Shanna's blog hop

Happy September! ( a little late...)

I was graciously tagged by Pam Baldwin  & Barbara Pichnich (aka Babz- doncha love that nickname?!) to take part in Shanna's bloghop that is currently making the rounds.
They asked me to choose 3 of my favourite scrappers, and let me tell ya, that's not an easy task. I have MANY- and it so happens that the 2 ladies who tagged me are among my current faves. More about that down below.

Here's the Q&A I was sent:

 1. What am I working on right now?

I'm presently working on finishing up my layouts for 2 Studio Calico classes that are happening this month: Pen and Paper, taught by the incredible Laura Kurz, and 30 Days of Me, with Maggie Holmes. And trying to get a grip on my workspace and the seemingly endless purge.

2. How long does it take me to create a project?

Ugh. This is something I struggle with. Most of the time, I am content to take a VERRRRRY long time to make a page. I like to let things sit, look at them, move stuff around. The word putzing comes to mind.It annoys me, but that's how I am. On the other hand, I am super efficient when it comes to deadlines ( aka NO CHOICE BUT TO GLUE IT DOWN) and I have made some of my favourite pages because I haven't had the time option. ;

 3. What are my favorite things to create with at the moment?

I'm loving sequins, the SC kit stamps & always wood veneer. I still really adore gold,( the Poet Society kit this month has an INCREDIBLE gold letterpressed one) paired with navy or grey for fall,  or any colour really. Big photos, hipster text overlays on photos, and vsco inspired photography. Think Kinfolk style. Getting into deeper, richer colour schemes for fall.

4. How does my creative process work?
I don't really have any set way of creating. I don't sketch. I am very visual for sure. I love Pinterest and magazines for inspiration.  Canadian decor mags are a great source of colour inspo for me. Often it's something like a font or a quote or an emotion. I just go with my gut. I never have a plan when I sit down, so I never know what will come out of it. Sometimes something good, sometimes nothing. 

        
5. How do I become inspired and stay inspired?
It comes and goes in waves for me. Right now, I'm not feeling too terribly creative, so when that happens, I get rid of stuff. I become easily overwhelmed with too much ( my minimalist nature rearing it's head) and I need to pare down. Doing a big purge seems to help inspire me and get's me excited about supplies I find when I clean up.  I'm a great believer in paying it forward and go through my things on a regular basis to give away. 

 6. What is my signature style?
Minimal, clean, white space, no fuss. I'm happy with a page with almost nothing on it. I like to create a mood with text and or images, I'm not a fan of over-embellishing for my own pages, although I envy others who do it well.

I'm tagging these 3 lovely women, who I think are phenomenal.

Erica

Jamaica

Laura

And thanks Pam and Babz!!

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Sandlot layouts

I really adored this month's kits.Sandlot is my fave kit since I joined Studio Calico last December, and that's saying a lot since there have been some gorgeous ones this year. Unfortunately, they didn't arrive in time for me to do more than 2 layouts due to time constraints  but I'm really happy with the 2 I managed to eke out.  I believe most of the add-on kits are sold out, but the main Sandlot kit is still available, and it is one I think you should definitely consider getting if you're still not a subber. Those acrylic red letters, the stamp, and the wood veneer numbers are just so good! Here's a main only page, using those 3 faves from the kit:

The CT decided to do a member lift for August, and I knew right off the bat that I wanted to lift Ginny. I LOVE her work. She's innovative, always inspiring, and just an amazing scrapbooker, not to mention a super sweet gal. I lifted her page Shhhh, which has so much impact with that adorable photo printed big. I envy her talent of embellishing a page so effortlessly- it always looks just right! I remember being obsessed with the dangling tag detail when I saw this layout, so I used that as my jumping off point along with the large photo, and just took it from there. Love how this one turned out, even though it doesn't much look like Ginny's page... that's the beauty of a scraplift, isn't it? Thank you Ginny for the inspiration and for sharing your talent at Studio Calico. :)

Ginny's layout:

And my layout, which I turned into a 2 pager, to accommodate more journaling:

Things I bought this month:

 I sub to the Project Life kit  even though I don't do PL, I love, love that kit for all the beautiful embellishments and exclusives. I see this month's kit has another design of the dot washi that I was so crazy about from last month's kits. So good.

