Citrus Twist kit (March 2013)

I have to admit, I wasn't thrilled at the sneak peek, when I saw that the SC Darling Dear line. It wasn't something I liked, so I had passed it up in the store. So, when I got the full reveal and saw the kit, I wasn't looking forward to using it. In fact, this was the 6th kit of my 6 month membership, and I even considered cancelling but decided to wait it out a little while longer.

Anyway, I loved this striped Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic paper for a background and finally got to scrap these Instagrams from last spring. A thread on Scrap n Yap had me thinking about "old" supplies and I had a case of old letters that I had cut out on my desk and challenged myself to use some with this kit. Not sure why I put the little pom pom round on there, maybe to be like an asterik. For s'mores, I originally tried to outline the mistable/inkable Thickers, but that just made them look dirty, so they got a full swipe with a brown ink pad.

 

When Brandon saw this one, he said, "Oh, man, you used the obnoxious paper!" LOL, it is a bit out there. The other side is zebra print. I used the Tim Holz tag die to cut some tags from the BoBunny Double Dot paper and the gold "pow" paper. I thought it needed something else, and I had the LYB burlap butterfly stickers on the desk, so I though, why not? A pull out journaling spot will go in the envelope, as soon as I can get Rick to cooperate.

 This one started out quick, but sat on my desk for a few days while I figured it out. I'm pleased I finally got to use the Jolees playset sticker. I finaly got the idea to add the yellow buttons to balance out the yellow paper. I needed a smaller font for the title, and since Jacob was in my room the entire time, I went with Thickers rather than let him know what the cameo does.

I did use the cameo for this title, but it doesn't really stand out. I think I need to add a tag by the pic with some journaling to finish it off.

This one sat on the desk for almost a week while my parents were here and I was deciding what to do. Still not real impressed with it, but it will do. At this point I was tired of the kit, but didn't really feel I had gotten my money's worth out of it, so I challenged myself to do one more.

And came up with this one, whch I actually do like. For the alphas, I dug through that container of "old" letters and found these Making Memoris "game pieces" thin chipboard alphas from about 2005ish. There is only one of each color, so I had to get creative for the second "a".

 

And this is what I have left:

 

Thoughts on this kit: Not my favorite. I do generally like the layouts I did, but there is a ton left, some of which just won't get used. Almost the entire sheet of the Darling Dear paper will go in the giveaway paper, and I'm not sure what I'll do with the chipboard pieces. The alphas can always be used paper. That bright orange cardstock is definitely going in the giveaway pile.

 

50 projects total: well...this should make it 21, but I went shopping for some PL cards and the $1.50 Thickers at Marshalls, and an order from 2peas, and...so I officially failed the challenge, LOL. Wasn't the first one, but didn't hold out the longest, either.

Citrus Twist "This is My Life" kit (Feb 2013)

Nice and bright, with a lot of good embellishments. I think between the bits I bought, and the embellies that have come in kits, I ended up with just about the entire Amy Tangerine Ready, Set, Go! collection (not that I minded).

First up:

I wanted to use this Pebbles flying geese quilt pattern from the Walnut Grove line, and I thought it would do a decent job counterbalancing my bright red shirt in this old pic of Brandon and me. It's a bit loud for a background paper, so I covered a good portion of it with paper strips.

And then this one that Jacob loves:

As soon as I saw the canvas elephant sticker, I knew I would be using this kit to scrap this instagram of the stuffed elephant that Jacob bought on vacation and to record the poem from a Barney video that he has us recite all the time. I like how the little pops of blue keep it from being too pale. The heart is a Heidi Swapp color magic mistable from Michaels, spritzed with HS Teal color shine. I had done it for a different layout and didn't end up using it.

My baby isn't such a baby anymore, lol. I really don't know what to do with this gold dot vellum from the Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic collection other than tear side strips from it.

This one's kind of awkward. The 12-12-12 flair badge was from the October Afternoon Christmas box I bought myself for Christmas.

I really don't like that you can't really read the title, so I may have to go back and outline it or something. The ledger paper is the "B" side of the red label paper.

I thought I was done, but started playing with scraps and came up with this one. I kind of like how it turned out.

 

And what I had left:

Thoughts on the kit: It seem like Citrus Twist always has one really bright cardstock that I don't get around to using (in this case, the bright aqua). The Pebbles journal card pad has also gotten used on some PL spread and the alphas are a nice, basic font that will get used again. Overall, I liked it.

