Quick and Easy

I've been complaining for a while now about missing mojo.  It's not back yet, but I think its getting close.  This week I experimented with simple grid designs.  I often find them the easiest to put together.  I shared my favorite yesterday, but here are a couple more quick layouts that came together in the past week.

Products from Studio Calico and Citrus Twist Kits

This one was inspired by a Friday night challenge on the Paper Issues facebook page.  I had to feature patterned paper, die cuts, flair and enamel dots.  (You could use other products too.)  My favorite thing about this grid was the way I let little bits hang off the edges so that it wasn't perfectly rectangular.  I also like the combination of bright colors and a black and white photo.

Products from Studio Calico, Citrus Twist Kits and Pinkfresh Studios.

Here's the second one.   I started with the two long strips on the side and grew my grid from there.  The colors really are my favorite thing.  And that pink square with the large gold circle - its a piece of the scratch off paper in the Studio Calico Pop Art kits - I love the look without scratching the dot.

Tomorrow is a me day - I took the day off as a birthday present to myself.  I'm hoping to spend some concentrated hours in my scrap room in search of that elusive mojo.  I have a feeling I will be scrapping like crazy when it makes an appearance. 

Thanks for stopping by.

3 To Inspire

Every Saturday Citrus Twist Twist Kits posts a "3 To Inspire" challenge.  The DT member leading the challenge gives you three prompts that you use together to create a single layout. Last Saturday the prompts were:

1. Create with at least 5 squares. 

2. Use medium (mist, ink, gesso).

3. Layered stickers.

 

So here is what I came up with

 

 

Use 5 squares - I used 4 squares of patterned paper, a square photo and a large square of plain vellum.

 

Use a medium - This was a bit out of my comfort zone.  I used gesso with a mask on that square of plain vellum to create texture behind my photo.  I absolutely loved how this turned out and will repeat the process on other projects.  I also used the gesso and mask to add interest on both sides of the page with the gold crosses.  I also added blue, green and gold ink spatters.

 

Layered stickers - I layered stickers from the Crate Paper Journey collection to create the bottom element in my grid design.  

 

This is one of my favorite layouts in a long time.  I can't wait to see today's challenge.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

Mxing kits

I've been a subscriber at Studio Calico for more than three years.  And every month when my box comes, I rush to unpack it into the top of my raskog.  The supplies in the top of my raskog are the first thing I look at when I start a layout. 

Then a few months ago I added a subscription to the Citrus Twist kit.  It came around the middle of the month.  And it worked great - my Studio Calico kit would come at the beginning of the month and my Citrus Twist kit came mid-month.  So I would trade out the supplies in my Raskog when the new kit came.

Then Studio Calico changed their schedule.  Now the kits come much more closely together.  For the first couple of months, I just set aside one kit and continued switching out supplies after a couple of weeks.  But when I looked at a photo I would find myself thinking about items from the kit that was still packed up.   And because the Studio Calico kit has reduced the number of scrapbiij add-ons and the mix of embellishments seems sparser, I often felt that I didn't have enough choice.   So this month I unpacked both kits into the top of my raskog - and they work together great!

The Pop Art Kit (and relatd goodies) from Studio Calico came first.  This kit is full of super vibrant colors (the B sides of the paper are even brighter) - that yellow floral paper is a new favorite - I love the purple accents!  And the rubber ferns are so unique and fun.

The Citrus Twist box came next.It was full of bright colors and fun embellishments too.  I was so excited to get some Pinkfresh Studio papers and embellishments.  And I am always a sucker for a puffy alphabet from Evalicous.  And the two kits (and all the add-ons and extra paper worked together great!)

So last night I got to work - and I love the layout I came up with - in fact it might be one of my all time favorites.

The Pinkfresh paper and the Sevenpaper chipboard alphas came from my Citrus Twist goodies.  But the puffy diamond, puffy crosses, small alpha,  label and enamel dots came from my Studio Calico supplies.  (The amazing transparent triangles are from Pinkfresh Happy Things  and were in my stash.)

My favorite thing about this layout - that giant alpha.  When I first saw it I wasn't sure how to use it.  The letters are super wide and the scale is huge.  But they were really fun to play with.  They created a great element for my layout with a chance to mix in different embellishments.  And I love the look of the raw chipboard.

So do you keep your kits separate?  I'd love any ideas for using my kits more effectively.

Thanks for stopping by.

Winner!

Life is crazy here right now.  We visited my hometown, I got sick and then my son came home from college - with all the laundry!  But I wanted to pop in to announce the winner for the challenge I posted a couple of weeks ago.  Drumroll please....


And the winner is

Nicole Martin July 22, 2015 at 3:27 AM

Here is my take on the challenge! I never scrap pictures of nature alone. Thanks for the inspiration. I hope that I didn't post this twice...

http://www.studiocalico.com/galleries/170120-just-look-up

Nicole please send me an email at juliee181 at gmail dot com and let me know which gift card you want.

I loved looking at the layouts that were linked so watch for another challenge soon.  In the meantime I'm posting the August LOAW challenges at Studio Calico if you need some inspiration.

Thanks for stopping by.