Studio Calico The Underground the full reveal

October is always a favorite month for me seasonally, there is always so much to look forward to this time of year; the temps get cooler, the food gets tastier, the drinks get pumpkin-ier (totally just made that up but you get the idea). Fall rocks!  And the Studio Calico The Underground kits totally rocked too! There was something I absolutely loved in each of them and I can't wait to show you what I made and since I made four things bear with me, this post will be a bit photo heavy.

Note: just a reminder that all the links I'm sharing below will be live right now 9:00am PST for subscribers and then at 9:00pm PST for non subscribers.

The first Project Life® spread I made was using just the main kit only plus a few digital items too. I totally picked out all of my favorite fall themed cards and a few others that helped tell my store. My favorite thing in the main kit was the masking tape, I LOVED it! I loved that it was a masking tape and not a more sheer washi tape like we have seen before. The sentiments were spot on and they did a great job with this. I also really, really loved that sweater weather card.

Here is a closer look at the left side of the spread. The Scarf stamp set that Tina designed is SO cute! I used the digital version of the stamps here to create the card to pair with my photo of my daughter looking thru my December Daily and I adore this. I may just have to break down and buy the stamp version of this set too, its just too cute.

Paige did it again and designed the coolest Background Cut file set that I used for my title card. I took the 12 x 12 background file and shrank it down and adjusted it to fit on my 6 x 4 card and then printed it out in a light grey color. I pre-punched all the holes and then hand stitched each one. I adore how this came out and love how it fits with the fall theme.

Allison also designed a set of printables for the first time for the digital shop and I really loved what she did. Its a new look that we haven't seen before and that Pumpkin Everything was one of them. I paired it with a printable from Marcy's set and then laid it on top of a printable from Geralyn to create my own card. The trifecta of printables all rolled in to one card.

The second Project Life® spread was a lot of fun to create. I really, really loved the Cozy Card set that Tina designed and so many of them just spoke to me. I ended up taking my color cues from the cards and created a mostly black and white spread with just a few pops of color. I had a lot of fun playing with my photo edits to leave just a hint of color in some of my photos. I used one of the envelopes that came in the Baker Street addon to hold a few other photos as you will see below. I really loved the gold rubons from the Chelsea addon and squeezed as many as I could on to this spread. I used two of the black tags from the Baker Street addon on my envelope and my title card, the one on the title card was just flipped over so it was blank to hold my dates and a little gold star rubon. The one I used on the envelope was long enough that the sentiment was wrapped around the back and hidden allowing for some space to add the rubon.

I really love how simple the spread it but it still covers a lot of different things. I really loved the photo rubons from the Baker Street addon, I love the little pop of color and I love how they look on top of a photo too.

Here's a closer look at the envelope and the photos inside. 

The moon shot was pure luck, I was putting my daughter to bed and noticed it out the window, and grabbed my camera to snap a pic as soon as she went to bed. The cozy back card worked perfectly for pajama day and that today's events card was a fun way to journal instead of just writing it all out. I so love working with black and white spreads, its the second time I've done it and its always so much fun to do.

Our Fall Bucket list happened kind of on accident like I mentioned earlier this week. The template set that Shanna designed was so much fun to work with and it was a fun way to make our list look pretty. I just grouped our bucket list items into loose categories that sort of made sense and just started laying them out based on my space needs. I added in the digital stamp brushes; some from the Scrapbook set, the Project Life set and the Forest set to jazz it up a bit. The sentiments on the Project Life set worked so great with three of my categories and that stitching digital stamp is a dream. I love how realistic it looks with just a tiny bit of a drop shadow added.

I turned that tiny little tag on the bottom left into a pocket to hold a tag cut out from one of the cards in the main Project Life® kit just to add a little interactive flair. A simple brad dressed up the piece and it was done.  Super simple and it will look great tucked into my Project Life® album as an insert with the season is done.

I thought I was done creating my projects but at the very last minute decided that I really needed to do something with that super cute pumpkin card in the Project Life® main kit, so this layout was born. I completed this whole layout in 20 minutes and I think that's the fastest time ever for me. I used only the Project Life® main kit and the gold card from the Baker Street addon on this layout. I used the masking tape in the main kit was my starting point. I just laid out strips alternating the placement so it was staggered until it filled about 1/3 of my page and then just started layering the cards and my photo. Super quick, super easy and super fall like.

