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Journal your Christmas 2023: The Supply List

We’ll talk about this in more detail in today’s livestream on YouTube!

A reminder of #advertising: all these products are linked with affiliate links. Thanks so much for your support!

Albums


I love the 6×8 format for this project and have stuck with it happily for many years, so these are all 6×8 recommendations. Of course you can choose another size if you like!

I’m using that first album from Paige’s Sugarplum Wishes collection. It has the widest spine of any of the 6×8 albums I’ve found! It comes with some page protectors but you will need more – the Vicki Boutin page protectors listed third there also fit Paige’s binder without punching new holes. Other brands will require punching holes. Vicki’s album also adds in some papers for the page protectors (Paige’s album does not) so if you opt for Vicki’s Christmas binder, you can decrease the number of papers you add. You probably won’t, because decreasing the number of papers in a scrapper’s shopping is just torture. But you can, if you so wish.

The remaining 6×8 albums here will fit the Simple Stories and Scrapbookcom page protectors listed. SS and SBcom albums and page protectors are totally compatible and I have used both together in the past. (Be careful if ordering off list that the Simple Stories Snap Flip Book is different! Those are not compatible with the ring binders.) I haven’t seen the Echo Park / Carta Bella albums in person but I believe they fit the SS and SBcom protectors. If I find this to be inaccurate, I will come back and update!

At the end of this list, there is also a kit option with album, page protectors, and pocket cards for a ready to go, quick to create option that can be your entire purchase and then just add photos and writing to document your memories. If you have tried in previous years to make something fancy and given up by day four, TRY THIS OPTION. It counts and it will feel good to get to the end and have everything documented that you want to document! Stop overdoing it in December and take the route that can make it quick and easy. You can always go back to giving fancy a try another time.

Patterned Paper


Just like you don’t need all of those albums, you don’t need all of these papers! Hear me out on the method to my madness in helping you curate the supplies that will bring you joy in your crafting.

First of all: do you have a winter Christmas or not? Decide now if you want things like snowflakes and snowmen in your album and choose your supplies to suit. Just ignore any of the collections that are wintry if you have a tropical Christmas and the snowflakes make no sense to you.

Second: what kind of Christmas colours do you want to work with this year? I prefer the bright and colourful Christmas rainbow, so I’ve listed those options first. I’m going with the picks at the beginning of this list. But I respect the traditional green and red options, so those are here too. And in the middle, there are some papers that take the traditional red and green but also add a little something extra, like some pink or baby blue.

Once you have evaluated your decision on snow or no snow AND your preferred colour palette, pick two or three 6×8 paper pads and you will be good to go! 6×6 papers work well too (the Doodlebug option only comes in 6×6 or 12×12, for example) as lots of the pages are 3×4 and 4×6 pockets, so you only need the full 6×8 page for the full size page protector. You can also go with individual 12×12 sheets rather than a paper pad, of course. I’ve also added a few cut apart papers to this list and I liked the idea of adding some Christmas florals in but I didn’t want a full kit of those papers, so I just added them individually here.

At the end of this list I have also included some papers from my Main Character Energy collection that are certainly not Christmas papers but have at least one side that will work really well in my Christmas scrapping. Bonus that if you don’t use them up in December, they will be a-okay to keep using throughout the calendar.

Embellishments


Once you have picked your papers with your weather and colours in mind, then go to this list to choose some embellishments to suit. One pack of die cuts, one or two sticker books or sticker sheets, some confetti elements (enamel dots, tiny puffy stickers, or gems), and some lettering will give you lots of options. There’s also a little section in the middle of embellishments that are just something different – wooden stickers and paperclips with charms. May or may not be your cup of tea!

Mixed Media


Basics if you want to add ink! You can skip these entirely if you don’t. Number and letter stamps can help with custom titles and dates if you’re not a fan of letter stickers. Distress Oxides are my favourite inks and these are the colours I use at Christmas. Plus some things like stencils and sparkles that you can use over and over in your stash.

Any questions, come ask them in the YouTube comments and we can chat it through!

2023 Christmas Stamps available for preorder

2023 Journal your Christmas stamps - preorder open now!

Hey hey there Christmas fans! This year’s edition of the Journal your Christmas stamps are now available for preorder, which will remain open for two weeks – until Wednesday the 19th of July. I only get a very small number of extras, so if you would like a set please place a preorder. Any extras would be available in late October or early November.

