michele in la gives us our prompt today – use a circle!

“The totally non-patented, nothing new here, Lisa method of clustering!”

A lot of people comment on my clusters and since I really started to get to grips with all that layering (thanks to BPC classes with Nic H), I hardly do a layout without some sort of cluster or grouping – no matter what the topic.

To help explain my way of doing things I took some photos of my developing cluster when I was making my 19^th October layout.

(The photo quality is not good as I was scrapping in the evening & the light is really bad.)

1. I layered up some papers across the middle of the page, inking all the edges to give definition. I realised there would be a perfect cluster spot on the left hand side, under the photos

2. Before anything else, I added my twine around the layout and tied it in a simple knot. This way, it will peek out from under the cluster.

3. Then I laid out some fussy cutting that I’d done from the tropical flower print BasicGrey paper as well as some ribbon roses to roughly see how the main elements would work.

4. First down are the flat, larger pieces – directly attached to the background paper.

5. Then come the rest of the flowers raised using foam squares, and in some places, double foam squares (my layouts are very rarely flat LOL). I carefully place all these elements and adjust them before giving them a press to attach them.

6. I attached the ribbon rose strip along the bottom of the photos, bordering the fussy cut flowers. Now I have dimension, texture, contrast. Next up were a couple of word strips just placed to peek out of the flowers. A sparkly button finished off with a bow filled a little empty looking spot.

7. And just to finish this part off, I remembered some word strips and I made a small banner out of the word “dream” which I then nestled into the flowers.

8. Next up, I also wanted to add one of my “signature” (not sure if this is really so but one or two people have commented on it!) bows to extend the clustering across the page. I cut a small piece of ribbon and a smaller piece of jute type ribbon (which I actually bought in the Philippines which is the reason I HAD to put it down on this layout.) and then squeezed them together in the middle so that they formed a bow effect. I tied this off first.

9. Then I ran the loose ends of the twine through a button and pulled really tight to gather up that centre point. Another knot and bow to make sure its secure. At this point, I sometimes apply a glue dot or just liquid glue to keep it in place.

10. A swirly rub-on fills in some of the space above my bow.

11. And to finish, I picked out a couple of the colours from my photos with pins stuck under the button.

12. It’s at this stage that I might have a rummage through my embellishments and take a few things out to see if they have a place. Or I might notice a corner which doesn’t look balanced and need something to place there. Or I might decide that I want to enhance one of the elements or colours. I do a lot of button, brad or bling sprinkling too. In the case of this cluster, I left it as it was.

As you can see by the completed layout it takes up quite a lot of the bottom third of my page & I think even for me, that’s probably enough.

Here are a couple more examples of some clusters I’ve done recently:

As you can see, some of my clusters are much flatter or simpler than others, just a few items layered up and some are much more extravagant and complex. But the principle remains the same – biggest, flattest pieces first, followed by smaller, more dimensional items, finishing off with the very small buttons or bling or whatever last, on top, peeking out or in the middle. Remember to start small and build up. Don’t be afraid of repurposing/cutting/altering items, fussy cutting or looking in your local haberdashery for suitable items so that you have a lot of possibilities when building your cluster. There is no perfect way to cluster, it’s really just a matter of try it on and see if you like it, then practice until you establish what works for you.

So why not find out what your cluster style is & try one today!

Guest Star LisaInRe

I’m originally from Birmingham in the UK, but now live in Germany after experiencing life in sunny South of France (1986-87), historic Cambridge (1994-97) and chaotic Manila (1997-8). But I’ve now been settled and living in the Ruhr area of Germany since July 2001. It’s great to have roots at last. But why am I here? Love of course! I met the love of my life and he happened to be German. The rest is history!

I started scrapping in January 2006 after having wanted to jump into it for about a year but not knowing where to start. Finally, I took the plunge and dragged my sister in with me. I was lost from the first time I held a piece of 12×12 BasicGrey in my hands. This was the hobby I’d been looking for all my life.

I’ve always created stuff (in fact I have a few “antique” scrapbooks I made as a child somewhere in all my boxes) but this took everything to a different level and the idea of combining this with all those thousands of photos I’ve always taken seemed to be a perfect creative outlet for me. I’ve not looked back since those early beginnings.

In September 2007, my sister opened an online store (Bellaboo.co.uk, now under different management/ownership) and she allowed me to help her with her kit work. I loved being on her design team and really pushed myself each month to come up with something different each month – perhaps to the detriment of developing my own style. Through this work, I was asked to create some layouts for The Scrapbook Magazine (UK) where I have been part of the design team since late 2008.

When I’m not scrapping, (and that doesn’t leave a lot of time), I teach Business English as a second language (incl coaching, translation, document checking and editing), spoil look after said love of my life, take photos and blog over at Recklinghausen Musings http://lisahausmann.blogspot.com/ (Recklinghausen is the first place we lived when I first moved here and it really won my heart in the 8 years I was there – now I just live a few miles away).

