What I decided

I while back I wrote about a decission I made. As always the spring season is a bit heavy for me. I'm not a spring person. I get tired and down when the snow starts to melt. Nature is at it's worst, all bare and dirty. I'm not at all for the pastell colours in the stores. Just not a fan of spring. I've been feeling stressed out and not at peace. Moving has been part of it all ofcourse, but I was beginning to feel less inspired about the DT work I was doing at Magdas. I pondered back and forth, and finally decided to step off the team. I will scrap for me only. Maybe a guesting somewhere. Possibly a sketch DT sometime in the future, where I can use my own supplies.

Here's a layout I made about my feelings for spring. I feel that the photo of my feet with the naked tree reflecting in the puddle describes it very well.

/Magdalena

Story Hour

I've started creating with my Story Hour kit. The main is only okay this month, but the add-ons were absolutely amazing! Illustrated - the tag bag. Atlas - the papers. And Encyclopedia... Well, it wasn't in my box when it arrived. I couldn't believe it. I was SO upset! Silly maybe, but true. I was so so happy to snag add-ons 1 and 2 at reveal and then it's not in the box. I e-mailed customer service and luckily they had one more to send me. Phew! But it'll be another two weeks before I can work with it. I also got add-on 3 after looking through the DT gallery. I love the papers in it.

Here's my first two layouts:

I wanted to try and use the Illustrated add-on only for this layout. I made it except for the title alphas that are from the main. Love that red JBS Cough Syrup ink!

AND...

This layout is about my children's love and fascination for snails. I used the glassine bag that the main kit fabric flowers came in, and filled it with confetti. An idea I spotted at one of Lisa T's pages this month. I embossed the stamp with white Zing.

/ Magdalena

At long last

We finally have a working broad band connection. It took the phone company the longest time to figure out why it wasn't working. We've been using a portable dial-up modem, and it was crazy slow. I've also not been at peace enough for scrapping. There's been my house in disarray and a decission waiting to be made. Also I only got the main kit from Studio Calico last month, and I'm running out of ways to use it. I got three add-ons this month to compensate. I'm not that fond of the main the way it looks in the picture, but that's changed several times when I have it in my hands. The add-ons were absolutely AMAZING! County Fair was easily my fave kit ever, but we'll see what happens when Story Hour arrives.

Since my Daydream Believer is running thin I've dug back into County Fair. Here's two layouts I've made this weekend:

I followed Amy Tan's advice from the Stretch your kit class - pick a few colors from the photo. I'll admit it makes a difference. This was really one of those AHA moments. I'll probably have a hard time NOT doing this in the future.

This one was made for a SC member challenge to only use a main for a layout. For someone who's not a fan of themey layouts I went out of my comfort zone for this one. This is probably the first layout I've ever made that actually has decorations that matches the story. The cones are an idea from Jen Jockisch who made a video tutorial on these for the Stretch your kit class.

I have more layouts to share, but I'll have to wait a bit. I'm guesting at Molly's scrapbooking this month - YAY! Lilo sent me a whole bunch of Crate and Studio Calico to work with. Love that! When she shares them on the store blog I can post them here also.

As for that decision waiting to be made - it's been made. This became such a long blog post I'll save it for tomorrow. Welcome back!

/Magdalena

iPhone4

I've scrapped my first Hipstamatic photo. Literally! Here it is:

I used the stamps from the County Fair add-ons "Shooting Gallery" and "Photo Booth". These two stamps are my favorite stamps to come in a SC kit ever. That little arrow is SO cute!

I used a sketch for this layout as well, but I don't know where it's from so I won't share it.

/Magdalena

Using Pinterest

I found this amazing pin where Elizabeth Kartchner had used patterened paper for printing out her photo. So cool! I had to try it. I wanted to use the photo as a background for my layout, so I went into Photoshop and added a 30% opacity white layer on top of my photo. Then I printed it out in size 8.5x11''.

The journaling is about us finally taking the plunge to buy our own house. I used part of this pinned quote for my title.

I love this H&M t-shirt I'm wearing on the photo. It has a cool collage-y print, and I used that as inspiration for my corner cluster.

