Inspired by : Project Life

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Let's be honest... it's been around for years. That blocky 'Creating Keepsakes' type of layout... which then morphed into a monthly feature article and has now progressed to have their own special name and trade mark.

Becky Higgins was the original instigator and she must be loving how it has taken off in the past year or so. It is EVERYWHERE. Even if you don't 'do' project life, it's hard not to get wrapped up in what it stands for. It takes scrapbooking right back to basics - what we are here to do. Tell stories and create memories that a snapshot photo doesn't do alone.



The part that is so great is that it documents everyday moments - which i think can be glossed over or forgotten easily. I love the emphasis on the journalling aspect, the use of 'non perfect' photos and that your page can be as product driven as you wish. It is fantastic that it is all about the memory/ the story / the photo - not the product.

This is particularly evident at pinterest where there is a multitude of free printables or silhouette cut files.

This is exciting even for us 'non project lifers'... free stuff that is cute, and that you can make in your own home and personalise to your own pages.

The other option is to buy and there are many big companies jumping on the bandwagon. SNAP products and SMASH books are merely and extension of the whole Project Life idea. To scrapbook memories quickly with minimum of fuss.

Studio Calico paper 'me oh my' range

Simple Stories - SN@P studio stickers

Studio Calico Project Life kit

New SMASH book above and scrapped SMASH book below.

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We have even seen the resurrection of the instant camera and increase in popularity of iPhone / instagram in preference to the bulky SLRs of a few years ago. It's all about capturing the memory quickly... not necessarily perfectly.

Luckily all these awesome type products aren't exclusively for use for Project Lifers... traditional scrappers can use these embellishments and incorporate the PL philosophy on their pages too.

In my opinion, nobody does simple, straight to the story layouts in a blocky but gorgeous style like Cathy Zielske.

layout  : Cathy Zielske

We even have a brand new Aussie e-magazine called 'jot.' which is dedicated to all things Project Life.

Have you been touched by the Project Life bug? How has this changed how you scrapbook?

If you don't 'do' project life, can you see any influence PL has on your pages?

We would love to hear your thoughts :)

trend watch : watercolours

I've been seeing this for a while now and in my mind nobody does it better than our own Kim Price. You can see some awesome examples on her blog - and there are even a few tutorials on how she creates her incredible backgrounds.

watercolour technique used on a stunning layout by Kim Price.


The Creating Keepsakes blog have also noticed this trend and wrote a 'how to' article on using this technique on watercolour paper last month. You can read it here. The article was inspired by this amazing layout by Mou Saha.

watercolour background technique by Mou Saha.


This article on Write. Click. Scrapbook. is an excellent resource to start with the basics.

Ironically while writing this blog post, I've just noticed this starlight foundation advert on TV using watercolours :




and finally Elizabeth Kartchner does a watered down ink and foam brush job in this video, combining it with resist stamping for a really cool imitation watercolour effect.





Does this inspire you to try a watercolour background for your next layout? What do you think of this technique?

inspired by….a challenge

I have just spent a little while looking at the blog of Russian scrapbooker Irina Teeshoom…. wow so inspiring!

Her style is eclectic but everything seems perfectly placed on the page.

Can you draw inspiration from her works and incorporate it onto one of your pages?

Do you have a favourite blog from elsewhere around the globe where their style inspires you to create?

Let us know what you think by dropping us a line in the comment box.

The latest info in case you accidently misplaced the email :-)

YIPEE. Not at all long until our fantastic scrapbook retreat is upon us. Yes you have fought hard to get your place to attend and now the wait is almost OVER :) We have been very busy behind the scenes organising the most fun, exciting, inspirational weekend that you can imagine. Yes perhaps our best ever retreat! Lucky YOU getting to attend!!

We are very fortunate to have 3 very big names in the Australian scrapbook industry attend as our teachers : Sharmaine Kruijver, Ebony Van Der Starre and Kim Jeffress. We know that you will join us in making them feel welcome and help them settle in in any way we can. All three girls have said that they can't wait to experience e2c with you. If you haven't already sorted out your class requirements, time is running out! Please check here for details on what you need to bring. The class attendance sizes in 2013 are the biggest we have ever had - 60 in every class!

