Studio Calico

Beautiful Spring Day

| cristina

Hello! It’s almost April so I thought it fitting that the next kit I chose for my Kill My Studio Calico Kit blog series is from April 2016, Film Club! 🙂

This page was inspired by the painted wood butterflies by Nancy Damiano; I only had 2 wood butterflies in my stash, so I added some feathers, and some paper butterflies (cut using a die from Papertrey Ink). I mostly used only items from the kit, and only added some puffy hearts and stars from Freckled Fawn (puffy stickers are my absolute fave!!), as well as some purple gems from an old Studio Calico kit (I think a card add on from Copper Mountain – Jan. 2014) to tie in the color of the flowers. I just love these colors, they feel so spring-y!

I never know how to use the washi strips,with the phrases printed on them, mostly because I am a literal scrapper and the phrases never quite fit what I am scrapping. Here I used one as is, because the words applied well (the flowers are fleeting, and also my mom’s visits are always too short). But then I cut up some words from the other strips to make my title (“beautiful” “spring” “day”) – I will do this again for sure!

I stamped two phrases from the stamp in the kit on the paper butterflies (I stamped on wood veneer in the past and the ink feathered a bit, and didn’t want to risk it on the wood butterflies – although it probably would be fine with pigment ink, which sits on top of the surface). I used washi tape to mask the wood veneers before painting them with acrylic paint – lime light and mint hint. Then I used the small dots in the kit stamp to add the polka dots on the feathers. I like how that touch of black matches the paper strips I used at the top and bottom of the page.
I love how it turned out! Now if the weather would just cooperate and get spring started! 🙂

Kill My Studio Calico Kit – Sep. 2016: Lost River

| cristina

Hello and welcome back for another installment of my Kill My Studio Calico Kit series! I am not going in order…  this is the 11th kit I have killed, and in total I have made a whopping 130 layouts. Yay me!

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.
I considered a kit killed when I don’t have enough paper to make another layout.

This month I killed the September 2016 Lost River scrapbook kit.

Notes:  I bought this kit with a $10 promotion (they also have a $5 promotion if you want to try a kit, check here and use the code SCKIT5), and I really like it. I found it to be a bit light on embellishments, but no big deal as I am trying to use up my stash more this year and was happy to add some items to supplement the kit. I also used some stamps from my stash. I didn’t care for the washi tape nor the stamp (in fact I have not used them).

Status: Killed! Knowing I had not paid full price for this kit resulted in me not pushing myself as much as I normally do to crank out 10+ pages from a kit. I used two of the cardstock pieces for other layouts but I didn’t count them towards killing this kit because all the rest was from my stash.
I made 8 layouts (6 12″x12″ and 2 8.5″x11″), for a total of $10, or $1.43/page.

Here’s a roundup of all the pages I made:

And here is what I have left:


Leftovers:  I ended up not using the yellow cardstock – I tried, but it was just too bright. I’ll use it on some other page in the future. But otherwise, this kit is thoroughly killed. I used a lot of the gold alphas, but I still have plenty left, and I have most of the vellum alpha. I didn’t touch the washi tape and stamp. I’m very happy I used up all the envelopes, and most of the tiny red sequins.

And here’s a look at all the projects I made:

While I normally start by using my least favorite paper, this time I started by using my favorite paper in the kit for this page – it was just perfect for this story! The stamp I used is from an old add on called Caramel Apple – I purchased it when it went for sale at last call last August for $10 (score!). The alpha stamp is from Freckled Fawn (discontinued), as are the cork trees (aren’t they pretty? I used up the whole pack – it may be my first time ever doing that! :)).

 

Most of the items on this page are from my stash – only the background paper and the gold alpha are from the kit.

I used some alpha stickers and embellishments from my stash.

This one is my favorite page this month. And I get bonus points for using up some flair from my stash! 🙂

 

I love how this one turned out. I used some stamps from my stash, as well as some heart stickers. The pretty owls are printables by Wilna Furstenberg.

On this page I used the kit almost exclusively: the only think I added from my stash is the enamel dots.

I had so much fun making this page! I used stamps from Sakuralala with Distress Oxide Ink (cracked pistachio), and then used some scraps of paper from the kit, along with a rubber banner and the vellum alpha.

