FROM THE FRONT & FROM THE BACK, BY RACHEL

Here, handwriting, which was scribed on paper, photographed and then extracted into a digital brush, creates texture that reads as thought.

By stamping it around the page, and using it as a design element, it’s an ongoing conversation because it’s not quite eligible and incomplete.

It creates a sort of wondering and mystery, and this was my intention. To Echo that sentiment that this is something being built, not something that’s finished.

A journey of motherhood, and I just adore this candid photo of my two during a coffee shop date to celebrate Mothers Day back in 2024.

In reverse, there is something so quiet about taking photos of my two from behind and when they are head of me. Not seeing their faces, it’s a totally different vibe.

Somehow I see the world from their perspective more clearly. I notice all the little details, how one loves to be the leader and go ahead, stomping feet and arms and legs akimbo. The other quieter and more composed, holding back, contemplating with her hands in her pockets.

Exploring the trails in the local park is something we all love to do. The sturdy veins from the tree roots running across the trails are what you both love to call ‘the tree steps’ and we are all listening carefully identifying which birds we can hear and not wanting to miss any.

Well, that’s if Keaton’s stomping and bold walking style doesn’t scare them off first ha ha!

Lynn uses a similar lens here with her photos, standing slightly more adjacent but still taking photos ‘from behind’. It really does add a little something special I think.

Digital assets here in the spotlight are from a collaborative collection called Hear My Voice Building and this Kit is a great one to talk about your life journey, and what you’re building emotionally or physically. There’s lots of different ways ‘building’ shows up in our lives.

RETRO TREASURES, BY LYNN

‘Retro’ is a useful word, isn’t it? Great for describing battered furniture on facebook marketplace, and good for when ‘vintage’ implies too great an age.

I am not ready to describe photos from my lifetime as ‘vintage’ ;-)

In my mind, ‘retro’ covers anything from the 1960s to the 2000s. So that would include this great photo of my grandad, nan and an unknown suntanned man on holiday in Mallorca in the 1970s.

My grandparents were enthusiastic early adopters of the package tour to sunny places, and although they didn’t take many photos, I treasure the ones I have. (I actually think neither of them had a camera so the photos all seem to be ones taken by people they met on their travels. In those days, people would take an address and promise to mail a copy when the photos were finally developed)

I used my very ‘sunny’ Valencia kit for this.

VALENCIA

And here are some photos from a few years before that, when my parents took the bold step to leave the UK, ending up in Hawaii just before Christmas. Unlike my grandparents, they were keen photographers so I have an amazing record of my childhood.

I had fun making these pages with the ‘Darcy’ Templates of mine

DARCY TEMPLATES

WEDNESDAY HALF PRICE SPECIALS

The examples shown above (plus many other products!) are included in our ‘Something Old Something New’ sale at the LilyPad which includes discounts of at least 50% off - save extra on bundled collections ;)

Find elements, and collections for today only, 17 June 2026.

(For those who only shop at Oscraps, we also have our ‘Weekly Oscraps Wonderful Deals’ ← there, with a smaller selection of specials.)

We hope your week is going well and, as always, thank you for being here!

Rachel & Lynn

You can see the post introducing the MEND kit here:

I recently found this photo of me lost, as per usual, in my own thoughts. I was struck by the cute little dress, which prompted lots of memories of my mother’s sewing missions.

For our premium subscribers, I delve into the style of the page - dubbed by the ever-helpful Rachel as a blocked collage with intentional disruption - and share more memories and inspiration.

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There are so many art journaling avenues to explore prompted by the theme of our mixed media kit, ‘Forage’.

And not every page you create has to be ‘deep and meaningful’, you can also use it to explore the little things in everyday life that you have found joy or meaning in.

Like Lynn did, with this wonderful pair:

That’s Tim and his ‘niece’ Jess on the way to the beach.

My husband is always searching for ways to add calm and peace to his life, and Tim has brought so much of that. He is a ‘street dog’, with his care shared between three households on our short, dirt road in the forest.

And Rachel was able to record another unexpected surprise for her son:

Speaking of unexpected, I wasn’t prepared for finding this photo when foraging through my late Mother-in-law’s old photos, or for how much Martha (her gran) resembles my own daughter, now that she is older:

Like all of our mixed media kits that are gifted initially to our premium subscribers here, ‘Forage’ is perfect for hybrid creating, as Theresa demonstrates with this page about ‘foraging’ in Walmart :-)

Rachel has had fun using some salvaged library index cards to make Collage Art using the Kit.

Whilst it may not be obvious at first glance, these cards were made thanks to a fun process of salvaging and repurposing parts of her actual digital scrapbook page that was featured above.

This layout was printed in parts and aided in the creation of these cards. If that process interests you, she shares insights and her process in this premium article:

And finally, like me, Roxana found an old photo that prompted lots of thoughts:

SHOPPING OPTIONS:

‘Forage’ is now at both The Lilypad and Oscraps at a VERY special price (see below ..)

Forage for FORAGE at The Lilypad!

OR at Oscraps

AN EXTRA SURPRISE

It’s Oscraps 20th birthday!!

And that means lots of fun and games in the forum PLUS everything in our stores there is at least 40% off this weekend.

That includes “Forage”.*

*If you are a dedicated Lilypad shopper, never fear, we have set “Forage” at 40% off there as well.

LYNN'S OSCRAPS PRODUCTS

RACHEL'S OSCRAPS PRODUCTS

We’d love to hear from you! Your interactions and comments help us to learn more about you and what you enjoy us talking about.

