December Daily 2015: Day 12 & 13

With this spread I am officially half way through my album!
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I combined days 12 and 13 in this spread.

That chipboard square was left over from my Pop Art Studio Calico embellishment kit, and I used it to spell out the date (12). The journaling card is from an older Story Kit by Ali Edwards (Go) – I used the front side in yesterday’s page. (for some reason I cannot resist the impulse to use both sides of a journaling card! :)) The gold foil polka dot paper also comes from my leftovers from a Pop Art add on.
The acrylic “magic” and the rubber “joy” embellishments are from Pinkfresh Studio.
Today’s story is another chapter in our Elf and Reindeer saga.

I have a small 3″x4″ journaling card as an insert – it is a couple years old, I don’t remember exactly but I think it was from a grab bag from Studio Calico. I used a little stamp to mark how far along we are in the countdown, and used the back for my Dec. 13th story. The alpha stamp is from Kelly Purkey, and the choir icon stamp is from Studio Calico.
Today’s story: my husband sings in a choir, and every Christmas season there are 2 of 3 Christmas concerts of his.

I used a Studio Calico die to make an attacher that I attached with the tiny attacher to include the concert program in the album (whew.. say that 3 times fast!! :)). The “have yourself…” piece is a combination of designs by Ali Edwards that I printed out.
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Catch up on all my 2015 December Daily posts:
Title page
Dec. 1st
Dec. 2 and 3
Dec. 4th
Dec. 5th
Dec. 6th
Dec. 7th
Dec. 8th
Dec. 9 and 10
Dec. 11th
Dec. 12 and 13
Dec. 14th
Dec. 15th
Dec. 16th
Dec. 17th
Dec. 18th
Dec. 19th
Dec. 20th
Dec. 21st
Dec. 22nd
Dec. 23rd
Dec. 24th
Dec. 25th

December Daily 2015: Day 6

For Dec. 6, I did another 2-page spread with some pastel colors.

Today’s story: my husband sang in a Christmas concert. It was lovely!

On the photo, I used some digital brushes by Ali Edwards.

On the right hand side I brush lettered some of the words from my favorite piece in Handel’s Messiah.
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Catch up on all my 2015 December Daily posts:
Title page
Dec. 1st
Dec. 2 and 3
Dec. 4th
Dec. 5th
Dec. 6th
Dec. 7th
Dec. 8th
Dec. 9 and 10
Dec. 11th
Dec. 12 and 13
Dec. 14th
Dec. 15th
Dec. 16th
Dec. 17th
Dec. 18th
Dec. 19th
Dec. 20th
Dec. 21st
Dec. 22nd
Dec. 23rd
Dec. 24th
Dec. 25th

Week in the Life

I took pictures for Week in the Life almost 2 months ago, and I am finally getting around to working on my album. Last year I made an opening summary page for my Week in the Life album (1st ever) that I absolutely loved, so I decided to use the same design for this year’s album.

I used the Daily Digital Brushes by Ali Edwards and the December Daily® Mini Kit Papers & Cards by One Little Bird (who said they only work for Christmas? ;)).

December Daily 2015

Is it too early to think about Christmas? I think it is… but at the same time I couldn’t resist get some of my Christmas supplies out to scrap a tradition of years past using some of the latest December Daily products by Ali Edwards.

The icons I used on those 9 circles come from the December Daily Icon Digital Stamp. And since they are digital brushes, I could make them exactly the size I needed for my page. I also added colors to some of them in a traditional Christmas scheme.

I added some of my oh-so-hoarded Christmas embellishments, and the page was done.

I love how it turned out!

Black & White Story Kit

Today I am sharing a page made with this month’s Digital Story Kit from Ali Edwards. If you purchase either the digital or physical story kit or the stamp, you get access to the online content – inspiration and story sparks from Ali about the month’s theme.
This month’s theme – black & white – really resonated with me, and I made this page to reflect a bit about who I am.

This is a hybrid page made with the digital Story Kit. The background was made by repeating one of the journaling cards. I just added a couple embellishments to add a pop of color and texture.

A Monochromatic Page With A Title That Pops

I rarely make monochromatic pages (I love mixing colors too much I guess!), but it felt just right for this page.

For the pretty die cut title, I combined 3 of my favorite techniques: die cutting, embossing and watercoloring. I used digital brushes by Ali Edwards, cut them with my Silhouette out of Canson XL watercolor paper, and then I silver embossed it and watercolored it.

I am super sad that my term on the Ali Edwards Digital Creative Team is coming to an end. To say I have loved being part of the team doesn’t even come close to how awesome it’s been. I am so happy to have made weekly projects that I absolutely LOVE. Thanks you Ali and Katie for having me, and thanks to all my fellow team members for constantly amazing and inspiring me!

Kill My Studio Calico Kit: August – Pop Art

Since my September kit (Brimfield) is arriving soon to my door, it’s time to tally up what I made with the August kits. I bought a lot in August. In addition to the Studio Calico August scrapbooking kit, Pop Art ($34.99) I also purchased the Hockney embellishment kit for a promotional price of $17.99 and Stephanie’s mini book kit ($35.99 after rewards member discount – quite pricey but there were a couple of things in the kit that I really wanted).

