Studio Calico Penny Arcade the full reveal

What a big day, Studio Calico Penny Arcade Reveal Day and my daughter's last day of school!  More on the last part another time but for right now I'm here to show my full spreads for this months amazing kits.

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My first spread using just the main Penny Arcade Project Life® kit only.

This weeks spread had so much to include that it was hard for me to decide what to use and make room for and what to exclude.  I decided to make an insert for an outing we had with friends so I could include more on the spread which you will see below. I loved that I'm Not Going to Freak Out card and had to use it for the day that Simone got her ears pierced, and the digital sentiment from the Churro stamp addon was perfect. 

We went to the drive in with some friends, something I hadn't done it too many years to put down in writing and that Good Times card was just perfect. I also loved the brick wall card and used it for a snap of a new coffee place that opened in town. I used a few of the wood banners on this side, one under the printable that I altered and one with the perfectly sized alpha on top.  Marcy's printables got a really great work out this month. That digital clock tag was the perfect way to showcase my wasted day on jury duty and her summer bucket list card came in handy too. I just cut it into a circle, applied it on top of one of her circle labels and did a print and cut on my Silhouette.

When I was trying to come up with an idea for my title card I kept coming back to this photo I took as we entered the drive in, I loved the vintage flair of the lighted signs so much and it really worked so well with that Good Times card. I started thinking about movie posters and the next thing you know this happened.  I did a quick Google search on how to create a movie poster and there are several cool sites out there that do it for you. I of course wanted to make it my own so I dug a bit deeper and found a font that will make the credits for you, you can find it here.  I LOVE how this turned out, like a lot. I want to frame it, its such an awesome reminder of a great week and the great friends we got to share it with. They are troopers for putting up with all my photo taking and for that they deserve major awards.

On to the insert I made for the week. This stamp in the Funnel Cake addon had me jumping for joy when I first saw the image and then absolutely giddy when I saw it in person in my box. It was the first thing I opened and its perfect.  I really wanted to do something dramatic and had planned on placing this on a full 12x12 layout as an insert but my photos just wouldn't cooperate so it became this, and its better than what I had initially planned.  I opened the digital stamp and just erased the rest of the states so that only the California remained.  I opened it up in my Silhouette and traced it and cut it out.  I placed it on top of a plastic sheet that I had and cut apart that there's no place like home card and placed it down. 

Within Photoshop Elements I reversed the image of the stamp, filled it so it was solid black and then clipped my three photos from the evening to it using a clipping mask.  I couldn't print the whole thing because I don't have a large scale printer but I just cropped the first photo and saved the two pieces separately as .png files. I opened them in my Silhouette and did a print and cut of them onto photo paper so they would be cut exactly perfect around the edges.  I adhered them to the backside of the plastic sheet right on top on the reverse image of the map. I then created journaling blocks in a sort of similar font and cut them so that they would lay right on top of the cuts from the front. After I had it all laid out I decided to cut along the edge because the excess plastic was bugging me a little because it had nothing on it.  I really hope you all try this with the state you live it because it really is amazing cut out super sized.

My next spread was made using the main Penny Arcade Project Life® kit and the Bottle Toss and High Striker addons.

There are so many amazing cards in the two addons, I will be making layouts for days with these kits. The themes are amazing and so versatile. I picked out the ones that worked the best with my photos like that The Weird and Wonderful card, perfect for an amazing snap my husband took of this super cool giant red dragonfly that loves to hang out by our tomato plants. The little tag embellishments in the High Striker addon are always a favorite when they come in the kits. Its so fun to add little sentiments this way instead of always typing it on the photos. That photo card was perfect paired with my 'Instaversary' and I loved the little acrylic pieces in the main kit and they worked great on this spread.

This side is super photo heavy which is always good and I loved playing with the silver tags and the silver puffy stars that came in the Bottle Toss addon. I also used a ton of the printables Geralyn made this month, they just worked so well with my fair and BBQ photos.  Plus can we talk about the amazing silver puffy stars and the silver edge tags in Bottle Toss, love them.

For my title card I really loved the stamps that Shanna made for the Bottle Toss addon and when I sat there looking at them an idea popped into my head to make a spinner card using the digital files to help guide my cut file design. After a little trial and error within Photoshop Elements and my Silhouette software I got the design just right and was able to print and cut my design perfectly.

 Here is that video I shared in my sneak post the other day in case you haven't seen it in action.

If you are interested in making your own spinner card this month, you can download the .pdf version of the template here and the .studio version to cut with your Silhouette Cameo here.  Pair it with the digital stamps and your own text to make something unique to you and your needs.

I want to also call out to you a few things to look out for when you are checking out the kits this month, in particular this 4th of July card set, I have them in hand and they are amazing. The veneer flag is so, so cool! I cannot wait to put them to use in a few weeks in my Project Life® spread for that week.

Which will pair perfectly with the Funnel Cake Stamp and Die set

This Awesome stamp and die set by Marcy is, in a word awesome! I have it and love it.

And I will be grabbing this Maggie alpha stamp and coordinating Charlotte number stamps too. What a great font and I bet they will be amazing layered on top of each other.

Don't forget to check out the Creative Team Gallery, the work this month was spectacular!

I hope you love what you have seen and I'll be back soon to share some other stuff I have made in the past two weeks.