Grace Box November

Hello friends, It's Gina here with you today to share another entry in Grace journal.

My journaling is from the book of Psalms.  I wrote "But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations" Psalm 20:8

Supplies used:

November Grace Box kit
StazOn Jet Black Ink
Prima Watercolor Confections
Prima Color Bloom Cotton Candy Spray Mist, Glistening Waves Spray Mist

Pick up your November Grace Box here!

Challenge Winners: October

Today we are happy to announce the winners of our challenges for the month of October!

Each week our Design Team provides you with three challenges to help you get your creative juices flowing. Pocket Life Sketch Friday gives you sketches to use in your pocket style scrapbooking. Saturday's 3 to Inspire challenge brings you three creative prompts to incorporate on a project of your choice. On Sunday, our Sunday Sketch challenge goes live. To participate in either or all challenges, all you need to do is upload your project to the gallery within a week of the challenge date, noting the date of the challenge in the title of your project. One winner is picked for each challenge and announced here on the blog.

Thanks to all that participated in the month of October! Here are the winners:

Sunday Sketch: $5 Gift Certificate to the CTK Store

     10/02: sandyr; 10/09: barbp; 10/16: jenlainy: 10/23: mamkven; and 10/30: barbp.

 
3 to Inspire: A small prize from the CTK Store

     10/22: mamakven

**Winners: To claim your prize, please email Trina at citrustwistkits@yahoo.com and include the date and name of the challenge that you have won in the subject line!

Tutorial with Alena

Hi everyone, Alena here!I decided to share with you the idea for decorating cards for the Project Life.

I like to use the negative from chipboard as here and here. But today I'm going to use it as a stencil. I need a tool Heatwave Pen.

I made a few round elements. Using the punch the right size I cut out.

 Next, I stamped a short phrase that you can find on the stamps CTK

Also using another form I created the background on the card.

I like the result!

Hope you are inspired to dig out your CTK kits and start to create today! Thanks for letting me share with you. 

Happy Crafting!

Wild About You

Good morning! Claudia here with you and today I'm sharing a layout using the gorgeous November Main kit and the Sprinkles kit. I'm absolutely in love with these kits and I think they are very versatile in terms of the color scheme you can use. I personally really love using feminine colors (read - pretty much all the time haha!), so I thought that it would be fun to set a 'challenge' for myself to use masculine colors/elements and try something different from my usual style.

I love the exclusive paper that came in the kit this month and instantly decided to use that as my background. The next thing I did was go through to rest of the papers and select some that I felt would match the color scheme I had in mind.

I knew I wanted to use those white foam thickers that said 'Wild About You' for my title but wasn't quite sure about the placement. I separated the words to make the layout a little more interesting to look at.

For the embellishing I added some of the puffy dots to create pops of color. I also added a bunch of sequins and hearts to make it look more 'full'.

Thank you for stopping by today! I hope that you enjoyed seeing this layout and that you feel inspired to challenge yourself to try something you haven't done (in a while). Have a great day! :)

- Claudia

Sunday Sketch Challenge

Hello! Michelle here with you on this lovely Sunday morning to share my take on this week's edition of our sketch challenge!  This is the sketch we are working with:

And here is my take on it:

As you can see, I stuck pretty close to the sketch with my layout. I really liked the how the tags were used and instead of going to my stash to grab a few basic white tags, I cut them out of patterned paper from the November Kit. I also decided to add an extra layer of color to the page by applying some Heidi Swap Color Shine with a piece of packaging. I continued with my "messy" mood and included some loose threads.

Now it's your turn! To play along with this week's Sunday Sketch Challenge, create a layout based off of today's sketch, upload it to the CTK Gallery with today's date (11/27) in the title, and you will be eligible to win a $5 gift certificate to the CTK Store! Can't wait to see what you all come up with!

Michelle

3-To-Inspire with Emma

Hi everyone!  Emma here with another 3-To-Inspire challenge (my favourite!). 

This week I'm going to buck the norm and make the focus of my challenge to a double-page layout!  Double-page layouts seem to be a rarity these days and I for one, would love to see more of them.  I find they're a perfect match when you want to go with a large photo or multiple photo's.

I hope you'll join in with me this week using the following prompts:

1. Make it a double-page spread
2. Add an interactive element
3. Use mixed alpha
Extra bonus - Incorporate a large photo (think something bigger than 6x4).

And here's a look at the page/s I created!

I went with a big photo on the LHS and added my journaling on the RHS. 

And for my "interactive" element I went with a vellum overlay on my photo (vellum from my stash) and added my title on top. 

For my title I used the puffy alpha stickers from the November Pocket Life kit (love the colour!!) and the optional copper stickers that were with the Main kit.  I am loving all the pops of copper at the moment!  Or maybe it's just the sparkles...I do love sparkles :)

Now it's your turn! Use the three prompts to create your own projects and share them with us here in the gallery and/or our Facebook Forum.  I really can't wait to see your pages!

Thanks, Em xo

Pocket Life Friday sketch with Kasia

Hello on Friday in another Pocket Life inspiration post! It's Kasia here with some fresh pages for you :)

We are about to finish November and I have to admit that with very busy few weeks I decided to take my life documenting a bit easy.

In 2016 I was trying to capture memories in my album week by week, but in November I changed things up and documented only snippets, little highlights and everyday moments of the month.


I created 5 pages for November in total and here you can have a look at 2 of them - there are also sketches attached at the end of this post if you feel inspired by my spreads :)

As you can see I focused on little details and things that made my November - there are lots of photos of at home activities (actually all middle row is about them!), some family pictures and a little bit of journaling and embellishments. 

