Week 7 2019 & 3 Tips to Tweak Your Pocket Life Kits | Hip Kit Club

Hi friends!  Do you ever work with a project life kit and wonder how you can add you own personal touches to your pocket page spreads? I'm working with the beautiful March 2019 Pocket Life Kit from Hip Kit Club today, and I'm sharing a few ideas how to add your own individual touches to your pocket page spreads without needing to reach for additional items.

Here's my Week 7 for 2019, and I'm using just the March 2019 Pocket Life kit with nothing extra.  (Okay... you got me... I did use a bit of white cardstock and some thread from my stash.. but that's it I promise!)

My first tip is to remember that you can use the project life cards in a different way than they come to you.  For my title card this week I used some border punches and chose four coordinating cards and some white cardstock to punch a series of strips.  

Then I pieced them together like patchwork.  Finally I stitched along some of the punched strips in a silver metallic thread.  This creates a lot of visual texture without being too bulky, and we all know that's important when it comes to fitting cards into those pocket pages!

My second tip is to keep an eye out for elements that are easy to turn into a focal point for your weekly title.  The quickest and easiest thing to look for is a label, but today this beautiful wreath puffy sticker really caught my eye.  It provides the perfect place to record the week and date details, and some definition to separate it from the rest of the card.

My third tip is to make use of the ephemera pieces, especially the larger ones, to create your own simple filler cards.  

I layered this super cute rainbow over a banner made from white cardstock with a stitched border, and all I needed to add to finish it off was a heart puffy sticker.  

Remember even on project life spreads it's good to give your eye somewhere to rest without having the entire spread being really busy.

Thanks for joining me today and I hope I've given you some inspiration to personalise your Project Life spreads.  

I have a process video for this layout up on my YouTube channel today, it's my first process video so I'm scared and excited and all those emotions right now!  You can check it out here.

If you've been creating PL spreads with your Hip Kits be sure to share them over in the Hip Kit Member Forum on Facebook, I'd love to see some of your Project Life spreads over there!

Bloom! | Traveller's Notebook layout for Hip Kit Club

Hi guys!  In Australia right now we're celebrating the cooling days of Autumn (Fall) while our friends in the northern hemisphere are celebrating the warming days of Spring.  I don't know about you, but I love these in-between seasons the most.

I'm sharing a traveller's notebook spread for Hip Kit Club today documenting a fun weekend road trip we took a couple years back to a city that's famous for its Spring garden festival.  The colours of the blooms and trees were just incredible!

I'm using the gorgeous March 2019 Pocket Life kit, Paper kit, Embellishment kit, Cardstock kit and the February 2019 Colour kit from Hip Kit Club in this spread.  I've also added in some lace and a paperclip from my stash.

The left page started with a background of pink polka dot paper layered with a  coordinating paper from the Sunny Days collection by Maggie Holmes.  I stitched the edge with a little zig zag stitch on my sewing machine for some texture and definition.

Then I layered some ephemera pieces anda  fussy cut card from the Pocket Life kit, and that gorgeous hummingbird (or is it a honeyeater?) from the exclusive puffy sticker sheet.

These Heidi Swapp alphas from the Embellishment kit are so colourful and perfect for a Spring layout!   I chose a simple title and added some of the super cute watercolour flower puffy stickers from the Pocket Life kit straight over the top of a couple of the alphas.

I love to have a contrast between the two sides in my TN, so on this spread where my left side is layered and full of colour, my right side is more clean and simple.

I used the pink and turquoise Opal Magic acrylic paints by Prima from the February Colour kit to splatter around the centre of my right page, which is a base of white cardstock.  I also mixed and splattered a couple of extra colours from my watercolour set to work with the colours on my layout.

I added journalling to one of the Heidi Swapp cards from the Pocket Life kit and cut a strip of paper to tie as a bow on my paperclip.

With that I called this one done!  Do you make layouts about the seasons at all?  I'd love to hear what your favourite season is and how you document it.

Sketch Challenge on a Travellers Notebook | Hip Kit Club

Hi friends!  Sharing my latest Travellers Notebook spread for Hip Kit Club today, and it's based on one of the fun HKC fun weekly sketches.  The sketch is for a 12x12 layout, but you know I'm a huge fan of adapting full size layouts to fit into a TN, right?!

I've used the beautiful March 2019 Pocket Life, Embellishment, Paper and Cardstock kits from Hip Kit Club in this spread.

Here's my take on the sketch, and I've also put the sketch prompt by the lovely Maija below it.

My additional challenges for this project were to include stitching, and also pockets. Stitching was totally going to happen because I stitch on everything ha!  But given the design of the sketch and that it was downsized to a TN size, I had to think for a minute about how to incorporate the pocket.  The first thing I though of was a flip pocket, and that's what I went with!

Here you can see my two left banners... spot that tiny little pink tab at the bottom of the yellow banner?

