Thursday, January 31, 2019

January Page Kit Roundup

It's the last day of January and what a January it has been! I tell ya, it's super fun to kick of a new year with a month-long birthday celebration! We had so much fun this month. Tons of special deals, new page kits, blog posts with kit transformations, lots of retiring kits, and even some new products like Color Bundles and Paper packs! And, boy, have you guys responded! We're listening! We've been talking about how to make more of this happen as we go forward and we're definitely going to continue offering some of those new items - with more to come! So THANK YOU SO MUCH for your responsiveness, your feedback, your orders, and all the love! What a great birthday gift to us!

As we get ready to head into a new month with new things, I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on the new beauties that joined our shelves this month. With a start like this, we can see that this year is shaping up to be a fantastic year with only more to come.


January Page Kit Roundup

Along with each new release during the month of January, featured the layout in a blog post in a 13 post series called 13 Ways to Personalize your Page Kit. For each, let's take a look at the original layout and then the transformation.

Original Love Joy Peace Layout

Love Joy Peace Layout transformed with embellishments

Original Family Winter Layout

Family Winter with Inking 
Original Cheer Blue Layout

Original Cheer Red Layout
Cheer Layout with Color Swap


Original And We're Off Car Layout

Original And We're Off Plane Layout

Original And We're Off Ship Layout

And We're Off Plane with Waterfall Album
Original Scrap Till You Drop Layout
Scrap Till You Drop with Washi Tape
Original Swim Layout
Swim Layout with pocket

Original Let's Bowl Layout
Let's Bowl Layout with Patterned Paper

What a great crop of kits from this month! And more to come in February! Stay tuned for even more!

13 Ways to Personalize your Page Kit. #13: Patterned Paper

We've come to the final installment of 13 Ways to Personalize your Page Kit! We've covered so much ground! We've looked at adding embellishments, inking die cuts, using pop up dots to add dimension, expanding the kit to add more pages, sewing, adding personal touches with journaling, adding additional photos with a pop out photo album, secret flip-up journaling or photo space, swapping out colors with our Color Bundles, adding photo or journaling space with a simple waterfall album, using washi tape, and creating a pocket behind photo mats to hold additional keepsakes. You can check those out by clicking on the one you want to learn more about! 

Our final personalization option is simple, but effective. With just a few inches of special paper, you can transform the simplicity of a kit to create something very special for yourself and your precious memories. I love our newest page kit - both its subject and its design, but I LOVE it even more with a few twists that I was able to make.

Personalization option #13: Patterned Paper

Using patterned paper is such a simple way to bring so much to your layouts. Don't get me wrong. Cardstock is awesome and we can do SO much with it but, sometimes, a punch of bright pattern paper, or the texture in the design, can highlight your design in the best ways. And this design is awesome. :) Let's take a look at Let's Bowl:


Original Let's Bowl Layout
Bowling has a special place in my heart. There are so many memories related to bowling - family fun, birthday parties, high school dances, awkward dates, late night disco bowling. It's so much fun! I love that this page kit has a retro vibe that brings back all of the nostalgia.

The hardest part for me is choosing a pattern. Which is pretty much most of it, right? Haha! But it's a little bit of an art and a little bit of just trusting your gut. I often like to think about a couple things when I'm looking for a pattern. 

1. What's the vibe I'm going for here? Is it subtle and gentle? Bright and cheerful? Antique? Modern? What do I want to feel when I look at it? For this layout, I wanted to feel fun, bright, and energetic.

2. What are the colors of the layout? Do I want them to match exactly? Do I want to find complementary colors? Are there any colors that are definitely off the table? This layout was especially tricky. The colors are fantastic - very bright and bold - but the greenish blue color mixed in with these bold reds, yellows, and oranges throws most color combinations off. I decided that I wanted to find colors that were bright and bold and could fit into that color wheel, but didn't necessarily have to match these. I also noted that the background was black - very stark - so I wanted the pattern paper to break up a little bit of the darkness.

3.What type of pattern am I going for? Do I want large prints or small features? Do I want randomness  or geometrical or symmetrical? How much blank space am I looking for? I wasn't totally sure what I wanted here, but I knew it needed to be small enough of a pattern to peek out between the larger features of the layout. I am also generally drawn to geometrical and symmetrical patterns, so it was likely that I'd go that direction.