This year’s vibe is a multitude of words you can mix and match to fit the stories you tell over the holidays and then throughout the rest of the year. For example, I have long wished for a stamp that says ‘core memory’ to go with my writing on plenty of pages. With each word as its own stamp, I can caption something in my Christmas journal with ‘core Christmas memory’ or even ‘here is my core Christmas memory’ but I’ll still have the ‘core memory’ option to use on non-Christmas pages. The words are there for a Home Alone reference – don’t mess with kids at Christmas – but they aren’t all stuck together to be just that sentiment. ‘Merry Mess’ might also be apt or ‘kids at Christmas’ might be a very useful caption. And then you can mix with your own stickers or letter stamps to add any words missing, so you could end up with ‘Don’t mess with Texas’ by adding in one extra word if that’s the story you need to tell!

The set is two 4×6 inch sheets of stamps, purchased as one bundle for $34 USD, including postage to anywhere in the world. The stamps are high quality photo polymer, made in the UK, and packed and posted by me here in London to you, wherever you are. (If you’re in Germany and want a set, send me an email at shimelle@gmail.com because that’s the only country that has been a real challenge with delivery for some reason!)

Please keep in mind the stamps may be in slightly different places on the sheets – I work with the stamp manufacturer to make the best use of the space and not leave any gaps so sometimes we just need to rearrange a bit.

If you have any questions, please send me an email (shimelle@gmail.com) any time. Keep that in mind if you move house between now and October, when your stamps will be on their way to you.

This Year's Story - A New Online Scrapbooking Class

This Year's Story - New Online Scrapbooking Class at shimelle.com

It’s definitely time for a new class around here that does more than focus on supplies: let’s get back to stories and back to the book in scrapbook. This is the heart of what makes me a scrapbooker and it’s been a while since we’ve really discussed this at length. It’s time for This Year’s Story.

I flipped through my January stories in a recent YouTube video so you can see a little about how my stories look this year, but for the events of February through the rest of the year, I’m sharing everything about that from album philosophy, planning, decision making, sketches, and process videos all in this new class.

The starter class is $15 USD and includes video content that covers:
*How I review my photo library and decide what to include in my album and how to print any relevant images
*How the 12×12 pages you see me make in my usual scrappy livestreams form the base of my month-by-month storytelling, and how you might adapt this process to work for you
*How to identify themes that will run throughout your album and how to best choose supplies and techniques to tell those developing stories over time
*The process videos for all of the additional content I added to my album for February (both 12×12 and smaller pages, full and pockets – this is everything I wanted to document for February 2023 that is not already covered in a Best of Both Worlds livestream available on YouTube)
*Goals for telling your stories with scrapbook supplies you already have to hand, and perhaps may have had to hand a very long time. This isn’t an exercise in following along with the same supplies I am using necessarily, but rather looking into your own stash for the things that you have held onto a long while because you like them but you’ve never found the motivation to use them. I have those supplies too and I want them out of my stash and into my albums!
*My philosophy for how a yearly album fits into my larger collection of scrapbooks and why the ‘book’ in scrapbook is very important to me!

This philosophy element works with an existing class in mind: Cover to Cover is a little over ten years old and it is my overall album philosophy class – not just my annual album, but all the different kinds of albums I keep, how I work with my photo library and prints, and so forth. In that ten years, my core values of how and why I scrapbook has stayed right on course, but the practicalities of some things have changed. I used to print nearly every photo I snapped, for example, and I no longer feel like that’s a viable option for me. My album collection has also grown over those ten years and keeping my albums from taking over my entire house is an issue that needed a real strategy! Consider this class an update to Cover to Cover as well as a focused look at one particular album style: the chronological, life tracking stories of an annual album. If you have taken Cover to Cover in the past, that’s great, as there are times when I reference certain parts of that class you might want to review. If you have never taken Cover to Cover, I would really suggest taking that class now and using the time between today and the beginning of this new class to go over those concepts. It’s not a requirement, just a suggestion. You can sign up for Cover to Cover here.

The starter class also includes printable page sketches for everything in my album for January and February 2023.

The starter class is $15USD and begins Wednesday the 10th of May (just after NSD Weekend). Additional months will include just the monthly content and not the full philosophy section, and those will be $5 when they first go live. If you know you would like all the additional months, knowing they will be published as I get them completed and not on a set day each month, you can sign up for the whole shebang – the starter class PLUS all the monthly updates for 2023 for $55USD.

Okay, $15 for the starter class covering philosophy, my process, and all the February pages:






Or $55 for the starter class PLUS all the monthly updates for 2023:

If you are a class pass holder, you will receive the starter class as part of your pass, and then you will have the option to include the monthly updates or opt out of the monthly updates after that, so if it’s not really your think, you’re not using $40 of class pass credit on that. Don’t worry – I will be in touch after the starter class to set out your options clearly and let you choose what’s best for you!

