Inspired by Ashli and Giveaway Winnner #1

Hi, it’s Ruth here with two fun things for you, first up, the winner of the Neverland Studio Calico kit was drawn using random.org and I videoed it to show it was a fair selection and the winner is

congrats, Claire! Check your email please, you should have an email from me there.

Note that the other giveaway is STILL OPEN (since the post is unbelievably slow this month and I still have not received the box with the stamps in it!!), so if you missed out this time, you can still get in the running for that giveaway.

Secondly, a layout to share. This one was inspired by the wonderful Ashli Oliver from purplemailbox.com, who recently did a post about puffy paint and it inspired me to pop into a craft shop and get some puffy paint to play with

This is the fabric kind, I don’t know if that is exactly what Ashli used, but it was 5 for $10, which seemed like a good deal to me.

I used the puffy paint on an overhead transparency placed on top of a printout of a few typography images from Pinterest and then left it to dry overnight. They did NOT come off the transparency easily and after destroying one of them, I carefully cut around the next one and used it for a layout.

I also recently got a few sheets of paper from the new Amy Tangerine line, “Yes Please”, the new Maggie Holmes line and the new Dear Lizzy line, and used them on this page, along with a photo I really like from a week ago, when my daughter went supermarket shopping with my husband and asked him to let her bring me home some flowers .. what a sweetie!

And that weekend, I also discovered that she now fits those awesome pants she is wearing, yay! I love those pants! LOL Dressing her is so fun, I am not looking forward to relinquishing that delight one day.

So thanks to Ashli for the inspiration for a really fun layout, go check out her blog for lots of other ideas for artsy ideas that you might not have otherwise thought of, she is great like that.

One more quick share, this one is thanks to Rosalie, who challenged everyone to use a less than stellar photo and talk about the details that it brought to mind, prompting a great story for your layout. I was looking at older photos and came across a gem, which I made into this layout, using more Dear Lizzy papers and a sketch from Shimelle:

I did consider not sharing this, as I am letting you all in on the fact that I am a pretty big nerd, but I guess you guys might have already figured that out?

See you later in the week with my Project Life week 12.

Saturday Science Roundup #3 – This Roundup is TOO WEIRD!

We’re up to three weeks already? The weeks fly past so rapidly.

• Could there be 100 billion potentially-habitable planets in the Galaxy? The simple answer is “yes”. There are hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy, and most of them probably have planets. We’ve only known about these planets for 20 years, and we’re biased towards only finding the really weird ones – because if you’re bigger than jupiter and orbit your star every few days, it turns out you’re pretty easy to find. To see Jupiter at Jupiter’s current distance from the sun, it would take >12 years, and you would need a pretty fine telescope to see the effect it has on the sun (the planet itself would be too hard to see). And small rocky planets like the earth are nearly impossible to find, but we’re getting better at looking for them. The article goes into the details of how we estimate how many planets there are, and what makes a planet suitable for life (and then stops because defining what life is and figuring out how we could detect it is a whole other mess.)
• Mystery SETI Signal Set Rules of Engagement: Fortunately, we have SETI to step into the breach and come up with guidelines for chatting to aliens and looking for signals from them. In 1967 astronomers discovered the first pulsar, a super dense ex-star that beams out radio signals like a lighthouse, spinning so that every few seconds you see the flash of the lighthouse. They are incredibly regular, and in some cases are better timekeepers than atomic clocks. The only problem is that back in 1967, no one knew what they were looking at, so they dubbed the signal “LGM?” for “little green men?” After several months of careful analysis they calculated that the signal was not coming from a planet, but rather a neutron star, and the panic in that crowd was over, but I imagine it must have been somewhat scary for a little while there. (Prompted by this paper by Alan Penny, which was a nice read, tells several sides of the story, but tends towards paranoia at the end.)
• How Beer Gave Us Civilisation: New science is pointing to the idea that human ancestors grew grains for beer before they figured out proper staples such as bread and the like. All the evidence so far is circumstantial, but that’s okay. We had to start somewhere.
• Gravity Satellite Felt Japan Quake from Space: When an earthquake takes place, the ground shakes and we can hear the rumbling as sound waves are generated from the movement. But it turns out, the slower movements also cause slower-moving compressions in the atmosphere, infrasound waves, which can travel great distances through the air. And some of these “sounds” will head straight up, to low orbits where they can be detected in the movement of satellites such as the Gravity Ocean Circulation Explorer. I’m not sure precisely what else this satellite is used for, but it’s pretty cool that they were able to “feel” such an earthquake from almost-space.
• A Billboard that’s also a moisture farm: This is brilliant and ought to earn its engineers big bucks and all the prizes. They’ve built a billboard that captures and purifies water from the humid air in Lima (Peru) to provide drinking water for the community below. Given that Australia is both full of billboards and frequently in drought, maybe we can employ some of these for our farmers, once the developing world has enough. (Maybe advertisers could sponsor them in a buy-one-get-one-free-in-Peru deal?)
• The Other Russian Meteor: Tunguska, the science, and the conspiracy theories! I think my favourite is that it was all Nikola Tesla’s fault, because he was testing one of his death rays up there. We’re not actually sure whether it was a comet or a meteor, or which type of meteor it was (there’s evidence for all of the above), so there’s at least one research group still looking into it. We are certain that it came from space and wasn’t an alien spacecraft.
• Elephant Feet, Arizona: Ooh, Geology! There’s not enough of that in my casual reading. These pillars look like a pair of elephant feet, which makes me wonder, what happened to the other two?

