Fire and Ice

Yes, it's been a little while since I posted about scrapbooking... thing is, so many other things have been going on (races, courses, life) that I was not spending a lot of time with my photos and pretty papers and things. Other than my monthly crop I wasn't really doing much more than trying to keep up! That changed when I went to my annual scrapbooking retreat with the lovely MK Scrappers - a whole weekend doing nothing more than scrapping, chatting and laughing with friends. These are some of the layouts I made that weekend: I do love it when two of my 'worlds' collide and a great example are some of my layouts documenting my most recent race: the Disneyland 1/2 marathon in September: I still have much work to do to complete the Disneyland album but now that I've started it, I feel like I've got momentum and will eventually complete it (much like I felt in the actual race!) I plan to also scrapbook photos about the rest of my trip to Disneyland and to include...

(A few years ago I was in a design team and, as a part of it, I had to write articles regularly. I saved all the articles I wrote then and never added them to my blog... until now! This one is particularly special as it tackles what is possibly my favorite part of scrapbooking: journaling. Enjoy!) Journaling is the heart of your scrapbooks. Without it, the little details may be lost, the emotions forgotten and the moment incomplete. Some layouts only need a few written details, like names and dates, to be complete, but others demand a bit more attention. You may have read fantastic journaling entries by other scrappers: stories that really grab the moment and make you wish you could write like that. How do they do it? Well, generally the follow some easy pointers that come from the world of journalistic writing. These pointers come from the legendary “ Elements of Style” by William Strunk, Jr ., which is required reading for anyone that wishes to write better, clearer and more...

Every week, on a Thursday, I get home and have a surprise waiting for me. It is a box of lovely organic veggies and it gets delivered while I’m at work. So I get home and it’s almost as if someone gave me a lovely gift. I take my box inside and almost can’t wait to see what we got this week: lately it’s been yummy courgettes, sweet carrots, fantastic pumpkins and the best sweetcorn I’ve ever had. Sometimes I even get a vegetable I can’t identify and I have to use the included leaflets to learn what it is, how I store it and what to do with it. It is all terribly exciting. The organic veggie box schem e is one of my weekly thrills, not the least because of the element of surprise. I have little choice of what goes in the box, other than basic decisions (what size? All veggies? Some veggies, some fruit? etc) the whole experience is one where I have very little control. And I wouldn’t want to change that. I have noticed that there seems to be a rise in the amoun...

(A few years ago I was in a design team and, as a part of it, I had to write articles regularly. I saved all the articles I wrote then and never added them to my blog... until now! Here is the first one of those - enjoy) Happy New Year scrappers! I hope your holidays were filled with great times, memorable moments and great gifts. Now that it is all over (at least for another year) many of us find that the finances are a bit tight. To help us all along, I’ve compiled this short list of tips that can help us all save a bit of money while still enabling us to create memorable pages. 1. Use what you have I know that a lot of scrappers have huge stashes so what best way to save money but to actually USE what you have already? You may not remember exactly what you own, so spend some time organizing your stash and you may find that you have quite a few things you’d forgotten about. Try to create pages using only what you have – think of it as a design challenge and you may ...

As a scrapbooker, I am generally very restrained. I don’t shop for new stash very often, I don’t get seduced by the latest thing and I make the best of the stuff I already have. I have gone for as long as a year without buying anything new, except basics like adhesive and cardstock when they ran out. Yet my pages are, if I may say so myself, pretty acceptable and in some cases, actually very nice. Why can’t I be the same way when it comes to clothes? I am almost the complete opposite when it comes to clothes shopping: I am always buying something new, love getting the latest thing (if it suits) and sometimes do not make the most of what I already have. I have a lot of very pretty things hanging in my closet but, because there are so many things in there, I miss them and never wear them! How can I convert my scrapbooking resourcefulness into the fashion world? What strategies can I learn from one to apply into the other? First of all, I should stop the shopping. Just like my stash, my w...

I have been a subscriber to Scrapbook Inspirations since it launched and while I think the magazine is not as good as others, I still subscribe and read every issue I get. In terms of actual scrapbooking inspiration, well I don’t actually get that many great ideas from the magazine (so much for the title!) but there is one little section that I always read and enjoy. It’s called “Meet the Reader” and it features questions and answers to one of the magazine’s readers. I don’t know how they are chosen and I would love to be in this section. However, I think my chances are slim so as a complete indulgence – and because this is MY blog – I am going to make my own “Meet the Reader” slot right here! How long have you been scrapbooking? I actually don’t remember ever starting to scrapbook so in a way I have always done it. I remember way back in the early 90s I started purchasing some supplies specifically designed for scrapbooking and I also remember when paper piecing was THE big...