AND AND AND at a risk of sounding like an infomercial, I have a ‘wait, there’s more!’ because there is a short bridging class between Scrap a Rainbow and This Year’s Story. A bridging class is just a few videos on a topic that connects one big workshop to the next! It will be available for everyone who took Scrap a Rainbow as well as everyone who takes This Year’s Story, so this in this case it’s a series of videos discussing colour combinations for month-by-month storytelling in your scrapbook. You don’t need to do anything to receive this – it will automatically be added to your account if you have taken either or both classes.

I think that’s it as far as class content! Now for a few details in case you are new or need a refresher. When you sign up, you will get a PayPal receipt by email. If that email does not go to the account you would like to use for class content, please send me an email with the old and new email addresses so I can update that for you. (Same thing if you have an account already and pay by a different email – please let me know.) When we get to the 10th of May, you’ll then receive emails with the class materials and links to watch the videos either streaming online or downloading to view offline. If it’s your first class with me, you’ll also receive a username and password email so you can sign into the class forum. If you ever have any questions, you can always email me.

Online Scrapbooking Classes - Sign up any time!

Welcome to the complete list of online classes available at shimelle.com! Please note that class registrations are processed by an actual person (me!) and you should immediately receive a Paypal payment receipt email upon making a purchase. This will be followed by your class registration email within 48 hours. If it’s your first class purchase, you’ll also receive your login details to access your classes. If you have any questions or don’t seem to have received your welcome email, please do not hesitate to send me an email.

If you have some classes already and would like to check your class list, you can sign into the class forum here. If you don’t remember your username and/or password, email me so I can fix that for you.

Self-Paced Classes:
These classes can all be taken in a self-paced format at any time. There is no time limit on accessing the class materials, and they can be found on a private forum once you sign up and log into the class site. It can take up to 48 hours to receive access to your new class, but it is often quicker than that. (It is not automated, and if you think something is wrong, please email me!)







Use What You Buy is a scrapbooking class concept that’s built off of my Best of Both Worlds kits. These kits are monthly shopping lists, but with a bit of a twist. I encourage scrappers to buy only what they want or need, and then dig into their stash for the rest. The idea here is to use what we actually have, and not hang onto things. Yes, that piece of paper is incredibly pretty, but wouldn’t it look so much better in a layout than tucked away in a cupboard somewhere?

Use What You Buy is the next step on from this. In this class, the focus is on using stash building items from the BOBW kits, like stencils, stamps, and inks that should be used time and again, or with stand out items that might have been intimidating like specialty papers or themed embellishments. With this class, I’m going through one category of stash at a time. Each has four instruction-focused videos (around 22 minutes long), with four specific and versatile techniques you can experiment with. Don’t have the specific item I’m using? Not to worry – these are supposed to be jumping off points to encourage you to use what you buy, even if it’s a different paper or stamp or stencil than what I bought!

There are currently three live and one upcoming Use What You Buy classes, and more will appear throughout 2023. They are each $5 in the first month that they are available and then $10 any time later.

Scrap a Rainbow! Step into a world of colour: Scrap a Rainbow dives into each familiar shade, one at a time, as we head through the spectrum plus pink for good measure. There is a balance of ideas for each colour – first on its own, and then in several combinations. We use ink pads throughout to demonstrate colour combinations, but you don’t need to be an inky crafter to pull these colour combinations together with paper, stickers, and other supplies. This course includes videos pre-recorded edited and live (now a replay) videos. Click here for more information on scrapbooking a rainbow. Scrap a Rainbow also includes two short bridging classes that link the larger online workshops I offer, so there is one already available about quadrant design to link to Half and Half, and there will be another short class included in early 2023 that links the colour-based info to the next big workshop! Click here to read more about Scrap a Rainbow!

Quadrants and Colour is a bridging class that is included with both Scrap a Rainbow and Half and Half: it’s all about page designs using four 6×6 quadrants on a 12×12 page. (A ‘bridging class’ is a short workshop that connects one theme of lessons to the next, that’s all! I like it as a warm up for the next big project.)

Half and Half is a page design class entirely based on the idea of starting your page with two 6×12 inch boxes of patterned paper: half one pattern and half another pattern. It sounds like something that would make every page look the same, but it doesn’t, and it’s a great way to get more from your patterned paper purchases and to create depth and layering if you feel your pages could do with a bit of something ‘more’ but you haven’t been able to put your finger on what exactly. Half and Half also includes the Quadrants and Colour bridging class. Click here to read more about the Half & Half page composition class.