 

50 projects total: 16

 

Studio Calico 34th Street (Dec 12)

Back in December, there was an offer to buy the main Studio Calico kit (34th Street) and get one of the add-ons free. I think they didn't sell well that month or something. I decided it was a pretty good deal, and others did, too, except some people decided to take advantage of a glitch that allowed them to enter all the add-on codes and get them for free. I thought the email was pretty clear, and so did plenty others, but SC did eventually catch on and negate some of the orders. They did send out 2 add-ons to most orders, which I thought was a nice thing to do. So, I scrapped the kits out of order (did February's first) and am now working with December. This is the kit:

A little more pastel-y than what I'm used to, cut overall I liked the look of it.

 

First up: I had some moon photos that I hadn't scrapped yet, so the exclusive SC constellation paper seemed like a good choice. The main kits come with four different colors of cardstock (one piece each) so I needed something for my background but knew I didn't want plain white. So, I went for this mottled brown/light blue from the Joanns exclusive BG Serendipity line from last summer as my background. None of the alphas that came with the kit were very bold, so I went with some Heidi Grace (blue) chipboard alphas from my stash an some of my favorite line of Thickers in black. Also added in were DL ribbon, OA ephemera from the miscellany pack, silver AC ribbon and wooden veneer stars. Another "kitchen sink" layout, as I'm trying to use more of the embellies I can't seem to keep from buying.

#2. I thought the soft colors would work well for the pic of the Easter grass nest Jacob made in the smoker. This was my first time playing with the POW glitter paper and I really liked it. I added in a DL 5th and Frolic ta and some ribbon, plus some cursive Thickers. The alphas in this kit just didn't really stand out as useful for me.

#3. I never intended to use this photo, but I'm kind of glad I did the layout. I'm not a fan of the huge doily prints, but I had seen other scrappers cut them out like this and I thought I'd give it a try. The only problem was that I liked the other pale chevron on the back as a background. I debated for a good 20 minutes about cutting it up, until I remember I bought the Michaels/Recollections Sweetest Thing rebrand pad, and I could use one of the thin doily sheets (easier to cut out) from it and save the other side for a background. I'm not a big vellum arrow fan, but SC seems to include them a lot.

#4...and this one uses the pale chevron as a background. The red block paper is actually the edge of the constellation paper I cut out earlier, it just looks like a block when it's tucked under like this. Again, I used different alphas. I didn't really expect to use a whole lot of these Pebbles label maker type stickers; I think I still have some sheets from the last time they did them, about 8 years ago. Happy that I managed to use 5 of them. Brandon thinks "I like you and naps" is hilarious.

#5. I originally thought I would use the arrow paper for a layout about how busy Rick is, but realized it would work better for the Skyzone pics I had from a birthday party. These are also the first photos printed with my new Selphy printer. It seems ok, but I still miss my A646. Sniff.

And this is what I have left:

I have a tentative plan for a "details of home" layouts, but we'll have to see. I think I put a good dent in it, but I wouldn't say I "killed it". Apparently when you use up most of a kit, you've killed it. I'm happy to get 5 layouts out of it, but I think I probably could have gotten a little more. The 2 full sheets of cardstock will go in the cardstock bin, but the rest will get put in the envelope to be used for cards at the NSD crop. I don't think I will use the arrows, so they will probably go in the giveaway pile.

Overall, I liked the kit, and I actually like all the layouts I did. I think "one tired mama" is probably my favorite, surprises me, since it's the least like "me".

50 project total: 10

More Christmas layouts

 This one used the Michaels/Recollections Festivus pad. I have no idea why I liked this pad as much as I did, but it was a nice mix of green/red and blue/snowflakes. The merry & bright title doesn't stand out as much as I would like it to.

 Digging into my OA Make it Merry kit I bought myself for Christmas. It's funny, when I first saw the sneaks and the reveal, my first instinct was "pass!" But then I saw people using it and saw some postings with pics, and it looks much better IRL than as a rendering. Anyway, since I bought myself the big kit, which came with the 8x8 pad, I didn't buy any 12x12 sheets, so I made it easy on myself with white backgrounds and layering. The santa claus die cut was purchased at Archivers; I believe it is a Silhouette cut.

 More Make it Merry. I don't often do pages without pics, but I didn't really feel like it needed one. The journal tag (4x6) is from Pebbles, and the joy die cut was a freebie from Archivers. The rest is OA.

 The green background is an older OA holiday line (from about 4 years ago, maybe?) and a HL flower.

I called this my "kitchen sink" Christmas layout. This one took me over an hour, and I don't usually spend that much time on layouts. A mix of EP This and That Christmas, a strip of leftover OA that was sitting on my desk, a page from a vintage Golden Book story book, and a smattering of whatever embellies I ended up liking.

This was the beginning of my "50 Project" pledge on Scrap n Yap, the forum I hang out at now.

