Best Friends - The Cut Shoppe and Creative Scrappers team up

Hi guys,

Today I'm bringing you a layout for The Cut Shoppe that I created for our team up with Creative Scrappers! Creative Scrappers provided us with this awesome sketch, I love it so much! I'll probably be using this in the future again! Look:

When I saw the circles I knew right away which cut file I wanted to use. Well it was the obvious choice too if I'm honest. The Sassy Circles! I haven't used this cut file yet so it was the perfect opportunity!

At the time I made this layout I just got my hands on the (then) new Millie and June line from Fancy Pants and I had to use it right away! Since then I've made several layouts with it, I just love it so very much! Especially the cobalt blue in it. I picked some of my favourite photos of my cousin and me from many years ago. Somehow this line reminded me of our life long friendship, we grew up together, she is really more like a sister to me. In fact I only used this line to scrap our photos. Even the name Millie and June reminds me of the mischievous little girls we once were!

So here's my take:

Look at the bow! Isn't it just the most beautiful color?!

I hope you like what you see! If you have any questions just leave a comment! Your feedback is always welcome too!

I hope you are inspired to use this sketch for your next project! I'd love to see it!

Happy summer and happy scrapping you guys!

X

Sandy toes and salty kisses - DT layout for The Cut Shoppe

Hi guys,

I am up on The Cut Shoppe blog today with a new layout!

My most favourite photos to scrap are our summer photos so I was going through some folders and picked a really old one of my boyfriend (and me! can you find me?!) from before our son was born. I love this photo! Of course it was taken in our most favourite places in the whole wide word, Barcelona, Spain! We haven't been there in two years so I guess that's the reason I am scrapping these photos! By the time you read this post however, we will be in Barcelona lying on the beach hopefully yay :).

I really wanted to use this super cool new cut file, Sketchy Scallops, but didn't want to back it with patterned papers like I normally do, I just wanted to use it as a layer in the background. I also wanted to use a big summer related title, for which I chose the Open Letter Alpha that I stretched so the letters are taller and welded the letters together. Mainly because I'm lazy and didn't want to back every single letter separately, ha! I then backed these with a variety of paper scraps from my stash. My background paper is from the Crate Paper Poolside collection if I'm not mistaken. It was one of my favourite papers last summer so I still have several sheets :).

Since the cut files add plenty of interest to the page, I didn't really want to add an awful lot of embellishments. However, I still HAD TO add some because well...I cannot do without ha! I found an old travel themed chipboard sheet from Crate Paper which I barely used and picked out a frame and some smaller pieces to add next to my photo. I love the colors of these chipboards and they went with my papers perfectly I think!

I hope I could inspire you in one way or the other! Get your die cutting machines out and get cutting! Enjoy your summer guys! See you soon X

Best ever - DT layout for Scrap Our Stash

Hey there friends,

I'm back today with a layout for the book inspired stash challenge at Scrap Our Stash!

Here is this month's challenge for your reference:

When I saw the book cover it was kind of obvious I would go with the travel theme. The picture was a no brainer because I had actually had it lying around on my desk for about a year (ha!)...It's one of my favourite photos from our Maldives holiday from many many years ago. I also knew I had several map papers in my stash but I didn't even look for them because I just received my Fancy Pants warehouse box full of awesome goodies and there were several papers from the As You Wish line, including this gorgeous map paper. I mean the pinks in it, right?!  Totally matched my bikinis ha! Then I took a cut file from The Cut Shoppe and replicated it in several different sizes and welded them all together. I cut this from another paper from the same FP collection and backed it with white vellum so that the background faded out a little. I raised the whole file with the help of pop dots so it stands out. I cut my photo in a circle shape and placed it over one of the circles. I added all sorts of embellies to my compasses: bradz, wood veneer arrows, cork bow, some sentiments and I also added two cute clips. I love the flamingo!!! For my title I found a big wood veneer piece which I embossed with gold and popped it up.

I hope you like how it turned out and inspired you to play along with us for some great scrappy prize! Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great day! X

Guest designing at Hip Kit Club - layouts and cards Nr 3 and 4

Hello there scrappy friends,

Zsoka back here with you today with my second and final guest post for Hip Kit Club! Thank you so much again Kimberly and Kim for this awesome opportunity, I always love working with Hip Kits!

For my first layout I used the cutest cactus cut file from Kim that was a bonus file this month. 

