Featuring Clearly Kelly

I'm back sharing two more projects I made using Kelly Purkey's Clearly Kelly products. If you aren't familiar with Clearly Kelly products it is a line that Kelly has with Hero Arts and its all super cute and true to Kelly's aesthetic.

The first thing I made was a Project Life® spread using the 3x3 square page protectors that I just can't get enough of. One of my favorite things from the Clearly Kelly line is the set of sticky notes that Kelly designed. I was especially drawn to the rainbow order of these tabs and knew they would be perfect for a Project Life spread.

I used one for each day of the week and stamped the dates on each tab. I then made sure to lay out my printed text to leave a space for the stamps I planned to use. I found out that several of the Studio Calico Color Theory inks were the perfect match for the tabs and used them to keep the rainbow order going.

Clearly Kelly products I used // Take Note / Yes Please / Real Life / Daily Life / Live Big / Happy Place / Outline Alpha / Sticky Notes

matching Color Theory Inks // Flamingo / Orange County / Lemon Zest / Yes Peas / Emerald City / Purple Rain / Lavender Soda

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

My second project was purely for fun, to help jazz up my planner. If you aren't using a planner right now you should know that there are many people out there that are in to decorating their planners daily. That's why I thought this would something fun to try. I have a planner and use it every day but I rarely if ever decorate it. I wanted to show just how versatile the Clearly Kelly Icon stamps were and how they can be paired with some of her other stamps to make a weekly to do list.

I found a simple graph paper background on line and printed it out on letter size paper. I then plotted out my sections and used a light grey pen to mark them. Kelly's Get it Done stamp set had the perfect titles for all of my sections and I added in the icons from the Clearly Kelly Planner Icons set. I used the Outline Alpha to add my title and the inks I used here are the Hero Arts Neon inks; red, orange and pink. The stamp I used for the Target Bullseye is in Kelly's Summertime Kit and I love that little thing. How perfect is that.

For my Meal Plan sheet I used the same graph paper background, plotted out my sections and drew in the lines. I added in the days of the week sticky notes and added a simple title at the top with the Outline Alpha. I love this so much that I might have to start doing this weekly!

Clearly Kelly products I used above // Outline Alpha / Planner Icons / Sticky Notes
Kelly Purkey products I used above // Get it Done / Summertime Kit

I'm now obsessed with putting all of my stuff in rainbow order thanks to these little sticky notes. I hope these projects help inspire you to use them in different ways.

Announcing Kelly Purkey

When you've got it, you've got it and Kelly Purkey has it. Her designs have been gracing my work for years, from back in the days when she designed some Epic and Awesome stamps sets for Studio Calico to flash forward to today with her own brand of products. I get her and she seems to get me because everything she designs seems to just work for me. It also really helps that we have the same brain for catch phrases so that's a total plus. So much so that when she recently put out a call for her first ever design team I was very intrigued and applied. Needless to say I was absolutely thrilled when I got an email asking me to join the team. Which brings us to today. The release of the first batch of products I used as a member of her team. Her newest release of kits and stamps are so awesome, there really is something for everyone in this release. These sets can only be found on her website and when they sell out they are rarely restocked so you have to jump on the ones you love. You can see all of the new releases right here. I'd love to show you the three projects I have made so far this month.

The first that you can see a glimpse of above is a little mini album that I made with her Summertime kit. I took the opportunity to go back thru last summer's photos and pick out all of my favorites. It's super small and compact, just a lot of photos and some text and its a perfect little reminder of the fun that was had. Its totally putting me in the mood for summer to officially start.

This card above was the perfect cover, I used the new Bedford Alpha to stamp the year. And can I just say how much I love when alpha stamps come with coordinating numbers because I always need the numbers.

There were some really great cards that were perfect for adding in some journaling.

And what's not to love about fruit slices and heart eyes emoji's! The emoji stamp is from the Done and Done stamp set, LOVE!

Speaking of the Done and Done stamp set, it was perfect for a little catch up/my faves spread for my Project Life® album. The little icons were the perfect thing to highlight some of my favorites from this past month.

I also really loved working with the new 9" x 12" sized page protectors for this spread. These 3" x 3" squares are totally speaking to me.

The last thing I made started out just as a 12 x 12 layout but I decided to turn it into a Project Life® spread at the last minute. Since I had already done the mini album for our trip this didn't need to be as detailed or full so it was the perfect way to capture it in my Project Life® by just focusing on the high points.

This side which was going to stand along as a layout was completely inspired by the tile wall we took this picture against. I cut the tiny 1/2" square pieces of paper from three shades of blue and one really pretty pearly metallic paper. I wanted some shimmer in there somewhere. It took some time to place each square down individually but I think the hardest part was placing them in a pleasingly random way. The Space Needle stamp in the PNW Is Best stamp set is the CUTEST thing ever! I stamped it in two colors to give it some depth. If you have been or are planning to go to Portland or Seattle anytime soon this stamp set is perfect for you.

