No Blinking for 80 Days Sneaks!

I had a fun time with Cocoa Daisy's August kit 80 Days. Christine and I tossed around names for the add ons that would go with the kit's name. I love that we finally settled on some of the stops in the original book by Jules Verne. They just sound exotic! I got the main and Calcutta (loved those burlap letters, I inked and misted them to get some great variations).

This is a layout about my kids and their love of Dr. Who.

Loved how this layout turned out, it's about my funny sweet husband. I added a lot of mustard yellow to this one via Maya Mist and floss.

I've got one more in the works, but not enough time. I leave for CHA in the morning.

sneaking into the cabana, cocoa daisy style

Hello there! Some sneaks for you using the Cocoa Daisy July kit, Cabana. Such a fun kit. 

This kit is pretty bright, the colors are intense. DO NOT LET THAT SCARE YOU! Once I remembered that oh yah, I really do LOVE color, I had a blast creating with Cabana. Absolutely loved everything I did. There's just enough kraft and wood to tone down the intense colors, you'll be more than fine! Did I mention I LOVED this kit?

Reveal is tonight starting at 8 PM EDT, with chatting on the message boards, and then the add ons go on sale to subscribers at 9 PM. Stephanie is hosting it and it promises to be a really fun evening, I hope you'll join us!

This kit had a little bag of glitter. So much fun to play with on the Jillibean Soup corrugated words!

It had the SC cork arrows, which I wish I didn't love as much as I do.

It had a delightfully glittery alphabet in the Striped Awning add on. It's foam. And glittery, did I mention that? The main has a fun and retro funky glitter font too, reminds me of the Brady Bunch font. Love it. It's chipboard, and glittery. There's also a perfect little cardstock alphabet from Basic Grey in the main. Nice balance of alphabets.

The Striped Awning add on has some fun pinwheels from the Pier line by Crate. I didn't know if I use them, but you'll find them on two layouts, so yes, I used them.

The green paper? That's from the patterned paper add on, Hammock. It's a surfer line from Bo Bunny. I'm not a surfer, but found the tone on tone to be really easy to use and if you don't read it closely, it really doesn't matter :)

I think the surprise favorite of the kit were the elegant skinny glass head pins in the main, see the above square. So pretty, not a embellishment that shouts at you, but a unique touch none the less.

And there you are, my sneaks. It could be that this kit was designed for our Mexican vacation, Christine is so thoughtful! Only she had no idea we were going :) Serendipity.

sneaking away with a good book

I'm all done with my projects for Cocoa Daisy's January kit, Pemberley! How very unlike me to be so ahead of the game! Christmas, time with the family, and a few other DT responsibilities has led me to be *GASP* more organized this year and I like it!

The kit goes live to subscribers on the 28th at 9 EST, then to the general public on the 1st at midnight EST, so if you don't want to miss out (and I've seen February, it's awesome!), sign up for a sub now, it's a great Christmas present for someone too.

Here are my sneaks from the kit. I made three layouts and two "Hello Love" cards--a vintage Jane Austen inspired card and a modern card. Fun to play with a theme that way. I got the Elizabeth and Netherfield Park add ons this month. And a nice new pad of Versamark. You need a new pad if you haven't invested in one for while, it was so nice to use a new juicy pad!

I used some stamps from previous kits, the Circle Icons and the Washi tape sets. Christine only has limited numbers of stamps when she sends out our DT kits, so we don't all get the stamps that month. It was fun to use them on these projects. I also used the Prima Chalk Fluid Edgers this month in Old Road, Raspberry Pie, Rock Moss, and Teal Damask. You'll be able to see the Rock Moss, Teal Damask, and Raspberry Pie on the kit layouts.

I wasn't drawn to the colors in this month's kit, I'm more a bright color scrapper, but I made it work and am really happy with the results, I got three vacation pages done! Pemberley is perfect for pictures from the UK :)

yep, it's true. here i am.

not posting to my blog for 2 months might make someone worry, but that needn't be the case. i didn't feel like blogging, my photos aren't on my laptop and that's what i've been using mostly, so i didn't blog. but that doesn't mean my mental state was in jeopardy, i've actually been doing rather well.

my mojo, apparently heavily influenced by my state of being, has returned in force the last couple of months. i am having fun again. i believe God puts things in our life for specific purposes. not all things, but if you look at things with that thought in mind, you'll see many. it is up to us to figure out and best utilize what we do with those things to get us a little further along in this journey. i've had so many cool things happen lately, i think the one that helped me with my mojo the most was prepping for a class i'll be teaching in july at masterful scrapbook design.

