killmySCkit

Kill My Studio Calico Kit: December – Lollipop Guild

| cristina

Hello and welcome back for another month of Kill My Studio Calico Kit! This is the sixth installment of this series, and in total I have made a whopping 83 layouts. Yay me!
This month I only got the Studio Calico scrapbook main kit, Lollipop Guild ($34.99), and then I recently bought the Tin Man embellishment kit $7 at last month’s kit sale.

Notes: I love the colors of this month’s papers! And the embellishments are so much fun – the gold dipped letters, the vellum shapes, the black words and the stamp stickers – I love them all.
The stamp in the embellishment kit is awesome!

Kill my Studio Calico kit is a monthly series I started on my blog to hold myself accountable and use up my kits. You can subscribe to the Studio Calico Scrapbook kit here.

Status: killed!
I made 10 layouts (6 12″x12″,10 8.5″x11″), for a total of $41.99, or $4.2/page. I supplemented the kit with some embellishments from the Project Life kit, plus some items from my stash (stamps, and the odd embellishment). Here’s a roundup of all the pages I made:

And here is what I have left:

Leftovers: I am pretty sure this is the most I have ever killed a kit! I likely have enough to make one more page using that red paper that was one of my favorites this month. This month I didn’t have to use any card stock from my stash.

And here is what I made with the kit.

This page makes me happy! I used a favorite photo and I just love the juxtaposition of black, red and gold.

The bold papers in this kit are just right up my alley! Here I also added a printable from The Lilypad for the left page, while the right page is all using the Lollipop Guild scrapbook kit and the Tin Man add on. Here’s a look at the right page on its own:

Those stickers were perfect for a page about New York City!
The rest of the pages were done all in one day.. I was on a roll for sure! 🙂

This page was done with the main kit only. I used the vellum, rubber and enamel stars in the kit, and cut some more from patterned paper.

This page is a tribute to my mom, who is the best! This page is done with the scrapbook main kit only, plus some plastic tickets from the Project Life kit.

I tried something different on this page, and I love how it turned out! I used some acrylic paint on the background, and sprinkled some glitter on top. I thought the Tour Eiffel went well with the French theme of the page. The gold “cheers” word comes from the Project Life kit.

Here I used the Maggie alpha for the title (it’s out of stock unfortunately), as well as the stamp set from the Tin Man add on stamped with the silver pigment ink that came with it.

On this page I used some bits left over from the previous month – the background and the red papers.

This is one of my favorite pages with this month’s kit – I just love the colors. It’s not a mix of colors I would have paired on my own, but I absolutely love it! I used the gold alphas from the Canyonlands kit and some puffy gold stars and dots from my stash.

The patterned paper I used for the background is really busy, but I love the look! I used a glassine bag to tone down the area behind the photo. I used some gold letters leftover from the previous month’s kit. Every year we go out after the traditional Messiah concert, and this is what this page is about.

For the last page I put together most of the remaining bits and scraps of paper I had left. Again, not a traditional color scheme for Christmas, but it totally works for me! The colored rubber stars are from the Project Life kit.

And that wraps up this month! Are you enjoying this blog series? Should I keep going? Leave me a comment and let me know!

You can subscribe to the Studio Calico Scrapbook kit here.

Kill My Studio Calico Kit: November 2015 – Canyonlands

| cristina

After a few months of hiatus, I’m back with my Kill My Studio Calico Kit series! It’s time to kill Canyonlands, the November ’15 scrapbook kit ($34.99). This is the sixth installment of this series, and in total I have made a whopping 73 layouts!

Kits get released the first of the month, but one of the perks of being a subscriber is that you can make some early purchases on the 22nd of the month before, often at a pretty sweet discount – in this case, I was able to buy the embellishment kit Redstone for only $8.99.
And who am I kidding?? I probably would have bought it anyway! Puffy gold alphas, fun plastic shapes, and some pink? Sign me up! 🙂
Notes: Even though the A sides of the main kit shown here are a little more muted than my style calls for, I love the papers this month. The B sides have some bright colors that I put to good use. I LOVE the stamp, the gold foiled leaves, the gold tag, the wood alpha and the rubber pieces.
Kill my Studio Calico kit is a monthly series I started on my blog to hold myself accountable and use up my kits.
You can subscribe to the Studio Calico Scrapbook kit here.
 
Status: killed!
I made 11 layouts (8 12″x12″, 2 8.5″x11″) for a total of $43.98, or $4/page. I supplemented the kit with some cardstock from my stash, stamps, and the odd embellishment. Here’s a roundup of all the pages I made:
And here’s what’s left over:
Leftovers: I am so happy I still have plenty of those gold puffy stickers! I will combine them with the December kit, Lollipop Guild, as I think they are perfect for Christmas.

And here is a look at each page I made.
I thought the fun patterned paper matched these colorful photos pretty well.
I love the gold foiled leaves that come in the scrapbook kit! I did some stamping with colored inks to match the arrows from the Redstone embellishment kit. I also used this lovely Thankful stamp+die – it’s so versatile! Perfect for Thanksgiving of course, but really good year-round too.
This page was inspired by the January scrapbook workshop taught by Paige Evans. I love how it turned out!

