Project Life 2014 - week 12

Sometimes something crosses my path that just sucks me in immediately, like this for instance...

The outer cover of the April J.Crew style guide.  I wish a photo could do this color justice because its the most amazing neon shade that depending on the light was either an orange or pink hue.  It is amazing!  I saved it and tucked it away to possibly cut up and use in my Project Life® down the road.  

While playing catch up on some undone weeks recently I needed to tackle week 12.  The previous week 11 was one where I used a full sized layout that was not in a divided protector and because I had made week 11 cover more than a typical week covers this (week 12) was going to be short on days too.  Enter J.Crew to fill the gap.

I ended up using a large portion of the front of the catalog cover on the left side.  I also modified this cut file from Paige Evans to make a scalloped border around it.  I then cut little strips of the catalog cover to lay under the open dots.  By using just a few strips I didn't have to waste a bunch of the cover so it left me some bits to work with.

On the right side I added in my photos for the short amount of days and then made little labels for each photo.  I set up the labels in PSE so I knew how big they needed to be and then opened that file in my Cameo and cut them out.  I also cut some Ali Edwards script pieces for the title card and one card slot.  The Happy Spring was a freebie on her blog awhile back (more like three years ago), you can find it here.  The March is from a set she sells on Designer Digitals.

As you can see below I pretty much used the majority of the cover that I had left after making the left side of the spread.  I had to cut the word Spring a second time because my paper lifted during the cut the first time so I just re-cut that word and pieced it together.

It was such a fun challenge to use just this one piece of paper for the whole spread and a fun way to recycle something that would have just ended up in the recycle bin eventually.

Now if I could just find that color paper or paint or nail polish!  I would be so happy.

National Scrapbook Day - the recap

So this past Saturday was National Scrapbook Day.  Yes, for those non scrappers this is a real thing. It's usually a fun filled day where people gather together and scrap together and eat together and shop together, you get the idea. This year Studio Calico had quite the line up of challenges to get members scrapping and since I wasn't going to be with friends this year I signed up to be part of one of them. I even got Simone to come and play with me for a bit. She said National Scrapbooking Day was the best ever!

The challenge I signed up for was the Sketch Challenge. Three different sketches were presented and six of the Creative Team members picked a sketch and then interpreted it anyway they wanted to. The last sketch was actually from a Project Life® insert that I made and I didn't even realize it until after I had picked a different one.

I picked the first sketch and this is what I made. It's been awhile since I did full sized layouts so having a sketch to give me a jump start sure helped. I used a some previous Studio Calico kits to make this, Rock Candy and Gum Drop and the digital file I used was from Bluegrass Farms. I also used these adorable glittery vellum bags, gold stars, and a gold doily.

I even cut a little circle to cover the brown part of the shipping tag, I love how it matches the rest of the layout now.

I cut the digital element from the Silhouette Double Sided adhesive using my Cameo and added the glitter on top. Love how well it holds glitter down.

Because I was feeling extra ambitious I also made this layout to showcase some of my favorite Instagrams from 2013. I have not been able to get this layout out of my head since I saw it. Not because she used my cut file, but because of the tiny photos she used. I love how small and impactful they are so I thought about ways I could make something small and impactful.

Books, tiny books is what popped into my head so I made these little albums on my Cameo and cut the pages from 36lb. white vellum that I purchased here. When I made the cut file I added some dashed lines down the middle to help the vellum fold a bit better and it totally helped. I layered three of the cut vellum pages on top of the grey backgrounds and stitched with my sewing machine down the middle of each set. I also cut the tags after I used a Black Glitter Sketch Pen to write out the months.

The next big hurdle was the photos. I went thru all of my Instagram's from 2013 and picked my favorite 12 from each month. I set up a template in Photoshop Elements so that I could shrink the photos down to 3/4" it was set up to print on 4x6 sheets so I ended up getting two months worth of photos on each sheet. Then I had to cut them all apart. Oh boy! Because of the vellum pages I made sure to line them up on top of each other so the adhesive wouldn't show. I'm not going to lie, this part took awhile. I cut the perimeter off of the templates and then cut each row apart, then I had to cut down the middle of each photo. You can see a bit of that in this photo. I went one month at a time and by August I was having issues keeping it together!

I kept the title work fairly simple, the flair I used came in an older Studio Calico Kit but I can't remember which one. I made the circle piece under it with my Cameo as well. The alpha was from this kit and the yellow striped paper for the base of the layout is from this kit.

