A Retreat Layout!

Hi Everyone

A few weeks ago I spent the weekend tucked away in a converted barn in the countryside with 9 other scrapbookers!

It was a wonderful few days filled with laughter, fun, yummy food and surrounded by pretty paper! Bliss! 

Over my next few posts I'll be sharing the layouts I made on that weekend with you.

Tree Adventures Layout

Taking inspiration from this layout on my Pinterest Board, I layered up some patterned papers and sticker (mainly Crate Paper Maggie Holmes collection but there may be some Flea Market in there too.

I added lots of different textures with some cork alphas for my title, a cork arrow sticker, wood veneer hearts, enamel dots, a resin flower and twine on the tag. The layout is finished off with a few droplets of pink ink.

I'll be back soon to show you another page from that weekend.

Very Versatile Vellum

Hello everyone, Jemma here today with my first official DT post!

The *star* of the supplies that I received in my DT package from SJ Crafts really has to be this sheet of starry vellum from Crate Paper's Boys Rule collection. It is just so versatile!

I've already used it to add interest and tone down some brightly coloured stripes on this page:

Which I made for the March Photo Inspiration Challenge ... there's still time to enter and have a chance of a prize too! 

I knew it would also be great to use for a home-made pocket for extra photographs ...

... and for a cute little tag for pulling the photos out of the pocket too.  I couldn't resist using the vellum for another tag tie elsewhere on my page:

I've squeezed in 10 mini photos (and 4 more in the vellum pocket) but, having trimmed them down a little from the original 3x4, I realised that the cute polaroid frame in the Boys Rule journalling cards pack no longer fitted.  No problem though because I used it as a template to make my own vellum frames:

The wonderful thing with a vellum frame is that you can still see the edges of the photo.  The even better thing about making your own frames is that you can have more than one!

That's the left hand side of my double page spread.  Can you spot another use of the starry vellum?

And here's the right hand side.  A busy, busy pair of pages for a character-full few days in Florida in 2004.  Using the pocket also allowed me to hide the two photos containing green costumed creatures as there's no green in the papers I've used (Arcade and Champ):

The addition of wooden elements, stickers and journalling cards added to the business so I had to doodle around the title letters cut from Rad to help them stand out a little more.

I count 5 uses of the vellum ... but my mind is still buzzing with a couple more ... and there's still a small square of my original sheet left, so I'm off to play!

Bye for now, Jemma x

Jemma is one of our newest DT members and she blogs projects full of fabulous ideas at Just Jimjams - please stop by and say hi!

Echoing The Weather

Hi there, its Lisa-Jane here today with a layout inspired by the awful weather we had for the start of this year! 

I'm a firm believer in scrapping all aspects of life both good and bad and I wanted to remember the incredible floods and damage that we've had. One of the memories I wanted to capture was a walk we did at Christmas in Wales because when I went back a month later there was substantial damage to the dunes and the sea walls. There had already been one storm a couple of days before we got there and it continued to be very wet and very wind for the whole week making it difficult to get out and about.

I'd been using Crate Paper's The Pier collection for the SJ Crafts March Challenge and I thought it would work really well for this topic too, as it is still beach themed but the water colour design adds to the rain-washed feel. The doily paper ('Cotton Candy') echoes the clouds and I was still able to use lots of the bits of the Splash Cut Outs sheet even though it was nothing to do with swimming in the sunshine!

I added some hessian for texture, which is very on trend this season, and some Enamel Dots to echo the droplets of water everywhere.

Funnily enough, the weather has been quite nice since I did this layout and we've started to see lots of daffodils and crocuses popping up everywhere.  I really hope this is a sign of a turnaround in the wet weather and that the people that have been flooded can get back to normal really soon.

Did you record those dramatic weather patterns in any way?  We'd love to see - leave us a link here or post to our Facebook Page!

Bye for now, Lisa-Jane.

Lisa-Jane shares lots of her gorgeous crafty creations at her blog Inside My Head, go check it out!

March Challenge - A Photo Collage For Inspiration!

Welcome to our March challenge! 

Thank you to everyone who joined in with the February challenge, it was fabulous to see all the different takes on the sketch & we will show a few of our the entries and announce the winner here on the blog soon!

