Out Of a Box

When get It Scrapped asked for a page about dressing up, my hand shot into the air. Me! That would be me! Ever since my sister and I repurposed an old laundry basket and filled it with a net curtain, my mum's undergraduate gown and half a bridesmaid dress, I've loved putting on a costume. Which is probably why it didn't take me long to realise that I had, in fact, already told many of my dressing up stories.

I thought back to No Show Rose , a page I made when I hadn't been scrapbooking for very long . I thought about my costumes over the years: the witches, the Mary Poppins straw boater, the boy band bow tie (we had a "B" party, I cut felt shaped undone bow ties and the four of us wore black trousers and white shirts), the back to front superman with the blue school knickers over the red pyjama bottoms (you're right: there hasn't been a page about that one, though there's still time); and eventually I found a different story

which pulled all of the others together.

I had to wear a "national costume" for a Girl Guide Thinking Day parade. I had a pretty dress my mum had pulled together with very little notice. But I discovered that that's not my kind of dressing up, unless I'm choosing the clothes. Pulling together a character is much more my style.

More pages about dressing up and wearing disguises at Get It Scrapped

Building Bricks: a Scrapbook Page

When Get It Scrapped asked me for a page on which I had combined some embellishments in stacks, I had all kinds of ideas -3D flowers, maybe, or butterflies with decorated wings - but as I flipped through my photos I thought the best plan might be to find a picture in which "stacks" had some real meaning. And then I found one of the Berlin Wall.

I have already scrapbooked a sizeable number of my Berlin photos. But those ones of the wall: I keep picking them up and setting them back down again. I remember the night the wall was breached. I remember a little of the before and more of the after and I understand, now, that what I knew was not nearly enough. 

We stood beside one of the remaining sections last summer and the tour guide began to unpick its story for us; and if I were being fanciful I might say that it felt a little as if he wanted to hand us brick after brick so that we might build up our own understanding of what it had been like, before everything changed.

So I stacked up bricks with my embellishments, with the result that I saved the journaling for another page (of course I have more pictures). The layers do a fine job, I hope, of illustrating how it felt to be there, in 2016, with so much to discover.

More ideas for combining embellishments here at Get It Scrapped

Sea Overleaf: a Scrapbook Page

"I want to see that map," he said

and after that we found the sea.

Thinking about summer holidays here; and road trips and fresh air and days with nothing ahead except a carefully chosen playlist, an unexpected viewpoint and a fish and chip supper ...

With a page put together for Get It Scrapped's new blog article on Telling A Bigger Visual Story

They Had to Go: Good Bye Old Friends

Back in the days when library books were stamped out with a satisfying click and "kindle" had something to do with starting a campfire, I had a boss who believed very strongly in the power of the tidy work space. The surface of her desk was almost always completely clutter free

and she had a simple, very effective, way of achieving this state of minimalist perfection. She passed on every outstanding task, every query she took by phone, every note of a book she needed to find: all of it, passed on to the juniors. And then she carried out a desk inspection.

I can't help thinking about her almost every time I go to tidy my desk now, here at home: a desk which is often piled to perilous breaking point with stuff I might need in a minute. And I thought about her and that "tidy desk, tidy mind" mantra again when Get It Scrapped asked me to contribute to their new "Story + Design" on Clutter and White Space.

Clutter? I think I have a story or two. I can't show you the page I made for the class - it turned out to be about piles of books - so I made another one for here and now. And it's about piles of magazines:

Maybe you remember this photo from last year? I eventually loaded into the car every copy of Mollie Makes, from issue one, complete with kits, and I took them to the charity shop. And it felt good. But not for long. I still have to deal with the boxes of fashion and interiors magazines. If they would just budge up a bit, I'd have more room for wool. They'll have to go. I know it. But I'm stuck: are they worth taking to the charity shop too? Or is it straight to the recycling centre? Answers on a virtual postcard, please..

