Citrus Twist Kits | Project Life

Hello everyone!

I have some project life to share with you today.

I used the September kit from Citrus Twist kits. I didn't know that it was my last month on the Project Life Kit Team (I started on the scrapbooking teaming October). It was a very nice kit. Easy to work with. So many great pieces from the Reset Girl ephemera pack. Take a look:

I kept everything so simple!!

I left many pictures as is, without adding anything.

I preferred to use 3x4 cards to write my story.

And 4x6 cards as well, to write my story. I wrote a title with my brush pen.

I focussed on the color scheme and my favorite embellishment pieces.
I was a lot of fun to play, just add a little bit and let it be.

I like that black and white sticker added to the black card.

And since it's so simple, I'll show you right away the 2nd layout I made with the kit.

There was some orange in the kit and I had this picture I wanted to use of our favorite candies... Also the range of the roofs and the orange cast from the setting sun on the picture of my girls... I'm not sure if the whole thing is too orange or if I like it because of the stark contrast with the blues in the page... I think I do like it.

These little wood veneer leaves are just floating around in the pocket. I didn't even bother to fuse the pocket. For now they are pretty much staying in place.

I played a bit here and printed my photo on cardstock. I didn't want to whole attention of the viewer on the candies so I thought I'd print it very pale and journal on it, but I didn't quite like it so finally I reprinted the photo in a smaller format and here's the result. ...

There you go!

These might be the last Project life pages you see from me. Unless people come running and pleading that I continue posting them. lol I will try ti keep doing my album but now that I'm not on the official team anymore I'm pretty sure I will not be as productive with this album which makes me sad a little but at the same time I'm glad that I'll have more time to make bigger pages about bigger stories. We'll see how it goes. My favorite saying right now is: "If you say yes to something, you have to say no to something else." I'm saying yes to a bunch of things at the moment, including hanging out with friends, playing with my kids, designing products, I want to finish my December daily from last year before December this year.... I can't possibly do it all. It's just not healthy and possible.

Ok, have fun my friends!!
And see you again soon!

Marie

Pretty Little Studio | Winter Joy collection

Hello everyone!

Big news this morning: I'm done with my Winter/Christmas collection!

Maybe there will be some minor things to be done from now until it gets printed and ready to ship, but for now, my work is done!!

Here's a sneak peak that I showed on Instagram and Facebook for those of you who might have missed it:

These are the "With Glee" stickers.

My whole collection was painted by hand. With watercolor.

I then scan all my drawings and patterns and I create my cards and papers. And I decide which illustration will become what. It's a lot of fun. And it's also a lot of work!

I don't know if you realize how much work goes into such a collection. I didn't count my hours (next time I will, not that it matters, but just to have a better idea)  but I think I might have put about 200 hours into it. Spanned over 2 months. It's a lot, considering that I do this as a side project, next to all my DT assignments + extra work and of course my mommy work. :)

So anyway, I'm really happy with how it turned out. And I was happy yesterday to do something else than computer work. I actually scrapbooked, and it felt so good!

I would like to show you one more sneak... only for you, my dear blog readers!!
As a small thank you for being here, you are very much appreciated!

These are my favorite flair buttons: Winter Friends.

I can't wait to show you the whole collection!!! 

The collection will be available at Pretty Little Studio and you will be able to pre-order it at the end of October. It will ship late November. I'll give you more details as it comes closer.

Again, thank you for being here with me, for liking what I do and for following me and sharing my work with you friends. I really appreciate all your support!

Marie-Pierre xox

Pretty Little Studio DT | Just Nick Studio

Hi everyone!

If you came over from the Pretty Little Studio Blog, WELCOME! You're at the right place and I'll explain to you how I did my title in just a minute. :)

If you are "just" my regular blog follower, WELCOME! I'm glad you are here. If you were not aware of this, Pretty Little Studio is doing a product swap with Just Nick Studio, which means that Pretty Little Studio's design team members were given some Just Nick Studio products to play with and the Just Nick Design team members were given some Pretty Little Studio products to work with. If you are not familiar with these companies, I invite you to check them out! They are but full of greatness! I also invited to visit our two blogs all week to get some great inspiration from both teams. :)

Here is the page I made using the Here Comes the Sun Collection from Pretty Please (that's me! :) ) for Pretty Little Studio and the Up in the air and Script Font from Just Nick Studio. 