Start With a Sketch does exactly what you expect: every lesson starts with a page sketch. The great thing about a scrapbook page sketch is that it can be interpreted (and reinterpreted) so many ways. I’ll take you through fifteen scrapbook page sketches, and create three interpretations of each. We’ll explore classic interpretations, mixed media, story topics, and more. Click here to read more about my sketch-based scrapbook page design class.

Level Up takes four core elements of scrapbooking and shares ways you can take each of them to the next level. We’ll look at photography, page composition, writing, and embellishment, spotting ways we can spend just a little more thought or time and end up with an end result that feels fabulous! This class includes both single and double page layouts, and Q&A sessions in addition to the edited video lessons. Click here to read more about levelling up your scrapbooking!

Behind the Scenes Scrapbooking takes a look at all the stuff that goes into making pages and albums and telling my stories. I share scrapbooking process videos all the time, but this course shows you the thinking and planning that goes on off-camera, from looking through my photos and deciding what to print and scrapbook to selecting the supplies for each page to telling the story in words. Click here to read more about the class that pulls back the camera to go behind the scenes of scrapbooking.

Layer on Layer on Layer covers the topic I am most often asked to explain: paper layering! I love adding more and more without it feeling like the photos are overwhelmed and layering is that perfect balance. With sketches, techniques, and thirty layering process videos, you can fall head over heels with using all those scraps and stickers to create a unique mix of pattern and colour to tell your story. Click here to read more about Layer on Layer on Layer.

Clear the Desk is an earlier version of my use-what-you-buy mantra: eight lessons encouraging you to clear your desk by using the stash you’ve bought and organised and continued to like despite never actually using it to craft! After all: if we use the supplies in our stash, we have room to buy new supplies! And that’s all part of the fun. Click here to read more about Clear the Desk and get ready to use whatever is left on your desk right now!







A Most Magical Scrapbook covers the process of creating an album (actually two volumes, since there are so many pages) to document a long trip to Walt Disney World and Universal Studios Orlando. The videos cover dozens of page process videos (which can easily be adapted to other topics if theme parks aren’t your thing!) and also a look at how I tackled the enormity of all the pictures from the trip and how I planned the album. See more about the class here.







Design Decisions includes 15 extended-length process videos and accompanying PDF guides with sketches to take you through choices you can make while creating a page: design decisions. We look at why certain choices work best in certain situations and how you can develop your own personal style through the decisions you make. Click here to read more about this series of scrapbooking design video tutorials.







The 20 Project was a scrapbooking challenge I set myself: could I create twenty pages, spurred on my twenty challenges I’d stuck in a jar, and could I finish each one in twenty minutes? The twenty process videos (around twenty minutes each) make up this class and allow you to follow along with my own challenges or to create your own list of twenty things you want to try. And of course, this class is just twenty dollars. Click here for further information about this series of scrapbooking challenges.







The Scrapbook Process includes 22 process videos as I work on three specific themed scrapbooks, and I break down the choices in style and storytelling as I scrap in that format. As a result, it goes hand in hand with Cover to Cover (below), but has a definite focus on making individual pages rather than the philosophy angle of the album course. This course can be useful if you’re working on pages for any album, but can give you ideas for organising pages to tell themed stories too. Click here for more information on this scrapbooking video series.







Ready Set Scrapbook is an online video workshop designed to help you stop staring at the paper and start your scrapping engine. In three videos, it covers three quick composition strategies that help me work quickly while making use of the supplies I love (rather than saving them for a rainy day) and still making sure my photos and writing are at the heart of my designs, even though I love my embellishment. I hope you will find it useful in creating pages that are filled with love and made with whatever time you have to scrapbook right now. The examples feature my True Stories collection from American Crafts but the principles can be used with any supplies you like. This class is a much shorter format than most of my workshops and can be a good kickstart if you’ve taken a break from scrapping or just feel you’re looking at a blank page for far too long. Click here for further details about this quick guide to scrapbook page composition.







Inspired By… came from working with some of my favourite scrapbookers to break down how we translate different sources of inspiration into unique scrapbook pages, and we share that process with you through ten videos and an accompanying PDF for reference. Across the ten videos, we take inspiration from the photos we will scrapbook, a patterned paper collection, geometric graphics, party decor, mixed media art, watercolours, commercial illustration, interior design, text art, and an existing scrapbook page. Then we walk through our individual scrapping process from taking that inspiration and turning it into something we love for our albums. It’s inspiration without sacrificing personal style, and we’d love for you to join in the fun. (Two of the ten videos are my own scrapping; the remaining eight are each from a different contributor.) Click here to read more about taking inspiration from other sources and turning it into scrapbook pages you love.







