More Pocket Pages with Bloom!

You might have seen a few sneaks of this spread on my Instagram account already over the past week or so.

You may have also seen my blog post covering the left page here.  But, just a quick recap on that post, the lovely Traci Reed has created a gorgeous TN digital collection called Bloom.  And you can grab it for free, that's right, nix, nada, over here (Thanks Traci!)

I created and shared the left page first and have just finished the right page.  So here's the full spread together!

This collection is super sweet, with pretty pastels and lots of florals and hearts.

I'm definitely no expert at digital scrapbooking, but I had some fun putting this 3x4 custom card together in photoshop using a digital sticker and layering one of the patterned papers over the bottom of my canvas.  Loving learning these little tricks as I go!

I added another snippet of lace to the right side of the spread to provide balance with the lace on the left side.

After trimming the 3x4 filler card that comes with the kit down slightly, I layered it over some white cardstock and backstitched in a peach embroidery thread.

This is my first spread completely created from a digital kit and I'm beyond happy with how it turned out. I can see lots more hybrid spreads in my future.

If you're considering trying out digital products this is a great opportunity to have a go with a super sweet collection, without being out of pocket.  

Thanks for stopping by today! xo

Week 3 Pocket Page Spread & A Quick Tutorial

Hi lovely blog friends!

It's Friday night here in Australia and I'm super excited for this weekend!  I'm hoping for some time in the garden and some time in my scrap room, I don't know about you but that sounds pretty perfect to me.

Today I'm sharing my week 3 for 2018 and a quick tutorial on how I altered the cork shape in this spread.

This week I'm using Studio Calico's Summit Documenter kit from January 2018.  I purchased a couple of add ons to work with this kit, the Summit 6x4 paper pad (no longer available) and the printable stickers and printable labels.

Since my album is a 6x8, I was always going to have trouble fitting the full 'January' cork word on my 3x4 card. So I figured, well, why not just shorten it?  My scalpel made a quick adjustment to the cork word (hehe) and I love how it turned out!  I also altered it a little, and I share a little tutorial at the end of this post on my process.

Even though it irks me to leave a completely unembellished card on a spread, it just works for this page.  I tried a few times to add something to this card, but it just overcrowded the whole spread and I opted to leave the whitespace there as somewhere for your eye to rest.

This week was a hard one for me, I had a few personal challenges going on.  I know a lot of us like to record the bad along with the good in our albums, but this is something I didn't want to devote time in my family album to, and I used the 'currently' journaling card to record how I felt this week by ticking the 'feeling' emotion button, and adding journalling that said 'you can only take one step at a time'.  For me that will be enough to remind me how I was feeling this week.

Who knew that Snapchat could come in handy for more than cute selfy filters!?  The Fri Treats text and sparkly stars were added layers to a photo I took in Snapchat, and then I just saved the edited photo to my camera roll.  After I cropped it and printed it out with a white border I adhered a heart from the sticker sheet and called it done!

So here's the tutorial I promised!  To alter the cork word took just a few easy steps.

Step 1 is to give the cork a base coat so that any media will adhere to it.  To do this I used white gesso and gave the shape one coat on the edges and top.

I knew I didn't want glitter on all sides of the word and wanted the edges to blend into the background, so I gave the edges a coat of black gesso (if you don't have black gesso you could totally use black acrylic paint for this). 

After letting the black gesso dry completely, I added a coat of Mod Podge to just the top surface of the cork.  Now you don't want to scrimp too much with this, there needs to be enough on there for the glitter to stick to, but at the same time you don't want it flowing over the edges, because you'll end up with glitter adhered to the sides as well.  After you have the Mod Podge painted on, sprinkle glitter of your choice over the top and let it dry completely.  And voila, you'll have a sparkly cork word, ready to be the star of your spread!

Thanks for stopping by today! xo

A Pocket Page Spread with Blossom

I'm really enjoying using more digital products in my spreads this year, and pretty much every layout  in my 2018 pocket page album so far is hybrid.

Over the weekend I saw that Traci Reed has released a gorgeous mini-collection called Blossom.  It's full of pretty peaches, sagey greens and classic navy, with lots of girly florals and hearts.  This collection is so me!

And you're going to want to run not walk to grab this mini-collection, because Traci has gone and made it free.  Yes Free!!  You can find her link to the collection here (you're welcome!).

