Pockets with Pizzazz

I have just come back from a FAB weekend in a village hall near Swindon, having Pocket Paged all weekend long. I have been to numerous of these weekends, usually everybody scrapbooks, but this time more than half had come armed with Pocket Pages, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the swapping, buying, sorting and even on occasion using the cards!!!
I managed to complete 5 weeks, which whilst it isn't the most productive, it left time for all the talking, cakes and meals and having fun!
I gave a few very simple demos of Picasa and how to make collages, so hopefully they will all be going off to download and play with it, it really is very easy! And I think there was also a lot of frantic ebay searching for portable typewriters, hopefully there will be some left for others if you feel the need! I think Ikea will also be short of a few wooden cutlery draws - great for storing all your cards in.
It was also a perfect opportunity to have a nose at everybody else's pages, gaining ideas and inspiration. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next one.

Week 5: Having attended another weekend retreat organised by a reputable scrap company specializing in twice yearly retreats, plus some small additional ones, if the numbers are available, during week 5, I wanted to use up some of the papers and embellishments that I had used, so decided to make my weekly card from them this week, as even more of a reminder.

This shows the cards that I could use for this weeks pages.

The week card

   The plain and simple card - perfectly acceptable to leave it like this.

My card, not too embellished for a change! (although I did add another stamp, I notice below)

Week 6:  This week the design team for Scrap365 were sent some Scrap365 wooden shapes to play with, they are laser cut shapes from wood. I volunteered to use them on this weeks Pocket Pages, I had the arrows/chevrons and cake/sweets sets:

I started with a plain craft card, added washi, one of the squidgy pin arrows, and then some stamps. I used a zig writer in chalk pastel to colour in the arrow.

I used the Zig chalk pastel pens on the small cake and coloured it in for the baking card (left). 

I also used some of the chevrons, but left them natural.

I used one of the pointing hands, cut in half with a stanley knife, stamped with the date, and split between two cards/pockets, I left it natural too.

Well I hope you enjoyed this fortnights edition, hopefully I'll be back again in two weeks time with some more completed pages and some more ideas.....I've been given some new products to try too, so will be trying to use them in the next few weeks - I'm really excited about them, and I think you will be too !!

Elaine x

Pockets with Pizzazz

Welcome again this week to Pockets with Pizzazz.

I'd like to start this week with the 'tools of the trade'. Lots of people have asked what I use to make my pages, its basically my scrapping tools, I haven't really had to buy anything more than the cards & pocket pages themselves. For most of you it should be simple to start. I use a Canon MG5350, a Canon Selphy DS810 and an old Continental typewriter.
I had the large printer and typewriter already, I did get the Selphy (second hand from ebay) just because I wanted to try one - you don't actually need it. (Although, its really great for taking to crops because its so small. The newer versions are wireless so are even better, but cost more than the £25 I paid!)

I find that printing out my own photos there and then, helps me keep up to date with my weeks, I can sit down and get a whole week done in a couple of hours.
But, I do know that some people edit all their photos for the month and get them printed at one of the many online/supermarket stores that provide a printing service. They've usually done all the journaling and put in the relevant cards - marked with post it notes to remind them which photo goes where, - so all that remains is to slip the photos into the pockets when they receive them. Its really up to you and your budget!

I keep all my cards and associated bits and pieces in this large old Ikea wooden cutlery tray that I found in the garage, it was used to store paint tubes in, but is brilliant for keeping all I need in one place. I can carry it from room to room too, so I can create when and where ever I am!

I realized as I do this post fortnightly, if I carry on only showing one week at a time, I'll be 6 months behind by the end of the year, that's not really any incentive for me to keep up - so I'm going to show two weeks at a time.
As usual the back of last weeks page, how you can make the Week marker as quick & simple as you like, or embellish it more as I do. You may notice that I have an upside down date stamp on the back of the card - easily covered by another card.

Week 3:

Week 4:

My pages are quite busy - I like them this way - but you certainly don't have to do them like this. If you're short on time just add your photos and the cards with no embellishments, just some journaling so at least you can look back and see what happened in your life without guessing - it really is up to you though, whatever gets you recording your life is good ! " />

Week 1 & 2 Project Life

Welcome to 2014

A little catching up to do, I've actually completed week 9 & am just starting on week 10, but I haven't put any up on this blog, most probably as I've been writing posts for the scrap365 blog in a fortnightly - Pockets with Pizzazz. I've had a lot of positive feedback, so hopefully I'll be continuing with it for at least the near future !

Week One seems so long ago now, I do remember that we had rain, rain and more rain ! Its really great, so much of this would have been forgotten by now - only a few weeks ago, its funny how we filter so much of our lives out without even noticing !

Week 2: Very heavy on the red this week.....Birthdays, toasters and kettles !

I'll try and get a little more up to date with my pages on here, so you might be getting several posts a week till then, hopefully you won't mind !!