backgrounds. Let's take a look at some examples.

 

Diane is a master cross-stitcher! Just look at this gorgeous heart embellishment

And here's another to continue the love theme with two sets of XOXOs.

I guess when it comes to cross-stitch it's all about the love! Lisa sent along this page:

I've always thought cross-stitching was too finicky for me to try, but Diane and Lisa are making me reconsider that opinion! Plus I found a couple of tutorials that could really help.

This one will help you make a heart tag on paper. It's in Italian, but there's a video to follow along with.

If you're not up to using a needle and thread, maybe a little faux stitching might be your thing?

You can make a cross-stitch stamp to mimic the look of stitching on your projects. Or you can use it to stamp out a design to use as a guide for the actual stitching.

Lisa told me that she also uses embroidery on her pages, usually for titles. That's what Diane did on this page

It looks fantastic, doesn't it?

I used embroidery to make a heart accent on a page about things I love

I printed out the card with the heart accent, then stitched over it.

If you don't want to do the actual stitching, you can buy pre-stitched embellishments like this tag from Amy Tangerine.

You can also find pre-stitched tags at Handmade:Modern on Etsy

Amy Tangerine also has a line of die-cut tags that are like a stitching template

She talks about how to use them here

Finally, for more inspiration check out this Stitch on Paper Pinterest board.

I hoped this sparked some ideas for you! Tomorrow we'll take a look at crochet and knitting on our pages.

Silhouette Digital Machine: Software Tips & Tricks

Welcome to day two of our WCS Silhouette week!

Today we are looking at the Silhouette Studio software that comes with your digital cutter. (There is a different software, called Silhouette Studio Designer Edition, that is an upgrade to the standard software that ships with the cutter. We’re just looking at the standard software.) Once you learn some of the ins and outs of the software, using your Silhouette gets much easier and quicker. And more fun!

One of the most helpful features is Group/Ungroup. It does just what its name suggests: lets you separate and/or group objects together. As you use this feature you'll find it makes your workflow much faster.

When you open a cut file that has many different parts, they are always grouped together. For example, I just downloaded this "Life Card Words" cut file by Michelle Curie:

When I click on the image, I can move, size, and rotate every card at the same time. Keeping them grouped this way is helpful if I want to cut them all out at the same size and on the same color of cardstock or patterned paper.

But since I just want to cut the "she said" and "happy life" cards right now, I need to get rid of the rest. To do that, click on the image so that it’s selected. Right click, then chose Ungroup. Click somewhere outside of the image to deselect it. Then, click on the things you don’t want to cut. You can either do this one at a time, or you can click and drag to select multiple objects. Then just press delete:

Now I can move and size just the cards I want to cut. Ungrouping is helpful for may different types of cut files. Since ungrouping lets you work with individual parts of the object, you can cut things out in different colors or patterns. Take a butterfly for example: if you want the wings to be one color, the body another, the spots on the wings something different and then the antennae something else, you'd have to cut it out four different times without the Group/Ungroup feature. With it, you just ungroup all the parts, then move them to different places on the cutting mat. You can also modify things—maybe you want a larger border around that journaling card than the cut file originally designed, for example. So you could increase the size of the base while leaving the card the same size.

I use Group/Ungroup a lot in my Silhouette workflow.

Remember that when I am using my Silhouette, I try to cut out extras to have in my supplies? That means I’m often adding objects to the file I’m preparing. To keep this simple, I always have two studio tabs open at once. The first one is the main one, the screen I’m adding objects and words to and the one I will send to be cut. The second tab I think of as the "working" tab; it’s the one I use to open cut files from my library. That way I can ungroup cut files, then move only the objects I want to cut into my main screen, without accidentally moving the objects that are already there.

As an example, here is what my screen looked like the last time I used my Silhouette:

See on the bottom left corner, those two "untitled.studio" tabs? The white one is the main tab, the one I’m using to put together a mat’s worth of stuff to cut out. The greyed out tab is the working tab. Before I open another cut file, I switch to that screen so I can ungroup and then select just the items I want to cut.

Group/Ungroup is also useful when you’re cutting out letters. In this layout:

I wanted the title letters cut out from different patterned papers, but I also wanted the letters of each word to be the same height. Here’s how I did that:

1. I typed the word "silly" as a piece of text in my working tab.

2. I created a different piece of text for the word "pumpkin." (I used the font Verb Black for both.)

3. I sized each word to 5.25" wide.

4. When each word was the correct size, I used ungroup to turn each letter into its own object.

5. I cut and pasted random letters into different spots in my main tab, then organized them so they would be cut out of different patterned papers.

Another helpful function in the Silhouette Studio is the Weld feature. Weld connects individual objects into one object, blending the objects where they are touching. For example, in this layout:

I wanted the word "hug" to be mounted on three connected circles. So I drew three:

(If you hold the SHIFT key down while you’re drawing a shape, it makes it the exact same height and width.)

Then I lined them up:

Next I selected them all, right clicked, and chose Weld:

Weld is the tool you use when you want to connect letters into one piece, like Amy Coose did in this layout:

Here are the steps to take to weld words and letters together:

1. Type your text. If all of the letters will be the same size, you can just make one text object; if you want different sizes (or fonts), type each size as its own object. I usually set less-important words in a smaller font, like Amy did with the words "to have" above.

2. Ungroup the text so that each letter is a separate object.

3. Line up the letters in the design scheme you want. Make sure that each letter is slightly overlapping another letter. Sometimes you have to very slightly rotate a letter to make this happen.

4. Once you are pleased with the arrangement of letters and words, select the whole piece by dragging a box around everything. (Make sure everything is selected! the red line indicates it is selected.) Right click, then choose Weld.

5. Position as necessary on the screen, then cut.

Welding words is one of the Silhouette features I use the most. Words and letters in general, in fact, are the main reason I bought the machine. Tune in tomorrow for a day dedicated to all the wordy stuff you can do with the Silhouette.

 

Pinterest Inspiration Day 4 (titles are tricky no longer)

Thank you for all your kind comments this week. I hope that this is helping you make good use of all those layouts and design items you have pinned. And it's a wonderful excuse to spend more time pinning, now, don't you think?

I have an entire pinboard dedicated to quotes and words. I am moved by not only what these quotes say, but how they are presented. If you click though my board, you will see some amazing design. The fonts, the type style, and the backgrounds are waiting to be incorporated onto scrapbook pages.

In fact, my gallery layout

BeYouTiful | Teka Cochonneau

was based upon this pin:

pinned here::original source here

 

LisaO also found inspiration for a title on Pinterest. Look how she took this

pinned here::original source here

and made it into this layout.

I Loved You | Lisa Ottosson

I gasped when I saw this. It's so very powerful. And the title totally makes it.

Here is a pin that Francine found.

pinned here::original source here

Awesome, no? And it because even more so when she paired it with this amazing photograph! It really doesn't get much better than this!

On the Corner | Francine Clouden

 

Deb found a happy quote...

pinned here::original source unknown

...and used it to make an equally happy layout!

Good Day | Deb Duty

Francine used this tender quote...

pinned here::original source here

... on this sweet layout.

I like how she also borrowed the colors and the banner. Nothing to say you can only be inspired by the words!!

 

Here are a few more quote boards from our team to look through: Francine,  Marnie, Emily, LisaK, LisaO. I hope you, too, can find some title ideas as you click through! 

Thank you for stopping by today!