Hero Arts 2016 Planner Release Blog Hop

I'm so happy to be participating today in the 2016 Hero Arts Planner Release Blog Hop! This hop is all about celebrating the launch of the 2016 Planner Product Catalog items arriving in the Hero Arts Store. If you are new here, I welcome you. If you don't know me I am part of Kelly Perkey's Design Team so I already love working with her products and stamps. I love all of her collaborations with Hero Arts and her planner stamps always have just what I need to help plan my days, weeks and even months.

I don't always decorate my planner each week but when I have some down time I love to spice things up a bit. For extra special months I even like to decorate my wall calendar that hangs above my desk. Its always there and it really helps get me in the seasonal mood. As you can see below I did just that for the month of October.

When planning out my month, the first and foremost thing that I need to make sure I'm on the ball about is all of my daughters soccer games. She plays at the competitive level so its a lot of games for sure. I don't bother putting all of the practice days on the calendar because lets be real, I wouldn't have any room for anything else. Her life is definitely way busier than mine. Luckily for me, Kelly's Sports Planner set is perfect for all the sports moms out there.

Once those key dates are listed I love adding in little touches from all of her stamp sets to help draw attention and have some fun with some of my appointments and tasks for the month. For this calendar page I added in little bits from the Doing my Best, Adventure, Shopping, Appointment, Occasions, Food, School and especially the Fall Planner set because its so perfect for October. The Holiday Wood Icons also helped add some extra Halloween touches to my calendar.

I also used a few of Kelly's sticky notes from the Everyday Sticky note set to help dress up my flags and cover a stamping boo boo. It happens to everyone, thankfully a good sticky note can help save the day!

One of my favorite things to add to my calendar are all the fun National Days. I added three to my calendar page this month, of course I picked the ones that really speak to me. The Doing my Best, Food and Fall planner sets really helped with that because lets be real, its all about the food and pumpkins!

I'm also a huge fan of the stamp and cut sets and I love using them whenever I can. I cut two banners from the Flags Stamp & Cut set as well as pieces from the Tape Stamp & Cut set and the Labels Stamp & Cut set.

The inks I used to stamp with were all Kelly's stamp cubes. I used colors from the new Palm Springs, Miami and Charleston sets as well as the Outdoor set. These inks give the best color payoff and are so easy to work with. I love the new additions to the color range for these ink cubes, Kelly really gave me just the colors I needed.

I hope that this project has inspired you to dress up your family's wall calendar like you would your planner. It definitely makes the month feel way more festive this way.

I hope that you also continue on the blog hop so you can see all of the other amazing projects. I've listed all of the blog contributors with links below.

Hero Arts

Kelly Purkey

Jennifer McGuire

Yana Smakula

May Sukyong Park

Mariana Grigsby

Amy Tsuruta

Amy Tan

Wanda Guess

Lydia Fiedler

Jen Carlson

Barbara Picinich -- This is me

Brooke Takara

Krista Wells

Jamie Waters

Nadia Azni

Kari Stiles

Libby Hickson

And don't forget to leave a comment here on my blog as well as the other contributors because Hero Arts will be giving away three $25 shopping sprees, drawn from comments left across all blogs in the hop. Please comment by Wednesday, October 19 at 11:59pm PT and Hero Arts will be announcing the winners next week. Keep an eye on their blog for the announcement.

Thanks for stopping by!

Featuring Kelly Purkey │ September release

It was the first day of Autumn last week, did you celebrate it? I sure did, even though it's still firmly in the 90's around here nothing will stop me from sipping the PSL's and buying all the pumpkin foods I can find. As soon as the temps drop, I'll be all set. Luckily the latest September releases from Kelly Purkey Shop are giving all the fall vibes.

The Gather the Goods mini kit designed by the lovely and talented Brandi Kincaid is a must for the true fall lovers out there. The stamps are so cute and so versatile too. I'm seriously loving the leaves, especially when stamped with some ombre inks.

