Life Crafted with Marsha

Hey friends!  It's Marsha, and I'm here today sharing a layout in my Life Crafted Album.  For my project, I used the April Life Crafted Night & Day Kit, along with the April Traveler's Notebook Stamp and some of this month's digital papers. 

Here's a look at the layout:

I loved the multicolor "dream" die cut from this month's ephemera, so I decided to use it as an inspiration piece for my layout.  This photo of my youngest son, asleep in my arms, is one of my favorites, and I thought it would be perfect for this project. 

To begin the layout, I opened one of the digital papers from the Night & Day Traveler's Notebook Basics Digital Papers in Photoshop and added my journaling to the bottom of the page.  That's one of the really great things about using digital papers, you can add journaling directly to the page before printing!  After printing the digital paper onto white cardstock, I added my photo and embellished using a variety of ephemera pieces, chipboard stickers, and embossed faux leather stickers.

To complete this side of the layout, I used the Traveler's Notebook Stamp and black ink to add a bit of stamping onto the ephemera tabs.  I also added the date using a roller date stamp from my stash.

For the right side of the spread, I printed a gray patterned paper from the Night & Day Digital TN Papers.  Because the TN paper is sized to 4.25"x 8.25," and I wanted it to be a full page in the album, I chose to trim the cardstock to 5"x 8.25."  This left a white border along the inside of the page.  I enjoy mixing pages inside and outside of page protectors in my album.  For the title, I used two of the ephemera words from the kit, adding adhesive foam under the word day for extra dimension.  To complete the page, I added a few ephemera stars, a chipboard heart sticker, and an embossed faux leather sticker.

Thank you for stopping by today!  I hope I have inspired you to use some of the digitals from the CTK shop on your next project.  They work so perfectly in the Life Crafted Albums and with the Life Crafted Kits!

MORE WITH OUR GUEST DESIGNER: Brandi Kincaid

Hi there!

We are so happy to welcome Brandi back again to our blog (hopefully not for the last time) and share a bit more of her amazing work with you all...  SO, i will let Brandi take over from here on...

It all started with a card. My first tendency, if we’re being honest, is to hoard what I love. I want to keep items for the “just right” moment, that perfect fit, but really, I’ll be weighing out what that means forever, and all the things I love will just collected dust in well organized bins. So, when I grabbed this card out of the April kit, I really had to fight that urge to tuck away for safe keeping.

Instead of simply filing it away, this time I asked myself, what makes me so happy about this card? What, beyond the color and design, gives me the flutters when I look at it? The answer was simple - my Nephew. I look at the jar, and the expanse it holds, and I think of Benjamin and who he is, what he carries with him, what he brings in to the world, and what he takes from it. Of course, I was mapping out a pocket page for this, to pair his photo and the card, but it wasn’t quite right, it wasn’t enough - I knew I’d need more space for words.

I’m a wordy gal (I know that’s obvious by now), so I journaled first, look at what I had, and then decided how to pair that with the card and the photo. Because I had a few more words than expected, I decided to rethink the space a bit, and moved my plan to a full 8.5x11 page (I love this old size so much some days).

While I love building a page using photos and pocket size cards, at this point, my love for the scene inside the card had grown, and I knew I wanted it bigger, so digital I went! By enlarging the digital of the card, I was able to layer it behind the photo and text on the page, making it a bigger part of the scene and drawing attention to the details of the image without taking away completely from the text and photo. This also *cough* means I get to keep the beautifully printed original card for another use (but I promise not to hoard it!). Since I was already playing with digitals, I layered two of the kit stamps on top of the photo, altering black and white so they’d be easy to see. I just love those subtle colors of the card design paired with the smartness of the black and white.

I’m a big fan of Hybrid layouts, mixing digital and physical products, mostly because I LOVE dimension. Give me a little foam adhesive to give rise to those gorgeous die cuts any day. Sprinkling in a few of the colorful die cuts not only draws attention around the page, but it also lets me call out meaningful words that echo the story I’m telling. I just love that. It’s a simple page, full of heart - I adore how possible these kits make a project like this.

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How awesome is this layout!  She was able to take a few of our Digital Files and  transform them into a heartfelt page.  AMAZING!!!  We just adore Brandi (and are so honored to call her a friend) and how she is able to bring her stories to live with simplicity and lots of heart.
Remember to leave her some love and follow her on social media -https://www.instagram.com/brandi_kincaid/

Stay Safe!

LIFE CRAFTED with Angela

Hello Citrus Twist fans!

It's Angela here, sharing a new spread of my Life Crafted Album. I used Life Crafted Night & Day April 2020 kit and what I like of it is the wide range of colors I can choose from.  Today, I went for a very light and delicate combo, with lots of neutral colors.

