Living The Dream

More Park Ave. inspiration...

I was thrilled to be assigned to work with this week's Studio Calico sketches for the blog, because it meant I got to play some more with my Park Ave. kits! I always love working with sketches and some of my very favorite projects have been inspired by sketches. It's amazing how a sketch can spark and idea and/or give you a starting point and then come out looking completely different from the original project!

Here's the sketch that inspired the card and here's a link to the original card by Jenn Picard. I hope you'll take a look at all three of the new sketches on the blog and use one as a starting point for your next project. SC chooses a random winner every week from the Sketch challenge to win a $5 GC to the shop, so that's some incentive to play along too :)

25 Days...

How can it be December 1st tomorrow?! I feel like I was just talking about December Daily last year like yesterday! It always goes by so fast, but like it or not, we find ourselves here again. Admittedly, I'm a December Daily failure. I have yet to complete even one album despite two years of trying. But I'm really excited about Stephanie Bryan's 25 Days class at Studio Calico and love the idea of having the bulk of your album ready before the holiday craziness. And I'm super excited to be contributing too! I have plenty of photos that I didn't get to last year, so I'll be finishing up last year's album (I'll finally have a finished album! Go me!) for this class and sharing 5 of my finished Handbook spreads.

I got a good head start last year, here are a couple of my completed pages from last year's album and the cover as well....

Today is the LAST DAY to sign up for the class and if you sign up quickly, Stephanie is hosting a DD kickoff chat tonight at 9pm EST. Come and join us and record all of those special holiday moments with us :) You'll get instant access to all of the class digitals and message board content and Stephanie has already shared lots of videos and instructions on how she put together the foundation pages for her album!

Studio Calico Park Ave. Reveal!

**Note: Studio Calico is a monthly kit club offering Scrapbook, Project Life and Card kits each month. Each month the kits go up for sale on the 28th of the month at midnight EST (the night of the 27th). For more information and to subscribe to the kits, click here.**

 I was a little worried about having time to play with this kit...December kits are always rough for me, since they show up right in the middle of my crazy busy fall photography season. But, I ended up having more time than I anticipated and I'm so glad I did! I'm loving the bright lights, big city vibe this kit has and I'm keeping it out on my desk for awhile longer and hoping to find more time to play.

This first layout I made using just the main scrapbook kit. I created the background using a free hexagon .svg file I found online and the Replicate tool in Silhouette Studio. Once I cut out the background, it was simple to add strips of patterned paper behind the hexes. And I ALWAYS gravitate towards these colors...blue, green, grey, yellow....definitely a fave combo and I love the touch of black from the Basic Grey acetate shapes!

Another main scrapbook kit only layout...I loved the city paper and it was begging to be fussy cut, so I cut it up and used foam adhesive to pop it up a bit. I added the striped paper on a slight angle to give the layout a little more interest. The title I cut with my Cameo using a font called Arsenale White.

The cork snowflakes from the Waldorf add-on jumped out at me right away and even though we don't get any snow here in FL, I had this photo from our winter trip to Indiana last year. I used some of the gold chipboard stars from Waldorf and pink sequins from Ritz to add some more detail. I cut the title with my Cameo using the font Honey Script.

These bright patterns from the Helmsley add-on were my favorite papers from all the kits. I wanted to use them all, so I created a simple grid design. It was fast and easy and this layout came together in under an hour!

The Project Life kit is probably my most favorite from the last few months...so much color, which is always a hit with me!! Love the addition of purple, which most scrapbookers/PLers seem to have a fear of. The mix of colors was so perfect though, that the purple totally works.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families. Take the time to be thankful for all of life's blessings. I know I will. xo

Studio Calico Park Ave. Sneaks!

**Note: Studio Calico is a monthly kit club offering Scrapbook, Project Life and Card kits each month. Sneak peeks are a look at what’s coming up in the newest kit, which goes up for sale on the 28th of each month at midnight EST (the night of the 27th). For more information and to subscribe to the kits, click here. **

Popping in to share some sneaks of Studio Calico's Park Ave. kits! These kits are so bright and fun, especially the main kits! The scrapbook kit was so easy to work with...here's a sneak of the main SB kit...that city paper was begging to be fussy cut ;)

Another main SB kit sneak...love the versatility of these kits, you'd never know these two were made w/the same kit!

I mentioned this on Instagram, but it's not very often that I get to use snowflakes. I was excited to find a photo from our winter trip to the midwest last January that was perfect for snowflakes! Lots from the Waldorf add-on here and little bit of Ritz too...

Loved the bright patterns from the Helmsey add-on and used them to create a fun grid design here for this layout....

