Make it: Holiday Scrapbook Tutorial

For every holiday I have been on for as long as I can remember I have made a scrapbook when I got home to keep all the little mementos I have picked up and of course house all of my favourite photos of the trip. Why I choose to scrapbook instead of just putting the photos in an album is that I like to record my memories and highlights along with my photos. Also I love using fun papers and embellishments to give a flavour of the place I have visited too.

Messy Box Review

As I am sure you all know by now, I love paper and a good subscription service! Also being a big fan of the girls over at A Beautiful Mess I was very excited when they announced 'Messy Box'. I have had two boxes now so I thought it was about time I told you what I thought about it so far.

Lets start with the basics, if you live in the UK you will pay £15.75 (approx) every month if you sign up for 12 months like I have. This includes international shipping and all taxes etc. Which I think is a pretty sweet deal as I ended up paying £14.00 in Post office and customs charges alone for a parcel I had shipped from the U.S. recently.

You will in essence receive:

-

6 9x12" pattern pages
journalling cards 6 3x4" 6 4x6" and 12 3x3"

Then also a selection of embellishments, like brads, alphabet stickers, washi tape, transparencies, die-cuts, stamps etc.

Of course the idea is that you would also buy a 'Messy Book' album to use with all these items, but that isn't totally necessary.  You can use any album you already have or just use the paper and embellishments for your own paper crafts as you choose. 

So here is what I think of the box so far, I want to love it, and I do love parts of it. I think the price is great, I think the quality and quantity of products is just perfect, not too much and not too little, easy to use up all the bits in a month of paper crafts in time for the following month to turn up. 

So far each month has a theme, which is a nice easy way to co-ordinate your pages. The only thing I think that is stopping me from absolutely loving it is that its not quite 'A Beautiful Mess' enough for me. The first box was a little more what I was expecting, and we are only on box two so it is hard to judge completely but this second box is a little soft for my taste. I am looking forward to a bit more of the signature style I love from these girls in future boxes. This is why I signed up for this box over some of the others out there. I guess I was hoping for more of the 'personality' and design I have seen in their 'Happy Mail' boxes to be evident in the Messy Box.

The other slight niggle (that I kind of expected) is the time it takes to arrive. I know it is because of the cheaper shipping and the fact that I'm in the UK but it is a little frustrating to see all the pics on Instagram of the box that I know I wont be getting for at least 10 days later. Maybe that is just the impatient paper-crafter in me though?

So if you love 'A Beautiful Mess' and want to get into an easy, fun photobook/ journalling/ scrapbooking system. I would highly recommend this subscription, even though this months theme was not my favourite, I will still be able to use all the pieces. I think it is absolutely worth the money and the quality of the products is fab. The joy of receiving a box of goodies every month is pretty lovely and it is a great way to build up a stash if you are new to these kinds of paper crafts.

I do hope that this review may have helped some of you who were thinking about subscribing. You can sign up at the A Beautiful Mess shop and keep an eye out on their blog for ideas and inspiration with their Scrapbook Sunday posts.

Sammy xxx


Bloglovin / Twitter / Facebook / Pinterest / Google+ / Instagram

Love it: My 30th Year Scrapbook

You may remember me talking about a scrapbook I was working on when I posted about Our Home earlier in the year.  I took an on-line Art Journalling course last year from the girls at A Beautiful Mess and this is what came out of it.  I thought I would share some more of the pages with you now that it's finished.

The idea of the journal was not only to document my 30th year but for me to try and be a little more relaxed about how I paper-craft. I am a perfectionist so I wanted to try and step out of my comfort zone and create something a little more free than my usual tidy style. I worked in 8x8 and made my own binder. 

I used the rings from an old folder and a cardboard box to create the album, then covered it in fabric. I spent the last year collecting magazine pages and scrapbook paper that I loved and used them to make the bases of my pages.

'Love is all you need' was the theme of my 30th year so this magazine page was a perfect opening title.