The title of this week’s post comes from an error I was getting this week while trying to do some calculations.

Birthday Card

Just a reminder that our Studio Calico Neverland Kit and Lost Boys and Hook Stamps giveaways are still open. All you have to do is tell us that you’ve subscribed to the blog or linked to us, or that you absolutely love my random science posts, and you’ll be in the draw to win.

Catherine, reporting in: This has been a very mixed week. For instance, on Wednesday I took some great photos of some of the uni students playing very competitive Quidditch. Pretty cool. And then ten minutes ago, when I took my camera out of my bag, I realised that the screen had cracked. And the memory card was complaining about corruption. So, up and down and all around, and it’s 10:30 and the three-year-old is still awake despite him going to bed at 8. The housemates have the flu, so I’ve been doing extra housework and cooking lots of soup, and I have also been run off my feet at work. Just mixed.

So it was with great pleasure that I sat down tonight to assemble the birthday card that I’ve been thinking about all week. I’ve been trying to find a way to do more papercraft while on public transport (on those days when I’m not working on the trains), and while I don’t always have enough elbow room to break out the scissors and glue, one can do a lot of thinking and planning, so it’s good for assembling small kits such as those for cards.

Please excuse the poor lighting not showing up the gold card, as I said, I was startled to find that my camera is a little bit broken. This is loosely based on the card Ruth made me for my own birthday, which was much more stylish. The card is made up of scraps, with the cardstock leftover from my first stamp camp, the paper embellishments from the old “easy scrapbooking” page-a-day calendar I picked up on the cheap, and the ribbon and washi tape from Heidi’s collections.

I’m still compiling my crafting on the bus kit, the only permanent items so far are my snail and scissors. I think a lot will depend on whether I decide to stick with small items like cards, wherein I’ll take enough with me to actually make a card, or if I’ll just bring a folder of papers to match into kits to use at home. But what’s important here is that I’m loving the idea of doing all the plotting and planning in advance so that I can simply assemble things in the only half hour I might have free all week.

Project Life Week 11 using Allison Davis Sketch

Giveaway for the Studio Calico Neverland Kit and for the Lost Boys and Hook Stamps are still open

This week I tried something experimental with my Project Life layout. Just for fun. I decided to combine an idea that Shimelle mentioned on her blog with a recent sketch (doing PL with a regular sketch) with the sketch week on Allison Davis’ blog. She is using this sketch which can be downloaded for free (go to her blog for the link).

I used it to create my project life layout, I tried to stick to the sketch fairly closely, which reduced the number of photos I used. I think if I experiment with this again, I might drop the photos from the sketch and then add them where-ever I want. Hmm watch this space for how that works out!

I used the Studio Calico snippets line (thickers, papers, journalling cards, flair and sticker sheet) and I found that this line matches really well with the Project Life kit I bought last year, Clementine. I love when you find older product that matches something new, its my scrapbooking holy grail to be happy using something older from my stash.

As a new blogger I am constantly finding myself looking at my layouts as I post them and thinking of small changes I would like to make. For this one I wish I had done something to define some of the edges a little more. I went back and forth on it, since they are split by the pocketed page protector, but I dont want them to just blend together. What do think, would it have been better to edge the papers somehow? There is extra journalling for Sunday and Friday tucked behind the photos. As a side note I am now only using hidden journalling on the right page, since you can’t actually take the ones in the right page out easily.

That banner is looking much wonkier in the photos than it was on the page. I might pull it out and remake it and add it over the top of the page, it isnt really making me happy in the current format.

Anyway, experiments are always fun and somethign a bit different to share. Next week I will have my SC PL kit and will be using that again for my PL spread, so something a bit more standard for that one. Coming up soon, I want to blog about the current PRT episode, as it was AMAZING! Go listen to it, especially if you have a child with special needs, a really helpful episode.

Giveaway: Studio Calico NEVERLAND Scrapbook Kit

Hello Scrappy Friends, Yes, you read that title right! Even though I have not yet got my lovely brown box in the mail, which means our previous giveaway is STILL OPEN, we have another giveaway to entice you and to celebrate this new blog. This time the prize comes direct from Studio Calico and it is their March Scrapbook Kit: Neverland. I am a long time fan of Studio Calico’s kits, I enjoy the mix of supplies they include and find that they often push me to use something new or to try out the latest trends. For years they have been at the cutting edge of the industry, introducing new trends. Every kit includes some neutral cardstock, patterned paper from a mix of companies, some alphabets and embellishments. They are probably the most famous in the consumer circles for their stamps, which are usually very versatile and great for using on layouts. Their new Project Life kit for 2013 has seen me jumping on board the project life wagon and I am still surprised at how much I am enjoying it. They have a very friendly message board over there, monthly classes (the upcoming one with Lexi looks really awesome) and a regularly updated blog.

