Grab a cuppa of your favourite tipple, java, green tea, pimms…whatever makes you comfy,

Maybe even grab a quick shower now and settle down in your pajamas, then you can just fall into bed when you’re done.

Feel free to take a quick snapshot and upload it to the flickr group too.

Just to be clear, we don’t expect you to do every layout, or stick to the same colours or papers, the idea of the scrapathon is to inspire and challenge you to get scrapping. Most of the layouts are graphic, making them quick and easy to scraplift, if you want to add more, you can, if you want to use different photo sizes, you can. We just hope that you scrap something this weekend, anything from a single layout to a whole album, and please share your accomplishment with us.

The layouts fit an American Crafts album, with a variety of page protectors, they are in the correct order so if you follow along, with page protectors in the right place it will all fit.

Things to consider:

• Bazzill Cardstock – the great scrapping staple. You’re bound to have lots of this around in all sorts of colours. I find it’s easiest to just keep my big box of Bazzill next to me, then I can just pick a colour up as I’m working. Some people like a mix of colours, if you’re working on a theme album and want to use the same colours throughout the album, just stock up on those colours. For those of you that only scrap on Black, White, and Kraft, I’m sure you’ll be able to work with that too.
• Patterned Paper – For those of  you working on a theme album, you might want to collect papers together that suit your theme, they might be the same colours, or the same type of designs. You might want to use a collection pack from one manufacturer, or just sort out a selection of papers that you just want to use, old or new, just put a pile of papers on one side of your desk to use as you go along.
• Embellishments – We all have favourite, or not so favourite embellishments, if flowers are your thing, grab a bowl and put a selection of your stash in it, pop it on your desk, and you can just dip into it as you scrap. You can do the same for anything else you like to use, ribbons, beads etc… Hunt out those boxes full of brads and eyelets, and put them somewhere you can grab them easily, you don’t want to spend time searching for things. If your album has a theme, collect all your embellishments for that theme together, your theme might be weddings, so anything heart shaped, chipboard shapes, felt, buttons, brads etc, or you might have chosen a colour theme, so grab all your embellishments in that colour.

When you’ve got it all together, this is your work kit. Hopefully, everything you want will be to hand, and if you’ve missed something, you can always grab it later…no stress…Don’t worry too much now about if you’ll use it or not. If you thing you might, put it in. It’s much easier to put it back next week, than to try and find it in the middle of a layout!

Sharing – You can share your Scrapathon project(s) with us at Flickr. We have a Scrapathon group set up that you can just add your photos to for us all to see.

Feeling Hot? Wow! What a wonderful week weather wise! Lots of hot things happening here at Willow Tree Crafts too!

Firstly we have our All Day Crop happening on Sunday. Crop with us from 10am – 5pm. We still have a few places left for this Sunday so call us or go online and book your place now. It would be great to see you!

Our evening Crop is on Thursday July 9th from 7pm to 11pm. So if you fancy a mid week creativity boost – book your place today. Again we take online or telephone bookings on 01923 678363.

We are building up to our Scrapathon, which is a wonderful opportunity to complete a Marathon of pages with us. We will be blogging all through the day of Friday 10th July, ideas, layouts, and so much for you to see. It’s going to be incredible! We so hope you can join us. Check out our blog for details.

We have some incredible work back from our Design Team to show you! Each member was sent a kit in May to inspire us with their creativity and this was the result from them all. We received some fabulous layouts, a desk diary, a little book of 12 months in the life of, a book of Love Songs and we would like to show you the results! All products are of course in the shop so if you want to recreate anything you see ask us how and we will be pleased to share with you everything used.

Online this week and in the Watford Shop we have some lovely new products from Martha Stewart Crafts and re-stocks of old favourites. Why not pop in and see everything new and exciting but do be quick as these will fly off the shelves like last time – they have proved very popular.

Do you fancy getting 10% off your next purchase from us? All we ask is you refer a friend to us, not too hard because you already love our shop! And in return we will send you a coupon to claim 10% off your next order after your friend has shopped with us. What have you got to lose? Spread the word please.

Bev from Banana Frog will be running classes with us in August on Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th August. Bev is wonderful and so creative. Come and learn some fabulous tips and techniques using your stamps. We stock all the Banana Frog range and they are clear stamps with are easy to use and the storage binders you can store them in take up little space and are see through so you can easier find what one you need. Booking online for the workshops have begun so grab your spot now.

Finally we have some spaces left for our October Scrap Fever Weekend. This weekend is always full of ideas, shopping, classes, great food, fantastic location and a wonderful retreat for everyone. If you haven’t been before why not treat yourself? You will not be disappointed. Check out our fab reviews from previous attendees and look at our Scrap Fever Section of our web site for more details and registration information.

