Give Away: December Days Class

Have you seen the new Whimsical Twist December Days Kits yet? Three very fun and reasonble project kits to get you moving on your December album project. These kits all retail for $50 and are PACKED with goodies! Check them out HERE. 

We also have an amazing December Days class that is going on now all the way though January! Join the Whimsical Twist design team as we help guide you and support you along your album making journey!  If you're a (s)Hebrew like myself, don't worry about all the red and green: word on the street is that I'll be doing a little Hanukkah magic to share with you as well.

How about a giveaway! I am giving one lucky reader a free spot in our December Days class. Simply leave your name and location in a comment on my blog and be entered to win! Winner announced Friday 11/1!

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Today on the Whimsical Twist Blog

You can see my layout, and the layouts by the other fantastic women on the Whimsical Twist Design Team, over on the Whimsical Twist Blog today.  It's all about negative space, and I think you'll like it!

September Kit Round Up: What I Made

To keep myself accountable, I'm going to post what I made each month from my last kit.  Citrus Twist releases in the middle of the month, so I'm not behind  -- yet!  :)  I recieved October earlier this week -- here is what I made with September.  I did add a few full sheets from my stash to the kit so I could keep going with my scraps.  Some pages are a little fugly, but not everything I make is blog worthy.  They are seeing the light of day only so I can keep my count honest. 

 

I plan on cutting into October tonight!  

xoxo, laurie

Too Much Happy

Happy Wednesday!  Today I wanted to share a cute little layout using both new releases and some Simple Stories Vintage Bliss, which (I can't even believe it!) is a little bit older now.  The colors of Dear Lizzy's Polka Dot Party go perfectly with Vintage Bliss, so I anticipate I'll be using up my Vintage Bliss scraps with the rest of my Polka Dot Party papers -- they just look too cute together!  

This layout uses one of my favorite layout "recipes".  I love the clean, graphical look of a 4x6 and a 2x3 row with the same below but the sides swapped.  There are so many ways to dress it up and it always looks cute!

Favorite

I love the washed out, dreamy colors of Pink Paislee's Color Wash line.  This paper, which I used as a base for my layout, is so good I could eat it.  This is another page done with the September Citrus Twist Main and Pocket Life kits.  I added a few gold glitter mambi chip accents to compliment the gold on the amazingly intricate and organic lace that was in the kit.  I don't know where that lace came from, but isn't it beautiful?  

I found this lovely photo of Orli lounging in bed that was also a bit washed out (in the best way!  Love those bright whites!) that I thought would look lovely with the paper and went from there.  The photo is matted with a little bit of Carta Bella's Hello Again.  The butterflies are punched from that same 6x6 pad.  The Favorite chipboard title is from Dear Lizzy's Polka Dot Party.  The wood veneer asterisks came with the kit; I colored them pink with spray mist.  

I'm so glad you came by to see what I had to share today.  Please leave me a comment if you like my work; it makes my day to hear from you!

Two Best Friends

I am really getting down to the scraps of this month's kit and I can't wait to get my box full of October Goodies!  This is put together from some of the last of my big scraps -- it's all tiny pieces from here on out.  Still, I'm loving it.  This is a fun color scheme that I'm not sure I would have chosen for myself -- but I ended up really liking it.  

It's funny -- I keep my pages pretty current, working from photos of the past few weeks, usually, so it was quite a shock to see Orli this tiny!  The months are going by so quickly!  

Standing Like a Big Girl

Today another page created mainly from the September Citrus Twist Main and Pocket Life kits.  Have I mentioned that I LOVE the september kit?  I do.  Such dreamy colors! 

I used had this really cute photo of my daughter standing alone for the first time (well, with the support of the ottoman!).  One print was a misprint from having walgreens print my instagram photos (they cropped them -- I should have known that the would!) but it still had those nice dreamy colors that worked so well with the papers in the kit.  So I pulled it out and paired it with a less dreamy but entirely there photo of Orli and it looked really cute.  There is hidden journaling on the pink card that tucks behind the polka dot paper.  Sometimes journaling just doesn't work with your design -- so hide it!  I like all my pages to have a little journaling, so when it doesn't go with the layout, it just gets tucked behind something else with a little string to pull it out.  

I'm loving that October Afternoon washi.  

I just used a tag for the journaling card that I sprayed with a bit of tattered angels mist and tied a piece of My Mind's eye Lime Twist baker's twine.  Some mist splatters and a mambi chip to indicate that I do, in fact, "love this" and it all came together.

Also, I cannot believe it's the middle of October already.  I am soooooo ready for some turkey!

My Sweet Girl

Happy Friday!  I don't have any favorites for today, so I wanted to share another layout with you all today.  I pulled out my cherished Sassafras Foldies for this layout, so you know I meant business.  

