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!

The Story of Something Glittery

I forced myself out of my creative funk with the help of two things...

1. Some fabulous new product.
This set of miniature Mister Huey's and the new alpha stamps called 'Kit' (named after April and Greg's newest baby!!) came in my last Studio Calico order and I've been waiting for something to come along to bust these out on. 

2. A scrappy challenge from Jot Magazine
There's nothing that inspires me like a good challenge, which might say something about my personality, but I prefer to just think I need a goal to work towards. Jot's challenge to include "something stripey, something bold, something glittery, something gold" was definitely something I could get on board with. And here's what I came up with..

Stripes? Black and white strips behind the photo. Check!
Bold? I figured I'm going to call my large title the 'bold' bit... do you think that will do?
Glittery? More subtle than I initially thought I would include, but there's glitter paper backed behind a few of those hearts.
Gold? Easy enough, I've used some gold star rubons by Jenni Bowlin scattered across my page in various locations.

And yes, those Alpha Stamps were just as fun as I imagined! These are sure to get a lot of use in my projects. I used them here with StazOn Ink so I can add the Mister Huey's as a watercolour - painting them roughly, not making any real attempt to keep that colour within the lines, 'cos I think it looks better that way!

What I also really enjoyed about the process behind this layout was that I essentially just used a bunch of scraps from my desk and recent products lying around. I didn't search too hard for any of these things. Most of the papers are Maggie Holmes, the diecut hearts was left over from a project from long ago, and there's a good scattering of Studio Calico Printables from the August Kits as well.

And the topic of the photo was glittery, even if not much else was! My girls love their 'scrap time' just as much as I do. You've probably already noticed that! And I've got bundles of photos capturing their artwork in progress. It's good to get one down on a page.

Here's to inspiration restored, and plenty more scrapping in the future.
xx

30 Days of Me

The next class offering from Studio Calico is called "30 Days of Me" and is taught by Maggie Holmes. In all honesty I've never taken a class by Maggie before, but everyone who has always raves about it! I think she has such a lovely colourful feminine aesthetic and her pages are always inspiring, so I'm sure her class is going to be as well.

The idea of this class is to include more of yourself in your memory-keeping and to include more you-moments in an entire album dedicated to yourself! It's something we often forget, or in fact, it's something we often purposefully avoid isn't it?! Personally, I think it's a great idea as far as leaving a legacy is concerned, and I'm sure it's something that our children will thank us for doing in years to come.

I know what some of you are thinking! You're thinking your daily life is hardly worth documenting, that your routine is mundane and is just a constant revolution of sleep, work, cook, put kids to bed, start the cycle again sort of deal. I've thought that before in the past too. As a full time doctor I'm often out of the house working for 16hours of the day, then I come home and sleep! Not much to talk about there! But guess what? I'm one of the contributors and I'll be bringing that very perspective to the class prompts and I hope to show you that there is plenty of scope of topics to document :-)

But if you're still uncomfortable with the idea of a whole album about yourself then I've also heard some members on the board talk about how they're going to use the prompts and apply it to someone else in the family and make an album dedicated to them. That's a really good idea too!

Like most Studio Calico Classes, it comes with it's fair share of included goodies. For a limited time, there's a bonus class kit that ships free wherever you live! Then there's the Printables, Cutting Files and Digital Stamps designed by some of our SC favourites like Shanna Noel and Kim Stewart.

Here's Maggie's video sharing a bit of closer look into all those products, and a sneak into her album. She's going to be using a Handbook, and so am I. I'm not sure what the other contributors will be using, but you're welcome to substitute anything that suits you of course.

  

And if you're shopping for supplies, don't forget that for this week only you can get 10% off all class products when you sign up (that includes the Handbooks).

Class will be enrolling until the 31st August and the first lesson will be posted on 1st September. Let me know if you're signing up, 'cos I'd love to see some friendly faces in the classroom!

3 Mothers Day Cards in a Hurry

So in the excitement of my Studio Calico Hello Hello kits arriving, and the new South of Market collection (wooo hoooo!) and the creative tornado that my house has been since then... I totally forgot to post my Mother's Day cards! Whoopps!