I stamped some of my fall favorites using the new Miranda alpha, its designed to work with both the Walter alpha and the Dalton alpha stamp sets. I used the Dalton here for the outline. The vibrant colors one the cards are so divine. I adore that blue shade on the background of the fall leaves card. Perfection!

The main September kit is called Around Town and I was completely drawn to all of the amazing shades of blue in the kit. Not to mention the super cool locals stamps in the stamp set.

I also added in a few stamps from the Happy Things stamp set and the little phone stamp from the Singleton stamp set because they paired so well with the kit and my photos.

Love that Local stamp from the kit and the stacked words on the card that I fussy cut for my date card.

There are also a whole new batch of Clearly Kelly Products with Hero Arts. There are six new planner stamp sets, two new stamp and cut sets, and four new ink cubes.

For this planner spread I used a little bit of each of the new stamp sets; Arts & Crafts, Adventure, College Life, Doing my Best, Goal Plan, and the Garden Set. I especially loved the weather icons on this set. I also added in some banners from the Flags Stamp & Cut and one of the washi stamps from the Tape Stamp & Cut set. How cute is that die to cut little washi strips! Adorable!

Something you definitely don't want to miss out on are the four new stamp cube sets. I mixed them all up on this image below so you could see how amazing the new color range is. These stamp pads are amazing. They are juicy, they are pigmented and they make stamping effortless. Seriously love these new inks. The Make Note stamp is from the Gather the Goods stamp set.

There is a bundle available of all four sets or you can purchase each one individually; Palm Springs, Paris, Miami, and Charleston.

I hope you love this months release! Happy shopping!

See you soon,

Featuring Kelly Purkey │ January Release

Hello everyone, its release day over at Kelly Purkey's Shop today and I wanted to share with you what I've made so far with this months latest stamps and kits.

The first thing I made was a Project Life® spread for week three. I used the a mixture of cards and stamps from the main subscription kit, High Five and the Mini in Minutes kit, Life Happens. I also mixed in some of the stamps from the You're A Life Saver stamp set.

Working with the 9x12 size is really working for me. I am loving having the 6x4 slots to fill with larger photos and I've even started taking some in that orientation now that I know I need them. Typically I take all of my photos in the vertical orientation, I know its not 'normal' but its what I like the best so there you go.

I really loved mixing the mini in minutes cards with the kit cards and of course all of the stamps. I especially love the bright red and pink cards in mini kit that was designed by Anne Marie Espinoza this month. That little dotted curvy arrow stamp is just the cutest!

I also really loved adding the alpha stickers that Kelly is including with the kits to my spreads. I have been a fan for awhile from way back in the day when Kelly had released these before. They really are the perfect size and font to add to pocket pages. 

Oh and if you haven't yet watched Adele's Carpool Karaoke, stop what you are doing right now and watch it. I've watched it several times already and when I saw the article online that I added to my album saying they had enough for a full hour episode I died, I would totally be up for that, just sayin'.

My second project was adding some of the stamps and cards to my planner. I have several planners that I like to play around in just for fun but for my day to day planning this year is being done in a Get to Work Book. Because some of the stamps this release were so appropriate for Valentine's day I decided to decorate my February monthly calendar. I used stamps from the You're a Lifesaver set, the Life Happens set, and the High Five set. I also mixed in some of the Clearly Kelly Planner stamp sets; Special Occasion, Travel, Food, TV, Sports and Appointment. I also used Kelly's inks which are amazing for stamping in your planner. The sets I used are; Coffee and Donuts, Urban and Fashion. I love the grey ink in the Urban set. Its nice to have a dark color that's not black. Its like a soft black and I love it, its not to dark but just dark enough.

A few people asked on Instagram when I posted a sneak image how I added the pink and red heart card to my planner. I saw someone post this idea on Instagram awhile back and I'm sorry I don't remember who that was but they used an old Bind It All Machine and punched the holes. I happened to have one too so I used it the same way. After I punched the holes I clipped little notches so that I could add it and remove it from my planner. Here is a better look at that so you can see what I mean.

