Say it here and it comes out there ...

Do you ever find yourself yelling at the TV for someone to do or say something (usually in my case it's "For goodness' sake, object!" at a defence attorney), then they do it and you claim full credit? That's what happened to me and my friend Ruth Trice last week. Ruth is a very talented paper crafter who can do amazing things with all kinds of paper and stamps.  I'm complete rubbish with stamps but really wanted to include stamping in our tutorials and design ideas pages so I turned to Ruth for help.

Cue husband (well, probably both) wondering how two women can talk for hours about cards, pockets, stamps and the like. Since Ruth is an independent demonstrator for Stampin Up ! we talked about the kind if things she could make - and teach us about - with Stampin' Up products. [OK, they had their one ! after the Up and any more would have my English teacher, who wouldn't be keen on the loss of the g either, spinning in her grave ...] We'd both noticed the occasional pocket-y page layout and how Ruth was able to make the exact size 3 x 4 card with one of the products and wondered how long it would be before they offered more pocket scrapbooking products.

Then the announcement came about Stamping Up working with Becky Higgins to offer Project Life within Stampin Up. It was as if they'd heard us! It makes great sense for both companies and it's great for us! I'm coveting the new corner punch already as I like the fold flat Stampin' Up punches. There's one not even got across the Atlantic yet that has my name on it.

It's interesting that the Stampin Up cards are not going to have rounded corners. It made me wonder if Becky Higgins' company is going to offer an option of square corners at some stage. Folk who like rounded corners can make square corners rounded. Obviously. Those who like square cornered cards cannot do the reverse. There is therefore a section of the market lost to Becky Higgins and it's the people who don't like rounded corners. I would imagine someone has noticed this. Personally I like rounding corners, it's a relatively mindless but vaguely creative activity I can do in the wee small hours when sleep has gone walkabout.

Ruth and I are working on an ever increasing number of projects, including a gazillion ways to alter Project Life cards, but to whet your appetite here's a fabulous page she made using Stampin Up products. You can see more in our Facebook group and on Ruth's Facebook Page Artful Stampin.


Did you know that Ruth has put together some great kits for you to get a head start on your pocket  pages? You can find them and see more of her creations on her blog HERE

Let's lose some of those boxes!

Or, for some Facebook friends, "loose" some of those boxes. Ouch. I've been playing with some Becky Higgins' Project Life templates. No, I don't do Project Life as in document every boring thing that happens every week. I'd rather stick pins in my eyes. I bet Becky's accountant wishes she'd never called it that as it must put some people off buying these rather fab templates. You can get them in every combination of 3 x 4 and 4 x 6 you could possibly think of and they have darling little rounded corners and just the right amount of shadow so that it really does look like a paper on paper when printed.

Excellent. So now I'm going to change them!

In these two pages I removed some of the blocks so that the background shows through. Here's an IMPORTANT TIP: When you want to remove blocks/layers from a psd template DON'T delete them. Just click on the little eye icon next to the layer name in the layers template and they will disappear. This avoid the "D'oh" moment when you decide you want one of the layers back again. Do as I say, not as I do!

I loved the camera paper and the colours in Becky's Honey kit so I removed some blocks to let it show. It was then a bit busy looking behind the photos so I added a layer and some yellow paper behind the photos. We took a lot of photos of each other taking photos on that trip! (Shadow added so you can see the edges)

This page uses the Project Life Cherry kit and, again, I liked the design on the paper and removed some of the blocks, this time on the side of the page. I then used more papers instead of photos in a couple of blocks, resizing them until I got a section I liked.

 Try it - remove stuff from your page and see what happens!