50 project total: 5

SC Junior Mints add-on (Feb 13)

After I was done with the Feb main kit, I started on the add-on that I bought. I don't know how often I'll get add-ons, but it was nice to play with.

 

 

 

First up: I actually made this back in February, but I didn't have the photo I intended to use printed and I haven't been needing to make big trips to Sam's Club to print stuff, so it's been sitting since then. Now the pic is a couple months old and I don't remember what I wanted to say for the journaling prompts, so now that I have the new photo printer going (for 4x6s at least) I will print the most recent selfie and fill out the journaling strips. Everything is from the kit except the blue ribbons, which is from the glut of AC ribbon purchased at TJMaxx a few weeks ago.

 I'm reasonably happy with the next one. I kind of wish the instagrams were bigger (currently 3.5x3.5). I guess I will need to keep the Walgreens app in mind to print them at 4x4. You can tell I've been watching  lot of mercytiara youtube process videos. I've been doing a lot of outlining of my papers and layouts; I had tried it in the past and it always looked horrible and messy, but I like when she did it and in one video she said she always does double lines, because then if it's messy, it looks like it's on purpose. I like the definition it gives the papers, just something different from the normal inking that I do.

 Honestly, I have no idea what I intended for this one. This half finished kit sat on my desk for a month with no attention.

And finally, this one. A little more patriotic than I intended, and adding the WRMK 6x6 sheet probably didn't help. Oh well. It's cute and festive, like Jacob's cake.

 

Thoughts on the add-on:  I had a coupon code for it, so it made it pretty reasonable, but I probably didn't quite get my money's worth out of it. I didn't even crack open the stamp (very limited reasons to use such a specific stamp) or the TC border strips (one set was glittery and the glitter was everywhere in the package, and I've been able to admit to myself that I'm not much of a premade border user). The wood veneer stars, enamel dots, and alphas sets can be used for other stuff. Unless there is something exclusive about an add-on, or unless I absolutely love it, I don't know that I'll shell out extra money for the add-ons, some of which are more expensive than the main kit.

 

SC Front Row main kit (Feb 13)

I had been debating about signing up for Studio Calico for awhile, even though I went ahead and signed up for Citrus Twist back in October. I love both kits, partially because they tend to have completely different looks. I had thought about signing up for SC in January, since I was already getting the PL kit from them, but hemmed and hawed too much and then it was sold out. It was easy enough to make a counterfeit kit for it and the add-ons, so I'll still get to play with it. I must admit that the stamp  and the washi tape sold me on this kit so I went ahead and signed up. This was the main kit for February:

 

 

 

First up: some of our NYC tour pics from 2006. liked the washi as a sky type background but couldn't get the stamp to not blur on it, even using Staz-On, so I stamped it on white cardstock and cut it out. Since I wanted more of a lighter look, but didn't have a grey stamp pad or feel the need to buy one, I did a second generation stamping of it with black. Title is cut on the cameo.

 Next up: a Valentine's Instagram. I knew I wanted to use some of the arrow paper for the pic, some potty people wood veneer and some of my Studio AE Valentine themed stamps, but that's all I knew. Not 100% pleased with it, but I like it enough to not redo it.

Rick laughed at this layout. I am stupidly happy about Dairy Queen serving Orange Julius'. I have many fond memories of them from growing up and I hadn't gotten to have one in about 25 years. I may or may not have planned my errands around stopping in the first day they were available. I used a free font from the internet (Lobster 1.4) on the cameo for the title, then spritzed it with Heidi Swapp Peach Colorshine. The "Bliss" title is from a LYB fall chipboard sticker set I had sitting on my desk.

I really like the section of wide black ribbon that came with this month's kit, but it took me a long time to figure out how to use it so it wouldn't overwhelm everything. I also never expected to use one of the mustache clips, but I think it looks ok. Title was cut on the cameo.

I really wanted to use the building stamp again, so I dug through some of my vacation photos left to scrap and chose this one from the Yosemite/SF trip in 2011. The section of the BG paper with "Pacific Coast Telegram" seemed fitting.

And then this one. I intend to use it for pics from Hunger Games (hence the ticket background and the arrows), but I'm still trying to get my new photo printer to play nice with Photosheet and I really wanted to get these posted.

 

Thoughts on this kit: I really liked it. A couple of the sheets of paper I probably would have never bought for myself, but I like how all the layouts turned out. The envelope was cute, but I don't usually use stuff like that on layouts, so I recolored the blue flower clasp with emerald green Stickles and added it to my December Daily pile. I also have an add-on, Junior Mints, but for now I think I will keep the add-ons separate from the main kit. Not sure why.