Fly away to NEVERLAND! We’ve pulled together a playful mix of brand new Amy Tangerine, Maggie Holmes and Basic Grey. This month, our exclusive stamp set and thickers are joined by an exclusive mask and a mini Mister Huey in a shade custom matched to the kit. Our March scrapbook kit is the perfect way to make sure your memories never grow old.

You can see heaps of inspiration in their gallery over there.

To enter for a chance to win this fabulous scrapbook kit, please leave a comment below with a suggestion for something you would like to see on the blog or tell us what you have most enjoyed that we have posted. If you send a friend over and your friend mentions you we will give both of you a second entry. (Tip: You can easily share this post with your friends on twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest or by email using the icons at the end of the post).

This give-away will be open for 5 days, and close Sunday 25th March (Sydney Time). The winner will be contacted using the email details left in the comment form and will have 24 hours to respond before an alternative winner is chosen and contacted. (You do NOT need to include your email in the publicly viewable section of the comment.)

Currently March 16

Catherine:

Oops, I forgot to hit Publish on this.

Ruth:

Currently watching: Weekend at Bernie’s and are planning on Groundhog Day in a couple of days, a bit of an 80s throw back
Currently Reading: The Princess Bride
Currently Listening: The Hobbit and Peter Pan
Currently Making: My many starting point layouts (see previous post)
Currently Feeling: Sad that Google Reader is going!
Currently Planning: on shopping for clothes for the wedding
Currently Loving: That James is using his new bike (and Milly is still awesome on hers)

Catherine:

Currently hiding in her bedroom, wishing she’d never taken on such a project, or decided to experiment with ‘art’.

Saturday Science Roundup #2

So that baby blanket didn’t materialise last weekend, but I did finish hemming a skirt that will hopefully make an appearance on the blog soon. Because the yellow scrapmachine is good for more than just papercraft. Now if only the baby would stop growing so fast. At this rate, by the time I’m done he’ll be much too big for such a thing.
In the meantime, here are some science pieces to add some sparkle to your weekend and distract me from the ever-increasing pile of unfinished objects.

• Cicada wings shred bacteria: This is awesome. The tiny nano-spikes in the wings of the cicada tear any bacteria that land on them to pieces. Now we just need to figure out how the spikes grow, and if we can reproduce them, and we can maybe start making antibacterial fabrics. You wouldn’t want to use them all the time, but they’d be great for face masks and gowns in hospitals.
• You don’t Have to blow up the universe to be cool, by AstroKatie (not AstroCate): This article is a good explanation of Dark Energy, which is the weird stuff pushing the universe apart. We know that it’s out there, and that it makes up roughly 75% of everything, but what is it, and what does it mean that there’s an anti-gravity out there? Katie throws an equation out there, but you can skim over the scary maths image and focus on her words instead. At least, I hope so. (I think it’s at a NewScientist level of detail, but on a topic they don’t usually like to dabble with.) Don’t worry, the rest of these links are less cosmological.
• What if the Hubble Telescope was pointed at Earth?: The What if? blog by Randall Munroe of xkcd is one of my favourite examples of a physicist gone mad with power using said power to improve the world. He takes simple questions like the one above, answers them using easy physics and maths, and then turns it all the way up to eleven. A few months ago, he figured out what kind of laser pointers one would need to blow up the moon. Oh, and the answer to the question above is “not very much”.
• Scientists and their emotions: the highs … and the lows: This one isn’t about a singular scientific result. It’s about the process of doing science, and how it brings you up and tears you down. I love being a scientist, when it works. One of the factors in my depression is just the fact that this stuff is hard, and some days it’s hard to get up and go into work when you know that next week you’re going to find a better way of doing the same task and you’ll have to start all over again. So it’s reassuring to find that other people feel the same way.
• 
• Curiousity kicks butt!: You knew I had to bring this one up, as it’s the most exciting announcement of the last few months. Evidence from the Curiousity Rover on Mars has shown that Mars at some point in the very distant past met most of the criteria for supporting life. There was running water, a nice temperature, and an atmosphere that was thin but composed of the right amount of oxygen to keep a lot of bacteria happy. We haven’t found fossils yet, nor have we found anything alive right now, but we have found a bunch of rocks that show it wasn’t too salty or sandy on Mars’ beaches three billion years ago. Which is pretty exciting when you think about it. (Unless you’re @SarcasticRover, in which case your response is: “DISCOVERY! Mars was once able to support life, not unlike how the economy was once able to support jugglers and mimes.”)
• New Fossil Whales: While digging up and expanding a highway in California, the project’s archaeologist (how cool is it that they’re required to have an archaeologist on hand during these digs?) found four new species of whale. They’re filter feeders (like whale sharks, for the Octofans among us), which means they don’t use their teeth to chew, but rather to filter the water around them and keep out anything big while letting little things like krill in.
• The world’s oldest portrait: This isn’t new, but I’d not seen it before: a 26-thousand year old carving of a woman, made from a mammoth tusk. She’s strangely beautiful.

