Citrus Twist Kits | Cinque Terre

Hi everyone!

I have a layout for you today, one of my last ones with the Citrus Twist Kits since I decided to resign my position on the design team.  If you don't mind, I'll show you my layout first and tell you the story after...

So here it is, one of my four layouts made with the April Citrus Twist main scrapbooking kit.

I love every paper with compartments like this one. They always call for many small photos and embellies and stories.

So first thing I did was choosing a story I wanted to tell and I settled on our day at Cinque Terre in Italy. I knew I had enough photos to fill in many little frames.

I looked at the frames and chose my photos to go with them. I mesured the frames and sized my photos and placed them on a4x6 canvas in Photo shop. It looked like this:

I then cut out the photos and placed them over the frames to give me a good idea of how it would look and to see also if I needed more photos.

I then started cutting the inside of the frames with an exact knife. It was really quick and easy. Especially when I decided I'd get rid of the scallops inside some of the frames. lol I was cutting around them when my husband came in my room and I realized what I was doing was a loss of time. I just simplified. ;)

I love the look of the photo behind the paper. I adhered them all with washi tape. (I always have to check which one is sticking enough for that task. I also stick to one I love less or have more of, because it is hidden behind the page).

Once all my photos where adhered, I started adhering small embellishments and adding details with words and letter stickers.

I also decided I'd color some of the frames with gold ink because the photos being so small were totally lost on a total black and white layout.

I like that the gold ink I chose is very yellow and happy and still has the shimmer of the gold in it.

Very simple layout. it took me less than an hour to finish it. But I still like it. I'll add more to the story in other layouts (we did a 10 days road trip through Germany, Italy and Switzerland, so I still have a lot of photos and stories!) Or I might just keep this page in our travel album and move onto a mini album for the whole road trip. Yep, that might be a good idea. :)

So now for the story of my decision of stepping down of the design team...

I don't want to get too much in the details of why, but just let me tell you that this move to Prague, even if I absolutely love Prague and my new friends here took a toll on me and I was stretching myself way too thin for all that was going on. Inside of me, I knew that I was going straight to a fail, but I kept trying to make everything work until my body said "Enough!"

Last time by body talked to me like this it was when we learned the news that we were moving to Prague and to make a story short, I ended with my worse fear in my hands!

Yep, a snake!

So anyway, this time, with the mindfulness techniques I've been practicing since January (thank god for that!), I could keep my nerves under control but it was still very scary and at that moment I was struggling to stay sane, I knew I had to let something go, even if that something is what I love most in life. I cried over my decision but really, I had no choice. I've hit a wall. I have to step back and readjust. Go back to a minimum of things to do is a good thing to start with. I think.

So for now I'm on a break of all my design teams. I'll see in September what happens when I get back from our summer vacation and readjust again to our life in Prague. I'm just hoping that I will still be able to make scrapbooking a priority. Because it really is what I love most.

Thanks for stopping by guys, and for all the comments you leave me here and on Facebook and Instagram. They really lift me up and keep me going when times get hard.

Marie-Pierre xo

Get it Scrapped DT | On the go scrapbooking

Hey everyone!

Wow, I don,t know if it's because of the move, the beginning of school, learning a new language and  getting settled in a new life, or all of these put together, but I can barely keep up with all my scrappy assignments even if I feel like I have so few of them! Phew!!

So apparently I had a layout published on the Get It Scrapped website yesterday and if you want to go read the article, it's called 3 Options for Scrapbooking On the Go!. So apparently keeping up and documenting at the same time is not only one of MY issues but some other people might find it difficult at times?!  So if you need some ideas and if you need to not feel so alone in that situation, you should definitely check it out. :)

My approach was to scrapbook in a Traveler's notebook.

When the movers came to pack up my house, and I knew I would be without a scrap room for several months (it ended up being 2,5 months) I kind of panicked and packed a mini kit to bring with me, just in case I would feel the need to create at some point, you know. :)

Here are some pictures.
Stickers, labels, paperclips, adhesive, tabs and even ink, date stamp and a travel themed stamp set from Citrus Twist Kits.

