6x6 Paper Pad Layout with Melissa

Hello, everyone! Melissa here to start your Wednesday off with a layout using the 6x6 Paper pad and a few other items from the July Citrus Twist Project Life kit. I mixed it all together with the Main Kit and Travel Add-On to create the layout below, and I took a few photos along the way to show how it all came together.

I wasn't in my scrap room when I made this layout- in fact, I wasn't even in my home state! I was out of town visiting my family, and my brother and his wife were there along with my three-year-old niece, who was watercoloring beside me at the kitchen table while I played with my July kits. I was mostly playing with her, and every once in a while I'd pop back over to the scrapbooking side of things to add a piece or two to my page.

I started out without a background in mind, just playing with some pieces from the Atlantic vellum die cuts (Main Kit) and Travel Girl Miscellany (Travel Add-On) along with a doily and a journaling card from the Project Life kit to make two clusters- one including a photo and one of just embellishments.

The scaled-down patterns in The Pier's 6x6 pad helped me quickly find the next thing to add- a kraft chevron sheet of paper. I simply put the whole 6x6 block behind the photo cluster to help ground it.

Next it was time for a title, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to put each word on one line or the whole thing on a single line, so I spelled each word out on its own clear ruler so I could move them around until I was happy with the placement.

I decided fairly quickly on a single-line title and moved all of the letters to one ruler, then picked out a background paper. I admit that I was having a hard time choosing between this Travel Girl paper and the aqua arrow print from Happy Camper, and in the end it was my Mom who helped me decide on the Travel Girl background (thanks, Mom!). I also cut a chunk off of a yellow dot 6x6 sheet from The Pier pad- one of the great things about these papers is that you can make just one cut, without measuring, and almost always come out with a size of sheet that will work for your page!

In this case both sections of the cut paper worked- one behind my photo, and one behind the title to help it pop just a bit. I also added strips to the top and bottom of the page at this point.

After that, all I had to do was adhere everything down and then add a few last dimensional bits in the form of Travel Girl brads and a few geotag wood veneers.

I normally write my journaling directly onto my layout backgrounds, but with such a busy text print as the base that wasn't going to work. Instead, I made a pocket with the yellow chunk of paper I'd cut earlier and tucked a flash card from the Travel Girl Miscellany inside to hold my writing.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a very happy Wednesday!

Tuesday Tutorial: A reading log mini

Hello there! It's Nathalie here today to share a step-by-step tutorial to create a mini reading log. Whether it is lounging by the pool, at the beach or on my own patio, I love to catch up on my reading during the summer... and the next best thing is keeping track of the books I read (I also make layouts at the end of each year with the full recap).
I am using this log for my summer reads but it can by done at any time of course, or given along with a book as a gift...

I used the July main kit "Sail Away", the embellishment kit "Go Girl" and the stamp add-on "Five Star".

You will need:

- patterned paper (can be scraps)

- library cards

- embellishments for your cover

- brad

- stamps

A note regarding the library cards: the ones I used are real ones from my stash. You can find them on Etsy, choose to make your own or you can easily find printable ones, like these. A search for free printable library cards on Pinterest, yielded lots of results.

1/ Cut the front and back covers out of patterned paper to the exact size of your library cards. Mine are 3x5 inches:

2/ Cut a smaller piece of patterned paper to fit on your cover. Mine is roughly 2.75x4x75. Round the corners and sew (optional):

3/ Print a quote onto copy paper and trim to about 1x1 inch to fit behind one of the veneer frames from the embellishment kit:

4/ Place the little frame on your cover along with your other embellishments. I added a tag, a brad, sequins and a little heart stamp:

5/ With the awesome "Five Star" stamp add-on and black ink, add "I rate this" and five stars onto each library card:

6/ Now put everything together in order:

7/ Line up everything and make a hole through both covers and the cards towards the bottom right corner. Bind everything together with a brad and you are done:

But I couldn't stop there so I decided to also make a quick bookmark to match! 

Simply cut a piece of patterned paper to 1.75x6.5 inches. Make a hole on top and add a hole reenforcement. String a few veneer and metal embellies on twine and attach to the hole. Add a couple small paper strips towards the bottom and another little veneer frame with a stamped paper behind it:

As always with our tutorials, feel free to ask any questions you might have in the comments. Thank you and happy scrapping!

Simple Strategies : Adding Mini Album To Your PL Album

Hello there! Its Sam today to show you one of the simple way to incorporate a mini album into your Project Life album.

I always like to make mini album to store all my travelogue, photos and memorabilia from my trip. When there's a week that I actually went travelling, I would prefer making a mini album and slot it into the respective weekly PL spread. And here is the mini album I made for my friend's Spain trip using July Main kit and add-ons.

