The Scrapping Block

Boxing Clever

thescrappingblock — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:12:53 +0000

It’s August and it’s probably been a bit of a long time since my last post, since then I’ve been to Blackppol with some friends – in possibly the grestest rented accomadation ever (had a games room and stupidly acres of space) and the Pleasure Beach about 10 minutes by bus. I’ve been working 9 hour days and I’ve cut down on scrapping for a a little bit as I’ve been pretty busy over the last few minutes.

Today and for the last week or so I’ve been concentrating on making boxes for my friend who’s doing graphic design for her degree and one of her projects was to do some package boxes – for the Auckland Museum Gift Shop a project brief given to her a few months back. It’s become an interesting task and one thatts proved a little bit difficult as I’m thinking of designs to put on the boxes too, too many things to consider – colour, connotations, why I’ve used this font, why I’ve used this paper. It’s a box! Leave me alone! Things you do for friends!

Consider making some gift boxes, by having a look at free box templates, there are some great cute designs out there, especially this gorgeous little cake one, which I am dying to put together because the cuteness factor is HUGE!

http://thelemondroptree.blogspot.com/2009/04/free-printable-cake-box-and-gift-box.html

Available in above link – print it out and put it together, it looks good even on top of the TV!

Hello Kitty

thescrappingblock — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:04:00 +0000

You know I’m a huge fan. And now Hello Kitty in chipboard, material, paper and sticker form – well crafting form is finally here. And I’m more than happy!

Have a search through Ebay, Online through Google and start to discover the world of this cute cat and her brilliant friends!

The Big Stamp & Scrapbooking Show

thescrappingblock — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 18:52:46 +0000

Yesterday, I went to the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show at Alexandra Palace, North London to have a look (as well as buy a couple of things) at one of the biggest papercraft shows of the year!

I love this show, its full of some great buys, bargains, demonstrations and all sorts going on and it happens twice a year, one is around April, the other is around September – my favourite time around Payday. I normally try and go mid afternoon because everyone’s on the verge of going out because they got there early, but not this time.

More and more people are getting into scrapbooking and papercrafting and there were more people than ever. I had a hard time trying to navigate through the amounts of people swanning in, swanning out, crowding around one stand, standing still against another, there were also a lot of people my own age buying things, looking through things, grabbing what they could, but there were also a massive amount of older people who don’t care younger people and like to push! That’s the problem with London, too many people, not a lot of space! I managed to get some great things on bragin at the Capture The Magic stand, through the Craft For A Pound stand, Craft Superstore and also at Scrapbookshed too. I managed to spend most of the money my Mum gave me! With just a little bit of money left for a hard earned drink! Plus I got a ride on the shuttle bus for free too!

Buy Online for some great bargains -

Craft Superstore – www.craftsuperstore.co.uk

Craft For A Pound – www.everycraftsapound.co.uk

Scrapshed – www.scrapshed.co.uk

Capture The Magic – www.capturethemagic.biz

Enjoy that online shopping!

The Next Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show will be on – Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th September 2009

I Actually Like Smilebox

thescrappingblock — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:03:05 +0000

As mentioned in my previous psot, I was embraking on a new steppping stone in scrapbooking in the form of Smilebox – a Digital Scrapboook program that does exactly what it says on the tin – digital templates for easy to use scrapbooking. And I have to say it was really good to use and experiment with. It was clear, concise and instant. It did take the fun out of actually getting your hands mucky, but I didn’t mind that because you could chop and change around photos and if you made a mistake this could easily be rectified and changed. Adding text was easy and the result was still good. I just hope my printer doesn’t go mad, if I decide to print out my layouts and want to keep them as momentos. I’m assuming my printing ink would run out as soon as said ‘Print It Out!’ But they look pretty on my hard drive for now!

Digital Scrapbooking

thescrappingblock — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 11:38:35 +0000

I’ve only just discovered Digital Scrapbooking through a website called Smilebox, a downloadable and even more better – FREE – digital scrapbooking template which you can add pictures and words in order to complete a whole scrapbooking. You can then print out the pages and put the pages together to create a whole new theme scrapbook. There are various themes – love, friendship, family and more which you can personalise.

I maybe a bit slow, but is this the next big thing for scrapbooking? And will this be as popular as getting your hands dirty with double-sided tape and foan pads? That’s the great thing about scrapbooking, you get your hands dirty and it’s quite therapeutic, it’s quite relaxing and with most creativity it sort-of ‘goes with a flow’ as such and it slots together, digital scrapbooking however I could find myself hitting my laptop if a picture isn’t at the right angle! I’ll give myself a couple of days to try it and then see what my results are! I think I maybe surprised with the results, but If I started writing and publishing a post that starts with ‘I Hate Smilebox’ you’ll know what’s happened! (I’ll just be writing my blog from someone else’s computer!)