I like the free look and feel of this pages. I think sometimes when it comes to documenting memories we put so much unnecessary pressure on ourselves rather than focusing on enjoying the process itself. With December approaching I wanted to have some time to prepare for my christmas album, so changing things up in the main Pocket Life album was a sensible choice!





I really enjoyed mixing and matching here cards, papers, stickers and embellishments from November kits - they all aligned perfectly, don't you think so?

Also I mixed some photos - there is random stuff from my iPhone and camera and honestly - I love this happy mix of captured memories!



Below you can grab the sketches if you also want to try this simple, yet pleasing composition in your album! I think that mix of sketch and working with already matching, kit products is a great way for stress free documenting memories!

Here is sketch for page 1



and a close up for my results using it!



And page 2 for you guys ....



... plus some inspiration from me!




I hope you will have a fun weekend, maybe you can even find some time to play with those! Let us know! And also remember about all Black Friday offers in Citrus Twist Kits shop - there are some great deals still waiting for you!

Beautiful You

Hi friends-it's Laureen here using the gorgeous Emerson Scrapbook Kit one last time on the blog! I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to Trina for your trust and the amazing opportunity to work with the beautiful kits and hopefully inspire around here!

Now, onto my layout! As soon as I opened the kit and saw this patterned paper from Jillibean Soup I knew exactly what to do with it.  I love to work with quilts as my inspiration for layouts and this paper seems to be made for just that!

Once you cut up the paper into the small patterns and sort them into colors, you can use your imagination or a premade quilt for inspiration on how to position the bits. I found a beautiful quilt on Pinterest and placed my paper pieces in the same pattern, with the arrows pointing towards the middle creating a star shape.

The photo I used is a small 2x2 photo of my sister from her graduation from school.  I used the white foam phrases from Amy Tangerine that come in the kit and combined two words to form my title-Beautiful You.

Using a few bits from the kit, like the cute wood hearts and words stickers, I embellished very little around my picture because I felt like the background with the quilt paper already did enough for the page.

Usually I would add some stitching to my quilt inspired layouts, but this time for whatever reason I completely forgot and only realized it after already having my title and photo adhered down to the page.  If I could undo this step, I would have used white thread and simply sewed through the middle of the arrows.

That is it for my final post here on the blog for my guest designer position. It was a blast and I had so much fun!

Have a great rest of the week,
xx Laureen

Give Thanks

One thing I love about this time of year is the gratitude. In America with Thanksgiving being tomorrow I find the people around me pausing to think about what they have to be thankful for. I see them trying to express that to those in their lives. Spreading the gratitude and recognition of all of the good things in our lives. We all have so much to be thankful for. I want to strive to remember this every single day.. and not just a random day in November.

This is a tough time of year for me as I suffered a loss on this day two years ago. It really puts things into perspective.... Hug your loved ones. Reach out if they are long distance. Send friends a message or text or better yet, call them. Tell them what they mean to you. Why you are grateful to have them in your life. Tomorrow is never promised. Seize the moment today to show your gratitude. Be thankful for all that you have and spread the love. Happy Thanksgiving, American friends.... and all others, a very happy Thursday.

Be prepared for December - Tuesday tutorial

Hello Everyone!

It's Mira and in today's post I would like to talk a bit about being prepared for December. It's almost here! Yay! Aren't You excited? It's the best time of the year and most of us just can't wait to start creating everyday magic plus capturing and documenting it in our albums.

December album can be sometimes overwhelming, so today's Tuesday Tutorial edition will be focused on some tips that I believe can help You start the album and actually finish it!

So, how can we be prepared for December-album journey?

1. Create a little space where You can put Your selection of December supplies and stick with this selection for the whole month

Or at least try :) By choosing things in advance, You can avoid walking through all of Your supplies later. It'll keep You sane and save Your time!

You can for example choose the goodies from Your own stash based on a specific color scheme - this is exactly what I've been doing for the last four years!

I especially love using things from previous CTK kits in my DD album, and this is my second year with white and gold tones as a dominant. So for a few last months I've been selecting most of the gold and wood elements from the kits and put them aside. This year I will probably add some red and turquoise accents here and there (oh so lovely Snow & Cocoa!).

Another way to collect stuff for Your Special December Box can be just by ordering a few December kits from Citrus Twist Kits, which I believe You already did, and stick with what's inside the packages! This will make Your creating process a lot lot easier!

2. Prepare foundation pages

You can have the number cards/pages ready in November, and I promise - nobody will call You crazy (at least nobody from the scrapbooking world). Place them in Your album and change their order later with absolutely no guilty feelings. Also if it helps, try to think about the topics that You would like to cover in Your album and when. Maybe planning what You'll be doing on weekends could help?

3. Prepare some embellishment clusters

Combining different elements and sticking them together can be real fun. It is also quite relaxing activity! Especially when You want to do something nice with paper and scissors, but You don't have pictures to work with.
When You'll have Your pictures printed in December, You'll just add these and voila! No mess involved!

4. Keep it simple 

As simple as possible.
Let's be honest. During December, there's not much time for paper projects. There are many other things to do. For example baking ginger-bread house or... skating (my favorite winter activity!). Or cuddles! It's so much better to spend our time with people that we love, than alone... so maybe trying this new technique that You've been wanting to try for a very long time, would not be the best idea now? Just think about it, and don't expect too much from Yourself. And You'll definitely manage to finish Your album. Or maybe all family members can help with a few pages? Maybe it will turn into Your family little tradition?

5. Have fun! Always have fun!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope this post will keep You motivated and at the end of December You will be happy to share Your December Album with us!

Have a fantastic month full of magic!