Life Crafted Inspiration with Kira

Hey there! It’s Kira and I am back with another Life Crafted TN sized layout. I thought it would be fun to show y’all my process when making a layout, start to finish. Here’s a look at my finished layout:

I always start out my layouts with a story. I jot stories or quotes from my children in my notes app on

my phone. I usually just keep a running log, noting the date something was said. In this case, I had a

separate note started for our vacation we took in June since I also wanted to keep track of the places we visited or ate. I came across this sweet quote from my son while I was choosing which story to tell.

Once I chose this quote, I then select my photo. I don’t try and find a photo I took in the exact moment,

but one that will work for the situation. Since this was said while we were in Washington, I wanted a

photo of him in WA where the scenery behind him was indeed “beautiful”. I thought this one of him in

front of the Space Needle was perfect. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and we are clearly in Seattle.

After I settle on my photo, I go ahead and print it out. Sometimes I want a full-page photo or multiple

small photos so I would normally resize at this point. But I just went ahead and printed the photo at a

standard size of 2"x3".

Then it’s time to choose my embellishments. When using a kit, I still find myself overwhelmed if I have

too many choices, so I like to narrow everything down before getting started. I loved the green in this

kit and thought it worked well with my photo. And originally, I thought of pulling in some blues, but I

thought that seemed too “predictable” for a Seattle layout, so I opted for pops of yellow instead since

the sun was shining in this particular photo. I pulled out all the papers and embellishments that fit my

color scheme and theme of the page.

And finally, it was time to put together my page. I started by matting my photo with this green leaf

paper and used the lace trim as an accent piece on top.

I built a cute little embellishment with this rabbit die cut, which has nothing to do with the story, but I

thought gave it a whimsical feel.

At this point, I needed to decide if I wanted my journaling (quote) on this page or make this a two page

spread. Since this was just a quote, I thought one page would work fine. And I loved the idea of having

the journaling “hanging” on the tag.

I finished the page off with some stamping using the new stamps. And that’s it! I hope you enjoyed

hearing more about my process and I can’t wait to see how you use this kit.

xo, Kira

Layout with Marivi

Hello again!

First of all, Merry Christmas, I hope you have a great few days.

For this post I have created a layout, size 8.5x11 inches, with a white background.

I have placed the whole design on the bottom, the limits have been marked by sewing with the sewing machine, in zig-zag.

I have been putting labels and puffy stickers around. Next to the black label I have stamped a phrase.

I have put the title at the bottom, with an abc, in fuchsia pink.

Under the photo creating layers I have placed two papers.I have also placed some hearts and ink splatters.

Hope you like it. See you soon!

 

Sparkle and Joy with Guest Designer, Elizabeth Heinz

Hello friends, it's Elizabeth.  I'm DELIGHTED to share some more pages in my "ABC Christmas" Life Crafted Album.  As a reminder, I'm following a SIMPLE design formula to document some of my family's FAVORITE holiday traditions.  

For the left-hand page, I enlarged a photo to 4" x 8.25" to slip inside the page protector.  To finish, I created an embellishment cluster using a die-cut, chipboard circle and and puffy star sticker.  I chose this chipboard circle because the color AND sentiment complimented the sentiment on the journal card on the opposite page.

For the top right-hand page, I used a stamp from my stash, the red puffy alphabet sticker and my computer to create my title.  To finish, I added another die-cut and puffy sticker.  "Ho ho ho" and the mug of hot chocolate were the PERFECT combination for this story.

For the bottom right-hand page, I chose a 3 x 4 journal card to hold my WORDS.  At the top, I stapled another cute, colorful die-cut.

I hope these pages provided some INSPIRATION.  I'll be back later this month to share more ideas.  HAPPY crafting.  XO, Elizabeth

Sunday Sketch with Nathalie

 

Hi there!

Nathalie here with this week's Sketch Challenge.   I think we all love having sketches as a blueprint to a new project.  A sketch is a great way to kickstart your project, and complete a page in a nice and quick way.  This week's sketch is a nice and versatile one, let me show you what we are working with...

I love the simplicity of the sketch, all the layers and the double picture design.  I used my Add-on kit to create this page:

I kept the skeleton of the page intact with a few minor adjustments.  First, I decided to use the HOME LIFE cut file to create the background of the page.  I simply welded a few of the honeycomb designs into a large jagged edge design.  I cut this from white cardstock and attached it to the page with a bit of foam adhesive to create the soft shadow in the page.

My choice was to shrink the layers of the papers and pictures to fit inside of the page, instead of fitting the entire width of the page.  The patterned paper designs in this month's add on kit made it easy to build all the layers and make the pictures pop ( the blue shades in the papers make the blue jacket shine!)

