Choosing Colours or Themes!!

Hi there, it's Lisa-Jane here today to share some layouts with you.  

When I first started scrapping, I used to look for an exact match to the colours in my photos. This can sometimes be tricky if the clothing or the main colours in the photo don't match the papers you happen to have in your stash at that time. Sometimes matching things too precisely can mean the photo actually ends up getting lost. Similar, but not quite the right shade may just  highlight the difference even more. Not to mention searching through a mountain of stash for just the right shade of blue isn't the best use of time for most scrappers!!

So what should we do .... how do we choose colours for our photos? 

Using themed collections is often a better way to go but it is all too easy to fall into the trap of the theme taking over as you pile on the embellishments and the photo and story can get a little forgotten.

Lately, I've been led more by the story or how I feel about the photos for choosing how to scrap them. I'm no longer limited by the colours in my photos in the way I used to be but I try not to be overly themed either, unless it's Christmas or Halloween and then it's a different story entirely!  I certainly feel more free when choosing papers and pictures to use together than I used to.  

For both of these layouts I've used the fabulous, slightly retro Boys Rule collection.

First of all, let's talk about using colour in the photo as a starting point.  

I find one of the best ways is to pick out one or two from your photo(s) that work well together and then add in additional colours if you need to.  It's also often better to use colours that appear in small amounts in the photos so that it doesn't overpower the layout.

For my double page layout about the beach, I've picked out the yellow t-shirt and an orange hat as my main colours. I used yellow as border strips each side of the photos and there's a some yellow just peeping out of each of the embellishment clusters and the alphas are yellow too.  

I picked out a dark orange cardstock to match the shorts and hat and added a few pops of orange in the embellishments.

I could have tried to match the blues in the sky and the sea or the browns in the stones and used that as my main colours but it is the little people in the photos that I want to draw attention to in my layout.  

I've added a few tiny shells to enhance the beach theme without being over the top. Using a mix of both themed and non-themed embellishments helps highlight the story. The children were having so much fun skimming stones. I wanted to get the fun and carefree feeling of the photos across so a little bit of beach and a little bit of retro fun embellies is perfect.

For my next layout, I've turned my photos black and white as I wanted the story behind them to be the main focus.  This page is about me starting my journey with a Personal Trainer and my struggle to get healthy. I knew I wanted a splash of orange because the equipment is orange and including it in the layout reminds me of the equipment.  It doesn't matter that the photos are black and white and don't show the orange paintwork.

 I could have really gone to town with heavily sport or gym themed embellishments but I didn't want to detract from the actual story so  I decided to be more subtle.  I love the retro cassette tape paper so I used a strip of that to remind me of the music that is always blaring.  The tape measure washi tape is a little nod to my size which will hopefully be going down as the journey continues!  The die cut phrases from the ephemera pack are intended for use with little boys but they work with this story so well.

My layout is about the start of my journey and to remind me that this is just the beginning and we have a long way to go.  It doesn't matter what I can't do now or what lays ahead ... what matters is that I have made that all important start.  

I just love that cheeky "Boom" wooden embellishment from the collection!

Do you see that diagonal line across the page of stars - this helps to draw the eye around the photos, over to the title and finally to the journalling.  I used stars for this but other shapes work well too. You could try using circles or hearts in this way.

Boyz Rule is designed with young boys in mind but I've used it for a beach theme and a gym theme! When you are selecting your stash, try to ignore the collection title or the theme the manufacturer has designed for and look carefully at the icons, images and colours in the papers and embelloshments to see how they may work for you. I often use collections for anything other than what the manufacturer intended!

Do you design by colour or theme?  Or do you go for the story first?  What collections have you used for unexpected themes?  

Bye for now

xx

Like the papers LJ used in these layouts? .... They are available to purchase here in the shop!

Lisa-Jane blogs regularly at "Inside My Head" .... her blog is full of family life, scrapbooking, card making and home decor projects!

Undivided Attention Part 3

Hi there, its Lisa-Jane here with the final part of the series where we embrace using pocket based products for non pocket projects.  Now try saying that fast....

If you missed them, you can catchup on part 1 here and part 2 here!

I'm using Simple Stories Homespun collection for today's projects!

First up today, I want to show you a home decor project.  The sentiments on this 6x4 card really struck a chord with me as things I need to remember so I decided to make it into something to go on the wall in our (hopefully) new home.  I simply rounded the corners and mounted it onto some red patterned paper from the collection and then mounted it again onto one of the larger 8x6 cards.  I added a couple of stickers to the corners and then put it inside the frame.

