I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Studio Calico

True Love LO- 3.18.12 Sunday Sketch

Aprilsketchi

–3.18.12 Sunday Sketch–

So I am a slacker. I’m not talking about my constant feet planted approached at taking the LEED test, but a craft/blogger slacker. My love for Studio Calico’s Sunday sketches is should be no surprise at this point since I have a whole page on the blog devoted to linking my take on the sketches on there. Well, if you noticed it’s been barely lately. I am good about doing the sketches but I don’t have the consistent follow through on scanning, photographing, posting, linking… hmmm I wonder why?!?!

Well this is a brand new Studio Calico Sunday Sketch so I rushed to do it, and actually follow through and post it. As soon as I saw the sketch I knew which layout I would use it for so I just dug through my ‘to scrap’ photos and got to work. It came together really quickly and I love when that happens. I made a mistake but shit happens so I made myself work with it instead of tossing the whole thing in the trash. Do you see it?

 

One of my favorite things about this layout is my use of FabRips. This was my first time using Studio Calico’s FabRips. I just never felt the need to use the product before. Mainly because I didn’t know how I would want to use it. I felt just needed to give it a try once and for all so I cut a strip and scrunched it up. I think I’ll def be exploring more with the pieces I have, but I know I definitely need to get this filmstrip FabRips!

Project Life 2012: week 7

I felt a bit rushed putting this week together since I’m falling a bit behind. I am making it high priority to get week 8 and 9 done this week… umm yeah, I’ll fit that in while looking at a house, concert, rep dinner, cookbook release party, dinner out… I really have something planned for every night this week. It makes for fun PL documentation but it can make me fall behind. Oh the juggling act!!

Week 7: 

Full Spread

Left Side

 

I like the butterfly embellishment because I first took a piece of patterned cardstock, stamped over it, add dimensionals to the butterfly, put the brad in the middle and then put it on the stamped paper.

Right Side:

 

The letter circles on the central journaling box are cute hole reinforcements for binders that I picked up at the Container Store. They came in a ‘carnival theme‘. Well as cute as they are I am do down right pissed about them. I peeled them off their backing and put them on my edge of my desk to grab easily once I had the cardstock trimmed. I do this for my Thickers as well to plan but thickers are nice sweet alphas that don’t rip the laminate off my perfectly fine Ikea desk like this little SOB’s did. So take my advice and don’t stick them on anything but paper!

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Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive. 

The Boys LO- Studio Calico 12.25 Sunday Sketch

12.25.11 Sunday Sketch

I know that for most cases you should use the rule of 3 in photography and in design. In this case my only 3 were the boys in the picture! The page is divided in half but I think the fact that the photo is not centered helps this layout be so attractive and visually appealing.

I don’t typically stamp, which is strange since I have 150+ stamp sets from Stampin’ Up! and so many from Studio Calico. Plus my massive collection of inks. I am really going to try to make a point of stamping in my layouts this year. I am doing Project Life and I think it will start off being manageable in that and them creep into bigger layouts.

I took this photo after my niece’s first birthday. We celebrated right before Halloween, which is her birthday, which is why one of my nephews is wearing part of his costume. He was showing it off. Sure, I can have them stop and pose for me but whats the fun in always doing that? I want to capture these silly moments. In truth this was the best photo out of a dozen+ I took. The others were dotted with tongues sticking out, wide mouth yells, and rolled eyes. At least they are very lively!

5: Vested LO- Studio Calico 12.18 Sunday Sketch

C&l-sketch

12.18.11 Sunday Sketch

Super Simple. Too simple but it’s done. I used some scraps and whipped this up in just a few minutes. I liked that the sketch gave the opportunity to use up scraps since I have a massive box of them. I love any sketch that promotes that.

I used the 5 buttons to act like that vertical like that runs down the side of the sketch. I was thinking that having the buttons in a row would create that linear element on the page. I used the 5 colorful buttons as a play on the  years I have been with The Big G and the colorful strips I used.

I hope to do a better job this year of staying with the Studio Calico Sunday Sketches as they are being posted, so far so good. As for posting them on the blog… soon, I swear!!

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Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive. 