Notes: I love the bright colors of this month. In the main scrapbook kit, I love the washi tape (love it!!), the specialty paper with the gold scratch off dots, and the acrylic circles. Not a fan of the stamp. The big alpha cards are really cool too. In the embellishment kit, I love the puffy plus signs, the enamel dots, the acrylic houses and the stamp. Not sure what to do with the “on point” card, but overall I love every single bit in this add on. In the mini book add on, I love the stamp, the frames, the floral paper, the gold dot paper and the enamel dots.

Status: killed
I made 16 layouts and 1 mini album with this kit (13 12″x12″, 3 8.5″x11″ and 0 9″x12″), for a total of $88.97, or $5.23/page (I counted the mini as 1 layout even though I have used up supplies for at least 2 pages in it). I supplemented the kit with some card stock and paper scraps from my stash, stamps, and the odd embellishment, as well as bits and pieces from the Pop Art card and Project Life kits.

Here are the bits and pieces I have left:

LEFTOVERS

Leftovers: 2/3 of the specialty paper, the lavender card stock (I tried using it more than a couple of times, but it just didn’t work and I ended up leaving it — I will use it for some cards), the “on point” card (I am not familiar with this expression so I am setting it aside for now), some washi tape (love love love!! – not pictured because it’s on my desk), a few embellishments, an almost full sheet of alpha, some leftover letters, and some paper scraps.
I certainly could create at least another 2 pages with these bits, but I am ready to move on. I’ve been neglecting my Project Life lately!

Kill my Studio Calico kit is a monthly series I started on my blog to hold myself accountable and use up my kits. My goal is to use up a kit before the next one arrives.

You can subscribe to the Studio Calico Scrapbook kit here.


And here is a walk through my pages
This is the first page I made this month:

The kits come with a handy 4″x6″ card that has the name of the month on the front and suggested color combinations on the back. When I pulled the card out of the bag and put it next to the papers, I loved the pop of color so I decided to use in on my page.
I also used a couple of cards and a rubber lemon from the Project Life kit.

The second page I made is probably my favorite this month. I love all the little details in the boxes, the split He|She design and the little tidbits about us.

While I was waiting for my kit to arrive, I looked online at the pictures of the content and was stumped by this paper with the big 8. But then I realized this year marks 8 years that we’ve lived in this town, and I wanted to make a page about that. I dug out those plastic letters from the Poet Society kit. I love them! I gave a slight pink tint to the white acrylic house with alcohol ink. I added the star stamps as an afterthought and I am still not sure if I like them or not (but there’s no going back..). And yay, I got LOTW (layout of the week) at Studio Calico for this page!

I wanted to use this bold paper as a background, and I felt that I could only make it work if I added something bolder – enter the gold paint and silkscreens! 🙂 The labels, glitter heart and wood veneers are from my stash.

This one is my 2nd favorite page of the month. I never use frames (not even in my digital pages!), but I played with these ones from the mini kit add on and I love how they turned out! I backed one with a PL card and the other with patterned paper.

Block design and gold – a great combination! I was seriously tempted to hoard that 8″x8″ gold foil polka dot on white paper, but I cut into it to make this page and I am glad I did!

For this page I cut up one of the papers that said “together is my favorite place to be” and used the letters to spell out “my favorites”.

I was a bit stumped by the square chipboard pieces from the embellishment kit (Hockney). But then when I paired them with digital designs from Ali Edwards’s Digital Story kit for August (Build), they were perfect!

I used just a small piece of that floral paper by Crate Paper (from Stephanie’s mini album kit), but I love it so! Also paired with a few digital brushes from the Build Story Kit by Ali Edwards that I printed directly onto the kraft background and my photo.

This was a fun page to make. And it also shows why I can stretch my kits so far, using only scraps of paper. 🙂 I just added some labels from my stash.

I love pink and yellow! I added a screenprint (“I love us”) and some hand stitching. Dressing up the kittens with bows was fun! The pink flower paper was from my stash. I used distress paint with the screen print (so easy to use!) and used it also to stamp the “let’s celebrate” and the cats.

The alphabet in the Pop Art scrapbooking kit has only 1 character of A-Z plus numbers. So I had to get creative to stretch them further.

For this page, I wanted to list the happy moments from this summer. It’s been a rather stressful period work-wise, and I want to remember all the good things that have happened too.

After using up the acrylic numbers, I used the negative shape on this page. And I highlighted the number 16 using enamel dots. I splurged and bought 2 Hero Arts ombre ink pads lately and I love them! Here I used the mint to green one.

On this page I cut up three journaling cards and also used two 3″x3″ from the Pop Art Project Life kit. The background paper and alphas are from my stash.

I finally got myself to cut into the specialty paper. The gold dots are actually scratch off, but I loved the finish so much that I left them unscratched. 🙂 The vellum and doilies are from my stash.

And that’s it! It certainly had been a productive month, that’s for sure! I felt the pressure to create a lot of layouts since I had bought so much, but in the end they all came naturally. I am happy to move on though!
If you enjoy this monthly series on my blog, please leave me a comment and say hi. 🙂

You can subscribe to the Studio Calico Scrapbook kit here.

Time for Fall

It’s been unseasonably hot around here lately, but everything else feels like fall. And the new Time for Fall brush set by Ali Edwards is perfect to document this time of the year!

I love the red/green combo I went with for my page. I added the “time for apples” brush on top of my photo and printed them out on my printer.
What does fall taste like in your part of the world?