Author: cristina

February Kit Workshops at Studio Calico

| cristina

I’m very excited about this month’s teachers for the workshops at Studio Calico providing inspiration on how to stretch your Scrapbook and Documenter kits!

Pam Baldwin is teaching the scrapbook workshop, while Brandi Kincaid is teaching the Documenter workshop. They are both amazing and I can’t wait to see what they created!
Each workshop comes with 3 lessons, plus some digital content – this month it’s some super versatile printables. I can’t wait to receive my kit this week and start creating!

Mini Book Library 2016 at Studio Calico

| cristina

Do you love making mini books? I do, and I love this one I made last year from one of the Mini Book classes at Studio Calico:

(check out the full album here.. and a warming – it’s got a LOT of pages! :))

This week Studio Calico announced the lineup of new mini book classes for this year, and I cannot wait to start! The first class starts Feb. 15th and is taught by April Foster.

And after that there will be 5 more mini book classes this year!

April 2016 | Caylee Grey – Art journal mini book
June 2016 | Lisa Truesdell – Notebook mini
August 2016 | Tina Aszmus – Chipboard + journal cards
October 2016 | Karen Baker – binder album
November 2016 | Stephanie Bryan – Calendar album

I love how these classes will cover different styles of mini albums – I’m always up for trying something new!
The classes are also available as part of a bundle at a discount (you get 2 classes for free!)

You can only sign up for the bundle through February, so don’t wait too long.
See you in class!

Sketch Your World – Week 1

| cristina

I have been working entirely from home since my surgery, but this week I had two full days of meetings (yesterday and today) and went to the office. Ouch, it was definitely too much for me! I had been feeling great up to that point, but I overdid it for sure. I will be taking it easy until Monday now. So other than resting up, I haven’t done much this week.. but I did do my first homework in the Sketch Your World class that started this week at Studio Calico.

I took out all my pens, and started out my new sketchbook by testing them out. I also tried watercoloring in the book since it’s not a watercolor album and I wanted to see how it holds up – it warped some, but I think I can live with it for this class.

Here’s the list of pens I used:
Micron 03
Faber Castell Pitt
Precision Pen 01
Sharpie Fine
Uni-ball vision micro
Fude Ball 1.5

I have a love/hate relationship with Micron – I used to love it for journaling in my Project Life, until I found the Precision Pen and my favorite pen ever – the Uni-ball vision micro.  I struggle with finding the right angle to use the micron..
The Faber Castell Pitt is a nice set – it comes in a set of 4 that also includes a brush pen, which I really like.
The Sharpie Fine is another reliable pen I like a lot.
The Fude Ball is apparently great to write on paint / mixed media. I haven’t used it much yet but it does seem to write very smoothly. It is quite thick though, so I stick to my Uni-ball most of the time.

I’m excited to move on to next week’s class! If you want to join, you have time until February 15th to sign up. Hope to see you in class!

Hearts Galore

| cristina

Hello hello! Today is the day for the weekly 50% sale on select products at The Lilypad, and since it’s February, there’s a lot of hearts and pink to be had – and I am not one to complain, that’s for sure!!

Credits:

Hearts Galore Templates by Scrapping with Liz
Without a Doubt papers and Drama Queen Adore by Valorie Wibbens

On Monday I was able to bribe my husband in taking some long-awaited photographs of the two of us, so of course I scrapped them right away.


Credits:

Be Mine {Dressed Down} Templates by Fiddle-dee-dee Designs
License Plate Metal Alpha by Paula Kesserling

I clearly put all the new photos to good use! 🙂 These pages will likely also get repurposed in my 2017 calendar (each year I make a photo calendar as Christmas gift for our parents, and using some pages as calendar toppers).


Credits:

Fig Tree Elements and Petals no. 6 {love} by Sara Gleason
For the Love of 2016: Bundle 1 by Allison Pennington


These Petals by Sara Gleason are seriously awesome!! Perfect to build a page, or ten!