As always, thank you so much for being here and reading :)

Lynn & Rachel

THE BEAUTY OF TEXT, BY LYNN

We are so used to seeing text all around us that we often barely notice it.

Yet, text - ie these collections of little symbols which convey meaning - is really quite amazing - and also a staple in our mixed media collections.

It’s hard to imagine a mixed media page without at least one ‘textual’ element. On the page above, made with ‘Kindness Changes Everything’ collection, I can spot two pasted down torn old book pages, text paper used to make a banner, and a fragment of text as a stamped brush. Plus, of course, the phrase tag and the little journaling.

I also love the little handwritten phrase tags of Rachel’s that are in the collection, like the one that says ‘be the reason someone smiles today’ on the page below:

That’s me in Paris for the first time, so no wonder I was smiling. That fragment of text as a brush makes an appearance again, and an appropriate phrase tag is tucked under the photo.

I feel like text often anchors a page, providing not just context for the photo(s) used, but also naturally drawing the eye so the onlooker doesn’t just skate over the page and move on.

So how many bits of text you can spot on this other “Kindness Changes Everything” page:

KINDNESS CHANGES EVERYTHING COLLECTION

WHAT RESONATES, BY RACHEL

My heart did a little happy dance looking at Lynn’s beautiful layouts using the graphics from our Kindness Changes Everything Collection. We made that Kit together at the very start of our collaborative journey when we first started working closer together so it’s really special to me. It gives me all the feels seeing her pages!

Whilst I was looking through my folders at my own older layouts, it made me think about what else resonates with me and what else feels special to me and I saw a pattern.

It’s the finer details and the joy of life from my perspective. Those days when I choose to linger in my gaze and notice the change in my child’s posture or mannerisms as they grow and develop. A glance from hubby that makes me feel warm inside and those days when things feel safe and carefree.

I’ve realised that I adore scrapbooking life exactly as it is right now, ‘life on the go’.

Lynn has inspired me in so many ways over the years. For starters, I’m a more prolific scrapbooker because of her and more recently she inspired me to start a ‘monthly round up’ type page, and whilst i’ve already fallen behind with that, i have been, behind the scenes, organising my photos for various months of the year with the intention of catching up again.

Here’s one that i put together for March last year.

These are the little moments from that month that resonated with me that I wanted to record. No big highlights here, but to me they are my highlights, they were special glimpses into ‘life on the go’ and feelings that I didn’t want to forget.

From left to right:

• My two being silly sharing a bed and they were so tickled pink about lying next to each other. Note that I would not endure the chaos of them actually sleeping together ha! This was a ‘chill out zone’ and my eldest found it quite hilarious having his sister in his bed!

• My youngest working on division on the blackboard

• And again she’s featured in the next photo reading at the table

• Fun at the maze in our local park

• Daffodils in the same park

• Fun selfies on the way home with my youngest, she loves when we both wear our shades, even if it’s cold and she’s donning her wooly hat!

• Handsome hubby on our family walk, enough said ;)

I love scrapbooking as when i’m working with a photo I find it’s an opportunity to sit with that photo for a while and remember why it’s a keeper and relive those feelings about why it was taken in the first place.

The word art on this photo says it all, that there are moments that shift us.

Here my eldest was experiencing his first out of school club that he’d attend on his own without the comfort of mummy or daddy being there. A big thing for a child with suspected Autism, learning how to communicate with people that are new to him, forming new friendships and regulating his own emotions throughout the day.

It’s given him a real sense of routine and predictability during school holidays and here he’s on the bus with me on his way to his club for the day.

And sometimes it’s fun to just document the down right goofy!!

If you like the bits and bobs I used here they are Waypoints and This is Everything.

WEDNESDAY HALF PRICE SPECIALS

The examples shown above (plus many other products!) are included in our ‘Something Old Something New’ sale at the LilyPad which includes discounts of at least 50% off - save extra on bundled collections ;)

Find elements, and collections for today only, 10 June 2026.

(For those who only shop at Oscraps, we also have our ‘Weekly Oscraps Wonderful Deals’ ← there, with a smaller selection of specials.)

We hope your week is going well and, as always, thank you for being here!

Rachel & Lynn

It’s for everything that feels like it’s dangling by a thread, those things that are held together by love and very little else. Complicated family dynamics, relationships that take work, friendships that have weathered something and for all the bits and pieces of life that don’t fit neatly together.

We’re having fun creating with this stunning Kit and we can’t wait to share it with you.

‘MEND’ includes:

• 119 individual elements.

• 23 papers in both 12x12 inch and letter size format.

• Print sheets of both elements and papers for fun and easy crafting.

• Four bonus printable ready made collage sheets.

The team have already begun creating and documenting with this Kit and today’s article will:

• Take a peek at what we’ve already started to create.

• Share creative prompts like theme based single words and also mini creative challenges we’ve put together to guide your projects and inspire you

• Share a mini peek of some of the exclusive articles coming up for our paid subscribers this month with their associated creative projects

If you are a free subscriber and would like to join us this month, simply upgrade your subscription before the end of 30th June 2026 to unlock the ‘MEND’ kit and follow our creative journey.

Subscribe now

And, whether you want to upgrade for the bonus content or not, as always - thank you for being here and reading :-)

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FAMILY TRADITIONS & FAVOURITE SPACES AND PLACES, BY RACHEL

This month my Creative Team Members are taking a trip down memory lane and reliving family traditions and their favourite places and spaces whilst scrapbooking them.

