Hello everyone, how is it going for you? I can't believe it's July already and the month has started off with a heat wave (this week might actually become one of the hottest in over ten years!) - and I embrace it. Summer is coming :)

Today also marks the first Studio Calico reveal under the new preview / reveal schedule after their new website went live. If you haven't checked in in a few days, here's an overview of the whats and whens:

... there's also a cute doodle by Brandi Kincade that you can download and print out for your craft room. I just did tonight :) If you are in the know already, you probably just want to see my gallery projects for July. Somehow I managed to sneak in a lot of (hot) pink. Again. I'm having an affaire with that color (though my beloved aqua is here to stay for the long run).

For this first reveal project, I was inspired to use the new dies with not "just" paper for die-cutting. Instead, I opted to use the still connected nested diamond dies to dry emboss a pattern on a paper mat and the "hey girl" die with pink felt (it cuts relatively clean up to a thickness of two millimeters). I love the look and extra texture this gives to the entire card. 

Next up is a project with a workplace themed stamp set by Geralyn Sy. This is so appropriate right now for me. I'm nearing a project deadline and basically run on coffee ;) Anyway, I think this stamp add-on is super cute and very handy for all kinds of office themed congratulations, thank you and birthday cards. Also, did you notice the gold foil washi? It has, amongst others, one of my favorite sentiments on it: "Do what you love. Love what you do.". 

Did you see the mixed pattern paper in the card kit paper pad? I used a punch to separate each square and picked six of them to build my card background. As to not have them all lay flat, I partially sewed them down and bent the edges up. For the sentiment, I die cut the "Hey Girl" from a gold tag in the card main and layered it on a piece of vellum (die cut with the new diamond craft dies). And of course a few Mister Huey's sprinkles were mandatory.

This little birthday number is a card main only project. I used watercolors for the background and stamped the balloons, strings and sentiment on watercolor paper. For more dimension, I punched three circles and colored them in with a gradient (finally got the Copic markers back out for this!), then added them on top of the stamped ballon images with foam adhesive. Glitter splatter and some drops of Mister Huey's Calico Shine were the finishing touches.

And then, there were the emoji twins. Leave it to Tina Aszmus to create a fun Friendship stamp set around them... I love it! Maybe because it has another coffee cup image (and donuts), which I stamped on the inside of the card. You can see all detail images in the reveal gallery by the way as to not overwhelm you with seven cards and even more detail photos in a single post.

Yes, it's not all pink and glitter! I created a more masculine but fun birthday card with the card main stamp set, washi tape and paper pad as well as a few of the standard nested dies. Since I had the Copic markers still out, I used those to color in the little party hat image.

Lastly, there was the minion tag. I used this with an envelope from a previous Card Basics add-on to gift movie tickets to the Minions movie. Yes, I definitively need to work on free-hand drawing skills but still, it was a huge hit with the recipient. 

As already mentioned above, you can check out all projects with links to the supplies and additional detail images on the Studio Calico website in the Design Team gallery. Also, if you are interested in one of the four paper crafting kits (scrapbook, card, PL and the new planner kit) and/or the add-ons, you can find them on the SC site as well:

So there, these are my reveal projects but you'll see some more cards with Fairground kits in the next days/weeks. I hope you check back once the kits hit your doorstep :)

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