Summer Fun Mini Album

Hi everyone. Suse Fish here with a fun little summer mini-album made from a (cheap-as-chips!) photo album from Ikea and some of the beautiful bits and bobs from this month's summery kit.

Like many families on a bit of a budget, we like to fill our summer holidays with simple pleasures: days out and short camping trips. And do you know what? The little 'un seems to have as much fun as if we'd taken her to Disney World!

 

This little album was just so much fun to make! I started out by cutting my papers into 10cm squares, then added pretty cut-aparts and embellishments to each page.

 

This little girl is never happier than when she's let loose on a campsite! Capturing that feeling of bliss wasn't hard with this stunning paper.

Don't you love this picture? I wonder how many of us scrapbookers have kids who get a bit fed up of being expected to pose for our photos all the time? Ha ha.

We're lucky to live near a small zoo that isn't too expensive to visit. Our favorites are the sea lions. Don't these letter stickers look fab spelling out my title here? They're the perfect size too.

Hope you've enjoyed a peek into my summer mini-album. Do have a go at making your own: they're great for recording those little moments that make our lives so special. Bye for now friends!

In My Studio with Karen

Hello,
It's Karen, today I wanted to invite you on a little tour of what I call my studio, the place where I create. I've wanted to show you my space for a while now, its a work in progress, I've currently got another table on order and some new shelves so I will have to share with you my updated studio when that happens, but for now have a look at where I 'work'. 

I'm fortunate enough to have my own space in our house, lucky me! I of course share the studio with my crafty girls, who happen to love sitting in here as well and 'playing'. My youngest tells me all the time that she wants a room just like mine when she grows up! Cute.

Lets start with the photo above, this is my desk, it's gigantic and really deep so lots of space to create a mess. I keep my picture mate printer handy on the left hand side, my scrap paper basket to the right, that needs sorting stat, its starting to overflow. In the white lace basket I keep current Project Life cards that might make it into my layouts over the next few weeks/months. In the tray I keep the current 'Citrus Twist Kits' so the contents are easy to find and in front of me while I create the layouts for the Design Team. My favourite part of this side of the studio is my big yellow 'Hello'. After I named my blog I found this in a local store and just had to have it. Its big and bright.

These lovely wooden draws contain embellishments such as die cuts, frames, tags and some tools. I love my washi tape man, I saw this idea on Dear Lizzy's blog. The wire basket contains the contents of the latest Week in the Life kit as I will be working on that soon. I update my banner on my wall above my desk every month or so, I love that I can change the whole look of my studio when I feel like it.

This shelf currently holds some of my planner collection, as well as little while bowls of wood veneers and some planner items like sticky notes, tabs and stickers. That basket.... drool....

To the right of my desk is a filing cabinet that has project life cards on top, plus big letters and numbers, planner pens, scrapbooking stickers & enamel dots. In that tray is large scrap paper, ink pads, glue runners and a tiny attacher plus staples. I have a few 'hello' items in my studio, my favourite word.

Behind my work table is another little space to create & take my photos, I keep a lot of my scrapbooking embellishments, cutters, punches and thickers over on this side of the studio. The three-tired wire basket holds ribbon, washi tape and twine. Yum. Under that table.... a sewing machine that pops out, various craft items that are too messy to show, ha ha. 

I love this particular space in my studio and the new tables and shelves are going to be all white of course, along the entire length of this wall, I can't wait. I keep my beloved midori travellers notebook over here, stamps, current collections, some more washi of course!

A close up of my ribbon and washi, project life kits, paper pads, 12x 12 paper on the bottom and thickers in those plastic tubs. This shelf holds a lot, it also has my past albums up the top. Plus all my teaching resources are here too. 

My studio gets the most perfect light, in the afternoon the sun shines right in, its a beautiful space to be in in the winter especially, so warm and cozy. We have a small leather lounge in here and this coffee table, perfect for sitting and relaxing, the girls read in here too. This table has some of my latest scrapbook layouts on the little easel, I love that they are on display for my family to see what I have been creating before they go in the albums. 

If You would like to visit more creative spaces - check what the rest of CTK team presented on the blog so far! So many great spaces. 

Have a lovely day!

xo

Sunday Sketch

Hi gang! Suse Fish back with you to share my first ever layout working from a sketch...I know: big deal and I'll admit that I was kind of nervous! But I love the end result so much that I'm just itching to work this way again.

When I saw that the sketch called for three pictures, I immediately thought of the huge bundle of pics of my little 'fur baby' Paws that I have still un-scrapped. He's such a little darling. Everyone comments he looks like the baddy's cat from James Bond, but he couldn't be further from a baddie! Goodness, the little fella is a total teddy bear! (And yes, that's his attempt at a smile!)

I really liked the circles in the sketch (behind the title area) and had planned on hand-scribbling them instead. I always love doing a bit of hand-sewing on my layouts....I pop on a nice property show to watch, then sit and sew away-heaven!

When I saw the "Had me @ Hello" cut-apart, I knew it would perfect for a layout about Paws. He was a rescue cat and when we went to see him at the centre, he was hiding at the back of his pen. I saw these huge terrified eyes staring out at me and just knew we'd be the perfect ones to give him a loving "forever" home.

