#Challenge52Kits SoCal - June 2012

Hello SoCal, sunshine state/area in a kit from June 2012!

ABOUT SOCAL | What's not to love about this kit? The fresh orange shades, the pinks that somehow don't look awful against the orange, the sky blues… Loved this kit and still do!

SoCal main kit leftover
Santa Monica leftover	Venice Beach leftover

PICKING PHOTOS | I had these pics of me and my daughter but our shirts clashed, and even her outfit that she ended up in after her 2nd day of school didn't seem like it would translate well to a color photograph and layout. But then SoCal comes along and captures the feel of that afternoon last month! We were having fun playing outside, just being silly, talking and giggling together. She was in a good mood despite having spilled water on herself at school and not liking to be wet, she asked her teacher to change her outfit. So 2nd day of school, and the extra change of clothes I packed into her bookbag already got utilized haha! They really know what they're talking about when the school lists what to pack in the bookbags!

A LAYOUT | I started with the 2nd paper from the bottom, orange with the pink hearts and thought that would go perfectly with the pictures. Then I started grabbing a few more sheets of paper, and suddenly I had 5 sheets in my hand… and it looked so pretty in my hand I thought I would use them as strips just like that for my layout! But wasn't sure what else beyond that. I ended up grabbing a piece of grid card stock from my stash for the background, then to add some interest to the paper strips I was planning, I used my Silhouette to cut out some wonky hearts on each piece of paper. After that, I decided to fill in the hearts with a bit of light watercolor paint and then embellish on top!

BONUS PROJECT | I knew I should definitely find a way to use up the heart cut outs from the strips of paper, so I made this simple card base and sewed some lines on top with some gold thread. I'll try to remember to come back and update this post when I finish it up and use it!

NEXT UP | Elmwood Park from July 2012, lots of red, blue, orange, green, and yellow - sort of reminds me of a paint palette with all the basic colors!

#Challenge52Kits 35mm - May 2012

OK, so you can tell what kind of weekend I had based on how late in the week my blog entry occurs ha! Just kidding, it was mostly just busy, but good busy!

ABOUT 35mm | Well let's see, the camera fad makes its way into our kits, and as a child of Kodak, this kit looked awesome! The funny thing is, when I ordered this kit at the end of April 2012, I was at Miami beach with Chris… literally on the beach, so I had to go all the way back into the hotel room, plug in my computer, and do the Studio Calico presale dance when the latest kits went up at noon! How committed is that!?

35mm main kit leftover	Brownie leftover
Lomography leftover	Add-on patterned papers leftover

A LAYOUT | I made this layout starting with a sketch template from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership and some photos of Natalie in front of the elephants at the zoo. I used my alpha roller stamp to stamp out some of the phrases she was saying/laughing while we were standing there watching them! Overall, I was surprised how "light" I was able to get this layout with the yellow background paper, considering how much brown was part of this kit. I think that's why when I received the kit, it seemed harder to work with than I had thought it would be.

NEXT UP | SoCal from June 2012 - how orange should be! This one is very summery and was perfect for getting started on that Florida trip 3 years ago, but hopefully I can find some good pics to go with this even though we're getting into fall season and cooler weather here!

#Challenge52Kits City of Lights - April 2012

Welcome to the City of Lights, aka Paris!

ABOUT CITY OF LIGHTS | Beautiful, lovely, girly colors, a nice contrast to the previous month's Story Hour. I loved the feel of this kit, but ended up using most of for cards.

City of Lights leftover	Louvre leftover
Montemarte leftover	Add-on patterned paper leftover

A LAYOUT | I sort of "tossed and turned" with this one, once I printed out my photo and then added the frame. I switched the background papers several times, and even decided on this final one but then gave up and went another direction, then went back to this selection. I ended up sort of half-scraplifting my December Daily 2015 cover page (see Instagram) for the butterflies part to fill a bit of space.

NEXT UP | 35mm - at the height of the camera icon phase in scrapbooking, which has somewhat continued to this day! Photography and scrapbooking go hand-in-hand and this kit was no exception!

#Challenge52Kits Story Hour - March 2012

Story Hour, yay!! The nerd in me, and the more "boyish" colors loved this kit at the time when it was just me and my husband!

ABOUT STORY HOUR | Lots from the Crate Paper collection called Storyteller, which I loved, and oh those white foam thickers from the Illustrated add-on, yes please! I bought 3 add-ons for this month and actually made 9 or 10 layouts with it, so it wasn't all to waste! But I def have plenty of leftover!

Main kit leftover	Illustrated leftover
Encyclopedia leftover	Narrative leftover

A LAYERED TEMPLATE | I bought this set of layered templates from Studio Calico in a digital sale at some point but never used it, so figured I'd give it a whirl since I could make use of multiple patterned papers and those were probably my favorite part of this kit! So I quickly dropped my photos in, then printed up just the photos all on an 8.5x11 sheet and cut them out.

A LAYOUT | Once I cut out the squares (diamonds), it was just a matter of cutting some papers and filling in the rest - super simple and fast! I made the title and added my journaling and done!

WCMD CARD | I finished my layout a day early so I could work on some cards for World Cardmaking Day, so my first card was this one, inspired by the layout I had just made and instead of photos, I just got to use more pretty patterned paper! I cheated a little bit with this one though - I had also purchased the Storyteller 6x6 paper pad from AC Moore I think, at a later date, so I used those smaller patterned papers which work better with the cards anyway. I made just did a quick stamp for the thank you and stamped twice below it without re-inking to get the ombre/faded look. Quick embellishment and done!

NEXT UP | City of Lights from April 2012. Prior to this kit, I did not know that Paris was called the city of lights, there I admit it, I can go to sleep at night.