We would appreciate you being super organised with your class requirements (maybe a zip lock bag with each of the class needs in separate ones?). As there will be almost all eyes and ears on the class teachers during the classes it would be polite and very much appreciated to keep laughter and loud chat down to a dull roar. Everyone can turn up the volume on good times as soon as the classes are over :)

The classes and workshops are scheduled as following (at this stage) Friday evening - Kim's memory file class Saturday morning - Ebony's layout class Saturday afternoon - Sharmaine's layout class

 Apologies that we say the same thing each year but again we will re- enforce some points :

 1. There will be 5 retailers attending our retreat and they will be 'onsite' for the entire weekend. DON'T FORGET YOUR MONEY / PURSE / CARD / CHEQUE BOOK! We welcome Nat May who will be bringing items to buy which are not sourced by our local shops. Nat will only be able to accept cash.

 2. If you would like an iron on transfer for your t-shirt please remember to bring a black t-shirt. Transfers will be given to all in 2013.

 3. The group photo last year looked fantastic with everyone in their black t-shirts. We are hoping most people will join in and bring a black shirt so we can have a similar 'group' appearance this year - even if you don't want a transfer. This group photo has been planned for 10.30 am on Sunday.

 4. Our e2c Masseuse Mandy sadly will be not be available. However don't be too miserable as we have found 3 (yes siree THREE) ladies to take her place. They will be available for bookings Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This year the girls will offer massages as well as pedicures, manicures (both with shellac) and facials. Booking sheets will be circulating on Friday.

 5. You will need to BYO esky and ice for your own BYO drinks (alcoholic or non) for the entire weekend. Ice will be available at the Nth Shields service station across the road to top up eskies as needed. Please note that there is no spare fridge space so personal drinks will be your own responsibility. You will also need to bring your own wine glass / cocktail glass / cocktail ingredients. Blenders will be supplied. There will be a special 'eskie cubby' for all eskies which is near to your scrap area.

 6. As always : make sure you have plenty of photos and projects to keep you busy for 2.5 entire days. Take much more than you think you could ever scrap and hopefully your creative mojo will floweth over!

 7. Tea and coffee facilities will be available all day, evening and until the wee hours. A scrummy afternoon tea will also be supplied on Friday afternoon at 3pm thanks to Carrie Speed.

8. A small selection of nibbles will also be available. If you have particular eating desires or special needs - bring them along for yourself to nibble on over the weekend.

 9. Don't forget to pack bath towel, bedding and toiletries!!

10. There are 6 - 8 beds per room - 3 or 4 bunks. The bedding situation has again been allocated in 2013. Requests were asked for months ago and we have tried very hard to please everyone. Please be aware that all rooms are full due to our attending numbers.

11. Arrival time is from 1pm on Friday the 22nd. No early callers please.

12. The retreat will wrap up around 4pm on Sunday :( This is to ensure we have enough time to finalize retailer accounts, give us time to clean rooms and remove ourselves!

13. There will be a cuttlebug, sissix and some folders plus plenty of sewing machines set up at the retreat to borrow. If you would like to print journalling there will also be a printer / laptop. Please supply own paper/cardstock.

14. Please do not bring individual blow heaters / fans. We do not think our power will cope. Last year we used extra lighting to brighten those dim corners which worked very well. We will do the same this year and we don't want to overload the electricity.

15. If you would like to bring a pillow or cushion for your sensitive buttocks please do - the seats can become very hard after sitting for so long being extremely creative!

16. The ladies travelling via planes please note that the airport is VERY close to the retreat location. (North Shields Lion's Park). If you require a pick up we do have a welcoming committee who is happy to do a pickup. Please let us know.

17. We will have a prize table again in 2013 which is full to the brim of amazing gifts and donations from around the world! We have worked very hard to bring you the best selection of prizes ever. If you see a donor at the retreat - take the time to thank them. It's their generosity that have enabled us to have such a great range. A simple'thank you' goes a long way :-)

