Fire and Ice

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time in London. (No, this isn’t my excuse for not updating my blog in a while. Well… maybe it is) Although I don’t live in London, I’m close enough to go there frequently. I do find myself there very often because of work, but I also like to go there to play. The more time I spend there the more I realize that perhaps I should be an honorary Londoner. One thing that really fascinates me about London is about how it appears to have a Brand. Somehow the brand revolves around buses and the Tube, both forms of transport. Well, there are also red telephone boxes and the Queen’s Guard but for now let’s focus on the Tube . Not only is the signage for the tube almost universally recognized as a London icon, but so is the famous tube map by Harry Beck . Not to mention the gorgeous underground posters and the phrase: “ Mind the Gap ”. I can’t think of many other cities in the world that are defined by their transport, and defined so well, following the prin...

As part of my D esign Thinking course , I had to take photos of objects I like and then submit them to the Online Design Studio. They are intended to act as practice for taking and uploading photos which I already have lots of experience on… but I still took a while to do it. Why? I just couldn’t decide on only 3 objects to photograph! In the end the three things I chose probably say a lot about me, so I thought it would be fun to share them with you and explain my choices further. The first object that I chose was a Smart car. I chose this pretty quickly because it is something that has always made me smile. I used to own one and even though I have nothing against the car I have now, if I could I would go back to my Smart in a second. The second object took a bit longer to pick. I was looking around the kitchen for inspiration and considered my blender (which I love but not THAT much), my slow cooker (which is great but let’s not get carried away) and finally settled on ...

I don’t often intersect my blog and my work so allow me the indulgence – because it really is worth it! There is a great new course at the OU that is so good not only am I considering signing up myself but I think everyone that likes design, creativity or thinking in new ways should. Really. I don’t think the OU has ever offered such a cool course and I just want to shout it to the world! The course is U101 Design Thinking and starts in February. It is a Level 1 course (60 points) and looks like seriously good fun, as well as fascinating and engaging. From my point of view, the best part of the course is the course materials offered. If you are at all familiar with the OU you will know that the courses are conducted over distance (“supported open learning” in OU parlance) and all materials are included. For most courses this means a good supply of books, CDs, DVDs and even quirkier things like lab supplies. However, no other course has course materials like U101. They must be seen to ...

I went to my all-day crop yesterday in Olney and had a very enjoyable and productive time. There was such nice atmosphere there yesterday and we all chatted and gossiped and created amazing layouts as well as trying some very yummy cakes) I worked mainly on my Florida album which focuses on all the other things we did while down there in January except for the marathon (because as you know that is the subject of a separate album ). Some of the pages I worked on yesterday are below. I'm trying to stick to a very limited supply list for this album, which makes the job easier as well as creates a unified look. So the patterned paper is mainly DCWV ( Pocket full of posies ), the cardstock is both Bazzill and DCWV , and the chipboard flowers are Maya Road . The Journaling is on Seven Gypsies cards or using Autumn Leaves fantastic journaling stamps. I also used letter stamps from Autumn Leaves and Rusty Pickle and even some Heidi Swapp ghost letters . This first one is simply showing ...

Following up from a thread on UKS about scrapping spaces, I suddenly realized that the way I keep my stash very much dictates my scrapping style. I don’t mean that I’m tidy and therefore my style is very clean – it’s more complex than that. For example, because I don’t have too much stash I tend to know by heart what I have. This means that I am very good at using both new and old stash on my pages. There is nothing lurking out there that I’ve forgotten about. I still use my MAMBI kids on pages, if they suit the theme! I also have lots of borders and they too have seen the light of day recently. This gives my pages a slightly quirky look. I am not a good hoarder so this means I have no problems using up my stash on pages. While I understand why most scrappers struggle to use their prettiest things, I find that the best way to show off my prettiest things is by using them! There is nothing too precious to use on my pages and I think it shows. Add this to the fact that I know what I own ...

I have just finished reading one of my fave US scrapping mags and one little comment made me a bit angry: there is a tip on one page on how to type text and encourages others to use only a single space (rather than double) after the end punctuation in a sentence. All very good advice and all that... but it did strike me as a bit, how shall I put it? Nit-picky. There are pages and pages in this same mag and others that try hard to encourage others to use their own handwriting on layouts: their imperfect, sloppy, messy handwriting, as this is truly beautiful and an embellishment on it’s own. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, they say, as long as it’s yours. Then I read the “one space after punctuation” tip and I get mixed messages. I agree that it does look better to use only one space after each sentence – I do that all the time and have done so here. Makes text flow nicer and spacing works better. But, in the context of scrapbooking, does it really matter? If I’d been reading a des...