Well that’s about it for this week! I’m looking forward to another great warm weekend. See you all soon,

Best Regards, Claire

• http://tu-torial.com/view_tut.php?id=165
• http://digital-photography-school.com/antiquing-digital-images-in-photoshop-part-1
• http://www.showandtell-graphics.com/old_photo_fix.html
• http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-fix-a-botched-tourist-photo-in-photoshop
• http://www.photoshopessentials.com/essentials/image-quality/
• http://reviews.davidleetong.com/?p=1096
• http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/crop-images/
• http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials/peter-bowers/how-to-stitch-photos.html

Don’t forget that we cover a lot of these techniques in our Photo Editing Tricks Class where we go through it with you step by step, and if it doesn’t work when you click it, or it turns bright purple when it shouldn’t. we’re there to show you why!

We’ll be using one of the fantastic American Crafts 12×12 D-Ring Albums, with a variety of page sizes. These albums are great for mixing and matching page sizes, perfect for themed albums when you don’t always want to do ‘full’ size pages.

It will be a very busy weekend, but don’t panic, the posts will stay on the blog, you can see last years here on the blog, so if you can’t join us for the whole weekend, you can always check in later, or plan a crop weekend of your own with a few friends and all work on a project together.

I find the trick to scrapping a lot in a short time, particularly for a project such as a themed album or mini book, is to collect everything together before you start.

Some things are easier to grab than others if you’ve forgotten anything, you can generally add an extra piece of Bazzill, or some Patterned Paper from your stash, so don’t panic about those.

The first thing I start with is my photos, to play along with us, I’ve listed the photo sizes we’ll be using on each layout, as always, you can change any of these, use different photos, different colours, adapt it to suit your style and theme.

Scrapathon Photo List:

It’s easier to break everything down into page packs, our Zip Lock bags are perfect for this, number each bag with a marker, and pop in the photos you’ll be using for each one. We’ll give you more details later in the week for other supplies you can pack up before the weekend.

You can find our Scrapathon Supplies in the Shop.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WillowTreeCraftsBlog/~3/6nsdtGTNc2Q/ http://www.willowtreecrafts.co.uk/blog/2009/06/digi-classes-3/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:11:21 +0000 Willow Tree Crafts http://www.willowtreecrafts.co.uk/blog/?p=1210 Thank You so much to those of you that completed our Digi Class Survey, it’s great to see what you want so we can create the right classes for you!

It seems the main request was for Intermediate Classes. Our Brushes Introduction, and Sampler Layout are both Intermediate level. If you’re not sure about these, our Photo Editing Tricks is our beginner class.

In Photo Editing Tricks we show you the basics of Photoshop Elements and how to manipulate your photos. We also explain how and why the programs and tools work, giving you a great base to start using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. It’s the perfect starting point, even if you know a bit about using these programs.

If you’ve not used brushes before, then our Brushes Introduction will open your eyes to the options and possibilities. Brushes are one of the most useful tools for traditional, hybrid, or digi scrappers, like die cuts or stamps to scrappers! Our next Brushes Introduction class is July 2nd 7-9pm.

Book Your Spot Online

If you want a go at creating a digi layout, our Sampler class is perfect.

We create a layout from the beginning, not too complicated, you can always play around with it some more when you get home. The great thing about digital is you can always go back and change it, and save another copy! We build on all of the tools and techniques we introduce in Photo Editing Tricks and the Brushes Introduction class. Our next Sampler Layout class is July 22nd 7-9pm

If you want to start at the beginning with us then the Photo Editing Tricks class isthe place to start. Our next class is July 27th 10am-4pm

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WillowTreeCraftsBlog/~3/-joFfoVtByc/ http://www.willowtreecrafts.co.uk/blog/2009/06/digi-tip-tuesday-brushes-2/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:16:50 +0000 Willow Tree Crafts http://www.willowtreecrafts.co.uk/blog/?p=1206 You can’t have too many brushes! Here’s some more that you might like,

• Swirls and Flowers
• Postage Labels
• Swirls

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WillowTreeCraftsBlog/~3/SIxC0r6VDF4/ http://www.willowtreecrafts.co.uk/blog/2009/06/visit-the-shop-on-saturday/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:04:50 +0000 Willow Tree Crafts http://www.willowtreecrafts.co.uk/blog/?p=1076 Early Bird Special 25% off all purchases between 10am and 11am!

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WillowTreeCraftsBlog/~3/bF5uYlYLBc4/ http://www.willowtreecrafts.co.uk/blog/2009/06/digi-class-survey/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:16:46 +0000 Willow Tree Crafts http://www.willowtreecrafts.co.uk/blog/?p=1189 We’re planning our next digi classes, and to make sure we design classes that you want to take, we’ve put together a short survey.

If you are interested in our digi classes, please let us know what you want!

What software do you use?

Photoshop Elements
Photoshop
Other

What system do you use?

Windows XP
Windows Vista
Mac OS X
Other

What level of class do you want?

Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced

What would you like to do in the classes?

Learn a tool or technique
Create a digi layout
Other

What subjects would you like us to cover?

Basic Tools - selections
Layers
Colour changes
Cropping
Typography
Actions
Brushes
Other

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