Featuring Color Cast Designs │ September and October projects

Yesterday was launch day at Color Cast Designs and it was a BIG one! October is typically a really large launch because Jessica does fall and all of her December kits too. I was super excited about this launch when I saw all the products in advance and I really hope you check them out.

But before I get to October's release I wanted to share really quickly the two projects I made for September.

This first one is all about snap chat selfies and a fun way to document all of the super crazy and fun filters that the app has. Playing with all the filters is definitely our favorite thing to do when we are bored.

I used bits from the Strike a Pose set and the Oh Snap set. I love any set that is themed around taking photos so these really spoke to me. I used a simple offset grid to lay this page out and it came together really quickly. I think the part that took the longest was deciding what photos to use and print.

My next project was a pocket page spread. The photos are from last year but thankfully they hadn't been done yet so I had some great fall images to work with.

For this spread I used pieces from the Sweater Weather kit, Leaves by the tablespoon, and of course Pumpkin Spice Everything! I also mixed in a a few older items like the gold glitter star, the gold mirror currently, and the candy, candy, candy veneer from last years Halloween set.

I love how the wood veneer pieces really pair nicely to fall photos.

Not to mention all of the amazing dimension it adds.

Moving on to October projects, and even more dimension. I have officially exhausted my supply of pop dots, read on to see why.

My husband and I don't dress up a lot, in fact this was only the second time we had done it so it deserved a special layout of its own. I absolutely love the Wicked Awesome set and made sure to find a spot for the Wicked Awesome piece and the pumpkins and ghosts. I may or may not be hoarding the cute little tags that Jessica put in this kit, hello CUTE!

I knew I wanted the title to pop for this layout so I decided to cut it out with my Cameo. I layered a contrasting paper behind and added pop dots behind each letter. I made sure to offset the placement back down on the page ever so slightly off from the original cut so that the burgundy paper had a chance to pop out. It took some time but it was so worth it.

My next layout had even more pop dots than the other but the photos just looked so much better lifted off the page than they did flat. The dimension really does add so much to it, especially since Jessica's pieces are so dimensional.

When I saw the Hello Elf set I knew I wanted to make a layout of some of the fun Elf pictures from last year. I cover this pretty extensively in my December Daily but having a layout to slip in my daughters album sounded like a great idea.

I used my cameo and the sketch pens to draw the circle dividing lines. I had intended to fill them in after but I liked them without it so I opted to leave it. I think it adds a cool design element instead of having it just be a plain grid design. I also added in the Believe in the Magic piece from the Oh What Fun set because that is my favorite sentiment of the season as well as a few of the October Confetti Stars, because they are always the perfect little accent.

There are several other sets that I haven't had a chance to work with yet, but I do hope you'll head over to Jessica's shop to see everything. Its really quite magical and she did such a great job on this release.

See you soon,

Valentines Day │ 5 Things We Love About You

A notice came via email a week ago from my daughter's teacher asking all of the parents to write a love note to their child that would be read aloud this week at school. I of course thought this idea was amazing and sweet and totally right up my alley. She stated in the instructions that she was hoping for messages of accomplishment, encouragement of personal goals, memories and expressions of paternal love (x2 for us). That added up to five things in all so my wheels started turning on how I could accomplish this. I could have easily sat down with pen and paper and written it in letter form but she also said that we could feel free to get creative and add photos, artwork, stickers, etc. I need no extra incentive to make something more that it needs to be so when she said we could use photos I thought a little micro mini was the perfect idea.

My inspiration came from the numbered tags that Ali Edwards had included in her December Daily® kit this past year. I used one of them in my album as you can see here so I initially thought I would use the one thru five tags since I had only used the number fourteen.

I thought it would be really cute to add some red and pink foil to them using my Minc Machine and since I wasn't sure how these tags were printed I decided to make my own.

The first thing I had to do was create the tag shape. I used a tag I had already purchased as my starting point and then adjusted the size to what I wanted it to be. I knew I wanted to Minc the number and the little circle around the tag hole so I created my documents knowing I would use the Print and Cut feature. I have a laser printer so making custom items to Minc is super easy.

One thing you have to remember to do when creating items in your Silhouette studio is to make sure that if you are doing a print and cut is to turn off the cut lines for items you only want printed and not cut out. Here you can see that after the page is printed and I run it thru my Silhouette, the only thing that will be cut is the outside edge of the tag and the middle circle. The default setting is to always add a cut line to anything you create so if you don't remember to turn these cut lines off your Silhouette will cut everything out.

I knew that I wanted to cut my photos so they were the same size as the tags and lately I have had a lot of fun printing and cutting photos with my Silhouette. I copied my tag shape to a new document and then edited and cropped the photos to the correct size first in Photoshop Elements. I saved the photos as a .png files because I find when I save files as a .png it will import into my Silhouette studio in the exact size I want them to be. If I save them as a .jpg it will open quite large and then I would have to scale them down. I prefer to skip that step and import exactly as I need them to be. 

In order to make sure that the photos are lining up exactly in the right spot for the cut lines I make sure that the tag shape is brought to the front so that I can lay the photo underneath to line everything up. To to this just right click on the shape and select Bring to Front.

