a little bit of me.

{Studio Calico's June Kit Revealed}

Studio Calico's June Kit - 35mm - is now available!  This is what I made with JUST THE MAIN 35mm KIT...

LOVED how warm & sunny the main kit was this month - perfect for this sunset pic from our vacay earlier in the month.

I also picked up Addons #1 Santa Monica, #3 Malibu, & #4 Venice Beach this month, as well as MORE SC Paper.  My general process when creating my SC kit projects is to look through everything when it arrives - being CAREFUL to keep it all seperate in case I'm needed to create a sneak page that month - then decide what colors or papers are calling my name - match them up with the pics and/or stories that jump out from recent weeks - resize photos and have them printed - and then scrap my MAIN ONLY page first (so that I can ensure it actually IS main only!).

THEN I MIX EVERYTHING (!!!) into one big pile of papers and embellies and letters and go for it with the rest of my projects.  SO that's probably why I'm not always sure where something on my page came from - regardless, JUNE was a fabulous month - so much so that I needed three of the addons.  ;)

Evan's first T-ball season is now over, but he had a blast playing this spring, and this page is about just that - we are so proud of the effort & enthusiasm he's had for sports this year.  :)

23 Months is another page for Noah's everymonth album.  Need to get the whole album out and figure out what month's I'm missing and then go back and scrap those!

Remember How Sweet is more pics from our vacay.  (even though it was short, we needed that vacay!  The title is word art that I created myself in silhouette studio.

How fabulous is the YOU ARE FABULOUS stamp in Addon #2 Newport?!  I didn't get that addon but was lucky enough to snap the stamp.  It's a good one.

My Thank You hexie card is made with the stamp set in Addon #3 Malibu.  The stamp set breaks apart so that you can use just the varying sized hexie outlines like i did here.

Hello!!!!!  this is my favorite stamp of the month (I think?!) - this month's stamps were the best compilation of stamps in a LONG TIME in my opinion.  Amazingly fab.  This Hello stamp comes from the set in Addon #1 Santa Monica.  The HEY GIRL is part of the 35mm main kit.

And that was June!

:)

{Project LIFE: Week 12}

More Project Life to add to the blog history tonight...  Here we go - this was Week 12:

The "hello" diecut that I've been using (alot - i know!) on both scrap projects and my project life spreads, is available at the silhouette online store (it's included in a set of four circle type designs).

My little "photog-er" story from my NSD scrapbook challenge page comes from this week...

This week was lots of little bits and pieces - baseball for Evan, March Madness, beach afternoons, and Spring flower planting.  I know I've said it before, but I truly LOVE that these everyday type moments have a home in my PL album.

The insert this week is a cut down Style D (available in this mega-pack) - I love that while I was photographing scrap projects in my front living room (great light there!) I inadvertantly caught the Kids AND the Poodle (midair!) all waiting at the door excited that Daddy had just pulled in.

The back of the insert has scenes from meeting the easter bunny (version 1 - as we'd end up treking out to meet bunny 2.0 again the next week), early egg hunting, and a beach afternoon.

And that was Week 12!  :)

Now just to catch up on printing last week & this week's pics...!

Products Used on Week 12:

InLinkz.com

{National Scrapbook Day - The Blog Hop!}

ETA: Winner Info!!!  Congrats Kimberly - please email me your mailing address!

The light in all of your layouts is more than just the bright colors you use, but the love behind your photos! Always a fan!

Posted by: Kimberly L.C. | May 05, 2012 at 09:51 PM

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Hippity Hop, Happy NSD 2012!

Studio Calico is sponsoring lots of National Scrapbook Day fun this year.  Starting with a blog hop - and even MORE inspiration from the May 35mm Main Kit - this was created entirely with the 35mm Main Kit (except for a few veneer birds I couldn't resist throwing on at the last minute!)...

This was without a doubt one of my favorite "main" kits in a long time.  The Hexies had me at hello.  :)

And since 35mm is sold out, we're giving away one of it's addon friends!!!  Just comment here on my post for a chance to win the "Brownie AddOn" from May.

