MEET OUR GUEST DESIGNER: BARBARA PICINICH

Hello everyone!

We are so excited to introduce our October 2019 Guest Designer to you all.  We have been following her work for a while, and find it always so fresh and beautiful, so we had to ask her to join us this month, and she said, "YES!".   So please help us welcome BARBARA PICINICH to Citrus Twist Kits for this month.  You are going to love her and her work!

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GET TO KNOW BARBARA

Hello everyone, my name is Barbara and I am a true California native having lived most of my life near San Francisco in the Bay Area. Today I live in the Central Valley of California near the State Capital of Sacramento.  I live with my husband of twenty years and our almost twelve year old daughter. We love to travel and we are big fans of Disney parks and we also love spending time in Lake Tahoe and Yosemite. When I'm not scrapbooking I spend my free time sipping coffee, browsing Instagram, reading, binge watching TV shows, watching YouTube videos and going to the movies with my husband as often as we can.

You can find me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/babz510/ 
and I do have a blog where I share the projects I make http://thepicinicbasket.blogspot.com/
and I also have a YouTube channel where I share flip thru videos of mini albums which is currently my most recent December Daily albums https://www.youtube.com/user/Babz510/featured

Q& A with BARBARA

1.       When did you start scrapbooking?

I started scrapbooking in 1999 right after I got married. My very first project was my wedding album, talk about starting big! Once that was done I moved on to traditional layouts of family trips and events. I was never a consistent scrapbooker in the early days but in 2007 when my daughter was born I picked it back up again to document her first year and haven’t stopped since. One thing led to another and I now have a home full of scrapbooks, layouts and mini albums that I love so much. These days my favorite ways to scrapbook is to make pocket page albums, mini books and Travelers Notebooks. I don’t worry about being caught up any more and make projects based on the inspiration I find in products, stamps and kits. I love just going with the flow and not worrying about being current all the time.

2.       What is something most people would not know about you?

I’m a makeup and beauty junkie! I love makeup so much that my last corporate job was working in the regional sales office of MAC Cosmetics as an Executive Assistant and Office Manager. It’s an industry that I have always loved and its one that I’m still super drawn to and continue to be inspired by daily. I had the best job in the world and worked with some of the most creative and inspiring people every day and I got to be surrounded by makeup and talk about makeup and be with makeup every day. Talk about a creative high, it was the best! But I left that job when my daughter was born and I have been a stay at home mom ever since but I still love makeup and watch trends and stay on top of all of the latest releases like it’s still my job. I’m also super into watching makeup tutorials on YouTube in my spare time, it’s so much fun and I love it!

3.       What are the 3 scrapbooking products you can’t live without?

Well it’s not a traditional product per say, but I cannot live without my Canon printer. I print everything at home because I like to edit and decide sizes on the fly. I can’t predict where I’m heading so I need to have the flexibility to print at home. Next would be good black ink. I love to stamp with black ink and having good ink that I know will give a crisp impression is a must. My favorite is Staz-on mainly because I like to stamp a lot on vellum so it’s a must for that. Lastly I would say embellishments, a project is just not done for me if I can’t add a little heart or star or a die cut. I like things with dimension and embellishments are where it’s at for me and a project is never complete without a little something something.

4.       What do you love about the October Life Crafted kit – AT MY TABLE-?

Based on what I said in question three I bet you can already predict my answer, the embellishments! I really loved the die cuts in the kit this month and the little puffy hearts were exactly what I love to add to my pages. The colors and the different shapes and themes were really fun to use.

5.       Finish this sentence “If you could see my scrapbooking space now . . . “

It would not look like the photos below but it will very soon. I love my space so much and I especially love how much work and time my husband put in to giving me the space I wanted. He built my standing desk for me to fit into an existing alcove in our home and it’s just perfect. I love having a space that I can get messy in and I’m very much a messy scrapbooker. My work surface typically has layers and layers of things crowding the space but as soon as I’m done I clean up, even in between projects. I need to mentally clear the decks and have a fresh canvas and clean space to begin again.

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I’m super excited to share the first project I made with the At My Table Life Crafted Kit! I have been in love with the Life Crafted albums since they came out and just finished adding the last layout to my first album. I just love having a space for Travelers Notebook sized projects especially since that’s a size that I’m completely drawn to right now.

This kit gave me everything I love in a kit; there are embellishments, there are super cute stamps and there are little pops of gold in the accents. Not to mention it was food related and what’s not to love about documenting fun food adventures. When I saw all the soft colors and pretty floral accents I knew I had the perfect photos for this project.

When planning out projects I always start with photos and for this particular day I had many to choose from so I had to edit them down to a manageable number that would fit on a travelers notebook sized space. For me the photos always come first so I’m always trying to come up with ways to fit as many as I can on to a layout while still leaving room for the pretty stuff. In this case I had four photos that I felt really told the story of the day and sized them to 2.25” x 3.25”.  The next part of the process for me is laying out the photos then placing some of the larger embellishments that I know for sure I want to use on the spread.

Layering pieces is key for me so figuring out placement is important. I like to lay everything out and then once I’m happy with the look I start to stick everything down. I’m not big on a lot of adhesive for several reasons; one you just don’t need that much and two, I tend to change my mind so using less means I can carefully lift stuff up and move it around.

When I’m laying out my key embellishments I am also keeping stamps in mind. It’s important to leave room or at least plan out what items I might want to stamp on while I’m coming up with my layout. In this case these little die cuts were perfect for stamping a few of the sentiments on. I love how dainty they are and I love how they are the exact right scale for this project and the photos.

This main embellishment cluster is my favorite part of the spread; I think it’s all the layers and the little bits of gold from the alpha stickers. These little stickers were perfect to spelling out the name of the café we visited and the digital tag was the perfect little accent to the kit die cuts. I also had the perfect amount of space for the tiny stamped sentiment which was my favorite one on that stamp set.

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We are so in love with what Barbara has created with the AT MY TABLE kit and stamps!   Her work is just amazing.   She will be back later this month to share a bit more of inspiration with us!  Be sure to leave her some love and follow her on social media ( you are going to love all the inspiration she offers in her projects).  Thank you so much BARBARA for joining us!