Every year, Gaelle and her family like to take a trip down to the harbour and order sardines from the Banc des Sardines hut.

Natascha photographs part of her trip through Spain and it’s a family tradition to always try the local cuisine. Here they have skewered sardines grilled on an open fire on the beach.

Let’s take a peek at some of their favourite spaces and places. Whether that’s being out and about and accomplishing their own catch of the day, such as in this gorgeous Hybrid page by Theresa.

Or simply enjoying browsing through photos of their favourite beauty spots such as in this page by Aly.

Sarda & Salt is brand new at the LilyPad and was made to match the June 2026 Build Your Own Collection which is live this weekend.

Inspired by cobbled footpaths, the clink of a glass or two and the smell of fresh sea air, this fun Kit plus the handy linen papers is a great catch to document your own summer vibes or your ‘table for two’ photos.

Sarda & Salt Kit

Linen Papers

BLOCKS OF MEMORIES, BY LYNN

At the end of every month I whip up a page of significant memories.

I don’t fill traditional photo albums any more, these pages - once they are printed as 8.5 x 11 books - serve that purpose.

Some months have lots of big events.

Some months, especially when we have been travelling, need two pages.

Some months, like the one just gone, are much more prosaic. But still worth recording. One day the stress of living through a largely unplanned (but much needed) rebuild will just be a memory. I’ll have this page to remind me of when it happened and what it looked like.

The page design is a simple one that is really satisfying to whip together, using my trick of pulling colours from the photos to tie it all together. The dusky pink towel, the turquoise feathers of the Tui (and a toned down grey to match it) were the basis for this page:

My usual method of creating pages with multi-photo templates is to use a plain background and minimal elements.

But sometimes it’s fun to mix it up a bit, especially when Rachel creates a gorgeous sea-themed kit (see above!) with great patterned papers:

Here are the new templates I’ve been using (and, like everything in the ‘BYOC’ release, they are on sale at a special introductory price all weekend)

RETROVISTA NO.2 ALBUM TEMPLATES

Here are the BYOC ‘spend more, save more’ details in case you are planning to stock up. If you prefer to buy Rachel’s papers and elements as individual packs you can find them individually by heading to her shop.

We’d love to know what you think about the direction we’ve taken this month for the BYOC.

If you have time drop us a comment, we’d love to hear from you! And as always, thank you to EVERYONE for reading and for being here. Have a good weekend.

Lynn and Rachel

ROOM TO BREATHE, BY RACHEL

This week i’m talking briefly about the refreshing use of ‘white’ or ‘empty’ or ‘negative’ space on a scrapbooking layout. It can be called one or all of these things but basically, giving your page ‘room to breathe’.

Here are some visual examples that reinforce this design principle and when we talk about empty or negative space, it doesn’t have to mean it’s void of anything, but more so in the context of the area of the page being free of embellishments and free of distracting bits and bobs.

Such as in this example, of my sweet hubby. Whilst the unused areas of the canvas contain green paint and faded text (okay and maybe a distorted bug stamp), there is a significant portion of the page (above, and wrapped all around the photo area) where no embellishments have been placed. This provides breathing room for the focal point itself, and for the eye of the reader to wander around the layout and take in all the page has to offer.

It has a way of making us slow down, and take in the details.

And, interestingly, with this specific example, there is also a good portion of actual white within the negative space too, which also provides a fantastic contrast and makes the photo and the area that’s embellished even more so a huge focal point.

In the next example, which is of my eldest child during covid lockdown, the background is made up of subtle stripes, but as before, no elements or anything else have been placed (apart from the smudge of paint!). So whilst a pattern paper has been used here, there is still a sense of calm, and lots of ‘breathing room’ for this layout whilst it’s being processed by the viewer.

Even when working with mixed media assets, I always try to have breathing room in my pages. Here’s another example that features me, and the same principle, even with a deeply textured background paper.

All of the above pages were created with a Collection called ‘Hear My Voice Growing’. It’s a Collection I’ve used time and time again to create many pages with. I find it so versatile thanks to the greens and great sense of nature, but the theme is so broad and relatable. Whether it’s taken in context of the garden, like in this page by Creative Team Member Gaelle:

Or personal growth as individuals like in this hybrid piece by former Creative Team Member Esther:

Or the growth of children such as in this page from Creative Team Member Carol:

Honestly, lots to explore with this kit!

Hear My Voice Growing

ON SIMPLICITY, BY LYNN

In my life I have learnt I do best when I keep things as simple as possible.

While I love (live?) to travel and escaping winter by ‘home exchanging’ our island house for ‘points’ during the warmer months, this necessitates quite a bit of juggling and disruption. So the rest of the time, I try to keep it as routine and simple as possible.

Likewise, I frequently go on a decluttering binge, since mess and clutter (even the kind out of sight in a cupboard or drawer) messes with my calm.

When it comes to creating, I like things a little messier a lot of the time.

Messy paints, messy mixed media papers and pages with lots of ink splatters and a little chaos.

But often I am drawn back to a simpler style, usually with a clean white background paired with some popping bright colour.

For the page above I had a lot of fun picking out some colourful travel photos and making them shine by pulling the bold colours from them.

This was made with my ‘The Journey’ templates

I took a slightly different approach for this one of little in Trafalgar Square, London, where I mainly used pops of the traditional red of London buses and old phone boxes, even though that doesn’t actually appear in my photo. To me, though, it says ‘London’!

