Navy + yellow by rosiew

I've been playing with Polyvore and experimenting with putting together palettes using their site. On the whole I like it - it's easier to clip things I like when I'm browsing - but I really struggled to put together the palette because their interface is less flexible than the software I used previously. That being said I think my main problem here was the colours I chose. I'm pretty obsessed with navy blue at the moment and a deep, mustardy yellow theoretically works well. But looking for scrapbooking supplies that match my ideas was a different matter.

I'm really enjoying putting these palettes together as they show what works (or not) so quickly. I'd love to see if you've made a palette too, or hear your opinions on navy + yellow. Happy Friday.

Trick or treat! I'm not a fan of tricks, so instead I have a trio of spooky treats to share:

I adore this apple book tutorial from Cheeky Magpie (via Craft.) Maybe it's more autumnal than anything, but a little group of them would make a great decoration. And the shape could be adapted to suit other occasions too.

The hauntingly good bunting above the PaperCraft inspirations desks. Designer Lucille hand-cut pumpkins and bats from tissue paper and strung them from the ceiling. Apologies for the yuk photo, the lighting in here is pretty harsh. Lucille also made pumpkin cheesecake for the office - yum!

Check out the free card download from Inside a Black Apple - one of my favourite blogs.

Edited to add: how could I forget! You can download some cute doodled Halloween digi elements from Kate Hadfield right here!

Do you have Halloween plans? I think I'll be curling up on the sofa with a couple of scary films and a goblet of witch's blood (ahem, red wine!) Boo!

BasicGrey release so many new products that it sometimes takes a while to get to know them. The latest releases were a bit like that for me - Ambrosia grabbed me straight away, but it was only in the last couple of weeks I've looked more closely at the others. Urban Prairie is a good example. I saw the birdy paper and got excited, but then neglected to look more closely at the rest of the range.

The patterns are lovely and they remind me of a cross between Japanese cuteness and a folksy style - not an easy combo to pull off! But my favourite thing about this collection is the colour palette. Aqua blue, pinkest pink, lemon and lime plus the genius bit - black. It tempers the rest of the colours so they don't seem to sickly and gives the whole collection a more grown up feel.

Scouting round the internet I realised I was being drawn to the same colours and so I put together a collection of them:

Sources, clockwise from top left: American Crafts Haute ribbon, BasicGrey Urban Prairie buttons, Ranger Adirondack paint dabber in Stream, Bazzill Cardstock with an Edge mini scalloped parakeet, October Afternoon Country Fair Ferris Wheel patterned paper, Evalicious baby girl mix button embellishments, Sassafras Lass Happy Place patterned paper, American Crafts felt Thickers.

This week's Flickr Friday inspiration comes from Flickr user *Peanut -- also known as Lauren. Her photostream is filled with beautiful images but she still considers herself a beginner -- which makes her photos even more interesting to view each day. Definitely someone to check out for inspiration with beautiful colours and compositions even when working with objects in and around the home.

This week you're on your own as we'd love to see how you take inspiration from this picture. Send us your pages inspired by this lovely photo for a chance to appear in a future issue of Scrapbook Inspirations!

Here's one layout we were excited to receive in response to a Flickr Friday post -- reader Amanda Jones was inspired to break out her butterfly punch after last Friday's photograph!

So what will inspire you this weekend -- the colours, the strawberry subjects, the placement to the left of the photoframe? Can't wait to see!

This week's Flickr inspiration comes from Fiona Watson -- or Wild Goose Chase on Flickr. Her photostream is filled with beautiful still life works, carefully constructed from a variety of bits and pieces that she brings together just perfectly. Fiona is also a talented portrait artist -- you can see more of her work here.

I love this photo, which she calls Metamorphosis. I thought the underlying clean lines, the high contrast of the colours and the silhouetted shapes would make it easy to translate into a scrapbook page. But not so much:

I tried cutting butterflies and birds but had no luck with them looking delicate like Fiona's, so went for a scrapbook staple in the scallop punches. This isn't a composition I would normally create and I'm not sure that it's totally finished, but that's the point of Flickr Fridays: to bring an element of inspiration to try something new. You never know...it may grow on me.

But now you have the chance to show me up and create a masterpiece using Fiona's photo as a point of inspiration. Be sure to send us your Flickr Friday pages -- yours could be featured on the pages of Scrapbook Inspirations.

Have a fabulously scrappy weekend!

