clean and simple success

I’m taking a great 3 month class by Cathy Z on BPS called ‘clean and simple’ in reference to her hybrid scrapping style.  I’ve always been a big fan of Cathy’s approach and design aesthetic and her teaching style. This is the third class I’ve taken with her.

We receive an assignment each week with tips on design and approach to memory keeping, a template and tutorials on using PSE for those who are new to it.  Each LO follows Cathy’s process of designing on the computer and then printing the photos and title and journaling separately and then sticking them together on cardstock. 

There is an interesting mix in class of those who are new to the digital aspect and those, like me, who are comfortable with the digital but have not recently cut and pasted for real (rather than using ctrl c and ctrl v !).  When putting together a LO I remembered how frustrated I am at my inability to cut in a straight line even when using a trimmer and how hard I find it to line things up and how I get glue in places it wasn’t intended to go.  And how hard it is to photograph a LO so it looks square and the colour looks good.

The LO above was easier to keep aligned because I taped the photo block and the journaling block together and then cut them both so the top and bottom lined up. And I doctored the photo in PSE to make it square ( I used the yellow of the background to fill in bits around the edge)

I’m really enjoying the class and weekly assignment.  The class community is very active on the gallery and in comments and assistance and Cathy is present all the time, commenting on LOs and answering questions and joining in chat.  It is these aspects of an online class that I most enjoy. 

And it meant I recorded my enjoyment of all the flowers in my front garden.

Any tips for a returning paper scrapper?

Yes, I’ll do that

I’ve signed up for 3 shared activities / classes this week, although they start later in the year and not all at the same time.

30 days of lists in March seemed interesting and immensely doable.  Each day participants are sent an email with a topic to prompt us to write a list, such as  today’s playlist, recipes to try or guilty pleasures.  Participants use different mediums to record their lists, such as a minibook or smashbook or art journal. 

I thought about doing 4 x 6 cards for the Project Life protectors but then decided to do something totally different for me.  I’m going to incorporate the tangle / doodles that I’ve been playing with again to cover a 12 x 12 sheet.  I’ll include several lists on the one sheet and when it is finished start another.  Here is the start of my first page – the border goes all round the page.  The border tangle is hibred  and the one behind the title is diva dance



Then starting in April I’ll be participating in Cathy Zielske’s Clean and Simple, 3 month class at Big Picture.  She is my favourite scrapbook designer with her clean graphic style. I started scrapbooking after stumbling on her books in my local library. I’ve enjoyed every one of her classes hat I have taken. 

And then I signed up for Liberate Your Art 2013 after Rinda posted the link.  Each participant contributes 5 postcards of their art which Kat generously swaps around and sends out.  Now I have to decide which piece of pixel magic to use, and whether to make all the postcards the same or have several designs printed.

I know Miriam is signed up for the lists and Rinda is liberating her art. Will I be seeing anyone else there?