This week the Creative team was using the new release by Michelle Underwood for the Kit Smitten assignment.  What delightful kit to work with.  When the layouts started coming in from team members, I was struck by the huge variety in design and feel. To me that screams - "You can design anything with this kit"  It's a good one for sure.

The first page is by Jennifer Barksdale - this page is amazing in so many ways. What struck me immediately was the wonderful shadowing. Clearly, I need to spend more time on mine. Wow!

Next up is a page by Katherine Bley - Katherine's page is beautiful, nobody uses brushes and masks like Katherine. I always look forward to seeing what delight, ethereal thing Katherine will accomplish with products - and with this one, she didn't disappoint.

Joscie Cutchens happy and modern design style was a perfect fit for this week's selected kit. I especially love the fun grouping of elements that are a just right touch to highlight this design. Plus anybody that doesn't instantly fall in love with this page because of the fun photo alone - must be crazy. Capturing these bits of our lives, for me, is what scrapbooking is all about.

And last, but not least, is this page by Jennifer Richards. The texture of the background paper is just beautiful, and I love that this almost feels like photos dropped on an old farm table. Such a rustic cool feel to it.

Because we had so many kit smitten pages coming in (the mark of a really fun kit maybe?) I didn't technically do a page for this week's post - but I did use it to work on my Week 2 Project Life pages. The pink frame I used on my first page is from Michelle's kit and I am super happy with the look on the PL layout. It added a little bit bit of special that I was looking for.

As always, if you use this kit for any pages - please link us up so we don't miss them. I'm sure we'll be "smitten" and would like to leave a little love for you. Have a great week.

Hello again. Kimberly here, I’m excited to be back here on the blog to talk about one of my favorite things: {Digital} *Project Life.

So, how’s Project Life going for you? I have a confession to make. I’m behind already. I was totally trucking along and then I went on vacation. Being on vacation threw a wrench in Project Life process. I’ve designated Sunday afternoon as my assembly day. I sit down for a few hours, gather my photos, pick the stories I want to tell and plop them all into a digital template. This last Sunday, when I should have been creating my Week 3 pages, I was at Disneyland with my family. I guess I could have tried to put my pages together after a long day at the park, but I purposefully left my laptop at home.

When I get behind I rely heavily on one of my favorite iPhone aps: Momento. Momento – a unique approach to diary writing – aggregates all my social media accounts and creates a digital diary of everything I found worthy enough to post on various sites around the Internet. I can sync my Momento account with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr … to name a few. In a single places I can see all the photos I posted or my various status updates, as well as any “moments” I want to record within the application, like funny things my kids say or milestones that might be more private and less Facebook appropriate.

When I fall behind with my Project Life pages, I always turn to Momento to refresh my memory as to what happened during the week or weeks I’m catching up with. I’ve been amazed how quickly I forget the little details of life, which is why I love this ap so much. I’ve set a little time aside today to catch up and I’ll be culling though all my Momento entries to see what’s important and what I want to share.

Are there any smartphone aps you use to help with Project Life? Any must-have aps Project Life newbies “must” download?

Before I sign off, I do have a few pages to share. My pages for Week 2 were done on schedule and that was quite a feat given my travel schedule that particular week.

Check back here the second and fourth Wednesday of each month (barring a natural disaster or impromptu vacation) to see my Project Life pages, as well as any advice or tips I might be able to share. And if you’re interested, come on over to my blog and see what else I’m working on, including lots of freebies you can use on your pages.

*Project Life is a memory keeping system developed by Becky Higgins.  Learn more at beckyhiggins.com.

This week the creative team had a kit smitten focus on the new release from Jen Martakis. Jen will be donating her portion of the proceeds from the sale of this kit in January and February 2013 to the designer Mye De Leon - to help her newborn son receive a life saving surgery.

It's hard not to love this kit - fresh juicy colors in the middle of the winter. Like a bit of welcome sunshine!

