Do you ever find yourself in a creative rut that you just can’t seem to claw your way out of? I’ve been doing pocket pages for almost 4 years straight and I was losing steam a little, until I encouraged myself to try a new size. Inspired by fellow design team member, Adrienne, I trimmed down some 12×12 protectors to make myself some 9×12. Believe it or not, the size-change alone has been enough to re-energize my love for this project.

There’s just something about the flow of this size. It just works! I used some of the exclusive pocket cards in the February Project Life add on , trimmed down some paper from the Main Kit, and used some watercolored accents on cardstock in conjunction with items from the Embellishment add on to make this spread come together.

Kim Watson changed things up this month with the free printables and designed them so they could be cut out using only scissors or a paper trimmer, no fancy cutting machine needed. I used almost the entire sheet of printables on this spread and they were the perfect accents!

Because this size page protector has few slots for larger photos and cards, I had to get a little creative. Don’t be afraid to trim up a 4×6 card or photo and include in side-by-side pockets. Just try to avoid cutting in awkward places (like in the middle of someone’s face).

I’ve been on a black and white photo kick lately. I really like how much it makes the colors of a spread pop without taking too much focus away  from the photos.

There were a lot of stars and hearts embellishments throughout the February kits so I took it as an opportunity to repeat that theme throughout my spread with various stamps. When repeating elements across the spread, it gives the whole thing a sense of continuity.

Did you all see that Kimberly is having a Design Team call for the next 6 months of Hip Kits? For more details, check out this blog post.