A New Ink on Life

Office Hours Revealed

The Creative Team Gallery (remember you can search kit type by Scrapbook, Card, and Project Life) is live now and full of so many gorgeous samples of Studio Calico's Office Hour's March Kits. 

Be ready for a full day of creative work with a mix of patterned paper from Life Love Paper, Studio Calico and Paislee Press and a 4x6in stamp set that coordinates with the wood veneer accents in the kit. 

Here's a look at a card that I made using the Office Hours Card Kit as well as the Card Stamp Brush Digital files and my Cameo:

This is one of my favourite cards that I made this month. I just love watercolouring and I was so pleased to get such a great result with the new Color Theory Inks and a Watercolour brush. The inks are so rich and vibriant and stamp beautifully. I used the Deja Blue (a rich true navy) for the sentiment and I really love how quick they dry. To give the negative space umbrella more interest I not only backed it with the navy patterned paper but also used a piece of transparency sheet included in the kit. The umbrella image was super easy to cut out with my Cameo by simply tracing the PNG file.

Here is a look at the super cute Water Cooler Add on. Love, love , love the stamp set in this one!

These kits and add ons are available now for presale to current subscribers and will go live at midnight EST. 

If you are not already a subscriber but would love to learn more about how Studio Calico works and sign up to receive a fun little box of creative goodies each month be sure to visit the Studio Calico Site. Not only is Studio Calico a great place to find the latest paper crafting supplies it has as far as I am concerned the best Community full of wonderful people that share a passion for Scrapbooking, cardmaking and Project Life. The Message board and Member Gallery are always full of so much information and inspiration. even if you are not a subscriber we would love have you come join the forums, this community is for everyone with a creative passion:)

Have a wonderful evening and I will be back to share more of the cards I made using the Office Hour Kits.

Checking in to the Office

It is almost time to Clock in for OFFICE HOURS! A preppy combination of navy, kelly green and pink sets the mood for Studio Calico's March Kits.

Here's a peek at what is to come:

I know I have said this many times before and at the risk of sounding disingenuous, I have to say it again-these kits just keep getting better and better every month! Honstly I just love the fact that there is a company out there that puts together a paper crafting kit that saves me so much time when creating. It takes all of the mundane prep work out of having to choose paper, embellishments etc. before I even get started on my project. I am being completely honest here when I say that I really love having a kit come to my house every month. It's a little box of happy that I can count on each month and it helps to keep me creative and using my supplies. 

Here's a little peek at what I have been up to this month using both the Office Hour Card Kit and the Water Cooler Add on:

These 4 cards were all created using just the main card kit.

And these 2 were made using the Water Cooler Add on, my new best friend the Silhouette Cameo and some of the awesome Digi Files for March!

See you back here tomorrow for Reveal!

Mini Album Fun

I love taking pictures and I am sure like a lot of people, I have been terrible about staying on top of printing them and keeping up with scrapping them. That is one of the reasons I love creating mini albums. I can select a few favourite pictures choose a theme and scrap them relatively quickly. No worry of being chronological, a mini album is great to create at anytime for any reason. 

Things have been so crazy busy around here lately that I haven't had much time to craft just for me and just because. So today was the day to print off the instructions to Nicole's Reeves Mini Book Workshop at Studio Calico, pull some of my favourite products, print the gorgeous printables that are included in the class and actually print some pictures! 

The class has several videos to help with the assembly of the album and Nicole also wrote a very clear and detailed PDF with full instructions and photos. Another thing that I love about creating this mini album is that I can just pull from my stash and make an album that will suit my needs and theme. Here's a photo of some of my recent favourite products that I will be using to create my album.

1. Color Theory Alphabets- these tiny letter stickers are the perfect product to create custom words for projects like a mini album, cards and project life. They would also be great for subtitles and journalling on scrapbook pages.

2. Color Theroy Enamel Dots- Love how flat these are and that they come in several different colours. Each pack also includes 3 sizes and 3 shades of similar complementary colours-LOVE!

3. Waunderlust Wood Veneer Square Frames- These cute little frames make the perfect accent to any project

4. Waunderlust Phrase Roller Stamp- Let's face it, roller stamps are just so fun and this one has some really cute phrases and symbols.

5. Waunderlust Tiny Word Stickers- Love the typewriter font of these stickers and there are great andversitile words included on this sheet that can be used alone or together to create a custom sentiment.

6. Waunderlust Vellum Phrase Stickers- This package includes two sheets of sweet phrases and let's face it-anything vellum is amazing!*SWOON*

7. Essentials Flag Clips- These little clips are awesome. I really like how they are very flat so they do not add a lot of bulk to a project which makes them also perfect for adding to cards and still have them mailiable. Even better is that they come in lots of colours. The GOLD is another favourite of mine.