In the photos, I am documenting my quarantine life. The slow life we are all experimenting has its pluses. Away from my crazy working shifts, I have finally the chance to cuddle up my family with healthy homemade food. Here is a typical Italian breakfast, with cappuccino and doughnut. If you'd like, I can give you the recipe :-)

On the first page, I placed just one small photo because I wanted the beautiful pattern of the paper to show up. Beside, I positioned a little cluster of embellishments, a die cut, a chipboard and a wood veneer. Under the photo, I stamped a phrase that got me and so true to me: 'In the still of the morning'. I made it combining two stamps from This is Life "AM/PM" stamp. 

While in the first page I didn't use any plastic sleeve, in the second page I used Citrus Twist Page Protector #2, that has two 3x4 inch pockets. This, to give more appeal to the spread.

I printed two small photos and used the journaling card from Night & Day kit to mat them. 

Finally, I added a few pieces to embellish the photos and voilà, the page was done!

Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you liked the spread and feel inspired to create with the beautiful Citrus Twist Kits kits. 

Love, NG

Life crafted with Alena

 It's Alena here, and today I want to share with you a new Life Crafted project I made using the beautiful  April "Night & Day" kit.

 I wanted to make a bright spread so I used my favorite colors: turquoise, yellow, pink. This color combination is always a good one .

 You can also add embellishments of neutral colors, such as gray, black and white. Here the grey puffy stickers fit perfectly.

 Of course, to add a finished look to the spread, I added hearts of gold and a title.

 Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you liked the page and feel inspired to create your page with Citrus Twist kits.

Pocket Page Challenge with Amy Jo Vanden Brink

Hey!  I'm back with a pocket page layout and a challenge for you today.  Because of the awesome daytime/nighttime theme of this kit, I thought I would challenge you to use that theme in your pocket layout.  Instead of laying out my week chronologically, I used the left side to add all of my night time routines, and the right side to put all of my daytime stories.  This allowed me to use the kit pieces a little differently than I have ever done it before.

I started with a clear line down the middle, with night on the left and day on the right from the ephemera package.  I tried to pull papers that would help with the two themes (flowers for day, stars for night).

For the nighttime side, I used the LC stamp and made my own jornaling card (which I did again on the daytime side to create a great repeated element).

The whole thing ended up with a really great vibe, and I love how the stories fit so well into their spots this way.  I didn't have as many small pockets for the daytime side, so I used some of the pieces from both the LC kit and the add-on to make some small, interesting layers to fill out the spots where I didn't have a photo or journaling.

I hope that this idea gives you a jumping off point for your pocket pages this week, and a neat way to tell stories for the week!

Amy Jo

Sunday Sketch with Nikki

Hello Citrus Twist Kits Friends,

Nikki here with the second page of my be loved Life Crafted Album which I created with the amazing new April Life Crafted Kit and the newest Sunday Sketch. I love the color combination for this kit and all these flower prints. What about you, whats yout favorite thing about this collection?
Before I will show you my page you can find the beautiful Sunday Sketch here:

And this is my interpretation of the sketch. For my page I chose the colors rose and dark blue with some gold/yellow elements. Due to the size of the page, I chose one instead of two photos and stuck the photo on one of the cards to create a frame.

I took the sheets and the label from the sketch and trapped them around the photo. With 3D foam stickers you can make the leaves more lively and give the page more depth. In addition to the leaves, I also applied this to small elements such as the stars.

On the opposite side I wanted to implement the sketch further or take over elements such as the leaves. Here I added flowers for the design and added color accents with Enamel Dots.

When I was journaling, I tried a white font because it fits perfectly with the dark blue in combination with the delicate tones. I love how it turns out.

I hope you enjoyed the little inspiration for the Sunday Sketch and motivated you to get creative yourself. I am glad that you stopped by and we will see us again soo.

3-to-Inspire with Erica

Hey guys! I hope you're all doing well. Today I have another set of fun challenges for you to take on in your memory keeping. Your three recipe ingredients are:

1. A long title

2. Experiment with buildable stamps

3. Strips of paper

The first challenge I have for you to use a long title. Try combining different fonts and sizes to make it interesting. I was inspired by the "night" ephemera die cut as my center piece and simply added different sized alphas to finish the title.





Your second challenge is experiment with buildable stamps. I'm using the journaling spot from the AM/PM stamp. You can customize the look and tailor it to your preferences. I've used it in multiple projects this month and each have come out with a different look!





Your third challenge is to use strips of paper on your layout - whether it be leftover scraps or new papers you just can't wait to cut into. Try layering them and experiment with texture - ripped edges and roughing them up - to create a fun background.


Thanks for joining me today! I hope this has inspired you to try a few of these challenges out on your pages!