In My Studio - Album Storage

Hi CTK friends!  This month the Scrapbook Team are sharing some ideas on how they store one of our most important items - all our albums :)

Hi sweet friends!

I keep my albums along with some other scrappy stuff as cardstock and other goodies in my IKEA Kallax shelf unit which is placed in front of my desk. Since I haven't got enough albums for ALLLLL of my layouts I also store some of my pages with page protectors in boxes that fits in my Kallax shelf.

I actually store all my albums in an old kitchen hutch that we painted white.  My little 6x8 albums are the perfect size for the shelves.  The hutch is just tucked behind the door as you enter my room (also holds my mini-albums and alpha baskets).

All my layouts are filed away in albums by year (of photo) and I've just typed up some very plain looking labels for the spines.  I'd say that 90% of my layouts are about my son or niece so I just mix them together (rather than split them up per person) and I've stuck with black cloth albums for consistency.  While I wait for more albums to arrive (they are so hard to get over here!) I just pop them into the plastic sleeves and sit them in a clear tray in my shelving unit.  So they are still easy to flip through if anyone wants to look at what I've created! :)

I love the IKEA Kallax cubes for most scrapbooking storage. I have some knock-off Target brand cubes too, which is where I store the albums I have. I’m going to let you in on a little secret though...the majority of the scrapbook layouts don’t hold residence in my albums. See that stack of Citrus Twist Kits boxes next to my albums? Yep, that’s where most of my layouts live. Maybe one day I’ll buy more albums and be able to empty those boxes. But for now, that’s where they’ll stay. 

I am keeping my larger albums, mostly 12x12 or 6x8 in an Ikea  shelf.

My smaller, handmade minis are put away in Boxes, which fit in the Ikea shelves perfectly. I can grab them out whenever I feel like looking at them.

Since I’ve started making Traveler’s Notebooks this year, I bought some covers to fit them in and they look so pretty on the shelf.

Hi there!  Living in an apartment and having to share my workspace with the family means that everything has to have a place at all times.   We opted to transform our sofa table (Kallax Unit from Ikea) to storage/display furniture, so I use empty cabinet space to store my most recent filled scrapbook albums, layouts (in their plastic sleeves) and TN inserts.  Once the album gets filled, it moves to the bookcase in the office/den space of our apartment, so that anyone can access them at all times.

Hello lovelies, Neftali with you, and welcome back to another happy section of my crafty space! Today I am sharing how I store my albums. And well, I can’t say that I’ve got it all completely figured out for all of my albums, but here is what I’ve got so far. At the moment I keep all of my 6x8 mini albums, planners, notebooks, Travelers Notebooks, and Mini Albums in this 3x3 cubbie shelf unit. On top of it sits our television, since my scrappy space is shared in our tiny living room space. I like to keep my albums separated by size for the most part, but I also store them by type: TN’s together, Mini Albums together (in a wire basket), 6x8’s together, as well as planners and notebooks together. It’s pretty simple! 

But where are my 12x12 albums?? You might be asking yourself that question and, well, I have a simple answer. I don’t have any 12x12 albums! As crazy as that might sound, I have opted to keep my 12x12 and 8 1/2 x 11 layouts in plastic Iris containers until we move to a bigger home where I can buy a beautiful display storage system for those larger books. So, yes, I do have a nice growing stack of filled up iris boxes under my desk, but I’m happy with that at the moment. As far as album storage goes, this is how I opt to store mine considering the space limitations in my home. I hope you find some of these ideas useful for your small spaces. Thanks for visiting today! 

Embelishment Fun with Neftali

Hello there and happy Thursday CTK fans! It’s Neftali here once again this month ready to share some scrappy inspiration using the September “Heartbreaker” kits. I was so excited to see that we had so many Amy Tangerine goodies from her Shine On collection this month. I wanted to get the best use out of all these fun stickers and ephemera pieces so I decided to create a layout having some major embelishment fun! But I’ll let you be the judge, take a look:

So. Many. Embellishments. Am I right? Let me tell you how I got this layout done.

I started off by choosing my photo and then using the Crate Paper Willow Lane pink patterned paper as the main focus in the center of my page. I didn’t measure anything, I just never do, I simply cut so that it would be a very large square at the center of my white cardstock base.

I added a little texture to it by lifting the edges with my fingernails and also adding some “peek-a-boo” tears on all four sides. I loved the pop of color from the underside!

Then all of the embellishing fun began! Since I had such a large piece of cardstock in the center, I wanted to create a look that seemed as if the embellishments were tucked under and coming out of the peachy pink paper.

I layered so many textured and pieces from a mix of the kits. I used the chipboard stickers, the ephemera pieces, and the cardstock stickers, (all Amy Tan!)  and finally some black splatters to bring it all together.

The final thing I added was the journaling piece from the Shine On ephemera pack under my photo and three of the little flowers from the chipboard sticker sheet. I thought this to be the perfect touch to this layout as it matched so well with the photo of my sweet family and myself this past Thanksgiving. 

