Studio Calico, you say?!?!!? I love them! I used to subscribe to them several years ago and still drool over their kits every month when they're announced, so the challenge of making my own this month was pretty exciting for me, to say the least. In fact, I was so excited that I counterfeited the main kit and all four add-ons- all completely from my stash, meaning that instead of spending over $100 on kits I spent $0 and got the same results.
Studio Calico's main kit this month is called Into the Woods and is already sold out (along with most of the add-ons). I love the colors and the mix of patterns in this one- it should work well with many different types of photos.
Here's Studio Calico's Into the Woods:
And this is my forgery:
I took the colors very literally and tried to do so with the patterns, too- as much as my stash would let me, anyway. My woodgrain paper is quite a bit lighter in tone than the one in the Studio Calico kit, so I added a darker brown American Crafts paper to compensate. I also substituted a complementary piece of green Dear Lizzy adhesive-backed fabric paper for the woodgrain Fab-Rip, just to get a little bit of texture in the mix.
Other substitutions include a nature-ish set of clear stamps instead of a single bee stamp (this is a set I recently acquired from a TJ Maxx shopping trip and haven't even opened yet) and some Jenni Bowlin chipboard pennants instead of stars. I added orange buttons along with the yellow, found a set of ancient orange Chatterbox labels to use instead of the Studio Calico set, and added a few manila shipping tags (because they pretty much go with everything). :)
The add-on kits were as much fun to copy as the main kit- I love that they're so varied, and yet they all work so well together.
This is Studio Calico's Wildflower add-on:
And here's my imitation:
I had a sheet of pink Basic Grey laser cut paper in my stash (that one came from a Big Lots find) that worked perfectly, and I was able to find papers with the same colors and feel as the original. I kept the idea of having pink buttons for embellishments, but substituted a Making Memories Vintage Findings kit (from yet another clearance find) for the vintage book pages (the Vintage Findings kit has several little vintage-style cards in it). I also subbed in some Girls' Paperie flowers for the tulle blooms, then added some Jenni Bowlin labels, an extra set of chipboard shapes and alphas (from a Tuesday Morning shopping excursion), and some paper doilies just for fun.
The next add-on is Studio Calico's Babbling Brook:
And my take on it:
For this one I added an extra piece of ledger paper so I can make some pockets similar to KI's. I also threw in a very large-sized font turquoise alphabet instead of the yellow one since I was running low on yellow alphas (my plan is to not buy so many alphas in the future and start cutting more titles with my Cricut). Because the turquoise alpha is so large, I added in an extra set of tiny letter stickers to go with the brown ones already in the kit- I have a feeling I'm going to need them to help save space when making titles.
I also decided that this add-on could use some journaling spots, so I added a few yellow ones by Jillibean along with more manila shipping tags and a Basic Grey journaling stamp set (yet another Big Lots find).
Oh, and those Cosmo Cricket "Butterflies and Doilies" embellishments in the original kit? I plan to use scraps of papers from my forgery along with these Martha Stewart punches to make my own.
This next add-on was probably my favorite because of all the bright colors- Studio Calico's Sunny Clearing:
And here's my version:
I'm kinda giggly over the possibilities of the pennant and cloud papers together. :)
I used some Prima journaling cards instead of the sheet of Cosmo Cricket cards in the original kit. I also added a set of tiny alphabet stickers and threw in some pink buttons with the yellow. And, again, I'll be using paper scraps and punches to make my own butterflies and doilies.
That brings us to the last add-on- Studio Calico's Mossy Knoll:
And my kit:
At first glance it may seem that I went a bit awry when I added the big sheet of orange and yellow stickers from Sassafras, but I added them as a substitute for those same hues in the vintage circus images from Studio Calico's originals.
And speaking of vintage circus images, I've downloaded several from The Graphics Fairy to print out and use with this add-on (just as soon as we get replacement toner cartridges for our color laser printer). I also spotted this beauty on Pretty Little Things and will be printing it, as well.
How fun is that?!?!
I can't even begin to tell you how much fun putting these kits together was. And, ever since this challenge started, the temptation for me to subscribe to any kit clubs has dropped to pretty much nil. Why should I subscribe when I can make my own using stuff I already have, most of which I bought on clearance anyway!