Here at S J Crafts we love a challenge. Something to take us out of our comfort zone or to encourage us to try something a little different.

Each month throughout the rest of 2014 we will set a challenge and we'd love it if you would play along and take up the challenge. Each month the challenge will vary - sometimes we'll have a sketch, sometimes a colour palette, a photo inspiration or a "recipe" of stash to use or maybe a technique.

At the end of the post there is "linky tool" for you to link up your challenge entry so we can pop along and see and we will feature a few of our favourite projects next month. We really hope lots of you will play along with us and take up the challenge!

For this challenge you need to use the below photo collage as inspiration, in any way you wish.

Your inspiration might be to scrap a photo of a place you love to visit.

Go for a walk at a location near where you live and take photos of your surroundings to make a layout.

Be inspired by the colours : blues, greys, beige, stone, cream.

Scrap  a photo which has no people in it.

Scrap a photo of a beach, sea, sky, clouds, sunset etc
Or you could take "water" as your theme
Or you could use the design of the collage as inspiration for your photo placement.
....or you may have your own idea!!

The wonderful Design Team have created some samples to get your ideas flowing! Here they are:

Louise

For Louise the photo collage made her think 'weather', 'blue', and 'clouds'. Her supplies include This Sheet of My Mind's Eye paper, and some Wood Veneers.

Annie

The design of the photo collage inspired Annie to make this really quick and simple multi-photo page - her layout has a large 'white space' on the left instead of a large photo, with small photos down the right-hand edge. Annie used the MME Chalk Studio 2 Collection.

Jennifer

Jennifer was inspired to use a photo from the beach, and to use muted colours - with darker colours at the bottom going to lighter 'sky' at the top. Her supplies include some Crate Paper The Pier Paper and Stickers, Prima Canvas Alphas, Jenni Bowlin Tiny Trims Rub Ons, and Simple Stories Chipboard Stickers.

Lisa-Jane

Lisa-Jane was inspired to use wood veneers, woodgrain papers and sandy coloured embellishments to echo the natural textures in the inspiration photos. She also utilised the muted tones of Crate Paper's The Pier collection. 

Jemma

Jemma was inspired by the water ... to scrap an aquatic activity! She used Crate Paper's Boys Rule which was just the perfect colours for her photos - the papers were Zap,  Top Score, and Vellum Stars, and she used some of the Wood Embellishments and Stickers.

So, will you take up our challenge this month?


Our New Design Team member Annie is kindly offering a prize this month to celebrate joining the S J Crafts team. She will select one person at random from all those who link up to win a small prize!

Use the linky tool below to add a link to the blog post (or your gallery) with your layout or card and a link back to this post is much appreciated.

You will need to ensure your link is added by the 31st of March (11.59pm) and we'll select a few favourites to be featured in a post soon after.

Enjoy x

Recording Christmas (Part Two)

Hello! Lisa-Jane here again to show you how I'm getting on with recording my Christmas so far!

How are you getting on with your festive crafting? 
Yesterday I explained a bit about my process for recording this year's Christmas memories. If you missed that post you can catch up on it right here!

I won't say that I'm behind or on target, because there is no ideal speed. I write something everyday and try and take photos when I can, and then I scrap them and write up the journalling the cards when possible, and often do a few days at a time. Even if you start documenting your Christmas from today, don't worry ... the important thing is capturing those memories!

Here's my first page and the first day!

The gorgeous pinky / red snowflake paper is actually the reverse of this page that I shared HERE.

When you are making a continuous album like this it can really help to stretch your stash and when the reverse of the page is so stunning it feels a shame to hide it.

I've used a few of the Crate Paper Bundled Up papers here as well as the Studio Calico Wood Veneer Tiny Stars to give a little bit of texture.

My first divided page is below. The photos are just a temporary print from my home printer so I could see where I wanted to put things, and where I wanted to overlap or use a small photo etc. As I've done each one I've put it into a separate folder on my computer so that when the holidays are finished and there is a suitable printing deal, I have everything that need to do a quick order with everything the right size.

The title pocket uses more of the Bundled Up papers with some ribbon and twine from my stash (actually the ribbon came from a cracker last year!) and the letter stickers are Echo Park's Reflection Falls Alpha Stickers which have that same beautiful deep cream. The dark green spotted paper at the bottom is from another current collection Simple Stories December Documented.

