Friday, December 14, 2012

Big news at Studio Calico!

There's big news over at Studio Calico! With the expansion of SC to now have Project Life and Card kits along with the Scrapbook kits, the creative team has also expanded. There will now be separate teams for scrapbooking, the card kit, and Project Life! This means tons more inspiration :) So excited that so many talented people are joining the SC family!


The new teams are starting with January's kit, and you can check out the sneaks here. I'm excited to be part of both the Scrapbook Team and the Project Life Team, so I'll be sharing layouts and Project Life spreads each month :) If you're interested in more Project Life inspiration, SCs January class is Day by Day, where there will be lots of tricks and info on the PL team's Project Life process :) Hope to see you in class!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

December Daily 2012: Part I

I'm finally blogging about my December Daily this year! I've been meaning to for a while now, but it's just been so hectic and I haven't had the time to do so until now. It's gotten dark so early these days though, which makes it hard to take photos of my book. But I have to make do with these photos because I don't have any other time to snap a few shots.
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My thoughts:

So first off...thoughts on this year's DD. I was originally unsure if I wanted to tackle this project again this year...I knew I would be going on vacation for part of December and wasn't sure how much holiday stuff I'd be doing. Last year's book took me forever to finish (finished it in the beginning of December of this year, ha!) and I'm still doing Project Life.

But what drew me back to this project was remembering how much I loved having a little mini-book about the holiday season. I really love Christmastime and knew I wanted it documented. So pushing aside my initial reservations, I decided to go for it. This year's book isn't an actual daily book though. It's more of a compilation of any holiday-related happenings in my life. So really, it's a holiday mini-book. Any everyday stuff in December would go in my Project Life and any holiday things would go in this book. But it's just easier to call it DD ;) I still plan on documenting any holiday-related stuff while I'm on vacation, but I'm not bringing any scrapbooking supplies with me. I'll just take notes and photos and work on the book again when I'm home.
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Supplies:

This year, I'm using:


A bit of a holiday overload ;) I love Christmas products and had to stop myself from buying more than what's listed above. I also had my eye on Ormolu's No. 25 and Banana Fish Studio's  holiday release.
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Intro pages:

So here we go - my cover, title page, and intro pages!

I decided to keep my album cover really simple this year. I used some ribbon from my stash, an old glitter snowflake, and an Ormolu charm & twine from last year's holiday collection. I'm planning to put 2012 on the album using wood veneer letters, but I just haven't decided if I want it on the spine or on the bottom right corner of the front cover.

For any mini-book I make, I like to have a title page. The heart and pinked circle look dark brown but they're actually gold foil (from Dear Lizzy's 5th & Frolic sticker book), and they're super pretty in real life.

(click for larger image) The vellum with the gold text on the right is from Kelly's DD kit...I'm so in love with it and I knew I wanted it to be near the front of my book.

(click for larger image) I wanted divider pages to indicate the holiday stuff that happens at home, and the holiday stuff that will happen when I'm away, so I created this page on the right (there will be another one later on in the book to indicate when I'm on vacation). The veneer letters, veneer snowflakes and washi tape are on a transparency page, and inside a page protector behind it is a photo of brokeh from my Christmas tree.

I'm really loving the 4x6 size and find it easier to fill the pages :)  I'll have more pre-vacation DD pages to share on the blog soon. How about you - how is your DD coming along?

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Holiday Gift Tags

Happy December everyone! I can't believe that it's less than three weeks until Christmas. I feel like there's a million things to do during this time of the year and not enough time to do them. I did squeeze in some time to work on my December Daily book (which is more of a holiday book this year because I'm doing Project Life still), but I haven't gotten that far yet. Hopefully, I can share my progress and my thought process about it on my blog next week.

For now though, I'm blogging about some gift tags I made. Christmastime is one of the only times I make cards and gift tags (the other time being birthday occasions) - they're not my forte, but I find them fun to make every once in a while. In my excitement about designing my new holiday products, I decided to whip up some gift tags...I actually made these weeks ago but didn't get around to photographing them until yesterday.


Holiday Gift Tag #1
The Nutcracker ballet inspired this first tag...I watched the Nutcracker for the very first time last year and thought it was magical. I think it would be really cute to give someone tickets to the Nutcracker by presenting them the ticket and a little Nutcracker tag in a paper bag :)
Supplies: Christmas Cut-outs I, Christmas Cut-outs II, Holiday Filler Cards, Cherry Divine Twine, Whisker Graphics little bitty bag, washi tape, shipping tag


Holiday Gift Tag #2
I misted the tag with Silver Mister Huey and a chevron mask before layering my printable cut-outs and circle tag. It was super quick to make!
Supplies: Christmas Cut-outs IChristmas Cut-outs II, Christmas Circle Tags, Silver Mister Huey, 4x6 Chevron mask,wood veneer stars, washi tape, shipping tag

Holiday Tag #3
This was also another easy-to-make tag. After adhering everything, I added glossy accents on top of some of the confetti on the printable and the wood veneer asterisk.
Supplies: Christmas Cut-outs IIHoliday Filler Cardsglossy accents, mini clothespin, wood veneer asterisk, washi tape, shipping tag

Next on my list to tackle - Christmas cards! I have a growing list of cards to make...wish me luck! Happy Wednesday everyone :)