Occupational Hazard

Do you think that you could bear a little red and green today? It's quite cheerful (such a grey day here!) and not at all Christmas-y, I promise. It's a page about last summer, when we were in Berlin

When I posted it on instagram someone was kind enough to query my spelling in the title. Believe me: if I've made a mistake I want to know about it, especially on a page I've made on request. So I double googled and I think - hope- I'm in the clear this time and haven't embarrassed Get It Scrapped.

The ampelmannchen are the little traffic light men who are seen lighting up pedestrian crossings in Berlin. They first arrived in 1961, in East Berlin, behind the iron curtain, but following the fall of the wall they achieved cult status and began appearing on souvenirs. Now they play their part in promoting tourism (with a website here): the Fair family is only one of very many every year who has browsed for gifts, wolfed down sandwiches and made use of the facilities under the distinctive red and green signage. Thanks, Ampelmann!

This page was made for a Get It Scrapped piece on using active white space. You can find it here.

Wabi Sabi Scrapbooking

Mmm...make a page that's perfectly imperfect: what do you think?

When Get It Scrapped asked me for a layout designed around the principles of Wabi-Sabi I had to do a little research (as it turns out my dear friend Alexa had explained it perfectly on this post from a couple of years back). It's the Japanese notion of impermanence and imperfection; that nothing lasts forever, nothing can be finished, that simple is good, authentic is best.

So what that means is that I've been enjoying Wabi-Sabi style scrapbooking all along. That's what I like. I'll very often leave a sewing thread dangling on purpose, or draw a wobbly line, or cut freestyle with my scissors instead of a trimmer, because I know that if I do these things, I'll leave a little of my "hand" on the page. You will know, in other words, that I've been there. (And if you've been hanging round here long you'll now be expecting me to quote my scrapbooking dream: that someone will find an album of mine years from now and feel something of me on each page. I want that album finder to be able to say look: her handwriting is much neater on this page, what made her concentrate that day?) 

Ah, you could say: the idea of an album sitting for years on a shelf isn't very Wabi-Sabi. Maybe that's right. But maybe I have an answer. 

I don't mind altering my layouts. They don't go onto a shelf and stay there, untouched. I make a page, I photograph it and share it. But that doesn't mean that it's finished. I might add an extra embellishment (because sometimes it's only when I see the photo that I realise what's missing. That's a good tip. If you are struggling to get a page to come together, take a photo and pin it up, then step back and look at it with the critical eye that comes from being one step removed). I might take away a piece (and if that leaves a little hole that needs patched, I'm fine with that). Chances are I'll add more writing, which might even cover the page and detract from the original design. But that's no problem. The words count. Is that Wabi-Sabi?

For this particular page I was pleased to find the perfect subject. A hand knitted jumper, in a natural colour, in pure new wool: that's authentic, that's imperfect (somewhere, I'm sure, if you look closely). It has recycled buttons; and when it has been worn enough here, it will probably be recycled in its whole, or moved on, or re-knitted. Nothing lasts forever. 

And that can be a strangely comforting thought.

More ideas on scrapbooking Wabi-Style can be found here at Get It Scrapped.

Sneaky Selfie

Sometime at the beginning of the summer, I found a catalogue lying on our doormat. It was unlike any other I'd seen since the "Clothkits" brochures of the '70's, with line drawings of the clothes on offer, alongside the photographs of the dozens of possible combinations. It was by Gudrun Sjoden

and although I didn't buy anything, I didn't throw the catalogue away, which is always a sign I'm thinking about it. So when I discovered we were going to be close to an actual bricks and mortar Gudrun store, in Berlin, in August, I had to have a look around. And take pictures. I couldn't resist.

And, no, I didn't buy anything; though I did try on a tunic and I brought home the autumn catalogue, which has been in my bedside reading pile ever since.

I liked my Gudrun photos so much that I decided to use them for a Get It Scrapped sketch challenge; and my page appeared on their blog last week (details of the other pages and the sketch are here), round about the same time that I got an email

made using a kit by Felicity Jane

Hello Sian: you haven't tried us yet

Gudrun was tempting me, with a voucher and a gift..mmm...I could just have a look. No! Mustn't! Too many other things to buy right now.

