Kill My Studio Calico Kit: September – Brimfield

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.

Let’s Go

Ali Edwards has some digital journaling cards in her store to complement this month’s Story Kit. I love them!
So I made another page in 9×12 format. I have pretty much settled to make a travel album using my gold 9″x12″ album and I love how it’s turning out. A few of the pages I made so far are 12×12 so I may end up trimming them to fit in this album.

I chose a picture from each of the places we visited on our trip. I debated whether to go with color or black&white, but the b&w won in the end.

I added the name of the place on the photo, and a number sticker to put them in chronological order.

I stuck to black, white, red, and some pops of aqua for the page.

This page will likely go to the end of my album. I love it!!

Go See the World

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

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

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!

An Awesome Story

And after the pandas.. my second page from my vacation features a koala! 🙂 Straight from Australia.

It was seriously the cutest!! This is a hybrid page. I printed out the picture, word art by Ali Edwards and journaling, then added it on top of the background paper, and embellished with some paper and washi, plus a couple of physical stamps.

I love how Ali’s products encourage me to get those stories told! It would have been easy to make a page with this awesome photo and no words, but I wanted to document more than just the cuteness.