Citrus Twist Sunday Sketch

Hello.  Not only is it the last day of August, it is also time for another Sunday Sketch at Citrus Twist!  This week's sketch brings you an opportunity for including multiple pictures and lots of embellishments.

And here is my take on this sketch using products from the August Main, Embellishment, and PL Kits,:

I had originally printed out and planned on using three photos, but as I was laying them out I felt that all three together really overwhelmed my smaller sized layout (8.5x11), so I opted for going with one photo and filling the remaining photo space with a phrase cut from the Shimelle Paper Pad included in the August PL kit.

One of the great things about a sketch, is that they can be easily adapted to fit your needs and asthetics which is what I did. This time though, I still wanted to scrapbook the other photos I had eliminated from my layout because all of them together told a more complete story.

My solution for this, was to include a coordinating pocket page to go alongside it in the album.

To play along this week and for a chance to win $5 to spend at the CTK Store, upload your projects based off of this week's sketch to the CTK Gallery.  You have until September 6th and please include "Sketch 8/31" in the discription.

Wishing you a great week!

Stretching Your Kit: Currently

I am a huge fan of kits, but their comes a point during the life of a kit, where I sort of get a little tired of it and I put it away and forget, expecially since I tend to move very slowly through paper.  I want to work more on keeping that from happening though, because to be honest, if a kit is shelved, it's probably not gonna get played with again because something cooler and brighter is always around the corner.  And it is just a waste of pretty paper and products.....oh, and money.

Therefore, I am introducing my first re-occuring and regular post on my blog:  Stretching Your Kit or How-to-put-some-more-life-into-a-kit-and-kill-it-for-good! 

For this inaugural post, I am going for the most simple of strategies: Introduce more patterned paper into the remains of your kit. What?? I know, some of you are saying that you can't use of the paper you already have in the kit, so why would you want to add more???  Well, for me, adding a fresh dose of color, particulary a color that is not featured in a particular kit, opens up the possiblities.  And the quickest and easiest way to do this, is add in some paper from your stash.

Color is by far, one of my favorite design elements.  I have taken several scrapbooking classes pertaining to color and I pin color combos like I am an interior designer :).

With that being said, I went straight to one of my favorite papers from Dear Lizzy's most recent line...

 

 

Yellow has always been a favorite color and I thought it would go perfectly with my remains of Citrus Twist's August kits.
 

 

And this is what I created:
 

 

I did not use a lot of the yellow paper in the layout, but the addition of the new color brightened up the turquoise and the pinks and gave my page a little bit more energy. Of course, the fact that I used up a tiny bit of my paper stash made me feel pretty good.

 

So, what are your go-to strategies for freshening up kits? I would love to know what you think and I absolutely appreciate each and every one of your comments!

 

Michelle 

Create

When it was announced that Shimelle was going to have a line with American Crafts, I was thrilled.  I have always loved her style and loved to watch her scrap on her videos, so I was overjoyed when Trina, owner of Citrus Twist, let the DT know that August's kits would have lots of  papercrafting goodies from the new Shimelle line in them. 

After I had finished my design team projects, I decided I wanted to create a layout just for me using lots of the Shimelle collection because one of the stickers available in Shimelle's sticker pad just pretty much summed me up.

 

 

Yes, I scrapped about scrapping.
 

 

 

Everything that I used for this layout came from the various August kits from Citrus Twist, except for the "I 3> Scrapbooking" badge which came from 2Peas. 

 

I had so much fun scrapping one my favorite things and I really need to do this more often.  I actually have lots of ideas for scrapping more about myself, but as in most areas of my life, family and dog come first, so my little album is a little light.  At least my "Me" album is cute though--
 

 

The new Studio Gold products by Teresa Collins for WeRMemory Keepers are out of this world, expecially the new 8.5 x 11 albums like this one here.  The tourquoise and gold polka dot combo is so pretty.  I ordered this one from the Citrus Twist Store and I was so surpised when I was putting this post together to find that there are still some available. What?!  Beautiful album.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Michelle

 



Love This

Beach pictures are by far, my favorite to take.  Therefore, naturally, they are my favorite to scap :).  And luckily, I get to go about once a month during the warmer months, so I have plenty of sandy pictures to work with.

 

I am still experimenting with printing my journaling .  I like it so far, but it does require pre-planning.  I basically put the layout completely together without adhereing.  Then, when I come to the point where I want to journal, I jot some measurements down in regards to where I think I want the words to go and then head to the computer.  From there I type it out, print it on regular computer paper, and then put my layout back together on top of it to see how it looks.  If it is not working for me, I make some adjustments and try again.  When I am finally happy with the placement, and have triple checked spelling and grammer, I print it onto textured cardstock.  A little time consuming, but worth it.
 

