Sunday Sketch with Suse

Hi gang, Suse Fish with you today for the Sunday Sketch challenge. Being fairly new to working from sketches I wasn’t sure how far you can ‘push’ them, but I’ve kept an eye on the other girls in the team and I think the answer seems to be: as far as you want to!

So although this layout started out following the sketch quite closely, I soon went off on my own track!

I can’t get enough of this month’s kit: the colours, the embellishments, the letters, the papers… I’ve been like a kid in the sweetshop who can’t decide what to choose first!

The ombre-effect stitching is something I’ve wanted to try for a little while, so when I pulled out photos around the theme of me enjoying a good making session, I knew it would be a good chance to try stitching a fun title in different coloured threads. 

I’ll admit that I had intended to try for a reserved, minimal look for this one, but you know how it is: you get so stuck into all that layering and stamping that’s it just too much fun to stop! 

So now it’s your turn to play with this lovely sketch… and don’t forget to upload your project to the Citrus Twist Gallery: you could win a $5 Coupon to use on anything in the CTK Store! Remember to add "Sketch 12/27" to the title line.

3 to Inspire with Tara

Hello everyone! You can find this challenge here every Saturday to help keep you inspired with a little extra creative push to get scrapbooking, keep scrapbooking, or those just looking to do a fun challenge! Your take on this challenge can be a layout or a pocket page spread and remember that you'll want to include all 3 prompts on your project.

Your prompts this week are:

1. Embellish outside the pocket/page protector.

2. Create a flip up card/area on layout.

3. Scraps of paper.

For this challenge, I ended up with two spreads - a mini spread where I took a 6x8 page protector and cut off two of the four 3x4 pockets.

Here is an up close view. I have been waiting to use the vellum numbers that came in our December "Wonder" Pocket Life kit and found this as the perfect opportunity! I stapled it directly on top of the protector and also added one of the chipboard tiny word stickers to add more dimension and capture our fall day together at the zoo.

I have been trying to incorporate more journaling and love how I can "hide" it by making a flip up card.

It's so easy to make a flip up card! I used one of the journaling cards, "Be Yourself" from the kit. I used some washi tape from my stash to connect a cut down 3x4 Cedar Lane paper for the inner card.

Here it is from the inside view. I will be adding some white strips of paper to journal. I enjoy how you can ground patterned paper with the pop of white strips and journaling. I slip the 3x4 patterned paper portion of the flip up card into the sleeve and allow the "Be Yourself" journaling card to be on top of the sleeve so you can flip up the card easily.

 

I love how the 6x6 split pack of paper pads always includes the little perforated strip on top! I often use those to stamp, journal, and for layering!! Here is a closer look showcasing the little bits of scrap paper for layering.

 Now it's your turn! 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 26th, for a chance to win some happy mail! You can also upload to Instagram and tag us @citrustwistkits. Thank you for stopping by!

Have a lovely weekend!

Xxo, Tara

Pocket Life Sketch with Karen

Merry Christmas, are you looking forward to 2016? I know I am. We have a giveaway associated with the sketches at the end of this post so read further down for details.

As most of you might already know I used a 9x12 album for my pocket pages and a 6x8 album for my 'Studio Life' album. These sketches can be used for any size really, just adjust accordingly. 

Here is my layout based on the sketches: - 

And here are the sketches for you to try in your studio at home ;) 

Emb stands for embellishments! 

This sketch above is a 9x12 but you can change it up for any size really.

Thanks for visiting Pocket Life Friday, where every week we share PL sketches and a chance to win. For your chance to win, create a layout based on the sketches in this blog post, post your layout to our Gallery or our Facebook Fan Page by Friday, January 1st 2016. Be sure to include PL 12/25 in the title!

Karen xo

Inspiration with Chantal

Hi everyone!

It feels like it's been forever but I am so happy to be back amongst the CTK ladies and today, I'll be sharing the inspiration behind my "In the name of fun" project.

Like many of you, I am an avid "pinner". My Pinterest account is filled with the many things that inspire me and the photo/project below caught my attention last year. I decided to translate it into a layout for one of my projects this month.

Donna Watson Art on Tumblr

I first started off by printing my photo directly onto my background but reduced the opacity a bit in Photoshop prior to the printing stage. I then did the same with my photo but kept the opacity at 100%.

I then hand cut my photo to make sure it wasn't exactly a perfect circle, glued it onto my background and stitched it down with some red thread for contrast.

I also cut out some strips of patterned paper, glued them to the bottom and kept the remainder of my project pretty simple. The tag was added for some text space since my background photo is pretty dark and the remainder of the items were adhered to the bottom of my page including a snippet of text I cut out from a piece of paper from the December Patterned Play #1 Add-on.