I wanted to add some more detail but I didn't want to cover up any of the wording and I didn't have a frame big enough for a larger insert so to get round this ....

I simply added a pretty sticker to the top corner of the outside of the frame and some chipboard and a piece of banner strip opposite to give a bit more interest.

I'm looking forward to abiding by these rules and seeing it on the wall of our new home.  With that in mind, I came up with this final little project to help contain the stress of the house move.

At a recent retreat I went on, one of the girls gave us all a little Moleskin notebook.  I love anything kraft coloured that I can alter and the bits and pieces I had left in the Homespun kit were very home themed.  I decided to make a little book to served as a reminder of what is actually important about your house and also to help me keep track of information and ideas for our potential new home.

I decorated the front with one of the 6x4 cards and some brads and chipboard from the collection.  I needed to keep the inside decoration quite flat to avoid the pages getting too chunky so inside I stuck to using the 6x4 cards and stickers.  

I created tabs using a die on the 2x12 strips and then decorated both the front and back of each dividing page.  I will write on the tabs in a black journalling pen to make them easy to find too for now I used the alpha stickers to indicate each section.  How perfect is that telephone sticker for the contacts page?!

Sometimes I added a bit of washi tape or a punched border from another 2x12 section and sometimes I just rounded the corners or added a sticker.  As always, I inked the edges using Vintage Photo Distress Ink.  My daughter made Sarah laugh the other day when she demanded to use my blending tool on something she was making because she always inks her edges too!

Some of the images on the collection are ideal for adding a bit of stitching.  This suits the theme really well and adds texture without increasing the dimension too much.

I used up a few more stickers on the back pages too - this was a great use for those pieces that I would find hard to use on scrapbook pages.

 I used a final card and 2 perfect pieces of chipboard on the back cover to complete my little notebook.  I will probably need to add a bit more adhesive to these pieces as the book will be in my handbag but otherwise most of the bits are contained within the book itself so it should be fine.

Hopefully it will help to make things a little bit less stressful but we shall see!  I really enjoyed making it and trying to keep in mind that you make your house your home by what you do inside it and the people you live with and that it will all be worth it in the end.

So, what do you think?  Lots of layouts, a framed piece and an altered notebook and not a pocket page protector in sight.  Do you still think you can only use these types of products if you do pocket scrapping or have these projects made you think outside the pocket a bit?  I hope so because I wouldn't want to miss out on some of the beautiful designs like this and I wouldn't want you to either.  
Happy scrapping!

Bye for now

Lisa-Jane xx

Simple Stories Products (including the Homespun Collection) is available in the S J Crafts Shop here: http://www.sjpapercrafts.co.uk/simple-stories-364-c.asp

Lisa-Jane blogs about her scrapbooking, family and life on her blog : Inside My Head

Your Undivided Attention - Part 2

Hello, Lisa-Jane here again!

Welcome back for Part 2 of the series where I'm using Simple Stories Homespun collection, which includes lots of cards to cut apart and use in divided page protectors, to make standard layouts and more. If you missed Part One check it out HERE!

This lovely subtle 12x12 paper has little bits of printed embellishment that do lots of the hard work for you. I used several of the 6x4 cards here to create a messy stack without trying to make the pieces bigger and needing to cover joins and gaps. I made sure that each layer was a good contrast to the previous one and covered up any wording that wasn't relevant etc, so aside from the journaling block the pieces act just like sections of patterned paper and not specific 6x4 cards for 6x4 pockets:

Sometimes the sentiments on the cards go right to the edge like with this journaling block which was fine for my purposes but often there is just a some wording or a printed element that can easily be disguised if it doesn't fit your theme. My title was from the chipboard elements and I added some stickers and brads from the collection, a little doily from my stash and some gorgeous enamel dots and that was all it needed:

This next layout is another example of using the larger panels in their original form and incorporating it as part of the title. This time I added an ampersand and a couple of alpha stickers to add more meaning:



I used the long ruler sticker as a border strip and the little chipboard "Let's Stick Together" was absolutely perfect for this page about my 2 great nephews. In the Homespun collection there are bigger sections as well as the 3x4 and 4x6 cards and I used these to layer up the photograph here. 

There was a cute little border on one which was ideal to use leaving it showing even though the rest of the piece is hidden. It would also have been a great place to add some stitching over the printed stitching if you like that look. If you look for colours and patterns that you want to use instead of looking at the cards as they stand alone, then you can get a lot more versatility out of them!

