Studio Calico

sunday sketch

This week, we invited SC member Jessy (jc.chris) to inspire you with her take on our sketches. We knew from her gallery that she has a fabulous eye for design, and we were excited to see her break out a vintage SC kit for her layout.

This week's frame-worthy layout sketch comes from Catherine Davis' Smoothie Girl page from her Roundabout gallery : 

And we're breaking out the banners for our card sketch - it's based on a card from Dani Flanders' Roundabout gallery : 

Jessy says : As soon as I saw the layout sketch, I knew I am gonna have tons of fun with it. I immediately grabbed one of the SC kit randomly and started to play. I love the squares in the layout & thought Instagram photos will be perfect for this. I was delighted to see the chevon & grid papers in the kit, I just have to include them into the layout. I started of by positioning the photos of my baby girl, Katelynn and my cat, Tobes. Then followed by the rest of the papers, all I did was to cut them in different sizes of squares. I also positioned them a wee bit apart. Once I am done with all the positioning, I sewed all around the squares. Lastly, I added tit bits onto the squares for a fun look. This sketch is just perfect for me!

(supplies : Supply list: Story Hour, Illustrated add on - stamp, Sundrifter Wood Veneer Shapes)

If you want to see more of Jessy's work, stop by her Studio Calico gallery or her blog. Thank you for inspiring us this week, Jessy! 

Now it's your turn! Make a project with using one of this week's sketches as a starting point, then share it in the Studio Calico gallery. Leave us a link to your project by June 10th in the comments here to be entered to win a $5 GC to the Studio Calico Shop.

Layout of the Week

Say Cheese, the layout of the week, is brought to you by Valerie, member name voneall. We love how the random punched circles come together to draw your eye to the sweet photo, but also the effect of different colors of mist + enamel dots scattered about! If you would like to see more of her work, you can stop by her gallery here at Studio Calico or her blog.

Each week, the layout in the gallery is linked, so you can add it to your favorites easily. This layout has been added to your favorites more than any other layout in the SC community gallery for the week of 5/19-5/25.

Congratulations Valerie!! Because your work has caught our member's eyes you have won a $10 gift card to be used on any new purchase at Studio Calico.  Want a chance to win next week? Be sure to upload your projects to the SC gallery, and support your community by adding special projects that catch your eye into your favorites! It could be YOU next week!

Atlantic

Here's a peek at what our team has been making with our Atlantic Collection. We've linked you up to each project in our gallery - click through to learn more about each project or to add them to your favorites. 

Deb Duty - This Moment : 

Ashley Cannon-Newell - Dreaming of the DR mini : 

Natalia Bun - Right Here : 

Happy Little Moments | registration ends 5.31

We are putting the finishing touches on the class content for More Happy Little Moments and we cannot wait to share it with all of you!! Registration for this class ends on 5.31 and class begins 6.1 - if you've been waiting to sign up, you're running out of time!

Maggie Holmes and Marcy Penner have dreamed up all sorts of fun techniques to make your altered book amazing - even if you took Happy Little Moments last year, you'll still come away from this class with a ton of new ideas. Here's a little peek at what they've dreamed up.

Maggie is using her bright & girly class kit to create a romantic altered book - full of dimension and beautiful details.

Marcy's class kit is bold and playful, and she's used it to pull together a light and airy book with all of her signature touches - and a few surprises.

Contributor Lisa Truesdell has pulled ideas from both Marcy and Maggie's albums and will be sharing how to translate them into a Handbook format. She's using both class kits to build an eclectic album that will show you just how much fun pocket pages can be.

To learn more about this class or to register, go to the More Happy Little Moments registration page. We hope to see you in class!

winners

We have a new set of challenge winners - CONGRATS to all of you!! If your name is on this list, you'll be getting an email from us with info about your prize. Thank you again to all who take part in our challenges!

Camp Calico

Earlier this month, members of the Studio Calico Creative Team and staff converged on a log cabin perched in the rolling green hills of Tennessee for Camp Calico. 

We drove from Kentucky and Alabama, boarded flights from France to Arizona, California to Germany. All to reconnect with friends or finally meet in person, share our love for paper crafting and Studio Calico. What I don't think any of us expected was the level of positive, effortless connection and nonstop laughter we would experience.

Campers trickled in on Day One like an episode of the Real World, meeting new roommates and checking out the hot tubs. This cabin was something else, decorated with cute banners and signs from Minted, gorgeous mountain views, a video game arcade, movie theater and indoor pool. We hung out in our pjs and slept four to a room in queen-sized bunk beds.

