April Lilli Design Team: Winter Wonderland.

This is my last and final layout that I made with the Winter Wonderland collection for the month of January. Even though I only needed two projects, I couldn't stop creating. This photo doesn't really have a story, I just liked the colors and the atmosphere it conveyed. But then I found the perfect journaling which simply reads: "Alright, sometimes even I can see the beauty of Winter."

I fussy cut the title from one of the cutapart sheets and felt that it needed something to sit on top. So I went with the last bits of my favorite paper and added a strip to the bottom of the layout. I nestled one of the die cuts right underneath the title. To frame the layout I added a thinner strip to the top.

For this layout I slapped some acrylic paint on an 8.5x11 piece of cardstock, simply because I didn't know how this would turn out and I didn't want to waste anything. I used a dry, wide flat brush and just put the colors straight onto the cardstock. I love that you can see the brush strokes so well. Then I put my photo on several layers of patterned paper. I used the red paper twice because I loved how the red helps to bring out the colors in the photo.

I added one of the embellishment clusters to the right of the photos and one on the top left corner. I used all of the snowflakes that were included in the collection's cardboard stickers as well as fussy cut some from various patterned papers. To ground the embellishment cluster at the top I used parts of two tags. As on most of the layouts I made with this collection, I added some enamel dots to finish out the layout.

And if you want to see all of these layouts up close and personal, I just posted a layout share on my youtube channel here: Winter Wonderland Layout Share.

April Lilli Design Team: Silvesterwanderung.

This is another layout where I found inspiration in another layout: Wish List by Audrey Yeager. As I said in this post before: there is usually one or two things about a layout that stick out to me and that inspire me. Here it was the stacked photos, the strips of patterned paper and the use of a notebook punch. With this in mind I ventured out on my own and came up with the layout above for the april lilli shop.

I knew I wanted to back my layout with the woodgrain paper and add stitching, emphasizing the corners happened by accident when I didn't pay attention and my stitching line went too far. So I made it a design element by stitching back and forth on all corners and I really love the detail it adds.

If you are wondering about the use of white and cream colored paper on one layout, I regard those as two different colors and have no problem using them together. In order for the notebook paper to pop from the background I used another piece of the dark brown paper. The notebook paper lend itself perfectly as a journaling spot.

The title was so long that I decided to emphasize the vertical lines created by the paper strips even more and placed it on top of the third paper strip. I then added stitching lines to all of the papers after I punched them all with my notebook punch.

I backed the photos with cards from the cutapart sheet and cut them down so that only a very small border was showing. I felt I need to break up the rigid lines of the layout and added some brown Distress Ink using a stencil by Tim Holtz. The only embellishment I added was that brown deer from the sticker sheet.

Here is the story that is on the layout which is titled "Silvesterwanderung" meaning "New Year's Eve hike". We have been going on these hikes since our college years when we went hiking with a group of friends, taking a picnic and bratwurst for a winter BBQ in the snow. We always had such a great time and kept this tradition even after we started a family on our own.

This particular year, we took our bikes and rode to a lake where we made a fire in a fire pit and grilled bratwurst. We underestimated the length of the tour and how cold it got in the evening and the ride back home was freezing. But we made it.

April Lilli Design Team: This View.

I am not going to talk much about this layout because I have a process video for it on my youtube channel. Go check it out here: This View and hear about the story and the design process. Please hop over and take a look! The Winter Wonderland collection by Simple Stories is still 20% off in the april lilli shop. Below you will find a few close ups.

April Lilli Design Team: Mein Held.

This layout was greatly inspired by a layout from Jen Schow who is a guest designer for Cocoa Daisy this month. I loved the idea of making a grid design from journaling cards and having a flair in the middle. It took me a while to finally come up with this 8.5x11 layout and I had to waste a whole sheet of 12x12 paper to finally come to this solution. When I scraplift a layout or take a layout as inspiration I often just take one (or in this case two) ideas from the original and don't go back looking at the inspiration while working on my own layout. I believe that this approach helps me develop my own style.