as my scrapbooks have become more numerous, i've really struggled with the "stuff" factor. when i die, my kids are going to have to go through all the scrapbooks. i find myself asking if i'm really recording the important things or just the pretty fluff that will sell a product. i hate that i've even come to that point, but i have been guilty of doing a page just to promote. they are all still my memories, but the level of journaling i USED to do when i first started scrapbooking had slowly eased its way out of my day to day scrapping. it's OK to journal lightly sometimes, but i used to be more of a storyteller than a designer. my focus changed. then my whole year of struggles made that omission even more apparent.

enter debbie hodge, owner of MSD. she asked me to work on layouts and write ups for this class. the description is as follows (redundant, i know, but fun to say...):

Explore why we tell stories and how to tell them so they’ll endure: the old stories and the new, structuring and writing them.
with Celeste Smith, Audrey Neal, Emily Pitts, Karen Grunberg, Noell Hyman

when we teach classes at MSD, we are given specific assignments. this month's topic was one i KNEW i could do, but since i hadn't really been telling stories, i knew it would be difficult. i also knew it would be a very good thing for me. i decided i needed to change how i approached my scrapping. i wrote all the journaling out before i even pulled out a piece of paper. it was good. the stories started to come back. scrapping became fun. the layouts i have been making are the stories that matter again. they are pages that won't simply take up space. they'll tell my children and grandchildren stories. that's where i'd like to be.

i can only share a couple of the layouts right now, but when the class is over, i'll share them all. this one is an oft told story in our house. i have been meaning to put it on paper but the thing that stopped me in the past? if i scrap it, then it's done and i won't have any old stories to pull up from the past if i have a particularly fitting paper or embellishment i have to work with. i know. it's pitiful, but it's true. just writing this out now, i'm thinking, emily you'd never USE paper with meatballs on it, or an embellishment shaped like a meatball, so stop thinking that way! so true. so silly. so done.

  

the photo i used isn't from the meatball incidence, that was before the time of cell phone photos (not that i have a cell phone now that takes pictures, but that's another story...). but it's a photo from around that time, he was 4 or 5, he's all wrapped up in his favorite blanket, cute boy. great story. 

i'll share the other one later, more to talk about there than i have time right now. i do want to share my june sneaks for cocoa daisy, hello sunshine. i loved creating for this kit, totally fun! i got the main kit, wide brim, and the embellishment kit. i used them all, loved the ormulu flappers in the main kit, but the embellishment kit got the most use. those BG bits are awesome.

so, i'm back. i know i keep saying that, so maybe i'm not. but thanks for checking on me every so often.

with great delight and pleasure

that's the definition of glee. try finding a fun quote that has the word glee in it nowadays and all google comes up with are references to the TV show. so i went the the definition.

studio calico's september kit, glee club and add ons, will go on sale saturday night at midnight EST, unless you're a subscriber, then you can  start ordering at noon EST. this kit was inspired by these pictures, gorgeous stuff huh? pretty fall colors and a slightly vintage feel. love the alphabets in the kits, happy to see so much amy tangerine featured.

there has been talk on the member boards about too much chevron, but since i've been playing with the kit and a couple add ons, i have to admit, i really like the chevron papers. i could have used them on every page, but refrained :)

here's my sneaks for this month, enjoy!

it's a two pager using pep squad and debate team

i used them all (well all the ones i ordered) on this one: glee club, pep squad, debate team, and home ec.  this one was a hard one to do, pretty emotional... i used the inspiration picture from some artwork via  zoe de las casas. i needed some whimsical cheeriness on this page :)

found this from zoe de las casas via eatdrinkchic.com and yes, i've repinned it to the dt inspiration board on pinterest. :) because i'm nice like that.

and finally, see? i liked the chevrons :)

uses all glee club, and lots of hand cutting/exacto knifing.

check out the other sneaks on the site, i know a lot of the girls had fun with this kit too.

with a clue

every time i write out any of the names of the january studio calico kits, it makes me smile. the main kit is called whodunit, with add ons colonel mustard, in the billiard room, and with the candlestick. it just cracks me up. but that's not why you're here, to figure out what cracks emily up. you want to see these:

whodunit and in the billiard room, the vintage letters come in the add on, they are terribly cool, don't you think?


colonel mustard, aren't those birdies the cutest?

in the billiard room:
in the billiard room:
i'm still working on one last project, hopefully i can actually finish it!