We were greeted with a welcome box filled with goodies: A detailed itinerary, Studio Calico t-shirt with a cool vintage camera design by Matt, a colorful tin of washi tape from Wishy Washi, treats to eat from Kentucky, and a kit custom-designed for Camp Calico by the SC designers. Included in the kit was a woodgrain Handbook, themed journaling cards, stamps, badges, acrylic shapes and wood veneers. Think nature, mountains, and Smokey The Bear. We all went crazy over it!

The week was really laid back. A majority of our time was spent talking, eating and crafting. Tables were set up with sewing machines, Cameos, tags, twine and stamping ink. American Crafts provided tools, pens, and adhesive. We had a ball discussing techniques, products and our different styles. We watched Suzy Plantamura and Steph Washburn work their magic with Copic markers. April and Amy Tan worked on their June Kit layouts. We all drooled over Kinsey Wilson's Project Life album and her insanely detailed notebook of ideas. Shanna Noel rocked the digital Camp designs.

Spa Day. On our first full day, a team of masseurs came to the cabin for massages and facials. Such a relaxing treat! There was also a self-serve nail bar and foot spa all set up to take advantage of.

Zip Lining. A big group went on a zip-lining adventure while others relaxed at the house. There were a few nervous campers going in, but they all had a blast zipping through the trees—some runs were up to 500 feet. There were wild turkey sightings too!

Gifts! Before the trip, the thoughtful Robyn Werlich proposed a gift exchange where we'd all bring something in the $20 range and draw names. It was so interesting to see how similarly our minds work. There were a lot of cute journals, unique crafting supplies and anything with anchors. Dana Fleckenstein handmade a stunning journal with patterned paper that Steph received. We may need a tutorial on that one. 

The gifts didn't end there! Each night, we found presents from Studio Calico in our rooms. A canvas tote with an embroidered SC logo filled with My Mind's Eye paper pack, a handmade camera-strap cover in a chevron design from Bluebird Chic and a beautiful custom heart necklace designed by Lisa Leonard Designs. We were so spoiled.

Ticket to ride. On Friday, a group went up into the Smoky Mountains on an aerial tramway and then rode a scenic chairlift and alpine slide. The views are outstanding! However, the highlight of this outing was the drive home. We found ourselves in traffic parallel to Dolly Parton's annual Dollywood parade. Best traffic jam ever. Hilarious. 

Photos. You get a group of memory keepers together, there will be a zillion photos. There was a lot of posing, a lot of Instagramming. We even made a somewhat scary side-of-the-road stop for Maggie Holmes to take some shots against a random old house. When I say random, there was a donkey and Amanda Caves got chased by a backwoods dog.


Last day. The crew ventured into Gatlinburg for lunch and outlet shopping, capped off with a round of mini golf at Hillbilly Golf. Yeehaw!

Eating. Oh yes, there was eating. April and Greg invited their talented family friend, Emily, to cater our trip. This is living folks. Every meal was carefully planned with a variety of delicious options. Every fridge was stocked with anything you'd want, fruit and snacks out at all times. She even updated a chalkboard of the menus daily. Meals included spasangne (a DIY spaghetti/lasagne), Hamburger Night, quiche breakfast. But wait—here's the thing about Emily. She makes THE most amazing cookies. There were cookies baking almost nonstop and we ate every. single. one. The final night she introduced brookies into the mix. A cookie/brownie combo. Wow! (She's starting a mail order business. Check it out here - The Cookie Farm.)

The last night ended with everyone getting dressed up for a celebratory dinner and awards ceremony. The awards were silly highlights from the trip. For example, Celine Navarro won for The Most Outfits Worn In One Day for her constant wardrobe changes. That girl is not messing around.


Saying goodbye was so bittersweet. We all flew home to our families with such memories–and you know how we love our memories here. We hope that everyone who vicariously went on this journey with us shared a few smiles and got to know the team a little bit better.

A special thank you from the team to April and Greg for arranging such a special trip and to the Studio Calico staff for ironing out every last detail to perfection.

-Catherine Davis

weekly challenge | Gayatri Murali & Gillian Nelson

This week, Gayatri and Gillian are teaming up to challenge you to break out your watercolors and use them in your paper crafting!