Something new for Fridays on the blog: Flickr Photo Inspiration! Every Flickr Friday, we'll pick a photo to inspire your scrapbooking over the weekend. Use it as inspiration for your own photography by trying a new angle, different lighting or emulate the pose and scenery...or use it to inspire a layout, taking influence from the colours and design elements you see within its 4x6 glory.

This week's photo is from talented Flickr member Amanda Keeys, an Australian photographer with a photostream filled with soft, beautiful images of children in adorable outfits. For more from Amanda, check out her Etsy shop, her blog and her Photoshop actions. All full of loveliness!

Here's our first take for Flickr Fridays -- can you spot the inspiration taken from the photo?

Now it's your turn: use Amanda's photo to inspire your creative efforts this weekend and let us see the results! You never know when your Flickr-Friday-Inspired project might grace the pages of Scrapbook Inspirations!

Welcome to the first scrappy interview! My first victim interviewee is Anita Mundt. Anita is a member of the ScrapBook inspirations design team; she likes taking photos, bright colours and puppies. Here we go!

Rosie: What’s on your desk right now?
Anita: My glasses, a delicious pile of new Hambly papers, a new printer cartridge waiting to be installed, my canon 5D camera, my mary-jane Crocs (don’t ask why!), a glue stick, a roll of gaffer tape, my iPod, my Macbook and a bunch of wild flowers in a jam jar my DH brought (no... really, he’s THAT thoughtful!)

What was the first scrapbooking supply you ever bought?
Oh my goodness, that was a LONG time ago! I think probably some patterned papers, followed by eyelets.

Have you ever injured yourself while scrapping?
Hmm... several paper cuts, small but nasty! I’ve also cut myself lots of times when being impatient trying to unpack new products in blister packs (I hate those!) I hurt my hand quite frequently on my old Sizzix machine (the one with the press down handle), thank goodness they replaced it with the turning handle on the Big Kick!

Please share a layout that you've recently made
This is a layout I made with a photo I took of an old friend. I used the kit from De Creatie. Dutch graffiti is always so creative and made a perfect theme for this layout.

What’s your scrapbook superhero skill?
I’m pretty good at cutting with an exacto knife intricate patterns, my hand is very steady and a can manoeuvre it easily, a skill I picked up at art college I think. Other than that, I like to doodle... on anything and everything!

Tell us a scrapbooking secret
When We R Memory Keepers first released the Crop-a-Dile I misread it and called it a Crop-o-Dilly for weeks. I even taught a workshop calling it a Crop-o-Dilly before someone told me I was pronouncing it wrong! I like to be individual though, so still insist on calling it my Crop-o-Dilly, just for fun

Any recent photos we can see?
Here are a couple from a recent photo shoot...

You can see lots more of Anita's gorgeous photographs on her blog. Thanks so much for taking part in my very first scrappy interview.

Would you like to be interviewed for the blog? Or would you like to nominate someone for a scrappy interview? Let me know in the comments below!

We've had birds (especially owls!), butterflies, bugs and even robots, but it looks like there's a new creature coming soon to your scrapbook pages... sock monkeys!

The new 'Bambino' range from Daisy Ds includes some very sweet monkeys:

Sock monkey Grand Adhesions stickers from K&Co's new 'Berry Sweet' collection.

What do you think? I like them, but I'm not sure I'd scrap with them.

I've been enjoying Marieke Berghuis Leewens' blog Treats and Treasures. She posts pages from her journals, each one mixing sketches, photos, ephemera from her day and magazine clippings. I love the effect.

Fancy having a go at making your own magazine? These magazine page overlays from Creative imaginations really made me laugh! Funnily enough they don't do a ScrapBook inspirations one, but Cat World sounds good.

We spotted these giant rub-ons from Design Supremo in fellow Future mag, Computer Arts. The A2 sized sheets of Love/Hate Letraset rub-ons may be considered 'old-school' by professional designers but to us they're just fantastic embellishments! These sheets are not cheap (£65!) but where else will you find 3in high rub-ons of words like 'Hoovering' and 'Cream buns'?!

It was my mum's birthday at the weekend so I can now show you the card I made for her. It's just a simple piece of black cardstock decorated with buttons, brads, felt and plastic flowers and paper scraps. I used some origami papers I've been hoarding, along with some scrapbooking ones and even a blue paint chip. I used my circle and square punches to keep the shapes regular and adhered the whole lot with double-sided tape. I love making cards but often struggle to come up with an idea - or find it hard to recreate the idea in my head onto a card! The inspiration from this one came early one morning (I was lying awake at 5am!) and I jumped out of bed and made it before work. Do you ever make cards? I find them a good way to use up tiny scraps and snippets that would otherwise go straight in the bin.