I punched another pinked circle from a scrap card and added it to a paperclip with a coordinating brad. With the colourful heart paper as a background it didn't need a great deal more than a couple of items from the stickers and chipboard sheets:



Some branding strips and offcuts from other cards that were tucked behind other elements, a couple more stickers and pop dots and we have a fun and cheerful page about 2 funny little chaps.



I hope you've enjoyed these ideas for using the various sections in pieces and as whole elements and there is still not a divided page protector in sight!  

I'll see you soon for the final part of the series for a couple of "off the page" projects.

If you want to get hold of some Simple Stories items in the meantime then check out the selection at SJ Crafts HERE!

Lisa-Jane x

Lisa-Jane regularly allows us a glimpse into her life and her craft room over at her fun blog Inside My Head. Go pay her a visit!



May Challenge - Bingo!

Hello and welcome to our May challenge! 

Did you know it's (Inter)National Scrapbooking Day (otherwise known as NSD!) tomorrow on the 3rd of May? Happy National Scrapbooking Day to you, we hope this challenge will give you some inspiration if you are crafting this weekend, and there's a chance to win a small prize if you enter!

Thank you to everyone who took part in our April Challenge, we loved looking at the entries, and we'll announce a few of our favourites and a winner here on the blog soon!

If you haven't seen our challenges so far this year, then here's how it works. Each month throughout 2014 we will set a challenge and we'd love it if you would play along. 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 this 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. 

This time it's a BINGO Challenge!

Here's how to play ...

Select 3 boxes from the grid in a line (horizontal/vertical or diagonal) and include the items or technique in those 3 boxes on your project!

Eg: you may choose Ink, Metal, Bow (diagonal line) .... OR .... Transparent, Metal, Stamp (horizontal) but you couldn't select Transparent, Metal, Torn Paper as they are not next to each other in a line!

Here's some inspiration from the Design Team:

Louise:

 Louise was inspired by the top row of the bingo grid. She used Mr Huey Mist, a border punch across the bottom and a 1" circle punch. All supplies are from the March kit which included lots of the 7 Dots Studio "Illumination" Collection, with the addition of a blue cardstock, file tab, cotton and badge. 

Jenny:

Jenny also used the top row from the bingo grid: ink /mist, border punch, and circles. Her products include Kraft card, Distress ink (Weathered Wood), Glossy Accents, and Stickles.

Lisa-Jane:

Lisa-Jane selected the middle row: Transparent - Metal - Stamping 

Her supplies include stamps by Hero Arts, papers, stars, vellum and ephemera pack by Crate Paper Boyz Rule, enamel dots by Studio Calico and kraft cardstock.

Jemma:

Jemma's page features holiday snaps of her daughter playing in the "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids" playground at Disney! She also chose the middle row:

Transparent stickers from a pack of Simple Stories Insta Clear Word Stickers, a Metal word by Prima, and Stamps from her stash.  

The rest of the supplies are 7 Dots Studio products

(Acceptance , Connections, Balance, Element Stickers, Word Stickers, and the Die Cut Sheet).

Annie:

Annie went for the middle vertical row and used a border punch, metal embellishment (staples), and torn paper - but in fact she ended up using mixed alphas and circles too, so it could just as well be the diagonal row bottom left to top right!

Her supplies include patterned papers, stickers and diecuts from the 7 Dots Illuminations collection, Studio Calico wood veneers, Simple Stories DIY Typeset stickers and Burlap Stickers, Prima Alphas in black and one of the Prima stitched diecuts from the March kit.   

Jennifer:

Jennifer chose a diagonal line from top left to bottom right on the bingo grid (Mist, a Metal Embellishment, a Knot). Her products include Heidi Swapp's Navy Color Shine Mist, Crate Paper's Boys Rule collection Zap & Top Score paper and some Wood Embellishments and Ephemera pieces, and some Studio Calico Cork Stars. Her metal embellies are an old key and some metal rimmed brads, and she has two knots - one in string under the title and one in bakers twine on the key.

We'll have a little mystery prize this month for one entry picked at random from all those who link up! The winner will be announced after the challenge has closed along with a few of our favourites! 

So, will you take up our challenge this month?

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 May (11.59pm).

Enjoy!

Your Undivided Attention - Part One

Hello everyone, Lisa-Jane here today!

Lots of manufacturers now are making wonderful collections aimed at people using pocket page protectors, as well as the various designs of divided page protectors themselves. Previously paper collections might have had one sheet that was designed to be cut apart but the reverse of that sheet was often a solid colour so you got the best of both worlds.  