This week’s science roundup has been brought to you by the boredom of repeating everything you did “for the last time” three weeks ago, because it turns out there’s a very slightly better way of doing it. I felt so clever for a while there.

Sketch Layout

Hello Dear Readers, it’s Ruth, back this morning with a layout using the current Citrus Twist Sunday sketch and the February kit. I will be trying to get a layout for the Studio Calico Sunday Sketch done today too, though this weekend we are celebrating three different birthdays, one last night, one this afternoon and one tomorrow morning, so it might be a bit too busy for a lot of crafty time, plus photographing and blogging it. This weekend is birthday central. I just realised that I forgot to take any photos last night, oh man! Don’t you hate that? It was one of those very low key board game nights with friends, that are all about good friendship and light hearted teasing, the very definition of relaxed happy times. The kind that are not conducive to frenetic photographing, but that you wish you could hold on to for a little longer after it’s finished.

This is the sketch:

On to the layout, this is one about my husband and I, using a photo I recently found, which is an older one that made me quite nostalgic. The tshirts we are wearing have both become faded and stretched, it was before marriage, before kids, I think even before we had “real” jobs, when we were both still students. A little flash of the past reminding me how transient it all is. I love how photos can do that.

 

The journalling is on a hidden card that is on top of the layout in the last photo. Last week I really struggled with the circular elements in the sketch, so this week I decided to give myself a break and pretend they were all small squares and took the sketch from there. It was definitely more fun, though perhaps I’m not challenging myself as much by doing that? Some days you just want it to be easy though, you know?

Have a great weekend all, see you again soon.

Project Life Week 10

Happy Friday, dear readers, it’s Ruth here to share my Project Life for Week 10.

This was a really hard week and it happened to coincide with some discussions on scrapbooking forums about documenting rough weeks. Amy Tan shared a layout about a rough week and started the discussion going. It is always an interesting topic, as I think everyone prefers to write about happy things and ignore the unhappy things, who wants to remember those later?

I am finding that PL is pushing me to include these things more, as I am including the week as an overall, so good and bad are included in it. I included a card from the Studio Calico PL kit with “Grow Where you are Planted” written on it and used that as the starting point of my journalling, where I said that plants need manure to fertilise them to grow, and sometimes it is the tough stuff that grows our strong character too. The kids had been home ALL WEEK sick and yet not languishing on the couch, insipid and quiet, they were quite stir crazy, but contagious enough that we could not visit with anyone else.

Left Page including a lovely self portrait at 6.45am in front of the computer with the headset on for Paperclipping – I kept waking up all night worrying I would sleep through in the morning and miss it, so I was kinda bleary eyed and looking dishevelled LOL.

Right Page with a couple of empty park visits to break the monotony of home, an unexpected “date” with my hubby, stopping at a cafe on the way to a meeting, just the two of us. Precious luxury, possibly my favourite moment of the week!

This week’s layout used a mix of the Studio Calico February PL kit and some Elle’s Studio tags, the ones with labels at the top. It was a pretty quick one to put together, as I let the products do the work and simply added words and photos on top. I think there are very little embellishments, except a couple of flair badges from Ormolu, which I stuck on TOP of the page protectors, after reading the suggestion on a message board. I certainly prefer it, as the page protector is not straining to contain the fat embellishment, it looks much better this way!

That’s it for today, coming up next is the weekly Currently list. This time we will combine Catherine and I into one post.

Shanna's March Sketch

Ruth here, and I am late again for Shanna’s sketch challenge again, but I won’t let that stop me from sharing on here. I love her sketches, there is something about them that makes me want to experiment more than usual. This time the sketch reminded me of Van Gogh for some reason and so I was inpired to try and make something like those strong brush strokes he used, but I wanted to try and do it with Mr Hueys. It has turned out interesting, though not what I was picturing in my head. I still love that it is different from what I normally make, I might need to practice this a few more times and see what else I can do with this technique idea. I am not a very confident “messy” scrapbooker when it comes to liquid mediums. I draw inspiration from crafters like Ashli who seem to throw art supplies about with true abandon. If you haven’t been to her blog before, I recommend checking it out, it is quite different to many of the scrapbookers I saw in CK Mag when I was starting and she inspires me to challenge the box I put myself in sometimes when I scrapbook, and reconsider the kind of rules I am unintentionally applying to my crafting.

Enough rambling, here is some eye-candy scrapbook layout:

   

Another thing I wanted to add was that this week I was inspired by another blogger, this time it was Kay Roger’s post on how she uses up her kit. I decided to take her ideas and combine them with Shimelle’s starting point’s idea and use this combo to finish my February Studio Calico kit before the March one arrives.