Here's a closer look at all the different layers, I'm a big fan of foam squares and love having things at different heights.

So besides that awesomeness that is coming to you if you are a Project Life® main kit subscriber, these are my top pics of what to look for at reveal;

1. Baker Street addon I mean the little flags, the rubons and the foil card, amazing
2. Chelsea Street addon, shout it with me GOLD RUBONS! And that mad lib card, totally hoarding it!
3. The scarf stamp set, based firmly on the adorableness factor alone
4. The Cozy Card set, it has to land in your cart, has too!
5. The Halloween Card Set, perfect for those spreads that are coming sooner than you can say Candy Corn.
6. and there is another Craft Die set that's super cute!!!!

I hope you all have a great reveal, remember to check out the Creative Team Gallery, its pretty amazing!

Five on Friday

Just wanted to pop in and share a few things as we end the week;

1. It was national pot pie day on Tuesday so I made one on Wednesday...I know a day late but it was the first National Day on our Bucket List and I didn't want to miss out. I blame our big late lunch on Tuesday for causing the delay but I had this recipe picked out and I really wanted to try it.  I'm so glad I did because it was amazing! I used carrots, mushrooms and green beans and tossed in some chopped cooked bacon. If you're a pot pie fan, make this one!
2. I'm officially addicted to Outlander, love the show and I'm reading the first book right now.  I wonder how much a ticket to Scotland costs....
3. A friend mentioned on Facebook the the other night that he set up a personal hotspot from his iPhone to his laptop and my mind was blown, I had no idea this was possible. A quick google search and I had the info. This will come in so handy when I'm in a hotel and don't want to pay for wifi in order to use my ipad.
4. My girl lost her 5th tooth on Wednesday with an awesome assist (yank) from Dad! Yay!
5. Trying to find the perfect thing to wear to Hello Kitty Con next month, I love this but I'm still looking for options but I know nothing will be as cute as Simone's dress, sold out in the US but you can see it there.

Okay well I'm off but I'll be back tomorrow for reveal day.

Studio Calico The Underground sneak peeks

I am so excited to share some sneak peeks of the projects I made with the Studio Calico The Underground Project Life® kits. These kits are full of fall goodness and despite the warm temps we are still having I managed to sneak in some early fall bits that could pair with some of my favorite cards.

The first spread I made was using the main Project Life® kit only. So many great cards to choose from and trust me there are plenty of non-fall options too. That Really? Really. card totally spoke to me as that's a phrase I say a lot.

I also LOVED this masking tape, they really did nail the sentiments on this. I hope this type of product shows up again!

I also made another Project Life® spread, this one is super monochromatic and I had fun playing around with my photo edits. The gold rubons in the Chelsea addon are amazing!

Here's another sneak of the other side of the spread, more gold and more black and white.

My next project is 99.9% digital and I used an amazing template as the base for our Autumn Bucket List. If you were here on Monday I shared a little sneak peek of this but as you can see here I changed it up just a bit since then. I can't wait to show this to my daughter, I think she will love it.

I thought I was done with these three projects but then on Tuesday morning inspiration struck. Perhaps because it was the first official day of fall or perhaps it was this amazing pumpkin card that I was so sad I didn't have a spot for. Either way, I made a layout. A layout that came together in 20 minuets, the fastest thing I think I have ever made and I adore it.  This photo was actually from last year but I always wanted to make a layout with it. It finally happened and I really hope you like it as much as I do.

Remember you can see the rest of the kits sneaks here and make sure you scroll down because the Exclusive Sneak item appears to still be available and if you love gold you will want this one for sure. I mean, hello...

You can also check out more sneaks from the team by following the #scsneaks hashtag on social media.

Have a great rest of the week, I'll try to pop back in before the full reveal on Saturday.

Autumn Bucket List

Tomorrow is the first official day of Autumn! I couldn't be more excited and ready for a change of seasons. Our temps here have been holding steady at hot but our mornings have been getting crisper and damper every day. We even had some much needed rain on Saturday night. This impending change has me excited for all the fall fun we will have in the next few months so I sat down on Sunday and worked on my bucket list. My daughter and I spent some time last week coming up with our list and I think we have a really good mix of activities to make the season fun.

I had planned on posting my full and completed list here for you to see today but I ended up using some of the October Studio Calico The Underground kit digital supplies for it. It's pretty much entirely digital and I adore how it came out. Here is a little sneak peek.