Giant Santa LO- Studio Calico 12.4.11 Sunday Sketch

Cards

12.4.11 Sunday Sketch

As with the start of every year we make resolutions. I am taking this opportunity to mak one for my blog… I resolve to have more scrapbooking and craft posts. As I made my 2011 recap I realized that the topics of my blog posts were not equally divided. I was noticing that my blog was becoming more and more like a typical food blog, and that is something I don’t want. I love food blogs but I never set out to have one, and I didn’t like how it was evolving towards that. I want to blog about food, obviously, but I want my posts to be equally divided up among the topics of my life, crafting/scrapbooking, and food.

So, I am resolving to actually scrapbook and craft more and to actually put those projects on the blog. I have so many vacation mini books complete that I never posted because I got busy/lazy/bored/etc. I am warning you now that you will be seeing posts related to the mini books I made for Montreal, Charlotte, and Utah in the coming weeks. And I am starting with committing to more scrapbooking posts right now with this one about a giant Santa!

I started out making cards before I began scrapbooking so I was tempted to make a card when I first saw this sketches. But card making is not really my thing anymore so I went with a scrabooking layout instead. I was inspired by the lower right card sketch because I felt it had great composition for a layout. I love when things run up and down a page vertically.

I did this layout quickly and that is just the way I like it! I used a fun glittery patterned paper for the background, which I misted for a little fun. I used an evergreen colored cardstock for the photo border because it was like the trees in the photo. I pulled out that sticker embellishment because it was black and red, like on Santa, and it was circular, similar to the patterned paper. The cardstock embellishment was from an old Cosmo Cricket Christmas themed elements paper that I cut out from its background. I then added an American Crafts pearlized brad to it. A little piece of scrap paper, a tag, alphas, and a ribbon finish it off.

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Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive. 

Ribbit LO- Studio Calico 4.10.11 Sunday Sketch

–4/10 Studio Calico Sunday Sketch–

This layout has been sitting on my desk at work waiting to for journaling, then for it to be scanned and edited, photographed and edited, and then blogged for months. Well today is the day that it is finally getting done!

Ribbit! I used to only scrapbook big events- birthdays, holidays, parties, etc. But that was back when I had to buy film. Over time when digital cameras got better and developing became super easy, I have changed my outlook on scrapbooking. this is a quirky post about Pricer catching frogs in E’s backyard. What’s the big deal? Well, I want to look back at this page years and years from now and remember that moment. I was something that kinda took my breath away. I was so excited that I had Price repeat this over and over to the poor froggies for my amazement and for photo taking. I feel that I was not properly educated at camp… how did no one teach me how to pick up frogs?!?! Silly I know, but it totally made my morning.

(close up photos to come)

How to catch a frog:

1. Appoach it from the side, be careful not to cast a shadow on it or make sudden movements.

2. Carefully put your hand in the water. Slowly move your hand to be under the frog.

3. Slowly raise your hand under the frog until touching. If all has gone well at this point, lift frog out of the water slowly. Ta-da!!

Donut Love LO- Studio Calico 8.28 Sunday Sketch

Knsketch

– 8/28 Studio Calico Sunday Sketch-

The Sunday Sketch featured on 8/28 worked so well for what I had in mind for this layout about our visit to Doughnut Plant. Besides that I loved the doughnuts, I loved that they decorate the shop with plushy donuts, in both their round and square shapes, on the wall. I wanted to recreate that look on my layout.

Using scraps of patterned and solid papers I got to work punching them out with a square and circle punch. Then I used my crop-o-dile to punch the hole in the center to create the complete donut. After I arranged them I put a few of them on foam spacers to add a little dimension for the page. In addition to the donut accents, I added a sticker strip that I felt would also relate well to the donut shape.

I want a doughnut now…

And Point! – LO

I tried to keep this layout fun and light because it features a fun time for us, well specifically Pricer. Once, when we went into the city we stopped by the Today Show to see the morning taping of the show and when we were there Price got to take a photo with Linny. If you didn’t know, Linny is a Today Show staple, he is outside EVERY DAY in the crowd. Crazy! But we love getting to see him point to the camera after the break return at 7.30.

 

As ‘simple’ as this layout is with just 1 patterned piece of paper for the backgrounds and photo, I tried to have fun with the embellishments. I used chipboard pieces that I painted and inked. I used the tag to create a spot for the title, that I made with alpha letters. I stamped and used used a brad. All of these things were pretty small so they didn’t overwhelm the page. My favorite thing I put on there was the heart shaped paperclip. Adorable!

‘Miss C’ LO

My niece Cara is turning 1 in a less than a week. I love her to death. She is just so adorable. It has been amazing to see her grow so much from this adorable little newborn. Over the year I have seen her every few months so I have the chance to document her growth. I took these photos at the end of August. I can’t wait to see her next week to see how much she has grown.

