Playing with Pocket Life with Melissa

Happy Pocket Life Friday, everyone! Melissa here, and you'll be seeing a lot of me this week and next since several of my posts got bunched together on the schedule this month!

My layout today covers the week of August 25-31, 2013, and I pulled out lots of yummy fall-ish reds and yellows to make a warm-toned layout to go with my late summer photos.

Looking at the dates for this layout, you've probably noticed that I'm a fair bit "behind" in this album right now. Am I stressing over that, though? Not one bit! I have a very loose approach to Project Life that works well for me and keeps me from getting hung up on not having every week scrapped yet. It's a philosophy I shared here before a year or so ago, but since there are new people trying this project out (and signing up for Citrus Twist's kits!) all the time, I thought I'd recap in hopes of helping some of you not feel stressed, too!

My journey with Project Life started in 2009, when I took the "photo a day" approach to my album. After finishing that, I took 2010 off, only to miss it terribly and pick it right back up again in 2011. I continued with the photo a day approach until late May 2011, when I found that that particular format just didn't inspire me any longer, and I decided not to continue. It was in September of that same year that I discovered the more creative side of the project, where scrappers were using different sized photos, not strictly following a one-photo-per-day format, and were embellishing and using regular supplies, not just the ones branded for the project. I was hooked and in love again, and I picked my album back up and started in September of 2011 using a completely different approach.

I made the decision at that time that I wanted to go back and fill in the missing weeks between May and September as I had time, so I'm not just behind on Project Life now- I've been behind since late 2011! And I've learned that being behind is a good thing for me, for several reasons:

• I can order prints for several weeks/months at a time from a developer, making it more economical than printing at home on a weekly basis.
• I can skip around weeks and choose photos that best match the supplies that I want to work with. This alone makes having several weeks of layouts ready to be scrapped worth it, because it keeps me inspired by letting me work with what makes me most creatively excited at any given time.
• I can work on steps in batches- editing photos for several weeks, having them printed all at once (as mentioned above), and even scrapping several weeks all at once. Basically, I can pick up my album and work on any part of the scrapbooking process that I feel like playing with at any give time. It rocks!

My best piece of advice for those who are stressing out over their Project Life albums is to take a step back and evaluate a few things. Is your approach to the photo portion of the album the right one for you? Try some different sizes or differing the number of photos per week and see what works for you! Are you frustrated because you're behind, or because you're working through your weeks (or months) chronologically and are stuck on a set of photos that just doesn't inspire you? Try skipping around! Are weekly layouts not thrilling you because they seem to be piling up, or you don't have enough photos? Try a monthly approach, a quarterly approach, or whatever works for you! The bottom line is, define how you want your album to flow on your terms, define your own level of success (it doesn't have to be completed weeks- I'm personally happy as long as my photo editing is reasonably caught up), and then let the rest go and enjoy the process!

Inspired by frames with Jen Chapin

Hi there and happy Thursday! Hope your week is going well :) Today I'm sharing a layout that I made with the main scrapbook kit this month. I was totally inspired by the pack of October Afternoon chipboard frames and wanted to use as many as possible on this layout.

I layered my elements on the sheet of dictionary paper that was included in the kit, then added wood veneer, buttons, stitching and some vellum.

I hope you'll try this on a layout soon! Don't hoard those supplies, use them! Thanks for stopping by today. Have a great weekend!

6x6 Paper Play with Sam

Hi everyone and happy Wednesday! This is Sam to share a  layout using Kelly Purkey Mon Ami collection paper pad that came in the Pocket Life kit in February. To be honest, I was in a creative rut this month because I have zillions things-to-so on my list and also I just don't feel like scrapping. I guess I was still in the Chinese New Year (holiday) mood and thus getting lazier by the day. As I was flipping the paper pad and checking out Citrus Twist blog for some inspiration, I came across this Sunday Sketch on 9 February blog post and decided to play along. 

Here's the sketch on 9/Feb/2014:

And this is my layout using the sketch with a lot of white space. I swap the multi photos placement to single photo because I am more use to scrapping single photo layout. Added a lot of RED to the layout just because this photo of us was taken on 1st day of Chinese New Year. Chinese love wearing red during new year as we believe this would bring us prosperity and good luck.

I used the TODAY tag from Pocket Life Embellie kit as title and stamped the date on it. 

I also added 3 crochet bows that I made myself on the layout to create visual triangle. 