And the Project Life kit...swooooon! I don't usually love purple, but man it totally works w/the combo of colors in the kit. Those wood veneer banners are a favorite and I loved the chipboard frames in the kit for adding details to photos :)

 

Only a few more days until the full reveal! And YES, reveal will still be on the 27th even though that's Thanksgiving this year. Take a break from the family time and join us for the presale chat at noon EST. Which Park Ave. kit are you looking forward to most?

Using the Replicate tool in Silhouette Studio {Tutorial}...

I love using my Silhouette Cameo to create fun backgrounds for my pages. Full background cut files are popular right now, but I wanted to show you how super simple it is to create your own custom background or grouping of elements from a single shape using the Replicate tool in the Silhouette Studio software!

To start, select the shape you want to create a grouping or background of. I'm using a star from Studio Calico's The Underground Forest Digital Stamp set, but any shape will work. Select the entire shape and resize it by holding down the shift key and dragging the corner in with your cursor. Now that you've got it the size you want, open up the Replicate window at the top right (it's the one that looks almost like flower petals).

You can do so many fun things in the Replicate window, but for this tutorial I'm just going to show you how to create a grouping of elements that are perfectly spaced. When you have the shape selected, click on the Row of Four button in the  menu on the right. It automatically creates a row of four perfectly spaced stars! Cool, huh?!

Now, hit that same button again...now you have eight perfectly spaced stars in a row. Now, we want to create more rows, so drag your cursor over all of the stars to select the group...

With the entire row of stars selected, now click on the Column of Three button. Voila! Now you have three rows of perfectly spaced stars....

Once you have the number of rows and columns that you want, you can drag your cursor over all of the stars to select them and move them around the where you want them to cut on your page...

Now you're ready to cut it out and use it for your project! I used mine here backed with some papers from the Pine Hill add-on. I love this technique...I hope you'll give it a try!

Studio Calico Walden Reveal!

Studio Calico's Walden kit is live! This kit is realllly good. I love the fall feel and colors and there are so many great embellishments. This first layout I made with just the main kit, Walden. I loved that cloud paper so much when we had it a few months ago in blue, that I knew I wanted to use it in a big way here. It was the perfect background for these photos of Sawyer from the pumpkin patch last year. I'll be honest, I was worried about how those fancy Thickers would work on boy pages, but they worked out great here and I'm super happy with it!

This next layout also uses the main kit...hard to believe it's the same kit looking at the layout above and then this one. I love the versatility of Studio Calico kits! I used Shanna's digital template for the month for this...just switched out some of the colors to make it match my page and added some punched patterned paper circles to some of the circles and this page was super fast!

I was on an 8.5x11 kick this month, mostly because I ran out of white 12x12 cardstock, so I had to improvise. I was happy to use this beautiful patterned paper from the Concord add-on as the background...love the ink splatters that are already there, since I'm not so good at "splattering" ;) Almost everything here is from the Concord add-on!

This photo KILLS me...I loved this little Christmas outfit and I couldn't wait to scrap this photo. The Pine Hill add-on was perfect for it -- the bright fun festive colors and the patterns are so fun! And that masking tape is to die for!!

I have mad love for the Project Life kit this month...the colors, the unique embellishments and everything coordinates perfectly! I needed to catch up on last year's November, so I did a monthly spread w/just the main kit and a few printables. I stuck to all black and white photos again and this came together really fast....

Thanks for stopping by and happy Wednesday! :)

Studio Calico Walden Sneaks!

It's almost time for the November Studio Calico reveal! This month's kit, Walden, is gorgeous! It has some beautiful fall pieces, but in true Studio Calico style, you can take the kit in so many different directions. Here are a few sneaks of my projects for this month....

This first one uses just the main kit and Shanna's digital template for this month...this layout came together in less than 45 minutes and I'm so happy with it! Love the ease of the templates and how they create such a great starting point for projects.

The Project Life main kit is one of my favorites from the last few months...great cards, great colors and fun new embellishments that we haven't seen before....

Pine Hill is the Christmas-y add-on and it's so perfect! It matched this photo of Sawyer all dolled up for Santa last year perfectly. And that festive masking tape just makes me happy!

Another layout with just the main kit....I definitely went the fall route with this one and these pics of Sawyer from the pumpkin patch last year!

And one last one...the Concord add-on is sooo pretty! I'm obsessed w/the colors in that Maggie Holme's/Crate Paper floral paper and found a photo of Brady and I from last year, so that I could use it. This kit is super embellishment heavy and is intended for Celine's Mini Book class coming up, but I found it to be great for making pages as well.