I took all the full sheets I had left and laid them out. Then I prepped my scraps by cutting them all into boxes instead of weird shapes and cut off all the brand stripes (unless they were patterned, then I left some one and cut some off, just made a judgement call on each one), then I split the scraps into two piles, those that were 10+ inches wide, and those that 7 inches or smaller (I didnt have any in between those approximate measurements). I chucked anything that was too small (less than a 2 inches, especially odd shapes)

I started with the most recent starting point on Shimelle’s blog and put a few scraps together to resemble it, I didnt sweat it if what I had wasn’t perfect, it was just a general place to start from. When I ran out of paper I stopped, and had about 5 scraps left, which I put with the embellishments.At this point I had 8 starting points with no photos, no titles and no embellishments.

I went to my photos and grabbed photos for about 8 layouts, and then added them to the layout they best suited, with the idea that if I couldnt make it work I would go back and get more photos, but I didnt need to do that. Then I took the top one from the stack and made a really quick layout, which I really really like! Here is a photo of the one finished layout

    

and the all 8 starting points, the finished one in the middle and the others have a photo just loosely placed on top.

I am looking forward to the “words and pretty things” stage for the other 7 layouts. I’m not sure if I will like all of them when they are finished, I’ll have to see how it does, and I don’t know that I would do it this way every month, as it is very different from just making them one at a time, but it sure was fun this month so far! I hope you are also having a scrappy week.

Coming up soon is my Project Life week 10, it has been scrapbooked but not yet photographed.. see you then!

She's Leaving Home

Have you ever been to a crop and realised that you packed more than you need? Perhaps a lot more? Have you looked at your fellow crafters and noticed one has a kitchen sink with her? One more question.. have you, like all of us, discovered that as you leave you take with you bags that were never even opened while you were there? Me too, but no longer!

These days I pack light and I get more done and like my layouts just as much, if not more. I have culled and culled and now I am really happy with what I bring with my to crop away from my desk. I use everything that I bring and it fits in a ziploc sandwish bag (no, I’m not talking about the huge ones, the regular ones like my kid takes to school!).

“Gasp! Shock and Horror” I hear you think, “but WHAT IF YOU NEED SOMETHING ELSE?”. Well we can talk about that in a moment, but first I will tell you about what makes my minimalistic travel kit.

This includes (more details about these below)
1. Scissors
2. Pens (Black, Slick, Glue)
3. Generic pattern Stamp
4. Ink (Chalk and Dye)
5. Date / Phrase stamp
6. Washi and Flair
7. Adhesive
8. Acrylic Block
9. Pop dots

First a couple more photos so you can see what it includes:

1. Scissors I use the Cutterbee non-stick scissors here, so that I can cut paper, stickers, ribbons, etc. A very versatile fine point pair of scissors. I do NOT cut really tough things with these (chipboard, wire, etc) I would use my Tim Holtz scissors for that, they are die-hard, but they are bigger to carry, so they stay home. While out and about, I skip cutting those tougher things.

2. Pens
I bring three pens with me, one is a journalling pen (in this case a Micron .03 black marker). This is my standard go-to for journalling, and I cycle through a few options with this, including the precision pens by American Crafts, Journalling markers by Stampin up, Sharpie fine point markers and Copic journalling pens. I haven’t fallen in love with any of these and switch it up as each needs replacing. Probably the Micron or Copics are my favourites, but mostly I like to have variety.

The next is a slick marker by American Crafts, I love that these write on everything without smudging, including glossy photos, glossy products (like coated chipboard) and specialty papers like vellum or acetate.

The last is a Martha Glue pen, I have also used the ZIG pens in the past. This is a recent addition to my kit, I’m using it to adhere smaller items like little wood veneers or really narrow peices of paper, it is nice to have a wet glue option as an alternative in a convenient size. I’ll keep an eye on this one, though, because if it doesnt see much use, I’ll take it out.

Though not included today, I often bring an aquash brush as well, which is a paint brush filled with water. They are a very useful inclusion, you can paint with inks, watercolours or even acrylics with them, or just use the water to add some texture to your patterned paper. You can use the water to clean things too, in a tight spot..

3. Generic pattern Stamp
This is a Sodalicious wood handled stamp that I started including because it has such a simple and reusable pattern, that would often fill a small gap or weird space on a layout. It is a repeatable design both vertically and horizontally, so it is easy to fill different types of gaps. When you finish a layout, sometimes you look at it and need just a bit of extra colour, or there is some trapped white space between two elements, or perhaps it looks a bit unbalanced, and needs a little something at one edge. This stamp is the kind of generic pattern that could be used for that. You can find plenty of stamps that would fir this, I used to have another sodalicious one before this with an arrow / chevron pattern, and swapped them recently just for a change. An acrylic stamp could work too, but the wood handled rubber stamp is less likely to get damaged when packaged with other hard objects, and doesnt need any extra packaging around it that could then get lost..

4. Ink (Chalk and Dye)
I bring 2 kinds of mini ink pads with me. I will point out at this point that I find stamping to be a great way to meet a number of my needs when I make a page, I don’t stamp on every page, but I do find it a very versatile and flexible option.

