The Story of the April Must-Haves

Studio Calico continue to offer up the best deals don't they?

In celebration of their latest offer (where if you sign up for a new subscription you'll get a gift card to spend in the shop however you see fit) some of us SC girls decided to do a very impromptu BLOG HOP!! If you're hopping, then you should have arrived here from the amazing Lisa Truesdell's blog. But if you're not, and you want to.. then start there anyway. Because that's the beginning ;-)

I've been a long time subscriber to the Studio Calico kits, lllooooonnngg before I joined the Creative Team. So believe me when I say these kits are the best! Yes, even here in Australia, with the added element of postage I still believe the SC kits are great value for money and they always include HEAPS of exclusive products that you just have to have! Plus, you can combine all of your purchases in the shop at reveal time so that they ship with your kit which means great postage savings.

Here's the DEAL.... 
Thinking of beginning a subscription to the Scrapbook Kit? Sign up here and get a $20 Gift Voucher!
Considering a Card Kit subscription? Sign up here and get a $15 Gift Voucher!
Wanting to join the Project Life revolution? Sign up here and get a $10 Gift Voucher!

Alrighty, so now that you've signed up and you've got that voucher burning a hole in your online pocket, here's some suggestions on what you could get. I consider these my TOP 5 MUST-HAVES for April.

•  Color Theory Inks

Rather obvious why this is my first choice isn't it?! They're just delightful! I've been playing and playing with my collection ever since they arrived on my doorstep. They stamp really smoothly, and the colours are vibrant and true to the packaging. The one's I've been reaching for the most whilst putting together my April Bluegrass Farm layouts are Deja Blue, Clean Slate and Orange County.

• Gold Bits from the Essentials Collection

Yep, any of them! But especially the Stars and Geotags because they're my favourite. They're a real proper shiny gold (not just 'gold coloured') so I'm finding that adding just a sprinkle of them to finish off a layout adds quite the touch of glamour ;-)

•  Printable Journal Cards and Shapes

Oh my gosh... why didn't someone turn me onto these before?! I've only discovered these since February but now I can't seem to create a layout without them. Here's why I think they're fabulous: They're cheap! There's no postage! Print them out a million times if you want. Print them out on good quality paper for something special, or print them out on your basic printer paper if you just want to layer them up for a splash of colour behind your photo (that's what I do a lot of!). Combine them with the Print & Cut feature on your Silhouette and you don't even need to cut them out yourself! See what I mean about fabulous?!

•  Wanderlust Phrase Roller Stamp

Everyone should have a couple of great roller stamps in their collection I reckon. And this one has some really fun sayings that are great for travel themes, or just general adventure themes ;-) But I also love the little stars and chevron strips that you can just stamp here and there on your layout for some extra details. I tend to use mine with Black StazOn Ink because it makes the greatest impact.

• Grid Paper

A bit 'boring' compared to the rest I know! But lately I'm finding my style revolving around having a clean background, and then layering on a bunch of colour and embellishments. Plain white cardstock is nice but it tends to frighten me. Something about all that starkness puts too much pressure on me to try and do something fabulous. Having a subtle but noticeable grid pattern means I don't feel like I have to fill it up. Plus it also helps me line things up straight! And that's why I keep adding the packs of Grid Paper to my cart every other month.

Next on your Blog Hop is the awe-inspiring Marcy Penner. She's going to share what her Must-Haves are too. Just call us the happy little enablers :-)

Here's the full list of blog hop participants in case you get lost along the way:

Lisa Truesdell : Natalie Elphinstone : Marcy Penner : Kelly Noel : Suzy Plantamura : Melanie Louette :  Nicole Reaves : Lilin Fang : Maggie Massey : Jenn Picard : Geralyn Sy : Stephanie Baxter : Anna-Maria Wolniak : Nicole Samuels : Dana Fleckenstein : Céline Navarro : Stephanie Washburn : Leena Loh



