Summer Adventure Scrapbook with Project Life by Stampin’ Up! with Ellen Ocampo

Hi Everyone!  Summer may be coming to a close, but you can re-live your adventures in a super easy-to-make scrapbook.  One way to spend more time enjoying your scrapbook - and less time searching for supplies! - is to use a kit.  The kit I’m sharing about today is the “Let’s Get Away Project Life Bundle” by Stampin’ Up!  

If you are not familiar with Project Life, get ready to get happy!  Project Life is a simple scrapbooking system designed for busy peeps to quickly document and enjoy photo memories.  Simply slip your photos and pre-decorated cards into pocket page protectors.  Add journaling and embellishment (if you want to). TA DA! That’s it! 

The Project Life by Stampin‘ Up! cards are the perfect amount to cover travel, seasonal, and event albums. There is also a coordinating accessory pack with stickers, washi tape, and embellishments, if you want to build layers and textures onto your pages. I happily started my first vacation album using the Let’s Get Away Bundle to record our recent trip to Florida in a tidy 6” x 8” album.

This summer my husband and I visited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal Studios Florida.  When stepping through the gates you feel like you’re walking straight into the books and movies.  It’s pretty amazing.  We walked through the “snow” glittered village of Hogsmead, shopped for magical wands, and drank yummy frozen butterbeers (it tastes like butterscotch!).  

The larger pockets fit a regular 4” x 6” photo perfectly.  For the smaller pockets, you can trim down regular sized photos or order the 4” x 3” photos online.

As you can see, I’m still at the beginning stages.  It is a huge relief to spend my time deciding on which cute card combo to use, instead of sitting frozen at the table in a tangle of ideas and mismatched supplies.  This is one album, that is actually getting done!

At the back of the album is a plastic folder to hold ticket stubs, maps, and other flat keepsakes.  

So what do you think?  Will you be capturing your summer adventures?  Here are 5 steps to help you get it done --

 5 Steps to Create a Summer Adventure Scrapbook:

1. Print Photos - That’s right!  Get the photos out of your phone and into your hands.  Order online to pick up at your local store or online for home delivery.
2. Gather Supplies - You will need a 3-ring album, a set of page protectors, and the Project Life by Stampin’ Up! bundle (includes cards, accessories, stamp set).  
3. Fill the Pocket Pages - Slip your photos and Project Life cards into the page protectors.  Keep your page protectors in the 3-ring album.
4. Journal & Embellish - Go through your album and record your summer stories, memories, and photo captions onto the journal cards.  Embellish your cards using the accessory pack (I especially love the washi tape and polaroid frames).
5. Enjoy! - Relive your summer adventures as you flip through your completed scrapbook.  Share it with others and enjoy!

It’s been such a joy being a guest here on Cara’s blog! If you are interested in keeping in touch, come visit me at www.BabyBooGifts.com or email me at [email protected] .  Thanks for hanging out!   :) Ellen

 About Ellen
Hello! I'm Ellen, creator of Baby Boo Gifts. I love all sorts of DIY crafts, especially card making, party banners, and sweet treats. After many years of hosting baby showers, I'm happy to share my projects, ideas, and advice. Enjoy! :)

True Scrap PlannerLove! Eeeeeeeee!

I'm so stinkin excited to tell you that I'll be teaching at the True Scrap PlannerLove event on September 19! If you've never heard of True Scrap before, it's a live online event with lots of classes with fantastic teachers.  The students can interact with the teachers in an online chat and the whole thing is just a big ball of fun!!

This True Scrap is all about PLANNERS!!  Yay!  

You will learn all about the ins and outs of the planner world and the day will be full of lots of fun ways to decorate your planner.  My friend Connie is also teaching, Eeeeeee! And she'll be here on the blog early on in September, so watch for that.

My take on planners is that it's your minion. It's supposed to work for you and you aren't supposed to adapt your habits and ways to satisfy a thing made of paper that was designed by someone else with their own habits in mind.  In true keeping, my class will be all about hacking your current planner to make it work better for you!

Have I got your attention?  Awesome!! Hop on over and get yourself on the early bird list!  Right now the price is only $29 for the whole frickin' day! Regular price is $99 and that's what people not on th eearly bird list will pay. You really don't want to miss out because it's gonna be a load of fun ;) There's never been a True Scrap event priced so low!  And you can only get this $29 price if you are signed up for the list, so there's nothing to lose by signing up.  

This link will also tell you more about the day and the other teachers.  Can't wait! Hope to see you there :)

I'm working hard on getting my class ready for you!!

Mastering your Silhouette with Sheri Twing

Hello everyone! I'm Sheri from auntierere.blogspot.com.  I’m so excited to be guesting today. I will be sharing a couple of video tutorials on using your Silhouette software. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people say they have a Silhouette but it’s been in the box for two months or that they have one and have no idea how to use it!

I just want to issue a disclaimer before we begin…I do not consider myself to be a pro at the Silhouette or to know everything about it. I am simply sharing my way of doing things. Now I’m sure you may find other ways to get the final outcome but I’m sharing what I’ve learned, either through classes or just frustration of trial and error. ☺ 

Now that that is out of the way, let’s move on!  My goal today is just give you two, yes just TWO, basic tutorials that will hopefully help get your Silhouette out of the box and get you started creating. 