Below is the reverse of that page so far. The mitten print is the back of the ledger pattern that I used for a journalling block in the first side, and I will be using the snowman journalling card which is the reverse of the bottom left journalling card. This really cuts down my options which might not work for everyone, but I find that limiting my choices in this way helps to speed up the process. Of course if I don't want to use them in the end then I don't have to!

The pieces that I've used for the bottom left of this side were all off cuts. When I'm going a project like this I keep an A4 "slippy pocket" for all the scraps and half used pieces and this is where I head to first when I'm creating a new section of the page.

I've been asked a few times about having to make the back of the page work when you have designed around the front of the page. What if its not what you want? Well there are a couple of options here really. For me I will always make it work in the same way I would have done back in the days of only having 1 piece of patterned paper, or if you only had a 12x12 pocket. You design to what you have available! Alternatively you can just fill it with pretty things to make a pleasing section break and continue on with another protector on the facing page instead. 

It's worth keeping in mind that especially with longer term projects like this, we generally aren't looking for awards for our pages. I nearly always make pages that I would have tweaked if I was having another go, but the important things are that the memories are captured, the photographs stored safely and accessibly, and that we enjoyed the process. After all, we mostly do this for fun right?

We finally put our tree up now so I have many more memories to journal about. You'll find me in my craft room with a few festive scented candles and a Christmas CD playing.

Best wishes for Christmas and happy scrapping!

Lisa-Jane x

Lisa-Jane is a keen scrapbooker and crafter and has been posting lots of Christmas projects on her blog Inside My Head.

P.S. Don't forget about the Design Team Call HERE!

Recording Christmas (Part One)

Hello everyone! 

Today Lisa-Jane is here to share her method of recording the festive season!

Over to Lisa-Jane:

There are lots of different ways of recording and scrapbooking your memories of the holiday season .... through a specific class or by just doing your own thing. I tend to do a bit of Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas alongside my own recordings of our daily festive events. For me, documenting the story side of things is really important for taking a breather at this hectic time of year and helps me to focus on what really matters.

Hopefully this post will give you a few ideas to help you to record your Christmas! 

For many Scrappers, including me, scrapping a whole 12" x 12" page every day at this busy time is liable to induce insanity so I'm going to share my process with you - it's worked for me in previous years and keeps me sane and the stress to a minimum.

I find that a little preparation in the set up can help speed things up immensely. Even with eleven days of December already behind us you can still make preparations, because it will definitely help whenever you start.

Firstly, decide on what type and size of album or book you want to create. There's lots of options ... from albums of various sizes and shapes to mini books or envelope books (and more!)
I decided on using divided Page Protectors for a number of reasons. If I only have the time or inclination to do a little story or crafting then so be it, but on those days where I have a lot to record or more time for prettiness then that can be accommodated too. Some days I will fill all the pockets but other days I can just do a part of a page and have a clean separation from the following day which I wouldn't be able to do with a full 12x12.

I also find it helpful to decide on a collection of papers or a colour scheme.

I happened to have the Winter Project Life kit which is identical to Crate Paper's Bundled Up Collection. I really didn't NEED any more Christmas paper and I tend to be a traditional red and greens girl when it comes to Christmas.  However, when Sarah showed me the gorgeous papers and embellishments I let out a very loud "ooooh!" (You know what I mean don't you?  You've done that too, right?!) The B sides of even the full sized 12x12 papers are subtle enough to work really well in small pockets so I knew this collection had the versatility I needed for my eclectic album this year. While perusing the papers I also noticed that some of the new Maggie Holmes collection called Flea Market went really well with it too so I added some of those into the mix.  The deep cream, aqua and range of pinks are a perfect compliment and will really help to tell my story on the days which are not so festive too.

 For speed and preparation, I clear everything away from my desk and just have out the things I intend to use for this project. In addition to the papers above, I went through my stash and picked out some other (sometimes very old!) papers in the same colours. 

Another idea is to select some crafting tools and punches or dies that you will use and keep them close at hand.

