Hip Kit Club: Float

Hello! Michelle here, starting us off on this last week of July with a new layout using the July Kits!

Today I am sharing a project featuring both a new fave photo and a new fave color combo.

Lately I have found myself gravitating towards the color combination of aqua/turquoise and yellow. These last few weeks, these colors have been front and foremost in my mind and my pile of layouts can attest to this. Lucky for me, the July Kits are full of these colors!

The polka dot paper, yellow frame, and clouds are a match made in summer!

What colors are you loving right now? Are you super specific like me or are you all over of the rainbow? Whatever your colors of the moment, make sure and share your projects in our Member Forum on Facebook--I'd love to see them! 

Wishing you a great week.

Michelle

Hip Kit Club: Hello Ladies

Hi guys! Today I am back to share a new layout featuring the kits from The Hip Kit Club. I was recently super inspired by fellow Design Team member Missy Whidden's use of a kraft colored background, so much so that when I went to work on this next layout I started by pulling out a sheet of Kraft from the July Cardstock Kit and let that be my starting point.

It used to be pretty common to find kraft in scrapbooking galleries and I thought it was fun to bring this trend back and I really appreciate the inspiration Missy's project provided.

 

The Crate Paper chipboard pieces in the July Main Kit really made embellishing my layout pretty easy. The combination of the chipboard plus the Simple Stories frame and October Afternoon flair make me think that these three items must have been made for each other because they go together so well!

I don't know about you, but I really dig a good, bright red and I made sure to add some to my layout. The sentiment on the Elle's Studio tag pretty much summed up my feelings about this fun and funky photo of my daughters. 

My first few projects that I have made with the July Kits have been such a breeze to make which, in my opinion, really goes to prove just how well the kits at Hip Kit Club are put together. 

Looking forward to sharing more with you next week!

Michelle

Hip Kit Club: August Reveal

The beautiful August Kits from the Hip Kit Club were revealed this past week and today I want to share them with you !

This month's kits are a fun combination of some super fun products which include the newest releases from both Crate Paper and Pink Fresh. Here is the line up of kits for August (which I have linked up for you!):

August Main Kit

August Embellishment Kit

August Project Life Kit

August Color Kit

August Cardstock Kit

August Paper Kit

Awesome aren't they? Did you spy all the Crate Paper Wonder in there? Such a beautiful kit!

Michelle

Hip Kit Club: Happy Days

Hi guys! Today I am super excited to share my first layout made with the July Kits from the Hip Kit Club!

When I saw that some of October Afternoon's latest collection Summertime was going to be included in this month's goodies, I was stoked! And finally, when my box arrived, they were the first things I pulled out when I sat down to make this next layout:

   

I have some major love for my square punch and it made this layout come together pretty quickly. I had initially thought to make two rows of squares that went all the way down the page, but I stopped midway through simply because I liked it.

   

When it came time to embellish, I went with two simple clusters made up of a mix of the Elle's Studio die cuts, Crate Paper chipboard pieces, and enamel dots from OA.

   

Don't forget, the Hip Kit Club is still running a fun special for new subscribers-here's the details:

Wishing you a great day!

Michelle

Hip Kit Club: Hello Ventura

Good morning! As many of you can probably relate, I am the main photographer in my family and as a result most of my scrapbooking is from my perspective only. At least that was the case, until my husband finally took the plunge and jumped on the cell phone wagon! LOL.

What this has meant for me is that I now have a second source to pull photos from and I am regularly documenting both of our memories. For example, in this next layout, featuring a combination of the Hip Kit Club June Kits , I documented a photo taken of my husband (by a fellow beach goer) while on a solo-beach trip.

   

I am not always able to go the beach with my husband because of school and sports schedules, so I thought it was really nice to have this photo.

 

 

How about you-do you pull photos from other sources? I know that having a "back-up" photo taker has really helped in situations where I was just not able to take photos myself. Having the second perspective is also helping to round out my albums, giving what I hope to be a more full picture of our lives. Wishing you a great day!

Hip Kit Club: Buddies

For my son's fourteenth year, I decided to switch his album up and go with a 6x8 Handbook. The last few years I had been struggling a little bit with having enough photos of him to fill a bigger album. I am always camera ready, however due to his relunctance to let me take photos and the fact that he is rarely home, my camera roll has been a little light on photos of my favorite guy. The smaller sized album seemed like an easy solution and now that I am halfway through the year I am confident I made the right decision. Today I want to share how I created a two page spread using a combination of the Hip Kit Club June Kits for his Handbook.