Until today: this very day, when I had already planned to post my page, I received another email:

Hi Sian, take 20% off our tunics

It was a done deal. Gudrun even let me combine my offers and then sent me a note

You have a colourful parcel to look forward to!

I have! Forget the fact that I bought the grey one! Maybe next time I'll go bold. But first? Might need to add a postscript to that journaling..

Check. Mate.

Today I'm talking Guilty Secrets. Not the I've got a stash of sugared almonds somewhere in the house and I'm not telling anyone where to find them kind of secret. Nor even the you don't want to know what's buried under my patio kind. No: I mean the sort of thing you don't generally mention in public unless you are forced into a corner. See, for me it's board games.

I simply don't enjoy them. It's not something I tend to shout about because..well..there's always a whiff of a bad loser about someone who doesn't look forward to a bit of monopoly round the fire of a winter's evening. And I'm not. A bad loser, I mean. I couldn't be, given that I was always picked last for every sports team at school, ever. Games? I shrug my shoulders at them. I have thought about it, though. What is it that makes my mood sink and the excuse making part of my brain go into overdrive every time someone says Cluedo? Maybe it's the sitting in one place, the not being able to do anything else with my hands whilst it's going on, maybe it's just that I'm not very good at waiting my turn, maybe I'm still traumatised by that Christmas we tried to play Sorry! No: I'm not going there.

Get It Scrapped asked for a page inspired by the design of a board game. I panicked, don't mind admitting it. Most of the games they suggested I hadn't even heard of (interesting point there: are favourite games different depending on where you come from?). But I let the idea sit for a couple of days and I eventually came up with a checkered design very loosely based on a chess or draughts board, and a play on words, and a whole other slew of shudder inducing situations. There was this one time, with a gorilla suit...no: if I tell you about that one, half of my family will probably never speak to me again.

More board game inspired pages at Get It Scrapped

All There in Black and White

Before I start I have to tell you that I can't say anything about Bumper Gate, or Crash Gate, or even Gate Gate, as it is variously known round here, because I'm under some kind of embargo. Or maybe it's a restraining order? It can be a little difficult to keep up, living with a half-way-to-being-a lawyer

Keep Up, or Keep Your Head Down; both are good options, with Keep Your Head Down just having the edge right now, what with - well, you know what with. It wasn't me! I don't get to drive the little white car nearly often enough. It's a lot of fun round the city, easy to park, too, except when - sorry, sorry, I can't seem to stop myself. Come on, Sian, think of the consequences.

Maybe I should talk about the page instead. It came about because Get It Scrapped asked for a layout using an on trend colour combination (for this new blog article). I don't often begin with the colour, so I let this one stew away in the background for a few days until I realised that all I needed to make a start was a black and white photo, which would give me a free hand to choose any fresh colour combination I liked. It was chance that about five minutes after deciding this I spotted a pin of a picture from Instyle magazine: pink and green it would be.

I had a different title in mind when I started; but this one appeared in my head as I worked and it was too hard to resist. It's a jokey reference to the whole colour combo idea, and to the photo, and, of course, to those rules. You can read the rules for yourself. I have nothing to say, except it wasn't me! And I can play The Smiths in my own car, thanks!

With grateful thanks to Get It Scrapped, for another page which probably would never had been made without their suggestion. I've been with the team for three years now and I'm delighted to say that I'm staying on next year too. It'll be my pleasure

Boots to Bloom In: Adding Layers

Once, when The (Not So) Small One was a little girl, she got herself all dressed up to go to a birthday party; and then she wrapped a scarf round her neck and she was ready to go. When she came home, she said that all the mums had told her that she looked just like me. Well observed. Not the looks, obviously, but the scarf, for that would be me, no doubt about it.

She's all grown up now, with her own style, which, thanks to a special order birthday present, includes a pair of bright blue Doc Marten boots.