The templates have a similar theme of travel and movement (they are called ‘Cartography’) and I love how Amanda and Christa used them, also pairing white backgrounds with great use of colour:

Finally, if simple and traditional is your thing (sometimes or always) I have a very sweet little kit called ‘Soft Landing’ (used here by Ashley):

WEDNESDAY HALF PRICE SPECIALS

The examples shown above (plus many other products!) are included in our ‘Something Old Something New’ sale at the LilyPad which includes discounts of at least 50% off - save extra on bundled collections ;)

Find elements, and collections for today only, 3 June 2026.

(For those who only shop at Oscraps, we also have our ‘Weekly Oscraps Wonderful Deals’ ← there, with a smaller selection of specials.)

We hope your week is going well and, as always, thank you for being here!

Rachel & Lynn

Whatever the weather, we continue to create.

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Our finished pages can flit between going all out with mixed media or artsy vibes, to maybe a more clean and simple approach and also sometimes working in a more uniformed way in grids or ‘pockets’. But we admit to pushing the boundaries with that too!

We like to dip our toes into all sorts, and this approach serves our creative muses well, and of course fits into whatever season of life we find ourselves in. We don’t constrain ourselves to one and all, rather we create in a reactive and intuitive way which keeps things refreshing.

Today, enjoy a gallery of different page design ideas with many different vibes and approaches. And as we mentioned on Wednesday, to celebrate Rachel’s birthday, you can shop her whole store at 50% off through Sunday, including all of our collaborations (of which there are many!!).

All of the page design ideas featured here today use supplies that are included in Rachel’s huge sale.

View the full and extensive range of products on sale in the shop!

SCRAPBOOKING OURSELVES

We’ve found over the years that our collaborative kits have all the right bits and pieces to explore various stories of our own and the different stages and phases of our life as we know it at any one time.

These fun page designs feature Interlude, Hear My Voice Knowing, Hear My Voice Dreaming and Peregrination.

CONNECTIONS TO NATURE

Whilst we are on opposite sides of the world to each other, we both feel the pull towards salt air and love documenting it too.

These page design ideas use Hear My Voice Knowing, A Pocket Full of Pebbles and Noted.

THOSE BOUNDARIES WHEN IT COMES TO GRID PLACEMENTS

We talked a little about having fun pushing boundaries with grid placements. Here are some fun examples of how we both love painting photos in, clipping art and vintage imagery into pockets or photo spots and mixing and loosening things up.

These use Hear My Voice Healing, Hear My Voice Loving and Glow.

WHEN LESS IS MORE

Sometimes less can be more and is equally satisfying. I do love leaving breathing room in my pages and often like to simplify.

These examples use Hear My Voice Caring, Lived in Time Stamps and Titles, Boxed No.1, and This & That, September ‘25 Edition.

Shop Rachel's Huge Sale

CLOSING NOTES

There is so much more we could share with you but alas, we are out of space for today. If there are other genres of scrapbooking, or themed galleries that you’d love us to create, please do let us know.

We hope you’ve had a great week, and that you have a great weekend ahead, and as always, thank you for being here!

Rachel & Lynn

Everything in Rachel’s shop is reduced in price by 50% and to give you extra time to shop the sale runs through the 31st May. This includes all of our collaborations, which as you probably know, makes up a significant portion of our shops now!

Excuse us for noting this right at the top of our post but we didn’t want you to miss out! Read on for some highlights from Rachel at the bottom of the letter and keep reading for details of specials from Lynn.

THE BEST ‘BUGS’, BY LYNN

If you are a regular reader you may remember my recent post (which you can find as a footnote at the end of this post1) featuring my messy and fighting caterpillars.

They became much quieter:

Nurturing these creatures has reminded me how amazing butterflies and their life cycle is, and also why they have long being used to symbolise transformation, rebirth, and hope.

That’s why we included lots of butterflies in our ‘Hear My Voice: Changing” collection, which was used to beautiful effect here by Aly:

And here’s me deciding what my next transformation should be! (Still wonder what my life would look like now if I had made the ‘other’ choice ie to remain in the UK!)

And another from me with more recent photos. Butterflies and new years go well together!

Funnily enough, whenever I make collections or pages with butterflies I remember someone saying ‘oh, they look so pretty but I can never use them because …I can’t stand bugs’.

I guess they are bugs … just bugs in very fancy dress!

But rest assured, there are plenty of ways to use the ‘Changing’ collection that don’t use butterflies!

HEAR MY VOICE: CHANGING

IT’S MY BIRTHDAY BUT THE TREATS ARE ON ME, BY RACHEL

As noted above, to celebrate my recent birthday, I’d love to share some treats with you so I’m putting my entire store on sale and everything in my shop is reduced in price by 50%.

To give you extra time to shop, the sale starts now and runs through the 31st May. This includes all of our collaborations, of which there are so many to collect!

Here are some page designs to enjoy which showcase some of the best sellers from my shop from my own designs, and some of our collaborations!

For more product picks, page design ideas and designer favourites, follow Rachel via her Facebook Page and on Instagram.

Shop Rachel's Birthday Sale

WEDNESDAY HALF PRICE SPECIALS

The examples shown above (plus many other products!) are included in our ‘Something Old Something New’ sale at the LilyPad which includes discounts of at least 50% off - save extra on bundled collections ;)

Find selected elements, and collections for today only, 27 MAY 2026.

(For those who only shop at Oscraps, we also have our ‘Weekly Oscraps Wonderful Deals’ ← there, with a smaller selection of specials.)

Plus, everything in Rachel’s shop is reduced in price by 50% as part of a special birthday sale, and to give you extra time to shop the sale runs through the 31st May.

