Traveler's Notebook: Plant Killer for Feed Your Craft

I'm back with another traveler's notebook layout. This one is in a new TN I started just for fun. I'm really loving this format! It's so freeing! And it takes no time at all to put together a spread. You can count on seeing more TN spreads here in the future. 😊

Anyway, back to the spread at hand...

I used the High & Low kit designed by Brandi Kincaid for Feed Your Craft. It was perfect for documenting this story. And amazingly, it's still available in both physical and digital formats. Go get yours now if you haven't already!! (FYI, these are affiliate links 😊)

I used one of the stamps to do some repeat stamping to create my own background. I wanted a light grey ink, but the lightest grey I had was still a bit dark. So I chose to do a second generation stamp to get a lighter impression. I inked the stamp, stamped it once on scratch paper, then stamped it on my background. Easy peasy! And it got just the shade I was hoping for.

I used a couple of the journal cards as layers behind my photo to add some color to the spread, then embellished with some of the printable cut-aparts that come with the kit. So simple! But I really love how this one turned out.

You can watch my full process below:

Happy Crafting!

2019 Project Life: January, Part 4

For this spread in my 2019 Project Life album, I wanted to use some of the Kelly Purkey Friday Freebie printables. These are free printable 3x4 cards sent via email to those who are signed up for the Kelly Purkey Shop newsletter. (If you're not signed up, you can do so here.)

I'd been hoarding these freebies until I could find a better way to print at home, and I finally did! I'll be sharing more about that soon, but for now let me just say it's been life changing.

I picked cards from several of the freebie sets, all in pretty neutral tones to match my photos. For embellishments, I chose some random things from my stash: a chipboard set from Ali Edwards Believe Story Kit, a chipboard set from an older Studio Calico set designed by One Little Bird, a phrase sticker sheet from an older Week In The Life kit from Ali Edwards, and a set of stickers from Pinkfresh Studio's The Mix No. 2.

The Pinkfresh Studio stickers are the only thing I used that's still available, but if you're looking to recreate this look you could try this Becky Higgins chipboard set or this one from Pinkfresh Studio. Both have a similar look and feel to the ones that I used.

This spread came together really quickly, as you'll see in the video below. I love it when that happens. It's how I usually feel when I use a kit, but I'm generally not as good at putting things together myself, so it's worth a small celebration when I get it right. :)

Here's a look at my process:

Happy Crafting!

Traveler's Notebook: September 2018

I'm back with another spread in my 2018 Highlights traveler's notebook. It's taking for FOREVER to get this notebook finished, but I'm determined to get it done.

September's page is about our trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. I have a photo of the beach on the left side of the page. I had intended to make this a full-page photo, but my computer was giving me fits, and I already had the 4x6 photo printed, so I decided just to go with it.

For supplies, I chose some scraps from the February Hip Kit Club Main Kit as well as some embellishments from that kit and the Pocket Life Kit. I also grabbed some embellishments from the March Hip Kit Club Main Kit and a couple cards from the March Pocket Life Kit.

I had a lot of fun playing around with the embellishments for this page. I chose pieces in shades of blue and teal as well as the coral-pink that's in the Pinkfresh Studio Joyful Day collection. There are also bits of gold here and there, which I think works really well with the sand in the photo.

I used my WRMK Typecast Typewriter to type up my journaling on a piece of scrap card, then cut it in strips and used a Zig Glue Pen to adhere them.

And that pretty much does it for this page! You can see my full process in the video below:

 Happy Crafting!

2019 Project Life: January, Part Three

I'm back with another spread in my 2019 Project Life album.

Before I share the details of this particular spread, I wanted to talk a little bit about my format for the year and how things are going so far. I've been feeling lately like dividing my months into "parts" instead of weeks is just a bit awkward. I wondered if I shouldn't revert back to a weekly spread format instead. I don't want to leave my 6x8 album, but I thought maybe I would prefer weekly spreads.

I think this mostly came from seeing everyone else's weekly posts and knowing this is a comfortable way for me to approach this project, which was really appealing since I've been a bit overwhelmed by my new methods and am feeling WAYY behind.

So this weekend I spent some time getting caught up on the photo printing part of my process, and as I was doing so I totally remembered why I wanted to switch to a story-focused approach. It just makes sense for how our lives are structured. Nothing fits neatly into a week. I overflows and overlaps and makes much more sense in a story-focused spread than it does in a weekly layout.

I needed to take a step back from January, where very few real stories happened and my spreads all feel like they're the same. Going forward in my album, I know this is the right move. So I'm sticking with my original idea and staying story-focused within the monthly format. We'll both just have to put up with the awkwardness of breaking down my months into parts instead of weeks for the purposes of sharing. :)

So on to the current spread (or "part"). I used the Hip Kit Club February Pocket Life Kit, which I actually bought because it wasn't included in my design team packet and I couldn't resist the gorgeousness that is this kit.

