the moments in between

welcome to the documentary blog hop!

****comments are now closed*****

MY DOCUMENTARY WINNER IS :

ShellyJ said...

your layouts always amaze me! i totally enjoy studing each and every little bit of them :) AWESOME!

Reply June 01, 2010 at 08:00 AM

studio calico's newest retail line, documentary, is arriving at scrapbook stores as we speak ( 2peas already has it in, and it should be arriving at scrapbook.com soon), and to celebrate, the studio calico design team is sharing some inspiration - AND giving away the line.  you can enter at each designer's blog, as well as on the studio calico blog - that's a whole lot of chances to win! for a chance to enter my giveaway, just leave a comment below by midnight EST on june 2nd.

this line has a fun retro flair - with an updated twist.  i love the colors.  i love that it's travel themed, but not so much that you can't use it for other projects.  my favorite paper is this one:

i love the muted colors of the map - and that once it's used in smaller bits, it just becomes an interesting abstract design.  and i just can't get enough of the airplanes - with three boys, they're a good fit for me.

 

(studio calico documentary jetset & souvenir paper, fabrips , label stickers and alpha stickers , ttv rubon & journal lines stamp, sei tickets, american crafts brads, cosmo cricket coredinations cardstock, maya road avocado & lemon mist, peeled paint ink, tiny attacher)

i love this ttv rubon - it's the same design as an earlier stamp set, but in rubon form (they've also done the hot air balloon in rubons, it's too cute!)  i used strips of patterned paper, coredinations cardstock and fabrips along the top and bottom border - i love the mix of textures.

 

there's that jetset paper!  i handwrote the word love and then cut it out. everything else was so straight on this page, i felt like i needed a little curvy. =)

 

here's another of my favorite bits of this line - the journaling cards.  so bright and fun. i can't wait to use them.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand - if the blog hop and all those chances to win isn't enough to make your day, how about a coupon?

 

ok.  go forth, leave a comment here, and hop on to the amazingly talented maggie holmes' blog for another chance to win.  don't forget to check in at the studio calico blog if you get lost along the way.  and save some time for shopping with that 20% off coupon - there are still add-ons from partly sunny available, as well as lots of paper, punches, tools, inks, mists, paint and stamps in the shop - or there's always anthology and homefront - AND your items will still ship free with your main kit!

the smell of sunscreen & plaid shorts

skinned knees & baseball caps

flipflops wrapped around pudgy feet

 

that's what summer boys are made of

partly sunny

the june studio calico kit, partly sunny, is live!! =)  i love reveal night. i love the chats, i love seeing the galleries of the other designers, and i love hearing what all the members picked up.

there are 4 add-ons this month - rec league (my favorite!!), shade tree, picket fence and front porch. i picked up rec league and front porch, but also used the cream buttons from shade tree and the alphabet from picket fence since i already had them in my stash. i absolutely loved the stamps this month and definitely put them to work on my pages.

 

(partly sunny + rec league, timber brown ink, tiny attacher)

um, hello simple.  this was the first page i made, and the simplest page i've done in a long time.  and i love it just the way it is.  i fell in love w/ the design on the box of cupcakes, and built the page around that. the design of the companies website is super inspiring, too - jones bros cupcakes. the cupcakes were good, but not my favorite bakery in town - i'm definitely planning on checking out their lunch offerings sometime soon.

 

(partly sunny + front porch, broken china ink, M and L twinkle twinkle punches, turquoise maya mist and the now pink slipped and sold out school time abc border - we got the pink slip notices right after i used it)

i think i went through every alpha in the kit before settling on this one for the title - and then decided that it would be fun to work those letters in to a banner to go w/ the carnival theme. i loved the canvas flowers in front porch because they were big enough to cut into other shapes - i used them for the stars, as scallops on the upper right of the photos, and in the banner.

(partly sunny + rec league, tiny attacher, mustard seed ink, barn door ink)

the first time i saw this cosmo cricket paper, i loved it.  and friend doris suggested it would be perfect for a page about sam's love of peek-a-boo barn.  so when i saw it in the rec league add-on, i knew i'd be doing that page!  i stamped the starburst stamp upside down (a trick from emily - for this, i stamped it once on scrap paper first, so the image would be lighter), and then stamped over it right side up to make the sun. the green pattern at the bottom is the strip on the back of the info strip on the studio calico paper - i just trimmed the top of the paper down 1/2in so that i could use it. ;)

 

(partly sunny, lemon mist, tiny attacher, mustard seed ink, pinking sheers, OA journaling cards & k&co handmade fabric swatches from the shop)

this page..  well, it got a little spazzier than i intended, but i think it fits the theme. ;)  i used my fiskars usx templates to trace the large circles on the background, and then stitched over them.  i love how the banner i the OA journaling card was on a similar curve as one of my circles, so matched them up. i used my fiskars XL, L and M round n round punches to make the smaller circles, and my scallop sentiment punch on the strip at the bottom.

 

(partly sunny + rec league,oa word stickers, tiny attacher, turquoise mist, large monarch double punch, photo label punch)

this page started with the squares along the right side.  i cut the design on that beautiful october afternoon ice cream paper into 1/4s and then pieced them back together - i love the look.  very quilty.  i stitched an "x" through all of the squares and then i stapled a button in the center of each.  the pp block behind the title is actually an afterthought - my original title mixed the ac alphabet with some stamped noah letters, but it just wasn't worked for me.  once i'd put the page together, the background felt a little sparse so i scattered some punched dots into the pattern of the basic grey paper.