As I wrote above, I fiddled with this layout for a long time and then when I compared the end result to Jen's layout, I found that I didn't deviate too far from it after all. The story is about another hat - I chuckled when I noticed that two of the five stories were about hats. Especially, considering the fact, that I didn't start wearing hats until I had kids. The title of the layout is "Mein Held" which translates to "my hero" and it talks about the story that my mom started selling this special crochet yarn (myboshi) in her store and made hats for all of her grandchildren for Christmas one year. The response to my question: "And where is my hat?" was a small package for my birthday in February. But the best part about the hat was that not my mom had crochet the hat for me but my dad!

I used four 3x4 journaling cards from the cutapart sheet for the background and then only added the exclusive heart flair to the middle. On the top right I added a little embellishment cluster made from the die cut set and another cutapart from the 6x6 paper pad. Then I sprinkled some enamel dots in groups of three on three places on the layout. I felt the layout needed some kind of border, so I took a brown pen and drew a line all around the edge. I added some zigzag lines in two places to mimic zigzag stitching and I really like how they turned out. Head over to the April Lilli shop to get this collection for 20% off.

Documenting December in a Traveler's Notebook

I have been meaning to share my December Daily video series here on my blog but I somehow never got around to doing so. I have a complete series of videos sharing my process of Documenting December in a Traveler's Notebook. Today I uploaded the last video: a complete walk through my insert for 2016.


I created a playlist where you will find all of the videos including a tutorial on how to sew your own fabric cover, the kit that I used to embellish the pages, a walk through my insert of 2015 as well as several process videos. Here is the link to the playlist: Documenting December in a Traveler's Notebook.

April Lilli Design Team: In love with my new hat.

After receiving the Winter Wonderland collection from April Lilli, I went back to my wintery photos from several years ago and found five stories that I thought would work with the color scheme. Since I only started scrapbooking in 2014 I didn't have to worry whether any of my stories had been documented yet.

I figured, if I printed all of them, it would be easier to make the two projects required for my DT assignment. Well, it didn't work that way - I ended up with five layouts for all of the five stories, because ideas for the next layout started forming while I was still working on the previous layout. And I just couldn't let them go. So here is the first: "In love with my new hat". Several years ago I used my birthday money to buy a hand knit hat from Monika and it was my favorite hat for a long time.

I was immediately drawn to the deep brown of the paper and so I needed to use that one on my first layout, I divided the paper in thirds and cut a 4 inch strip. The photo was then placed where the horizontal and vertical 4 inch lines meet. For the layers behind my photo, I grabbed a vellum bag with gold dots, papers that I ripped using my ruler and several die cuts from the die cut pack. I also fuzzy cut the large snow flake from one of the cards from the cut-apart sheets.

I really loved the red chipboard heart and incorporated it into my title, which is made from white older 7paper letter stickers as well as even older brown Authentique tile letter stickers. In the beginning I did not mean to put the journaling on the tag in the vellum bag, but after I had a general idea of what the layout would look like, this was essentially the perfect spot for it.

I used several phrase stickers from the 12x12 sticker sheet as well as the sticker pack for further embellishments. And then I almost forgot to use enamel dots because I am such an enamel dot hoarder. But the idea of being on a Design Team is to showcase all the products, right? So I generously added them to all the right places and I really think they add the finishing touches.

Over the next two weeks I will be sharing the other layouts that I made using this collection and will also have a video at the end of the month. If you haven't seen my unboxing video yet, check it out here: Unboxing Simple Stories Winter Wonderland.

April Lilli Design Team: Simple Stories "Winter Wonderland"

I have been chosen to be on the April Lilli Design Team for the first half of 2017. I'm so excited! If you followed me for a long time you know that I love sharing my passion with you all! To have the opportunity to help a small business grow and reach more people and maybe get some of you interested in and passionate about scrapbooking feels really great.

Every month there is a featured collection in the April Lilli Shop which is 20% off the original price. For the month of January 2017 this is the Simple Stories Winter Wonderland collection. I have filmed a very detailed unboxing for you where I talk about my ideas for this wintery collection. I am still working on several ideas and will be sharing them with you here on my blog, on instagram and over on my youtube channel.