I have several fall ideas on my Fall Pinterest board including many examples of some other super cute Buckets Lists that I found so if you need some ideas before you see my full list, pop on over there.

I will be back on Wednesday with the rest of my Studio Calico The Underground kit sneaks so I'll see you then.

the planner craze

On and off over the years I've always had some sort of planner, mostly paper but lately more electronic in nature. I found that a paper planner kept me sane when I was working full time and going to school full time. I had deadlines and assignments to meet and a life to lead all at the same time. Fast forward thru the last few years where this stay at home wife and mother has managed okay using just her memory and iPhone calendar. Now that my daughter has gone back to school and is gone all day I've been craving a more structured day. I want to get more stuff done in the hours she is at school so I can be more available when she gets home.

When Studio Calico announced the Agenda class that I wrote about here, it really put my desire to be more efficient with my time in the forefront of my mind. While this class isn't about time management it is about using a planner to be more organized so it will still help me a lot.

I looked thru my old planners that I had saved and decided they just weren't going to fit my lifestyle these days. I spent some time online looking for the perfect one and by perfect I mean gold.  Enter this beauty from Kikki.k all the way from Australia along with the accessories shown here.

I haven't had a ton of time to really sit down and customize it but I have printed out a calendar and some inserts from Miss Tiina at her etsy shop, her 2014 planner inserts are on clearance so if you are starting now like me its a good option to play around with her printables for the rest of the year to see if they work for you.  So far they are working great for me.  I am also using a few planner sheets that I have purchased from Marcy Penner which are more specific to scrapbooking projects and blogging.

I decided the other day that I needed to add some sort of personalization to the front of my planner and went with a Project Life® style to jazz it up.  I used this page protector that I found at Staples awhile back, its not online anymore but you might find it in stores. It hangs over a bit on the right side but still clears the edge when closed so I'm okay with it. I just needed to punch new holes and it worked great.

I added some photos and lots of gold bits to personalize it up. The Let's Do This and the Gold Icon card were from the Studio Calico Pretty Little Paper Pad that was a sneak night exclusive this past March, the gold embellishments come from the Heidi Swapp for Project Life Foil Mini Kit and the two gold vellum papers that I used are from Studio Calico; the stars from Brighton Pier, the gold punchinella was from the Lemonlush line. 

I even did the back side just so I could add in some more photos. It was a lot of fun personalizing the planner and I really feel like its mine now and that makes me happy.

I will add that ever since I got my gold planner someone (Simone) was very jealous and said more than once that she wished she had one of her own just like mine. I told her I had an old planner that she could have and when I mentioned it was purple she was thrilled.  She has been carrying this thing around ever since I gave it to her and has even taken it to school with her. I guess I need to sign her up for the Studio Calico Agenda class too!

Take care and I'll see you soon,

playing catch up - the Project Life® edition

So it's been a hot minute since I've shared a Project Life® spread because well, I'm behind again. As much as I said I would never be behind again, I am.

I shared a bit about how I plan to tackle these weeks from August and early September on the Studio Calico Blog yesterday in a tutorial for how to get current. You can read the whole thing here, but here is the spread that I made for the tutorial.

You can see my full descriptions and how to's on the Studio Calico blog but I've got a lot of work to do this week so I'm off! The Studio Calico October kits are waiting for me to dig into.

Summer Bucket List - the recap

So now that Labor Day has come and gone it was time to tally up the results and see how Simone did on her Summer Bucket List this year. She (we) did a really good job on this years list as you can see below.

There were a few major ones that didn't get checked off like Go to Disneyland but I knew when it went on here that it wasn't going to happen this summer. And sadly we didn't sing with the windows down, I guess it was just too darn hot for the windows to be down. We celebrated all the big National Days that we listed except poor Banana Split Day, I blame Daddy being out of town on that one because it completely slipped my mind.

I was thinking that it would be super fun to make a Fall Bucket List this year and a few of these unfinished items can move over to that list, especially the Disneyland one, yay!

I'll be back soon to share that list because I'm still brainstorming and pinning away some ideas for it.

I'm so excited for fall though and it can't come soon enough for me, if only the weather temps would cooperate.

Agenda

Studio Calico has done it again, read everyone's mind and announced their newest class starting in October, Agenda. Have you seen what some people are doing with their planners? It's amazing! This class is the perfect thing for people that want to be organized on paper yet still add some creative flair to it. Who says a planner can't be pretty right! Not to mention that Marcy is the queen of all things related to organization so I am bound to learn a lot from her on how to keep myself on task while looking good doing it.