Here you can see the print and cut all ready to go and the cut lines are exactly where they need to be. I just run a letter size sheet of photo paper thru my printer and then cut it on my Silhouette. It works perfectly.

To finish off the project I created a little envelope to hold the tags that you can see below. I closed the envelope with twine that wraps around two circles that I attached with eyelets, one on the front and one on the back. I dressed up the front circle using a super cute emoji die set that is from Studio Calico. I cut most of it in gold foil cardstock and the heart eyes are cut from red foil.

I also made a simple cover tag to go on top of the others that I created in my Silhouette as well. It was made using the text tool and the XOXO is a digital element from In a Creative Bubble. The five is a gold thicker that I had in my stash.

My husband and I wrote our messages on the backs of the number tags so that you can read the messages and see the photos at the same time. Its super cute and since its a surprise my daughter has no idea its coming so I can't wait to hear all about it after she sees it.

xoxo,

Branding your next camping trip

This past weekend we went camping with our friends. It was a family affair, four families and 9 kids. This was my first time camping a really, really long time and I wanted to try to do something special for our friends. Initially I thought of having t-shirts made but the cost to have them printed for all of us was a bit more than I wanted to spend. I remembered that one of the Dad's on this trip loved collecting Koozies when he traveled so I thought maybe that would be a good idea. A quick google search lead me to TotallyKoozies.com and I was super happy to see that yes I could upload my own art and have two dozen printed at a really reasonable cost. I picked the single color solid koozies for this trip but love that they also offer so many other styles based on what kind of beverages you wanted to keep cool.

I made the logo in Photoshop Elements using the information that totallykoozies specified on their website regarding what size to keep the designs too. I just upload my art when I placed my order and within one business day I had a proof back from their designers. They had amazingly quick turnaround and are willing to work with your deadline date so I had them in hand by the day I needed them. This was the most easy and hassle free ordering of a custom item online that I have ever experienced. Needless to say they were a HUGE hit with our friends and everyone really loved them. Here is a shot one of our friends posted to Facebook, they totally fit in with our surroundings.

Since those were primarily for the adults I wanted to do something fun for the kids so I thought it would be fun to turn the logo into a temporary tattoo. I purchased the Silhouette Cameo Temporary Tattoo paper and just modified my initial logo design adding in a background color and making sure to flip it so when applied the text was in the right place.

I scaled the size down just a bit keeping small kids in mind and was able to get 12 on one of the sheets of paper provided. I printed these on my home printer and then cut them out on my Silhouette Cameo. I brought along a bottle of rubbing alcohol to clean the kids skin hoping it would make them last a bit longer. The kids loved them and all the moms ending up tatting up too. It was super cute and lots of fun but next time I would make sure to wait to apply them to the kids skin after they were done swimming for the day. They definitely faded and fell off but in a normal situation would last a solid day had water and swimming not been involved.

My last bit of fun and branding was to make a flag for our campsite. I decided to work with our local Fast Signs shop where I live and decided on a two foot by two foot square flag. I sent them the same logo and we picked a background color for the flag and they did a direct print onto the canvas. They added the three grommets for me and my husband built the stand for me out of PVC pipe that he spray painted and we attached the flag with some zip ties. At the campsite he secured into the ground with a piece of rebar that he hammered in. The flag was at our site the whole trip and I made sure to get lots of pictures around it of the whole group and each family.

These were all really simple easy and quick things that just added that finishing touch to the trip and made it that much more special for everyone. I will definitely try all of these things again and hope that this inspires you to brand your next group outing.

Note: all links provided are for informational purposes only and no affiliate benefits are coming to me for sharing these vendors with you. All opinions/reviews expressed are my own.

Studio Calico Valentine's Day Letterbox

Well its almost Valentine's Day and today Studio Calico is giving away a super cute printable to make a Valentine's Day Letterbox, you can find it right here.  It is also featured on their blog today and you can see what an amazing job Maggie Massey did with her letterbox.

I made one for the blog post as well but I wanted to share it here too.

I knew immediately that this project would be a fantastic way to re-purpose an extra Studio Calico Project Life box so I adjusted the size of the pieces to fit the shape.  I loved the graphic almost trompe l'oeil look of the pieces when cut in black and white and decided to keep it super graphic.  I used my Silhouette Cameo and the Print and Cut feature to print then cut each piece using the Offset feature so the pieces would have a nice white edge around them.  My husband cut the hole in the front flap of the Project Life box using an exacto knife and it ended up being super easy to cut.  I covered all of the edges that would be shown with black washi tape and covered everything with white cardstock.  I layered each piece on the cover with foam tape for dimension and then cut the red heart out of foil paper for a single pop of color.  I opted not to cut out the larger door opening since the box opened easily but did add some text and the swirls to that piece before printing and cutting.  

Supplies : Studio Calico Valentine's Letterbox Printable, Studio Calico Project Life kit box, Silhouette Cameo, white cardstock, Black Chalk Washi tape, Red Foil cardstock, Fonts – Voluptate Demo and Bergamot Ornaments, adhesive and foam tape

My daughter has already called dibs on this but I really want to keep it for myself.  I guess I need to get busy and make another one for her.

I hope you have a lovely Valentine's Day!