I love the pop of orange when the card is flipped over. Here you can see that I layered the alpha stickers to create a shadow effect, I just laid down the black stickers first and then added the white on top just a bit off center so the black showed.

I used one of the cards from the main High Five kit to make a list that I can clip into my planner. That little dotted arrow stamp, I tell you its super cute!

There was also a alpha stamp set, Williamsburg that is perfect layered underneath the Greenpoint alpha set that I haven't had a chance to use yet, but its super cute so make sure you check it out.

I hope you enjoy the release, its another great month for sure!

Hero Arts Blog Hop │ My Monthly Hero Kit featuring Kelly Purkey

EDIT: Hi everyone, when this post and this kit went up for sale yesterday the Hero Arts website was blown up with eager customers. Because of that the site went down for a bit. The kits are still available and because of the issues yesterday Hero Arts is going to give away 3 of the My Monthly Hero Kits with the winners being selected from all of the blog hop comments. So make sure you leave comments below and on the other blogs for a chance to win. The contest closes Sunday, December 13th at 11:59 EST. You can read more on this post here.

Hello Everyone! I'm so excited to be participating in a blog hop today in celebration of the latest My Monthly Hero kit from Hero Arts. This kit was designed by Kelly Purkey and its a great kit for starting the coming New Year off right.

The full kit contains two 2.5" x 6" stamp sets, 3 mini neon ink daubers in pink, yellow & orange, 4 badges designed by Kelly, all packaged in Kelly's 4" x 6" wallet insert. The kit costs $29.99 and it is available right now today Monday, December 7th at Noon EST time on the Hero Arts site. You can find the kit right here and its only available for a short time and once they are gone, they are gone. I will tell you that they usually sell out very quickly so make sure you act fast. Here is a detailed shot of the main My Monthly Hero kit this month, I mean how cute are those little mini ink daubers! 

There is also an add-on 3" x 3" stamp set to purchase separately for $5.99 which is perfect for creating your monthly budget.

Because I love to set goals for myself, especially in the new year I made myself a little tracking sheet that I can insert in my planner or keep out on my desk so I see it every day. 

I started with a blank piece of 5.5" x 8.5" white paper, I like to use 32# paper when I make inserts for my planner. Its a lot thicker than standard copy paper and it holds up really well to daily use inside a planner. Because its a bit thicker ink doesn't bleed thru to the back side so you can easily make this double sided and still be fine.

One thing I like to do when I'm making something like this is adhere it down to my work surface so it doesn't move around. My work table has a mat on it that has measured 1/4" grid lines and I can use the grid lines to line everything up as I stamp. Keeping it secured down really makes sure everything stays true and square.

Once I had done that I just started at the top and worked my way down adding the stamps in as I went. I used the two stamps sets that come in the My Monthly Hero kit for this and only added in one other stamp set, Kelly's outline alpha stamp that was released awhile back. I used this to stamp the year. I added in a strip of washi tape to help separate the section and got to work stamping my check off circles.

I love this stamp and I love that the tiny days of the week fit inside perfectly. I used two shades of grey ink so that the circles were faint but the days of the week were a bit darker. When the time comes my plan is to use the ink daubers to mark off the days that I actually accomplished my goals. To eat healthy, to exercise, to craft and to have fun!

I added in the labels for each section and then had fun dressing up each section with some of the cute phrases. I loved that there are some really cute ones to compliment the goals. I think the Eat More Donuts is my fave.

At the bottom I added one last strip of washi tape stamped in one last sentiment and a few stamped stars. I can't wait to see all the circles fill in as the weeks progress and when its full I can just make another one and continue on my journey to meet my goals. 

I hope this gives you and idea of what you can do with these stamps, I for one cannot wait to see what the other amazing ladies have made so make sure you continue on the blog hop and see all of the other projects. Here is a list of all the blogs so you can check them out.

Hero Arts

Kelly Purkey

Krista Wells

Yana Smakula

Barbara Picinich ← this is me 

Suzanne Dahlberg

Libby Hickson

Remember that once these kits are gone, they are gone and will not be restocked so make sure you act quickly!