Here is what you will get with this class

BY ENROLLING IN THIS CLASS YOU'LL RECEIVE

• PDF lessons covering everything from setting up your planner to making it functional for you, all while adding your own style and flair to its pages.
• Three videos from Marcy Penner
• A peek into each of the contributor's planners, as well as insight into how they organize and decorate them.
• Digital files from Hello Forever designed for your planner (coming soon)

Class Syllabus

• Planner Set Up
• Inserts - Pockets, Bookmarks and Dividers
• Dashboards
• Bullet Journaling
• Ideas for using your planner to stay organized
• Decorating

What You Need

• Any style of planner or mini binder
• Your favorite calendar and notebook inserts

Their is an exclusive stamp set available although the initial supplies have sold out. A reorder has been done so if you want in on the super cute stamps make sure you sign up ASAP as I'm not sure that another order will be placed after this second round.

I mean how cute are these stamps!!!!! I love the faces and I'm pretty partial to the little water glasses too.

Marcy has also designed some super cute stickers that are on sale this week while supplies last so make sure you grab these too, you can see all of the class supplies here.

 
 I look forward to seeing you all in class, now I need to find the perfect planner.....

Favorite Scrapbooker Blog Hop

So a week ago my sweet friend Shanna sent me an email, she picked me to be on her list of favorite scrapbookers and wanted to know if it was okay to feature me on her blog. I'm pretty sure I hesitated for a nano second before I replied heartily with a HECK YES!  I've told you before how much I love Shanna and how much I appreciate her friendship and her encouragement.  This lady is the real deal, a true friend and hands down one of the most amazing scrapbookers I've ever seen.

This layout from February 2013

and this one from last week

both prime examples of how amazing she is at what she does.

Thank you again Shanna for including me on your list. And now for the nitty gritty of the blog hop, the question and answer phase...

1.  What am I working on right now? Well the mini album I started for our big road trip that happened last March is still staring me down, my goal is to get this done in the next few weeks.

2.  How long does it take me to create a project?  I'm super, super slow. I tend to analyze and stew before committing to things so it can take me awhile to get things done.  The fastest I've ever done a Project Life® spread is 90 minutes which is lightening fast for me.

3.  What are my favorite things to create with at the moment?  Anything with texture and anything that is gold. I am really reaching for textured cardstock and wood veneer a lot. I love leaving the wood in its natural state, I want to see the grain, if its not natural, I want it to be gold, always gold.

4.  How does my writing/creating process work? It usually starts with a photo or even a specific embellishment or digital file that I really love that I want to work with. I love playing with things to make them into something new or something that will help tell my story.

5.  How do I become inspired and stay inspired? My head is constantly on a swivel, I find inspiration everywhere. A lot of what I love comes from fashion, from magazines or Pinterest. Typically its a color or pattern that will get my wheels spinning and send me off in a very specific direction.

6.  What is my signature style?  Clean, uncluttered, bold, bright, graphic and computer generated.

I also an very, very inspired by so many talented scrapbookers out there. I had to choose three to feature here and it was so hard, I'm inspired by many but these three chicks, well they totally rock!

Beshka - I became aware of Beshka when I took the Studio Calico This is Me class and her work started jumping out at me in the class gallery. I was completely drawn to her aesthetic. It was clean it was bright and she loved color as much as I did. Her gallery, her blog and her Instagram never disappoint and she inspires me so very much.

Maggie Massey - Maggie and I were both new to the creative team this year at Studio Calico and we totally bonded over being new and being completely inspired by what everyone was bringing to the party. Maggie's pages are always amazing, they are bright, they are full of amazing photos and they tell amazing stories. Her passion for this hobby is evident in everything she touches, she is a real gem.

Melanie Louette - Melanie was also new to the Studio Calico team this year same as me and Maggie and let me tell you, one look at her amazing photos and the stories that she tells and I was hooked. Her gallery is always a breath of fresh air and I love what she does with some of the older photos from her childhood. She is the storyteller I hope to be and aspire to be when I sit down to scrapbook

I sure hope you take a moment to delve deeper into the blogs of these ladies, they will continue the blog hop next Monday so make sure you follow them along. Trust me you won't be disappointed.

Have a great week and if you are in the US I hope this Labor Day is treating your right and that you have a lovely day resting and enjoying it with family and friends.