We hope your week is going well and, as always, thank you for being here!

Rachel & Lynn

And it’s made us think deeper whilst we’ve been creating.

Roxana has been reflecting on forage in the context of wisdom, and which truths have been found along the way and stayed with her.

In her page, she shared deeply moving journaling, and a “foraged” photo. It was both of these things that inspired me to forage through a tin of my own family photos that Mum has given to me, and create about an emotional and personal story of my own.

I’m going to share the inspiration page, my creative process AND the unredacted page I ended up with - but first, in case you missed it, here’s the post where we introduced “Forage” and it’s where the downloads and creative prompts can be found for premium subscribers:

By the way, if you haven’t upgraded your free subscription yet and would like to, the “Forage” downloads will be available only until the end of May. Then, early in June, we will have a new kit ready for our premium subscribers.

UNCOVERING DESIGN CHOICES No.13

Let’s take a peek at the layout that inspired me, and chat about design choices and thought processes.

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I’ve always been a little nervous or tentative to dip my toes into hybrid crafting, mostly due to space at home for storing physical pages vs digital memory keeping.

It’s honestly been so liberating to intermix digital processes with playful art practices though such as in this piece which started off as a rigid grid, using some of Lynn’s templates called Travel Again. Then mixing up that process by adding a collage of printed elements, playful mixed media from the digital supplies to loosen things up a bit and then my own marks and paint washes from my art stash.

I’ve loved this process so much that I’ve been trying to make one or two pieces at least once a quarter. And to solve the space issue at home, I think I plan to make digital copies of these pages by scanning them in and then have them printed as a photo book.

I also enjoyed working on a smaller A5 format, but when I scan them in at high resolution I could always print them larger if I wish so win win!

And honestly, I adore these quiet photos of our family. Pausing, meandering and enjoying a change of scenery. I used bits and pieces from my pretty ‘Brine’ Collection to craft these pages.

Wonderfully calming and regulating for us all it was and we are counting down the days until we go back again this summer …

I’ve been enjoying working in grids so much lately that you might remember the launch of my ‘Boxed’ template line. If you like the look of these I’ll be having another release in this series soon and I’ve been using them to make monthly recaps like this page from January.

Both the ‘Brine’ Collection and the ‘Boxed’ Template set are my ‘Specials’ for May at the LilyPad and can be purchased on sale through the rest of the month!

DIAMOND DETAILS BY LYNN

Sometimes I find I look at photos a little differently when they are presented in a less-than-usual way.

Somehow the act of clipping a photo to a different shape, and moving it around to focus on what I want to focus on changes how I view them.

On the page above, the photos of Alex and Rosie walking along hand in hand, and the photo of me communing with a statue, are ‘standard fare’. But the cropping of the architectural details of the Spanish town of Oviedo really make me notice them in a way I might not otherwise have.

The same for this nearby cemetery:

And here I was able to combine the excited pilgrims with little details from Santiago, such as the cute Octopi and shell symbols that you could spot all over the city:

And, from a quieter day, the details of the botanic gardens we visited with Rosie:

It somehow adds a new creative twist to making ‘collages’ / travel album pages with travel photos, by allowing me to lose myself more in moving around the photos and deciding what little details to focus on.

And that mirrors what I do when I travel - focusing not just on the grand views and vistas, but also searching out little unique details of the buildings and plants of these new places.

The album template set I used for this trip is “Diamond Days”, which is on special as one of my May featured designs, along with my “Best China” kit.

We hope your weekend and week ahead go well and, as always, thank you for being here!

Rachel & Lynn

DIFFERENT WAYS OF REMEMBERING AND DOCUMENTING, BY RACHEL

My documentation style is varied. I enjoy allowing my creative muse to take me wherever she wishes. She likes to pull me in many directions.

I flit between getting messy with tactile and hybrid collage & art journaling as in this video which is a documentation of my life with messy diary entries.

And then also general documentation of my life and family which sometimes looks like working in a grid format but with a Mixed Media twist. Such as these layouts I created using our Hear My Voice ‘Remembering’ Collection.

I enjoyed editing these photos using the Adobe Photoshop Express ‘App’ for mobile ios and applied one of their pre set ‘Matte Looks’ and then dropped the saturation a little bit in line with the tone and textures from other bits from our Kit.

Daddy really was in the spotlight on this day and was Keaton’s hero handling the owl so confidently!!

Working in a grid is fun and I find that I tend to include photos from my reel that otherwise wouldn’t make the cut if I was singling out just one single photo on a traditional page.

And often, I like to fill the pockets with papers or supporting pocket cards from the collection vs filling them all with actual photos.

I couldn’t resist putting the focus on this funny photo though onto a more traditional layout, Keaton’s face says it all and I think he was worried for my sanity at this point…

We had a fun photo session with his Easter Bonnet and these bunny glasses - I guess this is classified as an ‘out take’, funny that I managed to capture that sideways look at me whilst taking a selfie ha ha!

If you like the look of Hear My Voice Remembering it’s packed with all sorts of fun graphics for lots of different styles and genres of documentation.

MAKING TITLES BY LYNN

I usually try to include title options when I am pulling together my collections, and sometimes multiple options.

What I like about that is it allows me to create visually interesting titles on my pages as design elements when I come to create with the collection myself.

In my “Amica” collection I hand-stamped then scanned a title, scrawled the word ‘friend’ on paper then scanned that, digitally created a 3D ‘hello’ title, and also scanned and extracted an old word from one of my many vintage magazines.