I'd like to thank the folks at Hero Arts for asking me to participate in another blog hop, it's always super fun to get to create something like this and working with this kit was no exception.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hello November

OMG, its November!! There is so much good stuff to look forward to this month like Starbucks Red cups and Holiday Drinks showing up, going to see Elf the Musical, my husbands birthday, my Mom and Step dad coming for a visit and of course STUFFING! All of these things were added to my November planner yesterday and I'm so excited to see that this month is filling up already.

All of the stamps I used to create this calendar in this May Designs planner are from Kelly Purkey. I love the new wood set that just came out, especially the Santa, the turkey, and of course the pie slice! Here are links to the specific sets that I used and that are shown here so you can find them easily. 

Holiday Planner Icons // Holiday Planner Clips // Food Planner // School Planner // TV Planner // Travel Planner // Work Planner // Special Occasion Planner

One other thing I wanted to mention to those of you that participate in Ali Edward's December Daily® is that Kelly Purkey has put together an E Course for creating foundation pages for your album. I was thrilled when she asked me to share some foundation pages too and between her, myself and my friend Nicole Reaves the E Course is filled with amazing inspiration. The cool thing about the E Course is we all ended up doing different sized albums so there is a lot of variety shared and we all used Kelly's Mini Kit that she designed for Ali Edwards. Its a super fun and vibrant kit filled with lots of yummy colors. Here's a little sneak of my pages so you can get an idea.

Here is a link to the E Course so you can read more about it and sign up to receive it.

I hope you all have a wonderful month, I'm sure I'll be back sharing something very soon.

Featuring Clearly Kelly │ Planner Stamps

So things are crazy hectic around here lately but the good news is that means lots of fun projects are getting made. Including one super big giant one that I'll be sharing soon. Sometimes when life gets hectic taking a break to sit down to make something is just the thing I need to help focus my energy and take a mental break from all the busyness. Thankfully Kelly Purkey has released a whole new batch of amazing planner stamps for all the planner girls out there. The are up for presale in her shop and will ship the first week of October. You can see the whole range of products right here. They are so rad, she's really thought of everything you might need for your planner.

I love that you can punch holes in the cards and add them right into your planner. I also love that three of the sets come with metal dies. The Everyday Clip Set is super cute you can use the clips for so many different projects and the To Do List set that you can cut add right into your planner rings is super cute.  Here are two projects I made using the new stamp sets.

I used two colors of ink to keep the look of this monthly calendar a bit more cohesive. I love the TV Planner Set, you can use the stamps for so many things and I loved that it had an Awards Night stamp, perfect for Emmy Sunday. The School Planner Set was another favorites especially since I'm pretty busy with volunteering in class and doing work for the PTO.  I also loved cutting little banners from the Planner Banner Set that I made by layering washi tape over card stock and then running it thru my Cuttlebug to cut the banners. These are super fun to staple in to your planner to use as tabs or just as decorations. The planner inserts I am using this year are from Miss Tiina and can be found on Etsy here. My planner is from Kikki.K but it looks like the gold planner might be discontinued or out of stock right now.

My second project was a bit of an advance prep for the Holidays. When I saw the Gift List stamp in the Special Occasion Planner Set I knew just what to make with it. I thought it would be super fun to make a Field Notes sized notebook to keep track of all the gifts that I need to buy for the upcoming holidays. Its small, just 3.5" x 5.5" and its compact enough to toss in my purse while I'm out shopping. The cover is made from the most divine wood grain cardstock which I love because its nice and thick. To dress up the cover I used the Holiday stamp from the Special Occasions set and stamped it on a diagonal on a piece of plain white cardstock. I stamped the Deer from the All Decked Out stamp set and then scanned the image into my Silhouette Cameo program to create and offset cut shape that was just a bit larger than the outside edge of the stamp. I stamped it with Clear Embossing Powder and then added in some Gold Glitter Zing Embossing powder to sparkle it up a bit. I layered that onto a piece of red cardstock and just stamped the Gift List and stapled it down using some green tiny staples that will fit into my Tiny Attacher. I cut out several of the star clips from the Everyday Clips set in gold foil cardstock and a red glitter cardstock. I love that these little page markers are so festive.

