A View from Our Gallery with our Guest Designer

Today we are going to feature our guest designer's last project life page.  She did an amazing job with the July Pocket Life Kit!! 

Hi there! This is Rachel again - your July Guest Designer. Today I’m going to share with you my third PL spread using July Pocket Life kit – Sunkissed and PL Embellishment kit – Hello Sun.

My PL spread tends to contain lots of photos. And on top of that, we had a 3 days 2 nights staycation at our famous little island – Sentosa, celebrating the husband’s birthday. Gosh, it was such a challenge to keep the number of photos under control! And since I had no intention to create a mini album on this getaway of ours, Project Life works for me.  

After much planning and selection of photos, I decided to use the multiple flaps technique to increase the card space in order to accommodate the many photos.

Viola, here’s the full spread of my week 25 – displaying lots of blue, showcasing the sun, the sea and the sand. It was a fun-filled and wonderful week! I couldn’t say more at just how prefect the papers by Simple Stories were. Every piece of supplies goes so well together and I love this July kits to bits!

I had fun doing fuzzy cutting on the Simple Stories – Good Day Sunshine, Sn@p! Insta Squares and used the cutouts to create many card layouts of my own.

Here’s the left hand side of my PL spread:

And finally the right hand side of my PL spread. Are you able to spot the 6 flaps I made?

Here’s how it looks like when the top 2 flaps are flipped up:

And how the spread looks like when the 2 flaps at the middle row opened up:

Lastly, the bottom 2 flaps are flipped open and showcased more photos:

I hope my sharing had inspired you in one way or another. Thank you for stopping by and let’s continue to document our life through Project Life!

video tutorial by Lucia: minibook

Hi everyone! It's my turn finally and I'm so excited to share with you a video tutorial I've made, using the July 2014 main and embellishment kit.

Join me while creating a sweet little minibook! It's really easy - all you need are some patterned papers, sewing machine and some cute little stickers or stamps to embellish the cover - or even the pages :)

I LOVE to sew paper and I LOVE the messy look of the threads everywhere! The pages are sewn together on the upper and bottom edge - that gives you a space between the pages (creates a little pockets) where you can put photos, flaps or anything else. And the woodgrain sticker was just a perfect fit for the binding :)

Enjoy the tutorial (and the fun music!)
Lucia xxx

Let's Get Digital with Jen Chapin + a free cut file!

Hey everyone and happy Saturday! As soon as I saw the 5"x7" wood veneer sheet in July's main kit, I knew what I had to do. I had to cut it with my Cameo.

I decided to go with a star pattern because I wanted to use the negative as well as the positive space. You can actually download the cut file for your own star pattern here!

Some tips for cutting wood veneer in the Cameo:

• Set your blade depth to 6 or 7. You will need to use the plastic ratchet to do this.
• Set your cutting speed to low.
• Use the double cut feature. This will have the blade cut each shape twice, ensuring a clean edge.
• Make sure your mat is very sticky. If it's not, use some washi tape to hold the edges of the wood down before you cut.

See that heart piece of patterned paper up there? That's actually covering a spot where the Cameo didn't quite do it's job. I think the blade got caught in a section of the wood grain and there was a wonky star that ended up getting cut. It's ok. Just cover it up and move on. :)

I also wanted to showcase the awesome July add-on stamp. April Joy helped design these with her fabulous calligraphy. I stamped directly on the photo with black ink. It almost looks like I added these words in photoshop but nope, it's a stamp! Love them.

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you try this technique with your Cameo soon!

Playing with Pocket Life with Olya

Hello, Citrus Twist lovelies and happy Friday!
Today I'm sharing 3 Pocket Life layouts I did for Daisy's (my bunny) album. Yes, she has her own 6x8 album. She is my heart and soul, and knowing that, unfortunately, she won't live forever I'm trying to document her life as much I can now, so I can re-live the happy memories of her later.
Mushiness aside, here are my pages:

I used pocket page protectors by Simple Stories with different size pockets. The July PL embellishment Add-On had a variety of 2x2, 3x3 and 4x4 papers that I coordinated for these layouts. All the papers went nicely together because of their bright summer colors and light style, which made them easy to embellish with enamel dots, wood veneers and puffy stickers.

Here is a close up of the amazing stamp in the July PL kit designed by the lovely April Hill. Can we just take a moment to marvel in her beautiful calligraphy? I know I'll be using that stamp over and over in my pages.

The next two page layouts have similar story- more photos of my Daisy bunny being her cheeky self, more different size pockets, more fun little papers and embellishments from the July kits.