Speaking of the hand written aka handscrawled word I included, I have been trying to include more of my own writing in collections but also on my own pages. It is much easier to do so nowadays, and my ‘quick and dirty’ method for adding some handwritten journalling to a layout (rather than ‘typed’ with a faux handwriting font) is to quickly scrawl what I want to say on a piece of scrap paper, then take a photo with my phone. I airdop that to my desktop, where I use the eyedropper tool to select the background colour (because even when you use white paper it photographs off-white at the very least!). I then use the hue/saturation and brightness/contrast tools to turn the background white and make sure the writing is bold and black before turning it into a brush (using Edit→ Define brush preset). I promise it is quicker and easier than it sounds!

Anyway, back to titles ….

This page below featuring Rachel is a special one for obvious reasons :-)

I used the stamped title and the handwritten word on it.

And on this one of another friend and I getting a bit giggly in Spain I mixed the place name and year in two different fonts, above the scanned vintage type and the stamped title:

And this is me with my ‘friend’ Annie the lamb. I used the stamped title above, and below I combined the 3D title and the handwritten word:

While Sheri, on this lovely page, combined the 3D title on top of (and partly obscuring) the stamped title.

AMICA COLLECTION

WEDNESDAY HALF PRICE SPECIALS

The examples shown above (plus many other products!) are included in our ‘Something Old Something New’ sale at the LilyPad which includes discounts of at least 50% off - save extra on bundled collections ;)

Find elements, and collections for today only, 20 MAY 2026.

(For those who only shop at Oscraps, we also have our ‘Weekly Oscraps Wonderful Deals’ ← there, with a smaller selection of specials.)

We hope your week is going well and, as always, thank you for being here!

Rachel & Lynn

If you missed the launch of ‘Forage’ or want to check out the subscription, you can find the details in the link below…

I salvaged some little index cards from a library to use as substrates and have been foraging paper bits and scraps from around the house to use in collage. The cards are a perfect little size so as not to get overwhelmed and they are nice and sturdy for collage too.

That’s not all I’ve been foraging though, as I ‘borrowed’ some digital art from a recent layered scrapbooking page I made in Adobe Photoshop with the ‘Forage’ Kit.

The desire to print and rip up this scrapbook page kickstarted my collage - if you’d like to follow along with my process I have prepared some studio shares and a video along with the reveal of all four little art cards I ended up with…

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It’s been refreshing and fun experimenting with different ways to do this and we came up with a process after tinkering about in Adobe Photoshop.

• Pairing treasured photos with a limited colour palette.

• Using mostly one bold pop of colour.

• Limiting pattern to simple or geometric prints.

• Intermixing stark contrasting blacks.

There’s much to laugh about here too, and let’s face it, sometimes if you don’t laugh you’ll cry!!

This week, the modern graphics that we are working with come from a brand new collection that’s landed at our shop at the LilyPad today. It’s from the ‘Hear My Voice’ series and is themed around ‘Laughing’.

Rachel has continued to scan old family photos (namely more photo booth shots!) that her Mum has entrusted her with and stumbled across this beauty of her Mum with her Sister having a good laugh.

Also used are Lynn’s ‘Just So Special’ layered templates which helped to inspire the design. This page was a process of layering papers and clippings down in a collage style and then anchoring the photo ‘off side’ to draw attention to it (with the help of that fab arrow).

Whilst the patterns used here provide visual interest, by sticking to geometrics, dots and stripes, they don’t make the page too busy or take too much away from the photo itself. The contrasting blacks are welcome here, and help to move the eye around the page.

In fact they serve more purpose with colour blocking, if you start at the bottom it helps the eye to move upwards scanning black, tan, black, pink and then land at the photo.

Note the wash of black paint that Rachel added behind the photo too, allowing the eye to land and settle here. It works as a transition, helping to lift the photo away from the background and bringing it to the forefront.

Lynn was so inspired by this technique that she wanted to try her hand at it too and came up with a similar design with this fun page which documents a very regrettable fringe!

Following a very similar process, Lynn has limited her patterns to the geometrics, dots and stripes and went with one bold colour pop in hues of blue which like Rachel’s page, act as a transition, lifting that precious photo away from the background.

Creative Team Member Aly has been busy printing and cutting these digital supplies and arranging them on paper in this ‘hybrid’ work of art.

Again, following a similar process of using one pop of colour, lots of contrasting blacks to guide the eye around the page and using lots of dots, stripes and grids.

We couldn’t resist continuing to create with the fun art papers and embellishments in this kit. Here Lynn has documented a matrimonial ‘out-take’.

And Rachel has documented another of her photo booth strips that she’s scanned from her Mum’s collection of photos.

Our Creative Team Members have been busy too, and seeing as there’s not enough space to share all of our creations here, if you’d like to see more you can enjoy this short you tube video that highlights many of our creations.

More can be found in store at the LilyPad!

SHOPPING OPTIONS:

• Hear My Voice 43 ‘Laughing’ is Available to buy now at The LilyPad!

• The best value lies in the bundled ‘all in one’ collection and it’s an extra sweet deal this weekend. Grab it before Sunday is over to take advantage of bonus savings. It will cost you more if you purchase Monday onwards.

• Find the Kit and Packs discounted by 20% through Sunday - all individual components of Hear My Voice (past and present) can be found in this special category here.

Purchase Hear My Voice 'Laughing'

We’d love to hear from you! Your interactions and comments help us to learn more about you and what you enjoy us talking about.