And today I am going to show you how to modify the normal 8.5 x 11 inch (letter sized) page protector to fit my mini album that measures about 7 x 7 inch. This is how it looks like when I fit it into my normal weekly spread. This simple strategy tutorial is totally inspired by Kasia on how she stores her layouts. 

These are the tools that you need:

• Mini album
• Page protector (I use American Crafts 8.5 x 11 sleeve)
• Patterned paper of your choice
• Tape glue
• Twine (from the kit packaging)
• We R Memory Keepers - Crop-A-Dile
• 1-inch circle punch
• 2 x eyelets
• Scissors & Paper trimmer

Firstly cut paper stripe measuring 6 x 12 inch, fold at 2 inch mark (on the short side). Then punch two 1-inch circles and punch each a small hole in the centre of the circle using Crop-a-dile.

Move on to trimming the height & width of the page protector to fit the album snugly. You could skip this step if you do not have a sewing machine.

I eyeball the length (top & side) that needed to be trimmed down. You could leave about 1/2 to 1 inch extra room for  your album.

Then use tape glue to stick the paper stripe to the back of the page protector. You could staple it down or stitch with sewing machine to make sure the paper adhere to the plastic sleeve.

I trimmed the corner to make it looks more like an envelop and stitch all the corner. Again, you can skip this step if you do not have a sewing machine.

Punch a small hole in the middle of the front flap & plastic sleeve . Again, I eyeball the placement of the hole.

Add the 1 inch circle & eyelet on the hole and set it with Crop-a-dile. Then wrapped twine around the bottom circle.

Here is the final product. A thinner album would fit into this sleeve nicely but I went crazy adding embellishment to my album. If you have any question about customizing your own page protector, do comment and ask!

And now I would like to share photos of my album here.

I use the pastel blue chalk ink to color the '&' wood veneer.

Inspire by the vellum die cut from Studio Calico Atlantic collection, I added vellum pages too.

Thanks for looking and readinf such a long post! And I hope you have a great week ahead!

Sunday Sketch

Here is your new sketch challenge. Upload your layouts to the gallery by Aug. 3rd to get your name in a drawing to win a $5 GC to the store. When uploading to the gallery you can name it as you would normally but please include "Sketch 7/27".



Here is my take using the July Kit Add-on (only).  See this kit doesn't need to be used for traveling ;)



Can't wait to see what you create!!

Product Spotlight ~ Twine

If you receive one of Trina's beautiful kits you will see that it is carefully wrapped in Twine.  And if your like me (and all the DT's) you probably us the twine on a layout.  Today we are each sharing a project featuring that twine.

Sam here to share my twine layout. I love tying twine / ribbon around my photo to create focal point. This is one of the easiest way to embellish your photo without adding bulk!



Gina here, sharing a layout in which I've used some aqua twine to dress up the wood veneer shapes found in the main kit. I've simply wound a piece of twine between the opposite grooves in the asterisk shape, then adheres the loose ends at the back with a glue dot. It's such a simple way to add extra colour and texture. I'm sure the same could be done with some star and flower shapes.



Angie here sharing how I used my twine. I took the twine and adhered it all around the circle. I love how it give the circle dimension.



Kasia here, I used my twine to embellish the handmade tag which was attached to the card I made. I punched 2 holes in the tag and after putting twine through them I closed the loose ends in cute bow shape.

I hope we have inspired you to use twine on your next project.

Playing with Pocket Life with Jen

Happy Friday! Today, I'm sharing a two page Pocket Life spread from our family vacation to Greece in June. This month I worked with the July PL, Travel Add-on and Stamp Add-on Kits. July could not have been a more perfect match to document our time on the beach.

The rainbow chevron from the 6x6 paper pad had to take a starring role in this spread. It's just so pretty and happy! I paired the bold pattern with a title and arrows cut from my Silhouette, a OA Travel Girl flash card from the add-on, a label for my dates and a few accent enamel dots to bring it all together.

I love adding memorabilia to my pages but, let's face it, computer generated boarding passes aren't the nicest looking bits of ephemera. My solution? Cut a vellum bitty bag using my Silhouette, back it with a patterned paper card and embellish the front. The boarding passes are still accessible and slightly visible yet, much easier on the eye. And, we actually did fly with KLM...thank you OA Travel Girl Miscellany pack (Travel Add-on) for being spot on!

The OA Travel Girl tidbits in the PL kit were irresistible! I ended up using a tab and circle bit on the card, along with some washi, a little anchor Silhouette cut and stamps from the add-on to record some memories of my children and the beach.

I hope you've enjoyed a little peek at Greece in June! Here are this month's sketches: