The Underground Reveal

The Underground is name of the latest kit offerings from Studio Calico and as usual they are just brilliant.

      

Here's the walk-through of the Scrapbook Kit and all it's Add Ons as directed by The Girls. It was Moriah (aged 4) who wanted to take the lead on it this time... which worked well for a few moments, but the natural bossiness leadership of her big sister meant it soon changed direction. They had fun though!

The Main Scrapbook Kit is filled with the warm colours of forrest green, brown and gold - perfect for all your Autumn scrapping. But I wanted needed to take my layouts in an entirely different direction since I'm all excited about the sunny Spring weather we've been having, and far from being difficult, I actually found it very achievable.

First up is my double layout for the month. I thought it might be an extra challenging to do my double using only the Main Kit but honestly there's so much potential in the kit with lots of different combinations and theme possibilities that I simply just went with a bunch of my favourite patterns and threw this together in no time at all.

The 'Make Magic' title is made using the Silkscreen which is included. If you saw my video on the SC blog last month then you'll know that there's a million ways you can use Silkscreens. On this layout I went with a very simple method of using it with a spray mist. The interesting thing was that I didn't have a mist in the particular shade of bright blue I was after, so I made my own by adding a few drops at a time of Something Blue Ink Refill to a bottle of water until I had the intensity I wanted.

And oh my! Those giant Silhouette-cut clouds that Paige Evans designed are destined to become a new favourite for sure. I thought I'd make a feature of them on the second half of my page and just let this side be for decoration and a bit of journaling rather than adding more photos. I was thinking they would help convey the fairytale feel of this layout.

My second Main Kit Only page was where I discovered the pink, lime, black and white combination that I was to use a few times this month (not revealing all of those projects today!) as I did my usual layering trick. I layered with the patterned paper and the book page, I layered with off-cuts of the Printables, and I had to layer in one of those pink doilies too of course.


One of the biggest challenges with my scrapping this month is that my sewing machine is in the shop for repairs. It occurs to me that I haven't made a layout without sewing on it in about 4 years! I was quite lost actually and had to come up with a couple of alternatives. Where I would normally sew around the edge of my page here I simply ruled a black line instead to give a similar appearance (and use a whole heap more double-sided tape to make sure it all stayed together!!) And because I couldn't seem to stay away from having thread appear on my pages you'll see little messy cotton clusters scattered everywhere.

Add On 1 is called Piccadilly and has the gold highlights that I've come to love recently. Those are some seriously shiny gold alphas, the b-side to the stripy paper is the pink and gold glitter hearts you see below, and that's gold paint you're spying there too. 

If you look back at the papers in the Main Kit for a second you'll see that dark brown brick pattern? What you can't see is the giant '3' that's on it as well. I took that as a prompt to make my first pregnancy layout and after I cut it out I figured that was almost a gold colour too and would work alongside the pinks and browns of Piccadilly.

I guess I should be more careful about having too much pink on my pregnancy layouts though - at least not until I actually find out whether we're having a boy or a girl!

Add On 2 is called Notting Hill and is slightly similar in colours to Piccadilly - in fact they work really well together and that's why both my "Expecting" and "Snow White" layouts are actually a combination of both kits. Gotta love the Maggie Holmes stickers, fun stamp and pastel wood drops in this one though.

When I put this layout together I started with the photo which was only taken like last week. The white space allowed me to digitally enhance it by layering one of the Printable journal cards over the top in Photoshop before I printed it. Then I used the angles in the image and the colours of the photo to guide the design of my page. 

After I stamped and cut out the flowers I added a little spray of my home-made blue mist and then dolloped on the gold paint. As in, I literally unscrewed the lid and dabbed the tube onto my paper to leave these little gold mounds of paint. Fun... and mess free!

The embellishment-only kit is called King's Cross and has more of that hot pink and lime green in it - especially in the exclusive stickers. By pure coincidence I had recently printed off this photo which has the same colours and so off I went doing that layering thing again.

The hearts in the background are stamped in some of the new Color Theory Inks - in Flamingo and Lime Light. They're definitely my new favourites! I like the vellum envelopes in the kit too, lots of potential here, and I thought about hiding my journaling away in it but ultimately went with scrawling it all over my page as you can see!


Anyway, so those are my layouts for reveal. You can check them out in my SC gallery for more details and a proper supply list.

Speaking of supplies, I know I've already shown you my shopping list for the month, but there's always more things added to the shop at Pre-Sale and so it would be remiss of me not to mention what else is in my cart ;-)

Just one steel die on offer this month... but it's fun! Here & There will be perfect for scrapbooking and Project Lifing alike.

These Amy Tangerine Kraft Stickers went immediately in too :-)

And if you've made it this far then congratulations! Just a reminder that my giveaway of all these exclusive Studio Calico goodies ends tonight at midnight AEST. You can find all the details on how to enter here. Good luck!