make sure you check out the blogs of the other team members, if you missed the news, we added 5 new girls to the team. i am so excited to be working with them, such talent!

feeling rather chipper

it's a rainy day, it's cold outside, it's starting to feel like fall. and i couldn't be happier!

should i tell you how much i'm enjoying the october studio calico kit? it's called yearbook. it features sassafras lass, jillibean soup, cosmo's boyfriend line, october afternoon, maya road, and of course the exclusive stamps and papers from your favorite scrapbooking kit club :) i liked the kit when we first saw it online, but working with it has been an absolutely pleasure. i've MISTED (gasp), stamped, painted, and sewn so far. and i've only finished 3 layouts. i don't mist. i have learned to stamp. i rarely paint. i always sew. i just love what this kit has nudged me to do. i bet you can't guess what the following layout is about :)

i believe this one uses the main and the pep rally add on.

again, the main and pep rally, but also using the mini stickers from science fair. i LOVE those little round alphas.

and this was on the SC sneaks for the science fair kit, so it all science fair. except the mist i suppose. i love how this layout turned out.

i'll have more for you in a couple of days, but thought i'd share now. i think some people are a bit anxious to see sneaks :)

i guess i should answer my question from the beginning. i love this kit so much. i wish i had more time to play with it! don't forget full reveal will be midnight on the 28th (that's sunday night at 10 for me in denver.) word amongst the DT is everyone loves this kit, especially april :)

hugs to you all!

reserving judgement

i love designing with studio calico's kits. a scrapbooking kit club that can wow and impress me every month makes me happy. but this month, i have to admit that when i opened the box for september's kit, cotillion, i was not immediately in love. not sure why, but it just didn't have me oohing and aahing like i usually am. i loved all the basic grey june bug in there, but i had not been drawn to this particular anna griffin line that was included. however, i have learned that april and scarlet are creative geniuses when it comes to putting together kits, so i told myself to reserve judgement until i was done with my assignments.

7 layouts and a card later, i can tell you that i love cotillion. i did a 2 pager, i did multi-photo layouts, i used the MM pins that i never know what to do it. i even used the anna griffin–even the journaling spots, which are hard for me to use, i used 3 of them! yah, me. reserving judgement is a good thing.

this one uses bits and pieces from foxtrot, tango, waltz, and cotillion, all jumbled together in a 2 pager. there's also a little freebie for ordering an add on this month in the second sneak:


i know the dog side of the paper wasn't intented to be the used side, but when i saw this little guy, i knew exactly what i needed to create. this one uses cotillion and waltz
this layout was inspired by a piece of artwork i found while surfing the web. i wasn't quite sure about the silhouette stamps, but when i saw the inspiration piece, i knew exactly how to use the stamps :) i used cotillion and waltz for this one.


this one is a totally redo. the event it's recording was so much fun, and the original design wasn't quite as fun. i think this turned out better. the waltz add on kit includes a vintage WWII token and it was perfect for this layout.


i have tried twice before to scrap this picture. it never would work. and until just a few hours ago, i was ready to put it away again. i knew i wanted to use products x, y, and z, but to get them to work all together was testing my every ability. then it all fell together and life is good.


i went to a crop in early august and was pulling out my kit when i heard a lady say, "don't you just love those kits?" i turned around to discover a fellow SC subscriber, linda. we were both just a little bit excited about meeting each other. she shared with me her system for filing kits, photos, and inspiration. then i got the brilliant idea of taking a photo and scrapping it right then. this is the result. she probably thinks i'm a little nuts :)


the sole card out of the bunch. when i'm stuck creatively, i'll try out a card and that usually helps me get back on track. definitely the case here. this was inspired by a card i saw on etsy, i'll post the inspiration when i post the original. i love looking on etsy, so many ideas that translate into scrapping. i misted the white canvas chipboard letters with the green maya mist. they look almost exactly like the green canvas chipboard letters. oops :) this uses waltz, cotillion, and a little something you can get for free if you order an add on this month... and finally, a layout circa 1991. we were so young! using cotillion and waltz, plus some twine and paint from the store.

i hope you've enjoyed these, i certainly enjoyed making them. i think that studio calico exclusive butterfly paper is in my top 3 favorites. i love how stephen added some font goodness on a page full of butterflies!

kits go on sale to subscribers on the 27th at noon EST. if you're not a subscriber, a limited number will be available twelve hours later, midnight on the 28th. i can pretty much promise you will love this kit. it has been a blast to work with, and i still have a few pictures that need a home.