April Must-Haves Full Supply List

Color Theory Ink: Well Red Color Theory Ink: Blush Crush Color Theory Ink: Coral Bay Color Theory Ink: Orange County Color Theory Ink: Yes Peas Color Theory Ink: Sunny Day Color Theory Ink: Emerald City Color Theory Ink: Mint Hint Color Theory Ink: Something Blue Color Theory Ink: Deja Blue Color Theory Ink: Clean Slate Color Theory Ink: Doc Brown Grid Paper Office Hours Hello Forever Printables Office Hours Printable Labels Office Hours In a Creative Bubble Printables Sugar Rush Printables by Hello Forever Sugar Rush Printables by In a Creative Bubble Wanderlust Phrases Roller Stamp StazOn Black Essentials Gold Hearts Essentials Gold Clothespins Essentials Gold Stars Essentials Gold Cameras Essentials Gold Geotags Essentials Gold Sequins Essentials Gold Flag Clips Essentials Gold Enamel Dots

InLinkz.com

The Story of my First Teaching Experience

Well... at least my first scrapbooking teaching experience!

I laughed a little inside whenever someone at work asked me what I was doing on my annual leave. I would reply, "traveling to Port Lincoln to teach at a Conference" because I knew they would automatically think it was something in the medical field and it would impress them immensely! Not suggesting that teaching scrapbooking is any less impressive.... just that.. well a lot of those doctory folk just don't really get it!! LOL!

 

So last weekend was the Escape 2 Create retreat in Port Lincoln and it honestly rocked my world! If you're an Aussie reader then you probably know all about this retreat and how awesomely popular it's become. I mean, the tickets to book a seat at this year's retreat sold out in about 2 minutes flat! And that's 80 seats! Even more frightening than that was the fact that they asked me to be a teacher at it, alongside such amazing talent as Kim Archer, Celeste Vermeend and Gina Rogers. I jumped at the chance but I'll let you know I was more than a little nervous!

I'm showing you the layout I taught because I wanted to show you how far I pushed the participants and what a challenge I set them! Not one, but two origami techniques with complicated instructions to verbally convey. I knew they could handle it though, and they were all committed to going on the journey with me to master these techniques. Thanks ladies!! And a great big thankyou to the good people at Jenni Bowlin Studios who worked with us to get a lot of the products for this page.

In fact, if anyone at the retreat has a photo or a blog post of their attempt at my layout can you either leave a comment or email it to me? I'd love to see all the finished products, and I'll include them at the bottom of this post.

(photo credit: Louise Nelson)

Just wanted to leave you with a little glimpse into the retreat (you can read a full commentary of the weekend's events on the E2C blog here). Here's a photo taken of me whilst I was teaching. Obviously I wasn't quite prepared for the photo, but it does sum up what it was like. There was a LOT of laughing! It was honestly quite a lot of fun!

I'll be back a little later with my versions of the other 3 lady's classes which I took. There was no way I was passing up an opportunity to learn something from these 3 masters of the art, and they pushed me in directions I never would have taken by myself.

So it looks like I've already got my next teaching gig already lined up! Have you seen the announcement of this today? Big Picture Classes are combining forces with Studio Calico to launch an epic event on National Scrapbooking Day. The aim is to flood Instagram with 10 000 scrapbook layouts using the hashtag #NSD10K on May 3rd, whilst also enjoying free classes from 10 recognised experts (well... at least 9!!) There will be an exclusive Studio Calico kit released on the day, but in the meantime you can enjoy the benefits of massive savings on some of their past kits.

All these kits are on sale now for $10 each, but you have to register for the event first! It's super easy to do, sign up here. It's FREE! You need to do it quickly though, already a couple of the kits have sold out.



ETA: Here's just one of the amazing layouts made by someone taking my class at Escape 2 Create. This is by the talented Kim Moloney... check it out....

The Story of She

Sorry for the blogging silence around here last week, I didn't mean for that to happen, but it's been a little crazy busy for me. As you would have seen if you follow me on Instagram (where there was anything BUT silence!) then you know I've been away taking part and teaching at a fabulous scrapping retreat called "Escape 2 Create" for the past 5 days or so. What an absolute ball I had! And as soon as I edit a few photos I'll be blogging all about that experience as well. But in the meantime let me share with you a page you might have already seen floating around the web.