 

I love how this page turned out! I used up my last paper scraps, and put to good use the red sequins and the rest of the kraft envelopes.

And that’s it for this month! If you have any questions, please leave a comment and let me know!
This was my most recent unkilled kit, so now I’ll have to dig up some more kits from 2016 that I haven’t used yet: I still have Film Club (April), Scout (June) and Pool Party (July) that are mostly untouched. I cannot wait!

 

You can subscribe to the Studio Calico Scrapbook kit here.

I purchased all products myself, but if you use the affiliate links in this post (at no extra cost to you!) you’ll help me buy more supplies and bring more content to this blog. Thanks for stopping by!

Kill My Studio Calico Kit – Jan. 2017: Roman Holiday

| cristina

Welcome back for another installment of this Kill My Studio Calico Kit series: this is the 10th kit I have killed (I took a break after killing Homespun), and in total I have made a whopping 122 layouts. Yay me!

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.
I considered a kit killed when I don’t have enough paper to make another layout.

This month I am using the Studio Calico scrapbook main kit, Roman Holiday.

 

Notes:  I really love the look of this kit! Pretty colors and fun embellishments. I was a bit unsure about the chipboard pencils (they had chipboard paintbrushes in the Film Club kit and those stumped me, because I tend to use elements in a literal way). The stamp is small and the sentiments aren’t all that useful to me, but I still managed to use it on several pages. The puffy hearts and puffy stickers are always a favorite of mine, and I like the touches of gold on the phrase stickers and die cuts. The floral paper is my favorite, along with the specialty paper.

Status: Not totally killed, but close!
I made 10 layouts (9 12″x12″ and 1 8.5″x11″), for a total of $39.99, or $4/page. I supplemented the kit with some embellishments from my stash, since after my January craft room reorganization I challenged myself to add a little bit of something old to every page I make. I also used some bits from the Roman Holiday Documenter kit. I also used and cardstock from my stash for a couple pages. Here’s a roundup of all the pages I made:

And here is what I have left:

Leftovers: the kit is rather killed. I could have kept going with this bits and pieces and probably made 2 more pages, but I wanted to wrap this kit up, and I am going to be hoarding that floral paper a bit longer. I love it so! I will use it up in bits and pieces here and there. 🙂

And here’s a look at all the projects I made:

This is the first project I made, and I stuck to a pink and gray color scheme, with gold accents. Usually  I am not a big fan of the washi strips, but I really like how this one looks on the pink background. I added some watercoloring on the “twenty seventeen” die cut. And the gold “cheers”, flair, sequins, pink hearts, rubber banner, gold label, star stickers and the tiny alpha stickers are all from my stash. The “anything is possible” stamp is from the same month’s Documenter kit, while the “You + Me” is from the scrapbook kit (I didn’t ink up the “= OUI” part since I have no use for that part of the sentiment).

Next up, one of my favorite pages of all times. It’s a two-page spread, in fact. I made it to recap what happened in 2016.

The left page was made to use up this lovely letterpress calendar. I thought about cutting it up to use the “it’s your year” part, but then I really liked the whole page, and the idea for this spread was born. The background paper (Maggie Holmes for Crate Paper) and alpha stickers (A Beautiful Mess) are from my stash.

The right hand side really makes me so happy. I started out with the pencils and the washi strips (the ones without the words are from the Roman Holiday Documenter kit). I spaced them out on the page, then calculated how many photos I’d need to fill up the space. It was so hard to narrow it down to only 16 photos!! That’s what I love more about this page – as I was putting it together, I looked through all my photos and thought back at all the good things that happened this year.
I used the puffy stickers from the kit to mark the months of the year corresponding to the photos, which I arranged chronologically. The only thing I added from my stash is the gold chipboard alpha and some sequins.

Totally switched up the color scheme for this page! 🙂 Once again, I used the pencils to create the design of this page, which is based on a grid. I pulled out some yellow stars, washi and sequins from my stash, as well as some cork asterisks and chipboard alpha.

Here I added some chipboard hearts, puffy stickers, flair and wood veneer from my stash, as well as a couple stamped phrases.

The leaves are from my stash, but they were just perfect for this page! I kept it simple and I love it just the way it is!

I just added a doily from my stash for this page.

The background cardstock is from my stash. I painted some watercolor circles in the color of the heart stickers from the kit.

