Studio Calico

My Favorite Kit

When I was asked to do this blog post about my favorite SC kit I have to say.... I was not excited.  I joined SC soon after they debuted their very first kit and I just went back to count how many amazing SC kits I've received since then... FIFTY!  Yes, 50!  Yikes!  So picking my one favorite kit out of 50 is like picking my favorite child.  It all varies on the day, mood, circumstances, etc.  ;) 

I went back through my pages and tried to pick out what my favorite kit is TODAY...because really... I love them all for different reasons!  I chose Baker's Dozen today. 

The browns in the kit mixed with the brighter orange, yellow, and green...it's such a lovely color palette.  Plus the Petit Fours add-on with the vintage doilies?  Swoon! And my favorite layout from my gallery that month was this one. 

I decided to use the doily as an umbrella and then just used pops of yellow to play off the photos.  I still love that background paper and wish I had more. It was the perfect pattern while still being neutral. 
 
So, which is YOUR favorite kit today? You'll likely make me change my mind!  :)

Sunday Sketch

Hello all!  Nicole S. here with you Sunday Sketch!  This week's sketch is based on this lovely page by Stephanie Howell.

 

Look at those sweet baby faces!  swoon!  I was instantly inpsired by Steph's use of the circles on her page.  Love how she used little bits and pieces to make each circle a little different.  I stuck with the circle theme on my page, but used them more for a background for my photo.  I tried to layer a few different elements on my circles as Steph did...although mine aren't as interesting as hers!  Supplies:  Autumn Press Rose Bud, Scarf, Fall Fashion, and Frolic patterned papers; Autumn Press Bookplate Stickers; Autumn Press Label Stickers; Autumn Press Alphabet Stickers; Mister Huey's Cameo; Smash Date Stamp; adhesive foam squares
 
Take some inspiration from the sketch and play along by uploading your layout to the gallery and linking us up in this post.  You have until Monday, August 22 to enter for a chance to win!

Challenge

I'm sure by now you've all heard of Pinterest and that Studio Calico now has a Pinterest account with boards for all sorts of inspiration from the DT and members alike.  Well, this week's challenge is to use the image below (taken from the member inspiration board) as a starting point for your layout.  I find myself pinning all sorts of things, but want to challenge myself to actually USE these ideas instead of just collecting them. ;)
Here's the inspiration piece....

I was drawn to this piece for a few reasons.  First, I loved the color combo and thought it was very eye catching.  Second, the white pattern in each peacock feather is just so cool!  And third, the design with the feathers sort of floating up towards the corner of the page totally clicked in my head as a layout design.  So....here's what I came ups with... Supplies:  patterned paper:  County Line, Countryside; stamps: Time Flies and other SC stamps; Mister Huey's: Lemonade, Orchard, and Bonny Blue; ink: Versamark; embossing powder: Opaque White Zing!; adhesive: foam squares; other: Zap Heat Tool
 
I incorporated the white design on a colored background idea with some SC background stamps, White Zing!, and Mister Huey's.  Just stamp and emboss with the Zing!.  Then, mist over your stamped images and use a paper towel to dab off the excess.  The Zing! will resist the mist and you'll be left with a white design.  I also used the same basic design as the inspiration piece and I love how it turned out.  
 
Whether you're inspired by the colors, the design, the topic (peacock pictures anyone?!), or the technique...come up with a layout and share it with us on this post by Monday, June 13.  A winner will be chosen and will have $5 to spend in the SC shop!  Happy Scrapping!

I wanted to share with you a quick little technique that can bring a lot of pizazz to your design.  It's really quite simple, and not at all earth shattering...but sometimes those little ideas can still be fun to try out.  At least I hope you think so!  ;)  I'm calling this the Paper Strips Tutorial for lack of a better name and that pretty much sums it up all.  Cutting thin strips of patterned paper and using them to form shapes, letters, etc.  Here's how to get started. 
 
1.  Gather several (I like to have at least 4) different patterned papers that coordinate together.  I think smaller scale patterns work well here so you can get a good display of the different colors even on a small strip.

2.  Use your trimmer to cut long, thin strips from the papers.  I cut mine about 1/4 of an inch wide.  
3.  Decide on the type of shape or design that you want to create with your strips.  You can fill in the negative of a shape with the strips, cover the positive shape with the strips, or even create a free hand design for a background.  Lots of possibilities!  

4.  Start gluing down your strips of paper!  I like to do mine in a repeated pattern, but you could glue them down in a random order as well.  I think it goes really fast to apply some wet adhesive all over the shape you are covering, then place your strips down, then snip off the edges of the strips that hang over your shape.  And that's it!  So easy.  
 
Here are some ways I've used this technique in the past month....

• To fill in letter/number outlines. 