I'm still a scarf wearer. I layer. And that's not just my age talking. I've always done it, in scrapbooking too. I find it hard to resist adding just one more piece (though when I'm layering on paper I try to add meaning with every detail I include. Meaning, or purpose).

By which I mean, let the layers work for their place. I have a painted over book page to show that her school days are over, flowers to add emphasise to my title, a bow to bring out the detail of the shoelaces in the photo, and I hope that brought together they give my layout greater emotional depth.

That's the fancier way of putting it. I could just as easily say that adding embellishments to squares is a lot of fun. The advantage of building on the squares is that you don't have to glue the end result to your layout if you don't like it, or if you take one look and decide that it would better suit another project. It's a win, win before you even begin to factor in the stash usage.

This page was originally made for the new Get It Scrapped article Scrapbook Ideas For Creating Pages With Rich Layers. 

At the Drop of a Hat: Using Metaphors in Scrapbooking

As I'm editing my holiday photos and working out how to tell my stories from far away, I'm going to share a page about home today.

It's the layout which changed its mind halfway through. Get It Scrapped had asked me to begin a page with a metaphor, for this article Use a Known Phrase as Metaphor so I tossed around a few ideas and came up with the hat plan. 

We were discouraged from using well rehearsed metaphors in our writing at school, in English class, but especially in our History essays, so I was intrigued to discover how my journaling might be shaped by the trick of starting out with a well known phrase.

Ah, now what happened was that I started out at one place and ended up somewhere else. I had intended to use "drop of a hat" as a trigger for a list of activities I enjoy - at the drop of a hat I'll log into my Amazon account, turn my music up loud, head for a museum - but a dinnertime conversation and a couple of special pocket page cards (from a Cocoa Daisy kit which I bought as a one off treat and keep coming back to) and my idea took a turn. The resulting layout has turned into a favourite.

So how about it? Could a phrase you have repeated many times in the past turn into an idea for a new scrapbook page for you? More suggestions at Get It Scrapped.

Bash a Bunny: Adding Charm With Details

What's the best piece of scrapbooking advice you have ever been given? We chatted about this before, haven't we? So I'll be all "you're so right" when someone says "My advice? Stop talking about it and just do it.."

Seriously, though, whenever I'm asked this question I always tell the story of one of the first classes I ever took at Get It Scrapped, in which I learned the importance of adding a detail or two, not for luck, but for charm.

Because it's that "charm" which will bring a page alive. It takes any layout from scrapbooking by numbers - cut the paper, stick it down, add a title - and makes it personal, individual; and it's easy, then, to get a feel for what kind of a person a scrapbooker might be. And I think that's what we're looking for: make  page about yourself, or your family, or friends, and what you are doing is telling us something about their character, or your own.

Through the choices you make you can give away enough of yourself to charm your viewer and let her see the real you. And that will draw her in. I hope. That's what I try for. That's what I keep an eye out for when I'm admiring layouts in a gallery. If I think Ooh, look at that, I'll hit that Pin It button in a flash.

What about you? What makes you pin? or stop? What delights you? And are you adding it to your own pages?

Today I'm trying a white fluffy bunny tail. And a pair of ears which are, deliberately, a little tricky to spot. Because you know me: I'll have a go at anything, once.

More ideas on the Get It Scrapped blog article How To Add Scrapbook Page Charm With Unexpected Choices

It's All Treasure

When I first started scrapbooking, I wanted to cut up paper and make pretty pictures. Then I started to think more about what scrapbooking really meant to me and I understood that it had to be about the words too. And there can be no doubt that the pages I return to, and the ones anyone stops at if I'm asked to show an album, are the ones with the writing on.

But that writing takes up space: it can fill the background, flood the view. And the kind of pages I'm most often attracted to are the ones restful to the eye, pared back, easy to relax over. So I circle. I make pages with lots of story, then I think I want the picture and the pretty, so I stick the story on the back. Then I shake my head and ask myself what's the point of that? If I find a happy medium, that's a good scrap day.