Then, be sure to hop on back to the SC blog & link to all the other stops on the hop.  ;)

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I'm also hosting a NSD challenge at Studio Calico - use 5 or more photos on a page.  Here's my take on my challenge...

...One of my favorite little snaps (& story) of Ev from last month.  And my new favorite chevron paper.  ;)

If you decide to take on the challenge be sure to post it in the SC Gallery and then link your gallery post up to the SC Challenge Blog Post Here for a chance to win a prize from SC!

Happy Scrapping.  ;)

Products Used on Projects here:

InLinkz.com

{Basic Grey}

Happy Monday everyone.  ;)

Wanted to share a few recent projects this morning --- I was super excited to have a chance to work with some of the newest collections from Basic Grey, as their guest designer this month.

My favorites from their most recent release are the what's up and pb&j collections - and so naturally I pulled those two collection packs out and went to work on these projects...

My raindrops page will go into the album that I keep for my nieces - love this pic that my sister snapped of Ellie!

I used this print from the What's Up collection as my background for the page and highlighted the burst pattern with machine stitching and an aqua thread.

My second project is a big collage of all of my favorite blues, greens, and grey prints AND a pic of my now almost-2-year-old, taken a year ago at ONE.

Used my stampin up heart punch to punch the background hearts, then machine stitched through.

A BIG Thank you to Basic Grey for letting me play with all of your pretty, pretty papers this month!

Products used on these projects:

InLinkz.com

{SC's April Kit - Revealed!}

Studio Calico's April kit - City of Lights - was one of my favorites in a WHILE.  I got it, along with addons Sorbonne and Montmarte, & Addon Patterned Paper - and made this...

...Almost 5 - this is a photo of my niece, Paige - taken by my amazing sister - Kristi - and as soon as i saw it on her facebook page, i KNEW that i needed to scrap it with this kit.  ;)  Loved how well it worked with the soft spring colors in the main (and that bike paper! - and SC exclusive) - and this was made ENTIRELY with the main kit - City of Lights.

...Ellie - this is another set of photos that i borrowed from my sister to scrap for the book that i keep for her girls (its a book made up of pages with gorgeous photos and lots of GIRLY embellies that I let myself indulge in when I'm in the mood to do GIRLY!  ha!).  The ruler paper at the bottom is one of my favorite prints ever - the colors are SO fab!!!  & the BIG butterfly embellishment was die cut on my silhouette - love how vellum looks die cut like this and layered!

...Just Another Tuesday - Tuesdays are MY FAVE around here - there is no set agenda for Noah and me - and we usually end up doing something FUN - like this beach outting a few weeks ago.  Lots of little pics (a random beach walker wanted to take a pic of Noah and me - so i let her - and I'm so glad i did, bc i LOVE that shot...), and embellies and AQUA + KRAFT (which we all know is my fave!).  ;)

...You Right Now - this was made ENTIRELY with Sorbonne - addon #1 - and I "wrote" the journaling with alpha stickers in the kit.  Pics of Evan from a few weeks ago and lots of little tidbits about him RIGHT NOW.  I kind of want to hang on to this age for a bit longer.  I'm so NOT ready for five (this summer...).

...LOVE YOU MORE card - this stamp was included in Montmarte - love it!  ;)

...Thank You Card - isn't that bike paper from the SC prints this month SO FUN?!  :)

...Thank You (with butterflies!) Card - love to punch A LOT at once when i love the patterns in a kit so much!!!

...You are my Favorite Card - More layered vellum butterflies - and stamps from Louvre.

And that is what I made...  that's enough, right?!

:)

{Happy Friday}

I don't know if I've mentioned it thus far on the blog - but I've pretty much abandoned my "office" for all creative endeavors.  ;)  Its just way too far back in one of the furthest corner of my house to really be somewhere that I can get things done.  Instead I've taken over a little side counter in my kitchen as my un-official scrap nook.  It's been perfect for working on bits of this and that while the boys play next to me run circles around me in our great room.  (I will try to post a pic of the space soon!)  And now my "office" has become like the basement that I still wish I had.  ha.  ;)  --->  need to do something about the mess that has taken over in there soon!!!