If you’d like to download Smilebox please visit www.smilebox.com

This Is Why I Can’t Save Money.

thescrappingblock — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:14:20 +0000

Artymiss is a brilliant papercrafting site which I regularly buy from. My ‘ATM’ (At The Moment) addiction is Chipboard – and whatever it is – whether it’s letters, flowers, frames, photo corners, brackets or shapes, I will buy it. I know, I know I go a little bit overboard, but it’s worth it because it’s just so decorative and for me it’s a great papercraft decoration for my new found scrapbooking projects!

I bought another £15 worth of papers, chipboard and some alphabet stickers to keep my addiction underwraps for a bit while I continue studying. At this rate I’ll need another craft tote! Oooohhh… No, don’t encourage me!

My small on the side project is ‘A Baby Boy Scrapbook’ which I will be creating for one of my good, far-over-the-seas friends who lives in Canada. My friend gave birth to a lovely baby boy in December and I haven’t really been in contact to say ‘Hello’, and this was the perfect idea. My friend has recently discovered digital scrapbooking as she’s on Maternity Leave and is mostly at home looking after the lil bundle of joy, so this little scrapbook (which I will be creating in a scrapbooking tin) will be the ideal present of the lil bubba’s first 5 months in the real world and also be an ideal birthday present (as it’s my friend’s birthday too!). Perfect. Now to wait for that delivery…

Complete!

thescrappingblock — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:10:47 +0000

I’ve just finished my first ever scrapbook. It’s an 8 x 8 Retro Floral Papermania Album, based on my ‘near-to-second’ family – my best friends.

I’m pretty new to scrapbooking, so I feel my skills are quite basic, so I’ve tended to go through one theme for everything! My best friends are an assortment of girls – from boyish girls, to girly girls, to happy-go-lucky girls, to crazy-night-out girls. Our times together have been fun and enjoyable and the photos afterwards are the evidence to prove it!

The album follows a ‘flowery’ theme, flowers here, flowers there, filling the page, or filling the page some more! And with the last page finished on Wednesday, it’s complete and perfect. It depicts and displays the great times we’ve had – Brighton with our ‘thumbs-up’ phase, Birthdays at buffets that charge for service, and Gigs with afterparty dancing! Great time represented by great pictures.

Here’s a lowdown of some of the equipment used:

Papermania ‘Retro Floral’ Album Kit, Sparkle and Sweet Pink Chipboard Letters, K & Company Berry Sweet Girls 3D Chipboard Letters, K & Company Chipboard Alphabet BW Small Wonder – Girl, Silk Flowers, Papermania Elements…just to name a few…

I’ll put some pictures up soon, hopefully my handywork is upto scratch. I’m hoping that my next project for my partner and I’s ‘Songbook’ will be a little bit more ‘technically advanced’ and experimenting with die-cuts, embossing, eyelet setting and different materials like vellum, and possibly fabric may inspire me to try different things and make my future scrapbooking projects more exciting and different!

The Songbook

thescrappingblock — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:36:26 +0000

At the moment, my current scrapbooking project leading up to September is called ‘The Songbook’. A composition of modern, classic, and and old-skool and some early ‘I-have-no-idea-who-wrote-or-sang-that songs that remind me and my partner of us together, or about one another.

My partner and I will be celebrating our 3 year anniversary near to the end of September and I’m looking for love songs that trigger off the ol’ butterflies inside my fluffy stomach.

I’m 23 years old, and I’ve mostly picked modern songs while my partner who is exactly the same age has picked songs I haven’t even heard of or remember – I expected that off him, he did warn me. It’s just putting out songs together and matching them up to the pictures we have together.

My idea was basically to get our top 15 songs that represent our relationship and then pick out a line from a song and then highlight a word in an embellishment or lettering (like chipboard, embossing or writing). It sounds like a lenghty process, but If I can finish it by August, I think it would make a great gift of our memories together and it will be just in time for our 3 year anniversary. Perfect.

6 Months and Still Counting…

thescrappingblock — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:33:54 +0000

I don’t write blogs often as I can’t keep up with them, but I thought I might as well try and keep in line this one as a lil’ bit of a hobby-persuing self-confessing, rather than one where I would pour my life out like a teenage crisis.

This blog is more about undertaking, exploring and experiementing with my love of papercraft and more recently scrapbooking. It’s been six months since I’ve been thinking about it, and about 2 since I’ve actually been doing it – and I mean sitting down at the dining room table on a Saturday and carrying around my craft tote around the house from room to room. And I’m actually liking (not necessarily the tote carrying, but the scrapbooking, yes) – and I’m even getting my Best Friend into it, also. For me it’s just finding the inspiration, trying to layout everything and thinking which colours go with which photos! I’m finding it at times very hard, or very, very easy.

Hopefully I’ll be a little bit more advanced in skill and technique and get to my dream of having a Craft Studio in my own place one day (I still live at home) and having the space and more importantly free time to craft and create to my hearts content!

I’ll get there slowly, but surely, maybe in 18 months time I’ll be writing something different…