Materials: SC Daydream Believer kit, February add-on PP and the journaling stamp is from the SC Field Guide add-on "Almanac"

/Magdalena

PS: I bought an I-Phone yesterday. Woohoo! So looking forwards to scrapping some fun Hipstamatic photos.

More sketches

I've decided to go with sketches this month. Here are two more layouts based on SC Sunday sketches.

Every morning this time of year our walk to pre-school takes us straight into the most beautiful winter sunrise. It really feels like the sun is telling us good morning. And here's the sketch I used:

I found a fun quote on red heads and decided to scrap it with a photo from my daughter's 2nd birthday. She has crazy bright orange hair. The rest of the family is dark haired. On both sides. Four generations back. How does it happen?! 

And the sketch:

I really disliked the butterflies when I first saw them at reveal. They are so far from my scrap style. Then I started seeing projects in the SC gallery where clever ladies had taken them apart and thought YES!

/Magdalena

Using sketches

I've decided to use sketches for this month's SC kit layouts. I have a whole file on my laptop with SC Sunday sketches that I've saved but often never used. This is my first layout using the February kit "Daydream Believer".

This layout is about my son's very first purchase with his own money. He picked out a pirate kit at the toy store. I put the receipt and part of the packaging in the envelope.

And here's the sketch I used:

/Magdalena

Following up on my 2012 scrappy goals

So, as I wrote in this post I have some new scrappy goals for this year. One of the goals was to keep a file for each Studio Calico kit on my laptop, and photograph every single layout I make. That way I can go back and see what I've gotten out of each kit, and which ones should give more. Today I've flipped through all my albums and taken out all the layouts that I hadn't photographed before, because I wasn't planning on sharing them. Then I sorted them into my laptop files. This is the number of projects from each kit:

• Paper Moon: 13 (killed)
• Mind the gap: 13
• Boardwalk: 14
• Glee Club: 17
• Field Guide: 11
• Handmade: 10
• Brooklyn Flee: 7
• County Fair: 14

Glee Club keeps resurrecting itself! I made two more yesterday:

This is not as far from my scrap style as you can get, but at least half way there. Let's just say there's a reason why I prefer placing my elements crooked from the beginning... But I still had to try this one out when I saw Stephanie's insider tip on the SC blog.
I can't figure out how the straightening tool in Photoshop works, so it looks to be leaning to the left. (Feel free to share tips!)

Then I have a photo I absolutely love, but that I haven't been able to scrap. I've tried many times, but I'm never happy with the results. I think it is the colors in the photo that makes it hard to scrap. Then I remember a layout by Tina Aszmus in the Glee Club gallery, so I ripped her off completely. Not a thing my own here, but I love the result!

Tomorrow's Monday again, so back to work!
/Magdalena

Digging into past kits

I've recently started digging into past Studio Calico  kits. They're piling up and I don't like it! Glee Club really had a lot more to give. It was the first kit since my sub started that really, really felt like me. Some of my fave layouts ever has been made with this kit. Here are two more that I've made recently:

I made this for the SC Sunday sketch challenge. The title and journaling is about the number of stuuffed animals my daughter keeps in her bed. She is hanging off the edge just to fit them all in, but she won't go to sleep without them. The title is also a little stretch your kit tip from me: When the letter thickers are running out, use the numbers for your title!

I  had to tell the story of my daughter's first injury. She flipped downhill in the snow and landed face first. She really hurt her mouth and nose. We had to get a dentist appointment to check on her teeth as well. They seem to be okay. I usually journal by hand, but there was too much to write about this time. My printer doesn't take 12x12 papers so I used a scrap piece and printed the text out vertically instead, and glued it to my page.

I've also made a third Glee Club layout that I've blogged about here. So that's three more. And I've got sooo much stuff left!