Credits:

Sprinkles v. 20 by Valorie Wibbens

I had started this page almost one month ago, but was in need of a recent photo – finally I was able to finish it up!

Studio Calico February Kits

| cristina

Hello and happy February! It’s Reveal Day at Studio Calico for the Savannah kits, and to get in the mood for these lovely new kits I have made a page with some of the digital printables.

The hard part was to get my husband to pose in the photo.. plus it’s been so dark here lately! In fact, this is an older photo, so I will swap it out as soon as we take new pictures. I’m hoping today is the day! 🙂

The 3″x3″ card printable set I used also is available as a physical product (starting at noon EST today if you are a subscriber, and at 3 PM EST for everyone). I resized the cards at 2.5″ for my page prior to printing them out. I cut out all the labels with my Silhouette so they are ready to go – super handy for Project Life with the Documenter kit! I love that they come with a blank version and a version with some pre-printed words on the labels – I chose to print the latter.

I also used some heart puffy stickers and an old stamp to finish this page.

For the cards that say “I love you”, I used my newly discovered foiling technique.

Happy Reveal Day!
If you want to start a new six- or 12-month subscription you can get a new Hello Forever planner ($54.99 value) for free in your choice of color. Just use GRAYSTONEFREE, MELONFREE or CLEARSKYFREE at checkout in the promo code box. 🙂 Offer valid this month only!

Foiling: My New Obsession

| cristina

Once again I am late jumping on the latest trend – foiling.. which has been big for over a year now, thanks to the Minc foiling machine by Heidi Swapp. This time, I have a good reason for being late trying this technique – I don’t have a laser printer, which is needed for this method. But I finally tried it out, since I had all the rest of the supplies. Rather than the Minc, I used my old Scotch laminator, and it did the job just fine. Funny thing is, the laminator was a Valentine’s day gift from DH several years ago, and I have used very little of it as a laminator. But something tells me it’s going to get quite a work out now.
If I hadn’t had a laminator already, I probably would have gotten the Minc – it’s a great machine and will get you consistent results.

In my first attempt, I printed out 4 pages of letter sized paper using digital designs, mostly from Studio Calico. Here is the one that had me giddy with delight as I peeled off the foil – I seriously couldn’t believe how amazing it turned out! I wasn’t sure how it would turn out with such a large amount of foiling… but I was impressed!

The birthday card is a printable from Studio Calico. I used the Minc gold foil for this one. And the design was printed on cheap, lightweight copy paper, but the foiling turned out great! So my next step is to buy a laser printer, so that I can print at home on thicker paper. Think of all the possibilities!

And as a bonus, you can use the negative part too! That will make another nice card!
So my verdict is: thumbs of for foiling! Seriously, so many possibilities! The only problem is that these foiled pieces are tricky to photograph.. they look so much better in person!

Oh and one last thing – today is the last day to grab this fabulous digital card design from Studio Calico, so don’t miss out – it’s a good one!

This post contains some affiliate links. If you click on any of these affiliate links and make a purchase, then I happily receive a small commission. Thank you for your support! I purchased all the products you see used, and am happy to share what I made with them here.

Surgery

| cristina

While recuperating from a small surgery I had a couple of weeks ago, and catching up on my Project Life (2015 is in the books, yay!!) I am also trying to kill my Canyonlands scrapbook kit from Studio Calico (it was the November ’15 kit). So I put some of it to good use to document my surgery.

This page started with the Mega Date Stamp and with two small photos of me from the hospital, one from before and one from after the surgery. Then, I added the title (those gold letters from the Redstone embellishment kit are the best!!). Next, I used the roller stamp from the Arendal Project Life kit to stamp “BEFORE” and “AFTER” as mats for my photos. I added a couple embellishments (the rubber banners are from the Canyonlands scrapbook kit while the rubber “the story of today” was from Ali Edwards’s 2015 December Daily kit, and the rest of the embellishments are from her Firsts Story Kit).