Created for my little stint over on the American Crafts blog where I participated in Glitter Week (love glitter!) this was the first page I created once I received my box of goodies. Sometimes when it's a really daunting task (like creating for AMERICAN CRAFTS... EEEK!!) then I settle back on some of my go-to techniques that I know work for me, or that I'm really loving currently so that I feel a little more comfortable. Then I find it flows a lot better.

I stuck with a white background, and then picked out a bunch of papers from the Dear Lizzy Polka Dot Party collection to work with. I limited myself to an almost monochrome palette of blue, aqua, grey and black for something a little different. I knew I would then need a black & white photo and this one of my daughter's increasingly gappy smile made me giggle, so on it went!

The glitter needed to be the highlight of the layout, so I wanted to do something big and bold and make it really obvious! I am just loving the brush-script trend at the moment and can't get enough of it ever since I did Kal Barteski's class at Studio Calico. I painted out my title word "she" with black ink and waited for it to dry. I always paint on a separate piece of paper and then cut it out to use on my layouts. There's no way I'm confident enough to paint directly onto my page!

Then I painted back over the word with my paintbrush dipped in slightly diluted glue before sprinkling it with two tones of blue WOW Glitter for a bit of an ombre look. I am actually quiet chuffed with how this turned out and it's going to become something I do again I feel ;-) For sure there's more brush-script layouts on the horizon at least. Maybe I'll go back and add some glitter?

The Story of My Currently

Given I'm still contemplating whether I start working on my December Daily from last year, it's hard for me to believe it's March already! 

But yet, the world tells me it is. The March Studio Calico kit is sitting on my desk with so much left in it and is begging to be used up. Whilst I found it hard to use the 'March' watercolour diecut piece from the main Office Hours kit when it was still February, I feel obliged, no drawn to use it now. Maybe it'll make March feel more real for me?!

Still crushing on all the gold bits in these kits, especially that gold striped paper, and wanted to make it more of a feature this time around. On my other Office Hours layouts I've only allowed little snippets of it peek out from behind my photos. I thought a third of the page would do the job nicely this time ;-) The Gold Geotags are fun too, and since I was adding so much sparkle and shine to the page I thought the addition of the LemonLush Gems was a nice touch?

What you won't find in the Office Hours kits, and the thing which started the whole ball rolling on this layout is those stamps. They're from the re-released "Currently Mini Stamp Set" by Kellie Stamps and whilst perfect for some Project Lifing, they also did a lovely job of prompting my journaling and helping document the state of affairs in the Elphinstone house this month.

Is it unfair of me to expect my sewing machine to sew through so many thick layers? Maybe I should just be grateful I didn't snap another needle, because that would make it the fourth in two weeks ;-) I guess I'm not very good at learning my lesson.

What's on your "Currently" list for March?



Supplies:

Office Hours Main Kit To Do Add On Coffee Break Add On Rolodex Add On Grid Paper Kellie Stamps: Currently Mini Stamp Set Essentials Gold Geotags LemonLush Adhesive Gems Precision Pen

InLinkz.com

The Story of the Americanism

Oh dear... so what to do when your pre-packaged embellishment set comes with a great big gorgeous sentiment that's spelled in the American way, leaving out the 'u' which us Aussies include? It's quite the dilemma isn't it? And one that we face not all that rarely. 

On the one hand I've got the patriotic side of me which says, "don't buckle to the pressure, don't let our Aussie culture be completely replaced by the American one!" and, "don't let people think you don't know how to spell!" But on the other hand I've got the scrapbooking side of me which says, "but it's soooo pretty and everyone will know what you mean anyway." Plus, it would be such a shame to let this one sentiment on the set of Dear Lizzy Polka Dot Party Dimensional Stickers go to waste when I'd already used so many of the others.

Ha! I guess you can see which side won the argument!

PS. What ultimately turned out to be a little embarrassing was when Munchy chose this card to give to her teacher for Valentine's Day. Out of all my cards, and out of all the people to give it to... she chose the card with a 'misspelling' on it to give to her teacher. I had to laugh!
And then I quickly augmented the front of it to stick a 'u' over the top ;-)