The kit has tons of bits from the Pinkfresh Studio Joyful Day collection, and that's mostly what I used for this spread, with the addition of a couple papers from the February Main Kit, including an exclusive paper that I absolutely fell in love with.

I stuck with a limited color palette (as I'm wont to do) of blues and yellows. It's a pretty simple spread overall, and I like it that way. The only extra little bit I added was the pocket on the left side of the spread to hold some hidden journaling. It wasn't so much that I had journaling I wanted to hide as I needed something interesting to do with the 6x8 pocket on that side of the spread.

You can see my full process in the video below.

Happy Crafting!

"Such a Good Day" for Hip Kit Club

Today I'm sharing a layout I made for Hip Kit Club* using their gorgeous March Kits. 

So let me start by saying that this layout was a labor of love. The original footage was well over an hour long and that doesn't include the times I had to just walk away and let my brain contemplate things for a bit. I had so much trouble putting it all together and made quite a few missteps, but in the end I really like how it turned out. And it's grown on me. I like it more today than the day I finished it...or the day after that.

It all started with the "Blissful" paper from Maggie Holmes Sunny Days. I'll be honest and say that when I saw that paper in the kit, I was like, "how the hell am I gonna use this?!" I knew I could fussy cut the butterflies, but I had two full sheets of this paper. I don't like butterflies that much.

But the B-side totally reminded me of vintage postcards or photos you might find at an antique store. The kind with handwritten notes on them about where they were taken. I knew I could do something with that.

My next step was finding a photo to work with. I knew I wanted a beach photo, because, well obvs, and I wanted a landscape, something that had that same kind of postcard feel as that photos in that paper. I started searching through iPhoto, but then I remembered that I had this old print in my box of photos. It was perfect.

Once I got to that point I could actually start focusing on my Design Team assignment, which was to use the March cut files. I knew I wanted to use the camera, and the title was another easy choice. I'd also been wanting to do an offset layered title for like, months, so again decision made.

Then basically all that was left to do was to embellish. Ha! I say that like it was the easy part. Nope. It took me so long and so many tries to get the embellishing right, but if you want to see how that went down, you'll just have to watch the video.

Have I mentioned here how much I love the March kits from Hip Kit Club? Cuz I do. Like, a lot. The mix of Maggie Holmes's Sunny Days and Heidi Swapp's Color Fresh is on point. I cannot get enough. I'm a little sad that I'm going to have to put them aside when my April kits come....sigh.

Happy Crafting!

*As a member of their Design Team, Hip Kit Club sends me their kits for free in exchange for using them in my projects.

2018 Project Life: A Walkthrough

2018 was. a. year. It had lots of ups and downs, lots of trips and couch cuddles, and lots of things to be thankful for. And I'm so happy to have captured all of it via this project.

Doing Project Life can sometimes be a struggle. There's a lot of pressure to stay on top of documenting all of life's little moments. I constantly fight with the voice inside my head that tells me it all needs to be perfect and beautiful, even though I know that it's not and never will be. But despite all of the pressure and self-doubt, I am so glad I do this project. Why? Because of the finished product.

I've recently shared two walkthrough videos on my YouTube channel documenting my completed 2018 albums. They're not perfect. In fact, I'm probably using the word "completed" a little loosely here; there were definitely things that never made it onto my pages. But they are full of moments documented, memories captured, and stories recorded for posterity. They may not mean a lot to anyone else, but they are precious to me. This is why I continue to do this project.

You can find videos for Volume 1 and Volume 2 below.

Happy crafting, friends.

#The100DayProject

If you haven't been following along on Instagram, you may not know that yesterday was the first day of this year's #The100DayProject. I've done (or rather attempted) this project for the last two years, and I'm excited to be participating again in 2019. (If you're curious, you can find more information about my previous year's projects here.)

For this year's project, I'm doing #100DaysofArtsyPlay. My goal is pretty simple. I just want to play with my art supplies every day for 100 days. I don't intend to have some finished product at the end of the time period, and likely much of what I create will end up in the bin. But I hope that by allowing myself time and space to play with my supplies I'll become more comfortable with them and will actually use them more often in my regular creative pursuits.

I am certainly no artist, so I wouldn't expect to see any high-quality work, but if you want to follow along, I'll be posting all of my artsy play on Instagram.

Are you participating in #The100DayProject this year? I'd love to hear about what you have planned!

Can you even believe it?!?!

I am so incredibly excited to be joining this amazing group of women on the Feed Your Craft creative team. I have been a huge fan of Feed Your Craft for years now, so it is truly an honor to get to design for them. You can learn more about the other incredibly talented women on the team here, and be sure to check out the Feed Your Craft shop (affiliate link).