Pretty Paper Party Prompt 4

Lets get rebellious and mix dots with stripes!!!!!  Funnily enough I have always done that in my scrapping, but it is not something I would do with my clothing!  So to begin with I went to my multi coloured paper box and selected a stripe and a matching large dot (which I didn't use).  I then found matching spots and stripes in the other colour boxes.  I am finding this way of scrapping so much faster and I LOVE having all my papers organised by colour.  It was so much quicker finding matching papers and funnily enough NONE of them come from the same collection or company!

Here is the layout I made mixing spots and stripes.  Both of the blue papers are patterned with the top one being spotty and the bottom one a chevron.  The photos were taken in 2000 so it is about time they got scrapped!

The other day when I was reorganising my embellishments I spent ages sorting all of my buttons and I used a few of them on this layout.  There are buttons at the bottom but I only had three of each colour in that size and so I made a bigger embellishment and used a number 2 button as well.  I also used a balloon button and some word ones!  So I think it is safe to say that I went a little button crazy :-)

Ribbons also came into the mix with the red ric-rac (a variation of a stripe!) and the twine in the buttons and on the balloon.  There were a few more photos taken of this birthday tent so I used the scraps to make a second page to keep them all together.  I don't think this group of photos needs more than the two pages in the album as they are only a small part of The Extrovert's 2nd birthday.  I can't believe how many papers I am using.  Some of these I have had for YEARS!  The orange on the page is from a 6x12 Cricut paper pad that I got when I bought the original Cricut.  That is 5 years ago now!  But because I took all of the papers out of the pads they were in and organised them by colour I am now using them.  Amazing!

The two pages together.  The one of the right made with the scraps.

Sorry about the poor lighting in the photos but it is still early and it is over cast.  I am off for a drive to my Uncle's farm today to collect half a cow.  I have to tell the butcher how I want it cut up :-)  By the end of the day I am going to have one very full freezer LOL  But the meat taste sooooo good and it is far cheaper that the supermarket, plus I know exactly where it came from.  So I have no idea if I will get my usual dose of Sunday scrapping as I will probably still be bagging meat for the freezer.

Until next time,

Chipper

Pretty Paper Party Prompt 3

I finally finished the third prompt, well almost.  I still have to go find photos and do the finishing touches!  I had a friend come over today for some scrapping time and I got so much accomplished!  I am glad I tackled this prompt properly and didn't let myself get worried over falling behind.  I learnt quite a bit about what I do and don't like and even made a few pages that are NOT my normal style.  It is going to be just as interesting finishing them off!

I initially found this quite a challenge as I often use a patterned paper as my background. So to cut them all up at the start was a SHOCK!!!! I struggled in the beginning but once I got in the grove the rest flowed really easily.  I was very surprised at the results especially as I was using almost all papers that were very old (only two were even double sided!) and many of them had come from books that I pulled apart when I did my big re-organize.

I started with the papers in the first photo using the multi-colored stripe as my inspiration. I did have to add one more patterned and a few more plain as I went on. Some of the layouts are more embellished than others as I have photos in mind for a few of them and others I will embellish later. I made a total of 10 layouts and 6 cards. The last two cards still need to be finished but I can't find the right stamp for them at the moment.

You will see at the end that I had very few scraps left!!!! And these ALL went in the bin/trash!!!!!!!! I hope these photos go up in order as I am using the Blogger App for iPhone.

Party hard :-)
Chipper

Pretty Paper Party

I was so inspired by the bonus video that Shimelle gave all the 'Pretty Paper Party' participants.  I LOVED the principle of collecting up a bunch of papers and running from there.  However I ran into a snag when I couldn't find any tone on tone papers and was finding that I was spending AGES trying just to find paper!  My old early paper collection was still stored by colour and everything that had been released since Basic Grey 'Black Tie' was stored by collection.  Once I ran out of my thin plastic paper containers they were stored in their collection packs in a few vertical paper holders.  Trying to match papers across collections was a nightmare as it took me forever to look for them.  So the solution ... spend my day off re-organising my papers!!!!!

I thought to myself that it would probably take me 2-3 hours to organise my papers and then I could start the prompt.  HAH!  I should have known better ... try 10 hours!!!!!!!  But is was worth it.  I took EVERY paper out of packs, pads, containers and places that I never knew I had papers in and sorted them by colour.  Those that were heavily themed and multi coloured also had their own pile.  I found papers I had forgotten but thankfully still loved, papers that I hated, old nostalgic papers that were flood damaged that I had saved to remind me not to hoard paper again, AND paper I didn't even know I had!!!  One collection pack really brought that home to me.  It was a pack which had a collaged paper on the front with a forrest and a deer.  It was hugely popular in its time and for some reason I bought it.  I have never even used ONE paper from it as every time I picked it up I was put off by the cover.  But open it and I found some of the most beautiful paper I have ever seen!  I was missing out on pretty paper!!!!

My patterned paper!