Ali Edwards Summer journal cards: I love the beautiful simplicity of these cards, and envision using them on a layout or 2.

Maggie Alpha : A 2 in one stamp set. Similar to the font of last month's main kit veneer alpha, and super cool. Sold out now, but will hopefully be restocked.


Ok, off to clean up, my new housekeeper is coming in the am, hooray!

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Penny Arcade Reveal..

I can't even wrap my brain around the fact that it's already time for reveal. June actually whizzed by me so fast it made my head spin. I'm leaving for a camping weekend early tomorrow, so I won't be around when the gallery goes live, but believe me when I say the SC team has once again knocked my socks off. I honestly don't know how I'm even included in that group of talent.

Anyway, here are my layouts for July!

This is a main only layout, and hopefully the title page to a  Europe album that I would like to make with all of my old photos that are either stuck in boxes in the basement, or worse, a few magnetic albums.  I LOVED the graphic pp with the city script and didn't want to cover it up,, so I just highlighted the words of a few of the cities I visited during my trip and  on the second page, I used a photo of myself and my Grandmother, who I stayed with for a few months while in Holland. It was just so amazing to spend time with her, what a wonderful woman. So glad I did this.

Another main only layout.  Kept it uber simple with a vintage pic of my Mom and Dad the day they got engaged, and added some text at the bottom. I don't usually re-do layouts, but this one may get a do-over, as I'm not quite happy with it. 

This is my favourite layout this month.A really simple page but I think it has a lot of impact.  LOVED the die cut veneer from Skeeball and those amazing washi dots from the Spun Sugar embellishment add-on. I think this is my favourite embellie kit to date. 

Here's another one for my 'little me' album. I saw the woodgrain paper and the retro OA stickers with the turquoise from  Fortune Teller and automatically knew I would scrap this photo of my Dad and I. As usual, kept it ultra simple with the stickers, text and my fave down the middle of the page design. I adore this page, probably because the photo is one of my favourites ever- classic 60's!

Enjoy reveal, happy shopping, and a very HAPPY CANADA DAY to my Canuck friends!

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Letterpress 2.0

I'm looking very forward to doing another Studio Calico Letterpress class.  I took Tina's class last year, and got hooked in a big way.This time around it's the talented Geralyn Sy who's the teacher, and I can't wait to see what she's got in store for us. Letterpress is addictive and the results are fun, fun,  if you're prepared to play around and experiment. It takes a bit of patience,but once you get the hang of it, you can't stop. If you have a BigShot and the adapter platform, then you can jump right in.  Right now, Studio Calico has some gorgeous new letterpress plates for sale in the shop, and there may or may not be more on the horizon... ;)
 I bought this gorgeous script-y one as well as this one ( sadly sold out now, but I'm thinking they will be re-stocked) and a few of the coasters to experiment with. I have several packs of Letterpress cards as well in different sizes and thickness, but I do tend to prefer the thicker ones, as I like a deeper impression.

Here's a sample of a few cards I've made:

And the class description:

LETTERPRESS 2.0

Join Geralyn Sy for Letterpress 2.0. This new workshop will give you an in depth look at how Geralyn incorporates Letterpress into her creative process, and show you five fun techniques for printing with Studio Calico letterpress plates for your layouts, cards and pocket pages.

Letterpress 2.0 is enrolling now through May 31st at 11:59pm EST, and the all of the class content will be live on June 1st.

NEW TO LETTERPRESS?

Enroll in the Letterpress Bundle and you'll receive access to Letterpress 2.0 AND our introductory Letterpress class with Tina Aszmus from September 2013. The introductory class includes 8 full tutorials, 6 videos and 30 great projects to get you started & is available only through the bundle purchase.

