When Life Gives You Lemons

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When Scrap Shotz sends you the Simple Stories, Simple Vintage Lemon Twist, you make layouts!

I have absolutely loved playing with this collection. At first I honestly was not sure I would have memories to match the style … but I was so wrong. This collection is all about fun, bright, cheery designs and colours; and I have loads of those kinda memories to document! 

Florals for the Win! 

For my first layout, I was all about showing off the amazing floral die cuts in this collection.  Flowers, butterflies and bees and all beautifully coloured and detailed. 

First I stamped the background Paper (Bazzill Cardstock, Raven) with Tim Holtz, Distress Oxide in Hickory Smoke using an older botanical Vicki Boutin stamp from my stash. Adds a few splatters too. Then I simply layered a whole bunch of die cuts up from the bottom of the page and down from the top - a layered jumble! 

The top layer serves as the anchor for my photos (which I backed in just white cardstock) and my title. The bottom layer was a good spot to feature a few phrase embellishments, stickers and a couple of bees too from the collection.  

Hexagons are my Favourite! 

For my second layout, I played on the hexagon/bee inspired elements of the collection. I cut a bunch of different pattern paper hexagons on my die cutting machine. The patterns are so pretty - wanted to show them all off! 

Before adhering any of the hexagons, I added some mixed media to the background. The black small hexagons are another Vicki Boutin stamp from my stash applied with Staz On in Jet Black. Then some packaging technique with Tim Holtz, Distress Ink in Mustard Seed, and finally splatters in more Mustard Seed and some Evergreen Bough. I finished it off with black splatters using slightly watered down Black Nouvo. 

From there I just played with the pattern paper hexagons to create a nice anchor for the photos, and then layered a bunch of title elements down the right hand side of my photos. A little lemon tucked here and there, and a couple bee embellishments and voila! I love how bright it all turned out.

All the Hearts! 

There are so many super cute hearts in this collection - sticker, cardstock and foam hearts… blue, yellow, black and pattern hearts …so many hearts. So I focused on a design that would give me an excuse to use way, way too many! 

First, I covered the bottom half of the page with the black/white plaid pattern. This is my favourite pattern in the collection so I really wanted to show it off. Then I cut a few different circles from some of the other patterns. The circles become the anchor for my photo and created a neat transition from the bottom pattern and the white cardstock (Bazzill Cardstock, Avalanche) on top. 

From there, I backed my photo in a few more pattern papers, and used the stickers sheet to create some fun tabs on the left. I also added a few splatters in Tim Holtz, Distress Ink in Mustard Seed, Evergreen Bough, and Black Soot behind the photos. 

Then it was all about the hearts! I wanted it to look like they are floating up from the love my nephew has for our dog! So focused on scattering them from the photo upwards and widening the scatter as it got close to the edge of the page. I finished it all off with a two alpha title and a little rip and extra heart at the bottom of the page. This one came together real quick - so fun! 

Strips and Stitches! 

For my final layout, I wanted to use all the pattern paper branding strips, scraps of paper and washi tape of the collection. 

First, to add a little more black to the background pattern, I used a honeycomb stencil and rubbed some Tim Holtz, Distress Oxide in Black Soot on it followed by a few sprints of water and then pressed the wet side down to the paper. This gives you a more faint and less perfect negative impression of the stencil which matched the style of the collection quite nicely. You can see it there on the top left side and near the bottom right. 

From there, I cut a bunch of strips of paper, tore each end so there were different lengths and then layered them down the left side of the page. I added a few strips of washi tape in there too for a little touch of shine. After the strips were all in place, I stitched a few with black thread on my sewing machine. I left the stitched ends loose and a little long so it looked nice and messy. 

To finish it off, I added my photo with lots of fun layered embellishments and patterns and this really long title. This collection is in the Scrap Shotz Scrapbooking Kit and included cardstock and Doodlebug alphas - these are those cute black alphas! 

Are you playing with this kit or collection - we would love to see! Tag us on social media or join the Scrap Shotz Paper Crafting Facebook Group and post up your projects!