I’m a class and challenge junkie and adore everything at BPC as well as LOAD and other challenge prompts. Through BPC I had three turning points in my scrapping. Firstly, encountering Stacy Julian and her non-chronological scrapbooking philosophy confirmed that what I’d done from (literally) day 1 was not “wrong”. I’d never really scrapped events and couldn’t get my head around trying to do pages in order. Stacy and Simple Scrapbooks showed me there were others out there who thought the same way. Secondly, I learned a lot about journaling from Karen Grunberg in her journaling classes for those times when the story is long and detailed. Journaling has always been very important for me and her class showed me how to approach the more detailed stories. And lastly, but certainly not least, I owe all my clustering and dimension (or a lot of it anyway) to Nic Howard’s classes, “Dimensional Details” (A*** in my book!) and “Colour! Or is it Color?”. I know that I learned so much about all my “no white space” (!) philosophy from these two classes.

All in all, these three influences have developed the style I have today. It took me some time but I finally found what feels to be totally “me” in summer 2010 when I got that huge “aha” moment during the Dimensional Details course at the same time as doing my third LOAD. Everything just fell into place and I started to be able to make pages every day that I loved.

I don’t have children so I scrap my story, my life with the love of my life, our adventures, our everyday and our families (including adorable nieces and nephew when I need a kiddie fix!).

In case you hadn’t realized, I love colours, layers, clusters, distressing and multi-photo designs. My favourite manufacturers are BasicGrey, Crate Paper, Echo Park, Cosmo Cricket and My Mind’s Eye as well as Prima pretties and American Crafts Thickers.

Editor’s Note: Oops! Forgot to give you a prompt! Freestyle… and I’ll tell you a secret – tomorrow we get a cluster tutorial from Lisa – shhhhh!

(Layout contributed by hokiechef – scraplift of a Gridz template by Chrissy W. – thanks!)

In order to keep things a little easier for the Spawn of True Scrappers among us, today’s prompt will take the general form of using a grid. Our 3 pm tutorial, “Lisa Dickinson – Going Off the Grid – Creating Layouts That Are Anything But Square” should help inspire us.

It was interesting to check out our gallery & notice how often a gridded layout can be found – take a look for yourself!

There is something about this format that appeals, but that orderly surface is only the first layer. Notice in the sample above that the excitement begins in that rogue square that  “goes off the grid”.

Today we are going to browse the gallery & find a title treatment to scraplift!

Remember to stretch yourselves, try something new, and give the link to your inspiration.

Today’s prompt courtesy of our own LisaInRe, to be featured this weekend as our next guest star!

The calendar can be a great source of inspiration on those days when your fingers want to scrap but you’re lacking ideas.

I first found this idea through Elizabeth Dillow’s book “The Scrapbooker’s Almanac”, and her subsequent BPC class, Red Letter Days, and I haven’t stopped checking the diary since. But you don’t need the book or the class to find fantastic starting points for your pages.

For example, did you know that today, 19^th October, is “Evaluate Your Life Day”. Well, this got me thinking that would be the great starting point for a meaningful page and the result is a page that I love and that gives me a snapshot of what I was thinking at this time.

Or what about the fact that it’s John Le Carre’s birthday today? I was thinking that I’ve never read any of his books and that got me thinking about a page to do with my taste in reading – likes, dislikes, styles etc.

See where the inspiration can lead you?

Or did you know that October is “German American Heritage Month”? As a Brit living in Germany, this got my mind going in all sorts of directions – cultural differences, ancestors, history and so much more.

Or October is also “Bat Appreciation Month” which reminded me of a story when I was living in the Philippines and my mum and I were visiting one of the beautiful islands when we saw what we thought was a dark cloud at sunset. But no, it was a huge swarm of bats leaving their bat cave!! Funny story that might easily be forgotten but which adds detail to my time living there.

So I hope you can see that there is so much inspiration out there just by checking out the date.

Some useful links are:

Holidays: http://www.giftypedia.com/Fun_and_Unique_Holidays

Celebrity birthdays: http://www.giftypedia.com/Celebrity_Birthdays

International holidays: http://www.giftypedia.com/International_Holidays

Chase’s Calendar of Events: http://www.mhprofessional.com/templates/chases

BBC On This Day: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/default.stm

This Day In History: http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory

Use your calendar today as a starting point to your page and be amazed at the direction the prompt takes you!

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And just in case you are still sceptical, here are some pages I have made in the past in this way:

Look Up At The Sky Day

International Moment of Laughter Day

Smile Power Day

National Lobster Day

Today we zoom in.

Choose a photo or a subject and really focus in on a detail. It may be part of a dear face that you would know anywhere. Some nook in your home. Your grandmother’s spatula you use every day. But don’t let me narrow your choices too much :~)

Use a unique way to highlight it. Cover your photo with vellum cut to reveal the significant portion. Use arrows. Use a shape as a frame. Choose a matching color in other parts of your layout. Paint out the rest!

Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Sassyscrapper2010 had a brilliantly inspired theme for the whole month…

Travel: A Scrapbooker’s Everyday Journey

The prompt I chose for today is to scrap just normal life stuff that we don’t always document.

More prompts to come!

A sunburned zebra! hehe, or your layout today…

Smileygurl80 says how about a prompt to use black & white photos with one color photo?

I think Alijoyc got the memo a day early! Check out her Day 15 layout.

What if you don’t have any b/w photos? Photocopy, scan & print, or leave a space for later…