I chose a few punches to use throughout the album. This means I don't have to keep returning to my punch draw and deliberating over which one to choose. It also lends continuity to the project as the same shapes crop up across the pages. I find that having the punches out like this also helps to give me a bit of inspiration on what to do in my individual pockets.

 For an ongoing project like this I like to have a few containers for the different elements that I intend to use. I have a bowl of Washi Tapes, a bowl of buttons and embroidery threads and a little heart shaped dish of small items like snowflake brads, sequins and Studio Calico Wood Veneer Tiny Stars. I also have a cake stand with adhesives in the top.  In the middle I have festive trims, ribbons and Enamel Dots, and in the bottom tier I have doilies, stickers, Project Life cards and other plain cards cut to various pocket sizes. This means I can just grab what I need and not have to think too hard about what to use. I also have a little bowl of Bundled Up Ephemera which are so cute and you get so many in the pack.

I also keep a pink pot of my most used tools and a variety of plain Cardstock to hand, some of which I cut to size. And my desk wouldn't be complete without a cup of tea and some Vintage Photo Distress Ink. Inking the edges brings all the collections together and again adds continuity throughout the album.

Here you can see some of the other things I've added from my stash like some old music paper, stickers and gold printed vellum. The album to the left is the one I am using this year. Its an American Crafts Modern Album so I just need to fancy up the plain front however I see fit but that might be a job for the new year.

So, gathering together all your supplies and tools in one place is my tip for scrapping your Christmas.

If you'd like to see how I'm getting on with my album then please do pop back tomorrow for Part Two!

Are you scrapping about the festive season this year? How are you hoping to achieve yours?  We'd love to see some of your ideas too so don't forget to link up in the comments.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Lisa-Jane x

Lisa-Jane is Mum to two small children and adores December and all things Christmas .... she blogs regularly at Inside My Head 

P.S. Want to join the SJ Crafts Design Team? See the DT Call HERE!

Christmas Scrapping with Large Photos

A very Happy December and Season's Greetings to you!

It's Lisa-Jane with you today!

I absolutely love this time of year!  I can't wait to start scrapbooking my memories of this Christmas, especially because so much happens that it is easy to forget all the little details.  This is what happened with these photos.  They were taken last year when the children went to visit Warwick Castle with Daddy and Grandma.  While I was scrapping these, I had a real "pang" because I couldn't share the day with them, yet I couldn't remember why I couldn't be there.  Eventually I worked out that I was at a crafting retreat which felt like it was more than just a year ago and I realised that it was so important to get things recorded while they are fresh in your mind.  

I am using Crate Paper's Bundled Up collection for this year's Christmas memory keeping (I'll share more about that with you next week!) and I wanted a double page right near the start of my album to symbolise what Christmas is all about for me .... My two children!

I was recently inspired by this Pin and remembered that I had these two large pictures,  featuring my daughter in one and my son in the other alongside a jolly Santa. I thought the photos would be ideal for a striking entry early in my Christmas journal.

With larger pictures, especially ones so busy and orangey as these are, they needed a calm background with very little reds and pinks so I used a sheet of Noel 12 x 12 Paper from the Bundled Up Collection. The polka dot woodgrain was perfect for my base and I mounted the photos and the Christmas Trees paper onto cream puff bazill cardstock.  Then I brought out the pinks and reds in the embellishment clusters.

 The Season's Greetings label, the tree, ticket and pink snowflake in the picture above are all from the Bundled Up Ephemera pack, as are the tickets and the aqua snowflake in the photo below.  Little packs of co ordinating embellishments make it very easy to build up little groupings for interest and added spots of colour.

With large photographs, you can really let your photo do the talking by keeping the rest of the layout quite minimal, which of course makes for a pretty quick page too - all important at this crazy busy time of year!

Let the photos take centre stage!!

Have you started any festive craft projects yet?  Link up in the comments or tell us about it - we'd love to come and take a look.

Bye for now

Lisa-Jane

xx

Lisa-Jane is Mum to two small children and adores December and all things Christmas .... she blogs regularly at "Inside My Head"

November's Six Cards on the 6th!

Hello and welcome to November's Six Card's on the 6th! Are you feeling festive yet? I'm starting to dream of decking the halls and roasting a turkey... ooh I love the anticipation!