Maybe this one? It's a page I made for Get It Scrapped's new blog article Six Ways to Create More Room For Journaling on Your Scrapbook Pages. I took a story I told for Storytelling Sunday back in 2013 and fitted it onto a 8.5 x 11 background by layering the text, one typed sheet over another, as if I were adding layers of patterned paper. That way I managed to find room for all of the story and here it is:


...our chest of mystery. Everyone here likes to believe that it once belonged to Harry Potter; and that would be because it has his initials H.P. placed on the lid. But it's clear he has no more use for it since it has washed up with us. Truthfully, I wouldn't be trying to grab it if I had to flee from here in a hurry: it's cast iron - I think - and I can't lift it. (Though I guess that means it might survive fire, flood or plague and I could come back for it? ). But I know you want to find out what's inside...

Well, earlier in the year I'd been planning to tell you about its quirkier contents for Halloween...Great Grandpa's false teeth, anyone? Or how about the owner-less glass eye? the locks of baby hair or the Victorian mourning envelopes? there are letters and certificates going back a century or more. The Fair family owned a grocer's shop through the years of the Great Depression; and I could show you the shop ledgers. Tucked inside you'd find letters from customers who were struggling to meet their accounts. It could break your heart, even from this distance. All of these things have their own stories.

But when I started to sift through it all this week, the thing which really spoke to me was a little blue notebook, full of numbers still recognisable as being in my Father-in-Law's hand: "Money Spent Each Term at T.C.D." His college accounts from his years in Dublin at the end of the 1940's. How much he spent on "digs", on a new saddle bag, on train fares and "outside meals": a strange world of gowns and Punch Magazine. You know why this has fascinated me right now, of course. I'll be emailing his namesake, modern day student grandson who has spent the last couple of months wondering how his student loan will stretch and I'll be telling him how lucky he is that he doesn't have to buy his own coal. I think that will give him a smile. And then I'll be tucking that notebook back into the chest, in the hope that another generation will use it as a reminder of what came before. I hope someone else comes across it at exactly the right time. Just as I did. 

Maybe now I've scrapbooked one story from the chest, I'll go back and find another. It's all treasure: the words, the pictures, the pleasure we take from adding the extras. And the finding of the stories, of course. That's the best part.

Mouse Boy: Interiors as Inspiration

The year before I made my first scrapbook layout I filled an album with pages torn from interiors magazines. That was my paper fix then, though of course it was also all about the colour combinations and the looks I liked, and which I could replicate myself in the houses we renovate. I don't use it so much now because I'm more sure of what I want, and of the formula we have developed over the years. But I did fetch my album down from the shelf

and have a little nostalgic flip through as soon as Get It Scrapped asked for a page inspired by the use of textures in interior design. I had lots of tearsheets about texture in there: if you renovate a house to sell of course it pays to keep the decor neutral so that it appeals to as many potential buyers as you can find; and so the way to avoid bland and suggest comfort, cosiness and luxury is with texture. 

At first I thought my page was going to be white, then, with wood and kraft cardstock, you know? But when I paged through my album I chanced upon a collection of folk art images: all bright and woven together with stitching and ribbons, beautiful cushions and curtains which gave me an idea for a totally eclectic look. There was, without a doubt, only one subject who could help me pull it off and here he is. It's Little E, all dressed for World Book Day, ready to go to school as the boy who turns into a mouse in Roald Dahl's The Witches

Honestly, I think I could make every page I ever scrapbook in this way, with a band of embellishments stretching either across the page or up and down. It creates a shelf to put everything else on AND it's just plain fun to start at one end and work along until I get to the other, simply adding anything with the right look, one embellishment at a time. You can see I added not just the witches, but also a mouse tail or two made with  lengths of grey ribbon, knotted at the ends. I squeezed in as many textures as I could: cork, smooth wood, shiny puffy stickers, 

a tassel, some tied threads. But just look at those ears: don't they make you want to turn mouse for the day too?