Joscie Cutchens used the kit to document a "right" now moment between her and her husband - who doesn't love sun backlit  photos? The simple and fresh design really couldn't be more perfect and trendy (what with all the fun washi )

And Suzanne Torr combined the kit with one of the new templates by Polka Dot Pixels. The templates were designed to be used with Project Life type layouts, but worked perfectly with this kit to make a fun and energetic block styled page. I really love the happiness in this one.

Next up is Mary Martinez. She also used Jen's kit with a new one from Polka Dot Pixels - the Heart to Heart Collection Convo Bubbles. This page is FUN! I love those juicy colors combined with the great b&w photos. The whimsical design is delightful - you can't help but smile when you look at it!

And lastly is the page I created with the kit - I chose some fun pics of my oldest son and his Argentinean girlfriend (Brad and Luli = Bruli) I found that this kit was perfect to work with these pictures and love the warmth it makes in the layout. I bet you'll love it too.

Thanks, as always, for visiting our blog. And we welcome and links to pages you might create with this kit as well. Happy scrapping.

Hi everyone - I'm bringing you this week's digital challenge, and thought we'd go heavy on the "digital" side of things this week. I remember when I was first starting in digital I rarely used the layer styles - probably because I didn't understand them and what fun they could be to work with. So that's my challenge - alter at least one of the papers on your layout. Of course, I'll accept other means of altering too, but hope that that having a blog issued "DOUBLE DOG DARE" to use the layer styles will get you to to play around with them. It really is fun!

On my layout I have four altered papers three done with layer styles and one not.

The gray damask paper was NOT altered with layer style but rather with color and lighting adjustments.

the remaining three were all altered with layer styles

On the chance that you are new-ish to digital and don't even know where these are located I've included a couple of screen shots too.  I'm really looking forward to seeing what fun creations you all come up with - Heaven knows that is my favorite part about these challenges each week.

Thanks for stopping by the digital blog - now go get scrapping!

This week the Digital CT used the new kit by Baersgarten - Winter Wonderland. As is the case with all of Iara's digital kits here at 2Peas it is an eclectic mix of elements and papers. What we love about that is that so many different kinds of pages and styles can work with kits and collections like that.

Kimberly Kalil chose to use this week's kit to deign weekly pages for her Project Life album - as usual her pages are happy & fun glimpses into their everyday lives.

And next up is Liz Jutila - she has the greatest series of photos and her design really allows those to remain as the focus of her layout. We especially love the fun use of the "&" tag that comes in the kit as part of the title work design.

Then, lastly is my own layout with Iara's fun & wintery kit. This is a layout that I really struggled with for some reason - I spent a whole day on the first version and ended up trashing it because it didn't  "feel" right to me. I am a SLOW scrapper most of the time and really admire those of you who are able to put  layouts together without my usual agonizing.

We're so happy to have you stop by our digital blog and would love to see anything that anyone else                                         designs with this week's Kit Smitten product.

Hello my digital friends. Mary here bringing you this week's template challenge. It's not one of my own but it is from a 2Peas Designer.

ChrissyW offers a monthly freebie on her Facebook page so I'm hi-lighting it here. It's a Year in Review template but you don't have to use it just for that you can do a 12.12.12, Month in Review, or maybe you want to do a Project Life type layout.  You can use it for many things that's why I really love using templates you can edit them or use them as is. It has two sizes 12x12 & 8.5x11

It does require a Facebook Like if your not already a Fan. Click on the Image and you'll be taken to the download page.

Here is my layout example I honestly can't do enough of these YIR layouts.

Credit: Everyday 365 January Kit by Baers Garten Designs

I hope you're inspired to create a layout of your own and don't forget to come back and link it up here.

Congrats to last week's winner of a $5 digital store credit ... Yappyspaz!   To eligible to win this week's credit, be sure to check the digital template challenge box when uploading your layout into the gallery!  Show us what you've got.