Hope you'll be inspired to sign up and join in the fun- you only have a few more days to think about it, deadline is May 31st! See you in class. :)

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My Hello, Hello layouts

There never seems to be enough time to sit down and create with the kits I get on a monthly basis. They're so jam packed with all kinds of lovely things, so believe me when I say that if I had the time, I could probably create another 25 pages easily.I do try during the month to get a few done after reveal, and I'll post those as the month goes on. There are those deliciously colourful  KI alphas and striped paper in Hola that I haven't even touched, but dying to use. I'm thrilled they've brought back one of my all time fave papers.Back in the day, KI was my favourite company, and I basically bought EVERYTHING they put out.

Here are my pages this month, starting with the 3 main kit only layouts I made:

Perfect pairing of this pinky blush paper with my photos, and the gold labels just made it come together. I think I could happily scrapbook camping photos for the rest of my life. :)

This is a 2 page 8x11 page, and it came together accidentally after the photo printed out in b&w instead of colour. I didn't want to necessarily waste another entire sheet of photo paper, so I took it in another direction and paired it with the gorgeously bright striped pp for the main kit, then just embellished very minimally from there. I still haven't cut those words down the middle of the page, so I'm not sure how this one will fit into my album, lol. 

Also using the main only, a super simple one of my son and his bff from a few years back. He hates this pic, but I think it's hilarious and SO them! Cute, cute boys. I decided to go monochromatic by using just greens and blues to compliment the photo instead of adding in another colour.

This one uses the main, Bonjour ( love those Kal Barteski stickers!) and the stamp from Hola.

I stamped on the wood piece for my title and subtitle, and adhered with glossy accents so it would hold.

This page about my son ( looking a tad disheveled after the ceremony, but whatever!)

uses  Hola, the main kit, and a few bits of Bonjour.

As you can probably tell,  Hola was my fave add-on this month, and I'm sure it will be sold out super fast- hope you all get the goodies you want!

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And a few sneaks of tomorrow night's reveal...

Not sure where the month of May went, and it's hard to believe that it's nearly June! I feel like I haven't seen the month go by, it's been a crazy whirlwind. Lots of big stuff coming up in June- the biggest being that my oldest is graduating high school. How the hell did that happen so quick?! A word to those with little ones... hang on to these days and breathe in every second, because you'll be where I am before you even know what hit you. It's THAT fast.

Anyway, here are a few sneaks of tonight's reveal using the beautiful 'Hello Hello' kits. I literally gasped when I saw the images of the kits before they arrived. I love the bolder, hotter colours, perfect to get you in the mood to kick off summer.

This is one of my 'main only' layouts ( I did 3 using the main only this month),

simple. simple. The paper I used here was THE perfect colour. Happy, happy when that happens.

Bold yellow alphas and a bit of black, this one is graphic and I like it. :)

Used mostly Hola here.

Be sure to check the CT gallery tomorrow night for the full reveal- can't wait to see what the others have done!

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Officially the world's worst blogger.

I was supposed to have blogged my Studio Calico Camelot kit layouts last month, but I failed miserably. In fact, I'm failing miserably at keeping up with the whole blogging thing in general. I know it's here,I know I need to update more than a few times a month, but I'm so incredibly busy right now that it's really low down on my priority list.I will try harder!
These are now a month old, as the new reveal is tonight, but here you are anyways. I'll put up my layouts from this month's "Hello, Hello" kits in a more timely manner, I promise!

Super into making layouts with old photos right now, specifically ones with my Mother.

This page uses a really fantastic cut file by Barbara Picinich, you can find it here. 

Using one of the digital brushes for a big title- love it!

My favourite page this month was the one I did about the gym. I love the quiet photo, and the fact that I actually did a page about a gym, where I have been spending a LOT of time the past 2 months- like 7 days a week lots. ;) Lots of white space, and I like how the numbers ( also a digi stamp) look so graphic on the photo. Happy with this page. :)

This one documents my love of flower photography, one of my passions. Doesn't get more simple than this, right?!

Thanks for looking!

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