From Gillian Nelson : While I've always considered myself a "crafty" person, I am not confident whatsoever with the "artsy" stuff.  Drawing, painting...stuff like that.  I'm so much more comfortable with paper and scissors than I am with paper and paintbrushes.  But I looooove the look of watercolors and how it's been making such a beautiful splash in the world of scrapbooking.  I wanted to experiment with using water colors on a layout, but I wasn't willing to ruin an entire sheet of paper by painting directly on the background.  The compromise I came up with was to paint smaller portions of paper that I would then add to my layout afterwards.  I started by cutting watercolor paper into strips that were 1.75 inches wide, and then hand cut triangles from the strips.  I painted each individual triangle with a wash of color (most of them pink, with a few yellow triangles thrown in for visual interest).  Once the paint dried, I outlined each triangle with a thin black line and also inked the edges.  Then I adhered the triangles onto another block of watercolor paper, so that the painted color could really pop against more white.  I used adhesive foam under the yellow triangles for more...say it with me...visual interest.

Then I layered the remaining patterned papers, found places to live for the assorted embellishments, and stuck the photo up there at the top.  Done!  

(Supplies -- patterned papers, acetate diecuts: Roundabout Scrapbook Kit; gold washi tape, "enjoy" banner sticker, gold triangle sequins: Coconut Grove Add-On Kit; letter stickers: Outer Banks Add-On Kit; Studio Calico Hello Today Banner; pen: Precision Pen 0.3-Black; ink: StazOn Ink Pad-Jet Black; foam adhesive: This to That Foam Tab Squares; glue: Martha Stewart Glue Pen; other: sequins, staples)

The watercolors were truly a lot of fun, and while I'm not brave enough yet to paint myself a background like some of the gals on our SC team are so adept at doing, I'm really happy with how my watercolor baby steps turned out.  :)

From Gayatri :  Watercolour background is currently trendy. I love the soft blend of colour using the water colours. They make great background and easy to stamp on it. For my project which is a card, I have decided to use this technique both in the background as free flowing colours as well as in a defined space. 

I have used two water colour techniques on this card. For the background, I have used dry on wet technique. I diluted few drops of each of the neon Mr. Huey on an acrylic block and brushed each colour from the top of the card front using a rounded brush. I let it dry. Then I brushed some water on the pink layer and added few drops of pink neon Mr. Huey and let the colour spread and dry on its own.Then I did the same with the yellow followed by the orange. You can see how the colours have blended and beautifully flowed as well. This adds layer of colours.

While the card front is drying, I masked and stamped the balloons from Coconut Grove June Add-On Card Kit stamp set. There is well defined space in each of the balloons to paint the colours. For this I used wet on wet technique here. For each of the balloon, I first wet the area and while still wet, I added colours from one end to give the gradation of colours. I let it dry on its own. This give beautiful shading to the balloons.

While the balloons are drying, I stamped the large sentiment also from the Coconut Grove June Add-on Card kit stamp set on the bottom of the card front. I then cut of the balloons and adhere them to the card front using foam adhesive. 

The neon colours are intense and bright which is perfect for birthday celebrations.

(Supplies: Mister Huey's Neon My Little Pony, Trapper Keeper & Windbreak, Seafoam and Ocean; Coconut Grove June Add-on Card Kit; Archival Jet Black Ink and Stampers Select White from Papertrey Ink; watercolour brush)

We can't wait to see you give watercolors a try!! Make a project for this challenge, then share it in the Studio Calico gallery. Leave us a link to your project by June 3rd in the comments here to be entered to win a $5 GC to the Studio Calico Shop.

Bright Idea | Scissors die cut file

While working with the Roundabout kits, Catherine Davis created this cute scissors diecut as an accent for one of her pages. This adorable design is perfect for documenting your love of papercrafting, and she's letting us offer it to you here as a freebie. Click here to download this file in .png, .svg and .studio format.

Link us up if you use it, we'd love to see what you make!!

tips and tricks with wilna

In this month's tips and tricks, Wilna will show you how to use a mask and wet medium to create this resist technique. If you have any questions, leave a comment and Wilna will answer it in the comments.

 

Roundabout | June Reveal

It's reveal day at Studio Calico! Our Roundabout kits and add-ons will be available for purchase at noon EST for subscribers, and at midnight EST tonight for everyone. At those times, you'll be able to see the ROUNDABOUT Scrapbook, Card and Project Life kits at this link. 

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We are excited to be featuring the work of Stephanie Bryan as our guest this month - you'll find her work in the Roundabout Scrapbook and Project Life galleries when they go live at noon EST today!

Stretch your kits a little further with awesome die-cut shapes, printables, templates and stamp brushes designed to match our Roundabout Kits. They're available in the shop right now!

Registration for our MORE HAPPY LITTLE MOMENTS class with Maggie Holmes and Marcy Penner closes on 5.31, and class starts 6.1. We hope to see you in the classroom!