The first is my mini Memento dew drop ink pad. This crisp black inkpad is a great ink for stamping with clear or rubber stamps. The small size seems to work just as well as the larger one, and I have never needed to re-ink it though I have used it for some time. I am sure I will need to eventually, but it is a great little inkpad. I have used Black dye inkpads made by Memento, Versafine, Stampin up, Stazon, Distress, Jenni Bowlin and the Ranger, all are excellent and have different properties. I will blog a review and comparison of them in a future post. I chose the Memento in this case for the entirely practical reason – it was the only one I had in a conveniently small size. I received this one in a card kit from Simon Says Stamps (excellent kits if you are a card maker, by the way), otherwise I have full size inkpads of other brands.

I like to ink my edges, and my usual choices at my desk would be brown or black distress ink, while I am scrapbooking on the go, I use a Prima Chalk ink, in the colour “old road” which is a greyish / brownish colour. It is less distinct than my usual choices, which means it can be substituted for both brown and black pages. Because it is a chalk ink, I can easily apply the mini ink pad direct to paper.

You can see I seal the ink with washi tape, the lid is not bad, but it is much more secure with washi tape holding it on. This is an example of how I use washi everywhere, all the time. You see a predecesor of the current washi in my travel kit. My motto is – if in doubt, put washi on it. (or put a bird on it, or BIRD WASHI! LOL I think I’m funny, sorry everyone who doesnt think so hehe)

To give you a little insight into how my travel packing is more minimal than my regular scrapping, I took this picture, At my desk I like to keep two foam applicators, one for each main colour (I distinguish them with the washi to make life easier), and keep them both out on the desk at all times. I really like the blendability of the distress ink pads and use them exclusively for edging my paper or embellishments (as needed). I’ll note at this point, that I dont use these inks for stamping, as they do not make a crisp impression with clear stamps, so I have additional ink pads for that too.

The trick when you scrap away form your desk is to be flexible and use what works and also travels well. The Prima ink is a smokey inbetween colour that doesnt clash with either the brown or the black layouts and is 10% of the size of my usual option. It will be good enough.

5. Date / Phrase stamp
This is one that swaps out, both for other date stamps and for other options too. At the moment I am really enjoying Project life, and I love the cute phrases that a lot of these stamps have. Once I have one of the new roller stamps that are only phrases, I suspect that might replace the date stamp in this travel kit, as I often date my layouts only by month and not by date (mostly because I am too lazy to look it up while scrapbooking, and I don’t think it will matter in one or in 10 years whether it was 21st May 2013 or 12th May 2013). At times this has been replaced with other fun new trends like enamel dots or an alphabet stamp I am loving. What’s that thing you want to use on every layout this week? That’s what I’m talking about here.

This particular date stamp is one of my favourites because the words are quirky, but relateable (“one for the books”, “kind of a big deal”, “quoted” or “epic”), some useful basic ones (documented, photographed on, instagrammed) and it has a few non-word options, like an arrows, dots and stars

6. Washi and Flair
I like to keep at least one roll of washi in there, with a colour I use a lot and a really basic pattern. At the moment I have an aqua dot by bella blvd and a yellow and pink stripe by freckled fawn. These often get used as tape to hold something together or label something or other mundane uses as much as for the layouts. Super useful and super cute. I will often swap these out for others, but try to keep them as versatile choices, so that whatever other kit I have, they would probably match. I love aqua, pink and red, and at the moment it seems I am using a lot of gold and goldish tones, so these 2 fit the bill.

You can see one lone flair badge next to the washi, sometimes there are more sometimes less. If I happen to have one or two at the end of a kit, I might pop them in (not the ones that already have adhesive, that could end badly), other small random embellishment have been known to sneak in here, the ones I really like and want to use on a layout. This one is really neutral and will match almost anything, and just add a bit of punch. It is small and unobtrusive and will get used very soon.

7. Adhesive
I keep one roller adhesive in the bag, depending on where and how long I am going somewhere, I might also bring some refills for the adhesive. I use a few different brands of roller adhesive, my favourites for travel are Tombow and American Crafts DOT roller (I dont like the solid / stripes as much). At home I use the ATG for anything that is outside the page protector as it is a stronger adhesive, however it also makes it harder to change your mind after you stick it down. I have also used other gun adhesives and find them to be quite good, but the adhesive is more like the small rollers, but seems to be more expensive? I want to buy the best value, so the stuff that works, but no more expensive than necessary. I dont get really cheap stuff because I don’t want my things to fall apart. I used to use a lot of double sided tape, I switched to rollers for 2 reasons, the main was that it is just so much more convenient, basically I want scrapbooking to be fun and this made it much more fun, and secondly because it is heaps faster, I think I spent half my time taking the backing off the tape until my nails started to bleed, it was seriously unpleasant. I have no regrets on that increase in expenditure!

8. Acrylic Block
I use this mostly to put stamps on, obviously, but sometimes for other things, like scribbling with a friends marker to use just a bit of colour like a watercolour palette  I have also used it as a straight edge in lieu of having a ruler, as well as using it to line things up with the corner. IT is a fairly small item to bring, but very useful.

9. Pop dots
This is another one that might depend a bit on your style, I like to have some pop dots to add dimension, my favourite are these Stampin up ones, as they are not very thick, so you could add two or even three without it becoming cumbersome, and have multiple heights on the page. They are also easy to cut in half for smaller items.