Christmas Banner with Emma

Hi everyone!  Emma here to share a quick and easy project using this month's Add-on kit.

I really wanted a "Merry Christmas" banner for our mantle this year and had been on the look out for something for a while.  Imagine my joy when I saw the gold alpha's in the Add-on kit as I knew straight away I was going to use them and make my own banner!  I'm admittedly not awesome at DIY crafty things, but that doesn't mean I don't love to give them a try ;)

That being said, the banner was SUPER easy to put together.  It was just a matter of running the letters through the sewing machine and voila, you are done!  Is that easy or what?! I used plain white cotton so it didn't stand out too much (I'd have used gold but it's being difficult in my machine at the moment and I was in a "get it done now" mood, haha).  

Once I had it all stitched together I put it up on the mantle and thought I needed just a little something to jazz it up.  And given that stars are one of my favourite shapes ever, I made a couple paper stars and hung them at each end.  The stars are also super easy to make and I've put together a little step by step below.

To make these you just need scissors and some glue. 

Instructions (to match photo's from top to bottom, left to right)

1. Pick your favourite papers and cut some squares (for my banner I went with 3 inch and 6 inch)
2. Fold the paper in half on both sides
3. Fold the paper diagonally from both sides
4. Make 4 cuts on each edge of the paper (in the centre line of your fold).  Each cut should be the same length so you can measure it, or if you're like me, you'll just wing it ;)
5. From your cuts, fold each edge up towards the folded line
6. Repeat on all four sides
7. Pull each piece back towards each other and adhere with glue
8. Repeat for all four sides
9. You now have one half of your star!  
10. To get stars like what I have on my banner, you just need to repeat the above steps for your second half.  Then it's just a matter of gluing them together (I used hot glue gun for sticking them together, was just easier and I won't have to worry about them coming apart).

They could not be any easier to make really!  To hang them I just threaded cotton through one corner and tied it onto the white cotton from the letters.  There is not much weight in the whole banner so its just fixed to the wall using gold drawing pins.  Easy to make, easy to install.

I am actually really happy how it turned out!  It's one of those projects that looks cute and takes no time to put together.  Perfect for this time of the year where things tend to get a little crazy!

Well thanks for sticking through to the end,  I hope you enjoyed it reading about it as much as I did putting it together :)

Are you a DIY decoration/s kind of person?  Did you make any this year? If so I would love to hear/see what you've done!

Em xo

Tuesday Tutorial With Sandy

Hi everyone! It's Sandy sharing a technique using my  favourite mixed media supply item from Ranger. It's Perfect Pearls. I love fashioning little accents on my pages with it. For example on this layout I used Onyx Pearl to fill in the centers of the gold puffy stars creating a two-toned effect. Since the Perfect Pearl nozzle is really fine, I can work easily on small areas just as if I'm using a pen or colour pencil.

Another thing I frequently do with Perfect Pearls is make pearlescent enamel dots. Just put the nozzle against paper and squeeze to produce dots of different sizes. For the holidays you can't go wrong with colours like gold, platinum and silver. The only thing to remember is to put your layout aside for a couple of hours in order for the dots to set. If you are fashioning extra large dots - anything more than half an inch - than leave it overnight to dry completely.

  

That's all from me for 2015. Hope you have a wonderful December and see you in the new year!

Card making with Janine

Hey everyone, it's Janine here. I hope you are all well and can enjoy the wonderful time before Christmas!

Today I'd love to show you a quick card that I made using the two coffee cups from this month's printable that came with the Scrapbooking Kit.

When I saw the coffee cups I immediately fell in love, aren't they the cutest? I knew I had to incorporate them in a layout, but as I am no coffee drinker at all, I couldn't find a way to use them. So I decided to go with a card instead. I have to tell you, I am having quite a hard time when it comes to creating cards, I don't know why. But that card came together so easily and I am sure it was because of the cups that I love so much.

I do have some dies for my Big Shot here, because I always want to create cards, but as I said, I just fell like I am a total failure when it comes to this ...

Anyway, I decided to just jump right in and create a little scene. I quickly colored the cups with Copics, cut two green stripes with a stitched border die as well as a circle out of white cardstock. The scene came together rather quickly, lucky for me, so I just had to add a sentiment. The stamp set this month was perfect for it! I stamped it with Versamark and heat set it with some white embossing poweder. I felt there was still missing something and I had some little red hearts left from another project, so I added those and used my Wink of Stella pen to add some glitter.

To finish it, I added some patterned paper to the card base, adhered my scene on it and added a paper strip (from the same patterned paper that I used on my card base) as well as some string.

That's it, quick, easy and cute. I like it. :)

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week!