The first video is on welding letters. This photo shows a title using welded letters. For some reason, this is one thing that so many people want to know how to do, yet it is probably one of the easiest things to do. This is a process that once you learn, you will wonder why you never tried it before. Here is the video. 

 

So now that you know how to weld letters, I wanted to share a second tutorial with you on manipulating cut files. When you download a cut file design, you don’t have to use it just as it is. You can manipulate it, cut it apart, extract only one image from it, etc. There is no limit to the use you can get out of your cut files. 

This is a layout I created for The Cut Shoppe recently. On this layout, you can see the half circle heart image.  I’m going to show you how to cut down files and take them apart to get only the portion that you want to cut.  Like I said before, I’m sure there are other ways to accomplish this but I’m going to share with you how I have learned. I hope you find it helpful!

Here’s the video:

 

I hope you have found these tutorials helpful and found at least something you can take and use to help in your Silhouette software. Like I said, there are so many classes and so many instructors with as many ways to get things done. I have found by taking bits and pieces from each one and then just getting in the software and playing on my own is the best way to learn. 

Thank you again, Cara, for allowing me to guest today! 

AuntieREcREates

About Sheri 
My name is Sheri but all my nieces and nephews call me Aunt Re Re so that is where my blog name comes from.  auntierere.blogspot.com.  A little about me....I love all things paper! I am primarily a scrapbooker but I love anything to do with stationary, paper, planners, pens, etc! So you never know what you might find on my blog. I do love mixed media, and I am also a Project Lifer and love documenting my family's everyday life.  Come take a look around my blog and I invite you to visit my You Tube channel, AuntREcREates.

 

 

Scrapbooking, Planning and Papercrafting in the Summertime

I'm not sure about you, but I tend to have less time to play with paper in the summer.  The desire is still there, there are tonnes of photos that I'm taking and dying to scrabook.  I have lots of activities planned that I'd like to put in my memory planner and I just plain want to play with paper and glue!  But, with 6 children at home, travel, the heat (I get heat stroke really easily) and just being outside of the house more (and therefore not my studio :P) there doesn't seeem to be a lot of time for me to 'play'.  

Here a few tips that I have learned over the years to help me curb my paper cravings by actually playing... just in a different way.  

I fit it in when I can! 

1.  When I travel, I take a small kit of supplies with me, pocket cards, journaling cards, adheasive, pens etc so that I can play whenever and where ever I can.

2. When the kids are in the yard playing I can pull up to our patio table and play. I can keep an eye on them, they know I'm there, but I can craft at the same time.

3. I minimise when it comes to planning.  I use a take along memory keeper that can slip in and out of my cake dori very easily plus one of my moleskine notebooks as my planner and that's it!

4.  For my memory planner during travelling, I take just the pages from the days that I will be gone so that I can journal on the go without having to drag the whole book with me.

5. I use a take along memory keeper to journal and collect ideas, memorabilia and memories as they happen so that when I have time come fall, it's all ready and together and waiting.

I did a periscope talking all about this!  Are you on periscope?  OMG it's my new favourite thing!  It's so much fun and I love to connect with people and share my favourtie tips and tricks in a new and exciting way.  So pop over please, so we can chat.  Here's the replay, but if you are reading this before Saturday morning (in north America) you can probably catch the replay on periscope itself here.

I've got another 5 tips to help you scrap faster and more efficiently :D  So you can get more done when you do actually get a minute or two to sit down with your new favourite patterned or that kit that just arrived in the mail.

1.  Know your style.  Now I know that's a loaded sentence, but if you even have an idea of what your style is then you are better able to stick to it.  Sticking to your own style will not only speed up your process but it will make it easier as well.

2.  Scraplift yourself.  Or someone else.  Scraplifting takes the decision making out of the equation and so everything goes a lot faster.

3.  Don't try new things.  If you don't have a lot of time, the best thing is to not waste it by trying to learn something new.  Stick to somehing you know so that you'll be more apt to come away with something to show for your efforts.  Save the new techniques for the winter months when you have more time.

4.  15 minutes here 10 minutes there.  Don't think that you need to have a 2 hour block set aside to get some scrapbooking done.  I get the bulk of my papercrafting done in the 'in betweens'.  If I see I have a small block of time I sneak in there and push some things around ;)

5.  Put a limit on yourself.  A limit is another way to take the decision out of your process.  We tend to waste a lot of time making a decision so with limited choices the decision will come much quicker.   Now you could do many different types of limits but two that I like to do are limiting time ('I'll have xyz done in x amount of time') and limiting supplies (a kit, or I'll only take out the first thing that I find that 'might' work).

Again, I have a scope about this!  Here's the replay, but please come and catch me live sometime.  We have so much fun and I share lots of tips for papercrafting, (scrapbooking and planning), tours of my studio every Saturday.  Come sign up if you aren't already, look for @caravincens and pop into the comments.  Ask any questions you like in the comments below this and I may just do a scope about it!!