I dressed up the inside with stamps from the To Do List Set and added in a sentiment from the Fa La La La La set which is quickly become my favorite holiday stamp set. I added it a bit of washi tape and called it done.

I made the insert sheets myself and printed them out, cut them down to size and rounded the corners. I used my long arm stapler to staple the whole thing together and it was super quick and easy. If you are interested in making one of these Gift List Notebooks yourself you can download a copy of my inserts right HERE. Please remember that this is for personal use only so please don't sell it or email the file to your friends, please just direct them here to download it.

I am now officially ready to get some shopping done and I'll have this little book to keep me on track. Not to mention a really pretty planner to keep my life on somewhat of a forward moving pathway.

Have a great weekend! See you soon.

Featuring Kelly Purkey │ July Release

This past week has been a whirlwind of getting projects done and I have several things to share with you but first up are two projects featuring Kelly Purkey's July release that just went live today.

The first is a Project Life® spread that I made using her new Out in the Sunshine Kit. I love the tones of colors of this kit. It totally reminded me of a beautiful sunset.

The great thing about this kit is that it comes with two distinct color ways for the cards. The golden shades I used here and a really pretty blue/green option too. You can easily go in either direction but the golden toned cards just worked with my photos for this week. I loved the large Every Summer Has a Story card and knew that was going up in the title slot. And that 7 card had to have a moment as well and I didn't want to write on it so I just printed a photo small enough to fill the space but still leave the 7 exposed enough. The stamp set was so much fun to stamp on my photos. I used it several times throughout the spread.

The postcard that was passed out at the event we went to was the exact size for the other 4x6 slot so it in went. I added as much text to the cards as I could by running them thru my printer. I always struggle with fitting in enough journaling and if there is ever a question of leaving out a photo to add in some text, the photos usually win over the text. So it's nice when filler cards have enough space to add a little text to them so the serve two purposes.

I loved the new alpha stamp set called Mercer. It worked so well with the outline text already used on these cards. I loved stamping it in white on the grass picture and I was lucky enough to have just the right ink pad to stamp on the title card so it matched. Its Hero Arts Pumpkin Pie shadow ink if you are curious.

My next project was all about donuts. Its a well known fact that Kelly loves donuts and so do I. So the I Love You More Than Donuts stamp set was one of my favorite things this release. I wasn't sure how I wanted to use them, I mean I had a photo of a donut on the spread above but using them just for one card didn't seem like enough. I felt these stamps needed to have a larger moment to shine. I thought it would be super cute to make a book cover for my daughter since she is starting back to school soon but I remembered I had a really cute composition book laying around that had a really pretty yellow spine instead of a black one. I decided it was the perfect thing to dress up with a few donuts. I stamped an all over pattern using the large donut shape and the smaller one and just had fun with colors making it as bright and cheery as I could.

I really loved the Sprinkled with Love sentiment that's included in the set so I made a card using just the larger sprinkle stamp and just stamped it over and over again making sure not to overlap each color too much. Even though it was round it still worked to create this background.

I also decided to make a few bookmarks or planner clips too. I stamped the circle stamp and scanned it and brought it into my Silhouette Cameo program. I traced it and added a tiny internal and external offset so I had the same shape cut. After it was cut and before I removed the circles from the cutting mat I did all of my stamping. This made it so much easier to line up the stamps and not have to keep the circles from moving around. I stamped circles for the backs too so they look good from both sides and just glued the two of them with the large gold paper clip sandwiched in between. They look so cute peaking out from the top of the notebook.

 Makes you want a donut right!

The cool thing about this months release is that Kelly has put up digital files of the stamps and the cards in this months kits. So if you like to type right on the cards like I do then I would suggest you check out her digital offerings this month. You can see them all here. There are even some from past kits too.

I also made two Project Life® spreads using the new Clearly Kelly Holiday stamps and I'll be back to share those with you on Monday.

Have a great weekend,

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.