This is my patterned paper collection.  In it you will find papers from very old to very new, popular brands to non branded.  The containers under the table stored the 'organised' papers and now hold organised embellishments.  I then put them all into Artbin Super Satchels (like the purple one in the picture) in colour themes.  While sorting I discovered something new.  I actually have lots of tone-on-tone papers, they were all still in collection packs and books of papers.  I also learned that I really, really like the colour blue-green and I may just have to take the blue pile and the green pile and spilt it three ways.  At the moment the bluer ones are with the blues and the greener ones are with the greens.  And here they are once I put them all away in their new homes ...

The big one at the bottom holds all of my multi coloured papers.  There are no plain or themed papers in this stack.  :-)  But my real challenge is in the pink container at the top.  That one hold my MME Lost and Found papers.  I just couldn't bring myself to sort them, nor it seems can I find a way to use them that doesn't involve mini books!!!  I am looking forward to the day this class covers those difficult papers.  They are so beautiful that I could just put one photo on each page and put it in an album, or of course photo-less just so they can be admired :-)

So now that my patterned paper was sorted I decided to put my cardstock into the vertical paper holders (I think I need three more!).  Ohhhhhhhhh ... so organised now!

And then I had to sort all of the other stuff that came out of those Artbins and all of the die-cuts, rubons, alphas and accessories that had come out of each collection pack!  Those are in the old thin paper containers.  WOW, such a lot of organising!!!!  But now I feel that I may just be able to find things and USE them!  I will be quite busy between now and the craft-a-thon so it may just have to wait until Tuesday, but I am looking forward to trying out my new system.  It may seem crazy, but I feel inspired now that I am organised.  I will let you know how I get along with it.

On another note, I died my hair tonight for our craft-a-thon.  It is now a black/purple.  I actually love it, even if it is only an 8 wash rinse.  But now I have to alter my costume.  I was going to be just purple but I couldn't find any in a rinse.  My costume was purple, silver and white.  Now it needs to be purple, silver and black.  I should have time change all of the white to black as I am only recycling an old costume.  I will be a fairy with lots of home made bits and a pair of my daughters wings.  I will share pictures after the event.

Chipper

Pretty Paper Party - Day 3

I had great plans after my day 1 post.  I even made another layout based on one of the other sketches while I was waiting for my day 2 prompt to hit my inbox.  But then disaster struck ... in the form of food poisoning.  YUK!  Needless to say I didn't do anything yesterday :-)

But I am back at it today and I have just finished a layout for the day 2 prompt.  I will photograph it later when there is light.  So now onto day 3 and I have discovered a HUGE gap in my patterned paper collection.  Did you know that I have hardly any tone on tone or small repeat patterns in my stash???????  It seems that I love patterns in all their glory along with plain cardstock.  The two extremes.  Day three is going to take me a while just to get organised enough to have the sheets of patterned papers required!!!!!

I am looking forward to seeing what I find, but this prompt will probably have to wait until my day off next week.  Maybe I should consider rearranging my stash.  I tend to keep collections together until there is hardly any left and then they go in the scrap-box according to their dominant colour.  Maybe I should just file all the papers I buy according to colour too.  Then it would be nice and easy to pull out 8 sheets of co-ordinating colour!!!  Do you have any suggestions?  Have you found a productive way of storing your full sheets?  Strangely enough I stored them by colour when I first started 'collecting' papers.  After I became familiar with companies and bought whole collections, I changed how I stored them.

Stay tuned until next week for the results of this prompt :-)  I wonder if the missing type of patterned paper is part of the reason I often fiddle with a single page for hours trying to 'fix' my layout.  That could be what my eye is searching for .... hmmmmm .... will have to think on that!

Chipper

Pretty Paper Party - Day 1

Ohhhhhhhhhh ... Day one of the party!!!!!  Did you join in?  If not, why not do it now ... click on the link on the right and jump in at any time.  The best part is that this party can last as long as it takes to finish.  Great for busy people like me!  The fist step was to take a photo of some of your paper, or a sheet of your favourite paper.  After much thought I decided to show you a photo of the patterned paper that lives on my desk to encourage me to use it.  Bear in mind this is only a small portion of my paper stash (maybe I shouldn't have said that ...).  The plan is to rotate papers in and out of the paper holders from my main stash so that I have less to chose from and actually use it!

I loved todays prompt about using up your scraps, however I decided to do a layout using the same ideas but finally using papers from one of those cheap stacks we all bought long ago!  The colours are very nice on the papers but the style of them is just not me anymore.  However by cutting them up I really like them on the page.

VERY old Autumn Leaves Paperbilities stack

I love the stitching and the paper strips, however I do not like the beads.  The idea worked in my head but not on the page, but once I had committed myself I had to keep going.  I even found some old journalling blocks in the same colours (which were probably bought at the same time!) and so I used them too.

I will definitely be using this idea again.  I had so much fun stitching the strips on.  A very relaxing way to spend my day off.  I hope that I can sort of keep up for the rest of the week.  Waiting for my next prompt to come through.  They usually land in my inbox around now.

Chipper

A New Class

Today is the start of a NEW class by Shimelle!  I am eagerly awaiting todays prompt which normally gets emailed in the afternoon my time.  A whole month of cutting up pretty paper prompts!!!!!

If it sounds good to you, it is never too late to sign up.  Head on over and join in.

Chipper