On this page I documented a few favorite things from this month. I love the neon refill tape for my Dymo label maker! It doesn’t photograph well but it’s truly neon, so pretty!

Cardstock and chipboard embellishments from my stash. I wanted to use black cardstock for the background, but since I didn’t have any, I decided to paint some. I love the effect!

This was so fun to make!! Totally inspired by a template by Scrapping by Liz that I used in this digital page.

And that’s it for this month! If you have any questions, please leave a comment and let me know!

You can subscribe to the Studio Calico Scrapbook kit here.

I purchased all products myself, but if you use the affiliate links in this post (at no extra cost to you!) you’ll help me buy more supplies and bring more content to this blog. Thanks for stopping by!

Project Life 2017 Title Page

| cristina

2017 is my fifth year doing Project Life. I’ve always done it in 12×12 format, with a 2-page spread per week, and this format just works for me. That puts me at two albums per year. In 2012 I completed about 30 weeks, but in 2013-2015 I made the whole year, and I am on the way to finishing up 2016 too. (yay!!)
But in the meantime I couldn’t resist putting together the title page for 2017. I used the Studio Calico Roman Holiday Documenter kit, plus some floral and butterfly printables from Wilna Furstenberg, and an old calendar template that is now out of production.

That floral card is my favorite in this month’s kit!

I love how well these printables matched the rest of this spread.

Are you a Project Lifer? I’d love to hear from you!

2016 in Review

| cristina

In early January, I like to look back at the year that has just finished and make a recap.
In 2016, I scrapped 184 pages (69 paper, 115 digital), made 38* weekly spreads in my Project Life album (*in fact I also caught up on ~15 weeks of 2015, so I made 50+ spreads; now I need to catch up on the remaining 14 pages for 2016), 2 mini albums, 40+ weeks in my weekly traveler’s notebook, and countless cards (40+). I took about 4,700 photos. I made 7 trips (4 for work, 3 for pleasure). I learned how to do brush lettering, and had my first surgery ever. It was a busy year, but a good one!

But what better way to make a recap that make a scrapbook layout? 🙂

I made this two-page spread to recap what happened in 2016, and it’s one of my favorite pages of all times.

The left page was made to use up this lovely letterpress calendar. I thought about cutting it up to use the “it’s your year” part, but then I really liked the whole page, and the idea for this spread was born.

The right hand side really makes me so happy. It uses almost exclusively the Roman Holiday Scrapbook Kit (and some washi strips from the Roman Holiday Documenter kit; sequins and chipboard alpha from my stash).
I spaced the chipboard pencils and washi strips out on the page, then calculated how many photos I’d need to fill up the space. It was so hard to narrow it down to only 16 photos!! That’s what I love more about this page – as I was putting it together, I looked through all my photos and thought back at all the good things that happened this year.
I used the puffy stickers from the kit to mark the months of the year corresponding to the photos, which I arranged chronologically.

Here’s a look at some of the details:

I matched the colors of the pencils and washi strips.

Gold for the title, to match with the calendar page.

I am so happy with how this turned out!

Coffee Cup Mini Album

| cristina
Hello! 2017 started pretty well for me and I have been on a roll. I started by cleaning up my craft space (since my desk had been cluttered for months and I had been using my kitchen table to craft… not good!), and then once that was done I jumped into a new project: a coffee cup mini album inspired by the awesome Wilna Furstenberg.

I am just so happy with how it turned out!!

I held on to this cup from Starbucks for many years (it’s my favorite one ever), but finally I decided to use it, and I’m so glad I did! I added some watercolor paint and stitched some embellishments to the front cover.

I was inspired by Wilna’s adorable bear illustrations, so I used a couple of bear stamps I had in my stash from Studio Calico. The one on the cover is from the Waldorf add on (sold out).

On the inside, I used 9″x12″ papers by A Beautiful Mess (the black and white ones) and  papers by  Crate Paper (6″x6″, and 12″x12″ by Maggie Holmes).
This cute polar bear is from an adorable stamp set by Life Love Paper (still in stock if you are interested).

I also used some chipboard by Crate Paper to embellish my pages.

I added a black and white photo of my husband and me from 2016 to each spread.

Here and there, I added some watercoloring. This is the spread at the middle of the album – you can see the stitching I did to bind the pages together.

I love the mix of black and white and hot pink and aqua!