Supplies:  patterned paper: State Fair Cream Ledger Die Cut, State Fair Guess Your Weight, State Fair Cotton Candy, State Fair Side Show, State Fair Step Right Up ; rub-ons:  Weekdays Blue , Tweets Pink Ledger ; stickers: State Fair Label Stickers , October Afternoon; banner:  Maya Road
 
I created the number outlines in Word, printed them out, cut them out, and finally traced them in pencil onto the canvas banners.  I decided I wanted some sort of outline to the numbers to make them pop more, so I used some Zip Dry glue along the pencil line and just ran some floss along the glue line.  You could hand stitch it, but this was much faster!  I really liked how this worked with this page.  It's a great way to use patterned papers that have a color scheme you want, but patterns that maybe don't really fit with your subject.  Once you cut them down to strips, the patterns don't matter as much...you just get a sense of the colors.    

• To cover a shape.

Supplies: Clear Skies kit, vellum, DMC floss
 
For this one, I cut a heart shape out of vellum and then covered the vellum with the paper strips.  You could also fill in the negative of a punch or die cut shape.

• To make a grouping of shapes.

Supplies:  Pink Lemonade kit, vellum, DMC floss
 
To make the "flowers", I covered a larger section of vellum with my paper strips.  Then I just punched the circles using two different sized circle punches.  It was very fast! 
 
So go ahead and give this easy little technique a try.  Be careful though... it's a little addicting!

nicole samuels

Name:  Nicole Samuels
City, State:  Williamsburg, Virginia
Blog: http://nicolesamuels.wordpress.com

How long have you been a DT member? I started in September 2007, so about 3.5 years.  I feel so incredibly fortunate to be part of this amazing company! 

Favorite SC product?  That's a hard one.  I think I'd have to say my favorite right now are the Mister Huey's mists.  The new colors had me at hello. ;) 

 

Any rituals when your kits arrive?  These photos sort of sum it up!  I try to keep the little ones from damaging anything!  My daughter loves opening up each bag and pulling out the items with commentary like, "oohhhhh!" or "I love this one!" 

All time favorite SC kit?  I think it's a tie between Cotillion and Garment District.

Three products you can't live without:  Patterned paper (can't do a layout without it!), buttons and/or pretty brads, and lately...twine!

Three people you get scrappy inspiration from (include links to blogs if possible):  I can honestly say I get inspiration from all my fellow DT'ers.  Each gallery reveal, I see things that make me gasp or just say, "WOW."  Three of my scrap crushes beyond the SC team would be Kelly Goree, Keisha Campbell, and Robyn Werlich. Their creativity just makes me want to scrap!

Three goals you have:  1.  To raise kind, compassionate, confident children.  2.  To be grateful and joyful in all things.  (These are GOALS, mind you.  Not things I've accomplished yet!)  3.  To someday translate my love of photography into a job.

Three of my favorite photos : 
I am a fickle photographer!  My favorites are often my most recent snapshots.  Maybe that's why I can't ever decide which to make into permanent wall decor!  Here are my current faves...

I love this one because all the laughter is real and I can still hear their giggles.  I was trying to get a nice shot of all 4 of them and no one was cooperating at the same time (sound familiar?), when all of a sudden the baby (ahem) "tooted" very loudly and the big kids all just erupted with giggles.  I happened to snap at just the right moment.  And I love it.

I love this shot because of the pudgy baby legs.  sigh.  I know they won't last much longer and I'll miss those rolls soon enough!

My big girl.  I love the sparkle in her eyes here.

Here's a peek into my scrap space :

Insider Tips: Nic

Hey all!  Nicole S. here with today's insider tip about misting.  My love for Mister Huey's mists has been sparked recently first by the amazing new colors that were just released... LOVE!...and second by the lightbulb moment I had about masking.  I realized I don't enjoy just haphazardly misting on my layout.  It freaks me out a bit with the randomness of it.  :)  But once I realized I can MASK off shapes and/or mist objects that are cut out and then apply them to my page... well, now I'm a mist convert!  For this page I wanted to create a circle of Lemonade mist to contain a bunch of embellishments and my title.  I could have just sprayed a piece of cardstock, then cut out a circle and adhered it to my page.  But I wanted it to be on the background page itself.  So I just traced a circle in the middle part of a scrap sheet of cardstock and cut it out. 
Then I positioned the mask on my background paper where I wanted it and sprayed away.  (I had to use some other scraps to completely cover the background edges too.)  Here's what it looked like afterwards.

Then I started designing my page and embellishing my Lemonade circle.  I used lots of bit and pieces from Into the Woods and Sunny Clearing, some older SC stamps, and Zing embossing powders.


Supplies:  Into the Woods and Sunny Clearing kits;  Mister Huey's Lemonade mist;  embossing powders:  Zing Opaque Rouge and Zing Opaque Blush; Zap Heat Tool; adhesive foam tab squares
 
Don't be afraid to try masks of all different shapes and sizes...the positive and negative parts of die cuts too.  So many fun options when it comes to masking and misting! Have fun!