I am so addicted to my Studio Calico kits that arrive every month in our building vestibule every month. (Price is less excited… ‘great more stuff’) I love the kits but I really love getting to see awesome design inspiring layouts from the design team. I looked back on layouts from Stephanie Howell and Kelly Purkey for each of them for inspiration.

Andshedreams  Youarehere  Blog lucky

When I saw these layouts I knew that I wanted to keep them in mind for future inspriation. I loved the use of these butterfly chipbaord peices that Stephanie used in 2 of her layouts. Kelly used airplanes in her layout but I was looking at how they radiated from a central point on her page. Keeping the looks of all these layouts in mind, I got to work to create this page about Cara.

 

I am not a butterfly person. I actually was bummed when I first saw these since I have gotten quite a few butterfly things over the year since I have been subscribing to SC. And yet, Stephanie’s layouts sold me on actually using these Sassafras ones.

If you happen to like what is including in the Field Guide kit, including the butterflies, I suggest you hop over to Studio Calico and buy a kit, while it is still available!

The Fourth on the 3rd- Studio Calico 7/10 Sunday Sketch

Emily-sketch

Everything came together perfectly for this layout. I loved this Sunday Sketch once I saw it. I loved my instant photos. I loved the Studio Calico ‘Boardwalk’ kit when it arrived. I saw that paper and my heart skipped a beat. The hexagon/honeycomb gets me every time.

Scrapbooking these instant photos reminds me that I need to order more since they were my last 2 photos. Must put that on the to do list.

I made a mistake when I was writing the jouraling. I, as usual, had a ‘Nicole has shitty handwriting and you can’t read that word’ error so I had to make the choice of starting completely over or to grab another piece of paper and fix that one bit. Since I was in no mood to look for that olive green in my scraps bin, I picked a different green and made it work by mixing it into the journaling.

 

Boardwalk is still available. Buy it. Love it. Scrap it.

Month: 7- Studio Calico 4.3.11 Sunday Sketch

Kelly's-sketchThis Studio Calico Sunday Sketch, and the layout that generated the sketch, was something that I really enjoyed working with. I liked the large blocking of the papers that was mixed with smaller images. I feel that a sketch like this can generate a lot of different layouts because the focus, and creativity, could relate to the photos, the journaling, or the large title.

I love taking photos of my niece, but as in most cases with babies, the photos might not come out very well because of all her movement. Instead of just filing these photos away on my computer because they were not picture-perfect, I decided to use them. However, instead of using large 4×6 photos, I used smaller 2×3 photos that I made even smaller by trimming them. The fact that Cara is moving, and therefore blurry, shows how animated she is. That itself is part of the story.

 

This sketch allowed me to capture the beauty in my niece without letting the ‘flawed’ photos limit me. It also allowed me to play with the color yellow. No, there is not yellow in the photos but as I was going through the papers I had at hand I came across this sheet. I felt the background brown went well with the color of the sofa Cara was sitting on. From there I started to grab more yellow/neutral paper and embellishments.

Summer Lovin LO- 6.26.11 Studio Calico Sunday Sketch

Kelly_sketch

I looked up when was the last time I posted a scrapbooking layout… April 25th! That is so damn horrible. I can’t believe it. But sadly that is the way things go. I have to prioritize packing all my stuff in May so craftiness was shoved aside. Then June was all about unpacking. But alas, packing is (almost) complete so I have some free time now to scrapbook.

Getting to create a space for my scrapbooking (to be blogged about at some point) took some time but it feels right. I feel comfortable using the desk station. I really see a lot of scrapbooking occurring there. I have already whipped out a few pages, one of which I am sharing now.

This layout is from a photo I took on the first day of summer. Out of all the photos we took this was the one that i loved the most. It was such a great night with Price that I wanted to feature him. (Plus the picture of me were crappy). The layout the sketch is based off of used a portrait photo but I just used a landscape one because, as always, a sketch is a jumping off point.

 

I love having all my supplies right at hand now. Because everything is in my face I took care in examining my supplies and using a wider variety than I typically would. I used quite a bit of supplies form my Studio Calico kits, such as paper and alpha stickers, as well as Stampin’ Up! paper and brads. The flag sticker is from Sassafras and the grasshopper ‘paper’ is the back of a business card from SC.