Revealed - Studio Calico's Glee Club

It's Reveal time and I have projects to share for the Glee Club kit.

I bought two add-ons this month, #1 Pep Squad, and #2 Debate Team.  I should have bought #4, Thespians, and will be in line to pick it up with all of you because I simply must have it now, lol. 

I used 10 Instagram photos on this layout.  i thought it would be fun to do the banners across the top with the stitching, and then layered my photos and some pennant pieces across the two pages to make a banner from the pictures.  I really like the story of this layout. 

Obviously a fun technique on this layout was the use of the Sew Easy tool.  This is the first time I used the pennant head and it was much easier to use than I thought.  I'll be posting a quick tutorial on how easy it is to use this particular head in a curved path.  I love it and will use it again.  I also previously bought the banner head, and will be using that one too.  I almost used both of them on this layout. 

The growing season has been terrible this year and I'm also not the best gardener, I'm still learning, lol, so things like these wee carrots are the best I've done.  Morgan thinks it's FABULOUS though, so I can't complain.  She even ate some, and almost got a serving of Vitamin A for the day.  ha!

I tore off the perforated heart strip but as I was designing the layout, realized how well it matched the colors in my layout, and Morgan's shirt too, so stitched it back on the bottom.  I actually like the added texture of having it adhered on top of the base paper with the stitching. 

I liked the birdhouse and birdies (they are misted with Bonny Blue and  Warm Calico), and thought they could use a bit of skyline to balance against the pattern of the base, so I went with clouds.  I'm a bit obsessed with clouds lately.  I also wanted the title to stand out a bit more. 

This layout is fairly simple but that's because it's all about this photo.  I adore this photo.  I mentioned in my sneak post that I need to go back and purchase the Thespian add-on, and that's because last Halloween I took a zillion photos and love them all.  I need to do a mini album.  Ooh.  This is a personal challenge.  Mini Album.  Halloween 2010.  Thespian Add-on.  Stat.  As soon as the new Studio Calico albums become available, GAME ON.  :)

A technique I used to do all the time but haven't for a long while is to tear my paper.  It felt good to utilize it for this layout.   I also distressed the fabric paper by stripping away some of the threads from the edges to make the fabric stand out.  I also went a la Jen Johner and made a pink photo corner, but I layered it under my photo rather than on top. 

And that's it!  I wish I had more time to play but August was a busy month and family was the priority.  I can't wait to have more time in September.  The kids are *almost* back to school.  woot!

Davinie

Sneakalicious

Hey all

Kit arrival timed with the work week timed with the lack in Pink Paislee goodness combined to create a narrow window for kit work this month.  I do have some sneaks to share with you though, of the upcoming September kit from Studio Calico, Glee Club.

This layout is a 2 pager with 10 Instagram prints.  Woot!  I have to say, having my phone at the fair sure made it more fun.  I left my Canon at home, so it was one less thing to worry about.  My kids are too old for the double stroller now, so I didn't want to lug it around and worry about damaging it somehow.  Amy Tangerine's camera stamp was fun to use with this layout too (the camera stamp is in the main).

I'm excited about this layout because of the photos it has on it.  Lately Morgan has just not been interested in the camera, and I haven't felt the photos I've been taking really represented who she is.  I got a good smile on one of these pics, and it makes my heart smile because *that* is what she looks like.  She's adorable.  I think having so many teeth pulled (we are currently at 12) has bothered her a bit.  In recent weeks, she had to lose her "fangs" and she wasn't happy about it.  But she's so super cute.  She has a beautiful smile and deserves straight teeth.  That's what I keep telling her as we brave the dentist over and over (but I'm so glad to be done with that for a while.  It's time for the girl to pull one out on her own).

P.S.  The Sassafras chevron print in that gorgeous yellow?  I need 100 more of those.  You know I'm a kraft girl.  I usually need a neutral as my background.  But not this time.  :)   (this is in the main kit too). 

The same thing happens to me every year.  Last year it was Harvest Moon that did it to me.  I decide I don't need the Halloween themed add-on, and then I get my kit and start looking for photos to use and determine I HAVE to have it.  Last year I purchased Harvest Moon with the following kit and add-ons, and I'm going to do it again this year.  I didn't purchase Thespians, but I'm going to be jumping in line to do so for reveal.  I need to remind myself that SC does a fabulous job making a themed kit without a lot of themed product, which allows it to translate to other projects.   That said, this last sneak is Halloween themed, so I didn't really HAVE to have the Thespian add-on, although I still plan to get it. 

