Studio Calico

Insider Tips

Hey everyone! Kinsey here with a few insider tips on using Studio Calico wooden veneers as stamps...I used this technique on one of my January (County Fair) kit layouts with the wood veneer alphabet that came in the main kit:

Here's what you'll need to recreate this effect...

I started out by measuring the height of the letters (just under 3/4 inch) and then made pencil marks on the edges of my cardstock. You could draw light lines if you'd prefer but they are kind of tough to erase after embossing so I opted to use a straight edge as a guide.

I arranged my alphas on my table to play around with the spacing and settled on 5 lines of text for the example card and drew my guide marks at 3/4 inch intervals down both the right and left sides of the card.

The stamping part is pretty straight forward- I just pressed the backside of each letter onto the versamark pad with my fingers and then stamped the letter onto my cardstock using my ruler/ pencil guidelines to keep things straight. If I'm trying to center things, I always start at the center point and work my way out- for this row, I started with the 'c'. In my layout (above) I right aligned the text so I worked from right to left. Also, I found that using a foam pad for a stamping surface helps a ton when stamping with veneers because the cushion allows for a better, more even impression.

After each row of letters, I used Zing embossing powder (and because I use my fingers to stamp, there were a few smudges of versamark around the letters so I just used a small dry paintbrush to dust the excess powder away) and then heat set- I'm always nervous that the versamark will dry up, ha!

For finishing touches on the card, I used my craft knife to cut out the 'i' and 'u' and then backed it with patterned paper...

Supplies used: county fair wood veneer alphabet, more kraft, classic calico woodgrain one, autumn press scarf, rouge zing, blush zing, versamark, craft knife.

Not only do I love how this technique looks, but I'm also pretty jazzed that I can still use the wood veneer letters on other projects...double duty yeah! 

Thanks so much for stopping by today and hanging out with me for bit!

More from Kristina

We've got more to share from our wonderful October guest designer Kristina Werner!  She put together this great video about our Field Guide kit that we wanted to post...

And check out her amazing cards with the new Studio Calico products...

Look at her showing off the pretty Mister Huey's Shine!  Love it.

Thanks for sharing your talents with us this month, Kristina!

Hello SC friends! Kelly here to share with you some insider tips on how I created the sun "rays" on my Pretty Great layout from the Glee Club gallery. When I saw that amazing blue SC paper from the main kit, I knew exactly how I wanted to use it. The blue in the paper matched the blues in this photo of my littlest and my Mom, so I was drawn to it right away. This story was such a happy one, I thought the sun was the perfect background for the page.

To make the center of the sun, I just punched a 3" circle with my circle punched and adhered it right to the center of the paper. I used an exacto knife to cut out the portions of the paper where I wanted the rays to be by following along the lines that were already there. Then, I pulled some of the yellow-ish papers from my kits (from Home Ec and Pep Squad) for the rays. I cut those into 1" strips and used my This to That roller to adhere them, yellow side showing through, to the back of my layout. Once I had the base of my layout finished, the rest came together super quick.

It's always amazing to me what you can do with just some strips of patterned paper. Gotta love this hobby! :)

Insider Tips

Hello Studio Calico friends! It's Lisa here today, and I've got some insider tips on misted backgrounds for you.
I love the look of masking + misting on my pages, but I'll be the first to admit that it takes a little planning to pull off. After all, you need to mist the background paper before you add anything - but you have to know where your major elements are going to be before you mist! To get around this catch 22, I start building my page on a plain background. I don't add all the embellishments and details, but I make sure I know where my photo, title, journaling and any large pieces of patterned paper will be. Once I've got everything planned, I add the masks to my design and draw in some light guidelines to represent the elements on my page - this makes putting it all back together much easier!
Next, I get ready to mist. I remove everything on the page that I don't want covered in mist and put my page into an old Studio Calico shipping box. For this page, I misted in two layers - first with Mister Huey's Clay, and then went back over it with Mister Huey's Shine. I knew I wanted a gradient affect around the butterflies, so I held the bottle closer than normal - about 4inches away - and then misted 2-3 times directly over each butterfly mask.
Once the mist is dry, it's time to start putting elements back onto the page. From there, I add in accents of patterned paper and embellishments - for this page, I also added some stamping with the new Studio Calico stamps made by Hero Arts.
(supply list : cardstock - Vanilla ; patterned paper - Memoir Love Bird, Autumn Press Die Cut Bracket Light Blue, Autumn Press Frolic ; stickers - Addy Alpha Green, Kraft Stars ; veneer - Astericks ; mist - Mister Huey's Clay and Classic Shine ; stamps - My Happy stamp set, My Best stamp set, banner stamp from Thespians add-on ; ink - Jenni Bowlin Studio Seedpacket & Weathervane ; other - border stickers & little letter stickers from Glee Club, Tiny Attacher, circle punch, button, gems)

Misting the background of a page may take extra planning, but I love the finished look. I hope you'll give it a try on your layouts!

