3-to-Inspire with NATASHA

 

It’s a little hard to believe that the holiday season is right around the corner. And with that it’s a great time to start thinking about how you would like to document the holidays. I think often paper crafters especially those who might be new to documenting the holiday season get overwhelmed with the process and what products to select. A kit, like the Jingle All the Way is such an approachable way to get a wide range of exclusive products and corresponding items to document all types of stories throughout the holiday season without the overwhelm.

A second way to minimize that holiday documenting scaries is by pre-determining a “pick 3” so today I am here to provide you with a 3-to-Inspire recipe to provide a jumping off point for your holiday documenting.

Today’s Pick 3:

• Stars

• Mix and Match Title

• Black and white photo

In holiday collections in particular there is often repeated shapes or deco elements for example hearts, Christmas tree ornaments, candy canes etc. For my Life Crafted Layout, I decided to use stars and circles to be a repeated design element. By selecting one or two shapes/deco elements to focus on you can prevent decision fatigue. For the stars, I like to vary the size and color of the stars. 

Puffy stickers are always such a fun and simple way to bring dimension and balance to your layout. For my title, I went with the “merry” which was the start of my color palette- paired with the black puffy alpha it ties in the black and white stars and photo. 

I love to get candid photos of the family especially during the holidays but the photo quality can be pretty poor and the captured moment itself could have a lot going on- especially when it comes to color which can conflict with the colors in the kit. 

Converting the photo to Black and white gives some harmony to the layout all while documenting those special moments. I believe better to document the moment- even if it’s not picture perfect. To edit my photos to black and white I use the iPhone editor, no fancy photo editing program needed!

Feel free to use my 3-to-Inspire recipe, or give your own a shot. As part of your holiday documenting prep, you can even jot down these ideas and recipes down in your planner to help you achieve your documenting goals without any stress.

LIFE CRAFTED INSPIRATION with NATASHA

 

Hi Friends, and Happy Weekend!

Today, I’m here to share with you some Life Crafted Album inspiration in the new 6x8 albums which truly are such a dream. I am the type of paper crafter who likes to incorporate different sizes together within a memory planning format- the larger Life Crafted size has totally fit the bill because I can document memories with or without page protectors. Currently, I am in the Midnight Black album, it’s stunning!

For this layout, I created a mixed media background to play off of all the fun and lively colors in the new CTK Exclusive Sunshine Mini Kit. 

Using the Canva free online app, I was able to format the digital Traveler's Notebook papers into circular elements which I used to build onto my mixed media background paired with the circle chipboard pieces from the Sunshine Chipboard Stickers. 

I then used some additional pieces from the Sunshine Puffy Stickers and the Sunshine Die Cut Ephemera pieces to layer in and work on a diagonal to emphasize the look I was going for.

On the other side of the layout, for the pocket page, I used the Page protector #12 style with two journal cards from the Digital Journal Cards and then for the 3x4 card I wanted to pull a very neutral base to balance all the bring colors and serve as a contrast to my title so I trimmed down one of the digital Traveler’s Notebook papers.

Hybrid layouts are so fun to create especially when you are mixing and matching different memory keeping formats. I hope this layout gave you some inspiration to try mixing and matching different styles of memory keeping within your 6x8 albums.

3-TO-INSPIRE WITH NATASHA

 

Hello Citrus Twist friends, Natasha here and I’m so excited to share my first project as a Creative Team Member with CTK! For today’s 3-to-Inspire blog post, I will be using the stunning new Life Crafted Kit, Fresh Starts.

Here are my 3-to-Inspire:

1. DIY word phrase background

2. Blue floral embellishments 

3. Build your own title  

I thought it would be a lot of fun to create my own DIY background using a stamped repeated pattern of phrases from the All the Things Stamp Set along with the new tiny word stickers in the Fresh Start Life Crafted kit. To create a seamless pattern, I recommend placing all the desired phrases onto the stamping block in an organic pattern and stamping it all at once versus each stamp individually. 

Once I finished my background, I backed my photo with an assortment of patterned papers from the Fresh Start collection and adhered it to the 6x8 paper from the Basics and Ledger Patterned Paper pack. Next I moved onto building my clusters of embellishments with the blue floral embellishment from this month's Life Crafted kit as the main anchor to create a visual triangle. I really enjoy placing my embellishments on the different layers throughout my layout to build more depth and texture. 

Last but not least, I moved onto building my own title. Using the kit's puffy stickers I built my own title and even did a little sticker surgery, and trimmed down  the "sweet"  sticker to "we" to create my title of "together we cherish this moment." 

I hope you find some inspiration in today's challenge with the gorgeous Fresh Starts Life Crafted kit. 

Happy Crafting,