Thanks for looking! I hope you would play along with over Sunday Sketch every week and share with us in the gallery too! XoXoXo

Tuesday Tutorial with our Guest

Shawna here with my first layout using the fabulous February main kit and a quick tutorial on adding typewrite to your pages.  I was given a huge, clunky old typewriter when it was retired from service at my job and it has been incredibly handy for scrapbooking!  I love typing my journaling onto my pages, but even more than that, typewrite can add something fun and unique to your layout backgrounds, the way I have used it here.

I started out with my blood orange and banana gelatos from Faber Castell's 50's Diner set (you can find it in the Citrus Twist store!) and just scribbled a few rows of color across the bottom half of my page and blended them together using my finger.  Of course I forgot to take a photo of the page with just the gelatos!

Then I loaded my gelato covered paper into the typewriter and typed the word "no" over and over, layering it over and past the gelatos.  You will see a bit further down in my post why this word is so appropriate.

 

 

And here's why the "no" word was so appropriate.  This is my little pouter unimpressed because she didn't want to eat her dinner before she got her little prize that came with her happy meal.  (She's incredibly good natured so as you can see in the second photo, the pout didn't last long.)

 

After layering the photos over the typewriting and gelatos, I fussy cut some of the word bubbles from the October Afternoon Snapshots patterned paper and scattered them around the photos, layered a couple of scrap papers and added my title.  (I am in LOVE with the fun doodled Thickers included in this month's kit!)

 

Then added a bit of gelato to the top of the page to tie it in, and added some scraps and one of the flair buttons included with the kit.  I finished things off with a few drops of diluted black indian ink dropped on with a medicine dropper.

 

And here's my finished page.  I hope that you will give typewriting a try as a background technique!

 

Simple Strategies With Sandy

Welcome to another Monday instalment of Simple Strategies. Today's February Main Kit only layout is designed to feature lots of square format photos (perfect for instagram fans), lots of journaling (ideal for those who love story-telling) and, for anyone who enjoy stretching their kit supplies, only one piece of pattern paper.

 

 

Lately I've been interested in achieving various effects on my pages through pattern paper manipulation and this Printshop Criss Cross paper is a perfect candidate for experimentation. Using only skinny, little slivers of the paper allows me to get three different looks from this one paper. Nothing is wasted, I've even used the 0.5"inch label strip, turning the Studio Calico logo into an organic flourish pattern.

 

 

You can easily reproduce this look with little strips of pattern paper. However if, like me, you enjoy the subtle, depth effect of layering underneath your cardstock, you'll need a sharp penknife. Start by cutting one window from your cardstock and layering a generous amount of pattern paper underneath. Then cut an adjacent window, this time through two layers of paper, before layering the second pattern beneath. This method of working allows me to position windows where ever I like on the page without having to worry about how to secure the pattern underneath.

Hope everyone enjoys playing with their February Kits as much as I did !  

Sunday sketch with Eve

Hello everybody,

Hope you a lovely week end.
This month I choose this fabulous sketch :

And I did this page :

To play along with our sketch challenge, upload your layouts to the gallery by Feb. 22th to get your name in a drawing to win a $5 gift certificate to the Citrus Twist Kits store. When uploading to the gallery you can name it as you would normally but please include "Sketch 16/09" so we know which drawing to put your name into.

Extra Project Day

“Hi there! Here is Amélie and this is my card made with February Main kit. I decided for creating my card to play with bubbles paper from October Afternoon. Love the look of this funny card!”

Hey everyone this is Evelyn Pratiwi Yusuf.  Today I wanna share my extra project about cute bookmarks that  I created using CTK February Main Kit. Reading a novel is one of my fav hobby and I wanna create something pretty to be my novel bookmarks. Actually my goal is very simple which is to improve my mood for reading novels in addition to functioning as a bookmark. 

 

I use manila tags, chipboards, wood veneers, scrap papers, CTK Feb clear stamp, flair, ribbons and doilies. You can find all of those pretty stuff in CTK Feb Main kit and start to create your own bookmarks. Easy and simple but the final result so pretty! See you in the next post.

Sandy plays with a design of overlapping circles and a bold sentiment. Layering floral designs and text beneath cut-outs to create a graphic valentine card. 

Angie here to share a fun little card I created with the February Kit Add-on. I used lots of layers for this card.

Here is a card I created with the “Good Life” main kit. The "love" stamp is from an older CTK kit and I used this tutorial to make the heart medallion.

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope we inspired you to create a fun project this weekend!