Here's the left side of the spread where I got to use some of the other stamps from that set. I also used the Bedford alpha for the title card. I love the mountains and the coffee cup, I mean who doesn't love a good coffee cup stamp.

It's been a really great first month and I'm just so excited to work with Kelly. If you haven't already done so make sure you sign up for her newsletter you can find the spot to do that on the front page of her website here. She always announces her releases there so its really key to stay in the know with what's going on. Later this month I'll have even more stuff to share using some of Kelly's new Clearly Kelly releases so I look forward to that as well.

Take care,

Five on Friday │ the salad edition

It seem like every other pin I make on Pinterest these days are salads, I guess I'm totally ready for fresh veggie season. I wanted to share some of the recent ones that I am super excited to try in case you too are a salad lover.

1. Avocado and Heirloom Summer Salad from What's Gaby Cooking. The presentation alone is what drew me in to this yummy salad. I love the idea of serving a salad on a board and not in a bowl. This is high on my list to try very soon.
2. Sriracha Lime Chicken Chopped Salad from Lexi's Clean Kitchen. One of my friends shared this recipe on Facebook a few weeks ago so I had to make sure to save it. I love a good chopped salad and the spice of the Sriracha sounded delish, I mean it has grilled pineapple on it! 
3. Avocado Caprese Chicken and Avocado Salad from Joyful Healthy Eats. I love a good Caprese Salad and the addition of the Avocado and Chicken sounds delicious as does the dressing recipe to go with it.
4. Parmesan Zucchini and Corn from Damn Delicious. While this might not be a traditional salad, I would totally serve this as a salad/side dish at my next BBQ.
5. Cranberry Almond Spinach Salad from Cooking Classy. I always love spinach salads and the orange poppyseed dressing in this recipe sounds delish. I'm not a huge feta cheese fan so I'll probably switch this out for another cheese but I'm excited to try this one.

I have way more than five new salad recipes on my Garden Fresh Pinterest Board so if you want to pin these that I have shown here and see some others you can click here and start pinning away.

(Note: all images shown above are from the original websites that I have linked too, all the credit goes to those original authors for such appetizing photos)

Here's to salad season!

PNW Mini Album │ the pocket tutorial

I've had a few questions on how I made the pockets for my PNW mini album so I thought I would do a quick tutorial for you. I used a shape from the Silhouette Store that you can see here and its on sale right so so that's a bonus!

I really liked the slanted edge of this pocket, I thought it would add some interest and it ended up being the perfect edge to add some stamping to. Now this file is intended to be cut fairly small and all in one piece. I knew that because of the size of my dividers 6" x 8.5" that I wasn't going to be able to cut them out of one piece of paper. I needed to modify the file a bit to get just the pocket.  Here is how I went about doing that. (Note: I am using Silhouette Studio v.3 for this tutorial)

The first thing to do is open the file in the Silhouette Studio program. Once the file is open we need to cut off the long edge of the cut file that is supposed to be the backside of the pocket. You will do this with the knife tool which is located along the left side menu.

You will click on the knife tool and hold down your mouse while you draw a line about a 1/2" from the edge, like this.

When you are done drawing the line release the mouse button and you will have separated the file into two pieces. Go ahead and click only the top portion and hit the delete key.

You are left with a much smaller version of that original cut file and just the pocket portion that we need.

Next we need to size the pocket so that it will be the correct size for our divider. The easiest way I have found to make sure something like this is the correct size is to create a shape so I can size it against. First I draw a rectangle and use the Scale Window to enter in the measurements I want my rectangle to be, in this case 6" x 8.5". That will adjust the rectangle I drew to the exact measurements I need.

Next you will need to adjust the pocket (which I have rotated here so its the correct orientation) by using the corner edit points only click and drag it until it is the correct size to fit on the rectangle.

Because the dashed lines are the fold lines I now know that this will cut the exact size I need to fit on top of my 6" x 8.5" dividers. I would now delete the rectangle I drew because we don't need it anymore and we definitely don't want it to be cut too.

I realized that I could get two out of one sheet of my letter sized Kraft paper by duplicating the file and rotating one on top of the other. I loved that I was able to save on paper that way.

When cut I made the decision to have the tallest point be to the left side (which you can see above) but before I made any folds I added the stamping so I was working on a flat surface. The stamps I used are from Kelly Purkey's Wanderlust stamp set (which is sold out but you can get the digital files here) and the little car came from her Get it Done Stamp Set. Once the stamping was done I folded the flaps back and I used strong adhesive to attach the pocket to the back side of my dividers. So far they have held up really well and the items stay in just great. Even the poor Seattle pocket is holding on just fine with all that stuff inside.

I hope this helps and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.