I modified it a little, added some flowers from an earlier HKC cut file set and I also added Ashley's heart cut file to the pot! I like experimenting with cut files and add my twist to them! I then blew it up so that it took up most of my page and cut it from one of the exclusive papers. I didn't want to back it with one single color so I was happy when I found this gorgeous exclusive paper that reminds me of a sunset. This way I had some color variation without having to back each section of the cut file separately. I then stitched around the cactus with white thread to give it more texture. 

For my background paper I chose the striped paper from the Illustrated Faith line. I cut my title from white card stock and adhered it to my background. Then I hand stitched around the letters. I tried to match my embroidery floss colors to the sunset paper to have a more harmonious look. I layered my photo over some papers, chipboard frame, washi tapes. Finally I added embellishments to my cactus, mostly chipboard pieces. I found some cute flowers in the ephemera pack too, but only two matched my color scheme. So I ended up fussy cutting a third one from a piece of scrap paper! I popped up my cactus with pop dots to add some dimension and also added some to the flowers from the ephemera pack. Added my date on a chipboard piece and done!

Obviously I wanted to use the same cactus cut file for my card too. Here I didn't modify it, just cut it as it was from white card stock. I sprayed some Shimmerz Don't Citron Me on a piece of white card stock, added my white cactus on top. Then I also added some gold metallic thread from my stash to add a bit of interest to my card. There was a cute little cactus in the ephemera pack and I thought why not layer this on top of the white one? I added some pop dots to it and adhered it down. I fussy cut two tiny flowers from one of the Simple Stories papers, added pop dots to these too and glued them on my tiny cactus! So cute isn't it? Then I added a sentiment using those gorgeous HKC exclusive alphas! I added a piece of scrap paper behind this and on top of my white card stock base. I did a bit of machine stitching to finish off my card. Simple and quick!

For my second and last layout I created a cut file from a part of Ashley's Happily Ever After file and a circle. I generally go for pattern paper for my backgrounds too and I wanted my cut file to stand out, so first I backed it with a subtle yellow pattern paper, then I hand stitched around it and I also drew around the flowers in the circle with a black pen. 

To decorate my layout I added some fussy cut flowers, some of which I popped up. I also added some of the Freckled Fawn crosses. I was so happy I finally found a way to use a PL car on my layout because I just love them. Especially these past 2 months, the new finish of the cards is amazing! So I chose the one that had July on it and used it as part of my title. For the rest I used the exclusive alpha stickers. I added some layers of papers behind my photo, as always, and I was done!

My last card is a simple one too: I adhered some paper scrap to my white base, stitched around it. Then I added one of the Heidi Swapp frames and some more fussy cut flowers, gold thread and crosses just like on my layout. Finally I picked a sentiment chipboard from the Project Life chipboard sheet and glued it on top of my frame. A bit of black paint splatter and that was it! So simple right?

I hope you like what you see and I could give you some ideas on how to use your kits in an efficient way (that is, use your scraps from your layouts to make cards or similar smaller projects! Don't throw away anything! Yes, hoarder here, I'll admit!). 

Thank you for stopping by and have a great day! X

Like a big boy - DT layout for The Cut Shoppe

Hey there,

I am up on The Cut Shoppe blog today with a new layout!

Browsing through my photos I found this series of Maxim from 6 years ago. I most often only use maximum 2 photos on my pages because I like to use bigger sized photos while also focusing on my background. So there's no way I would put 4 4x6 photos on a page for instance. But often times I have many photos in a series and it is hard to choose just 2 and I prefer not to do several layouts from a series like the one below, where really only the facial expressions are different! Long story short, I came up with a design where I could use these photos in a smaller size. 

I used the doodle circle from the Everyday Essentials set for creating my background, take a look:

I took this circle and replicated it 16 times, arranged them in a grid type of design and welded them. I went with the gorgeous Fancy Free line from Paige Evans for Pink Paislee. I cut the circles from one of the papers that had brush strokes on it in many different colors. I then backed up the ampersands with different papers from the collection and backed the whole file with textured white card stock. I then decorated my circles with puffy stickers, chip boards, pieces from the ephemera pack and a layered sticker. I created my title with some old citrus green alpha thickers from my stash.

I hope I could inspire you today to use more photos on your layouts! Thank you so much for stopping by! See you soon, X