(Actually, I'm getting rid of my stash.  I've never kept a lot of papers and embellishments compared to lots of people, but still my goal is to work from what I'm sent each month and not keep much on hand besides the basics.  Thickers, letter stickers, twine, markers, dots, tags, sequins -- those sorts of basics.)

Anyway, I hand made the tassel on the tag with bakers twine - that was a fun and new craft for me.  Super easy, too!  I'm really into tucked in journaling these days, it seems.   Love that hope mambi puffy sticker arrow -- it was the perfect repeat of the black from the Dear Lizzy black chalkboard sticker.  

Man, I adore a toe-eating baby.  That is some cute business!

Have a happy weekend!  I'll be going to the State Fair and enjoying some fancy chickens!

Oh Baby

Today I'm sharing another layout made with Glitz's Finnley collection.  I've almost got this collection down to tiny scraps and a few spare stickers, that's how much I've loved using it.  I love how a baby theme isn't blue or pink.  As someone who is scrapping a lot of baby pages lately, it is so so so refreshing.  This is (so far, I have a page or two left before the collection is killed) my favorite page I've made with it.  I love that triangle on white background paper.  

I mounted the "oh baby" die cut on foam to pop it up off the page.  There is also some stitching for a little textural detail.  I set my sew machine's tension a little low to give it a a messier, more home made sort of look.  Imperfection can (and should!) be on purpose sometimes.  

You can get this amazing collection at the Whimsical Twist store.  It is so usable!  

Spoon Love

This layout was made using the September Citrus Twist Kits Main and Pocket Life kits, plus my own alphas and a few mambi chips.  I love how it turned out.  Sometimes it seems that if you want to include a lot of journaling in on a layout it distracts from the flow of the page -- but it becomes part of the page on this little sheet of notebook paper from the Dear Lizzy Polka Dot Party cut apart page.  I punched the edge to make it look torn from a notebook.  

Of course, there is some stitching.  It's so easy and a great way to add a little texture.  This is cream thread with a gold bobbin thread -- just a little bit of sparkle shows through.

This heart mambi chip fits on the Amy Tangerine paper almost perfectly!  It was too good not to use.  I love how it keeps the flow of the paper, but adds a little extra pop with the dimension and the glitter.  I also love how the b-side of the bottom strip of paper coordinated with the rest of the line.  I wanted to show it off, so I folded it down for extra texture!  

Friday Favorites: Things I use pretty much all the time

1.  Martha Stewart Roller Ball Glue Pen -- this thing is great.  It's perfect for getting layers down just enough so you can sew through them without them shifting around and is light enough so it won't gum up your machine's needle.  I use it to adhere all my sequins and as a secondary glue for all my chipboard Thickers.  Cannot live without it.  I usually keep a spare in waiting.

2.  3M Foam Tape -- perfect for adding a little height to your layouts without making them super bulky.  This sits a little higher than pop dots, which I like.  And a roll lasts about a month for me, which is pretty long considering how much I use it.  (I get mine at Target for much cheaper than this Amazon link).

3. Le Plume II Pens -- I use them to ink the edges of papers, to draw by hand on my layouts, for journaling and to ink up stamps.  I love a tool that has lots of uses.  They have a nice saturated color and don't tend to pick up other inks on the page too badly.

4. Le Pen pens  -- by far my favorite journaling pen.  They just write so nicely!  And come in lots of colors, but not so many that it complicates things finding the one shade that is the perfect match to your paper.  I like choices, but not so many I bog myself down.

5.  C-Thru plastic centering ruler -- Really, this is my number one pick.  I LOVE THIS THING.  It has little slits and guide lines so you can trace out light lines to write your  layout jounaling on straight.  It has dots so you can mark out points if you want to do a stitched border.  It centers and it's light weight but sturdy.  I flip out if I misplace it under a stack of paper as I work.  Two thumbs up, would buy again.

Those are my use-them-all-the-time tools that I want to share the love of this week!  I wish all of you a happy weekend and I'll be back on Monday with a new layout featuring more of the September Citrus Twist Main and PL kits!

The Smallest Things

I've been playing a lot with Glitz' Finnley (which is available at the Whimsical Twist shop!) collection lately and wanted to share a few of the layouts I've made -- you'll be seeing more over the next week or two.  I'm loving the painterly quality of the papers.  That red background paper is lovely.  I like the Glitz papers a lot because they are a true matte finish -- not any shine on them at all.  I think it makes the colors seem more intense that way.  

I think my favorite part of this layout (besides the photo, of course!) is the hand written "love" on the right side.  It works really well with the hand drawn borders on the paper scrap strips that back the photo.  I like the drawn borders, too.  Before I drew them in the layout just didn't seem to have a focal point -- the borders really draw the attention to that area of the page.  I kept the embellishments really simple with this page to let the photo and the beautiful patterns and textures on the papers really speak for themselves.