I bought my traveler's notebook when Trina (Citrus Twist Kits owner) told me: Hey, that could be fun for you while moving this summer. I didn't have to think twice. I bought the leather book + 4 inserts, just in case I would need more pages than the ones that were included in the original Traveler's notebook.

Here you can see some of the paper pieces I collected while on my trip to Prague, when I went house hunting.

I saw the idea of a prologue at the very beginning when I started scrapbooking. It was in one of Moon Ko's baby ally album and since then, I always write a prologue when I make a mini album. It's the best thing to put the following story into a context.

I then divided my story in  3 parts: the day we left (my daughter hit her head on the corner of a piece of furniture 30 min before we were leaving to the airport so this was kind of a big deal and had to be documented as part of the trip), the flight + first impressions when we landed and when I went for my first min tour of the city and finally the 10 days I spent in Prague.

I wanted to keep my album VERY simple!!! Because of the supplies I had available, but also because I really had no time to sit for a long period of time and also because I had my head somewhere else (the move!), I wasn't feeling very creative. I didn,t want to complicate things, I wanted to DOCUMENT. That's all.

Journaling was a HUGE part of the book. I brought a brush marker with which I wrote some kind of subtitles. I divided my notebook in smaller stories, in a way.

I really enjoyed stamping!! I have a lot of stamps in my supplies collection but I rarely think of using them on a layout. I was really surprise to see that for my Traveler's notebook, maybe because the kit I had was so small, I naturally looked and reach for my stamps.

Sometimes I was thinking just a little to far.... adding too many things.  I don't really like the look of the label for the title. Maybe I should have stuck to really simple all the way through the book, but as I said, my head was full, I couldn't think clearly. Today, looking back, I'm glad I have something. I'll take anything really.

I can see now that I was really stressed out. A lot of my journaling is me talking to myself and encouraging me. Let's do this! lol It's ok. It talks for itself. It's a phase I was in, and now I have it black on white, right there. :)

The journaling is mainly french at the beginning. But (if I remember correctly) it switches to English at some point. That too is not controlled. It just happened.

I documented day by day. (You have to know here that I didn't do this album while I was in Prague. I did it when I came back) The day by day approach made it easier  for me to  remember the whole trip. I had some small notes in my agenda, but not many, so I had to jog my memory. I also had my memorabilia to help with that.

I like the empty spaces throughout my book.  On some pages I have left less white space and it looks very full.

I printed all the small pictures in the same format one day before the movers came to our house to pack. I still had my printer and I made this in a rush. I had to work with with I had once I wanted to document. I didn't use all the pictures, it was just too much, but I'm glad I didn,t feel like pictures were missing.

And this would be the end of day 1. As you can see, I filled lots of pages with only the trip to there and one day in Prague! The other days are not as full. I kind of felt like it was too much. Too many details maybe, too many photos?! I don't know but I had that feeling of overwhelm. I knew I still had 9 days of documenting to do! I'll call it done for the blog for today and I'll show you the rest soon, ok? :)

Hoping that this could inspire you a little. :) Scrapbooking on the go is fun, but there's no magic. It has to be done somehow and it takes time and effort no matter how we do it. In the end it's up to you  to make it as complicated or as simple as you want! :) And there's no scrapbooking police either, don't forget that. Oh and, I've heard people say they felt a pressure because they were putting their work online, you know, a pressure to make things pretty, maybe I had it here, but I kind of let go of that pressure and self expectation because the documenting is more important than the following after all. Scrapbooking is a thing we should do for yourself first. Right? :)

Ok, gotta go get the girls at school. Have a great day, friends!!

Marie

Inspired by words

Hi everyone!!

