6x6 Paper Play with Sam

Hello there! This is Sam to share one of my layout using the 6x6 paper pad that is included in the April Pocket Life kit. I am loving the bright colours with a pop of yellow in this month kit. Although yellow is not my favourite colour but I love how the colour made the layout pop.

And here's my layout that I created under an hour - I started off with adding blue water-colour to the background to mimic the sea. And layer some papers from the paper pad to create a cluster of layering. Sprinkle some Freckled Fawn Star enamel dots and added title and thats how I complete my layout.

Here's the close up of the layout. The Amy Tangerine transparent stickers is just too cute! They look like stamping instead of stickers. 

Thanks for looking! XoXo, Sam

Tuesday Tutorial with Tanya Batrak

Hello, everyone! It's Tanya here and I have a project and a little tutorial for you. Hope you'll like it! I've made a layout about my cute little nephew using April 2014 Picture Perfect Main Kit and It is Written Embellishment Kit.

I started with layering different pieces of paper and paper embellishments.
I used white cardstock as a background. 

Then I decided to add some watercolor which matches the color of my nephew's hoodie.

 

Now I'll show you how I've made the little branch with leaves. 

I cut three small pieces of wire and glued leaves to them using my heat gun.

 

 

Now I need to add some watercolor which matches the leaves to harmonize the colors on photo with other parts of my layout.

 

After that I splattered my page with the same two shades of green. 

In the very end I added a few black splashes and some little black spots with April 2014 Being Me Stamp.

Thanks for stopping by our blog today. Hope you enjoy scrapping with these kits :)  

Tanya

Simple Strategies- Making your mini albums look cohesive with Kasia

Hey guys! Happy Monday! It's Kasia here with new mini album made with the gorgeous April main and embellie add on kits! The topic of this album is all about... stress- or rather my ways to deal with it in the everyday life! I hope it'll inspire you!

this book is a little reminder of all the happy activities and things which help me relax. It's also a great way to use random pictures which you might have leftover from other projects...

I built my pages on rectangular base and collected them all together with an album binding ring. Want some variety in your mini- crop your pages to various length and throw some tags in between- this way the pages from the back will show and your album will get this extra dimension!

 
So as you can see I just listed random things which help me fight the everyday stress and next to the pictures I included some simple journaling. Let's have a look at some ways to make your mini book look cohesive!

If you like adding die cuts to your creations grab a piece of paper and cut the shapes before you start working on your mini. Patterns and colors of die cuts repeating through your album will help it to look more pulled together!

If you are a fan of using medias like paints or mist pick one color which will repeat through your album. It'll visually bind the pages and help the eye jump to the right spots!

The last idea is focused on your pages titles. If you make this list based mini adding titles to the pages is a cute idea. Use similar letters stickers on each page and you will get this polished and cohesive look!

Have a happy and colorful Monday and we are looking forward to seeing your minis in our gallery! 

Sunday Sketch with Nathalie

Happy Sunday CTK fans! Today I am sharing with you our last Sketch challenge of the month and the last page I created with my April "Picture Perfect" main kit (still available as I type this).

To play along with our sketch challenge, upload your layouts to the gallery by Saturday, May 3rd to get your name in a drawing to win a $5 GC to the store. When uploading to the gallery you can name it as you would normally but please include "Sketch 4/27". 
And here's your new sketch:

As always with Kasia's awesome sketches, I didn't steer far from it! This kit made me think of the tropics and reminded me of those older photos from Key West that I had not scrapped yet:

KIT USED: April 2014 "Picture Perfect" main kit

NON KIT ITEMS: teal card stock, Studio Calico flair, date stamp

Now it's your turn! Show us how this sketch inspires you!

✄Nathalie

Saturday Inspiration With Sandy

Today's layout is inspired by the colours of the pattern papers in this month's kits. That doesn't mean I used a lot of papers on my page, rather it's about being inspired by the palette of colours and patterns represented. Here's a look at my thought process as I went about creating my layout :

The first step is to gather a selection of my favourite papers from each of the April kits to serve as my inspiration. This sets the general direction that my layout will be mainly white and blue, with pops of yellow and orange accents. Several papers will actually make it onto my page : the powder blue text, the diagonal stripe and the wood grain.