I wanted to match the pretty teal paper under "Like a Boss" photo with the journaling on the opposite page. I applied the alpha stickers from the Add-On kit on the paper, painted teal acrylic paint over them, waited impatiently for the paint to dry and when it did I carefully peeled the stickers off. So it ended up being a negative journaling showing through the missing paint.

Well, that's all for now, friends.
Happy summer weekend to you all, hope you can squeeze some crafting in there too!
xo

Fast Scrap Tutorial by Evelyn Pratiwi Yusuf

Hey everyone so glad that I can back here and share a tutorial with you. Today I’m going to share how I create a simple layout using big photo and Citrus Twist July Main Kit. Since I have a baby boy; Jasper, I have so many picture of him. Today I use a picture of him and print it into 30x30cm. I use white list to create a minimalist frame. This time I choose green and yellow as a main color theme, so I gather some supplies which has the same colors.

Step no 1: Paste the big photo. I choose to give some space in the bottom. My plane is to decorate it with cuty  little things.

Step no 2: Journaling. I write down some word so my baby boy can read it one day. Again don’t judge my handwriting.

Step no 3: Pop it up. I try to give some dimension into my layout so I pop up some stickers and my journaling circle tag right in the middle top of the photo. I also do simple layer and paste some wood veneer to make it more cute.

Step no 4: Maximize your puncher. I use puncher from Fiskar and try to create bottom list for my photo.

Step no 5: Decorate the bottom page. I decorate the bottom page using flair, green paper, and wood pattern paper.

Remember we still can create magical layout using big photo. Have fun with it and its time to try! See you in another post.

Love: Evelyn Pratiwi Yusuf @geekgalz

Sunday Sketch with Jen Chapin

Hi everyone! It's time again for another sketch. I really had fun working with this one and loved the small photos.

I decided to use this awesome cloud paper for my background which was really perfect for some pool photos. I stuck pretty close to the sketch except for adding that cute sun in the corner.

This month's embellishments were perfect for documenting a summer day. I cut the sun from the Simple Stories cards included in the PL add-on.

Of course I had to use the selfie flair in the main kit. I love typing my journaling on my typewriter and adding strips to my page.

If you would like to play along, create a layout based on this sketch and post it in our gallery or link us on this post! Have a great week.

Sunshine in My Filofax

Hello there! If you follow me (Sam) on Instagram (@happiescrappie) you will see a lot of planner-related post popping up on your feed. Ah yes, I have gotten my very first planner - A medium sized Kikki K in mint / gold dots back in October 2013 and I am hooked ever since. And my humble collection is slowly growing. When Trina asked me if I could do a blog post about planner, I was so thrilled because I can finally share my obsession with all the CTK dubbers! So here I am, to kick start the very first planner/filofax-related post on CTK blog.

The picture below shows my humble collection of vintage typewriter and planners. And I have two more planners on my way (pre-ordering them from Amazon at really great price but the waiting period is 1-2 months). 

If you are interested in what are the planners that I am using now, watch the video here. 

This month Citrus Twist Kits has all the fun colours that go so well with Summer themed. It is summer all year long in Malaysia & Singapore but it is still fun to play with all the vibrant colours. I decided to use the leftover from my July Pocket Life kit to make some planner dividers for my Filofax original yellow.

I wanted the background of the divider to be really plain (so that the colour would pop), so I trimmed down 6 pieces of vellums into Personal sized (approximately 3.75 inch x 6.75inch).  I just add some mini cards from Simple Stories and Elle's Studio stickers on the vellum, then laminate the vellum. And it is really easy that I love how the elements look like they are floating on my planner.

You can actually see-thru what's behind the divider.

This divider is made using the die cut from Amy Tangerine dies (which is available at Citrus Twist Store).

Just in case you are wondering, why did I added a thin stripe of washi tapes to the edge. Its not for enforcement the dividers, thats because the stupid me, has forgotten to adjust the gap of the rings on my Rakuten punch, and punch them wrongly and I ended  up with 12 holes on each dividers after punched twice.

 I only spend 15-20 minutes making the dividers and I really like how easy and colourful they are. I hope this post inspires some of you (who are planner nerds) like me use the left over form your Citrus Twist Kits to make your own divider.

XoXo,

Sunday Sketch with Michelle

Hello!  Are you ready for a new sketch?  I don't know about you, but I always look forward to the Sunday sketch.  Kasia consistently creates very approachable sketches and today's sketch is no different.