The new Dear Lizzy neopolitan line has been sitting out in my new kitchen "nook" for the past week - begging me to do something with it.  I absolutely ADORE this line.  >>> So I pulled out a few b&w newbown Noah pics that I love...

(along with leftovers from my SC Feb kit)... and made a quick page.

...the soft colors & fun patterns just make me happy.  :)  I might also have a slight obsession with THIS paper.  ;)))  The "filmstrip" style strip print at the bottom waws created on a simple white background 4x6 print.  Just size your photos all to the same square size (@ the same DPI) and arrange on a 4x6 backer (same DPI), print, and trim.

There's a bit of the new Studio Calico line mixed in here as well - the background aqua polka dot is from SC's Abroad collection (as is the herringbone print strip at the top of my stack), and the silhouette-cut butterfly is from the SC Calico 2 collection.

While I was at it, I also created a card from scraps that were lying about...

Using LOTS of new SC print papers and some favorite SC Calico chipboard butterflies...

Happy Friday Everyone.

hope you ALL get to squeeze something creative into the upcoming weekend...!

:)

Products used on Projects in this Post:

 

InLinkz.com

{Project LIFE: Week 3}

So excited to be catching up with my Project Life posts!  Here we go with Week 3...

...I think this might be my favorite week for a while - lots of photos that i love here and the colors just seemed to mesh well for me.  :)

...I'm slowly realizing that my "Project LIFE style" is VERY (color) photo-centric, with added journaling, minimal embellishment, and lots of word brush art.  American Crafts kraft cardstock + my silhouette machine is by far my favorite form of embellishment for this project.  And my sewing machine.  ;)

I switched up my protector style this week and added in a page of STYLE E 6x6's.  It worked out well for the instagram collage and the other larger pics that i wanted to use! 

Week Three was busy for us - we all had Monday off for MLK jr day - and we spent the afternoon at one of our very favorite north florida beaches - there were tons of photos that I wanted to include and thus the insert of 6 3x4's (which is really just a Design F Pocket page that I trimmed down.  All beach on the front...

...and then other random 3x4's from the week on the back (plus a funny story about how noah keeps taking his pants off)...

The top left photo is from our beach day and has added text/journaling...

And then one of the 6x6 pouches holds a the story of Evan's preschool weekly homework assignment and a sample of his handwriting right now.  AND THAT right there is what I love about this Project - that I have a place to save these cute things that I'm going to love looking back on much much MUCH later.  :)))

The title date card for the week is actually a FABULOUS new digi brush stamp that Nisa created - can be found here.  I stamped it onto a 3x4 backing of my choice color wise and then used a heart shaped brush that I have at reduced opacity to highlight the days from this week.

and THAT was week three.

:)

PRODUCTS Used on Week Three:

InLinkz.com

{Project LIFE: Week 2}

Catching up on my PL album (yay!) - Here is what week two looked like for us...

...Eric was traveling for work most of this week, so Monday is waves and high five goodbyes at breakfast.  And then lots of other randomness thrown in throughout the week of me + the boys.  "CARS" has been experiencing a revival in our house since we got CARS 2 on dvd last December.  The boys both love playing with all the characters.  I loved finding them all parked and lined up in one of our low windows in the playroom and knew that a pic needed to be snapped so that it could find it's way into the PL album.

...I created a 4x6 collage of instagrams for the lower left part of this page.  I used one of Ali's brushes across my collage.  And i have to say - best part of updating my phone a few weeks ago was my newfound LOVE of instagram.  :)

...The right side of the week is a little story about Evan's art painting that week - a penguin that he told me was a "sad penguin bc his Daddy was missing" - he brought it home on Thursday and I snapped the pic of him with it bc I knew I wanted to include that little description in our PL album.  Then Eric ended up catching an early flight home that night, so I included part of his boarding pass with the journaling tabs (from Elle's Studio) on it.

There's also some other random shots from the week that i liked, and a mini collage with a couple of pics from Evan's first Basketball practice/game (which was ADORABLE).

...I used a 5x7 protector to house a cute extra pic of Noah from the week on the front and then a little "book" that Evan created at Preschool this week (full of artwork and writing) & I knew that I wanted to save, on the reverse side.