Now though, with so many people using these divided page protectors, the reverse of the pre-designed sheets are often intended to be cut apart too. That's fine if you have that particular design of protector but what if you don't? Or, what if, like me, you love a collection but you just want to use it on standard 12x12 pages? Do we end up missing out because we don't want to use undivided protectors? I don't think so! 

In the next 3 posts I'm going to show you some designs I've made using the Simple Stories Homespun Collection which coordinates with the Simple Stories albums and protectors. However my projects in the first 2 posts fit my normal American Crafts D rings albums and protectors and the final 2 projects are "off the page" style.

Firstly I went through and cut all the sheets into their relevant sections. As I was cutting, some of the items were jumping out at me as needing to be used at their intended size and others I knew I would be happy to use in another way. This second pile that I set aside could be used for die cutting, fussy cutting, punching shapes, layering edges etc. I also took off all the branding strips and cut off the information so I was left with just the usable pieces. Making these decisions early and assembling a "kit" in this way meant that I knew exactly what I had available and also that I didn't wobble when I wanted to cut a small piece of something!

Family:

For this first layout I used one of the pieces of 12x6 as a panel just in from the left hand side. These large panels often have something you can choose to use as a title too so an alternative could have been cutting the panel along the second "plank" from the bottom. I wanted to use it in its entirety here though as I think it makes a natural home for the photo above right.

I also cut one of the 6x4 cards to make a second mat for my photo... 

I really liked the pattern and I knew I wasn't going to use the sentiment but my photo was already matted onto another 6x4 piece so I needed to do some creative patchwork!

 I cut an L shape and then adhered the piece with a small gap, then adhered the photo on top. I chose a 3x4 card from the pile I had set aside for cutting up and punched a couple of pinked circles for layering.

 The branding strips make great banners and are perfect for disguising small gaps and joins. I added some texture with stickers, chipboards and brads from the collection.  

I added the coordinating banner sticker on pop dots and I love the way it mirrors the banner on the wood grain panel.

My second layout was completed on a piece of A4 cardstock. I use the standard office page protectors for this size as they still perfectly fit the AC ring binders and add a bit of variety to the album.

Elliot:



Here I've cut down a photo to 3x4 and made a grid from 3 other 3x4 cards that I really liked. Two of the cards are decorative and the third is for journaling. I adhered them to a piece of the cardstock that I cut from the centre of the background to make a narrow frame for the grid. This helps the eye to see the grid as one whole piece and also lifts it slightly from the busier background.

I added texture and dimension with buttons, twine, bobble trim and a couple of branding strips. I also added to the printed embellishments using chipboard stickers:

The little label area on this card was a perfect home for my great nephew's name and the red alphas in the set worked perfectly with the reds I was bringing out in my colour scheme.

So lets recap - so far we've used a 6x12 panel as it is, incorporated it as a title, made photo mats with 6x4 cards, made a grid with 3x4 cards, used a 3x4 card for a journalling block and used "spare" cards and branding strips for punching shapes and making embellishments. 

Wow! Who said you could only use this collection with divided page protectors? 

And there are still 2 posts to go in this series! Join me again soon!

Lisa-Jane x

P.S. Are you loving Simple Stories right now? Check out the other Simple Stories collections in stock at SJ Crafts HERE!

Lisa-Jane shares lots of crafty creations and regularly joins in with 'What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday' over on her blog 'Inside My Head'!

April Challenge - A Spring-Time Mood Board!

Hello and welcome to our April challenge!

Thank you to everyone who took part in our March Challenge, we loved looking at the entries, and we'll announce a few of our favourites and a winner here on the blog soon!

If you haven't seen our challenges so far this year, then here's the "scoop" Each month throughout 2014 we will set a challenge and we'd love it if you would play along. 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 this 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.  
There's even a little prize to be won - more on that further down!
We really hope lots of you will play along!

During April we'd love you to take your ideas from this mood board:

Take ideas from this however you choose. You could: 

Use the colours - Yellow, Green, Peach, White, Cork/Kraft

Use the quote 'Look How They Grow' 

Make a page about flowers or plants

Use some of the elements, eg. feathers and stars on your page 

Use the composition somehow (eg. two lines along the base of your project)

Or anything else you get from the mood board!

The SJ Crafts Design Team have created some projects to show what ideas they got from the mood board...

Louise:

Louise took the composition of the mood board to put together a layout of a (rare) photo of her with her three sons. Her page supplies include the Teresa Collins Family Stories Collection Kit, camera and heart wood veneers, enamel dots, and an Amy Tangerine Badge.