Back within this week's "Kit Smitten" layouts. As you know, each week the Two Peas site Digital Creative Team chooses one of the newly released kits and shares some examples of how they are using the new product.  We welcome any questions you may have about "how to" anything you see on these pages. And as always, we'd love for you to share any projects you make with this kit too. Go ahead and link us up in the comments

This week we are smitten with Adrienne Loomans English Rose Paper Pack. I can think of no better word to decribe these papers than - BEAUTIFUL!  We had quite a few CT members submit projects this week, probably because these papers are - right, BEAUTIFUL!

The first project was done by Mary Martinez - she used patterned paper as a background like a genius. So many people are afraid to use bold patterns as a background, but this page proves you might just be missing out if you don't "go there" once in a while. The use of the vibrant colored papers and elements with the b&w photos is a classic trick, that always yields stunning results like this.

Next up is a creative project by Jen Richards - she actually extracted side shots of her kids and then used that extracted image as a clipping mask for the papers. She made the coolest silhouettes of her ids to use in her home. Clever project!

Next up is a page by Liz Jutila - this page also uses some pretty new eyelet paper available in the store this week. This page really is feminine, pretty and intricate. So pretty!

Then a couple of cards - I never get over how beautiful all the digi/hybrid cards are.  Jocelyn Olsen uses pieces of the paper to create a "quilted" chevron pattern. WOW. and Jen Barksdale layers a few of the newly released papers this week - showing us all how to combine product successfully.

And lastly, is my page using this week's papers - I used a number of digital elements from other kits as well. I love the versatility of digital and the ability to make products work by slightly altering them to fit the "vision"

Thanks for stopping by.

Hello there! I’m Kimberly Kalil and I’m super excited to be here to talk one of my favorite memory keeping endeavors: Project Life* digital style.

This year marks my second year doing Project Life. I started January of 2012 and was intent on doing a hybrid version of Project Life, even though I’m 100% digital in all my other scrapbooking. That lasted about six weeks. With my busy life, I couldn’t keep up and frankly I wasn’t enjoying the hybrid part of the project. Not that hybrid is bad, it’s just not me. I loved my album (six weeks of it), but the process was tedious and I was beginning to dread putting together my pages together.

At that point, I switched over to an all-digital version of Project Life and things changed: suddenly I really loved the project and I loved the process.  

This leads to the most important advice I can give you when embarking on Project Life (or any year-long project for that matter: you know who you are, so don’t pretend to be something you’re not. What do I mean? I knew I couldn’t do a year-long hybrid project. It doesn’t fit into my busy traveling and family life. But I committed myself to hybrid anyway and it was a disaster. As soon as I honored who I am as a crafter – all digital, all the time – then I found success in Project Life. I loved creating my pages, I loved the final product and I loved the fact I started focusing on the every day.  

The next bit of advice I’ll give you is simple: decide early on how you want to approach Project Life. Are you going to take a photo a day? Are you going to do a two-page spread each week or two-pages for each month? Are you going to add paper ephemera to your digital layouts? There is no right answer. Do what you love and what works for you. It will sustain you on the weeks you are busy or feeling a little less that creative. Having an overall plan helps you stay on track.

Finally, get organized. I have a folder (see above) on my computer that’s called “Project Life” … I know, not very creative, but it works. Inside this folder, I have all my favorite Project Life supplies. I have them group together by categories (subfolders) such designers I like to use, templates and the year the pages are being created for. This way, when you sit down to create your pages you have a single place to go to find all your supplies. This saves time and frustration while you’re working.

Being organized made it super easy for me to complete not just my opening page (seen above), but also the first week's pages (below).

Above all, have fun. This is supposed to be a fun project. Find joy in documenting the every day. It will make you more grateful for all that you have and for your life in general – at least it did for me. Also, check back here the second and fourth Wednesday of each month (barring a natural disaster or impromptu vacation) to see my Project Life pages, as well as any advice or tips I might be able to share. And if you’re interested, come on over to my blog and see what else I’m working on, including lots of freebies you can use on your pages.

*Project Life is a memory keeping system developed by Becky Higgins.  Learn more at beckyhiggins.com.