Pretty Paper Party Prompt 17

The Pretty Paper Party is wrapping up and I'm still muddling my way through it.... so I've given up on doing the prompts strictly in order and am just doing what works at that moment. I've finished a BUNCH of pages with this Party, so I'm feeling pretty good about it, even if I didn't get all the way through it. I've got some Christmas gifts to work on, cards to churn out, and of course, Journal Your Christmas starting pretty soon! So these will probably start tapering away pretty quickly.

But it has been a fantastic class. I have a binder full of fantastic prompt ideas that I can turn to for everyday scrapping, I've been inspired to use papers that I've hoarded away. It's been great!

For prompt 17, we were invited to "the dark side": to use a black background. I do this occasionally and I usually like the results but I kind of forget about it in between! For this page, I started with some fantastic papers that seemed to be well suited to a black background (with a mix of dark browns and blacks). You might not think of Autumn papers for a snow page -- but the first snow here is usually in October. So it seemed the right fit for me.

You will note that I've barely embellished this page. I used so many papers that it just seemed unnecessary. So, I skipped it.

Pretty Paper Party : Prompt 8

For prompt #8 - we focused on mixing two colors and a neutral.

Well. Sort of. I did two neutrals and a color -- black, cream, and red. But - Look - Look! I mixed BRANDS. There's Sass and Cosmo here. OK so, it's a lot of Sass and a tiny piece of Cosmo. But, that's something, right? And in the end... I snuck in grey alphas and gold tape. So really, it's a lot of neutrals. And red.

I guess that I kind of sucked at this challenge. LOL

But the Layout was cute anyway.

Those photos are from 2010 - Oldest's fifteenth birthday. Now he's sixteen. I've still got some 2010 to catch up on. (not including the Disney trip which is separate). There's not a lot of embellishment here. I was going for simple and masculine. A little tape, a little black bling and call it good.

Pretty Paper Party: Prompt 7

Yes, Seven. I skipped Six. Six dealt with Hybrid-y stuff and I didn't want to spend time on it. Maybe I'll come back to it sometime.

So, SEVEN. Seven dealt with combining big, bold, bright patterns. Nothing is bigger, bolder and brighter than Holiday scrapping! Especially Halloween! So, I pulled out my recently purchased Recollections Midnight Magic Papers and goodies... and set out to make a page! Everything is Recollections except the Bazzil cardstock, and the Martha Stewart tapes.

I pulled out photos, I pulled out paper. I got stuck. So, I did what I usually do when stuck -- opened up Susan's blog to find a sketch -- #69 was perfect!

The photos here are from 2010 -- our Halloween Gingerbread house is one of my favorite annual traditions... that we didn't do in 2011. There's a kit sitting in my kitchen, undone. Oh well. Next time!

Pretty Paper Party - Prompt 5

Prompt 5 dealt with Paper edge treatments.

I pulled out paper punches to do some edging... but then I pulled my paper. These are not from the depths of my stash. These Sassafras Lass papers came from their very recent box sale. I wasn't sure about the Sunshine Broadcast line, it seemed awfully girly. But as with all Sass papers, they didn't disappoint. Oh how I will miss Sass. Sasses finished paper edges really started the craze in funky edges, in my opinion, so... when I pulled their papers for this product, I just used some of those! Plus a bit of Cosmo Core'dinations Cardstock (hey I did tear the edges!) And I inked edges, too which was a part of the challenge. The Washi here -- it's from a Martha Stewart Halloween set!

This layout features a photo of some of my best girlfriends... they started as online friends but as the years have gone by, we've become quite a close group!

Pretty Paper: Challenge 4

Challenge 4 over at Pretty Paper Party called for mixing Dots and Stripes. Simple enough! I am way way behind on PPP (it's almost over and I'm on Prompt 4), so I settled for one layout on this challenge!

And I fell back into one-line scrapping. But Cosmo Cricket's FANTASTIC Garden Variety Line is one of the lines that I had to HAVE and then ... hoarded away and never used! So, I consider it a victory!

And what's older than the hoarded away paper? These photos from late 2009! Middle Child earned his Bear Badge! Sounds impressive, except that he has just finished his Arrow of Light now. So, if you know scouting, you know I'm BEHIND! (But to be fair -- Oldest's Eagle court required all of his scout books to be caught up and I kind of burned out on Scout layouts!) But that funky red washi tape is Brand new! I am rapidly turning into a Washi junky (which is difficult since none of the local stores have caught on!).

Pretty Paper Party Creative Stash Diving

For this challenge, we selected a group of papers (look, look, I mixed BRANDS!) and created layouts without photos! Then finished them off. The focus of the Challenge (#3) was to create concentrations of pattern without white space.

I selected these papers, and got SIX layouts from them!

 There's some DCWV in there, some Pink Paislee, Some Scenic Route, and I don't know what all... and some of them were just scraps.

 This first Thanksgiving Layout shows the Little Guy at his Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast!

 This second layout - shows the kids earning their Junior Ranger badges at Crawford Lake State Park where we camped last summer. They both LOVE Junior Ranger programs!

 These photos from Preschool graduation include the Little Guy's beloved preschool teacher. When he started Kindergarten he was asked if his teacher was nice. He granted that she was nice (and she was!) but 'not as nice as Mrs. T... Nobody is as nice as Mrs. T!"

 This rock formation caught our eye from a long distance and we made a crazy drive to get closer to it!