This was all I did to create this fun layout that gave me such great use of the Shine On pieces. I hope you have enjoyed this bit of scrappy inspiration today, and I invite you all to take some time from your busy day to get crafty with your September kits. Have a lovely end to your week scrappy friends! Xo

Sunday Sketch with Neftali

Happy Sunday! Neftali here welcoming you all back to another Sunday Sketch post.

Today we are working with the lovely September “Heartbreaker” kits and taking on this sketch:

It’s a lovely sketch isn’t it? I loved the scallops on top and knew right away that I had to recreate that look. And here’s the best part, there is a scalloped paper in the Heartbreaker Scrapbook Kit that you can just simply fussy cut out to recreate these scallops!

Here is my take:

The scallops just make this layout! 

I grabbed some of the floral pieces mixed in from the Pocket Life Kit and Embelishment Kit to tuck under the scallops at different places. I love how they look and give a sweet garden type feel to my page.

Since I started with that garden feel, I decided to stick to one photo of some gorgeous blooms along a sidewalk. I added a few embellishments around my photo to add a little interest. I kept my title below the photo just as the sketch suggested using the Fresh Pink Studio Puffy stickers from the Scrapbook Kit. 

Just a few green splatters to add some color to the white background and that is how this simple Sunday Sketch came together.

Have you gotten inspired to use some scallops on your pages? I hope so! You can keep them as is, or tuck in a few pretties to give a little extra pop. 

I would love to see your takes on this sketch, so come share them on our CTK Facebook Group! Have a lovely Sunday scrappy friends, xo.

“Oh Yeah” A Celebratory Layout with Neftali

Welcome back CTK fans! It is Neftali back today to share a fun 12x12 layout that I created as a celebratory moment for making it onto this amazing team. I can’t thank my lucky starts enough! So, for the layout I used elements that stood out to me and I used a really clever technique to use the vellum sheet that’s included in the Main Kit.

Do you see what I did here? I cut the wood grained checkered paper a bit over halfway and pasted that down on my page. I think you’re gonna love what I did next! 

I cut the vellum sheet into 2 inch strips and added them to add some super awesome dimension to that sheet. The sheerness of the vellum makes it very subtle but I just LOVE the effect it created on this simple wood grain paper.

I then brought out our super cute DT photo and embellished that with an exclusive paper from the Skyland Project Life Kit and exclusive die cut pieces. 

I also used the Story Starter stamp set to add some words to the word bubble above the photo.

I used the same exclusive ephemera pack to create the perfect title, “Oh Yeah!” Then I used some of the little stars to add to the empty spots on the wood grain paper. This helped bring together all of the colors that I used in the embellishing around my photo.

That, friends, is how this layout came together. I love having this truly special documented in my books.

 I hope I have inspired you to get crafty and if you haven’t yet figured out how to use the vellum sheet in the Main Kit, why not try today’s technique? Thanks so much for stopping by!

Sunday Sketch with Neftali

Welcome to today’s Sunday’s Sketch post CTK fans! It is Neftali here today for the first time sharing some crafty inspiration with you all, and it is truly an honor. I am so excited to be here! Today’s sketch is fun and I tried my best to follow in to a T, let’s take a look.

HERE IS THE SKETCH:

So, as you can see, there are a lot of paper piecing details that stand out right away. I decided I wanted to give it a try and make my entire page exactly like the sketch. Take a look at my page:

I started off by picking out my 8 1/2x11 white card-stock and then picking out my papers and start trimming them to size little by little. I didn’t measure anything, but simply trimmed as I went.

The papers I used for the center cluster were all from the PL Kit and the top and bottom paper was from the Main Scrapbooking Kit. The colors in this month’s “Skyland” Kit are so beautiful, some  pastel and bright. I loved mixing them and their patterns.

So once I had my papers cut to size I stuck them down in place and then ran them all through my sewing machine to give them all some fun texture. One thing I will tell you, friends, is that I LOVE my sewing machine and just adding stitching around your pages gives such a special handmade feel to each page.

Once my papers were stitched through, it was time to add my photo and embellishments. I chose a photo of my feet about to meet the fresh Pacific waters. I also over exposed the photo quite a bit so that it would give more of a pastel and bright hue to match the pastel colors of the papers. I didn’t want a dark photo to take away from the pops of pastel.

Then to embellish, I used the lemon ephemera piece included in the Main Kit’s Pink fresh Studio ephemera pack. It was the perfect piece that also accurately fit the sketch’s design, woohoo!

I added a few puffy hearts and chipboard pieces in the center cluster as well to match the sketch.

Finally, I added my title, “Present, & In Awe” using another Pink Fresh ephemera pieces. This and  few splatters finished off my project!

So friends, that is a for today's Sunday Sketch. I cannot wait to see your own projects and don't forget to tag us on Instagram and share on our Facebook Group!