Trimmer
In addition to the above I have a smaller sized Fiskars trimmer than I bought quite recently at Spotlight on special. I am not 100% sold on this one as I find it harder to measure on than my usual one, which goes out to 6.5inches before I need to swing out the arm, but it is certainly smaller and lighter to put in my bag, so I guess it is a good compromise option. I am using the titanium blade, and despite some criticism on forums, I have found them vastly superior to the older blades, I change my blade a LOT less often than I used to. If I think it is getting older though I would toss a spare in my travel kit.

That, dear readers, is the end of my basic “travel” kit. Sometimes it only travels as far as the dining table, computer desk, front yard outdoor table or even the couch. Most weeks it travels to work with me, and sometimes to a friends place for a crop. That is pretty much all I bring, along with a pre-packed kit (post about kitting supplies to come). The thing these places have in common is that I dont need everything I own to be right next to me. It is not just me and my travel kit, perhaps my whole stash is not far, or a friend’s stash is nearby (who is happy to share tools and other things you won’t use up too quickly like ink, paint, etc). OR I only have a short time, so I wont be doing anything too complicated and techniquey anyway (eg work or out and about) OR I can’t get too engrossed in messy and complicated because I am watching the kids play at the same time OR I have limited space and so there is no point bringing everything (think cafe table, on transport, etc). My travel kit is sufficient for my needs in these cases.

This is getting pretty long, dear reader, so come back tomorrow for Beyond the sandwich and what about the “what ifs”? where we can chat about scrapbooking in other situations with the travel kit, bringing a few extra fun things and when that is a good idea, and what to do if you don’t have that one item you suddenly want. See you tomorrow!

Currently Catherine

I loved the idea of the “currently” challenge that Ruth described the other day. Only, since I don’t really do Project Life, I decided to open up a new diary and update it once a week with my list of stuff I’m currently into.

A book is a lot bigger than a 4×3 card, though, and worse, this book had previously been used, so I did a proper layout and a diary entry for this first page. All the rest of the book is blank, though, so from now on it will be pretty dull, as although I want to play around with stamps, I don’t want to be sticking too many things in the book (I don’t want to stress the bindings), and most importantly, I want this to be something I can do in five minutes at a pinch.

Eep, my handwriting is a bit of a mess. Alphabets by TYPO and American Crafts, and the paper is from a page-a-day scrapbooking calendar from 2010 that I picked up for $2 in an art supply store (I can’t remember the brand off the top of my head), which has 365 pages of frames for 6×4 photos and colour-matched accessories.

I’m super into Phoenix Wright (Ace Attorney) at the moment. I’m at the final case of game three, and I’m playing about one cross examination a night before bed. It’s just so much fun, but I’m enjoying playing it slowly because I don’t want it to finish. (I’ve played game 4 – Apollo Justice – before, since it was the first one I bought, but I’ll be sad to get to the end of Phoenix’s main arc.)

The "Currently" challenge

Ruth here, back again with something quick I wanted to share and encourage you to join in too.
Kristin from rukristin.blogspot.com hosts a weekly challenge called Currently, here is her description of it:

Currently is a weekly journaling challenge designed to fit in perfectly with Project Life. It can also easily be tailored to fit whatever your personal memory-keeping style is.

Every Friday, I share my Currently list journaling card here on my blog, as well as on various social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Join the Currently community and meet great new friends.  To play along, leave your link in the widget below and use the hashtag #CurrentlyList on Instagram and Twitter to share your Currently List and find great inspiration from other people around the web! Bookmark the Currently Journaling Challenge main page to stay up to date with all things #CurrentlyList.

If you click through to her website you can find a free printable page that had 6 “currently” cards to fill in. It is a very quick and painless way to capture a moment in your life Right Now. I snapped a quick iPhone photo and sent it to flickr. Filling in the card took about 2 minutes, and sharing it took maybe 5 more. Because each card is a small moment, it does not need any profound insightful thoughtful writing. It is quick and captures the most transitory and ephemeral things. The sort of stuff we might chat about with our friends but might not think to write down.

(excuse the poor lighting please)
I’m not sure whether this will live in my PL album, just on the blog or perhaps a new mini-album with these plus a random weekly photo, perhaps one that didnt fit in PL? I am always struggling with all I want to include in my limited 24″x12″ realestate

PS I am really enjoying Jane Eyre on Audiobook, and it is free! I use an app called Audiobooks on my iPhone and it is full of free classics, mostly sourced from http://librivox.org/ I think (thanks for telling me about that one, Dad). Before Jane Eyre I was listening to Pride and Prejudice and before that Emma. Coming up on my listening list will be Peter Pan, Anne of Green Gables, Wuthering Heights and Sherlock Holmes. I also like Audible, which has good deals on subscriptions if you want to listen to the latest new and popular titles. I mix it up and switch between them. I am also listening to The Hobbit on Audible at the moment, it is such a great novel too.

Project Life and Paperclipping Roundtable

[Warning: Photo Heavy Post]

Good Afternoon, dear reader, (or should I say readers since there might actually be more than one now and best of luck to you all in the giveaway). Today I am back with two pocket page protector projects to share, and how is that for lovely alliteration?