I really loved this darker paper in the kit, and decided to cut it up in circles. I also covered up the wood numbers from the Redstone embellishment kit with it. The big “2015” is stamped using the Mega Date Stamp  (love it!!)

This page was inspired by the year-long Art 2 Heart workshop by Wilna Furstenberg. I love her!! I used some die cut embellishments from my stash on this page.

On this page I also used some embellishments from my stash, and the Mega Date Stamp of course!

After these pages that were made in January, the kit pretty much sat unused until I got my recent purchases from the kit sale… that got me motivated to kill this kit before I move to the next one. So I made these next 4 pages all in one night, after dinner!

The cardstock is from my stash but the rest is from the kit, apart from the leaves that are stamped with the wood stamp from the Wink Wink kit.

That wooden alpha is one of my favorite things in the kit, and the leftovers were so pretty that I decided to use them as a design element.

The Mojito Color Theory dye ink matched the rubber embellishment perfectly!

I think this was my favorite paper of the kit (although the dark dotted one was also much loved!), and I kept it for last. I used a glassine back from the packaging to tone down the pattern, and used up my last few gold foiled leaves. I also used the gorgeous gold foiled tag – originally I was planning on cutting into a square, but then when I was putting together this page I just love how it looked in the background so I left it as it came.

These plastic emoticons from Redstone are so much fun. I knew I wanted to use them in a bold way. I use them in this 2015 in review page – and I hid my journaling behind each emoticon, which I backed with paper from the kit and adhered using a brad. I used silver paint on the bottom half of the wood numbers. The pink alpha is from my stash.

And that really wraps up this kit!
I hope you are enjoying this blog series. If you use the affiliate links included in this post, I will receive a small commission at no cost to you. I purchased all the supplies used in this post and am happy to share my projects on my blog. You can subscribe to the Studio Calico Scrapbook kit here.

Never Give Up

| cristina

Hello there! I am so inspired by this month’s scrapbook kit from Studio Calico and by the latest printables by Wilna Furstenberg in her year-long workshop Art2Heart, that I combined them to make this page last night.

The flower printable has such pretty colors.. I made a background for it using watercolors and paint with the silkscreen included in the Homespun scrapbook kit.

The stamp set from the Homespun kit is awesome too!

I love these alphas from the Homespun scrapbook kit!

Psssst… if you want to pick up some old kits such as the ones I have used in my Kill My SC Kit series, check out the sale that is going on right now at Studio Calico!

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!

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. 🙂

What I’ve Been Up To

| cristina

I am home recovering from a small surgery, and spending most of my time in bed. I have been catching up on my 2015 Project Life (printing photos from my bed is really quite efficient!) and getting up only for short periods of time. In one of my breaks from bed rest, I put together one more page using the Canyonlands scrapbook kit from Studio Calico.

I am also thrilled because I received my Mega Date Stamp this week and put it to good use on this page. I love it and highly recommend it!

Have a great weekend!

New Workshops at Studio Calico

| cristina

Did you see the new workshops that will provide monthly inspiration for the Scrapbook and Documenter kits at Studio Calico?

I wanted to check out what the workshops were about, and I started with the scrapbooking one. This month’s workshop is taught by Paige Evans. I was really inspired by her main kit only lesson, which is based on a loose grid, and I used this technique for my page. Alas, I don’t have the Arendal kit, so I used the November one (Canyonlands) instead.

There are three lessons in each workshop, and each lesson comes with a video – I love it! It’s just the right amount of inspiration to look at your supplies in a fresh way.
I love how my page turned out! I picked all blue and green elements from the kit, laid them out, and that was it. Easy page but I love the result!

After five months strong (June-October), I slacked in my Kill My SC Kit series. Alas, I am not giving up, in fact I resumed using my Canyonlands scrapbooking kit now that December Daily is over and done with. 🙂 Only 3 pages done so far, so I’ve got a ways to go.
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.

Oh… and I almost forgot to mention the best thing – if you are a subscriber to either the Scrapbook or the Documenter kit, you can sign up to the corresponding workshop for the month of January for free!

Kill My Studio Calico Kit: October – Wink Wink

| cristina

Hello and welcome back for another month of Kill My Studio Calico Kit! I have to admit last month I was a bit out of steam, but this month’s kit really inspired me to just have fun and create.
Like last month, I only got the Studio Calico scrapbook main kit, Wink Wink ($34.99). There was only one thing I loved in the embellishment add on kit so I passed.

Notes: I certainly do better with bold colors, and this kit has plenty! I love the plastic letters, the puffy asterisks, and the chipboard circles.

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.