In all honesty, these were crafted at the very last minute. Sooo last minute that I had to rely on The Man to take the photographs before he posted them off whilst I went to work. Not a bad job really... I think he's learning a trick or two! Maybe I should put him in charge of these things more often?

So what to do when you're needing to craft up some cards in a hurry? Slosh on some paint, splash some mist and then layer them up with bits and pieces of paper scraps. At least, that's what I did :-)

What made me totally laugh out loud was when I later saw this feature on the Jot Magazine blog. I'd like to consider this a case of "great minds think alike"... because it feels like Kim Archer was thinking the exact same way when she put together her Mother's Day cards in a rush too! Even down to the similar details of using spare PL cards and some Maggie Holmes papers!

What other tricks have you got for when you need to create something in a hurry?
Hope you enjoyed your Mother's Day?

Office Hours Sneaks

In just a few short hours it's going to be time for the reveal of the March Studio Calico kit "Office Hours". Can't believe how fast this month has flown by... I know it's a short month, but it feels even quicker than that surely?!

I'll be honest... I was a little worried about how they were possibly going to follow on from the success of the February Sugar Rush Kits. Those babies flew out the door at record pace and were sold out within minutes. They were some of the most talked-about kits in the history of Studio Calico! But the Office Hours kits have not disappointed ;-) They're absolutely fabulous, and I'm certain they're going to go just as fast! Let me share some sneaks of the pages I've made...

The sneaks above and below were both created with the Main Kit Only. What I really loved was the range of papers and embellishments in the kit allow for some quite masculine colour combinations, as well as girly combinations too. So I've made my 2 pages using the different approaches to show you what I mean.

The raindrops cutting file comes in the Card Kit Digital Stamps and Coordinating Cuts 'kit'. These are such good value for money - they're only a few dollars each, you don't need to worry about shipping, and you get heaps of images that can be used as digital stamps or imported into Silhouette and converted into cutting files. I always get the whole lot of them!

This next page (above) is something really different for me. Inspired by this image on Pinterest, I've created a page that recreates this look. It was awesome to cluster all the piles of embellishments that come in the Coffee Break Add On.

The other bunch of clustering I did was with all the stamps from the Rolodex Add On. I'd be lying if I said I used the new Color Theory Ink Pads (I'm still waiting for mine to arrive), but I've linked up the Color Theory Inks that would be almost a perfect match to these anyway in case you were keen to recreate the look ;-)

Oooooh, now this sneak is of my favourite page out of the 7 I made this month (or 8 if you count the double as 2 layouts!) Most of it is from the Main Kit, but it has a sprinkling of embellishments from most of the Add Ons too. It seems as though the entire Creative Team fell in love with the watercolour diecuts from the Main, and most of us have used the 'Rad' is one way or another. I chose some blue paint and glitter for mine ;-)

Ahem.. so this page might actually be about bugs... see the photo?! Which is why I think I tried to overcompensate by making it really girly and feminine. I've used the Coffee Break Add On for this page for the lovely Dear Lizzy stickers that come in it.

Lastly, here's a sneak of the page I made with the To Do Add On (everything except for that banner which comes in the Main Kit). I absolutely loved the sprinkling of gold bits throughout all the kits, but the lion's share comes in the Maggie Holmes Styleboard Vellum Shapes that's included in To Do. See that butterfly? Perfection right?!

Get ready for an awesome reveal. The team has really rocked these fabulous kits. Not too much longer to wait!



Here's What I've Used:
 

Office Hours In a Creative Bubble Printables Office Hours Hello Forever Printables Office Hours Printable Labels Office Hours Card Kit Digital Stamps and Cuts Office Hours Project Life Digital Stamps and Cuts Color Theory Ink: Deja Blue Color Theory Ink: Clean Slate Color Theory Ink: Something Blue Color Theory Ink: Emerald City Color Theory Ink: Yes Peas Color Theory Ink: Blush Crush Color Theory Ink: Orange County Color Theory Ink: Sunny Day This to That: Foam Circles Acrylic Paint: Bone Black Mister Huey's Inky Black Bamboo Brush: Size 4 Precision Pen Glossy Accents Glue Glider Pro

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