You can see how the other Get It Scrapped Creative Team Members introduced texture to their pages right here Mix Textures On Your Scrapbook Page Using Inspiration From Home Interiors

Naval Gazing: Scrapbooking With a Sketch

I'm always excited when Get It Scrapped throws me a sketch challenge. I'm usually a paper shuffler: I move everything around

From a sketch at Get It Scrapped, based on a page by Sue Althouse

until I like the basic shape, and then - more often than not - I move it all round again, and start sticking it down in a completely different design. So working from a sketch gets me thinking in a new way.

When the bones are there in front of me I always take the opportunity to look at how they are put together. What makes this design easy on the eye? How does it pull me round the page? Is there anything about the way the photo is placed which ensures it attracts attention? 

And then, as I start to choose my embellishments, I consider whether I'm enhancing the original design, or whether my additions are simply detracting from it. Will I move my basics round just a touch to make room for the perfect little piece I've been saving? What will I do to make this page one of mine? (A swipe of blue and green on this one, because we all know I'm playing paint-y at the moment, and a ruffle paper edge).

And then, when I'm completely finished, I'll look at the sketch again and imagine how it might work on a smaller canvas, or even as a card. Because a sketch you can stretch is a sketch to keep hold of. You'll find this one, and the matching layered template, over on the Get It Scrapped blog along with links to a huge collection of others. You could fill a sketch book.

That Was Then, This Is Now

Back on home turf for the weekend we are here, after a few celebratory birthday days in Scotland. Our boy turned twenty one; and we thought we would take him a cake. Malteser, of course: his favourite. 

So we got up at 5.45 and headed for the ferry; and then we drove until we were able to knock on his front door in time for a late lunch. They have haggis and whisky flavoured crisps over there - did you know that? - and I'm going to have to disagree with anyone who says that a bag couldn't possibly be a meal in itself.

He was pleased to see us, and we were delighted to see him, and to sit in his student flat and drink tea with his friends and wrestle with the idea that we aren't the twenty one year olds any more. And that he isn't seven or eight, and spending his birthday in a Travelodge here, trying to blow out birthday candles before the smoke alarms caught us and the wax dripped onto his cake. Malteser, of course: his favourite.

Because we did that once, long ago. That would have been the year we visited the Museum of Childhood, to see the toys. This year the tastes of the museum pickers have moved on; and we ended up at Surgeons Hall, which houses a collection of skulls and skeletons and assorted medical curiosities. It's a popular spot in the city of Burke and Hare, the original Bodysnatchers.

A meal out, a bit of light shopping (though obviously a coffee machine isn't light, or we wouldn't have had to wait until we got there to buy it for him): it was soon time to start for home. The key of the door had been safely delivered, I guess you could say, and the cake had been sliced. Not to worry: we have another celebration coming up soon. It's a big birthday year round here: it's not long until those balloons go up for an eighteenth. There'll be cake. Coffee, of course: her favourite.

So I got home and I looked at my pictures. Because we took pictures, even though it's becoming more and more difficult to persuade my - what on earth do I call them? - subjects to pose. And the ones which caught my eye are, curiously, the ones which sit well with a page I made before I left: one about a holiday way back when, but still with a green car and lots of fresh air and a brother and a couple of sisters enjoying each other's company. 

Layout originally made for Get It Scrapped's article on using a Focal Point Formula

Who said change? Were we talking about things moving on? There's a little face you know looks just like the faces in that 70's photo. It'll be Little E's birthday soon too. He has already checked if I have enough money for a present. I have I said. Are you serving cake?

See you on Monday! I'll do the winner of the Love Your Selfie Giveaway then.

Other People's Pictures

Here's a question (and there'll be one more at the end): have you ever scrapbooked photos for someone else? Or scrapbooked for yourself, but using someone else's pictures? Or offered your pictures to another scrapper? or any combination of the above? I know, I know: lots of you who are far better and busier photographers than I can claim to be are probably going to reply that you can't keep up with your own production as it is. And that would be more than fair enough.