Glitter Girl’s Scrapbooking Survival Guide is taught by scrapbooking superhero alter ego, Glitter Girl, and was originally hosted by Two Peas in a bucket. This class includes 42 layouts, of which 10 are shown in process videos, and the printed content is broken into 5 PDF chapters. Glitter Girl addresses the questions that seem to come up time and time again for staying happy and creative with your scrapbooking. It also includes access to Glitter Girl’s Guide to Stash Stretching, originally an early bird bonus or a separate purchase from Two Peas. This is a separate video focusing on getting more from your papers and supplies. Click here for more details on my sparkly friend’s scrapbooking classes.







The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Scrapbooking was originally hosted at Two Peas in a Bucket, an online scrapbooking store that closed in 2014. This class is now accessible on my own site. If you want to scrapbook more efficiently (at home or away), use the paper and embellishments you buy (rather than just collecting them) or get a really intense dose of my scrapbooking style, then this is the workshop you’ll love. It’s a book + video format, broken into five chapters (all printable) and five accompanying videos. Each video reviews the concepts of that chapter plus shows you one layout from that chapter in a start-to-finish process. Don’t panic – just click here to read more about keeping your cool while scrapbooking, anywhere in the galaxy.







Cover to Cover is a philosophy class rather than a layout class, but many of the participants found themselves scrapping more than ever before! If you have pages in stacks or just randomly in an album but you wish you could hand a guest an album with confidence and have them understand and appreciate your work even if they don’t really know about scrapbooking, then this is the class for you. It’s all about putting the book back in scrapbooking. This course includes 25 pdfs, four exclusive video episodes and access to a few videos from other courses that are also relevant to the discussion. Click here for more details on some serious album system stuff!
Paperclipping’s Deep Dive Audio Course on Story-Centred Albums is an audio course that Noell made where the two of us talk albums for hours. It makes a good complement for Cover to Cover and can be found on the Paperclipping site here.







The Perfect Collection is all about taking one collection pack and using it until it’s all gone – and I walk you through my process for making a full album from a collection pack. This course is a single video just shy of forty minutes, plus there is a PDF with cutting guide diagrams and pictures of how those pieces of paper became the finished scrapbook pages. Click here for a bit more information on cutting up your collection packs.







Return to the Collection is a follow-up to Perfect Collection and works with a single collection pack but also far more embellishments. The videos of this course cover six layouts made from one paper collection with a focus on more detailed embellishments than the previous collection class. The idea is you would try these concepts with a collection of papers in your own stash rather than feeling tied to the set of papers shown in the examples. Click here for more information on this scrapbooking embellishment video course.







Scrapbook Remix shares the secrets to mixing patterned papers of all kinds and then creating a range of pages with this combinations. We’ll talk colour, pattern, scale, size, technique and more. The class includes both PDF and video prompts: a total of twenty full-colour PDFs and eight videos over four weeks. In each PDF prompt, we start with a different paper collection, then analyse it and remix it with other papers and embellishments to create four or more different looks. The video prompts include a mix theory discussion (showing exactly why some patterns do and do not work well together) and the step-by-step process for creating specific scrapbook pages. Click here for more details on mixing up all the patterned papers on your pages.







Pretty Paper Party is just what you want if you love paper and collect paper but want some new ideas for actually using all that paper to scrapbook and craft. You’ll get project ideas and tutorials from me and a team of special guests, including 25 pdfs and five exclusive videos. Click here for more about all that paper goodness.







True Stories is one of the projects dearest to my heart. It’s all about writing – or journaling – for scrapbookers. All different ways to approach writing, get your message written down and enjoy the creativity of words. I’m joined by guest scrappers and special guest Relly Annett-Baker, who happens to be a writing professional by day and scrapbooker by night. I love this class, and the pages I created for these prompts are still some of my very favourites in terms of both storytelling and design. Click here for more about no-fear word-smithery.