The first is my week 9 for 2013 Project Life. I am very motivated to keep up with this by the amount of time the kids spend looking at these layouts, in fact, while photographing this one, I was being nudged insistently out of the way by the two of them trying to have a look. I plan to share the most recently completed layout on a weekly basis.

Details
  

It was a fairly normal week, yet as always I had plenty enough photos to fill every pocket and more besides. I often seem to read in forums that scrapbookers are struggling with too few photos, but honestly, I am forever pulling out my iphone to take endless photos and end up having quite a hard time selecting those that best tell the story of the week. I have found Noell’s advice on this helpful and have referred to it more than once.

Speaking of Noell brings me to the second project I wish to share today, and that is my plan for the Paperclipping Playalong, which is an invitation by Noell to join her in trying to complete an incomplete album.

I love creating layouts and have undergone quite a journey in my crafting, from the classic post-wedding bride with too many photos and insufficient scrapbook skill, to scrapbooking my babies, then kids, to finally discovering the joy that was in the process of creating, rather than in the finished product. This discovery led me to a lot of scrapbooking where the experience of creating was the value I was deriving from it, and I felt no compulsion to show anyone albums. Like reading a novel, I had gained my joy in the making of the art. The wind of change blew this year with my jaunt into Project Life. My kids cannot stop looking through that album, and their enjoyment makes me want to share my other layouts too (once again).

Most of my albums have been in broadly chronological order and more precisely in the chronological order of layouts that I have created. Anyone who has had a stack of layouts get big enough to start destroying the layouts is wise to learn their lesson and put their layouts straight into albums, no matter the order! I have actually taken a number of classes in album processes, including Shimelle’s Cover to Cover and Stacy’s Photo Freedom (currently in session) and both are excellent and have had some impact on my organisation, with which I am slowly progressing through my older albums. I have some special albums including a first year album for each kid. Well except it would be best if you didnt look at those… if you know what I mean?

Enter Paperclipping playalong and I am ready to take the challenge! Noell says in her post:

Would you love to hand someone a finished scrapbook in full smiles and confidence with no explanations or apologies?

Then play along with me and finish an album this month! I’m not talking about starting a whole new one and finishing it within a month. I’m talking about taking one that is pretty darn close, and completing it so it is totally viewer-ready.

Sounds good to me, Noell. My album originally started with Becky Higgin’s Project Life Predecessor, a baby album kit (amazingly still for sale here). The kit included some semi-complete 12×12 pages where you fill-in-the-blanks and some divided page protectors, with extras to fill in with. This is the standard opening page:

(information details blurred for privacy) – All I needed to do was stick a photo on, add the included frame and write some details to fill in the lines. Not exactly fun to do, but it was making it easy for a first time Mum with a newborn. Some I didn’t finish filling in e.g. missing grandparents

and no journalling about parents:

Honestly, this album was so BORING to work on that after a while I apparently gave up and had a lot of pages that looked like this (photos and journalling stuffed into a page protector along with some sort of intentions to fill in the blanks later. – does anyone else do this?

The pencil marks at the top indicate the predsigned page it was supposed to go with.
But that was then and this is now, (queue angels singing)
Spurred to action by Noell’s invitation to her readers to join the Playalong, I pulled out this album and did a few things before I had good light to photograph it. Firstly I get some of my Project Life page protectors (which are significantly better quality than the original ones in this kit, by the way, if you are thinking of purchasing it) and in the second half of the album, which was a month by month breakdown of photos, I put almost all of the photos into simple pocket page protector layouts, and left a few in 12×12 pages, and the put the rest back into my photo-boxes and away from the album. Some months only had 5 or 6 photos, and others had 30 or 40 photos, so this was an important step, culling the herd.

In each month I put either the 3×4 month card from the kit or the circular month embellishment. A simple and consistent title option. In some spots I stuck random bits of scrap paper from my scraps basket, as this is just stage one, and I want to work on them one at a time, but right now it is nearly at a point that these layouts could be shown as is, if not quite shown with pride and joy LOL.

I suspect I will need more journalling space now that I look at these layouts, but it was a good starting point. Month’s 7 and 8 were a bit short on photos and are both in smaller divided page protectors

So I think I still have a lot of work to do, I need to figure out what I want to do with those full layout pages (I think that will be great fun!), I want to work through each pocketed page and write, write write, in fact I might try to get my husband to help with a few of these by emailing him specific memory prompts like “Can you remember the first bath we gave James at the hospital?” or “Apparently, when James was 7 months we all dressed up like Gangsters for some reason, can you remember what that was about?” or even “What are some of you favourite things you remember from his first year?” and then just include them wherever they will work the best. I really love to have his voice in the album when I can manage it, and email is a much more successful way than any other (except perhaps text messages). Then I want to go through the album and make it feel unified and complete. At least Milly’s first year album is good to go, since I did it as a quick Shutterfly digital album!

So bring on March and the playalong challenge. I look forward to seeing what Noell has in store for us.