This series is all about inspiring you to get those Christmas cards made in time. You can link up your own cards at any time throughout the month, and at the end of the series one link-up from all the posts will win a pizza box stuffed full with scrapbook stash!

Today we have cards by me (Jennifer) and Jenny to make you feel festive! We encourage you to think of how you can make the six cards quickly, and before you know it you'll have a set of cards ready to go!

I'm up first...

Jennifer:

I pulled together a kit for my cards:

It includes the Crate Paper Bundled Up 6x6" Pad and Ephemera, 6x6" Square Kraft Blanks, sequins, a white pearl pen, a sentment stamp, a stack of pigment inks, and some Studio Calico Tiny Stars Wood Veneers. After I took this photo I also pulled out some cream card, wide ledger print washi tape, white glitter tape, and clear embossing powder (plus tools and adhesives!).

Here's the six cards I created:

You can see I followed the same format for all the cards, even though the varied colours and ephemera makes them look a bit different!

Now for Jenny's set of cards...

Jenny:

I've gone for a red and silver theme this month! I've used a background stamp with versa mark ink and silver embossing powder to create a background and then inked over it with Festive Berries distress ink.

Aren't Jenny's cards jolly? I love the ones with jingle bells on - I know my kids would keep shaking them to hear the bells ring!

Have we inspired you to get crafting? If you join in with the series we'd love you to copy this button into your post or sidebar! Just select all the text in the box below the image, and copy that either into a html gadget (or text widget) in your sidebar, or into the html on a blog post. Then the button will appear and will be linked back to the series - your button won't have a box underneath!

<a href="http://www.sjpapercrafts.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/six%20on%20the%206th"><img src="http://i871.photobucket.com/albums/ab280/Jennifergrace_photos/Sixon6thbutton180pix_zps321d7a53.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo Sixon6thbutton200pix_zps673fb713.jpg" /></a><br>

Link up your cards below for a chance to win the pizza box full of stash (prize will go out in early January). Have fun and be merry! 

Jennifer x

Crate Paper "The Pier" (Part Two)

Hello! Jennifer here to show you more projects using Crate Paper's The Pier collection!

If you missed my first project using The Pier, including a video with 10 tips in 10 minutes, you can see it here!

The first project I want to show you today is the layout I made as soon as I got my hands on the collection. I really enjoyed using it for a happy, vivid, beachy page! It's about my daughter and her friend turning each other into mermaids with sandy tails...

You are a Sandy Mermaid Layout

 

I love the 'Carousel' background paper. The big chevrons are really trendy, and the rainbow colours are so cheerful and summery!

  

I've had fun using all the little bits and pieces in this collection, including the little pinked circle stickers from the Labels Stickers sheet - it's so easy to tuck and layer the different pieces around each other.

 

Next is a more subtly-coloured page, still sprinkled with lots of details...

Safe Harbour Layout

I like the 'b' side of the Frozen Treats Paper. It's a dark kraft pattern (darker than it looks in the product image), which is great because it's something a bit different which adds a timeless feel to my page. Howver, I didn't want to use it for the whole background as it would have been too dark, so for the bottom half of the page I used the 'b' side of the Sunshine Paper. That helped my title to pop more from the background too - the Funkidori Thickers are so twirly and charming!

I like using geotags at the moment, like this one from the Mini Alpha / Accent Stickers Sheet - they look great if you use pop dots to stick them on, and make sure you have a nice pattern peeping through the hole at the top of the geotag.

 

 

Finally here's a couple of cards, starting with a bold and fun birthday card which was really quick to make...

Good Day Sunshine Card

I simply stamped my sentiment onto one of the Summertime Cut-Outs and layered it onto a bit of the Heatwave Paper, a Splash Cut-Out tag (with ribbon added), some Ephemera and some gems (and a bit of glitter tape). I'm sure this will brighten someone's birthday!

 

 

Summertime Sweetness Card

I used some of the pale and gentle pieces from the collection to make this fresh card. The suns and hearts were punched from the Washi Paper, and I finished the card with a scattering of white and gold Liquid Pearls.

That's it from me and The Pier Collection, though you'll spot more of it popping up on my blog - as this is one of those collections where I know I will use up every last little scrap!

 

Thanks for stopping by today!

Jennifer x