Blogging for Scrapbookers actually has two parts – the original class and the more advanced sequel. We start with the basics of getting a blog set up and making it look how you like then we move on to why blogging can be so useful for scrapbookers and how you can use the two things together. The class content covers all sorts of topics for interesting blog posts for scrapbookers to write from their own perspective, and in the advanced class we look more at growing your readership and even making some money, if that’s the sort of thing you would like to do. The class content can be used with any blog system, so you can blog on your own set-up or Blogger, Typepad, Squarespace, Wordpress or anything else. Ali Edwards featured this class on her blog – thanks Ali! Click here to read more about the original Blogging for Scrapbookers course
and here for details on the follow up class for those who already have a blog up and running.







Love your Pictures, Love your Pages is my answer to scrappers who say they are most inspired to scrapbook their best photos, but are not interested in photo courses that are intimidating, technical, or expensive. I love to scrap those winning shots but I always prefer to enjoy the experience more than think about technical stuff, so I’ve had to adopt some strategies to find a happy medium for me, and that’s what we explore in this class: how to get photos that are so much fun to scrapbook and then lots of ideas for how to scrapbook with those pictures. This is a summer favourite since it’s so much easier to get out and scrapbook when the light is there, the weather is warmer and the days are long. Click here to read more about this the camera + paper experience.







Something from Almost Nothing is all about getting more from the stash we have already acquired, no matter what your personal product of choice may be. We work through a range of products you already have on hand and put them to use in new ways. We’ll step away from just gluing or stitching on a button and build something new. Plus it’s not just buttons we’ll be moving from stash to completed pages; we’ll also put stickers, ribbons, transparencies, papers, page protectors, chipboard and other supplies to work too. You won’t need to have specific supplies to follow along: we’ll focus on what you do have and offer plenty of alternatives along the way. Click here for further details on seeing your scrapbooking stash in a whole new light.

Annual Classes:
These classes run every year and once you join, you are welcome to join in as many years as you would like with no additional fees. Class materials are available year-round and emails are sent when the class is active each year.







Journal your Christmas runs from the 1st of December to the 6th of January every year. It’s something that started small. One year it was just me and my pen and my book, trying to take back Christmas and rediscover my love of the holiday after a few years when Christmas lacked a certain sparkle. The second Christmas, I shared the idea with a small group of crafty friends, just to see if this reclaiming idea was something that made sense outside of my head. It did. And from there, Journal your Christmas became an online class that I shared with the rest of the world. And by ‘rest of the world’, I mean we now have Christmas journallers from more than fifty countries. I make a new book each year and share it in process video form as it comes together in addition to the written prompts. The prompts are changed from time to time, with the latest significant refresh in December 2022. Click here for further details on keeping a Christmas journal.

Share your Christmas runs from the 1st to the 24th of December every year. This class can be taken alongside Journal your Christmas or on its own: it’s an adventure in taking photos, creating short videos, and adding captions to share your Christmas moments with friends and family or with a wider audience through a social media platform like Instagram. There are daily emails with videos or instructions to walk you through a variety of photo and video ideas. If you have been looking for a way to bring meaning and positivity to your social media posts, this is definitely a road map for doing just that. If you follow along, you’ll have a range of photographs, videos, and captions that document what’s most important to you this holiday season. Click here for further details on both Christmas classes.







Learn Something New Every Day runs from the 1st to the 30th of September every year. September is a special kind of second new year: the time of year when we head back to school, set new goals, live up to our shiny new intentions and embrace the idea of doing a little something to make ourselves a little better somehow. Around here, we do that with an online class called Learn Something New Every Day. This online class encourages you to observe the world around you and learn from your daily experiences and surroundings. We work with a small format album to make thirty daily entries, and we adopt a few short cuts and techniques to make those daily entries possible in even the busiest of weeks. Click here for more information about this one-sentence-per-day journaling class. Please be aware I am no longer adding new content to this class, but I still send the emails every September and you are still very welcome to take the class for as many years as you like!


Autumnal Scrapbooking with Rebecca Moore

Autumnal Scrapbooking with Rebecca Moore @ shimelle.com

Leafy scrapbooking is an entire genre I could happily look through for days and days, so I hope you’ll enjoy all the autumnal and leafy goodness of today’s guest post from the lovely Rebecca Moore! -Shimelle

I love scrapbooking – it’s my ‘me time’. I have a busy life with a five year old, so scrapbooking is something I do in the evenings when things are a bit quieter. I love to have lots of dimension and layering on my scrapbook pages. It means I can’t always get as many layouts in an album as I’d like – but it’s my style and it’s what makes me happy so I don’t let that stop me! I recently took my little boy on a walk around a local lake, and we came across an area covered in fallen leaves. They were all dried out and crumpled and I really wanted to replicate this on my layout. I’ve used Simple Stories ‘Hearth and Home’ collection as the colours match my photo really well. I also wanted to draw on the navy in my photo so I’ve pulled in a navy paper from P13’s ‘Soulmate’ collection. I ran these papers through my Silhouette Cameo 4 and cut lots of leaf shapes in various sizes.