As it is I purchased two add-ons this month, #1 Pep Squad and #2 Debate Team. 

Shop Items:

Be sure to check out the Sew Easy tool and attachments.  I used the pennant for this sneak here (also part of that two pager above), and really adore it. 

It must be said that I have developed a love affair for the Glue Art Glider Pro, my scrapbook room is beginning to thank me for page protectors and AC albums because I'm finally getting a handle on the organization, and my stamps are finally getting a proper home thanks to these panels, which are now back in stock.  It's amazing how much more inspiring it is to create when your space is in some semblance of order, you know?

I'm still rearranging my space and can't wait to share.  I decided to move my girls in with me, so I've created a space for them in my room.  It's nice to be able to contain the "craft" in one room as opposed to the whole house.  Their former craft space, which was this hideout room under our stairs, is going to be the new reading/homework/quiet space.  I'll be sure to share pics when we are finished with that makeover.  I recently pinned this chalkboard contact paper and am anxious to check it out and see if it'll work.  The only thing I wonder about is the havoc from chalkboard dust.  I see chalkboards getting more and more popular and nobody ever mentions the dust.  Has chalk changed much in recent years? 

Davinie 

BOARDWALK winner

Happy Monday!  I'm busy with swimming lessons and sneaks and a back to school PTC meeting and the sprinkler and I'm trying to climb back on the laundry wagon, but I have a winner to announce!

It slooks like #116 comment is:



Jessica said...


wow what amazing stitching! Lovethesneaks& would love to win the kit!



12:17 PM

Congratulations Jessicaaaaaa!!!  Email me at cooperdees (at) yahoo (dot) com and I'll get your info to SC headquarters for this kit.  Yay!  You will not be disappointed!

Enjoy the rest of your Monday, friends!

Davinie

a Weekend Giveaway and a snippet of a sneak

Hello Friends!

We had a blast in Idaho.  The water park was a hoot, and except the part where I was tossed from the boat on the biggest rapid of our float, rafting down the Payette was a blast too!  :)

The week has flown by and my blog has gathered dust, but I'm here today with a couple of fun things to share.

FIRST:  If you are not a subscriber from Studio Calico, then you may not have taken the opportunity to purchase the current Studio Calico kit, Boardwalk:

I have to tell you, I adored everything about this kit and ended up with all the add-ons as well, so this is defintiely a must have in my book.

Let's talk exclusives:

2 double sided papers designed by Studio Calico. 
2 double sided papers designed by Crate paper for Studio Calico (LOOOOOOVED these).
That Sassafras sticker alpha?  An exclusive color, just for us.
The brown chipboard alpha?  That's the same font as our summer CHA release, but it's a different color, just for this kit.
There's also an SC exclusive stamp.  It's that round frame.

All of the above is only available if you get the Boardwalk kit.  Isn't that fabulous?!

The Sassafras prints in this kit as well as that Pink Paislee mistable trim had my heart so it's a shame to see any crafter miss out on an opportunity to get their hands on this one.

As for add-ons:

More Color - who doesn't want more cardstock to match?
Tide Pool, one of the add-ons for this kit, is available. 
So is the more add-on paper add-on.

I definitely recommend that add-on paper add-on.  We had a couple of prints from Simple Stories, a new company to me, and it was just delicious.  Just look at the beautiful color palette:

YUM.

Lucky for you, Studio Calico has been gracious enough to pass me a main kit to give away on my blog.  That's a $34.50 value! ($29.50 if you subscribe).  I love that!

If you are interested in getting your hands on the Boardwalk kit, simply leave a comment on my blog, and let me know if you've ever hand stitched on a layout.  That's all.  I'll leave comments open until Sunday and draw a winner Sunday evening.

Hooray!

And with hand stitching in mind, SECOND: check out this snippet of a sneak of the September kit, Glee Club.  I'm still working on this layout, but wanted to share my progress:

You can see bits of one of the main kit prints from Studio Calico here, as well as the main kit stamp.  That camera is going to be in a few places on this layout.