With those things in mind, I started my hunt, quickly eliminating many options just based on these few answers to the questions. I ended up with what I think is the PERFECT patterned paper for what I was going for. Check it out.

Bright, Bold, Energetic, Fun, and right in the wheelhouse for color! 
Here's a little close-up of the paper.



I seriously love it so much. It's got a little bit of a retro feel and it has all of the characteristics I was looking for. The colors are really close, though not exact, and the bright white stands in stark contrast to the black. When tucked behind some of the larger pieces, it'll be a fantastic addition to the layout! 

The next decision is to decide where to put the patterned paper. I usually play around with it for a little while, but I have a few rules I generally go by. They're strictly personal preferences - there are no real rules - but I usually love the outcome when I follow these.

1. If I'm placing patterned paper on one page of the layout, I usually want to work it into the other page or pages as well. It balances it out and makes it look more cohesive.

2. If I'm going to be placing it behind something, it needs to breathe. By that, I mean that I want to be able to see the original paper enough that I get the pattern, the feel, the colors. Otherwise, what's the point? Sometimes that can be achieved with a small strip of paper. Sometimes it needs a larger chunk.

You can see how I achieved those goals in my placement in these photos.

The large strip at the top allowed me to break up some of the darkness of this page but not take it over. I made sure to place my photo mats in places where the bursts could be seen. Looking at this again, I may change the placement of the red star. I don't love how it's covering the patterned paper when there is plenty of blank space left on that side of the layout. I would probably move it.
I decided to show more of the patterned paper by layering the photo mats and letting the patterned paper shine on top.

With the bold patterned paper photo mat right next door, I decided to keep this one a little more subtle. I cut the top photo mat a little smaller than I normally would to show the bursts around the outsides.

Here's the full left side. I. am. in. LOVE.

I just love how this layout turned out. It's so much fun to play with patterned paper and see how you can turn the volume up on an already fabulous layout to make it just a little more special. Those disco bowling photos will look FANTASTIC on this layout now! Don't you think?


Let's Bowl with Patterned Paper additions.

And with that, we come to the end of our 13 Ways to Personalize your Page Kit series! It's been such a fun challenge to look at each of our new kits with fresh eyes and find ways to make them more special to me. If you've enjoyed it as much as I have, you're in luck! While I wont be revamping every kit we put out, I'll be choosing some each month to transform and blogging about it with tips and tricks. We'll be featuring new kits for sure, but also some of our wonderful classic kits as well! So let me know if there's one you'd love to see transformed or if there's a technique you'd like to see. I'm definitely up for the challenge! Until next time, Happy Scrapping!

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

13 Ways to Personalize your Page Kit. #12: Pockets!

It's time for installment #12 of 13 Ways to Personalize your Page Kit! If you've missed our previous posts, you can find them here (123, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11). We're almost to our big number 13! Why 13? Down Memory Lane turns 13 this year and we're finding lots of ways to celebrate. Along with weekly and monthly deals throughout the month of January (check them out on our Facebook page!), we're releasing 13 brand new page kits and doing a blog series on 13 ways to personalize them - 1 post for each of the years we've been blessed to be a part of your memory keeping. 

Our 12th option is one that I commonly use because it's so quick and easy. I also love it because I usually have extras that I want to keep - extra photos, notes, tickets, brochures, etc - but I don't want to put them on the main layout. Creating a simple pocket makes a space for them without cutting out any of the layout's design! 

Personalization Option #12: Pockets!

Before we get to the changes, let's look at the page kit we're highlighting today:
Original Swim Layout
As is often the case for me with sports layouts, I always have more than photos that I want to keep. I probably border on ridiculous, but I keep programs, schedules, stats, newspaper clippings, and various other momentos from the season. I used to struggle with what to do with all of those, but creating pockets has worked wonders for me!

I almost feel a little weird doing an entire blog post on this because it's so simple to do, but it really changes the game for me with scrapbooking. The best part is that all you need is a page kit and some adhesive. 

What I usually do is take a look a the layout and assess where I can create pockets. Sometimes, if there is a large die cut, I can put a pocket behind it, but most of the time, I just use the photo mats. The photos will be placed on the top, and then the momentos can be placed - hidden - behind the photo mat in the pocket. 

Once you've chosen your photo mat, you'll just need to put adhesive on three sides (leaving the top open). I try to put the glue as close to the edges as possible to leave the most pocket space.