...And I also used Lisa's cute little technique of cutting words into wordbubbles to highlight this selfie pic of eric and I - love how easy it is to do this with my silhouette and know that i will be using the technique a lot more in the future!

And that was week two.  :) 

Will have week three to add here very soon!

PRODUCTS USED ON WEEK 2:

InLinkz.com

{Studio Calico's February "Daydream Believer" Revealed!}

WINNER (via random # generator) is...

**Nora - please email me your address to mail these out!  thanks everyone!  :)

Love all of your layouts...especially "Flying Dumbo". I missed out on the stamps too and would really love them. Thank you for the chance.

Posted by: Nora | January 28, 2012 at 02:26 AM

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Here we go!

with the craziness of both CHA projects and life in general going on lately, I didn't really blog sneaks for this kit - even though Daydream Believer and it's little friends definitely rank up in my all-time faves.

Here is what I made with it...

..."Sweet" is my MAIN ONLY kit project this month - even though I also got three addons along with my kit, I made "sweet" with just the Main - Daydream Believer.  Loved this month's MAIN - the SC Paper was quite possibly my favorite ever!  Photo is of my niece Ellie (taken by my sister Kristi) and I love the way it worked so well with the color scheme of the main and the butterflies that were included!

..."Flying Dumbo" is a favorite photo (taken via hold the camera out & shoot mid-ride style) from our little disney trip last October.  So glad to get the chance to use it - and use it BIG - here.  :)))  Can't wait till we take Noah back to Disney this Spring with us.  Used some of the new release AC stickers and chipboard available in the shop this month, on this as well!

..."Sweet Smile" is lots more SC Paper and also uses the AC chipboard for the title.  This photo was somehow disgarded into my ever-growing unscrapped 4x6 pile and i love it SO much and just knew that it was perfect for this tree print paper!

..."Right Now is Wonderful" is my favorite this month.  I think it really just is about where I am right now - and the quirky things that Eric & I are loving about the boys RIGHT NOW - and was a fun way to use some leftover b&w 3x4 alternate pics that I already had printed (and ended up not using) for my Project Life title page.  Lots of stitching here - I am itching to start a new sewing project!!!

..."Find Sweetness" is a mix of favorite prints from the kit and the journaling cards from Stepping Stone that I ended up loving.

..."Have the Best Day Ever" is my CHA-Challenge card - look for more details on CHA challenges to be posted at SC this weekend!!! :)

..."U R Splendid" uses my very favorite wood veneer banners from Pleasant Valley - I LOVED this little embellishment pack!

AND, so that is what I made with Daydream Believer (in just a couple of days this past week - I probably would have gone all out crazy given a few extra free days!)

I have to say that I know Stepping Stone was a crowd favorite - and already sold out(!) - I ended up with an EXTRA SET OF THE ALPHA STAMPS that were included in this add-on, and would like to give them away to someone who missed out on snagging the kit tonight.  Please leave me a comment if you are interested and I will pull a winner on Sunday night so that I can mail them next week.

Happy Weekend Everyone! :)))

(lots of Project Life for me to catch up on this weekend - which I'm honestly excited about!)

{Right Now}

Lately, I find myself constantly thinking (& reminding myself) that

Right Now...

...is Wonderful.

:)  {pic is a little sneak peek of one of my February Kit layouts for Studio Calico's Daydream Believer Kit - this was a FABULOUS kit!}

Even though I've spent the past eleven days distanced from the blog.

and even though I sometimes feel like the world (and our days) are spinning faster than ever imaginable.

and even though I sleep an average of 5 and a half hrs a night.  ;)

I'm grateful for this life.

And for being able to spend my afternoons with these two boys.

And for being able to spend a Tuesday morning chasing seagulls with Noah.

And for being able to attend Evan's (very cute) 1/2 Birthday Preschool celebration in Chapel this morning.

And for being able to take lots & lots of photos, and to create a mess in my kitchen with paper and glue and foam adhesive and embossing powder and stacks and stacks of patterned paper, and know that that's ok.  :)

Life is Wonderful Right Now.  I don't want to lose sight of that.

:)))

psst - the past two weeks of Project Life Spreads will be ready to share here SOON!!!  I am LOVING this project more than anything else at the moment!