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 Aimee

 

Hello friends, it's Aimee here sharing some Friday Life Crafted inspiration! I created a fun spread in my Life Crafted Album using the new Crave Mini Kit and pieces from the Maggie Holmes Round Up Add-On Kit. Let's take a look! 

Keeping to the May theme of cravings, this layout is all about what I crave most lately — alone time! Sometimes simply going for a drive or to run an errand by myself can be a total mood booster and just what I need to refocus and recharge. Also, may I just say that sometimes sitting in the drive way for a long moment before going inside is self care? If you know, you know! 

To start off this layout I grabbed a neutral piece of patterned paper from my stash of Citrus Twist goodies, I believe this one came from the Little Things Paper Stack, then I layered vellum over top and some kraft paper too for a more organic feel. I used florals from the Maggie Holmes Round Trip Icon Ephemera pack to accentuate my photo and added a simply statement — "you deserve this".

For my title that would sit on the page opposite I extended that same neutral paper and floral for cohesion. I selected these scripty words from the Crave Die Cut Ephemera pack and popped one of them up on foam dots for added interest— how perfect? I tucked in a small tag found in the Travelouge Kit that I could write my private journaling on and conceal behind the rest of the layers. I also love how the tag plays off of the kraft paper I used on the left. 

I finished off with a healthy splattering of black acrylic paint just for fun! There you have it! What's your mood booster? I challenge you to create a page about it and make sure to tag Citrus Twist Kits on Instagram so we can all check it out! Happy crafting!

Affectionately, 

LIFE CRAFTED INSPIRATION WITH ETTIENE

 

Hi friends.  Today I am creating a layout in my life crafted album all about our trip to Vermont this past fall.  If you know me you know my dream is to move up to the middle of nowhere in Vermont and live in an A-Frame house with a large garden.  Until the day this happens I settle for long weekend trips.  Trips to Vermont always include sightseeing and lots of beer.  It has some of the of the best breweries in the country. 

I created the base for the left page using the Travelogue Digital Journal Cards.  O loved the card as is but wanted to add a little room for a title so when I printed and trimmed the card I trimmed it to 5" wide.  For the right side of the page I used the Travelogue Digital Travelers Notebook Papers. The additional piece I prepped ahead of time before assembling the layout was the Vacation Memories Cut File.  I altered the file slightly by cutting off the edge that would normally be punched to go in the album. This gave an easy spot to place my photos.  

I stamped my title using the Emma lower alphabet stamp set. I also loved the Roam, Adventure, Travel and Go See Do on the journal card I printed.  I used it as a starting point for my journaling and really wanted to get my point across that we went to Vermont for the beer by adding the word BEER in each paragraph using the alpha in the Travelogue Kit. 

The finishing touch was to add some ephemera and some stickers.  I love how simple it was to put this layout together with the cut file and this kit. 

Life Crafted Inspiration with Traci

 

Hey, Hey, Hey, scrappy people!  Traci here today with a Life Crafted layout in my Bienvenidos a Miami vacation album using the Travelogue collection! I have already used this collection so much for my albums (check out my instagram posts here, here, here and here for more examples) but today I wanted to show off how quick and easy it can be to pull together a Life Crafted page using the Citrus Twist kits!

I created this page in about 10 minutes using a technique I like to call "dream boarding" where I just stick and plonk layers of lovely ephemera down, kind of like I was creating a dream board or mood board instead of a scrapbook page.

I love the way it feels like I just emptied my purse on the table after a long vacation and all the receipts and brochures and business cards and post cards fell out of it and onto the table. Of course, it's a little more thought out than that, especially on the right hand side with the tags I used to back each of the photos.

After I get all the ephemera and paper layers down, I like to finish off my "collage" with puffy stickers and chipboard over the top to give it a bit more dimension.  As you know, when making a vacation album that you're trying to not have span more than a binder (or two) it's imperative that your pages aren't too bulky, so this is my concession to a little texture without the bulk.  The Citrus Twist chipboard is PERFECT for that because it's not too thick!

You can watch this page come together and hear more of my thoughts on the process in the YouTube video below!

LIFE CRAFTED with NATASHA

I’m hoping by now you have seen the bright, fun and colorful Travelogue kit that recently released in the shop, if not, check it out here. So many beautiful physical and digital products to enjoy and create with. I recently snagged a new Life Crafted Album in Sea Glass from the shop and decided to create an album dedicated to stories about our home and our local favorite adventures. 

Living in South Florida with endless summers and lots of sun (honestly, too much sun) this kit was perfect to document a Saturday adventure on a historic tour of our area.

I used a mix of the Digital Traveler’s Notebook (TN) Papers and the physical papers and items from the physical Travelogue kit. I utilized the Digital TN papers as I wanted to pull in lots of the warm tones of yellow, orange and pink to create lots of warmth on the page just like our sunny filled adventure.

Using the new Travelogue V2 Stamp Set, I selected a few phrases and did a generational stamp technique by stamping and restamping the phrased a few times. I selected inks from my stash to match the desired tones on the page.

On the right hand side, I used a CTK Exclusive Page Protector #5 even though it’s originally designed for an instax, it worked perfectly for my photos that I printed off of my Canon Selphy printer which was formatted through the Pic Frame app. I love the patterned papers as a matte for my photos and then I decided to leave the top left photo without a matte to have an illusion of the floating sky. 

I hope this project gave you some inspiration to mix and match physical and digital products. CTK offers their digital products in a few file formats, one being a PDF, so no photoshop experience needed! Just print the PDF and enjoy.

Until next time, happy crafting!

Natasha