#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.

#Challenge52Kits Daydream Believer - February 2012

Daydream Believer was one of the first kits I remember being sold out of stuff REALLY fast! This was a good one!

ABOUT DAYDREAM BELIEVER | Lots of girly, frilly, lovely products for this one! I didn't have a daughter back then, but sure wished I had! Since it was just me and my husband, I didn't do a lot of layouts with this one. It's actually hard for me to believe that I only got one add-on kit with this one, but maybe that's because I also bought the entire Dear Lizzy Neapolitan line on its own separately!

Main kit + Lady Lane leftover

A LAYOUT | I don't know why, but I really struggled with this layout, well I struggled once I had the pictures printed. I pushed paper for two days and really had trouble deciding what direction I wanted to go with this one. Finally I saw the layout, "Hello Fall" by Kat Benjamin and decided to do a scraplift!

SEWING | The best part about doing this layout was once I cut out the heart on my Silhouette Cameo and pierced my paper, I was able to take my sewing upstairs with me and get that whole part finished while Natalie played with her "manger people" in the living room and Daddy was able to sit through an entire Bills game without having to shut the tv off, grumbling about the whole season being done haha! It was quite relaxing, especially while I drank some warm apple cider!

BONUS PROJECT | Making a card based on my layout was easy for this one, I just kept it simple too and made a birthday card and left a little bit of space at the bottom for a name, maybe stamped or with some thickers.

NEXT UP | Story Hour from March 2012, I remember this one quite well because I just LOVED this kit, with a lot from the Crate Paper Storyteller line, first time seeing Kesi'Art papers, and the unique and versatile colors! I got 3 add-on kits and made 9 or 10 layouts. I found the different types of embellishments for this one as well as the papers made it easy to come up with a lot of layouts quickly, so it'll be interesting to see if I get stuck again with this one finally.

#Challenge52Kits County Fair - January 2012

Oops, I almost forgot to post this week my exploration of squeezing out one more layout from one of my top 3 or 5 kits of all time - County Fair!

ABOUT COUNTY FAIR | I loved the great woodgrain in this one and absolutely LOVED the Sasparilla collection from October Afternoon that made up a good amount of the kit and add-ons, plus I don't know... that country type feel for some reason!

Main kit leftover

REALITY | This was the first kit I actually made use of! I had signed up for Studio Calico's first class "Stretch Your Kit" with Amy Tan and made 9 layouts with this kit and add-ons! Later I made one more layout, making 10 layouts! The silly thing is seeing how much I really still have left over even after making all that, but I attribute that in part to buying more and add-on patterned paper quite often (I think I purchased just the more patterned paper for this month), so that doubles the main kit papers. I don't think I stopped buying add-on paper till later in 2012, so we'll (hopefully) start seeing a lot less leftovers!

Shooting Gallery leftover

Photo Booth leftover

A LAYOUT | For my layout I had this photo from a zoo trip with our friends that I wanted to put into Chris' album, so I made it 8.5x11. I had looked up some ideas but ended up just grabbing some leftover scraps and a piece of paper from that pad of paper around the page! So it kinda came together really fast! The only pieces that weren't from this kit are the round wood camera stamp (I liked this one from Amy Tangerine better than the one that came in the kit) and the jewels in the middle because the green buttons from the kit popped up just a little too much for me to want to use on a scrapbook page. Below you can see the Color Theory inks I selected to stamp with.

BONUS PROJECT | I made a thank you card for my sister and used my layout for inspiration, specifically the top right! So this card was super quick and easy and she loved it, especially since her name is Julie but Natalie called her "Aunt Juwie" haha!

NEXT UP | Daydream Believer from February 2012! This was a beautiful kit and back then I didn't have my daughter, so I'm looking forward to making something girly with this one!

#Challenge52Kits Brooklyn Flea - December 2011

Brooklyn Flea... where was I in December 2011? Absent perhaps.

ABOUT BROOKLYN FLEA | Not your typical December kit, not super Christmas-y, and I LOVED that it wasn't!

Brooklyn Flea + Salvaged add-on leftovers minus the card stock

REALITY | But reality is, I might've made 1 or 2 cards with this kit MAYBE, and that's it. I hardly remember this kit at all, except later thinking how much I loved the look of it, but never got around to working with it! I had only purchased 1 add-on kit, so maybe that's part of why I didn't do much with it or remember it well.

A LAYOUT | For this layout of my family eating dinner together for my daughter's 2nd birthday, I scraplifted this older layout by SC user paperandpetals because I really liked the banners and getting to use a bunch of those papers together! Plus I used up a bunch of those nice buttons!

BONUS PROJECT | Going with the theme of last week and using my layout as inspiration to make a card from the kit as well, I made this card base. It's just the start of a card, because I want to be able to use it for any occasion, maybe a thank you, maybe a boy birthday... but this way I have a quick start and idea all ready!

CARD UPDATE 10/2015 | I ended up needing to send some photographs to my Grandma's friend and of course, I couldn't send just an envelope, so I finished up this card to send along with the photos! I added some foam adhesive to the bottoms of the banners to make them stand out a bit more and then stamped and embossed the sentiment at the bottom. I was a little skeptical how I could use that card base, but it was perfect for this occasion and so glad I had it to work from to send out some really quick mail!

NEXT UP | County Fair from January 2012 - One of my top 3 ALL-TIME favorite kits I think! Why? Mainly because of Amy Tan's Stretch Your Kit class that got me to make 9 layouts with this kit and really gave me permission to USE my beloved supplies instead of hoard them!! It will be interesting though to see what I have leftover and how I am going to squeeze another layout with it. I think I actually made 10 layouts total.