I have 10 instagram prints!  I sure love my phone.  That phone and that app made it much less stressful to capture fun at the fair a few weekends ago.  FUN times.

Obviously, this sneak is more about hand stitching than anything else, but i just wanted to share how easy the Sew Easy tool was to work with, especially that pennant roller.  SO fun.  (You can pick up the banner roller, as well as other shapes, from the shop too). 

More sneaks coming soon.

Good luck on the giveaway!  And have a great weekend!

Davinie

P.S.  You can only win the giveaway once, but you have multiple chances.  Check out the DT blogs (listed on my sidebar) for more chances to win.  This isn't a blog hop, but most of the girls should have a kit to give away so check them out.  :)

Words on Wednesday - have fun

Pinned from Someprints.com

Man, we haven't camped as much as we usually do in the summer, but have filled this one with so much fun stuff that it's just flying by.  Last weekend we went to the County Fair and had the best time.  Today, we are headed to Idaho to see some cousins before school starts.

We plan to have lots of fun.

We are headed here. 

And then if we can get a raft we are going to do a day trip down the white waters of the Payette.  My brother in-law used to be a guide and can get a raft from his church.  But if we can't, we are going to float the Boise River on blow up tubes and rafts. 

FUN.  TIMES.  Really looking forward to it.  It's a 5 hour drive but should go fast. 

Enjoy your Wednesday!  Davinie

StoryArt on CrafTuesday - Olivia

 

My girls are of an age where sibling rivalry is abundant.  They are very competitive, especially Payton, and whenever they are doing something, it's not long before the question of "which one is the best" comes up. 

Because Morgan is older and therefore has more experience under her belt, whenever we are working on art, especially, she often has a hard time complimenting her sister and her latest drawing or creation, thinking she could do a better job.

I'm always saying "all art is beautiful".  There is ALWAYS something nice you can say about a piece of art created by someone else.  This would apply to scrapbooking too. 

With art in mind, creativity in mind, and freedom to create, the next story for StoryArt is




Olivia, by Ian Falconer.

Who doesn't love this little pig?

Olivia is another constant character in our bookshelves.  Love her.

Olivia is the first book in the series, and is in black and white, with little touches of red.
At one point in the story, Olivia visits a museum and spots paintings by Jackson Pollock, determines she can do that on her own, and proceeds to get in trouble by creating an inspired painting on the wall of her home.  whoops!

Because it's summer and my girls have low attention spans these days, preferring otter pops and a sprinkler here and there, I thought this would be a fun, but quick and easy art project to celebrate the freedom to create with wild abandon, and to celebrate art for the sake of art.

I was googling around for Jackson Pollock info to bring more art history to my girls and came across this lesson plan:

http://www.storyboardtoys.com/gallery/Jackson-Pollock-lesson-plan.htm

Payton has done something similar to this in preschool when making spider webs for Halloween crafts, so this is a fun option to try.

Supplies:
Cookie sheet
Cardstock
Poster paint
marbles (we robbed Chinese Checkers, but I considered Hungry Hippos too, lol)
paper bowls


Start by putting some paint and a marble in each paper bowl  I was going to do just black and red, like the story, but figured in the end it was about the process, and more color is better anyway.  :)

I used a glue dot to hold their paper down on their cookie sheet so they wouldn't float around.  Then it was a matter of dropping a painted marble onto the paper, and picking up the tray to move it around as they chose.

They both ended up with a little finger paint, which was totally fine, and had fun with their projects.  Payton actually did a couple of these prints and enjoyed the process and freedom of not quite knowing how things were going to turn out. 

This one is Morgan's:

And here's one of PJ's:

She called this one "Rainbow Angel".  Cute!

It was a fairly quick and extremely easy project, but it lasted long enough for the girls to ask me to do them more often.

After we were done we read a few more Olivia books, just because.
Visit this website for some fun computer artwork you can do 'a la Pollock'.

http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

I got a bit distrcted there myself, lol.

Have a great day!  Davinie

Words on Wednesday - What if?

Pinned from LittleMinchArt

The problem with the WWW is that you eventually find yourself with people who share the same interests, which is great, but unfortunately can make for worldwide friendships.