I chose to move the locations of the clusters and title so that they fit the images better.  The large chipboard alpha is a fast way to create my title on all the negative space of the picture.  I tied all the clusters together with some of the floral ephemera.  

I kept the top part of the layout as in the sketch, but decided to add one of the PFS Cardstock stickers  with a bit of dimension behind it.  In addition, I replaced the ink drops with some of the chipboard hearts from the add-on kit.

I hope this has inspired you to use this week's sketch to kick start your creativity.  Remember to share your projects with us.  We love to see what you create with our sketches, kits and products.

XO

Sunday sketch / Marivi

Happy Sunday!

Today I show you a new challenge and this is the sketch.

For this design I have used an Add-on Kit, which in addition to the latest Crate Paper collection, includes some vintage elements such as book sheets and ribbons that I love.

It is a design of layers of paper, a pink paper and on top one of the book sheets. I have sewn a strip of paper with a wood motif and on top an ephemera card and finally the photo.

In the photo I have sewn an ephemera with a stamp motif and underneath a vellum flower and a golden sticker in the shape of leaves.

With the strip of paper I have also sewn a piece of lace and underneath the sewn a butterfly appears with a sticker in the shape of a corsage.

I have placed the title on the upper part that I have also sewn and as a small detail a bee.

I hope you like it and are encouraged to participate in the challenge.

 

Hybrid Layout with Kira

 Hey there!  It's Kira and I am back with another layout in my Life Crafted album.  Today I am using a mix of the add-on kit and some digital elements, all of which you can find in the CTK shop!

If you missed my exciting news:  I'm getting a puppy!!  So of course I needed to start scrapping about him immediately!  We don't get to bring him home until the 15th, but we were able to visit and make our decision late last month.  Being around cute puppies demanded about a million photos, but choosing which ones to add to a scrapbook can be difficult.  Which led me to this fun idea:

I used the view finder die cut from the digital pack and resized it to be 8.25" tall.  I used the print and cut feature in Cricut design space, after "slicing" the die cut down the center.  I print and cut it two times, which left me with 4 halves of a view finder.  

Then I printed all of my photos at 1" tall, and adhered each photo in the view finder "slots".  Once all of my photos were in, I used an adhesive page strip on what would be the "inside" of the view finder.  Then I adhered the front and back of the view finder together.  Said simply, I made a view finder sandwich with a page strip as my meat! Ha!

Once I had all my photos in, it was time to add my journaling.  We don't know much about our puppy yet, but we did get to meet the parents and learn about them from the owners.  I added some journaling about them on the left page, along with their pictures from the website.  

On the right side page, I added photos of the three boys we had to choose between and what order we had considered them in.  I also added what the breeders predicted for their dispositions, since I thought this would be fun to look back on and see if our puppy ended up as predicted.  

I added the photos of the three puppies, and embellished with some digital die cuts and puffy stickers from the add-on kit and LC kit.  

Thanks for stopping by!

xo, Kira 

Pocket Pages Using the Add-On Kit with Shannon

Hello crafty friends! Shannon here with my first post as a part of the CTK Design Team. I'm excited to show you how I take the scrapbooking add on kit and use it to create a pocket page spread.

As a lover of pocket pages, I often find myself staring longingly at traditional scrapbooking supplies wishing I could use them in my pockets. Now, I wish no more! With a little creativity, you can take traditional supplies and make them work for you. The March Scrapbooking Add-On Kit is so full of color so I let my photos guide my color scheme. It just so happens that yellow-orange is a perfect match for my daughter's hat! After I had my photos and supplies picked out, I started on my journaling cards.

For my title card, I chose a section of the color sampler 12x12 paper that had all the colors I wanted to use in my spread. I created the title using the word "life" from the die cut pack and those amazing copper alphas. A little heart (from the March WEEKENDER Life Crafted kit) and a flag from the die-cut pack was all that was needed to pull this card together.

Next, I used a ton of flowers from the floral die cuts and layered them onto a piece of yellow-orange cardstock. The package came with so many flowers that I'll be able to use them on several more projects! I kept them mostly black and white with just a few pops of color. I wanted the visual interest of a lot of flowers but it's important to give the eyes a place to rest.

Finally, I pulled a tag from the die cut pack to create a journaling spot. I went with a more neutral striped patterned paper to cut as the background for the card. The note tag was a little too tall for my 3x4 pocket but since this is the front of my page protector it's okay if it sticks out a little. After writing out my journaling, I finished it off with a few puffy butterflies making their way up the note tag.

My last step of most pages is adding embellishments. The embellishments on this page are a mix of both the March Scrapbooking Add-On Kit and the March WEEKENDER Life Crafted kit. I love that the kits mix and match so well with their wide variety of colors.

I hope I've inspired you to use the March Scrapbooking Add-On Kit to create your own pocket pages. I'm looking forward to seeing your creativity at work!