Week 20 with Clique Kits

Hi everyone!

This month I've changed up my subscription from Clique Kits, and have transferred across to the Travellers Notebook Kit, (I was subscribed to the Main Kit before).  Here's a look at the kit this month.

Clique Kits really tailor the Travellers Notebook kit to smaller sized projects, and I just love how much they cram into them. Since my main two project focuses are project life and TN spreads, I think this will be a perfect fit for me.

The first project I've created with the kit is a spread in my 6x8 project life album.

I created my title card this week by trimming two of the patterned papers into a tag shape, stitching them together and using some ephemera pieces from the Crate Paper ephemera pack to add some more layers.  I'm always trying to change up my weekly title card, and this week spelled out the dates of the week rather than using numbers.   

This week included G's birthday and I made him his favourite chocolate cake.  Since he always chooses chocolate cake I try to change up the icing and toppers each year.  This year I made a white chocolate buttercream frosting and topped it with two flavours of Tim Tams... so delicious!

I really wanted some whitespace in this spread and the wander ephemera piece was just the right amount of detail to add to this card.  To add some texture I machine stitched it and rolled the top edge.

I used one of the envelopes to create an insert, printed some journalling on the postcard ephemera piece and then tucked it inside.  I also added the gorgeous white and gold planner pin to the side of the envelope.

This is a look at the right side behind the insert.  I'm not sure if you can read the journalling, but yes we did hike 17.5km on Saturday this week.  Call us crazy but it's so nice to get out and take a hike on weekends, since we both have desk jobs through the week.

I used some super old Basic Grey attach me stickers to add the insert to my album, but you can also easily do this with any old scraps of paper.

Whenever I'm using products that aren't necessarily created for PL in a PL spread, I'll make sure to grab any ephemera pieces that look like they'd be a good base for journalling, like this Travel Bucket List card.  

And that's my spread for the week.  I'm really happy with how this one turned out, and how well the change to the Clique Kits Travellers Notebook kit suits my project life spreads.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Week 16 Project Life for 2018

I'm spending some time at the moment going back into my stash of 2018 Studio Calico kits and making sure I use them.  I have this habit of wanting all the pretty new things (hands up if that's you too!) and so easily will put aside a kit that I haven't had time to play with.  So this week I'm cracking back into the Studio Calico February Candyland Documenter kit.

My go to techniques with PL in my 6x8 album are visual triangles, and minimising the major colours in my colour palette to three.  This week I've focused on orange and fawn, with my pop of colour being teal.

Lately I've been loving creating hybrid title cards each week.  I'll generally have an element printed from my computer, and I posted on Instagram yesterday about the different textures on this one title card.  I've used alpha stickers, machine stitching, hand stitching with embroidery thread, and ribbon.  Just love these little details on a spread.

I cheated a bit with this photo and took a screenshot of an Instagram post from our son's girlfriend.  Since it wasn't a high resolution photo (being a screenshot from social media), I edited it into black and white, which always looks better with a lower quality image, and also took away the bold colours of the photo to suit my colour palette more.  

I also took to the stamp from the kit with my favourite craft scissors and cut away the only word that I wanted to use from it.  I think the original stamp was 'Love Yo Self', but this 'Love' sentiment suited my photo much more.

Since I don't have any filler cards this week I've kept my embellishments pretty simple, and after adding an orange tab die cut from a card I''m calling this week done.

So guys, it's taken me about 2 hours to get to this blog post today.  I've been having so much trouble with images on my blog turning out super blurry and pixellated no matter how much time I spend on trying to get them right. I'm normally a Google wizard, but even Google isn't helping me out!  If anyone has any hints and tips on how to keep your images beautiful on the Blogger platform I'd love to hear from you.

In the meantime, thanks for putting up with these blurry images, and also thanks so much for stopping by today!

Pocket Pages - Week 15 for 2018

Some kits just lend themselves to multiple colour palettes for different projects, and the Bookmarked (March 2018) Documenter kit from Studio Calico is definitely one of those kits.

For this spread I've been able to pull the beautiful turquoise and yellow, with an accent of red and pink. But I've also made a couple of other spreads from the same kit that are completely different colour palettes.  I think this combo is definitely my fave though!

My title card this week is a simple tag from one of the Studio Calico printables.  I've typed the week number and dates in Word in different fonts, and printed them onto the tag.

I shared on my Instagram account yesterday that I usually just record little stories from the week in my PL spreads, but this journalling card inspired me to record our dinner meals for the week.  Three of my faves this week, zucchini and fennel tart, gourmet beef and beetroot burgers, and my chicken, mushroom and leek risotto... yum!

I only realised when I was editing the photos of this spread that I made a mistake in the journalling!  I wonder if anyone can tell what it is hehe...

I loved the Happy as a Lark card as soon as I saw it in Marie Lottermoser's sneak peek even before the release of this kit.  I mean, those sweet birdies right!?  I used one of my circle punches to punch out the piece I needed from the card, then layered it with a few elements onto a filler card from the kit, including a die cut mini doily in white cardstock from my stash.

Diane Williams changed my world by putting me on to Brilliance Moonlight White Ink for stamping directly on photos.  This is my go to ink for stamping on photos now, and even if you don't like stamping text onto your photos a date stamp looks amazing in this ink too.

I feel like I've been saying this a bit lately, but this is definitely one of my favourite spreads for the year so far.  Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Week 14 Project Life Spread

Hi everyone!

It's been a couple of weeks since I've shared any projects, we've had some family gatherings which have made my heart full, but also have meant I haven't been creating as much for a little bit.

So I've had the 'Bookmarked' Studio Calico Documenter kit from March 2018 sitting around for a few months now just waiting to be used, and I love it too much to leave it sit there any longer so I've pulled it out for this spread.

