Featuring Kelly Purkey │ September Release

Today Kelly Purkey updated her shop with her new releases for September. It is a smaller release this month but its still super awesome as always. There are three new stamp sets and one mini kit called #Hangry that was designed by Peppermint Granberg. The kit is food related which is always something near and dear to my heart but I haven't had a chance to make anything with it yet. I did make two projects featuring her new stamp sets that I want to share with you.

I think my favorite stamp set this month was the My Daily Grind set. Its the perfect stamp set for the seasonal coffee lover so I made this layout showcasing my love of the Starbucks Red Cups from over the years.

I went thru my photo stream from the past few years and pulled any photo of a red cup that I had. It was so much fun looking at all of them again. Clearly I favor a certain photography style when shooting them because they all look like they are from the same day. I used a shipping tag to hold my title and journaling and stamped the title with the new Rio Alpha Set. I love the boldness of this alpha and the cute whimsy that some of the letters have.

I had a few of the star clips leftover from my Holiday Planner so I scattered them throughout. They were cut with the Everyday Clips set from Clearly Kelly. The red glitter paper really picks up the shimmer in my red sequin Starbucks sleeve that I got back in 2011. I carry that sleeve around with me daily but it really gets used a lot in December. I really love the circular stamp that Kelly designed to mimic the bottom of the coffee cup, so clever!

I really cannot wait for the red cups to come out this year, I wonder if they will be as cool as the fall cups this year? I have a feeling they will be.

My next project features the stamps from the Fall Favorites mini kit. I really loved the feather stamps and thought they would add a cool dimensional element to my layout and they really did. It was super convenient that we had just visited Apple Hill so I had some people perfect fall-ish photos to work with. Its still pretty hot here and doesn't quite feel like fall yet but a trip to Apple Hill always puts me in the fall mood. My husband commented that people will think he wore that shirt on purpose but he didn't it was just a random perfect choice. Mine however was planned ;-).

I stamped the feather stamps in black ink and scanned the images to create an offset cut on my Cameo. I then stamped the feathers on the paper prior to removing them from my cutting mat. I find this really helps to keep the paper from shifting while I do the stamping. I then cut along the cut lines and folded them lightly in half to add some more dimension.

I stamped a few little flags to add to two of the photos, the word Pumpkin comes from the My Daily Grind set.

I cut the title the same way as the feathers by stamping, scanning and creating the offset shape. I did weld the two words together before creating the offset so that they would be connected when it was cut.

These feathers can be stamped with any color ink to totally change up the look and I think they would be equally cool stamped on pattered paper for more dimension and texture.

I hope you love the new releases as much as I do, you can see all the new stuff by clicking right here. And make sure you sign up for Kelly's newsletter, she always puts a promo code in it prior to the release which is awesome.

See you 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.

Inspired by │ where we ate

I think because I'm a crafter and scrapbooker I see things when I'm out and about that totally inspired what I make. A week or so ago my husband and I went out to eat lunch at a restaurant that I had been to before be he had not. It's called Hook & Ladder Manufacturing Company and its in Sacramento. I love this place, the whole aesthetic is just super cool. I love the way its decorated, I love the marquee lights they used for their sign, I love the menus, and I love the pallet wall as you enter the restaurant. I knew I wanted to make a layout for the visit and Kelly Purkey's Food Coma stamp set was definitely the perfect choice to accent it.

Here's the layout that I made, and the photos of the restaurant that helped inspire it.

The wood pallet wall as you walk into the restaurant is super cool. I would love to do something like this in my home someday. The texture is fantastic and I love the newspaper roses that they decorated the branches with. I used this wall as the inspiration for the background of my layout. I had this piece of wood grain cardstock in my stash and it totally worked, its old though but its from Pebbles.

The vintage clipboards used for the menus and the stained and frayed paper is such an amazing touch. Every detail is true to the design of this place and this kind of attention to detail is so impressive to me. I wanted to try to replicate the clipboard menus by stacking several sheets from an old Classic Calico 6 x 6 paper pad from Studio Calico. I made sure to bend up the edges so it wasn't super flat. I added several stamps from the Food Coma set to highlight the photos. The gold clips are from Pebbles and while bulky it helps carry over the design element I was trying to replicate.

I wanted to make sure to use the rating stamp that came with the stamp set so I just added another little stack of papers to the corner and added in a few more stamps.

It was a lot of fun putting this layout together and it was really fun finding things in my stash that could help replicate the feel of the restaurant to help tell the story. I hope this inspires you to look beyond the photos for design inspiration on your next layout.

See you soon,

1989 │ the concert and the mini album

Every so often a concert tour comes along that I really, really want to go too.  Case in point the Taylor Swift 1989 Tour. I just had to see this show and I just had to take my daughter because I just knew she would absolutely love it. Of course tickets went on sale months ago but I waited until two weeks before the night to start my search for tickets. Thankfully thru a friend of a friend I was able to buy two tickets at face value for myself and my daughter. I was also luckily able to tag along with another set of friends for the trip into the Bay Area for the night. We all stayed at the same hotel and being able to travel in and stay with them made it that much more fun.

The night was nothing short of epic. We danced, we sang and I cried. It was a night I will never forget and taking my daughter to see her first concert in such a big and major way made it that much better.  My mom took me to my first concert so I was super excited to be able to be there for Simone's first too. Memories made for sure.

I took a ridiculous amount of photos that night on both my iPhone and my small Canon point and shoot camera. I took my point and shoot because it gets some pretty descent shots at night and I didn't want to have to carry my big camera.

Here is the mini album that I made. I used minimal number of products, mainly a lot of Kelly Purkey Clearly Kelly stamps. Especially the New Adventures set which ended up being perfect for this album. I also used a set of transparencies from Seven Paper, some gold glitter stars, a little bit of washi tape and the 4x4 black album from Die Cuts with A View. It was a quick project and I can't stop looking at it and reliving the night. If you have a chance to see this show, do it. Don't think twice just do it and take your daughter, your niece or your friends daughter with you.

The day before the concert I made the Polaroid frame out of a piece of foam core, I also scanned the cover art into my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the T.S. 1989 so it matched the album cover. We did a little photo shoot to get ourselves in the mood and it totally did. It was so much fun and I took the frame with us to the concert so my friends daughters could also snap some pics with it too. I used one of the snaps to decorate the cover of the album. Some out takes also made it in as you will see below.

This is a little overview of the basic design of the album; photos and transparencies mixed in between. I stamped on vellum and made them tabs that I attached to the transparencies to help turn those pages. I grabbed a few images online to use in the album; the cover page, the collage of Polaroids, the set list, the stadium seating chart, the 1989 neon logo and I also took screen grabs of the two photos Taylor herself Instagramed from that nights show. All the other photos in the album were taken by me.

 The venue had very strict rules about what you could and could not carry into the stadium so I felt that needed to be documented.

These two pictures were pure luck. The fact that she was looking up over my head at one of the jumbo trons the minute Taylor took the stage was amazing. This is exactly what I thought would happen and I'm so glad I got it on film.

We screamed and danced our butts off!

On our way home I went thru the hashtag for the show and loved seeing my two pics that I posted in the feed so I took a screen shot to capture them. I used one of the screen shots in the album.

The lights were amazing.

We totally kept our wrist bands.

My shots of the special guests weren't that great but Taylor's Instagram pics were.

Concert mini albums FTW! I hope this inspires you to make something similar for one of your summer concerts. If you do, link me up in the comments I'd love to see it.

See you soon,