When you've got your adhesive on the mat, you just place that mat where you would have placed your photo mat and voila! You've got a pocket! Now you've got somewhere to place those special things you want to save but don't want to feature.

Swim page with pocket

The great part is that it doesn't change the layout and you'd never know it was there! 
Swim layout with pocket - keepsake inside

Swim layout with pocket - keepsake showing

As I said, it's ridiculously simple! But that doesn't mean it's not fabulous! We've got one more personalization option coming in the next few days as we round out the first month of this new year. Catch up on those previous posts and come back for installment #13!

Friday, January 25, 2019

13 Ways to Personalize your Page Kit. #11: Washi Tape

We are on number 11 of 13 Ways to Personalize your page kit and I almost can't believe we're already here! It's our LAST Kit of the Week for the month (though not our last release)! This month has absolutely flown by. But I guess it's like they say - time flies when you're having fun - and we've had so much fun this month transforming page kits and letting our creative juices flow! We hope you've enjoyed it all so far! So ELEVEN! That means we've already covered 10 different ways you can personalize your page kits. If you missed any of them, no worries! You can catch up! Just click on the one you want and it'll take you directly there: 1.embellishments, 2.inking, 3.pop up dots, 4.expansion, 5.sewing, 6.journaling, 7.pop out photos, 8.secret flip-up space, 9.color swap, and 10.waterfall album

And that brings us to number 11: Washi Tape. There are a million ways to use washi tape. The possibilities are as vast as your creativity. I love to keep it handy for when inspiration strikes, and our newest page kit lent itself perfectly to this technique. Before we get to the technique, let's look at this fantastic page kit. We've got hundreds of page kits dedicated to your family, your friends, your events, your vacations, and your other joys, but this one is ALL. ABOUT. YOU! 

Original Scrap Till You Drop
GAH! Isn't is SO cute!?! I just love it! The colors are bright and fun, the die cuts are perfect (those "stickers"), and it just makes me want to head for a weekend crop! Honestly, I didn't want to do anything major to this kit because I just love how it's set up. BUT, in the spirit of 13 ways, I found a way to work in #11 in subtle, but fun ways.

Personalization Option #11: Washi Tape

Everyone I know has their favorites. Their favorite brand, their favorite thickness, their favorite place to buy it. But, for me, I'll take any kid of washi tape. It's just thin strips of tape and it's removable, so it's easy to use, there are often unique and fun designs or words, and - my favorite feature - although inexpensive on it's own, bargain bins are often filled with rolls of it. We've got a set of rolls in our design space that works with nearly every project you could imagine, so I grabbed that, and started brainstorming.

All this cute polka dotted washi tape came in a nice little tube from Doodlebug. Brilliantly, I didn't take a photo them from the side so you could see the polka dots...
The first thing I did was assess the layout and see what the washi possibilities were. 

I decided the obvious choice would be to removed the paper die cut "tape" and replace it with washi tape. I also decided I would try to spruce up those photo mat overlays. Next, I took a look at my color choices and picked a few that matched well.

I chose bright colors that worked with the page kit
Once I had my choices, I just started playing! I added the washi tape instead of the "tape" die cuts and experimented with the photo overlays. For the first overlay, I just tore pieces of washi tape at random lengths and lined the outside to create a bit of a patchwork look.

Random lengths of Washi tape were added to this overlay
 For the other overlay, I decided to run the washi tape sideways so the squares would all be exactly the same size and alternate colors to get my desired effect.
washi tape laid sideways to create equal sized squares

The best part of using washi tape is how quick and simple it is! In just a few minutes, I had made some changes to the original layout that were a little more personal and quirky. And if you try something and you don't like it, you can remove it! I'm not totally sold on the washi tape on the overlays, if I'm honest. The page kit has so much going on that I'm not sure it needs it. But I'm definitely going to use that on another layout that needs a little punch!! So experiment! Explore! Have Fun! You'll never know if you'll like it unless you give it a try.


Left side of Scrap Till You Drop with washi tape

Right side of Scrap Till You Drop with washi tape
Full Scrap Till You Drop with washi tape

That's all for the 11th way to personalize your page kit! Stay tuned for our final 2! And don't forget to check out our Facebook page to keep up on the weekly deals for the month of January!