 

(partly sunny + rec league, L seal of approval punch, apron lace punch,tiny attacher, lemon pearls from front porch, cream buttons from shade tree and oa alpha from picket fence, & fly a kite word stickers from the shop)

this is one of those pages that just fell together, mostly from bits and pieces on my desk.  i had punched the scalloped circle and layered it under the oa sticker for another page, and then decided not to use it.  well, i used it on this page - and the scrap of the oa paper that i had punched it from. the planes were too perfect for the theme, and the green text paper offered a nice punch of color.  i also used the sc paper at the top and bottom of this page - june was definitely a more sc paper sort of a month. ;)

if you have any questions or want to know more about how i made these, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. =)

a little baseball, a few pics and a lot of scrappy

alex got his first GOOD hit (and his first hit at all in a great many games) last night - a nice hard grounder out to the second baseman - and made it on base (and eventually home for a run).  and where was i??  picking up ben from a bday party.  SIGH.  i saw his two other at bats, so i was super disappointed to get back to the field and hear that i missed it.  matthew was there at least - i hear that he got a lot of head slaps from the kids when he got back to the dugout. he hits fairly well at practice so hopefully actually getting one in a game will help him get out of his head and hitting the ball more often.

 

the studio calico shop update and subscriber add-on presale starts at noon est.  i picked up the reciept holder, and am using it to hold printed photos and new little bits and bobs that i want to use on projects soon. 

i need to find a place to hang it, it's just on a shelf right now. well, in this photo, it's out on my porch, because it's not bright enough inside for pics yet. ;) i think it will be fun to have an every changing display of photos and colors. i also got the oa stickers and journaling cards, the super cute flashcards (i've got a framed piece going w/ these, but haven't had time to finish it up!) and the k & co handmade fabric swatches.

it's reveal day!!! the kit and add-ons will be on sale at midnight est tonight. how about a couple more sneaks to hold you over for the gallery reveal??

(partly sunny + rec league, L seal of approval punch, apron lace punch,tiny attacher, lemon pearls from front porch and oa alpha from picket fence, & fly a kite word stickers from the shop)

(partly sunny + rec league,oa word stickers, tiny attacher, turquoise mist, large monarch double punch, photo label punch)

(main kit, lemon mist, tiny attacher, mustard seed ink, pinking sheers, OA journaling cards & k&co handmade fabric swatches from the shop)

so loving the summer-y feel of this kit... it goes well with our summer mood. =) i have to share a couple more pics from the series i posted yesterday.  sam was in love with the mudpuddle that formed under the swing while they were playing in the sprinkler.  i mean, swing + mud?  it's like a little boy's dream come true. ;)

 

 

(i totally had to throw mulch on top of the mud yesterday... i can't keep him off that swing and didn't want a mud covered boy)

the bigs have been reading while i put sam down for a nap..  i came down yesterday and found them hiding out in the play/scraproom. love this.  i've been meaning to do a blog post on our fave books lately - it's been so fun to get totally out of the early reader chapter books and into some good stories.  we picked up the 9th 39 clues book the day it comes out and are reading that together right now.

and, because there's been ?s - here's a sample of lemon maya mist vs sunflower maya mist vs cream maya mist : 

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, last but not least - documentary is in at 2peas. =)  ok, you want another bonus for reading this far?  check out the giveaway on the sc blog. (hint hint, it's a whole lot of crate paper ;)

happy thursday, friends!!

wordless wednesday

 

first day, last day + partly sunny sneaks

 

pretty drastic difference, yes?  ben is sneaking up on alex height-wise...  and i have a feeling that sam will end up being taller than both of them. we celebrated the last day of school by having a quick dinner out before alex's ball practice, and then we stopped at ecreamery for ice cream afterwards. yum.

and... in that summer frame of mind..  i have partly sunny sneaks. i adored this kit. but i'm a little braindead from baseball in the 90 degrees & humid weather tonight, so i'll save the lengthy explanations for when i can show you the whole pages. =)

(main kit, lemon mist, tiny attacher, mustard seed ink, OA journaling cards & k&co handmade fabric swatches from the shop)

 

(main kit + rec league, tiny attacher, mustard seed ink, barn door ink)

 

(partly sunny + rec league, L seal of approval punch, apron lace punch,tiny attacher, lemon pearls from front porch and oa alpha from picket fence, & fly a kite word stickers from the shop)

(partly sunny + rec league, tiny attacher, turquoise mist)

happy summer, friends. =)

 

he was 7 on the 7th

)but i'm just getting around to posting now. may is a crazy busy month, what with all the end of school activities and baseball)

 

(birthday donut)

favorite book : Pokemon books, My Weird School series, Bunnicula

favorite movie : Star Wars

favorite video games : Pokemon Platnium, New Super Mario, Mario Galaxy

favorite color : gold, red, silver, dark blue, dark green

favorite sports : soccer, baseball

future career : secret agent

collects : Pokemon, Bakugan, rocks / gems

(after opening presents, we went to our school's carnival. where ben got to throw whipped cream pies at his teacher.  is there a better bday gift?? ;)

(spy glasses from grandma)

(contemplating a wish at his bday party w/ friends)

happy birthday, ben.  you totally rock and i'm lucky to be your mama.

fuji friday : last day

wordless wednesday : goodbye, gymboree...

 

(next year = preschool)

it was a fabulous weekend

we saw if you give a cat a cupcake at the local children's theater (and fwiw, it was my fave show of the season).

we had a party w/ ben's friends to celebrate his birthday.

we let the bigs stay outside a little too late playing with their friends (which totally kicks in the "almost summer" feeling, even if the weather doesn't)

 

we played second.

 

and were voted to get the game ball by our teammates.

 

we played catcher.

 

and hit the ball both times we were at bat.

we ran around with the other little brothers and sisters and wished we were big enough to play.

and now we're on the downhill stretch to school being out.  crazy.