   

I use a combination of pocket style and traditional layouts for documenting his teenage adventures and when I am doing this I like both pages, even if I am telling two different stories as I am here, to be cohesive in color and products. This means that I will often pull out a kit and work on two pages at a time. For these layouts I used pieces from the June Main, Embellishment, and PL Kits.  Here is a look at each individual page:

 

 

One of my favorite parts about working with pocket pages, is that I get to customize the 3x4 cards with embellishments. Below you can see that on the left card, I simply  layered two of the Poolside diet cuts from the Main Kit and added some machine stitching. On the right, after cutting down a 4x6 card from the PL Kit, I adhered a wood veneer that I had sprayed with gold mist.

 

Thanks for stopping by today and letting me share a few thoughts on how I went about changing up my memory keeping to better work for me and my camera shy teenager.

Michelle

Hip Kit Club: Good Times

One of my favorite layout designs is a grid or block style page. I just love to cut my papers into squares and rectangles and then arrange them on a page-it's almost like putting a puzzle together. And the best part is that no matter how many times I return to this basic design, the resulting layouts are always so different from each other. Take for example, this next layout I made using the Hip Kit Club June Kits:

   

When I first pulled out my kit to make this layout, I was initially drawn to the square cards from the package of Fancy Pants Die Cuts in the June PL Kit. I combined one of the cards with a square cut from a piece of patterned paper and a frame. To complete my block design, I added in the title, journaling, and filled in the frame with a die cut.

 

 In other exciting Hip Kit Club news, the Hip Kit Club is running a new subscriber special!

With a new subscription to the Hip Kit Club, you will receive a free Paper Add-On Kit. All you have to do is use the promo code michelle at checkout. Yay!

Wishing you a great day!

Michelle

Hip Kit Club: Freebie Friday

Yes, yes, I know it's the day after Friday, but I wanted to alert you all to something pretty cool. Ashley Horton, owner of  The Cut Shoppe, has designed an exclusive and free Cut File for the Hip Kit Club to share with all of you.  Here's what the Silhouette cut file looks like:

You can join us for this week's Weekend Challenge over in the Hip Kit Club Facebook Forum by incorporating this Cut File into a project. If you aren't already a member of the group, just CLICK HERE to join.  Both our group and our weekly challenges are open to everyone. Play along this week for your chance to win a $10 gift certificate to the Hip Kit Club online store. You can't win if you don't play, so be sure to head on over to our Forum for complete details!

Free cut file and a chance to win $10 is pretty awesome I would say!

Wishing you a great weekend!

Michelle

Hip Kit Club: Oh, Hello

Hello! Today I want to share a new layout made using the beautiful June Kit and Add-Ons from the Hip Kit Club. When I first dive into a kit, I want to play with everything and I gave myself permission to do just that with this next layout, Oh, Hello.

      

The addition of the dark, navy blue to the softer color palette is just so pretty and it really brings the focus right to the "heart" of the layout-the words, the photo, and the title.

 

I had found that the kraft tags and the warm yellow really complimented the colors in my outdoor photo, so I made sure to include them as I was putting my layout together.

 

  

The silver Thickers, if I had to choose just one, from the Embellishment Kit are probably my favorite single item. They are not too shiny and they really provide a nice contrast to the other colors in the kit-I can definitely see myself reaching for them again and again!

Wishing you a great day!

Michelle

Hip Kit Club: Today

As I was brainstorming ideas for this layout, I realized I hadn't used the awesome circle paper from the Hip Kit Club May Main Kit. Often times I find myself reaching for a certain paper over and over again. When I find something that I love, I want to keep going with it. And, because I don't often use big chunks of paper, I can really stretch and prolong the life of a single sheet of paper. However, I wasn't going to do the kit justice by going with what I had used before, so I pulled out the circle paper and went with it, despite the fact that the lovely stripe/large chevron Dear Lizzy paper was calling my name ;).

   

When the new scrapbooking lines debuted at CHA in January, Pink Paislee's Citrus Bliss was in my top three. I loved the bright fresh colors and the fun icons-lemons, pineappples, flamingoes...and now, thanks to the inclusion of the line in May's Kits, I am even more impressed with the collection.  The colors are really quite beautiful.

   

   

 Happy Wednesday!