Autumnal Scrapbooking with Rebecca Moore @ shimelle.com

I began with a circular photo in the centre of my layout. I added a couple of layers of patterned papers behind it, distressing the edges to bring some texture to the page. I introduced some dimension by adding foam in between these layers. I then layered six tags under my photo in a circluar fashion. I raised the tops of the tags up using foam pads, but I didn’t stick the top tag down – I wanted this tag to include my journalling so I needed it to be moveable. I used my Crop-A-Dile to add some metal eyelets to the tags, and threaded some embroidery floss through in coordinating colours.

Next came the fun part of layering up the leaves. I tried to distribute the sizes and colours evenly and have used foam to bring more dimension to the layout. I’ve also distressed the leaf edges and curled them up slightly to appear more realistic. I really do love how these leaves look arranged around my circular photo. For my title, I’ve used an acrylic perspextive from Bramble Fox because the colour coordinated nicely with my photo. I placed this central on the page, underneath my photo.

Autumnal Scrapbooking with Rebecca Moore @ shimelle.com

I finished the page off by adding a patterned paper border, some ink splatters and a few sequins to bring in a bit of sparkle. I really love how this layout turned out. The leaves are so dimensional and realistic and really do remind me of our walk every time I look at the layout – which makes me happy and brings a smile to my face. And this design could work with any shapes – you don’t have to use leaves – snowflakes or flowers would work just as well.

Rebecca lives in Buckinghamshire, UK, with her husband and five year old son. Scrapbooking since 2017, she mostly scrapbooks photos of her son and shares her work on Instagram and YouTube. She also works on several design teams and enjoys crafting with a wide range of collections.

Countdown Discounts: Making Albums a Magical Way

scrapbook albums on bookshelf by shimelle

It’s so close now! One more school day. One list of things left to finish, pack, or let go. Then time for all the magic! And that’s what’s here in this countdown bundle: two classes with different formats and content that happen to fit together in their own lovely way, and will fit with something new I’ll be teaching in the not so far off times to come.

Cover to Cover is my album philosophy class. It features flip throughs of albums and a great deal of discussion of how I go from individual pages and a stack of photographs to an album that truly tells a story and reads like a book. This is my ‘put the book in scrapbook’ class.

Most Magical Scrapbook is my Disney scrapbooking class, but you don’t actually have to be a Disney fan at all to follow along. It takes you through my entire process of scrapbooking a 10 day holiday including Walt Disney World and a day at Universal Studios Orlando. There are about fifty process videos that show all the 12×12 scrapbook pages from start to finish, and just like Cover to Cover suggests, I’m interested in making this a book that tells a story rather than just a box of individual pages, so you’ll see the album build and come together!

These two classes are available individually any time but they would ordinarily cost $55 USD. For the next 24 hours, you can buy the set for for just $28.

If you’ve been considering evaluating how you create your bigger library of scrapbooks rather than just stacks of pages, I will be adding to this discussion in 2023, and I’ll be really suggesting these two classes as preparation, so if you haven’t done them yet this would be a great time to add them to your class library!

THIS OFFER HAS NOW EXPIRED. Sorry!

scrapbook page by shimelle

If you have taken online classes with me before, you can sign into your account at http://www.shimelle.com/forum to see which classes you have taken. All of my classes include permanent access, so you can go back to anything you’ve taken even ten years ago and access all the PDFs and videos. (If you don’t remember your username and/or password, send me an email!) By the way, if you’ve signed up for classes already this week, you should be able to find those when you sign in too.

If you’ve never taken an online class here, welcome! The countdown discounts will be a great time to create a line up of resources to walk you through many aspects of this craft! I don’t offer sales very often, and for the next week, the offers will change every 24 hours. But it’s important to know this is not an automatic, automated purchase. You’ll get a Paypal receipt email pretty much instantly, and then you’ll get an email from me with your login details once I’ve processed your registration. This is usually within 24 hours, and that should certainly be the case from now until next Thursday evening. If you do not hear from me within 48 hours, then something is going astray so please email me and let me know. Thank you!

Whether you’re new or not, if you choose to pay from your Paypal account and the email address you use on Paypal is not where you want me to send your class messages, please email me so I can update that for you. Be sure to include both email addresses in your note so I can link up your payment to the correct address for your class account. Thanks!