If I were a millionaire,
my girls would go for lemonade and playdates with Steph's girls
We'd dash to Omaha to head the zoo with Lisa and her crew
check out the corn with Jen and take Nik to lunch on one of her long shift days.
then I'd make a dash to see Dani, because we hug the opposite coastlines.
Payton would have a playdate with Ashleigh in Australia for sure.
Then we'd check out Kelly and have her take us out for icecream.  Or donuts.  Or both. 

And that would just be on a weekend while dad was at work (well, if he took an overtime shift.  That'd be a long flight in the lear, lol)

Meanwhile, the house would be totally renovated because I would have hired out for that.  And it'd be full of Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware.  Fo.  Sho.

What about you? 

Have a great Wednesday!  Davinie

Project 12 July in August

Why Hello August.  While you snuck in I was up at the lake with the family, soaking up the sunshine you FINALLY decided to bring to Central Oregon.  But before I left, I recapped June before I forgot, in the exciting adventure that is Project 12 (details here). 

As a reminder, here was my sketch:

And this is what I came up with.  I'm really happy with how this turned out.  I mostly used my August kit from Studio Calico, Boardwalk. 

I was trying to choose a base cardstock or patterned paper but was having a hard time deciding, as the kit papers are so delicous, when I decided to channel my inner Nic and use white mist around the edges. 

Hello fabulous!  What an inexpensive way to completely change a layout!  I just used a scrap piece of cardstock as a mask, and an old piece of die cut Bazzill for the scallop on the right, and then misted over it.  I was at the tail end of this bottle, so coverage isn't as even as I'd like, but with the teal stitching at the border, I am in love!

One little extra from my stash for this layout are some wood buttons from Maya Road that I picked up at the recent CHA sale at 2peas.  I left them nekkid, because they better match kraft, and what's the point in purchasing wood buttons if you are going to paint or mist or alter them somehow?  I prefer them au natural.  FYI - that twine from My Minds Eye that's in the kit this month is FABULOUS.  So are the Pink Paislee mistable trims.  I only had three wee scallops left of this length and had to use it.  I am a huge fan of the stringy bits on my layout.  I love the homespun look.

 Another extra from my kit on my layout was this veneer frame.  I already had the package of frames out for an assignment, and as the sketch called for a frame around this photo, which just happens to be a last day of school-ish photo of my two cuties, I had to use the veneer so they'd stand out.  It went well with the wood buttons too.

And GUESS.  WHAT.  I just happened to check and holy toledo, you can get this package of veneer frames from Studio Calico for a buck.  $1 !!!  They were hiding in the Elementary section!  There are two sheets and several sizes of these frames.  $1 is a great big steal.  Kit subscribers, you still have time to add something like this to your cart without an additional shipping fee.  I'm just sayin' .....

I had a lot of fun with the sketch and the square photos and general design.  Square photos are great because it makes more photo files available when it comes time to designing your layout, as it doesn't matter as much what the orientation was when you took the picture (except that your subject needs to be a bit close together for cropping).

On to some favorites this month.  FYI - Of course I am trying to prepare a blog post before I head out of town at the last minute and this is the night that Google decides to REFUSE my login info...  it won't let me comment or even post anonymously.  I'll be back to post properly later.  It's really important to me to leave comments on your posts when I can.  Grrr. 

Anyway...... 

Red. Seriously WOW
Love the border on this one!
I love the minimal use of product and the perfect use of mist on this one. 
FAB. U. LOUS. 
Love the tilt on the frame on this one.
Mary, I LOVE how you can fill up a layout.  Must. try. digital.  (left, right).
I love how the stars spill off the patterned paper here.  I also adore the ElfQueen. 
Is this blue flower made from trims?  I love it!  I also love that you chose P12 as your only crafty venture for July.  Honored. 

Thank you as always for playing along with me!  I am seeing new faces and I'm so excited that this is a challenge that inspires you.  I am a bit biased, yes, but I think it's the best.  :)

With that said, this is what's next for July:

Hello grid pattern.  Ruched trims.  I am going to have a lot of fun with this one, I'll tell you that right now.  I took a lot of photos in July, so choosing the perfect pictures to use here is going to be fun.

As always, you have until the 28th to play along for a prize, and for July it's the PK4 from Picture Keeper.  I'm anxious to get reviews on this one, so get to crafting ladies!

I'm going to be commenting around the web, and then I'll see you back here on the first!  Davinie

P.S.  Don't forget to link your July layouts on the SCT blog post here.