For more detailed shots and some indications of how I made the layout, head over to the Pretty Little Studio blog please. I am here going to show you how to make this title from the Script Font cut file using Photoshop.

1. OK, so first of all, open the cut file in Photoshop. You will get all the letters on one layer and on a white background.

2. Erase the background using the magic eraser (it's the one with the star on it). Erase all the white spaces inside the letters too. You are now ready to use each letter individually. You should save this file in your cut file library so that you don't have to do these steps again overtime you want to use it. 

3. Open a new empty document. Make sure the background is clear. 

4. Go back to your document with the letters and select the one you want with the section tool (it looks like a rectangle with a doted line). Once it's selected, press control+C or command+C on a mac and then go back to your empty document and press control+V or command+V. 

5. Using the eraser, erase all the black lines that you don't want. Repeat this process for every letters you need to write your word or phrase.

6. Resize and arrange you letters until you are satisfied with your word art and save it as a .png file.

You are now ready to cut it out with your Silhouette! It takes a little bit of time, but the result is great! You can mix up script font titles with square letter stickers or with any other letters for a fabulous look! 

Thanks for coming by and happy creating!!!!

Marie-Pierre 

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Citrus Twist Kits DT | Project Life

Hello everyone!

So it looks like the earth turns quicker than I can walk and yesterday there was a blog post published over on the blog of Citrus Twist Kits and I haven't had time to post it here at the same time!

So I won't double the information and I'd like to redirect you over there.

Here's what you are going to find:

This and some close up shots and also some explanations of what I did + some ideas to push you to create your own memories :) Also, if you want to play with me, I post 3 things to inspire your next project. Follow along and post your creation on the Citrus Twist Kits Facebook page and you might win some goodies! :)

Come on over!!

Marie

Pretty Little Studio DT | Maya at 5

Hi everyone!

Maybe some of you noticed it, I am back on the Pretty Little Studio Design Team! Not only as a designer of collections for Pretty Please. :D I'm very happy about it because it will be the perfect excuse to use my collections! And I can't wait to inspire you to use my products as well. :)

So here's the first layout I have to show you, using my Here Comes The Sun collection. If you are following me on Instagram you probably already seen a part of it.

It's a layout celebrating Maya at 5 years old.

I used my papers divided in 4 4x4 squares and used them as small canvases to build don.

On some of them I have pictures, on some other I have journaling, die cuts and piles of pretty things. :)

I used my die cut letters to write my title which I splitter in two parts.
This little sun square makes me happy!!

I had to buy a new sewing machine when I arrived here. The different electricity had me leave my beloved sewing machine in the USA. :( And it took some weeks before I got a new one. It was not a priority for everybody in the family, you know?! ;) lol So anyway, now that I have one again, I used it!! Woohoo! So I stitched and teared the edges of my little squares. I really like the effect.

I paired some gold elements together like this flair button with the golden speech bubble and some gold sequins in the square right next to this one.

In the middle of the page, I made a pretty large cluster of hearts die cuts. I also added a golden paperclip (Dear Lizzy) and a small flower die cut that I just love so much

That little woden umbrella was waiting in my stash since a long time to be used on just the right layout. It time finally came and I now have it in my album to enjoy.

The small flag here was used to add some more details to the layout. I think my rain drops paper might be my favorite one of the whole collection. I hid it behind a picture but I really like the parts that are peeking out. They go perfectly with the sun and cloud paper. Did you notice that cloud die cut that I layered over one on the cloud that was on the paper? I adhered it with foam dots and it makes for a pretty interesting look.

The small with circle was perfect to add journaling!!

Here's a better look at the hearts cluster. :)

For the exact supplies list I used, you can go to my Pretty Little Studio blogpost where I listed everything.

Thanks for coming by guys!!
Talk to you again soon!

Marie

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