Voila!  A teeny, tiny flip pocket with some layered embellishments and a fun sentiment.  I used some of the beautiful Doodlebug Designs gold washi tape from the embellishment kit to adhere the top and bottom parts of the pocket together.  You can see in this photo just how lovely and shimmery the gold of the washi is.  

I decided to go with a tone on tone effect for each of the banners, and used the amazing Prima Art Alchemy Opal Magic acrylic paints that came in the February Colour kit for the pink, green and yellow banners.  I mixed a blue shade from my watercolour set to match with the blue banner.  Then I splattered behind where each of the banners would sit.

I fussy cut some butterflies from one of the Maggie Holmes Sunny Days collection papers and layered them together, to represent the large splatters on the sketch.

My title was cut from one of the cards in the Pocket Life kit and follows the placement of the title in the sketch.

All that was left to do then was to play with some tone on tone embellishing.  I had so much fun layering together different elements from the kits here.  There are pieces from the Crate Paper chipboard sticker sheet, Crate Paper stickers, exclusive Hip Kit puffy stickers and the Hip Kit sticker sheet, and they all work just perfectly together.

Be sure to stop by the Hip Kit Club Facebook member group to play along with their weekly sketches, they're a bunch of fun and there's  $10 voucher for the HKC shop up for grabs each week.

I'd love to hear if you enjoy playing along with sketches or not, I definitely have a newfound love for them since I've joined the HKC team.

 Thanks for stopping by today xo

Project Life - Week 4 2019 with Hip Kit Club

Hi guys and happy weekend!

Best laid plans sometimes go astray and sharing this project has been a few weeks coming.

I'm loving my 6x12 album for project life this year. I feel like the overall look of my layouts has changed a little compared to the 6x8 albums I've been using up until now, but I'm embracing the change and I quite like this new style!

This is my week 4 for 2019 using the January kits from Hip Kit Club that feature a lot of Pinkfresh Studio's Everyday Musings collection.

I loved the Happy 2019 filler card and used it as my title card.  I used the Heidi Swapp stamp set included in the kit to stamp my week to fit around the flowers and tea cup, and a couple of teeny tiny hearts to separate them.

I still love the Collect App to create polaroid style photos for my spreads.  You journal in the app and it prints the date plus your journalling straight onto a 3x4 photo.  Genius!

The notes from today journalling card had extra room for a subtitle on the left and I added one of the stickers from the sticker sheet in there and stitched over the top of it.

On the right of my spread I journaled about our daughter Kayci and the amazing work she does in her community, which resulted in a nomination for an Australia Day Award this year.  Since the photo of the Award Ceremony didn't really match the rest of my spread, I created a flip pocket to sit over the top of it, which is where my journaling sits.  I added a tab on the right to encourage people to recognise it as an interactive element.

The whitespace that is the sky in my 6x4 photo was perfect to add some alphas right onto the photo itself.  I used a cereal bowl placed on my photo to make sure each of the letters lined up in a circular kind of line if that makes sense.  Whatever works right!?  

Thanks for stopping by today guys!  I'll try to share another of my latest project life spreads this week.

Sunshine & Having Fun! | Traveller's Notebook for Hip Kit Club

Hi guys!  I'm popping in to share my latest traveller's notebook spread for Hip Kit Club today, and it's my first with the beautiful March kits.

When I saw the entire pack of Heidi Swapp Color Fresh ephemera in the Pocket Life kit this month, a grid style layout with lots of detail came to mind.  SinceI'm working in my traveller's notebook, I can make just one side a grid style, and use a traditional style on the other side.

The first step was to measure out my grid in approximately 2x2 inches square.  I say approximately because each side of my TN measures 8 in x 4.25 inch.  But really you can't even tell that one side of each square is a tiny bit bigger than the other.

I used my favourite trick when it comes to hand stitching, which is to run my page through my sewing machine with no thread.  This makes really evenly spaced holes that are so easy to hand stitch.

I used a beautiful golden yellow embroidery thread in a backstitch to define my grid pattern.

Once I had that finished I had a bit of fun placing elements together on the page, some entered on their grid piece, some overlapping the edges.

I also created a little 2x2 inch pocket as an interactive element.

The left side came together really quickly with my photo and a few layers of patterned paper behind, it.  Then I added my title and a few extra pieces of ephemera and finished this side off with some gold Doodlebug Design jewels from the Pocket Life kit, and some strip journalling.

I really love how bright and happy this spread turned out! If you haven't checked out the March Hip Kits yet you still have time to over at the HKC website.

The April kits are almost ready to ship as well so be sure to have a look at those while you're over there.

Okay guys, I'm kind of excited and kind of petrified.... but I have my very first Youtube Video up tonight on my channel, and it's a walkthrough of this layout.  Hopefully my next video will be a process video, but baby steps right!?  Here's a link if you're interested in checking it out, and if you'd like to keep up to date with my latest projects and videos, please subscribe while you're over there.

Thanks for stopping by today!