Paper

Kill My Studio Calico Kit: July – Fairground

| cristina

Fairground is the Studio Calico July kit. The prices have increased, the kit costs $34.99 (up by $5), and I also purchased the Carousel embellishment kit for a promotional price of $11.69.

Notes: The only things I loved in the main kit were the yellow paper (the B side of the one with all the squares) and the stamp set. In the add on, I loved the chipboard hearts and the stamp. I liked most of the rest. I disliked the clock acrylic shapes in the add on and the floral transparency in the main -but I love how I ended up using them.

Status: killed
I made 14 layouts with this kit (10 12″x12″, 3 8.5″x11″ and 1 9″x12″), for a total of $46.68, or $3.33/page. I supplemented it with some card stock from my stash, some hybrid papers (printed out from digital), stamps, and the odd embellishment.

Here are the bits and pieces I have left:

Leftovers: a good chunk of the green paper with crosses, most of the flower transparency (not my favorite), a couple of pieces of the yellow dot paper (my favorite this month!), some alpha stickers (hard to make words with what’s left), some chipboard hearts (love them!) and silver foiled perforated words, most of the washi tape strips (am having a hard time using them), a clip, a few acrylic clock shapes and a few animals (I combined the acrylic shapes in the scrapbook and Project Life kits).

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.

Kill My Studio Calico Kit: June – Galileo

| cristina

I am starting this series on my blog to keep myself accountable. I love buying new scrapbooking products, but I don’t want them to pile up, I want to use them and finish them up!
At the end of May I subscribed to the scrapbooking kit at Studio Calico (with a $5 promotion). So my first kit to kill was Galileo (June 2015). My goal is to use up a kit before the next one arrives.

Notes: I loved pretty much everything in this kit. The stamp set is very versatile (I am using it a lot in my Project Life album), I have a weakness for puffy stickers and gold foil, and I love the cork map.

Status: killed*
I made 9 layouts with this kit (7 12″x12″, 2 9″x12″), for a total of $5, or $0.55/page. I supplemented it with some paper and stamps and a couple embellishments from my stash.

Here’s the bits and pieces I have left.
Leftovers: cork world map (I am hoarding it.. :)), part of the star foiled specialty paper and of the pink dots paper (my favorite this month!), some stickers and an acrylic word.
So the first month was definitely a success!
*what I mean with “killed” is that I don’t have any whole pieces of patterned paper left or enough embellishments to make a page.

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.

Fight Song

| cristina

One of the things I love the most about scrapbooking, other than it gives me a chance to be creative and play with pretty paper, is that it makes me slow down and reflect on what are the things that really matter in my life. These past few weeks have been rough at work as I am waiting for some big news that has been delayed by over a month now. I am trying to cope with the uncertainty the best I can, but the stress has spilled into my whole life. Which is not good. So I made this page, to incite myself to keep going.

This is a hybrid page. I printed the text of the song (using the High Jump font by Amy Martin) and the “jump in” brush from Ali Edwards on a patterned background, then I added all the embellishments.

It’s funny, I usually am not inspired to use lyrics on my pages.. but this time it was just the perfect jumpstart for this page.

Go See the World

| cristina

This month’s Story Kit theme at Ali Edwards’ is GO: perfect to keep documenting my month-long travels from this past April. I decided to scrap a picture we snapped from the plane.

We couldn’t have asked for a better start for our trip! The view was spectacular!

I left the photo big (8.5″x11″ on a 9″x12″ background), and embellished the top and bottom with bits and pieces from the digital kit.

I love how it turned out!

Love Being Here

| cristina

Today I have a page to share with you.. a page that came together in maybe 15 minutes or less. The starting point were these brushes by Ali Edwards.

With a large photo and the brushes, it was so easy to finish off the page with a few embellishments and stamps.

I love mixing digital brushes, stamps and embellishments!

Have a nice week!

Trip of a Lifetime

| cristina

I am so excited to share what I created with this month’s Memory Pockets Monthly at The Lilypad! First off, I made a page with the main kit and papers by Sara Gleason.

Credits:
Memory Pockets Monthly: Viewpoint by The Lilypad
Arboretum: Viewpoint and Viewpoint Papers by Sara Gleason
Viewpoint Element by Sahlin Studio

Then, my jaw just about dropped to the floor when I saw the add ons by Sahlin Studio:

 

These products were absolutely perfect for me to scrap a recap page about my month-long April travels. I scrapped these pages in 9″x12″ size (a first!). I love the right page with the 3×4 cards. I had to matte my 8.x”x11″ hybrid map onto a larger piece of paper, and I selected this pretty vellum from my stash, since it matched the colors perfectly.