I printed off the TN sized papers (which are awesome for pocket life spreads too), and the sticker sheet.  Traci includes an extra black and white sheet for print and cut via the trace option on Silhouette software.  This is the first time I've tried print and cut on my Silhouette and it took me a couple of goes to get everything lined up just right, but once I had that set I was super happy with the result.  All of the ephemera pieces were cut perfectly.

To create my title card I used one of the floral ephemera pieces from the sticker sheet and layered a couple of extra pieces.  The awesome thing about hybrid spreads is being able to add text to elements before you print them.  I opened this pink label in PSE and added the dates before I printed the label and trimmed it.   

There are a few flair buttons in this collection.  I think I fudged them when I was getting my Silhouette aligned so I just printed a couple more and punched them out with a 1 inch circle punch.

If you're a lover of pretty, girly, floral (free) collections, be sure to pop over and grab this collection!

Thanks for dropping by today xo

Just a Little Bit Kitsch

I love it when you receive something a little bit out of the ordinary in a kit, something unexpected and fun, or even a little kitsch.

When I opened up my January Citrus Twist Kits pocket life kit it included a vintage novel page, but not only that, after playing with the kit I noticed the page was from a Nancy Drew novel!  I mean what girl growing up in the '80s didn't love Nancy Drew!

I've trimmed down some of the vintage page to layer into my title card.  I love that with just a few layers and some embroidery thread this card becomes a little whimsical.

Please excuse the close up photo of the Queensland prawns (shrimp for my US friends).  They're one of my favourite foods, and it was definitely worth documenting me combining my two forbidden food loves on a solo night recently when G was away, prawns and really spicy green curry.  The rest of my family just don't seem to appreciate them like I do.  Their loss I say ha!

This journalling card was already super cute, but I added a fussy cut house from the Crate Paper Good Vibes 6x6 papers and a cork heart, both included in the January kit.

I trimmed some white cardstock to the same shape as the morning routine tag and added some hand stitching in embroidery thread.

Gosh I'm a sucker for fussy cut pieces.  This is a fairly simple idea for creating your own journalling card.  Start with a 3x4 base of patterned paper, print or write your journalling on white cardstock at 2.5x3 inches, then adhere to the base and stitch around the edge of the white cardstock.  Then to add some interest either fussy cut a few small pieces from a patterned paper, use some stickers, or even a tag or two to add some interest at the bottom.

I had so much fun putting this spread together, and love that even though it has a few pops of bright colours it still has a feminine pastel feel overall.

Thanks for stopping by today!

A 2017 Catch Up Spread

Hi lovely crafters!

I've had a little time this week to go back and get another week documented in my unfinished 2017 album.  

This week I'm using the December 2017 Citrus Twist Kits Pocket Life and Scrapbook kits.  

The Pocket Life kit this month included exclusive papers, and I love how easy it was to pair them with the papers from other manufacturers in the Scrapbook Kit.  

One of my go to ways to create a title card is to include a label with dates on it, add a little stitching and an embellishment to ground the label on the card.  It's super simple, but super effective.

To create a border on the side of this journaling card, I adhered the puffy hearts and then trimmed the squiggly puffy sticker in two so that it ran along the left of the grid paper.

Eep I love love the Green Thumb paper from Dear Lizzy's Star Gazer collection.  So perfect to fussy cut sweet little succulents from!

I'm also still a fan of the Collect App to create 3x4 cards with a square photo.  It easily puts together the entire card including a date, some journalling, and of course your photo.  

Woot!  Another week in the books for 2017!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Love a Pop of Colour!

Week 2 in my 2018 album is fairly minimal.  There's lots of white in the spread with a few pops of happy, bright colours!

This week I'm using the January Summit Documenter kit from Studio Calico, and I'm loving the choice of cards in this kit.

For my title card I die cut a bow from one of the papers in the 6x4 paper pad, which was an add on in the Studio Calico shop.  I punched the fuchsia star from the printable stickers by Hello Forever, and layered a punched strip of patterned paper with edged punched white cardstock  and a label to create a few layers.

I've started the year printing my photos with a white border and I liked it in week 1, but I'm not so sure I like it in week 2, so stay tuned, that might change in the coming weeks ha!

Instead of documenting goals in this card I recorded a few short stories about the summer heat here (it's pretty hot and terribly humid), and how it has affected my Grandma's health.

Love how this spread turned out with the floral filler card matching perfectly to the photo of the oriental lilies in my photos this week.

Thanks for stopping by today!