18. We have kept a few secrets up our sleeve so be prepared and gather up some gold coins. ;-) 


We have been putting in some long hours to make this retreat AWESOME but a huge thank you must go to those who have offered to help and have taken some job or another under their wing. We have the 'awesome foursome' in the kitchen again (Mel, Kym, Leanne and Andrew), Val's a trooper organising the incidentals and breakfast shopping, Kathryn Doudle and Ali McDonald who have offered to take on the ever expanding job of providing linen for our interstate guests, and Ali again for sourcing and delivering trestles from Port Lincoln. Sue our trestle placement guru will be on hand Thursday for setup and we love seeing Michelle and Andrew walk in the door to help too. Sandra Wallace has kindly agreed to be our friendly e2c airport to retreat transfer coordinator and we thank her for taking that important, first impression, meet and greet job off our hands. Our husbands have also taken a larger workload on this year with 'decoration construction' and they are always keen to be involved with set up and pack up where we find those big man hands so helpful. Of course our shops are just amazing in their support, particularly with the class kits. All these helpers make a huge, HUGE, HUGE job so much easier. Thank you all so much. Please don't hesitate to contact us if there is any questions or concerns. We would be pleased to help in any way possible and strive to make this a great, fun time for everyone.

Meredith and Amanda

A little reminder of our past retreats ...

Our Facebook site ...

If you are new to Facebook or didn't know we had a page head on over ...

http://www.facebook.com/groups/129083937124479/

we have been busy chatting about all things E2C for the 2013 retreat :-)

e2c 2013 update

Hi again all.

Well who can believe it is FEBRUARY already?! Time seems to be moving very quickly and before we know it March will be here and March equals retreat time!!

Lots of exciting details are falling into place behind the scenes. Meredith has been working hard and has secured some amazing prizes and giveaways- you will be blown away by our 2013 prize table! We are both pedantic about the decorations and making everything look very swish. The WOW factor means a lot to us! We have some really brilliant ideas coming together and can't wait to see it all in the flesh.

Food wise - all sorted. Mel, Kim, Leanne and the trusty he-man helper Andrew have the kitchen and meals covered. It all sounds delish. Please let us know if you have any special dietary requirements.

Class kits are being sourced and we thank Sheoak Craft Cottage (Leah and Lindy), Scrapworkz (Leonie) and Shabby Chic Shack (Brigette and Karen) for all their hard work and support. We are so very grateful for your assistance and we certainly couldn't do it without you.

Some exciting news we can share with you is that Nat May will be having a small shop at the retreat selling many varied goodies that are not stocked by our local girls. This brings our on site shop total to 5. You can literally shop and scrap till you drop.

A couple of housekeeping reminders :

1. If you have not emailed a photo of yourself  (ga.hall@bigpond.com) already - please can you help alleviate that last minute rush by doing this soon. A high resolution (large file) head shot / selfie / portrait would be brilliant. They will be used for decorating purposes only and removed from any files after they are printed out for use at the retreat.

2. If you have not emailed ga.hall@bigpond.com regarding your sleeping / table arrangements we would also appreciate this soon. This will be the second year we have asked for preferences for bed and table partners and in 2012 it seemed to make things much easier on arrival. A poll on Facebook said that everyone was happy to continue with this pre-booking arrangement in 2013. Before emailing, please double check with everyone to avoid booking someone down who has sorted out other sleeping/seating partners. If we haven't heard from you please understand that you will need to be placed where we can fit you. Every endeavour will be made to honour your requests however we are ruled by the space available to us. The tables seat 7-8 and due to attendee numbers every table will need to be filled. This is not meant to cause angst or problems, and of course nothing is set in stone or cannot be changed (no seats are being engraved with names!) but hearing from YOU makes our job easier. 

Phew- that all sounds very technical and bossy! Sorry. In a nutshell the retreat is about YOU and we simply want you to have the best time with the minimum of fuss and bother.

Hope to hear from you soon

Amanda and Meredith.

Easy misting techniques ...

Vimeo clip created by Dear Lizzy

photo request for e2c

Hello hello retreat attendees.

I have a very small request for decorating purposes. If you are able to supply us with a head/torso photo, can we please use them for e2c shed tizzying? These photos can be snaps, non perfect, non professional, and no specific file size or colour.

Once i have printed them for our retreat decorating i will then delete the file so nothing will be kept on my computer.

If you can be involved (and we would love a snapshot of all attendees as this would be most effective) please forward your photo to me at ga.hall@bigpond.com. 

I know how hideous it is to be IN FRONT of the camera, but any old snap will do - i have used an iPhone selfie...and i promise that they will all look amazing hanging out in the shed together. It will really look best if everyone's photo is there… so please don't be camera shy.

Here is a great blog post about 'selfies'… and how to get a good one. You don't have to wait or ask someone else to take it for you. Do it yourself :)

how-take-selfie

The best thing about doing it on your smart phone or digital camera is the DELETE button quickly becomes your best friend. Also don't be afraid of feeling like a knob posing in front of your camera/phone… it's all part of it and no matter how many times you do a 'selfie' you still feel knobbish!