It will soon be the end of the school year and time to get creative and put together something nice for my son's teachers... and this year I am trying to be organized so I've done them already! I always try to make something (rather than just buy it) and also try to get my son to participate or at least to have some sort of input into what we're doing. This year I had the idea to make photo note cards but I thought that using a photo of my son would not make these note cards incredibly useful to the recipient. I mean, my son is cute but why would any of his teachers want his smiling face on a note card? So instead I scanned a picture he made in school, which had his name written on the front, and used that as the artwork in the note cards. To make my life simple, I simply uploaded the image to the Kodak Gallery and ordered the note cards there , as I bought quite a few they were very reasonable. But I could have also simply ordered prints and then glued a photo to the front...

Last week I was in the shopping center and when I went to one of my favorite stores, I was amazed to find an incredible amount of neon clothes - just like I remembered from the 80s! They had the lot: the legwarmers, fingerless gloves, bangles, head bands... everything in bright pink or orange or yellow. It sure took me back to my younger days. I know that the 80s are big right now (and I'm not looking forward to shoulder pads again, but apparently they're on the way back) and like all fashions, it will eventually give way to another revival and that will go and another take its place... and so on. In fashion everything old is new again, eventually. In the scrapbooking world it is often the same thing: trends come and go but somehow the 80s never really come back. I know not many scrappers remember those heady days when we cut photos into shapes, used bright patterned paper for everything and put together paper piecings. Sure, the trend for brighter colors seems to be making hea...

I guess there are few things in life as disruptive as having a baby . There are of course events like getting married, moving house and others that create chaos but somehow, at least in my case, babies are definitely at the top of my "things that make me go argh!" list. Sure, they are cute and all that, but all hell appears to break loose around them and, because I do not do well with disorder, it drives me nuts. But anyway, the good thing is that what at first is disruptive after a while it becomes routine. Things start to settle down and while they may never be the same again, a sense of order re-appears and predictability ensues. I'm at that point now where I can actually plan my days, when I sort of know what will happen and when I can make decisions that go beyond the next three hours. This means I can carve out a little of time to myself a bit more easily. When it comes to filling that time, the possibilities are endless: I could spend it in a warm, relaxing bath or...

I am not scrapbooking as much as I used to lately. But it really isn’t because I don’t like doing it, it’s more because I keep running out of photos! As many of you know, I’ve been doing this for so long that I rarely have more than 3 months’ worth of photos in my To-Do pile and because I like to do double layouts with lots of photos (and do lots at once), I get caught up fairly quickly. For a few months now a combination of factors has meant that I have been taking fewer photos than I used to. Probably the main factor is that as I get bigger, I am less and less inclined to be around a camera, in case anyone dares take a photo of me. A lesser factor is that my camera has taken a few knocks and is slightly limiting so often I am a little disappointed with the eventual results. I have also not had many occasions where I’d want to take photos, but that is a lame excuse as I used to take photos of ANYTHING before. So it’s mainly issues with laziness, perceptions of me and the camera. The e...

If you know anything about me, you know that I think journaling is what differentiates scrapbooking from photo albums. It’s not the pretty papers or the title or even the embellishments: it’s the journaling that tells others why these photos are special or how they make you feel. Journaling is what takes your place when you can’t be around and tell the story in person. I’m glad to see that so many manufacturers are bringing out more and more products that should make journaling easier (I particularly like those little labels that you can journal on and then simply stick onto a layout) but sometimes it seems that journaling is taking a further step back in scrapbookers’ minds. Wherever I look, I find layouts that have absolutely no journaling on them at all. Sure, they look very nice but I am none the wiser as to who is in the photo, why, what they are doing, anything at all! I also think this is more of a British thing as people from this side of the world find it harder to share their...

I did something this week that I hadn’t done in a very, very long time – I logged on to a scrapbooking website and bought something! Not only have I not purchased anything from a scrapbook shop (online) in a good long time, I hadn’t even gone on to any sites just to browse. I just didn’t feel the need to! What prompted this purchase was also real need – I am going to a scrapbooking retreat this weekend and I was nearly out of adhesive so I had to order some online. Sure, while I was there I had a little look at the shop but ended up buying some more, practical, things like post extenders (which I also need) and a cardstock pack for a specific project I’ll be working on. It’s been about two years since I decided to stop buying scrapbooking stuff ‘just because it’s there’ and focused more on using what I have. It was a little hard at first (although I have always struggled to spend hundreds in stash at one time ) but now it’s become second nature, so much that I don’t ev...

After weeks I have finally broken out of my scrappers' block and put some layouts together! It was a combination of busy evenings, no crops due to summer and a lack of photos that meant that for an entire month I did zero scrapping. I hadn't 't even unpacked my bag from the last crop I had, back in late June. But anyway, my monthly all-day crop was back and we had a very pleasant Sunday and I even managed to find some photos to work on. As I didn't have an awful lot, it meant I could slow down and spend a bit longer on these layouts. I also challenged myself to use embellishments and a few techniques, so in general I'm very pleased with the results. When I printed out the photos from Croatia I quickly realized that there were endless photos of gorgeous scenery and I just would never get a chance to put them all in my scrapbook (unless I wanted to go crazy, of course). So I decided to print a lot of those in a collage and then use that in my layout, so here is the re...