Okay well I better go and get busy and finish my album, can't wait to come back later this week and share it!

The Theory of Colour and Letterpress Love!

Okay so since I haven't blogged in a bit I have a jammed packed post for you:) First off, remember when I said that there were lots of fun and exciting new thing coming to Studio Calico? Well they are here! So be prepared for a long post, lol.

I am so stinkin' excited I can barely contain myself! In my paper crafting I consider myself to be first and foremost a stamper. I love new stamps and have a huge hoard err, collection of them and of course that would make me a lover of ink too, and over the years I have tried many different types. So you can imagine my excitement when Studio Calico announced they were going to be carrying there own line of inks and other basic essentials such as sequins, buttons and paper in core colours. This permenant collection is called Color Theory and it is amazing!

These inks will be ready for individual sale starting the beginning of March and the accessories are available now.

And what goes better with new colour product then a new awesome class in the Studio Calico Classroom!

Lisa Trusdell is one of my scrappy idols and she always creates such amazingly well composed projects with perfect colour combinations. She will be working with some incredible contributors to bring a class full of colourful inspirations. And there will be digital prinatbles and cut files included in the the class too. To learn more about this class be sure to check out all the info HERE. Lisa even posted a little video sneak.

So now on to my latest love and obsession-LETERPRESS! I have always adored the elegant look of letterpressed stationary and cards. So pretty and classic. So when Studio Calico started carrying the Lifestyle Crafts Letterpress Bundle, accessories and their own brand of letterpress plates last fall I knew I wanted to try them out. A super cool technique partnered with Studio Calico's cutting edge style= something I had to have. Well like a lot of things that are fun and new to me I ordered it right away (ahem Cameo anyone?- but I will save that for another post,lol) then it sat in my craft room for quite a while before I finally made it a priority to pull it out. Well I fell in love with how easy it is to use. The only learning curve I experienced was using the letterpress inks *tip* a little goes a very long way:) and there is such thing as over inking!

So here is the results of one of my play sessions using the Sending Love Plate. 

I wanted to create a graduated colour effect or Ombre look so I combined a drop of Teal Green and Yellow Letterpress ink on the blending plate. I am so loving the Kelly/Lime Green and Yellow colour combo that I see popping up everywhere.

 

One of the things I really like about the Studio Calico Letterpress Plates is that most of them come with several images that can be cut apart and arranged however you would like them to be.

 

These are the images that come on the plate I used and here is a look at how I cut them up and arranged them to make the sentiment I wanted:

After I cut the words and images up I just attached them to a piece of Printing Plate Adhesive, this keeps the image in place perfectly. So I can then just easily attach it to the Letterpress Platform, ink it up and then run it through my Big Shot. 

I used the Thick Letterpress Paper (I like this the best) and then attached it to a Letterpress folded card base (I adore how sturdy this cardstock is!). I also used some of the gorgeous papers from the Lemon Lush Collection.

So if you have been on the fence about Letterpress and wondering if it is really worth investing in I definitely would say yes! I think it is a trend that is here to stay and the results you get are just so cool. Plus there are so many different things you can do with the plates. You can also use regular inks on them, (I find pigment or chalk inks have the best results and the clean up with them is very quick and easy) also the blind impression technique (no ink required) is awesome. And if you are looking for some more Letterpress Inspiration I have a whole board that I just started on Pinterest HERE dedicated to Letterpress and I will definitely be adding lots more pins!

 

 

More Sweetness from Sugar Rush

Well I had really planned to be back last week with the rest of my Sugar Rush Kit samples but would you believe we got hit here with another stomach virus?! I think that this house has had enough sickness to last the rest of 2014. 

So here I am today with some more cards using the Digital Sugar Rush Files and the Taffy Card Kit add on.

For this card I used the sunburst pattern paper from the Card Kit then created my sentiment with the Card Digital stamp brush set. I enlarged it then recoloured in a rainbow of colours. Love that the digital items open up so many creative options.

 

 

For this card I created my own background paper using the star digital stamps and added the sentiment as well as the two black banners digitally. Then I finished it of with embellishments and paper from the Card Kit.

This card uses elements from the Taffy Card Kit Add on and some of my favourite Printables this month. The Sugar Rush Printable by Shannel Noel is so soft and pretty. They paired perfectly with the gorgeous gold punchella vellum paper in Studio Calico's new Lemon Lush Collection. And of course this card wouldn't be complete with out some Mister Huey's Mist in Mary Mary and Shell.

For this last card I combined both Card Kits and created a fun collage style card with layers, wood bits and mist drops. Love the way this one turned out. 

 

Well I have lots more to share coming up including some fun new things happening at Studio Calico. So stay tuned:)

Have a great day!