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!

Hip Kit Club | Sketch Challenge in a Traveller's Notebook!

Hi friends, today I have a traveller's notebook spread to share using the beautiful February 2019 Pocket Life kit and February 2019 Paper Kit from Hip Kit Club!

I'm playing along with this week's fabulous sketch by Anke, and I've pulled the mixed media background and layered horizontal strip elements from it, as well as the diagonal placement of embellishments.  Since I'm working in a traveller's notebook I shifted the photo to the left side of my spread rather than leaving it in the middle.

For my background I mixed a coordinating yellow watercolour and applied it using the packaging method.  While that dried I cut strips of two patterned papers to sit behind my photo and roughed them up with my edge distresser.

I pulled some lace from my stash and cut it into lengths to layer over some of the paper strips.  I stitched these on my sewing machine using a zigzag stitch and I love the extra texture and softness it gives the spread.

The Pinkfresh Studio Adventure paper has cute phrases in a scripty font on one side, and the other has globes and asterisks on it.  I fussy cut a couple of words for my title, and grabbed two small circle punches to punch out some globes and asterisks to scatter across the page as embellishment elements.

Finally I splattered a little black watercolour to help the title pop, and added some journalling to a fussy cut label.
Now it's your turn!  Jump on over to the Hip Kits Facebook group and join in this week's sketch challenge!  Did you know there's a $10.00 HKC gift certificate up for grabs each week!?  Just look for the weekly sketch challenge post by the lovely Tanya.
Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope I've given you some inspiration for a layered traveller's notebook spread!

Fussy Cutting in a Traveler's Notebook | Hip Kit Club

Hi friends, I have a new traveler's notebook spread for Hip Kit Club today using the gorgeous February Project Life kit and February Paper kit, and I've pulled a lot of the super pretty papers from the Market Garden collection by Carta Bella in this one.

Since the patterned paper on the left side was powder pink and cream, I chose a cream cardstock to be the base of the right side.  

My assignment for this project is to include fussy cutting, and I'll admit I kinda went to town with it! I cut lots of florals to frame my photo on the right side.

Then I fussy cut some extra pieces from the cut apart paper for the left side of my spread.  The flower pots, small flower cluster at the top, and even the resting spot for the flower pots (repurposed from a bicycle cart shade) were all fussy cut.

Once I had a bunch of floral and leafy elements cut I layered them in a way that I liked around the top left and bottom right of my photo.  I added some messy gold thread in amongst my three flower clusters on the layout as well.

To finish the spread off I added a couple of the Pinkfresh Studio stickers and a brad from the Carta Bella pack in the Project Life kit.  

After I stamped the date stamp below my photo I called this one done.

How about you? Are you a fan of fussy cutting or not?  I was totally surprised when we had a group chat about this on the Hip Kit Facebook Members Group that about 90% of people loved fussy cutting, I mean, don't get me wrong I totally love it, but I know it's not for everyone.  I'd love to hear if you're team fussy cutting or not in the comments xo

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Project Life 2019! | Hip Kit Club

Hi friends!  

I've been so excited to get to share this project life spread with you!  This is the project that I created to submit with my design team application to Hip Kit Club, and it uses their beautiful January 2019 Project Life kit and Paper kit.

Since I applied for the DT, you already know that I love, love their kits, but seriously, how gorgeous are these project life cards!?

Here's a better looks at the full spread.  It was one of those Mondays that went a little bit pear-shaped, with me ending up in A&E for a few hours, but thankfully nothing serious was wrong with me and I eventually got to go home late that night.

I know it's good to record the bad along with the good in our PL albums, and I do, but I still choose to record it in a positive way.  For example my outlook on this hospital visit is that I'm thankful that I actually WASN'T having a heart attack, rather than the negatives of the experience. 

This 6x4 card made it so easy to add just a couple of small details to finish my title card for the week.

Of course I took a couple of photos of my hospital visit (what scrapbooker wouldn't!?) and let the photos tell their own story without any labels, but I did some detailed journaling on a 6x4 card below.

One of my go-to's with my project life spreads is to add a simple strip of patterned paper to the bottom of a journalling card.  It adds just a pop of extra colour.

I love how this spread turned out, and I so love that it led to me being invited to join the Hip Kit Club 2019 Design Team!

If you'd like to keep up with all things Hip Kit Club, here a few links to their website, blog and socials.  They have an amazing community page where subscribers, fans and designers share their projects, so be sure to check that one out:

• Website
• Blog
• Instagram
• Facebook 
• Facebook Community Page
• Pinterest

Thanks for stopping by today, and I'm looking forward to sharing many more Hip Kit Club projects with you!