But here's the thing about working with pictures you didn't take

(as I discovered while making a page for Get It Scrapped): you can find yourself heading off in a new and unexpected direction. Get It Scrapped had asked for a page featuring photos which were not my own, so I turned, of course, to the girl with the golden phone. I'm always delighted to see that yellow case in her hand when we are out and about, because I know she'll spot a whole variety of details I'll be guaranteed to miss.She knows where to find a story.

So I asked: if you were to choose, I said, any photos at all from your camera roll, to donate to me now, which would it be?

And I had to smile. She didn't hesitate. Grieg's House, she said.

I've already scrapbooked several of my own Grieg's House pictures (here for the Gossamer Blue blog). It's obvious our visit made a big impression on all of us. So what could I do? I gathered up the new pictures and started to pull out papers. And a funny thing happened. On my own, if I had taken these moody, haunting shots, I might have chosen darker colours, made something of the silhouettes, tried for a classic feel. Instead, as I picked and started to cut, more and more I could feel the personality of the photographer creeping onto the page.

It became brighter, softer, more fun to make. Rather than picking up what was in the photo, I heard her voice in the back of my head telling me to paint a picture of what else there was to see in that beautiful place. So that's what I did; and it has turned out to be one of my favourite pages this year so far.

And that brings me to my other question. I loved making this page. I'd be very happy to make some more. Is there anyone out there who has a photo they'd be willing to offer? I've had an idea for a little series here on the blog: hardly a class, but definitely a freebie inspiration stirrer; and I've realised it would be even more fun if I could use one or two of your pictures along with my own. It'll be about design, and the thought process. Any takers? 

I'm thinking, if we agree, you could email me a photo and I'll post your page to you after I've used it for the lesson, with a little something as a thank you. Let me know if you are interested! I promise right from the start that full credit will be given, and that your picture will only be used for this one project and no other; and if you don't fancy the idea of me working with any of your people pictures, what about a place or a favourite thing? I'll leave space for your journaling.

See? Other people's pictures: a whole new direction.

And if you'd like more ideas on using pictures you haven't taken..head over to the Get It Scrapped blog and Ideas For Scrapbook Page Storytelling With Photos You Didn't Take

Hello Fresh Air, I'll Be With You Shortly

A couple of weeks ago I posted answers to a few questions about my reading habits (here). Even as I was typing, I knew that I had a sequel which was really a prequel. It came first, my page I made for Get It Scrapped; but it had to stay under wraps (or maybe that should be "on the shelf" ?) until now.

Life Pages card: Gossamer Blue; little houses paper I can't get enough of: Crate Paper "Wonder"

It didn't have to be a page about reading. It was actually made under the instruction to use a "go to fast composition". Well, if I'm looking for speed, I like to start with a stack of Life Pages cards from my Gossamer Blue kits. That's where I'll find an idea for a subject, or if I'm lucky, a title I can use, already printed. If I can't take my book, I'm not going. But you already knew that would come under a list of "phrases Sian is most likely to say".

chipboard: Crate Paper; deer button: MME

It's been true all my life. When I was a little girl I used to visit the library almost every other day during the school holidays, so I always had a new book to accompany me on my adventures; which, I have to admit, didn't often take me much further than the tent in the back garden. But that was enough. If I had a book. 

But, see, I did say "garden" there. I like fresh air. really, I do. But isn't it so much sweeter with a book? My Mum would put up with the tent reading: that was almost camping; and a book on the beach was acceptable too. But she did get cross the Sunday she drove us up to the mountains to visit the deer and take a bracing walk and she turned round to discover that I had smuggled a stack of magazines onto the back seat. I tried to tell her I could do both at once. She was unmoved. So were the pages in my Today's Guide (come on! I had knots to learn!). I had to get out and walk.

puffy stickers: Pinkfresh Studio

These days? Nothing much has changed. My family know better than to ask what I might have stashed in my oversized rucksack. They know what I'm going to say. I might be persuaded to leave out (one) book if I'm going to a museum - I know there'll be something there to cast my eye over, maybe a guidebook to acquire - but if it's an outside trip? Hello fresh air, I'll be with you shortly. Just a couple more sentences..