Michelle

Hip Kit Club: Three

Patterned paper is by far, my favorite scrapbooking supply and when I open a kit the first thing I do is slowly go through each beautiful piece of paper imagining the possibilities. So you can imagine, that when I set out to make a layout, my initial instinct is to "use all the patterned paper." LOL. Luckily, my inner-logical-voice tells me to narrow it down a bit and today I want to share some insight into how I do just that. When I start a project, I will first pull out all the paper. This time, I not only pulled out the paper from the May Main Kit, but I also pulled out the 6x6 Chickaniddy paper from the Embellishment Kit (I like to have choices!).

   

My first paper pick is always a big, bolder pattern with lots of color. For this layout I chose the multi-colored striped paper from Dear Lizzy's latest collection. This piece of paper will be what I base the rest of my decisions. When deciding on my secondary picks, or my "supporting papers," I look for a variety of patterns that do not compete with each other and colors that will compliment the first paper. I also will include at least one paper that is neutral in color. Here is what I ended up with:

 

By narrowing down my choices and following some basic rules when selecting papers, I was able to put together a combinations of papers that worked together as opposed to competing with one another for attention. Here are some details from my layout:

 

 

So how about you-how do you narrow down your patterned paper? I would love to hear from you!

Michelle          

Hip Kit Club: Sunshine

Do you ever have that one favorite photo where you are almost afraid to scrapbook it because you want to do the photo justice?  Well, that was me recently. During a recent zoo trip I snapped this perfect picture of my youngest daughter and as much as I was so excited to get this picture documented, I was a little nervous too. Often times, when this mental block pops up, my go-to response is to start simply. I nix all the grand plans I have in my mind and start with some basic blocks of patterned paper and go from there. This is exactly what I did for this next layout using a combination of May's Kits from the Hip Kit Club:

   

 This layout came together relatively quickly. I purposely went with a comfortable design to ease some of the self-imposed pressure, yet this layout is still unique and different from my others. By going with an "easier" design, I gave myself room to play with the details. Here is a closer look at them:

   

The flamingo washi tape that is included in the May Embellishment Kit is so incredibly fun and really mimicked the good time that my daughter was having at the zoo.

 

The combination of the Pink Paislee chipboard pieces and the puffy Evalicious shapes from the May Main Kit is a perfect match. I love the variety of textures that they bring to the layout. I also added a different texture by cutting hearts out of the Chickaniddy woodgrain paper and adhering them with pop dots.

   

 The addition of the wood veneer "Life is Sweet" was a last minute decision. To make it shine a bit, I sprayed it with a gold mist, something that I almost always do with my wood veneer. By removing the pressure of coming up with a design as fantastic as my photo, I ended up creating a layout that has since then became a favorite. Most importantly though, I have a fun and special memory documented. Wishing you a great day!

  

Hip Kit Club: June Reveal

The fifteenth finally arrived yesterday, which means the June Kits at the Hip Kit Club were revealed! Yay! Here is a look at what June brings us:

June Main, Embellishment, Color, and Cardstock Kits

 

For June, the awesome Kim Watson has designed the cards for the Project Life Kit!

June Project Life Kit

Isn't this such a great way to jump into summer?! I sure think it is! 

To order your kits and to see a full list of supplies, click on the links and they will take you straight to the kits. 

Michelle

Hip Kit Club: Remember This

This past Monday I started off a new week of inspiration with a new layout on the Hip Kit Club Blog and today I want to share my project here with you .

   

When beginning this layout, I set out with the intention to make lots of layers so that I could play with all the fun patterned papers in the May Main Kit. First, I layered three patterned papers underneath my white cardstock. To add detail to the cardstock, I layered white strips on top of it at random intervals and anchored them with stitching. Next,  I pulled out a floral sheet of 6x6 paper from the Embellishment Kit to layer underneath the photo. Finally, I cut apart tags and layered them in two areas along with an October Afternoon label from the Project Life Kit.  Here is a closer look at the details:

 

Wishing you a great Wednesday!  

Michelle

Hip Kit Club: Celebrate

Today I am so happy to share my first projects made with the May Kits from the Hip Kit Club.

When the kits were revealed last month, I knew that I wanted to use them to open up my youngest daughters new album and that is exactly what I did. 

 

This is what her album opens up with-a 6x8 pocket page layered over a traditional style layout. The addition of the Project Life Kit to the monthly line up of kits makes it super easy to coordinate my pocket pages with my regular layouts. Here is a closer look at each individual page:

 

Whenever I have a smaller sized pocket page layered over a bigger layout, I like to include some coordinating elements between the two. I don't want them to be matchy-matchy, but consistent in color and embellishments.

Well what do you think? Are you liking the bright, vivid colors? I know I am :). Wishing you a great day!

Michelle