I like the idea of polka dots but the black and white seemed a little severe, so I replaced it with a Jen Allyson MME paper from the Pattern Paper Kit. As a background the pastel bubbles works beautifully, softening the angular lines of my L-shaped design.

To provide accent colours I look to embellishments from the kits. The bright orange XOXO title comes from an Amy Tangerine die-cut tag. I carefully cut away the matting and re-stitch it onto a journaling card. To get a little pop of yellow, I used a Maggie Holmes label with the word Cutie on it.  

I've even included the idea of leaves from bottom corner of the inspiration picture. Not actual leaves per say, but rather a stitched feather tag peeping out above the photo. It's radiating ribs replicating the branching form of the leaves.  

I've included two shop items on my page, they are the blue mosaic pattern paper (from the Amy Tangerine Plus One 6x6 Pad) and the arrow journal card (from the Basic Grey Highline Capture Snippets). Do check out the Citrus Twist store as Trina has added lots of exciting embellishments that coordinate with the April kits.

Like many of my fellow designers I love the mix of green, blue and citrus colours in this month's kits, and especially the fact that there lots of soft neutrals to pair with these colours. Hope you enjoy scrapping with these kits.      

6x6 Paper Play with Jen Boumis

Hello everyone! Jen here sharing a layout today highlighting the Lemon Lush paper pad from the April Pocket Life kit. I was itching to scrapbook the photos I took of my children on St. Patrick's Day this year. While the colors in the paper pad this month were not themed in any way, the fresh greens and yellows were a great fit for my photos.

For the design of this layout, I decided to use several patterns and put my circle punches to use. I chose three sizes of punches and made an overlapping line of circles. I then used the CTK packaging twine to hand stitch through the border.

Glittery enamel star accents from the Pocket Life Embellishment kit added a little extra pop.

And one triangle cut of the green text pattern made for an extra large photo corner for my main picture, finished with a CTK label and a Silhouette cut shamrock.

This layout was completed in about 30 minutes!

Simple Strategies with Nina

Hello and a HAPPY easter monday to everyone. It´s Nina here today to show you a simple strategy post using the Citrus Twist April Kit plus Embellishment Kit along with watercolors. This time I´m so in love with spring and bright colors, especially yellow is one of my favorite. Therefore I decided to make a page with a yellow focus.

The background is one of the easiest things ever. The only thing you need is the white cardstock (included in the kit) and yellow watercolors. I painted a strip with the yellow color using a lot of water and tipped the cardstock up to let the color flow down. After drying the page is ready for the next step.

For the picture I used one of the frames and set it in the right size behind it. The Amy Tangerine "today tag" fits beautiful in the yellow color scheme.  The butterflies are made with the Big Shot die using white cardstock and the transparency sheet. I layered both cuts together and sewed right in the middle.

 The flowers are stamped with black ink and the April "Being Me" Stamp Add On.

Thank you so much for visiting today. Have a great week everyone....

Pocket Life With Sam

Happy Friday everyone! Today its Sam to share a Pocket Life layout with you using April PL Kit which has a lot of happy, spring colours. I am always a big fans of scrapbooking products with spring theme. And here's my spread, using photos that I print out from my usual Canon Ixma MG6370 and also photos from my Fujifilm Instax Share.

Do you notice I added a QR code to my spread on the top left pocket of my right page? I will show you the steps in this post. It is fun and easy to add videos to your PL page.

I especially love the exclusive wood chips that come with the April kit.

The 'Today Was …' is also one of the exclusive PL card from the kit.

And here's the close-up of the QR code:
you can download QR Scanner app to your phone and try scanning this QR code form your monitor. I tried and it works!

Here's a simple tutorial on how I generate the QR code:

1. I uploaded a video of my baby playing peekaboo in a Bat Mobile to YouTube. (http://youtu.be/1WvHihFUeFI)

2. Then I cut & paste the link to be shared to a free QR code generator website. There are a long list of these websites and I use QRstuff to generate mine. 

>> Data Type: YoouTube Video

>> Key in video ID / Video URL

>> I choose encoding option: Dynamic

>> Output type: Download

And here's the generated QR code for my YouTube video which you can just print and add to your layout or PL pages. Sometimes it is just more fun to include video into your pages.  And this is the QR Code scanner app that I use on my iPhone:

These are the PL sketches for this week post:

I hope you get inspired and add QR code to your pages to make it more interactive. And thanks for dropping by!

XoXo, Sam.