As always, thank you so much for being here and reading :)

Lynn & Rachel

COHESIVE BUT MESSY POCKETS, BY LYNN

What’s in your pockets?

If you are a clean and simple scrapper, your pocket pages may shine with crisp minimal cards and sharp text alongside your photos.

I love that look.

But my pocket pages are usually a lot messier. Like this one of the youngest at Graceland in the middle of winter (on a day when both her Dad and sister were laid out with food poisoning!).

Not ‘great’ pics and very busy photos, but treasures nonetheless.

On a messy pocket page like this, it’s still possible to pull everything together.

I do this my mirroring the colours in the photos on the page. I’ve pulled the orange from the flowers around Elvis’ portrait and the neon sign and matched it with the bow and banner and paper bit. I’ve also matched the red from her scarf and the roses with the card on the lower right. The white heart card is a perfect balance for her white puffer vest. There’s also lots of black in the photo, so there is lots of black on my page too.

The spots and splatters of ink also mirror the shape of the flowers scattered all over the photos.

Shapes feature in this page of the same trip as well.

I love the photo of her taken by me looking back at her in the RV as she amuses herself drawing or reading. The back of the seat in front makes a stripe, which is echoed by the striped background and the black swipe of paint on the card beside. It’s also echoed by the lines of the bridge and buildings. And of course, the brown of the wood grain is pulled for the paper piece at the side, and the grey card at the side and paper at the bottom is perfect for the grey skies and grey tarmac.

It’s so much fun and so satisfying making pages like these.

For both of them I used the ‘Hear My Voice: Hurting’ collection :-)

HEAR MY VOICE: HURTING

OPTIMISM IS OFFICIALLY IN SEASON BY RACHEL

This weeks stories shine the light on looking forward and being hopeful, even when there’s a MOOD!

Sometimes you need a little bit of grit (or the right colour combo) to really express all your feels and tell your story effectively and Lumen does just that.

Lumen, derived from the scientific term for light, honours the feeling of withdrawal and the emotional shifts we experience as the seasons transition. And those can be the literal seasons of our calendar year OR the seasons of our life.

Here I scrapbooked a dreary wet day and the monotonous school run, but with that, come feelings of gratitude and also reflections on the next season of life and what’s to come next.

I keep those more intimate thoughts to myself though on this page, in a handwritten scrawl tucked away behind the photo and elements.

Marnel sure brings in the hopeful vibes on this page with her bold use of the yellow background paper and pops of pink. Her powerful use of the quote ‘there is colour in these shadows’ speaks volumes here and I adore how she’s drawn attention to it with the turquoise. The contrasts of black help you move your eye around the page so easily don’t they?

I love how she shines the spotlight on herself here with all these fab photos.

Cristina has used a pocket card in a really fun way here and highlighted the text that reads ‘optimism now in season’.

Also I love the clear divide of the left and right side of the page, reflections and clear separation of thoughts and feelings. It’s very effective how it’s off centre too, leaving a nice large area of breathing space through the middle.

A brave selfie from me, and some more private thoughts and feelings again using that same technique of using my own handwriting (intentionally scrawled!) to disguise the journaling on this page.

This is a hybrid between scrapbooking and digital art journaling and whilst holds a photo of me to record a moment in time, was very much a cathartic release to get the feelings out on paper.

My page is called ‘i can do this.’

The grit we use to tell our heartfelt stories doesn’t have to be all loud as Cristina demonstrates in this page with my softer Thallus Collection. Sometimes, texture is everything, no matter the colour scheme.

She journals about something that didn’t go so well for her, but also about how hopeful she is.

Reflecting on photos of loved ones that are no longer here can be painful, and texture, along with minimal embellishing can speak volumes and quietly ‘hold’ a lot for us.

This page by Marilyn has quite an epic blend into a paper that was designed to mimic the movement of water. The placement of John is everything, his feet sinking into the sand and him looking down but out into the expanse of the paper ocean itself.

WEDNESDAY HALF PRICE SPECIALS

The examples shown above (plus many other products!) are included in our ‘Something Old Something New’ sale at the LilyPad which includes discounts of at least 50% off - save extra on bundled collections ;)

Find elements, and collections for today only, 13 MAY 2026.

(For those who only shop at Oscraps, we also have our ‘Weekly Oscraps Wonderful Deals’ ← there, with a smaller selection of specials.)

We hope your week is going well and, as always, thank you for being here!

Rachel & Lynn

That makes the theme of ‘foraging’ a rich framework for art journaling, as evidenced by the pages made with our latest mixed media collaborative kit.

You can see the post introducing the FORAGE kit here:

It’s a broad theme, and this is something I found - a photo of my husband’s great-grandmother, discovered amongst my late mother-in-law’s things as we cleaned out her room.

For our premium subscribers, I delve into the meaning of the page, and how I chose to create with it.

Subscribe now

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Because it is thousands upon thousands of choices - big, small and middling - that make up our lives and determine where we end up.

This weekend we are bringing our “Choose” Mixed Media kit to the stores, and it leans into that feeling of being at a crossroads, the quiet push and pull of decision-making, and sitting with your choices, past and present.

‘CHOOSE’ includes:

• 95 individual elements.

• 21 papers in both 12x12 inch and letter size format.

• Print sheets of both elements and papers for fun and easy crafting.

• Four bonus printable ready made collage sheets.

The beauty of these kits is that, although they are ‘print ready’ and include sheets of printables, everything within them is perfect for digital as well as hybrid creating.

However, page design does not always have to leave you paralysed by choices!