Insider Tips

Hey everyone...Nik here with a quick tip from my Glee Club gallery!

I loved so many of the papers in this month's kit, but was a bit intimidated on how to make them work together. I decided to employ the help of my Slice to make the bold prints a bit more manageable. I used the Basic Elements cartridge that came with my Slice, and simply cut various sizes of squares/frames...
**bonus perk?? You're left with lots of cool squares after you cut out the frames! If you don't have a Slice/die cutting machine, you could always use various sizes of punches to create the same effect.
After I cut the pieces I needed, I started laying them down onto my cardstock...mixing and switching them around until I liked how they looked together. Then I grabbed my phone and snapped a pic. This is an EASY way to remember how things belong on your page before you glue them down.
Next, I started gluing the squares down...using the pic from my phone as a guide.

Then, I sewed each frame down.

All that was left after that was to add the photos, journaling and title...super easy!!

Supplies: JBS Cough Syrup Paint, JBS Lemon Drop Paint, Calico White Mister Huey, Glee Club Main Kit, Debate Team add-on, Pep Squad add-on, Good Times Sticker Book

The next  time you find yourself caught a bit off guard by a bolder pattern, grab your punches or die cutting machine and go to town!!

Insider Tips

I've been playing with my Big Shot a lot lately. It's been over two years that I brought it straight from Singapore and I just can't live without it now!

What I love the best are those Big dies that cut through anything and as I recently got to put my hands on some great dies (leaves, flowers, labels...), I thought I would try with the Fabrips and guess what? It works amazingly well! The difference between using Fabrips and regular fabric pieces is that Fabrips are sticky : when you cut them with your scissors or cutting machine, you won't have any thread coming out from an end or the other!




On this layout, I simply cut several Fabrips with different dies with my Big Shot machine, then used my sewing machine.

Supplies list : Countryside (County Line, Barn Swallow, Wildflower); Alphas (Addy Alpha Yellow, Addy Alpha Pink, Chipboard Alpha Stickers Tan); Fabrips (Pink Houndstooth, Green Woodgrain, Yellow); Notions (Countryside Pink, State Fair Yellow); Wood Veneer Buttons; Lbel Stickers State Fair; 6x6" yellow labels.

I peeled off the back of the two Fabrips labels and then sewed through them directly on the layout.

For the flower, I layered different Fabrips and for the leaves, I kept the paper on the back of each Fabrips leaf and sewed.

I love mixing paper and fabric but Fabrips makes life so much easier! They are thick sticky piece of fabric, really easy if you need to cut them or punch them!

Insider Tips

I love pink - especially when it comes to scrapbook products! However, as a mama of three boys, I find that I have to be a little more creative to find ways to work it into my projects. Here are a few of my favorite tips for sneaking pink onto boy pages : Supplies: patterned paper - Classic Calico Plane, Countryside County Line, State Fair Pie Contest; stickers - Addy Alpha Green, Countryside labels, kraft stars ; fabrips : Green Woodgrain, Pink Houndstooth, Yellow, Calico ; brads - Boardwalk kit ; other - Tiny Attacher, baker's twine, scallop punch

*Use it as an accent.  The pink I've used on this page is a nice soft contrast to the blue, green and yellows.
*Keep it geometric! Graphic designs, like this graph and houndstooth, have a decidedly less girly feel than swirls and flowers.
*Watch the color. Subtle pinks will mix better with more boy-ish colors than cotton candy and flourescent shades.
*Think about subject matter. A page about how sweet your boy is can handle more pink than a layout about their football team.

Another quick tip for you today - I used Fabrips to create a banner accent for this page. I simply trimmed them into strips, then folded them in half and cut them into banner shapes. I removed the backing and wrapped them around a piece of baker's twine before adding them to my layout. I love the texture and dimension the Fabrips add to the banner.