In most cases, I used both sides of the 12″x12″ paper. The 9″x12″ and 6″x6″ papers were one-sided, so I glued them back to back.

And there is the back cover:

When assembling the album, I included a ribbon that can be tied to keep the album closed.

I am so thrilled with how this mini album turned out! What a lovely way to start the year.

December Kits at Studio Calico: Cypress Grove

| cristina

Hello and happy December! For the 12th month in a row, I am here on the first of the month to share a page made with the new digital releases from Studio Calico. Kits go for sale at noon EST for subscribers, and 3 PM EST for everyone else.

I used the icons on a card from the Christmas Bingo set, recolored it, and punched out the circles. Then I built a Christmas tree with them. The rest of my page comes from my stash, including some leftover bits of paper from Lollipop Guild (the Dec. 2015 scrapbook kit) and Canyonlands (Nov. 2015).

I love how it turned out!

Decorating the tree was so much fun!

Studio Calico November Kits: Sonnet

| cristina

Hello and happy November! The Sonnet kits go for sale today at Studio Calico, and I got a head start using some of the digital products for this month.

This is an 8.5″x11″ hybrid page. I used the 12″x12″ Sonnet digital papers and the Sonnet 6″x8″ digital stamp on the background, which was printed on a piece of cardstock.

Then I added some embellishments from my stash – wood veneer letters, chipboard stars and sequins.

Also… did you hear about the latest stamp subscription from Studio Calico? It’s a 6″x8″ stamp set.

You can subscribe here.
It’s a really nice set, I see many used for the numbers – birthdays, milestones, year in review (like how I used it for the pumpkin patch, but with some photos that recap your year)…

Have a good start of the month!! Only 2 months left to wrap up 2016!

Sunday Sketch at Studio Calico

| cristina

Hello and happy Sunday! I’m happy to share a page I made for this week’s Sketch Challenge on the Studio Calico blog.
It’s a scrapbook page, but I made it entirely using Documenter kits, mainly the Story Board Documenter kit.

I didn’t have a use for the 4″x6″ card with the lips that comes in the kit, but I challenged myself to use it. So I cut it up with some circle punches.

I added some plastic embellishments from the Pool Party Documenter kit.

The gold alpha and the navy phrases with gold foil from the Story Board Documenter kit are fabulous!

I hope you’ll play along!

It’s Beginning…

| cristina

It’s that time of the year… Christmas is almost 2 months away and I love that there are so many opportunities to help us get ready. Studio Calico has some great classes available, and I’m always happy to get more inspiration!

First up is the

KEYSTONE CABIN WORKSHOP

It’s the most wonderful time of the year—for making and capturing memories! Join April Foster, Lisa Truesdell, and Kelly Noel for the perfect holiday retreat into creative ways to use the new “Keystone Cabin” collection to document your favorite moments this season. From fresh sketches and videos, to inspiring photo and journaling prompts, you’ll learn plenty of tips and tricks for using this exclusive collection to bring a rustic but modern feel to your scrapbook, pocket, and traveler’s notebook pages!
Class begins on November 1st!

I can’t wait to see what these ladies will be sharing in the class!

Next, they are re-releasing some past classes for even more December inspiration!

25 DAYS CLASS BUNDLE

Get in the Christmas spirit! Revisit our past holiday classes to get endless inspiration for your December 2016 projects. Our 25 Days series has housed some of our most popular classes, and they’re all back for a limited time, along with last year’s Wrapped! Many of the industry’s biggest names have collaborated on these classes, and the outcomes have been nothing short of incredible.
The bundle includes 5 classes:
December Daily | 2015, team taught
Wrapped with Amanda Rydell
25 Days | 2014 with Stephanie Bryan
25 Days | 2013 with Maggie Holmes
25 Days | 2012 with Maggie Holmes.

These classes originally retailed for a total of $130 – you’ll save over $100 by enrolling with this bundle. These classes are also available for $10 each through the remainder of 2016. This offer will expire December 31st at 11:59pm EST.

Have you decided on your format for December Daily yet? This will be my 7th time doing this project. Check out my 6 past albums here.

And here’s a look at all six of my December Daily albums.

I am still debating because it looks like I will be traveling for a good part of the month… currently it’s a toss up between a traveler’s notebook and a pocket page album.