Past kit faves and thoughts

As I wrote in this post, I have made some new plans on how to go about scrapping my Studio Calico kits. Two of those things have really been helpful to me in working with the January kit. I have made a file on my laptop for every kit I've recieved (8 so far). In each file I've collected photos of the projects I've made with that particular kit. This has really helped to see that the kits have been worth their price even if it's not killed. I've decided to share my favorite project from each kit:

1. Paper Moon - love the Amy Tan tag!

2. Mind the gap - this was too hard. I'm picking two!

3. Boardwalk - this was hard for a different reason. I'm not 100% happy with any of my Boardwalk layouts, but I decided this one is ok.

4. Glee club - this was the first in a long row of kits that really, really suited my taste and scrap style.

5. Field Guide - I think this is my favorite layout ever.

6. Handmade - I'm nuts about the lime green alpha stickers:

7. Brooklyn Flee - this is the kit I need to get back to. To my surprise I found only 4 layouts in my file. I think a few have gone into my albums without being photographed. I will have to track them down. This was DD month, and I just didn't have the time to scrap regular layouts also. Again, nothing feels a 100% in this file but I'll pick one I'm ok with:

8. County Fair - my fave kit of all! I've made sooo much with it and I love it all. I got 3 add-ons, which I have never done before. It's the most amazing kit. So hard to pick only one, I'd like to post all of them, but I'll show you these two:

And my 9th kit is in the mail. Yay! But I'll have another 2 weeks to spend with County Fair, and I don't mind at all.

PS: I've completed my SC CHA challenge post down below. Here!

/Magdalena

Sunday sketch

This week I made the layout for the Sunday sketch at the Studio Calico blog. I loved the sketch I was sent. This is it:

I stuck pretty close to the sketch. I used a photo of my son from Christmas Eve. He's a huge Star Wars fan, and had asked for some action figures for Christmas. I don't think he actually expected to get any, because he was almost in shock at getting THREE of them. He just sat there and smiled. Adorable! This is my layout "Happy happy":

This is my first time EVER using the embossing fan I got for Christmas. It was so much fun. I really like how it looks.

/Magdalena

CHA challenges at Studio Calico

Starting this Saturday and running a week are the CHA challenges at Studio Calico. There are 10 different challenges created by different members of the DT, and each one has a prize of a $5 SC shop credit. If you take part in all 10 challenges you could win a prize of $50 worth of products from the new SC lines!!! I find it a good idea to keep track of my challenges. I could do it in a notebook or I could do it right here, maybe for someone else to enjoy as well. I will list the challenges here, and during the week I will update this post as I make new projects. My plan is to make all 10 challenges. Are you with me?
The challenges:

Nik's Journaling Spot challenge My CHA-ganza challenge is to use a JOURNALING SPOT/CARD on a layout/project!!
Same as for Susan's and Dawn's challenges
Stephanie's doily challenge That's right DOILIES. you all know i hoard doilies and use them on almost everything. now it's your turn. use a doily on a layout or card. use all of a doily, part of a doily, or use a doily as a mask. punch, mist, scrunch, ruffle, layer. any doily, any way.

Lisa's Mask Challenge
Use a diecut (pre made, or make your own!) as a mask for mist or paint.

Susan's get punchy challenge
Get Punchy with a Card! Use 4 or more different punches to create, embellish, or adorn a card!

Laura's challenge
use journaling from something you've written electronically (a text, e-mail, tweet, facebook status, blog post, anything!)

Dawn's diecut washi challenge Dawn's Die Cut Washi Challenge -- die cut washi covered card stock to create washi shapes to use on a card/layout!! can use scissors or a punch too.
Same as Nik's and Susan's challenges

Davinie's stitching challenge Time to put that needle and thread to good use. Using either your sewing machine or a needle and thread, use stitchery to create texture or an embellishment for your layout or card. Not sure what I mean? Check out my "A Moment" layout from the County Fair gallery.

Jen's layering challenge
I want to see as many layers as possible on your page for this challenge! Layer paper, embellishments, ribbon, pictures, whatever works for you. Can't wait to see what you come up with!
For now it's the same layout as the one for Steph's doily challenge. We'll see if I get the time to make another one special for this.

Kelly N's challenge
Use a circular photo, buttons, and polka dots on your layout

Tina's stamping challenge You must use a minimum of 2 stamps AND make it your focal point. Let's get inky!

Happy creating!
/Magdalena