Then I added journaling all around. So my first (and hopefully last!!) surgery is all documented.
Have a lovely weekend!

Hello Friday

| cristina

Hello and happy Friday! I have a bunch of fun, colorful pages to share today, made with the new releases from The Lilypad (20% off through the weekend)!

Credits:

All of Me Loves Dressed Down Templates by Fiddle-Dee-Dee Designs
Glitz Girl kit and Glitz journal cards by Lynn Grieveson Designs

It’s also the day of the release of the Memory Pockets Monthly collection, which is absolutely fantastic this month!

Credits:

I had to cut of my poor husband’s head in this photo because there was a lamp right behind him that looked like it was on his head – ugh! I hate when that happens, and of course I didn’t catch it at the time I took the photo.

Finally, I made a hybrid page using the MPM add ons by Sahlin Studio.

 

Credits:

Not your typical snow colors… but I love how it turned out!

Have a wonderful end of the week!

ETA: and I scrapped one more over the weekend!

Credits:

Drama Queen Adore by Valorie Wibbens
Adorable: So Transparent by Allison Pennington

Art 2 Heart Update

| cristina

I realized that after my first enthusiastic post, I haven’t blogged anymore about my experience with Wilna Furstenberg’s year-long Art 2 Heart workshop. But my enthusiasm hasn’t waned in the least! So it’s time to show a couple more pages I’ve made since.

The first two are directly lifted from Wilna’s pages from October. This first one is definitely one of the favorite pages I’ve ever made.

The printables also come with the workshop.

Apart from the visual aspect of the class (lots of eye candy!), my favorite thing about this workshop is that it makes me reflect upon the small and big things in my life. Maybe saying it’s life-changing is a bit much, but it’s certainly inspired me to give deeper thought to some things that I’d otherwise not have thought about. Every single month.

This page was also a really fun one to make. Wilna gave us the printout of her floral+writing combination, and I traced it with watercolors.

I have slowed down a bit in creating, and made only one page inspired by the November workshop:

This page has been a work in progress for a long time. I painted the background back in November, but then it just sat there, waiting for a good theme for the page.

I used some copper mist from Studio Calico to add some shine to the page. I also used it on top of the wood letters, though it’s hard to tell from the photo.

To embellish the page, I used some very old embellishments from my stash (Dear Lizzy) along with some bits and pieces from the Canyonlands scrapbook kit and Redstone embellishment kit from Studio Calico.

And that’s all I’ve made so far from the workshop. I have a page in the works inspired by the January content, so be on the lookout for that soon. 🙂

Wednesday Digi

| cristina

Hello there and happy Wednesday! I have quite a few digi pages to share today! This past weekend I have successfully finished my 2015 Project Life album, and after that accomplishment I’ve been getting a few digital pages done. Feels good!
All these pages use items that are 50% off in the sale at The Lilypad, through today.

Credits:

Poppy Templates and Stated by Sara Gleason
Plastic Alpha by Paula Kesserling

That is a fun alpha indeed.

Credits:

Poppy Templates by Sara Gleason
Plastic Alpha by Paula Kesserling

As I mentioned, I had surgery a couple weeks ago. Everything went well, and I am now scrapping that experience (of course I took photos in the hospital, for my scrapbook! :)).

Credits:
Go 4 It! by Lynne-Marie

I love the pops of red on this page.

Credits:
Go 4 It! by Lynne-Marie
Stated by Sara Gleason

ETA: I made one more page using products by Allison Pennington, some of which are 50% off today! Here it is:

Credits:
For the Love of 2016: Bundle 1 by Allison Pennington

I hope you are having  a good week! I have fallen off my blog schedule as of late, but I do have a couple of exciting things I want to post (I’ve discovered foiling… I love it!!) so look for that soon.