Credits:

This page is hybrid (=I printed out the digital designs by Sahlin Studio on Canon matte photo paper 8.5×11 and 4×6). Then I added more details.. washi tape, stitching, and of course stamping.

I chose one or two photos from each of the countries we visited.

I also made a fun recap of the main statistics of the trip. I couldn’t fit more, but I love this summary.

I added numbers to the map for the countries we visited, and listed them on a journaling card.

More stamping on journaling cards..

I made the title combining three pretty alpha stamps. It truly was the trip of a lifetime!

I’m so happy with how this spread turned out!

Studio Calico Odyssey reveal

| cristina

I am so thrilled to be contributing to the gallery at Studio Calico with the March card kit – Odyssey!

Unfortunately not all the items in the kit were available when they shipped it to me (… sigh… those gold labels didn’t make it to me.. and I didn’t receive the MME flair buttons either) so I can’t show you everything that’s in the kit… but I sure made the most of what I got. 🙂 I also used the washi strips add on (you get 2 sheets with 6 different designs).

I made a *ton* of cards! 15 to be precise, and I am in no way done with this kit. I still have lots of paper left, and a cute wood veneer alligator (I’m hoarding that to be used on a scrapbook page, actually).

Stamps are my favorite thing, and the ones in this card kit were to much fun to use! In fact, only 2 of the 15 cards I made don’t have any stamping (shown above). I believe I’ve used every stamp in the set. 🙂
 
 
I also used a couple of digital items (the Anniversary scrapbook stamp and this awesome ampersand background cut file by Paige Evans – it comes in different sizes so you can use it on scrapbook pages, cards and in Project Life).
 
 
The plastic “hey” word that comes in the kit can be used as a stencil (I did that to cut out the blue patterned paper above) or as a mask as I did on these two cards. You could also use the plastic word directly on a card, but I didn’t because I know I’ll be using this mask over and over.
 
I used ink pads, watercolors, embossing powders and mists on my cards. These stamps are so versatile!

There is a great offer for new subscribers: you can start a new subscription and get 50% off the first month. Use the following codes at checkout (until 3/26):
scrapbook: LOVESC50
project life: LOVEPL50
card: LOVECD50
And if you follow this link to sign up, we will both get $5 towards add on purchases.

There’s also a fabulous offer for new subscriptions for current subscribers: if you sign up with one of these codes, you save 50% off your first month of a new subscription and enjoy RISK FREE, no commitment required! Use the following codes at checkout:
scrapbook: RISKFREESC50
project life: RISKFREEPL50
card: RISKFREECD50
The offer is valid through 11:59 PM EST on 3/26/15.

I have been a subscriber to the Project Life kit since it was first offered in January of 2013 (and I love it!), and I used this offer to pick up the Odyssey scrapbook main kit at 50% off. It’s just too gorgeous to pass!

ETA: Bundling* has been extended for subscribers to 11:59 PM EST today (March 2nd).
*One of the perks of being a subscriber is that all orders made between the 27th of the month and the end of the month get bundled and shipped together.

Studio Calico Guest Contributor for March

| cristina

I am so excited to be contributing to the Odyssey Card kit gallery at Studio Calico in March! I want to share here a sneak of all the cards I made with the kit. I was very productive, and put together 15 cards (yes, fifteen!). 🙂

The animal stamps in the Odyssey card kit are just so cute and versatile! I had fun stamping them, embossing them and watercoloring them.
The kits go for sale at 12 PM EST on Friday, Feb. 27th, and 12 hours later for everyone else.

There is a great offer for new subscribers: you can start a new subscription and get 50% off the first month. Use the following codes at checkout:
scrapbook: LOVESC50
project life: LOVEPL50
card: LOVECD50
And if you follow this link to sign up, we will both get $5 towards add on purchases.

There’s also a fabulous offer for current subscribers only: if you sign up for a new subscription with one of these codes, you save 50% off your first month of a new subscription and enjoy RISK FREE, no commitment required! Use the following codes at checkout:
scrapbook: RISKFREESC50
project life: RISKFREEPL50
card: RISKFREECD50
The offer is valid through 11:59 PM EST on 3/26/15.
Also, if you follow this link to sign up, we will both get $5 towards add on purchases.

I have been a subscriber to the Project Life kit since it started in January of 2013 (and I love it!), and I will use this offer to pick up the scrapbook main kit.