Countdown Discounts: 42 video lessons to keep you scrapping!

scrapbook page detail by shimelle

The countdown is dwindling and I pulled out the suitcases and started packing things today! But I have another offer – a bundle of two classes from not so far back in the archives this time: The 20 Project and The Scrapbook Process.

The 20 Project is great for getting out of a rut and getting yourself actually making stuff and making stuff relatively quickly! It’s a great exercise if you usually spend two hours wondering if a particular piece of paper should sit at a 90 degree angle or a 91 degree angle. I challenged myself to create 20 scrapbook pages, spurred on my twenty descriptions I’d stuck in a jar, and aimed to finish each one in around 20 minutes. There are 20 videos, each around 20 minutes long, and you can follow the challenges right along with me, either for 20 days or just as and when you need a push!

The Scrapbook Process includes 22 videos and follows the creation of the pages in three different albums. It covers both visual and storytelling style, and you’ll see how a bigger story comes together from all those individual pages. This class can really help you gain confidence in finding your personal style.

Purchased individually, these classes would total $50 USD, but for 24 hours you can grab the bundle for half off: two classes for a total of $25 USD.

THIS OFFER HAS NOW EXPIRED. SORRY!

If you have taken online classes with me before, you can sign into your account at http://www.shimelle.com/forum to see which classes you have taken. All of my classes include permanent access, so you can go back to anything you’ve taken even ten years ago and access all the PDFs and videos. (If you don’t remember your username and/or password, send me an email!) By the way, if you’ve signed up for classes already this week, you should be able to find those when you sign in too.

If you’ve never taken an online class here, welcome! The countdown discounts will be a great time to create a line up of resources to walk you through many aspects of this craft! I don’t offer sales very often, and for the next week, the offers will change every 24 hours. But it’s important to know this is not an automatic, automated purchase. You’ll get a Paypal receipt email pretty much instantly, and then you’ll get an email from me with your login details once I’ve processed your registration. This is usually within 24 hours, and that should certainly be the case from now until next Thursday evening. If you do not hear from me within 48 hours, then something is going astray so please email me and let me know. Thank you!

Whether you’re new or not, if you choose to pay from your Paypal account and the email address you use on Paypal is not where you want me to send your class messages, please email me so I can update that for you. Be sure to include both email addresses in your note so I can link up your payment to the correct address for your class account. Thanks!

Countdown Discounts: Class Bundle of 3 for $30

scrapbook supplies

Our travel day is getting closer and closer and with that comes another countdown special! This time it’s a bundle of three classics: True Stories, Pretty Paper Party, and Scrapbook Remix!

True Stories is all about scrapbook journaling. It covers 15 different strategies for telling your stories on your pages.

Pretty Paper Party is a love letter to paper and includes plenty of patterns and lots of layers. It’s a mix of PDF lessons with pages from a range of talented scrapbookers and videos from me sharing the tips while making pages.

Scrapbook Remix celebrates mixing collections and designs. It also includes contributions from special guests in the PDF files plus eight process videos to show how the pieces all come together.

All three of these classes come from my Garden Girl days and as such feature patterned papers and embellishments from collections and even companies that are no longer on the shelves, but all the ideas can certainly be translated to currently available supplies, or you might have an older stash and it’s absolutely okay to get those older papers out and craft with them now!

At normal price, this set of three classes would cost $58 USD, but for 24 hours only, you can pick up the set of three for just $30. Everything includes permanent access, so you don’t need to rush through them and can go in any order.

SORRY! This offer has expired!

If you have taken online classes with me before, you can sign into your account at http://www.shimelle.com/forum to see which classes you have taken. All of my classes include permanent access, so you can go back to anything you’ve taken even ten years ago and access all the PDFs and videos. (If you don’t remember your username and/or password, send me an email!)

If you’ve never taken an online class here, welcome! The countdown discounts will be a great time to create a line up of resources to walk you through many aspects of this craft! I don’t offer sales very often, and for the next week, the offers will change every 24 hours. But it’s important to know this is not an automatic, automated purchase. You’ll get a Paypal receipt email pretty much instantly, and then you’ll get an email from me with your login details once I’ve processed your registration. This is usually within 24 hours, and that should certainly be the case from now until next Thursday evening. If you do not hear from me within 48 hours, then something is going astray so please email me and let me know. Thank you!

Whether you’re new or not, if you choose to pay from your Paypal account and the email address you use on Paypal is not where you want me to send your class messages, please email me so I can update that for you. Be sure to include both email addresses in your note so I can link up your payment to the correct address for your class account. Thanks!