Insider Tips: Maggie

I've recently become obsessed with taking photos on my phone and there are a few things that have contributed to this:

 

1. The fact that I have a new baby and I am wanting to take photos of her every second.
2. The fact that I always have my phone with me so it always ready and accessible.
3. The fact that it makes my twitter and facebook posts so much more fun when there is a photo.
4. The fact that I can easily edit them and make them look super cool using Instagram.
5. And the fact that I am loving all of the fun moments I am capturing of my kids and us as a family that I wouldn't normally capture.

A while back I talked about how I loaded a bunch of my phone pictures into Iphoto on my computer and printed them here at home. I have scrapbooked a lot of them and still have more and I have been loving that they are right here and ready to go. Well, I just found an even easier way to print the pictures from my phone and that's what I wanted to share with you today! It's an app called postalpix! You don't have to load your photos onto your computer or anything. You just go into the app, select your pictures, complete your order and within a couple of days they are delivered in your mailbox!!! So fun right?
My favorite part is that they have prints that are 4"x4" which is the perfect size for printing all of your photos from instagram since they are already cropped to a square. The paper that they are printed on is a little different than what I am used to getting from Costco or Mpix, but considering the fact that most of the pictures I take are your typical "phone quality" photos (not perfect, a little blurry, etc), it works for me!

I love the fact that now I have all of these printed out and ready to scrapbook and I can keep sending in orders whenever I have a new batch of photos to print. In fact I am expecting another set of pictures tomorrow! So excited!
Try them out! If you love taking photos on your phone but don't ever get around to loading and printing them, this is perfect for you and I think you will love it as much as I do! You will be seeing lots of these prints on my scrapbook pages from now on. In fact I used them on all of my layouts for the August gallery!!
Thanks for checking out my "insider tip"! I hope you love it as much as I do!! Have a great day!

Insider Tips

Hi Everyone - It's Susan here today with a little more 'inside' information on a layout that I created for July's Mind The Gap gallery.  My "One" layout was created to show off my baby's first year of life - at a single glance, and on a single page.  And it was actually inspired by a page that I recently ripped from Parents magazine.
I loved how the design of this tearsheet showcased a variety of different photos at the top of the page with bold text directly under.  I translated the inspiration piece to what would become my "One" layout, by using my own resizing photo technique to print 96 different 1x1 inch photos in a 12 inch (wide) x 8 inch (tall) space.  I had a bunch of first year favorites already stashed in their own folder on my computer (which helped tremendously), so then I just started opening up images that I wanted to use - in chronological order, cropping each to 1x1 and pasting on a 12x12 blank document.  It helps to have the grid lines showing on your blank document in photoshop ('command + H' on my apple does this) - and then your little 1x1 images can be easily snapped into place and alignment.

Once my collage was finished, I had it printed as a 12x12 at Costco, then trimmed it down for the layout assembly.

I used my silhouette machine to die-cut my title, with the "O" also serving as a round frame for Noah's official one year old shot.  I had that photo printed as a larger square (again using the photo resizing tutorial) that I trimmed and adhered under the "O".

I added a simple border under my collage and label sticker at the bottom of the page and was finished! 
I'm thrilled with the fact that I can use this same process to recap so many other events and milestones for my family and kids.

Insider Tips

July’s main kit, Mind the Gap, comes with a main kit stamp that looks like an open circle border. I think this is my favorite Studio Calico stamp to date, probably because it reminds me of a quilt pattern.

Inspired by this stamp, I recreated this image with paper for one of my layouts, and for an insider tip today, wanted to share this easy process with a quick tutorial for you.

First, start by punching several circles out of double sided patterned paper. I used the Picnic pattern from the Countryside Collection.
After punching your circles, it’s just a matter of folding over a corner at an equal distance on both sides, and layering them together. Remember, the outside circle only needs to be folded once.

After you have created all of your shapes, adhere the back of them on your layout. In the past I have sewed these down, but it makes a fun alternative to the ruffle or floral border, so this time, I let the flaps flip up.

Layer a few rows together, and you can come up with a fun design, this one in honor of Independence Day in the US. I’m out of veneer stars, so went with white cardstock and a Fiskars punch. Kraft cardstock is a standard base, trimmed for a card size of 4.25 x 5.5”. Wouldn’t it be great if I had kraft colored star stickers to use for this card? Maybe I could Huey them. Maybe not?

I hope you’ll give this quick and easy technique a try!