Can I wish you all a very happy New Year?! :)
Looking back, I had an awesome year. I already made a round up in my Thanksgiving post so I won't start over again, but yes, it was a nice year for me and I am glad that you are here to follow along with me where my creative endeavors bring me. :)

I wish you, and me, for 2014, success, health, love, joy and happiness and maybe some more sleep…. :) May you all have the time of your life. Every Week. Life is short and we have to make the most of it. All the time.

ok, today, on this last day of 2013, I'd like to show you a page that I made for Get it Scrapped for an assignment called: inspired by words.

Where do you go when you need good words? I turn to my board on Pinterest. :)
And the quote that spoke to me the day I decided to make a page was:

Always believe that something wonderful is about to happen.

And when I read it, I associated it with when we left Switzerland. Maybe you heard me say that on the Paperclipping roundtable, but when I was living there, I wasn't happy so when Patrick told me that we were leaving, oh my gosh, it should have been the best feeling ever, right?! Well, I was rather afraid of what we were getting us into. I had people telling me we were crazy to leave, some other who were saying we had everything we needed in Switzerland…. and all the thoughts of what would and could happen with the move, and while abroad, and starting over again, and, all that with a 3 months old baby and a 2,5 year old. It was scary. But at that time, I repeated to myself "it will be great!" and really, THAT'S THE BEST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN TO ME (US). Even with all the difficulties it brought us. So anyway, I think it was about time that I make a page about that very moment where we were at the airport and when we left….. bitter sweet moment….

The background paper is a memory file from Heidi Swapp, mounted on a color magic piece of card stock that I left white.

The title was cut with my Silhouette and stitched.

Lots of layering of fabric frame, washi tape, papers, flair, color shine splatters. :)

Layering. :)

There you go guys!! :) Now, go have a nice day and a great evening!!! Don't party too hard, but do take advantage of this special evening!!
And I'll see you again in the New Year!!!!

Happy New Year!!!! :)

Marie-Pierre

Geographic pride

Hi everyone!!

Christmas is right around the corner, how are you doing?? :)

I'd like to show you a page I made for Get it Scrapped today.
The challenge was to make a page about a place and represent the place with some way, maybe with a map, or an emblem, a sign that screams the place we were representing. Not easy. What would you do if you had to do something like that? You know, sometimes the challenges are such a good way to push me to create awesome pages. When I "only" create, I usually stick to what I know. When I have a purpose (other than my story and photos) in mind, I surprise myself. :)

So here's my page. I made it about the last trip I took with my husband before we had kids. I was 7 months pregnant and we went to Andalucia, Spain, for 4 days. It was an awesome trip and I don't know why I took so long to document it. Probably I was waiting for the perfect challenge. ;)

The symbols I decided to use: the bull (and I used a silhouette since I'm all about silhouettes!!), the flag (that I mounted on a black inked toothpick),

the hands of the flamenco dancer which impressed me so much(!),

and the map on which I stitched our road trip. I used my Silhouette to die cut the title and I used the image I found online, on the Andalucia tourist information website. With Photoshop, it's easy. :)

I used the puffy geotags to highlight the 4 cities where we stopped.

On the second page, the 4 cities we visited are highlighted with photos and special stories. I used a paper that had spot for journaling and pictures and I printed the photos so that they would fit in the designated spots.

I used stamps and different colors of ink to make stories pop up.

And I used letter stickers to make the city names pop up. :)

It's incredible. When I make the pages, they are just "one more page" but when I prepare them for my blog posts, weeks later, I revisit them and that's when I decide if I like them or not. If they talk to me, I do like them. This one was just another page, but I discover now that I like it SO MUCH!!! I realize that the pages that are more precious to me are not the most artistic ones, and are not the most beautiful ones, they are not the ones which will make me earn a place on a design team. They are the ones with real stories, and lots of details, and tons of photos, even if they are small. I like pages that tell a story. And I am lucky to be able to make these pages as part of Debbie's team at Get it Scrapped. I am happy to be able to make genuine pages that are really ME. :)

Thank you Debbie! :)

Thanks for visiting everyone!!

I'll have some December Daily's updates real soon. :)

Marie