This week we didn't have too much on, and there's only a few photos to get down.  There also isn't too much to say about the week, so I've left two cards essentially as filler cards.

My title card actually said 'the Story of', but gosh I had to use the rainbow puffy sticker in my title card, so I just stuck it right over the top of the 'of' and printed the dates of the week just below it.

I think it's been a while since our two Cavaliers have made it into a spread, and this photo of them is pretty cute.

All in all its a very simple spread this week.  But looking back at last year where I skipped a month in my PL and never got back to it, I'd rather have a simple spread here and there rather than a break in my album, so I'm totally happy to live with it!

Thanks for dropping by today!

Week 13 Project Life with Clique Kits

Hi everyone!

I'm popping in today with another Project Life share.  It feels good to be almost in the mid-teen weeks of the year and catching up a little.

This week I've used supplies from my July Clique Kits main kit.  The kits this month are called Regatta, and have a bright and happy colour palette based around all things nautical.

I always love when I add an insert into a spread, even in this smaller format.  I had a few extra photos this week so that's what I did!

I've used a couple of different journalling techniques on these two journal cards.  Just because you're doing a project life spread doesn't mean you need to use a project life designed card.  The card on the left has strip journalling that I've added some dimension to with machine stitching, and the card on the right is as simple as trimming a smaller piece of white cardstock to journal on, and adhering one of the sweet Freckled Fawn chipboard stickers to a corner.

I had some fun adding some layers to this filler card.  The dark pink label is an exclusive from the cut apart sheet that comes with the kit, but it was pretty short.  Since most of it was going to be behind the sun chippy anyway, I was able to trim the label in half and extend it out.  Sneaky huh?!

This is the full left side for the week.  I love a bold and simple title card, and this one is exactly that.  I created a hybrid card by printing the week and dates onto cardstock on my printer, and then die cut the frame shape.  The Amy Tangerine faux suede bow is super cute and just adds that finishing touch!

And the back side of the spread.

The same journalling card technique that I used on the left side of the spread, I've used again on the right.  This gives balance and cohesiveness to the spread.

I had so much fun with this one, and it's definitely up there as one of my favourites of 2018.  Thanks so much for dropping by today!

Week 11 Project Life with Clique Kits

When my July Clique Kits parcel arrived on my doorstep this month I have to admit I squealed with delight!

The kit is so me this month, with polka dot and woodgrain papers, chipboard from Freckled Fawn and the most adorable bonus embellishments, little 3D nautical themed pieces like the boat I've used in this spread, and others like an anchor, a life ring and an oar.  OMGosh, so cute!

This is week 11 in my 2018 project life album.  There wasn't a heap happening this week, but I did take a few photos and wanted to record that we finally got our front yard finished just how we wanted it after... well if I'm going to be honest, a few years.

I've used one of the boat embellishments on my title card.  It's too dimensional to slip inside the pocket, but instead I first popped the card into the pocket, then used some red super sticky Express It tape to adhere it in place on the outside of the protector.

The exclusive cut apart sheet has a few tags on it this month, and I've trimmed this green one in half lengthwise so that I get two tags. They make a nice little embellishment to tuck in around your photos or journalling.  

I've used the other half of that tag on the right side of my spread on a journalling card.

Clique Kits don't actually do a project life kit, but they often include 3x4 and smaller elements in their cut-apart sheets, like this one.  

I try not to add too many photos of our two cavaliers, but sometimes they're just so adorable I can't resist!  This is Violet having a bath. Such sad puppy dog eyes!

And that's my full spread, love how this one turned out!

Thanks for dropping by today.

Project Life | Week 11 2018

A few months ago I cancelled my subscription to Citrus Twist Kits.  

I'd been a subscriber since 2015 and have always loved the variety of product in their Pocket Life kit, but since they've switched to in-house design of papers and embellishments, I found the kits really weren't a great fit for me any more.  

If you follow me on Instagram you'll know that I'm currently an Ambassador for Clique Kits and even though they don't have a dedicated Project Life kit, I've been absolutely loving using their main kits to make project life spreads and I've loved how every single one has come together.

But, some days I just want a good old project life card.  And that led me to trying out Hip Kit Club's June 2018 Project Life kit, and here's my first spread with it!

I'm not super happy with it, but everyone has one of those days right?!  The photo of my son wasn't great quality to start with and the background was really bright compared to the rest of the picture.  I edited it as best I could and even turned it into a black and white (which always helps right?!), but it still wasn't awesome.  Then I decided to try an ombre overlay which I was really happy with, but once it's on the page it just doesn't work.  Buuutt... moving on!

The Friday tag for this journalling card was cut from another one of the project life cards, trimmed and stitched, and the title card is one of the 3x4 cards from the kit, with the week date stamped.  I have a date stamp that ran out of current years, so I cut off the year section of the stamp and now it comes in super handy when I only have a limited amount of space for dating.  Most times in PL it doesn't matter if the year is missing from your spread.

The right side of the spread is easily my fave.  For the 2x8 pocket I trimmed a piece of pattern paper to size and adhered some of the flower cluster ephemera pieces from Pretty Little Studio.  I overlapped the sides with them and trimmed the excess off so it still fit in my pocket.

I added a date stamp directly to my photo in this pocket.  Brilliance Moonlight White is an awesome ink to stamp straight onto your photos with, and credit to Dearly Dee for sharing this tip!

Loved putting this card together.  I fussy cut the label from the Pinkfresh Studio Sweet Life patterned paper and layered it with an ephemera piece and Saturday cut from the same 3x4 card from earlier.

And that's another week in the books!  I'm still pretty behind for 2018 but working on catching up.

Thanks for dropping by today!