 

 

 

When working with a sketch, I always keep in mind that it is just a sketch and that I can customize it or change it to meet my own needs.  For instance, instead of confining myself to a 12x12 layout like the sketch, I made an 8.5x11 layout.
 

 

You can see that I shrunk the proportions of the sketch down a little and left a little less white space than the sketch called for.  I also flipped the sketch so that my daughters would be looking inward as opposed to off the page. 
 

 

 

Since I had chosen to use lots of color in my layout, I decided to cut my title out of a dark navy patterned paper from the July Are We There Yet? Main Kit.  This helped the title to stand out and draw the attention straight to the photos.

 

 

The stitched borders from the Best of Days Embellishment Kit worked perfectly in place of the banner shown in the sketch.

And now that I have shared my take on this week's sketch, we would love to see yours!  Citrus Twist is offering a $5 gift certificate to the CTK store to one lucky participant in this week's sketch challenge.  To get your name into the drawing, please upload your layout into the CTK gallery and include "Sketch 7/13" in the title. Also, feel free to share your project in other scrapbook galleries and on Instagram (use #citrustwistkits).  It is always so much fun to see what you all are doing with the beautiful kits! 
 

 

 

 



Tuesday Tutorial with Sandy

Anyone who has been following me will know that I'm not much into creating with mediums because I don't think I'm any good at being artsy and that I worry about messing things up. Well may be that's about to change because I've just found a simple and fool-proof method of creating water-colour backgrounds that doesn't require expansive tools or supplies. Everything needed can easily be found in your kitchen. Here is the soap bubble background technique :

 

You will need :

• 1/2 cup of water
• 2 tbsp. of dish washing liquid
• 3 tbsp. of food colouring
• drinking straw
• white cardstock

Mix all the ingredients together - don't worry if the colour seems too dark, it'll lighten up three or four shades after application. Insert the straw and blow in short bursts until layers of bubbles cover the surface. Large bubbles make widely spaced, octagonal-type imprints which are lighter in colour while lots of small bubbles create denser, more intensely coloured patterns.
 

Now lay the white cardstock across the layers of bubbles. This will cause the bubbles to pop, leaving prints on the paper. One advantage of this technique is that your cardstock doesn't have to be primed with gesso and will not warp because only a minimal amount of liquid from the bubbles is absorbed. If you like you can substitute food-colouring with reinkers, acrylic paint or spray mists, just play around with the proportion of water needed.

Here's a card I created featuring my soap bubble background using the Echo Park cut-apart sheet from the Oh My Heart Add On Kit, some enamel dots from the Are We There Yet? Main Kit and the July 2014 Happy Stamp.

Kit Love with Olya

Hello hello, Olya here.
This is my very first post on the CTK blog and I am super thrilled to be joining the 2014-2015 Design Team. I am in absolute awe of all the creative talented ladies on the team and I feel extremely honored to be among them.
Here is a little video I put together for our Kit Love segment. I received my first Citrus Twist PL kit and filmed my excitement. Enjoy :)




Citrus Twist Kit Love - July Kit (2014) from Olya Schmidt on Vimeo.

Click here to see this month's kits and add-ons. I received the July 2014 Sunkissed PL kit and July 2014 Hello Sun PL Embellishment kit.
Thank you so much for stopping by and happy creative week ahead!
xo

Sunday Sketch with Nathalie (with a bonus ;)

Since this is my first post this month, allow me to start by saying how happy and honored I am to be on the CTK Design Team for another year! Thank you Trina! Now, did you see the amazing July kits revealed yesterday?! I got to work with the July add-on and I loved it! I know, I know, you want to see the new sketch!

It is such a versatile sketch by Kasia, plus I had such a gorgeous kit to work with that I created not one but two examples for it! I hope you don't mind :)

This is my first version:

KIT USED: July add-on kit

NON-KIT ITEMS: pink thread and black ink

some detail shots:

And now for my second version:

KIT USED: July add-on kit, July stamp add-on, Prima chalk edger in Old Road (in the Citrus Twist store)

NON-KIT ITEMS: grey alpha stickers and pink thread from my stash

Can you see how I emphasized different elements of the sketch for each page so that even though they both stay close to the sketch, they do not look the same? Now we want to see your version(s)! :) To play along with our sketch challenge, upload your layouts to our gallery by July 12th to get your name in a drawing to win a $5 gift certificate to the CTK store. When uploading to the gallery you can name it as you would normally but please include "Sketch 7/6" in your title. Of course feel free to share it elsewhere too!

Good luck!