Sunday, April 3, 2016

Maximising A Mini Kit

Welcome to The Cherry On Top.

Today, we are working with mini kits with maximum impact.  We'll show you how to match them up with the right template and how to get those few papers and elements to give big results.

The Digital Scrapbooking Studio is having a fantastic April's Fool deal where you could buy a mystery kit for $1.  You don't know what kit you are going to get, but believe me, the prize at the end will definitely make you smile:) The kits will all be for sale after the week long promotion.

I got to work with a few of the mini kits and was thrilled with the outcome.  It's a lot like a Use It All Challenge, where you get a free mini kit and have to use all of the pieces to design your layout or project.

Let's take a look at what we've done with a few of these really fun mini kits.

First, is LouCee Creation's, A Little Shabby.  These colours are so soft and pretty.  They totally spoke to me.  Then again, I just love shabby chic.  Take a peep at all of those fabulous elements in this mini.  Gorgeous flowers, a nice variety of greenery, beads, the charm shoe is a favourite and I found those two tiny hearts a sweet touch.

This mini had me focusing on the elements.  They were awesome and so brilliantly thought out to be used to a maximum.  I didn't have a layout pop into my brain, as I sometimes do.  So, I went for a very simple template that used tiny elements and focused on a large background.

The template is a hodge podge of PHOTOcowgirl and the mask in the background is from LissyKay Designs.  I duplicated Lissy's template, which you'll see a little further down, ditched all of the elements except the mask then moved it into PHOTOcowgirl's template.  I also faded the mask just a tad, so that the smaller photos might stand out more.


PHOTO cowgirl's template is also pictured a bit further.  I never follow a template exactly which is the magic of templates.  I kept the elements small, like in the template, but enlarged them all on the template, just a little.  I also have this thing with white space.  Hehehe...So, I added that extra corner cluster.  That cluster seemed to soften my mask, too.

The background paper was absolutely perfect for this layout with it's bordered edges.  What a match!

Isn't this mini just divine?!


Here's PHOTOcowgirl's template, Barren Beauty.

 Photocowgirl




This is LissyKay's template and it's FREE!  Click on the image to get the download. +
 List Kay freebies

A-Manda Creation's mini, April Fools is a lot different than LouCee's.  Full of bada bing, brightness! A-Manda makes the best papers in DigiLand so I chose a template that would show them off.  This is also a free template.  Keep reading to find out more.


Amanda's mini also only had a couple of elements and I compensated a bit by using a template with a lot of papers to draw you in and some uber fun photos of my oldest, when he was not so old.  It was total luck that photos and the papers coordinated!  Hehehe...For real!

Here's a sweet tip to get around limited elements:  See those green curly ribbons?  In the mini they are blue, but I didn't want the blue ribbons on top of my already blue circle.  In PSE, click on the element you want to use so it shows up in your workspace.  Then grab the colour paper you want from your gallery and clip it in.  This way it will match perfectly!

I also added a few effects to the colourful swirls to make them look a touch more dimensional.  The plain green and pink paper were a little too distracting in this layout, so I added Amanda's splatter.  Once again, the original splatter was green, but I used my tip above and changed it to the red from the mini kit.

Here's the template I used from Joyful Expressions. You can see, I didn't change too much.  Very slight changes for once.  I let the paper take over. Click on the image to get the download.

 Joyful expressions

This is A-Manda Creation's Mini, April Fools.


So now you're all set on how to match up templates with kits or mini kits, you've got a couple of sweet, free templates (if they are still live) and you know of The Studio's amazing $1 minis.  Grab a couple of minis, these great free templates and get scrapping.  You deserve it!

We've got a lot of fee templates right here on our blog.  Scroll through and download what you like.

Happy scrapping






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