That's it! Don't miss the presale chat at 11am EST tomorrow morning and then the full reveal at midnight EST tomorrow night. My crazy photography season starts this afternoon, so I'm hoping I'll have time to pop in tomorrow for all of the reveal fun. Thanks for stopping by!

Almost 19-months...

and growing like a weed! :)

Studio Calico The Underground Kit - Project Life spreads...

Studio Calico's The Underground Project Life kit is a beauty! It's got some beautiful fall inspired cards and embellishments, but it also works great for other seasons and for people like me who live in Florida and don't really get a true "fall" ;) I used just the main kit here for a spread w/our summer road trip & vacation photos.

This next spread uses lots and bits and pieces from the Project Life main kit, the add-ons, Tina's Cozy Card set and Marcy's Halloween set. It was the perfect mix for creating this spread from our October 2012 (yes, 2012! ha!). I'm almost done w/2012...still missing November, but that's it! I loved being able to get another month documented in that album.

This next one is my favorite! I loved loved loved the Baker Street add-on this month! The colors are so perfect and I love how it worked with my photos. My fellow boy Mamas will LOVE this one too! ;) I used almost exclusively Baker Street here...

I'm having a hard time believing that it will be October tomorrow. It's time to break out the Halloween decorations and start talking about costumes, thinking about Christmas presents, etc. It seems like once October hits, the year just whizzes by! Happy October friends! :)

Tutorial - Printing on Project Life Cards

The question I get asked the most about here and at SC is how I print onto my Project Life journaling cards. I've been meaning to do a tutorial forever, so I'm finally making time to do so. I love designers who have beautiful handwriting and use it in their PL spreads and layouts. And I don't hate my handwriting, but for some reason I don't like it on my projects. I really prefer the look of typed journaling and it's actually pretty simple to do once you do it a few times and get the hang of it.

I'm using Photoshop for this tutorial, but the directions should be fairly similar for Photoshop Elements as well. To start, we want to open up a blank canvas in Photoshop. I'll be showing you how I created the card at the bottom right in the photo above, so I opened up a Custom document in PS -- go to File>New, change the preset to Custom and then change the width and height to either 6x4 or 3x4 depending on what size card you want to print onto. Make sure that the resolution is set to 300 pixels/inch.

Now that we have the correct size document, we want to add a border around the edges. This will allow us to see exactly where to place the journaling card once we're ready to print. To do this go to Image>Canvas Size.....

Then expand the canvas size to 0.1 for both the height and the width. At the bottom of the pop up window, use the drop down menu to change the canvas extension color to gray.

Now you're ready to type your journaling. Once you do this a few times, you'll get really good at figuring out where to place your journaling. I measure on my journaling card and then eyeball and use the rulers along the top and side edges of my PS window to give me an idea of where my journaling should start and stop. Type your journaling (don't worry we can adjust this later if need be), select the entire document and then go to Edit>Copy Merged.

Now open up a blank 8.5x11 document (make sure the resolution is set again to 300 pixels/inch and paste your journaling card onto the blank document.

Print your document and now you have your journaling ready to be placed onto your journaling card.....

Test out your placement -- place your photos in the correct space and make sure that you won't be typing over anything on the journaling card like a border or any printed text that's already there. I like to double check by holding the journaling card behind my printer paper and holding it up to the light to see exactly where it's going to print. If you need to make any adjustments, go back to your original 4x6 document in PS and move your text left/right or up/down to get the placement correct.

Once you're happy with where it's going to print, adhere your journaling card to the paper right inside that gray frame we created in PS around the edges. I use a scrapbooking tape runner to do this (here is my favorite one to use).

Now, this step is IMPORTANT!! Go back to PS and your 8.5x11 document and use the Paint Bucket tool to color in the gray canvas extension back to white. Select the white square at the bottom of the side toolbar and click on the Paint Bucket tool. With the Paint Bucket tool selected, hover over the gray edging and click to paint the gray area white.

Now you're ready to print directly onto your journaling card! Load the same piece of paper back through your printer the same way it came out, select print and you'll be ready to go. Your journaling will print directly onto your card exactly where you wanted it to go. Remove your journaling card from the printer paper or cut around the edge of the card if you don't want to deal w/the sticky background from the adhesive. This will make the card easy to slide in and out of your PL pockets. Add embellishments and your photos and it's ready to slide into it's pocket! So very simple!

The cards above went into this spread that I created using the October Project Life kit at Studio Calico plus the Baker Street add-on. Baker Street was definitely my favorite of the PL add-ons this month. I loved the rich colors and they matched my photos perfectly. Such a great add-on for boy Mamas! ;)

Thanks for stopping by and happy almost October!! (how can that be?!!)