And oh, this minty-coloured tulle-what a treat to get that in the kit! I love using fabrics and tulle gives such a dreamy, feminine look.

Now it's your turn! Make a project based off of this week's sketch using any supplies of your choice, upload it to the gallery with today's date (8/9) in the title, and you will be eligible to win a $5 gift certificate to spend at the CTK Store! Looking forward to seeing your projects in the gallery!

3 to Inspire with Tara

Hi there, it's Tara and guess what? It's Saturday, which means another take on our "3 to Inspire" series! You can find this challenge here weekly to help keep you inspired with a little extra creative push to get scrapbooking, keep scrapbooking, or those just looking to do a fun challenge!

Your take on this challenge can be a layout or PL spread. Don't forget you must use all three elements in this challenge.

1. Stamps.
2. Cut up photos or PL cards/patterned paper.
3. Labels or stickers.

This is my take capturing a couple days from the start of July using the August Good Habits PL Kit and one PL card from the July PL Kit.

I really loved the 6x6 paper from Seven's Baxter line. The bright colors are just so perfect for summertime. I usually add tons of layers of papers but I tried to keep this spread simple and let the beautiful photo from our camping trip take center stage. I also don't normally use this format with 2x2 squares but have always wanted to and I had fun trying something new!

Here is a close up of the left layout:

The little tags, labels, and stickers are perfect for laying on a striped, bold PL card. I did add a sticker from the Lawn Fawn July kit from my stash. I also love the epoxy stickers for a little extra.


And an up close and personal view on the right layout.

Stamps are my weakness! It's so easy to take a stamp set like the Kelly Purkey Outline Letters set or a compilation of many different stamps (I used August Main, PL, and add on stamps) to create a unique card or design.

Please join in the fun and upload your take on this challenge to our Citrus Twist Fan Page on Facebook, in our gallery, or on Instagram and tag us, @citrustwistkits. I can't wait to see what you do with the elements!

Thanks for stopping by!

Xxo, Tara

Pocket Life Sketch Friday

Hi everyone, Diane here! It's time for Pocket Life Friday.
Don't forget that we have a giveaway associated with the sketches I'll give you at the end of this post.

The August kits are SO GOOD! The stamp sets are amazing. I used the Pocket Life main stamp set, the add-on stamp and the Yay stamp set by Jessy Christopher to create all the background cards for this spread!



Here is the process video of how this layout came together...


You can watch this video on YouTube or subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

And here are a few close-ups...




And now for your Pocket Life sketches...



I can't wait to see what you do with them! For an extra challenge, try creating your own patterned background with some stamping.

Thanks for visiting Pocket Life Friday, where every week we share PL sketches and a chance to win. For your chance to win, create a layout based on the sketches in this blog post, post your layout to our Gallery or our Facebook Fan Page by Friday, August 14th. Be sure to include PL 8/7 in the title!

August PL kit- summer mood video

Hello! August kits are here and they are perfect to document all sort of summer adventures, trips and holiday memories! They are full of sunshine and burt with happy vibes!

I'm going to take my Pocket Life kit with me on holiday and catch up with some summer pages, but before I cut all these gorgeous photos I have a little inspiration for you- summer mood video featuring all the lovely bits and pieces from this gorgeous kit!

The Pocket Life kit is sold out now, but you can grab all the other gorgeous products from the kit store! Also make sure to have a look at other videos on our Citrus Twist Kits youtube channel you will find there lots of great and inspiring content! 

Have a gorgeous summer, document it and create something beutiful- and when you do share it with us using #citrustwistkits hashtag on your social media channels- we love seeing your work! 

PL Kit inspiration with Marie-Pierre

Hi everyone!

Today I'd like to share with you how you can let the kit inspire you to create something that was not necessarily on your mind. :)

When I received my PL kit this month I fell in love with the cut dog and cat wood veneers!! I mean, really? Could they be any cuter??? Hmm, unfortunately though, I don't have a cat, nor a dog. lol

So I first started using my kit on my Pocket Life pages and when I was done, the dog and cat wood veneers and the dog and cat papers were still untouched, although very very cute!! So then it came to me: I had animals when I was young, maybe I could do that page I wanted to do for a long time: a page about all the animals I had growing up.

My pictures were old and very different so I changed them all in black and white and I added one main color per animal.



I backed the picture with different patterned papers and added some hand drawn lines in watercolor in the specific color I chose for my journaling. I then added some embellishments.

For the words I cut out letters in one of the patterned paper from the PL Kit. I was lucky to find almost every letter I needed for my page. For some of the letters I had to be creative. For example there was no F so I cut out an E and I tweaked it to form a F.

I also had to be creative for my turtles because I had no picture and nothing in the kit (or in my stash) that I could use to represent them. So I used my best doodling knowledge and a little help from Google and I came up with this little drawing. Good enough.

The small labels are perfect to add a touch of color and to serve as embellishments.

Here are some more close ups of the details.

Marie-Pierre