Remember these shots don't have to be perfect portrait shots… the more uniquely YOU that they are the better.

Please don't be scared by this request (as a few horrified emails to me have indicated) - it is meant to be a fun decorating idea for e2c 2013!

Hope you can help me.

Amanda

e2c 2013 classes & info

woodgrain + white - Marika

"Hi Amanda

I have finally done some scrapping my page for the white wood grained challenge plus a few colours

Thanks Marika"

Heck that blue-y purple with the white is stunning Marika. The pokes of green against the strokes and splats are fantastic. What a super cute photo and great use of woodgrain in the title. That yummy little banner finishes it all off nicely. 

Quick challenge - inspired by...

I just saw this on Facebook on the Magnolia Tree page (a gift ware shop in Port Lincoln)


and thought -

"white + woodgrain = yummy"

can you incorporate those two elements on a scrap page over the weekend?

Send your creations in for us to upload and inspire others. I can't wait to see what brilliance comes into my inbox.

e2c 2013 teacher announcement

Meredith and myself are very excited to announce our 2013 teachers:

Each of these inspirational Australian scrapbookers have their very own, unique style and we hope you are as thrilled as we are. We cannot wait to see what scrappy goodness these girls are going to teach us!

rub-on challenge - Sue

on this hot windy day i got to scrap.....so i decided to get that tub of rub-ons down and see what i could come up with. I used a page of 7 Gypsies number rub-ons, some Kaiser ink splats and Luxe red arrows....all of which i have had for a verrrry long time!! ( quietly glad they all rubbed off without too much drama too!!)

Thanks Amanda for this challenge....it was good to get those rub-ons out again!!

quick challenge...

just prior to our e2c registrations opening...

let's whip up a layout using :

old rubons....

nothing new and snazzy here.

Old. Crappy. Half wrecked.

get creative.

e2c 2013

We would love you to join us over on Facebook ... lots of chatting and ideas for the up and coming retreat ... click here ... E2C

Otherwise ... comment here and we will get back to you ... the build up to the retreat is lots of fun :-)

If you are interested in sponsoring our retreat for 2013 we would love to hear from you ... please leave a message on this post or email me ... john.treloar@bigpond.com

Mini retreat layout - Mel

"Please see attached the page I most liked from the E2C Weekend.

It is not my normal style, but I am pleased with how it turned out. :)

Thank you so very much for another great weekend :) You girls are amazing and I had a fantastic time

Regards

Mel"

Mel what a gorgeous photo and love the banner across the bottom :-) It's fun to try a different style hey :-)

Escape2Create mini retreat thank yous ...

A very big thank you to ...
Sandra for collecting the groceries and doing odd jobs for us
Carrie for donating the delicious desserts for the first night
Tania for helping with set up and pack up
Sue for everything she did to help us
Kathryn for the beautiful food and help
Sonia for her help in the kitchen and packing up
Amanda as always for being a wonderful co-organiser and friend
to the wonderful shops Sheoak Craft Cottage, Scrapworkz and Shabby Chic Shack for bringing their goodies for us to peruse and purchase
and finally everyone that attended and helped with pack up and so many of you for offering to help throughout the whole weekend ... we really do appreciate it.
xxxxxxxxx

If you created a layout over the weekend, that you would like to share with us, please send it through ... john.treloar@bigpond.com 

mini retreat / scrapathon

Colour inspired Challenge

I found this on pinterest last night and it just popped out at me. I fell in love with it instantly....i'm not sure what it was....i love the colours, i love those angled  shapes or just what....so i thought i would start this month with a challenge from this image....be it the colours, shapes... or the background, whatever you like.

Hope this inspires you to combine papers with photos and products and to share it here with us. Hopefully during this busy week i can cut, glue and stick down some paper!!

I have officially stepped back from the E2C team recently but i will still be popping around in the background - here on the blog, with setting the occassional challenge here for you. It has been a busy and fulfilling 5 years with Escape 2 Create but my life is too busy to fit everything & everyone in. So i hope you will all continue to pop in the blog here and to mine to say hello, particpate in the challenges and share the scrapping love!!

So i hope you all have a good week- and keep on scrapping!!

Suexx