3 to inspire with Mira

Hello Citrus Twist Kits fans!

Today I have a 3-to-Inspire Challenge for You with a few fun ideas on how to use the products in a creative way, and how to make use of Your kits to the very last bit! Are You ready for some inspiration?

This is a challenge for those of You, who need a little extra creative push to get scrapbooking, to keep scrapbooking or for those who just like a challenge! Your take on this challenge can be a layout or a PL spread and remember that you'll want to include all 3 prompts on your project.

This month I prepared two pocket pages using absolutely wonderful fall designs from PL Kit, to document single walk in the park, which turn out to be a really huge adventure for us!

We didn't expect to find squirrels in this park, and meeting with friends was also a huge surprise for us.

So what I did in this spread slightly different than I usually do:

1. I used a product packaging as a PL card. You can see it in the second page - the one with single picture and trees. Have You seen these new cardboards from exclusive Citrus Twist Kits die-cut packs, puffy stickers and alpha stickers packagings? I love their design - delicate grey stripes work really well on my pages! So this is absolutely NOT the last time when I include packaging in my projects!

2. On the exact same page (bottom left picture) I used a stamp "wild + free", but as You can see, I bent the stamp a bit and stamped these words as if they were a part of a circle. I was amazed how fun it turned out! Don't You think this is cool? The idea is easy but the effects are really different from usual! I am going to do it more often!

3. I created a title of my page using my own handwriting. This is not a common thing for me, as I usually don't like my handwriting. Especially in a big format. But I thought it might be something new, so I gave up the negative feeling and just did it! And I like it! The words I used are in polish and the title says: Autumn - the season of miracles.

And here are more details of my spread:

I hope You like the ideas that I proposed, and that You feel inspired! Feel free to join the challenge!

The prompts for this week are:

1. Use a product package in Your project
2. Bend the stamp while stamping the words
3. Use Your handwriting for a page title


Use the three prompts to create your own projects and share them with us in the CTK Gallery and/or on our Facebook Fan Page by Saturday, December 2nd, for a chance to win. You can also upload to Instagram and tag us @citrustwistkits. Have fun!

Gratitude Wreath by Wendy

Hello everyone and happy happy Wednesday!

Wendy here to cheers with you to the Fall season for all things pumpkin spice, comfort food, and just feeling gratitude + thanks for a beautiful season!  Although I must admit, Fall is not so much in the air where I live on the Gulf coast in Florida.  Summer is still speaking to us in a big way with her temps and sunny blue skies! However, the "change in season" always makes my heart swell with reflection and love for what I have and just to be thankful for the blessings in my life.

Something in the air gives me the DIY bug to create something seasonally fresh and new.  I was recently on a Target run and bought a Fall wreath for our front door from the Magnolia Hearth & Hand collection that released on Nov 5th.  Oh man, I love a good wreath.  Even though we have palm trees in the front yards around here, I have a bit of Fall welcoming guests at our front door.  So, I was inspired to bring a touch of the wreath love to my 9x12 layout share for you today.

Let's DIY this shall we....

To design out your wreath, you can use the elements from the November 2017 Main and Pocket Life kits.  The element packs in those kits this month are ON.POINT.  I hope you were able to grab them up for the month.  If not, don't miss out on December!  

I love the gold foil elements and berry colored florals in the element packs.  So, I drew a large circle very lightly on my background paper.  Then, I started to play around with the placement of the florals and interchanged stamping from the The Is Life "Gathering" stamp set for November (also available over in the CTK shop). The floral sprigs in the stamp set coordinate perfectly with the elements in the November kits.  

Feel free to randomly play play play with the curves of the elements.  Did you know you can take the CTK stamps and curve them a bit on your acrylic block when stamping?  I used this technique when stamping around the curve of the wreath shape.   

Also, check in your CTK stash for any past shapes that can coordinate with this project.  Remember these wood veneer floral sprigs from a past CTK kit?  Yep, a past kit that works great with this month's kit too! The beautiful thing about CTK kits...timeless and interchangeable . 

Super fun cork leaf shapes in the November kit too! I added a finishing touch with a CTK exclusive puffy sticker ("gratitude") and stamped ledger + phrase (from a past CTK stamp set).

Feel and share your gratitude this season (and maybe in squeeze in a fun DIY project too)!