 I think this is my favorite layout from the kit! I adore the title, I adore the photos! It's warm and fun! Very pleased with it!

And finally turn a kit that was sort of "Fall-ish" into a Fourth of July Layout? Why not?

Pretty Paper Party, Prompt Two

For our second prompt at PPP, the focus was on patterned paper backgrounds. Again, I've got two layouts for this prompt. I like both of these layouts a lot! They came out "good"! I think I'm starting to get a groove.

 This Halloween Layout was inspired by the Halloween Challenge at The Paper Variety (where I recently won a prize drawing, by the way! WOOHOO!), Inspired by their challenge I decided to dig for some Halloween papers for this prompt.  I bought these Studio G papers at Walmart a while back. As previously discussed, I am a paper junky. I absolutely cannot resist a $1 paper pack! When I got these home I was not as happy with them as when I put them in my cart - the pictures of the paper on the packaging were brighter colors than the actual papers. Still.  I do like them!
These photos are from our Halloween party last year. I LOVE Middle-Child's Viking costume, These are some of my FAVORITE pics of it!

You scrapbookers all know the story --  those papers that you buy and then hold on to forever, for just the right layout. Well for me the entire Monstrosity Line from Sassafras pretty much qualifies as THOSE papers! I love them, so much that I have had a hard time bearing USING them. So I decided that this challenge called for me to break into them. I ummm had to cut every sheet fresh because I had no scrap. Because I have not USED these papers. LOL (Everything is Sass except the vellum, the ribbon -CTMH, and the graph paper (Scenic Route), oh and the Thickers, of course)

Today's Just-the-Right-Layout, the Little Guy getting his library card!

Pretty Paper party prompt one

I'm going to post some of my Pretty Paper Party pages here.... The class is focused on using your stash of paper to make fantastic new pages. I'm not following a theme, I'm not making an album of special PPP pages, I'm just digging through my regular photo sorter to find photos to work with and going at it! I hope to complete a minimum of two pages per prompt (We're nine prompts in and I've worked on prompts 1 & 2 so far) . The only online class I've ever been really successful with before was Journal Your Christmas and I think it's because I had a specific expectation for outcome, so hopefully by setting a more specific goal, I can harness some of that spirit here! (Although I've taken other specific classes and not ended up with a complete project!)

One of the great things in Shimelle's classes is the indepth, photo filled, conversational prompts. I am going to say "Prompt #1 dealt with using strips of scrap paper" but that is SOOOOOOOOOOO oversimplifying all the fabulous materials shared, including wonderful sketches!

So here are two - strip-laden pages for Prompt 1:

One of the things we talked about in the prompt was mixing paper lines... which I totally haven't done on any of the pages I've done yet! Need to work on that! These papers are part of the giant lot of Scenic Route that I bought when they announced they were going out of business! I think there are multiple lines from the same manufacturer represented here, doesn't that count for something? And the Alphas are BG and Sass!

These photos of the Little Guy at Krispy Kreme crack me up - as the journalling states - We don't have a Krispy Kreme! So visiting the one in Denver is a big treat.

Again, its all BG, though multiple Lines. (with some Crate paper details and CTMH stamps)
This photo is of Oldest from 2007!!! Why do I have a four year old photo in my photo sorter?? I think I intended to eventually pull out the certificates and scrap those too! I never did that so it just sat in my binder. Better to have the photo without the certs in the scrapbook than neither!

Pretty Paper Party

I've been feeling... unmotivated, at the best, lately.

I need a jolt. I've been haunting the Journal Your Christmas boards looking forward to things there picking up... and I've decided that, in the mean time -- I'd better do something!

So, I've jumped on board the party fun with Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party.

Shimelle asks...
Every papercraft lover is cordially invited to the party – but how do you know if this is the perfect date for your social calendar?
…do you want to make more from your investment in your craft supplies (especially your paper stash)?
…do you have a big stack of pretty paper (colours or patterns) that you know you should be making into beautiful things but somehow it hasn’t happened yet?
…would you love to learn secrets of mixing patterned papers, creating colour combinations or bringing new life to the oldest sheets in your pretty paper collection?
….do you love to scrapbook and love paper and would just love the idea of creating with a group of people for four weeks?
If any of those apply to you, then make room on your calendar and join us for Pretty Paper Party!


Girls, I have an unreasonable amount of paper stash. Seriously I am a Paper Junkie! So, this seems like a good fit!

evidence, yes, these are actual photos from my actual workspaces:

 this is my 'temporary workspace' that I set up for the summer in our living room. Soon I will have to relinquish that space, as we're having a Halloween party and later that's the home of the Christmas tree...

 These messes are from my actual scrapspace... the big rec room I share with my husband, where he games and I pile large stacks of papers.

 I bought this full sized paper rack from an LSS that went out of business... it's shocking how much of my paper is NOT on the rack.

Yes, that is an entire cube dedicated to DCWV stacks.

The Pretty Paper Party. A four week celebration of pasting pretty paper to other pretty papers in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Would you care to join me?

The party kicks off next Monday, and lasts four weeks. Specifically, that’s the 17th of October to the 12th 
of November, but as with all shimelle.com classes, participants have full and permanent access to all the class materials so you can access them at any time. Party favours include…
…25 PDF prompts loaded with brand new and exclusive scrapbook pages and papercraft projects.
…an exclusive video series to show specific techniques step by step.
…members-only message board to mix with other party-goers and share your work.

I cannot WAIT to get my scrap on!