 

I think it is kind of funny that I am typing my journaling again because when I first started scrapbooking I typed my journaling onto cardstock and then cut it out and glued it onto my layout.  Funny how things come full circle!

Michelle

 

 

 

Worth the Wait

Happy Friday! Today I want to share a layout featuring a diecut background and my handsome teenage son :). 

I was super late in jumping on the Silhouette band wagon.  I absolutely admired everyone's work with it, but I tend to think a little bit like my dad and have a hard time spending money on things that aren't really necessary.  Finally though, I caved last Thanksgiving on a Portrait because the Black Friday price was AMAZING. *note: I did not get the Cameo, thinking like my dad there too.

Absolutely a purchase without any regrets and I used it to create the background for this layout:

 

The cut file I used can be found here at The Cut Shoppe.

Michelle

 

 

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My Forever Favorite

Besides looking at other scrapbooker's work, I find inspiration regulary from non-scrappy things.  This often includes quotes, magazine layouts, photos, and typography. I have one board on Pinterest labeled "Scrappy Inspiration" and this is where I file away these types of inspiration. 

When it comes to pinning quotes to my scrappy board, I generally am looking for something that inspires a story or describes a particular emotion or trait that relates specifically to one of my scrappy subjects.  For instance, sometimes I will see a quote and instantly think of some story I want to tell or I will find a quote that sums up one of my children perfectly and use part or all of it as a title or as my journaling. 

For this next layout, I saw this and instantly thought of some pictures I had of my husband.....

Source

 

And here is the layout it inspired:
 

 

The words featured in my pin became my title and inspired me to scrap this goofy picture of husband.
 

 

 

Where do you find scrappy inspiration?  Please share, I would love to know!

 

Michelle

 

 



 



Cuteness

Happy Monday!  Just wanted to jump in and share a layout that I made at the beginning of summer.....

 

This is one of those layouts that came together super fast.  I knew ahead of time that I wanted to use a big piece of the floral paper from Heidi Swapp, so I kept the rest of the design pretty simple.  Often times I find that bold and big floral prints are a bit overvelming, but if you keep it simple and the let the paper shine, it works out :). 

 

 

 

Wishing you a great week!

 

Michelle

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

As I am sure most of you know already, Robert Galbraith, author of The Cuckoo's Calling, is really J.K. Rowling. And it is for this fact that I hesitated in reading the book.

Prior to Rowling being outed as the author, the book had great reviews. The crime novel certainly fell into my realm of interest, but I was absolutely, completely and totally disappointed in Rowling's last book, The Casual Vacancy.  I didn't finish the book, which is incredibly rare for me.  I just could not get into the story even though I tried and tried....and I could not get over the use of the "f" word.  I certainly am not against bad language in literature, but every other word for pages and pages....not so much my cup of tea.

But I bought this new novel.  And I started it.  And I took The Cuckoo's Calling with me on my first kid-free two day adventure with the husband since my daughter was born and I finished it. 

Very good.  And thankyou J.K. Rowling for not disappointing!

I quite enjoyed the mystery, but I really loved the main character, Detective Cormoran Stike.  He's funny, smart, sad, and very real and he is why I will be reading the sequel, The Silkworm.

As far as crime novel's go, it was pretty classically done.  Pretty complicated web to unravel, clues left behind, and danger.  All elements of a good, old fashioned mystery.  But it was the well written character of Strike that made it so much more successful.  I was rooting for him throughout the book, he made me laugh, and I am looking forward to meeting him again. 

Well done.

Michelle

Citrus Twist Double Page Layout

Lately I have found that trying new page sizes, techniques, and styles has breathed fresh life into my creativity.  A two page layout seems the perfect next avenue to explore.

When trying something new, I often take inspiration from scrapbooking galleries and pinterest, Double page sightings are rare though. I am certainly seeing more than usual, but there still is not a great deal to pull from.  So when I set out to design a two page layout, I really had to start from scratch.

I started first by narrowing down a color scheme.  Beside complimenting or highlighting photos, color can be used to unite multiple pages.  These are the products I pulled from the various August kits.

From this I narrowed my color scheme down even further to pink, red, gold, and a few neutral pieces in beige and gray.

Next, I spread my photos across the two pages and played around with the arrangement.  To keep it simple, I printed all but one of my photos the same size and went for a symetrical design to balance the photos on both sides. Here is what I decided on:

 

Now that I knew where I wanted my photos to go, I began to build a background.  Since I absolutely loved the red patterned paper from the August Main Kit, I decided to be bold and use it as one full side of my design.  I then cut a smaller pink rectangle to spread across both pages, bridging the two pages.