One of the first pages was a month by month list of all the amazing things I got up to. It runs from March (my Birthday month) to February this year, again decorated with magazine images that I liked embellished with glitter and chipboard.

Some of my favourite pages are the party pages, of course a few of my friends also turned 30 last year so the pages of photos that document their parties are some of the best memories of the year. With so many photos from those occasions I used Picasa to create collages and printed them out on our home printer. I like the page from my 30th party because I got to use the name tags I made for our drinking straws to document who came.

This colourful page brings back all the memories of the night and how much fun it was putting the buffet table together.

This is the Our Home page I shared in April, it was so fun running around the house, documenting my favourite spots.

I added a few little wooden embellishments to the opposite page with some journalling 'Hands build and house, heart build a home'

Another thing I wanted to document was all the fab TV and Movies we saw, I picked out some busy magazine pages and added two project life cards with two lists, one for each page.

Here is another one of those Party pages, This was Kelly's Barbie Party.   This one was special because I got to help with a lot of the decorating for the party, which was so much fun. I was really happy when I found the perfect scrapbook paper for the opposite page too.

This page was dedicated to our girls summer holiday in Spain. I wanted to include as many photos as possible so I put the journalling on a half page in-between the double page spread. Then embellished some tags and stickers over the collages.

Another page, another party, Verity's Gatsby garden party! It was such a hot day but we had a ball. I was on official photographer duty as well as getting to enjoy the party so I had a hard time choosing which photos made the cut, but there seemed to be such an obvious colour connection with this set that worked so well.

Some of the final pages documented some special feelings I had about my friends. This one is dedicated to Helen and Verity. We had a photo together at our friend Claire's wedding in November which worked so well because I wanted to document how proud I was of these two girls. Verity ran the London Marathon for the second time, we went up to London to see her cross the finish line, She is such an inspiration. And my friend Helen lost her Mum to breast cancer last May, She is so strong and brave.  Steve and I have the honour of being her wedding photographers next year, it's going to be such a magical day. 

I hope you enjoyed that little peek into some of the pages from my 30th year album. It was so much fun to create and really helped me to remember what an awesome year I had. Trying a different style was fun too. I will definitely be making more of these albums, I am thinking of making a 'friends and family' album next, with a page dedicated to each person who is special in my life. 

I hope this may encourage you to have a go at printing out and documenting some more of your photos.

Sammy xxx

H and I are away on holiday at the moment, we will read and reply to all of you comments when we get back <3

Live it: London in the October Sun

So what a lovely weekend we just had!  Just to confuse us all that little bit more, the hot weather comes back to us for October!!!!!

It did however present itself with an opportunity to meet up with a friend for a lazy afternoon and visit a new haberdashery shop at the same time - good times!

So, firstly to the shop.  Its called Ray Stitch and its in Islington, London (which is managing to become a bit of a hub for these places).  It is a haberdashery shop and cafe and they also do classes too.  I popped myself in and had a little nosey around the shelves.  Lots of Print fabrics, including Japanese quirky prints and a few ribbons and buttons.  You can also pick yourself up a coffee and some cake after all those creative juices get the better of you and you feel like you need a sit down!

Its well worth a visit when your next in the area.  Some of the items are a little pricey, but as the website says, you can mix and match with what you already have and that's the beauty of a place like this, its all about picking up little bits to add to your ideas!

Next on the list was to meet up with my friend, handily in a pub garden, and it was an opportunity to give her the scrapbook I had made for her.  She has just been to New York for a few months and I wanted to give her something that she would be able to put her ticket stubs, photographs and other memorabilia in.

It started life as a plain sketchbook from Paperchase and then with a little glue, fabric and ribbon, it became a scrapbook that she could put everything in that was original to her.  Some fabric she liked, a few photographs handily stolen from her Facebook pages and some New York buttons found in a shop called 'All the fun of the fair' off Carnaby Street, London.

Then, there was a chance to relax and unwind on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and let the day descend into night, where I think this post should end!

Live it
H