I'm pretty sure that this is my new favorite layout and will be pretty hard to top. I don't think this will go in an album just yet. I'm thinking of framing it without glass and hanging it up so people can flip thru the pages if they want to see all the pictures. Or maybe I'll mount it to foam core and lean it on an easel. We'll see, for now its just fun to turn the little pages and look back at all the photos.

I hope you all had a lovely National Scrapbook Day too. Remember there is still time to complete and enter the Challenges over at Studio Calico, you can find them all on the blog here. The special stamp set and kit they made for the day are also still available. You can find them here.

See you soon!

XOXO the cut file

When I was asked to make a cut file for the Studio Calico Camelot release I was super excited because of the direction that they wanted me to take.  I knew it could be super cool and I was so hoping the Design Team would love it.  I have tremendous admiration for all of these ladies and watching the sneaks come in and then seeing the full pieces in the gallery truly amazed me.  And hearing how much they loved, well that was just icing on the cake.

In no particular order here are the amazing results of their unbelievable talent.

 source: Paige Evans

source: Nicole Samuels

source: Shanna Noel

source: Loredana Bucaria

source: Geralyn Sy

source: Marcy Penner

source: Melanie Louette

If you are interested in getting the file for yourself, you can find the file here.  I sure hope that you love it and have fun playing with it.  Please make sure to tag me or let me know if you post it anywhere online so I can see it.  And if you have any questions on how to work with it please let me know.  I know that an instruction sheet was provided but if you still need help, I'm happy to help in anyway that I can.

P.S. the rest of the digital items in this months release are crazy good, so make sure if you love all things digi to check them out here too. Templates, Digital Brushes, Cut Files and Printables.

Studio Calico Camelot Full Reveal

Hello and a good Sunday to you all.  It seems so weird posting this on a Sunday but since reveal is today here we are.

Just a reminder that all the links below for the kits will be active for subscribers as of right now, 9:00am PST. If you are not a subscriber the links will work for you tonight at 9:00pm PST.

I'm so happy to share with you what I made with these Project Life® kits.  I made two spread and the first I'm sharing is made entirely from the Camelot Project Life® kit.

I've already talked about the elements that I loved in this months kits when I posted my sneaks but I really did love these kits so much and I really think that you will too.  I loved our last snow day of the year and focused the whole left side on it.  I love floating a larger vertical 4x6 card in the middle and ringing it with photos.  It's something I've done before and I know I'll do it again.

The scratch off card that Tina made is probably one of the most unique cards I have ever seen.  I didn't scratch it off until right before I snapped this picture and I honestly thought I was going to leave it.  I liked the air of mystery that it offered but in the end I just had to scratch it off.

Here is my title card up close.  This was made with Shanna's template set but I ended up cutting parts of it out on my cameo to give it some dimension.  I really, really loved the variety of her template set this month. It's jam packed for sure.

Here is my second spread using the addons

Man did I love these addons!  That shade of green gets me every time, it even matches my plates!  There were a few cards in the Lancelot addon that I knew the moment I saw them they would get used on this spread in some fashion, the Today & Tomorrow card and the multi stripe card.  Those pops of color were just rocking my world for sure.  The super hero card in the Girl Art Paper set was just the most happiest of accidents.  I had literally just taken the selfie of my daughter and I with Spiderman it clearly was meant to be. I did a fair amount of tweaking one of the printables that Tina designed for my title card.  I loved her calendar and really wanted to use it so I just changed the color, moved the dates around and deleted all but one row of the dots for the dates.  Oh and that alpha in the Arthur addon, hello amazing!  I adored the graphic quality it added to my spread.

And then there is my cut file.  I am so unbelievably excited for you all to see what the design team did with this file. I shouldn't be surprised but I was, it's all just so amazingly good.  You can see the full gallery here.

So in summary, here are the things that I think are absolute must haves this month...

1. The Camelot Project Life kit, you will not be disappointed, trust me.
2. The Lancelot Addon because the cards in this kit are amazing!
3. The Arthur addon because the black and white stripe alpha is so good!
4. The Girls and Boys art sets from Ashley G.  Oh man are these fantastic!

As far as other items go, these are a few of the things that made their way into my cart

1. The darling Bow craft die, I mean hello cuteness!
2. This Zig Wink of Stella glitter pen hello its glitter so you know I bought one in every color.
3. Vellumptuous Paper Pad, it had me at glitter diamonds
4. Dot Glue runner refill pack, this adhesive has become my very favorite and its always a good idea to have backups, especially if your kid keeps stealing them like mine does.

I hope you have a great Sunday and I'll be back next week to talk in depth about my cut file and show you some of the amazing things that were done with it.