 

 

To coninue with the process of unifying my layout, I cut a border strip in a neutral beige from the 6x6 paper pad included in the PL Kit and placed it across the top of both pages, making sure they lined up.

 

 

 

With the foundation of the layout completed, I turned next to embellishing. To make sure I balanced them across the two pages, I used the embelllishment to create a visual triangle.  You can see that here in the finished layout.

 

 

Here are some closeups:

 

 

 

 

Products Used: 

August 2014 All That Glitters Main Kit

August 2014 Summer Dreaming Embellishment Kit

August 2014 It Had To Be You PL Kit

August 2014 Little Bit of Sass PL Embellishment Kit

 

Wishing you a great day! 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember

I recently participated in a Sunday Sketch Challenge at Studio Calico and I wanted to share my project with you.

The layout sketch was based off of this 12 x 12 layout by Elizabeth Kartchner.  What drew me to the sketch was the possiblity of using multiple patterned papers and colors.  I generally scrap with three colors and a neutral and I saw this as an opportunity to do more of a "rainbow" color theme.

 

One of the reasons I have a hard time attempting a multi-colored layout is that I often feel that too much variety can clash with the pictures.  Now, I know this is just a little quirk of mine and I should just let it go, BUT this picture, in its full, colorful glory, did not go with the colors I wanted to use AT ALL.  Thanks to my son's undying love of his royal blue sweatshirt, I am often confronted with this problem.  Since I was set on the products I wanted to use, I did a quick and simple edit to my photo by converting it to black and white in my PicTapGo app on my phone.  Problem solved.

I changed up the sketch a bit to better fit my layout size (8.5 x 11) and the vertical photo and loved the results.  It's a simple, uncomplicated layout--a style I am finding myself gravitating towards lately. 

 

 

Wishing you a great day!

 

Michelle

 

 

SC July LOAW Challenges

This past month I hosted the July LOAW Challenges over at Studio Calico and wanted to share my takes on two of the challenges.

The first challenge that I issued to SC Members, was to go "Big" with one element in your project. For my take, I upsized a diecut...

 

One of my reasonings in choosing to enlarge this particular diecut was that I thought it would make cleaning up my mat a little bit easier.  It did!  As much as I love this particular type of cut, cleaning up the million tiny pieces off of my mat is a bit of a chore.  I always have to tell myself to "go to my happy place" while I am doing it! Much easier to clean up big pieces.....

 

 

 

The last challenge for the month of July was simple-scraplift an SC Creative Team Member.  I thought this challenge was appropriate for the busy summer months.  I know that sometimes I want to make something, but make it fast and this challenge was for one of those moments. 

 

I chose to lift this layout from Kim Stewart.  I am absolutely obsessed with her gallery lately and she seems to share the same love for the floral diecuts :).

 

 

I failed to remember how much I disliked the whole cleaning of the mat thing before I cut these flowers and stems out.....LOL.  I will blame it on late night madness :).

 

 

Wishing you a great day!

 

Michelle

 





Citrus Twist August Reveal

Good morning!  Today is the day I get to reveal my projects using the August Kits from Citrus Twist!

It was so difficult this past month to keep the contents of my kits a secret, when all I really wanted to do was shout that I did indeed have parts of Shimelle's new line from American Crafts in my little hands!!  How exciting is that?! 

So onto this months kits!  August is jam packed full of new products from AC, Crate Paper, and Webster Pages.  Trina, the owner of Citrus Twist, put together beautiful kits as always and I am so excited to share them with you :).

Here are the August Main and Embellishment kits......

Main Kit-All That Glitters

 

Embellishment Kit-Summer Dreaming

 

This month, I also purchased both the Pocket Life and Pocket Life Embellishment kits and you will find pieces of them in a few of my projects.

Pocket Life Kit-It Had To Be You

 

 

PL Embellishment Kit-Little Bit of Sass

 



My first layout, "Golden Girl," came about after a lot of hesitating--it did not feel right to cut this beautiful paper from Webster Pages apart....

 

But I did!

 

And a look at the absolutely perfect glitter Thickers from Shimelle's line...
 

 

 This next layout feautures one of my favorite papers from Crate Paper....

 

 

"Always Here" is my Main Kit only Project and I pulled almost all of my embellishments from the ephremera pack from Crate Paper--love it when these are in my kits because it gives me a lot of options.

 

 

And because they will be featured in upcoming blog posts both here and at Citrus Twist, I will leave you with just a few sneaks of these last two projects.....

 

 

To see more inspiration from the Citrus Twist Design Team, head on over and check out the gallery.  You can also find us on Instagram under the username @citrustwistkits and at our newly formed Citrus Twist Fan's Page over on Facebook. 

 

Happy Reveal Day!

 

Michelle