Annie:

Annie was inspired by the mood board to create a pinboard-style page, following the composition and using sticky pearls and enamel dots to "pin" items to the background. To echo the fresh, spring colour palette she used peach/green/yellow/pink - the chalky pastels in the Chalk Studio 2 collection were perfect and contrast beautifully with the Chalk Studio chipboard pieces, frames and stickers. Other elements picked from the mood board added some interest and fun to Annie's page - washi tape, flowers, cork arrows and wood veneer stars. Finally, the quote inspired her journalling!

Jemma:

Jemma was inspired by the 3 columns and the colours from the mood board to create a holiday album page.

Jenny:

Jenny was inspired by the colours and some of the elements on the mood board. She has used kraft card, some pretty yellow striped paper from MME Now & Then Mildred pad. Jenny printed her sentiment onto vellum to look like the title on the mood board, and added some paper flowers and adhesive pearls. 

Jennifer:

Jennifer mainly took inspiration from the colours, using yellow, lime green, and some cork elements (including the American Crafts Cork Alphas and Arrows), though she swapped the coral hue for a bolder orange from the Amy Tangerine Cut & Paste collection. She also used some feathers, along with some Studio Calico Stars and Enamel Dots!

Lisa-Jane:

Taking her inspiration from the colours, gold highlights, the feathers and flowers Lisa-jane created a pretty card for a special girl's birthday. Those enamel dots finish it all off perfectly.

We have a little mystery "Spring themed" prize this month for one entry picked at random from all those who link up! The winner will be announced after the challenge has closed along with a few of our favourites! 

So, will you take up our challenge this month?

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 30th of April (11.59pm).

Enjoy x

Mix It Up - Different Collections!

Hi there! Its Lisa-Jane here today with a confession... I'm addicted to patterned paper!  

At the moment I am rather enamoured with Crate Paper and I can tell you that having a bit of a love affair with one particular company can really expand your options when you are making layouts. Because of the printing processes that the companies use, you'll often find that the colours are very similar across collections. I have an album in the making where I am using entirely October Afternoon products from about 10 different collections because they all go so well together and I am really finding that the same is true for Crate Paper.

Take this layout for example: beachy photos made me reach again for The Pier Collection which I am still loving to bits. But I really wanted to bring out the red in that pretty watery floral paper and the red chevron in the collection was too big for what I had in mind.  Instead I reached for a rather unusual option - Bundled Up, the recent Christmas collection! The little red triangles on the cream background were a perfect foil to the prettier piece and the subtle aquas on the reverse went really well too.

I used a few of the Splash Cut Outs, some Simple Stories Homespun alpha stickers and some American Crafts rose trim and everything came together very quickly.

For this next layout I used The Pier again but this time I wanted to really home in on the textures and colours in the photo.  I instantly reached for that glorious turquoise distressed wood paper 'Found' from Maggie Holmes Flea Market as well as adding in a couple of smaller pieces from the Flea Market 6x6 paper pad. 

 Some of the stickers here are from The Pier and I also managed to use a few more of my Simple Stories Homespun stickers too because the layout was about a family of stones that we hid in a crevice on the beach. I definitely made the most of the alpha sheets that came with Homespun as you'll see from another post coming soon!

This final layout merged The Pier with Maggie Holmes Flea Market AND Bundled Up for a very pretty subtle feel. I mounted the Bundled Up ledger paper onto pink Bazzil cardstock, added a strip of Flea Market washed out woodgrain, topped that with some floral from the Flea Market 6x6 pad and then added a couple of scallop border pieces from The Pier to highlight the aqua tones. 

I die cut the title and made the banner from the 6x6 pad too because the smaller print is perfect for these little areas. This gave me lots of room on the ledger paper to tell my story about a picnic we had there a couple of days after the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers. The photo may be from Christmas but it doesn't stop me scrapping a memory from the past which I don't have a photo of.

Mixing up collections like this gives your layouts a little spark of difference and can really extend the life of those ranges that you might normally only think of for their specific theme. Picking out the colours you want to use and choosing your papers accordingly can really open up new possibilities of coordinating patterns and shows that you really can combine beach and Christmas papers with more generic styles. 

What collections would you use together? We'd love to see!

Bye for now, Lisa-Jane

xx

You can find the Crate Paper products in the S J Crafts Shop by clicking here .... and some of them are REDUCED in the Spring Sale!!

Lisa-Jane blogs lots of scrapbook pages and life stories at her blog Inside My Head - stop by and say hello!