Status: killed!
I made 11 layouts (10 12″x12″, 1 8.5″x11″), for a total of $34.99, or $3.19/page. I supplemented the kit with some cardstock from my stash, stamps, and the odd embellishment. Here’s a roundup of all the pages I made:

And here is what I have left:

Leftovers: I very nearly didn’t kill this kit.  I ran out of time. I was gone for a couple of weeks in the past month on travel so I made the best I could do, and was almost ready to move on to the next kit, but then inspiration hit and I made 3 more pages and officially killed the kit. The pink card stock just didn’t work for me with this kit, so in my stash it goes. I hoarded some of those puffy stickers 🙂 because I didn’t want to use them all up at once.

And here is what I made with the kit.

The die cut paper (the specialty paper for this month) is so much fun! I love that blue paper, and I arranged the strips of paper to be a bit wonky to add some fun to this page. This is my favorite page this month!

I arranged my circles/shapes in rainbow order and watercolored the patterned paper to match. I added the journaling at the bottom of the page after the picture was taken (it’s a bit personal), as well as a title with the black alpha letters on top of the patterned paper – they are a great addition to ground all the pops of color on this page.

I love that blue color!

I watercolored the tag but you can no longer see the embossed camera (or barely) so I wouldn’t recommend it unless that’s the effect you’re going after.

I love the fun colors of the acetate alpha in the kit!

I recently bought a tag die and I am having fun making tags from patterned paper!

On this page I used a few leftover embellishments from past scrapbook kits (Galileo – puffy sticker, heart die cut; Fairground – word strips; Brimfield – washi strip, chipboard phrases).

That diamond paper is one of my favorites this month. I prefer the black on white side, but I thought the white on black side worked best on this page.

The label and puffy stickers are from my stash. I also used the stamp from the November kit (love it!).

This is a 2-pager. I couldn’t bear cutting up or covering that lettered paper, so a 2-pager it is. 🙂

And that wraps up this month! Are you enjoying this blog series? Do leave me a comment if you are.

You can subscribe to the Studio Calico Scrapbook kit here.

Kill My Studio Calico Kit: September – Brimfield

| cristina

For September I only got the Studio Calico scrapbook main kit, Brimfield ($34.99). I didn’t like the look of the embellishment add on kit this month so I passed.

Notes: I love the color scheme, even if it doesn’t quite fit with my fall palette. The kit only has 2 pieces of card stock (one of which, the kraft one, is non my fave at all) so I had to grab a few extra pieces from my stash. It also has only one alpha, with single letters – luckily I had in my stash the Laina alpha stamp that matches it perfectly. I loved the paper with the birds, the acetate shapes, the enamel dots and stars, the transparency with the stars and the roller stamp. The little deer embellishment is really tiny, but very cute. The chipboard phrases are nice but the mint color isn’t my fave — however, I used them a lot and I loved adding them to my pages!
The floral paper and especially the floral map are not really my style.

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.

Status: killed!
I made 12 layouts (10 12″x12″, 1 8.5″x11″ and 1 9″x12″), for a total of $34.99, or $2.92/page. I supplemented the kit with some cardstock from my stash, stamps, and the odd embellishment. Here’s a roundup of all the pages I made:

And here is what I have left:

Leftovers: almost nothing, really.. One of the washi strips, some scraps of paper, some letters, a few chipboard phrases, a piece of the star transparency and a couple of enamel shapes.

And here is what I made with the kit, from beginning to end.

I noticed a fun pattern in my scrapbooking habits – more often than not, the very first page I make has my least favorite paper. In this case, it was that kraft card stock, way too dark for my taste. But it worked just right with these pops of color! I used the month roller stamp to create some pattern and fill in my page.

I love those acetate birds!

I incorporated the lovely chipboard phrases in my journaling.

The star transparency was great to work with!

This page goes with the previous one.

To be honest there isn’t much from the Brimfield scrapbook kit on this page – only the pink strips of paper, the phrase strip and the “september” stamp (the acetate shapes are from the PL kit), but I am counting it anyway.

For this page I cut into the bird paper – my fave! – and I love how it turned out!
This month it’s harder than usual for me to pick a favorite page, but I think this is it. I just love the colors!

I wasn’t a fan of the floral pattern, but it turned out to be just the perfect backdrop for this photo of me and my grandpa. I love this page so much.

And with this page I almost used up the entire bird paper. Kudos to me for not hoarding it! 🙂

As I already said, I was not a fan of the floral map paper. But it worked OK to document this memory from our spring travels. This is a 9″x12″ page.

I pretty much used up all the remaining paper scraps on this page! I also used the chipboard ‘frame’ that surrounded the chipboard phrases. I had cut off some of the empty space on some of the phrases, and used those pieces here to stamp some little phrases. I love how this page turned out

The very last page I made used up the last few scraps I had left – most of the washi strips, and some enamel shapes. All the other embellishments, plus the watercolor piece painted by me, and the paper are from my stash.

This was a very productive month, I felt I really stretched the kit quite a bit. Time for October’s kits now!

You can subscribe to the Studio Calico Scrapbook kit here.

Kill My Studio Calico Kit: August – Pop Art

| cristina

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.