Lynn has been playing with a simple design formula of a small and centred photo, surrounded by design elements which direct attention to it.

Like on this page about her Dad when he was decided where to move the family to (a crossroads indeed, that could have seen Lynn grow up in Canada or the highlands of Scotland!)

This one about the choice not to return to the UK with her daughter, and another about the brave choice to ‘run away’ to Europe, and rediscover the wonder of travelling solo after years of constantly looking out for other people.

Meanwhile, Marilyn created this powerful page about the passing of time and loss:

And Roxana got really creative with her photography and split page design

CHOOSE AT THE LILYPAD

CHOOSE AT OSCRAPS

PS just a little note: these mixed media kit are gifted to our premium subscribers, who not only get early access to them, they also get prompts and exclusive articles about our processes (and lives!) . The next kit has just been shared with them, and if you sign up before the end of this month you can download that plus receive all our future premium content.

Subscribe now

Rest assured though, if you choose not to upgrade, there will always be lots of free content and updates here and we will always say …

Thanks for reading!

Rachel & Lynn

COLLECTING BITS AND BOBS, BY RACHEL

We often love to add a bit of nostalgia, and ephemera from years gone by in our digital kits. I love how they evoke feelings, can mimic where we are now in our modern lives and they can add a sense of mystery and magic.

When I saw the lady that Lynn included in our Yearn Kit she reminded me of myself navigating motherhood and all the challenges that brings. She looks lost in her own thoughts, quiet and seems to be silently contemplating whilst she was being photographed. She looks as if she doesn’t want to be in the spotlight at all.

I printed her out, along with many other bits and bobs from the kit so that I could create a collage in my junk journal combined with other scraps and fabrics.

In my stash of fabrics I found this piece of gauze, that was pre stitched by what looks like a sewing machine and it had these gorgeous dark and petrol blue beads.

They instantly reminded me of the colours of a Peacock and I just so happened to include one on a tag in the kit. These creatures are quite the opposite to the quiet sitting lady. Very happy to strut around, and be the centre of attention.

It was relaxing to work through the process of collage and layering. I enjoyed making a sweet little pocket too and tucking away tickets etc. from the kit along with a little hidden note.

The day before I made the spread I enjoyed some time alone in a coffee shop and I had a little go of hand stitching a coffee cup onto one of my fabric scraps.

The Yearn Kit is packed full of all sorts of textures and opportunities for modern mixed media page design too.

Love this page by former Creative Team member Robin who puts herself in the spotlight. I find it so interesting that whilst the fun background paper is full of marks, and embellishes her page beautifully, it’s still ‘white space’ as it’s untouched and gives her photo space to breathe.

In contrast, Aly has kept her white space literally white in this stunning page which was made out of season and her journaling makes reference to her yearning to experience spring days again.

The Yearn Kit is multi faceted, there are so many directions you can take your art and photos with this one, find it at the LilyPad here.

You’ll find many more page design and project ideas in the shop!

IT DOESN’T TAKE MUCH, BY LYNN

I love how much of an effect the smallest of changes can have on the look and feel of a photobook.

For instance, going with a black title block and black and white elements completely set the tone and made this page bold and stylish.

These photos were actually taken on black and white on a cheap film camera, but I would love to use this as the model for a whole photobook of landscape and cityscape photos converted to black and white.

Whereas these photos below are lovely but have little contrast in them and wouldn’t pop on a plain white page. So I added paint and a colourful title which tied them together and added some vibrancy.

And look what Rachel did with exactly the same photobook templates! Using the templates for printing out a page of photos, then adding handwriting, messy ink splatters changes everything. A wonderful hybrid page, but this unstructured approach (using just a few of the ‘photo spots’ and added handwritten and messy elements can also work completely digitally.

So there you have three very different pages with one set of photobook templates!

TRAVEL AGAIN TEMPLATES

WEDNESDAY HALF PRICE SPECIALS

The examples shown above (plus many other products!) are included in our ‘Something Old Something New’ sale at the LilyPad which includes discounts of at least 50% off - save extra on bundled collections ;)

Find elements, and collections for today only, 6 MAY 2026.

(For those who only shop at Oscraps, we also have our ‘Weekly Oscraps Wonderful Deals’ ← there, with a smaller selection of specials.)

We hope your week is going well and, as always, thank you for being here!

Rachel & Lynn

The fun hasn’t ended quite yet though … we’ve been busy behind the scenes designing one more BRAND NEW release and it’s available now!

‘FORAGE’ moves far beyond the literal garden, this kit explores the quiet thrill of noticing. It celebrates the art of finding something extraordinary hidden in the plain sight of everyday life.

We’ve already made so many page designs with this stunning Kit and we can’t wait to share it with you, we know it’s a keeper.

‘FORAGE’ includes:

• 99 individual elements.

• 21 papers in both 12x12 inch and letter size format.

• Print sheets of both elements and papers for fun and easy crafting.

• Four bonus printable ready made collage sheets.

The team have already begun creating and documenting with this Kit and today’s article will:

• Take a peek at what we’ve already created

• Share creative prompts like theme based single words and also mini creative challenges we’ve put together to guide your projects and inspire you

• Share a mini peek of some of the exclusive articles coming up for our paid subscribers this month with their associated creative projects

If you are a free subscriber and would like to join us this month, simply upgrade your subscription before the end of 31st May 2026 to unlock the ‘FORAGE’ kit and follow our creative journey.

Subscribe now

And, whether you want to upgrade for the bonus content or not, as always - thank you for being here and reading :-)

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