Hope you enjoyed my project!

Wendy 

Magical Fall Moments - October Main & Patterned Paper Play Kits - Nathalie

Hello Everyone!  Nathalie with you today, and I am so excited and grateful to share my first blog post as part of the 2018 CTK Design Team. 

What can I say about this month's Good Vibes Kit, besides that it is gorgeous, colorful and so versatile.  But if you are a patterned paper lover (as I am), then the Patterned Paper Play kit is what you need!.   Once I saw the color combo on these papers,  I knew that i could bring an Autumn page with a twist easily together.

It is not the traditional colors of an Autumn wreath, but it works perfect for the season.   I had a few white cardstock  leaves cut outs left over from previous projects, so I decided to use a simple Fall leaves cut file from the Silhouette Store, to cut  the leaves from papers in the Patterned Paper Play kit, as well as the main kit.  In addition, i use the same cut file to cut the same number of leaves from white vellum.

small clusters of embellishments along the wreath

A bit of ink blending on the vellum leaves brings the colors of fall in a softer way to this page.  Once The wreath form was set, then a few machine stitches held it together.

To bring in the golden hues from the season, the chipboard alphas were colored using some antique gold acrylic paint.  Just love the color combination! -which may also work for all our friends enjoying Spring in the Southern Hemisphere.
If you would like to see how this page came together, just enjoy the following video (just excuse the lighting -there was a bit of renovation going on at the time of filming-):

I hope this serves as inspiration to use all the colors in these kits to put a modern twist on a classic.  Remember to check the Citrus Twist Shop for these kits (October kits have sold out, but you can start subscribing starting November).  I am a comment away if you have any questions on how this came together.

Take care!!!

Scrapping with the Add-on Kit with Kira

Hey everyone!  Kira here to show you a couple layouts I created with the Fall Harvest Add-on Kit.  Any other fall lovers here?  It is definitely my favorite season, but it's my first year in San Antonio and apparently Texas hasn't received the memo that it's October.  Lol.  It's 90 degrees as I type this.

Anyway, I pulled out some older photos to work with to get me in the fall scrappy mood.  The first layout I created was for a few pictures of my son picking out his pumpkin last year.  He picked it out by giving it a kiss.  Awwwww! 

I created the large title on my Cricut and used that gorgeous blueberry paper that was included in the kit as my background paper.  I backed the cut out title with the orange and white plaid paper (B-side of "Whirling Leaves").  I decided to add some hand stitching around the word "pumpkin" in a blue that matched almost perfectly to the background paper.  It added the perfect amount of textural detail to my page. 

I'm going to be completely honest here though...the stitching was a nightmare.  This layout gave me so much grief and I've never had as many issues with the stitching ripping the paper as I did on this layout.  I had to cover up one of my "happy accidents" with a fussy cut pumpkin from the "Pumpkin Patch" paper.

But it looked so cute, that I added a few more around the page!  I brought in more of that pumpkin paper by tearing the blue cardstock and tucking the pumpkin paper underneath.  I stitched it down with the blue thread and just loved how it looked!

I added a few of the rubber charms from the Amber Moon collection, which was such a fun added piece of texture.  I finished off the layout by adding some of the Perfect Autumn enamel dots under my title and under the little torn flaps.  And finally I added some white paint splatters around the page.

After I finished this layout, I still had so much product left!  And was still totally in fall mode.  So I decided to make a quick layout of my son in his Halloween costume from last year. 

Can you tell who he went as?!  My husband and I are big 80s pop culture fans...so we dressed our kids as Marty McFly and Doc Brown (my baby was THE CUTEST Doc Brown!). 

I started with some white textured cardstock and decided to use this leaf cut file, also cut from white textured cardstock on top.  I used a few of the patterned papers from the kit to back a few of the leaves, creating a scatter of color across the page.  I didn't glue the cut file to the patterned paper leaves to give it a bit of added dimension. 

I backed my photo with the Dandelion cardstock and added a few pieces of ephemera from the 1canoe2 die cut pack, along with a few of the rubber charms to create two clusters around my photo.  Then I added my title using the Escape the Ordinary Golden Foil Wood Alpha Stickers.  Bonus points if you get the reference.

Thanks so much for joining me today!  And make sure to check out the Add-on kit this month!  You will not regret it!

xo, Kira