Nicole's Challenge

Happy Monday!  It's Nicole S. here with the weekly challenge for you!  Take a look and listen...

Okay, so the challenge is to USE YOUR WORDS!  Grab some larger alpha stickers or rubons or chipboard and use them as a central design element on your page.  Make a super long, big title...journal in a larger than normal font...make a background of all words.  Whatever you do, USE YOUR WORDS!  And use them BIG!  Here's another look at my page.
Supplies:  Candy Shoppe kit, patterned paper:  Countryside Wildflower; Mister Huey's Classic White, rub-ons:  Alpha Red, Alpha Blue:  adhesive: foam tab squares
 
If you'd like to play along, just leave a comment on this blog post with a link to your page by next Monday, February 28.  You'll have a shot at winning a $5 Studio Calico gift certificate to use in the shop!  Can't wait to see your creations!

Sunday Sketch

Happy Sunday all!  It's Nic here...not to be confused with Nik.  You see today Nik is the sketcher and I'm the sketchee?  Well, not exactly...but you get my point!  Today's sketch is based on this fabulous layout by Nicole Harper. 

There's several things I loved about this as soon as I saw it.  First, she used that awesome book shelf stamp which is so cool!  Second, her design here is unique and eye catching.  Look at those tiny clusters of photos and embellies!  Third, her title work with the hand cut portion made me want to try it for myself.  And fourth, the topic...such a cool idea and a way to get yourself in your scrapbooks!
 
Here's my take on Nicole's inspiring page. 

I knew I wanted to do a summary type page with lots of photos (like Nik's) but I wanted my pictures to be bigger.  So I printed them at 2x3 and then put them in a block pattern so they'd all fit.  I kept Nik's title placement and of course had to copy her hand cut title work.  (Although I cheated a bit and used my Slice!)  Instead of a stamp near the title I used a rub on.  And instead of the flower embellishments, I used some Mickey goodies!
Supplies:  patterned paper- Window Seat, F/Stop; Letter stickers- Anthology;  fabRips- Documentary;  rub ons- Typeset Red

Add a link to your project by 1/24/11 for a chance to win one of 2 $5 gift cards! Good luck!

Insider Tips: Nicole Samuels

Do you ever have an idea in your head that you can't wait to try out?  You think about it, plan it out, sketch it, etc.  And then when you go to actually create it on paper....it doesn't go as planned?  Happens to me a lot.  And while sometimes it's disappointing, more often than not I like the end result better than the initial brainstorm.  Strange how that works, but often trying something new will lead to a new brainstorm of ideas to fix anything that didn't work as planned.  Am I making any sense at all?!  It IS almost Christmas and my mind is flying around on a million different tangents right now! 

Anyways, I had originally planned to mask off a bunch of hearts on this layout, then spray them with Mister Huey's to create a heart design background to the page.  Well, when I did that, the white hearts that were masked off and the red sprayed background were just...well...blah to me when all finished.  Not at all like I had envisioned.  So, I went a different direction.  Still wanted to use Schoolhouse Mister Huey, but wanted the hearts to be more exciting somehow.  ;)  I decided to use my Slice to cut out some scalloped edged hearts in white cardstock.  Then I used the polka dot SC stamp and some white embossing powder to create a white on white polka dot pattern.  I tried to take a photo of this to show you...but it just wasn't working with the white on white.  Next I just sprayed Schoolhouse Mister Huey's on the inside heart (left the scalloped edge white) until I got the shade of red I wanted.  The heat embossed polka dots resist the ink, so I ended up with exactly what I had in my head this time!  White polkas on a red background to match the Minnie Mouse in the photo!  Yay! 

Supplies:  Lithograph -Anthology, rub-ons -Buttons, grey; Mister Huey's Schoolhouse; Fabrips - Documentary; stamp set - Time Flies; ink - Stazon, black; other: cardstock, Slice die cutting machine white embossing powder, buttons, ribbon.

I finished off the page by stamping with the journaling stamp from the Time Flies stamp set, using my Slice to cut the "love" title out of Lithograph, and creating a little mouse ears with a button rub-on and real buttons.  Here's to ideas gone wrong!  You never know where they may lead you!  Merry Christmas!

Sunday Sketch

We've got a new Sunday Sketch for you to tackle!

It's based on Nicole's beautiful Metropolitan layout...

I love Nicole's page... a simple but fabulous design! I was inspired by the way she kept her background neutral and added splashes of color with the snowflakes. For my layout, I followed the sketch closely but used circles instead.

Supplies: Metropolitan kit; Flowers - Notions; Wood Veneer - Frames; Mister Huey's: School House, Lunchtray; Ink - Jenni Bowlin Lemon Drop

Include your link to this thread by Saturday for a chance to win one of two $5 Studio Calico gift cards.  Good luck!