The Studio Calico Hello, Hello kits for June have been revealed! And they are so rad...so. rad.



I'm so excited to share my layouts with you this month...but first, let's take a look at the Scrapbook kits...

OK...amazing, right? Clockwise from top left, these are: the Main Kit, Ni Hao, Hola & BonJour BonJour is definitely my favorite...but Hola runs a close second... And here are the layouts I created with these amazing kits...I hope you like them... For these 1st three I used the Main Kit only...plus a bunch of printables & cut files...
I added some printables from Hello Forever here...


Aaaack! Don't you just love the green & yellow??? The Color Theory paints (blue & yellow) that come in the Main Kit are crazy amazing! For this layout I used the Main Kit as well as the printables & cut files by Hello Forever... For my next 3 layouts, I used the Main Kit plus Add-ons...PLUS digital items...

And for this layout of my brother and my niece (I love how his arms are around her so protectively here...) I used the Main Kit, and the Ni Hao & BonJour Add-Ons. The little black "NOTEWORTHY" banner is from the In A Creative Bubble printables. I also (if you can see them in this photo) punched a whole bunch of vellum butterflies and sewed them to the background of my page. I love the texture little additions like this create... So there you have them! Such beautiful colors in these kits...such amazing patterns, textures, digital items... Thank you so much for stopping by to take a look! For amazing inspiration using the June Hello, Hello kits, make sure to check out the rest of the Creative Team's gallery HERE! I hope that I've inspired you to go make something...anything...(smile).

It's Sneak Time again!

This month's Studio Calico kits are full of bright colors, fun shapes & gorgeous patterns!

We all love the Dollar Spot at Target. It's a fact. I've done research.

It's the first place I go when I step in to the store...and it's the last place I check (just in case they've put anything new out while I was shopping) before I leave.

And when I come across amazing items like these...


...I about lose mah mind.

On a recent trip I saw these lovely little journals and I bought every single one they had. Yep. I'm THAT person. I needed quick & easy teacher appreciation gifts and I just knew these would be perfect.

But before I wrapped them up and sent them along to school with the kids...I decided to dress them up just a bit.


I grabbed some of my stash supplies from Maggie Holmes and Dear Lizzy and got to work giving these babies a little makeover.

I added a few stickers a pieces of ephemera to the fronst of the journals, just to make them a little more personal...



I tried to keep them simple because I'm hoping they are taken out of and put back into purses & bags all day long...and I didn't want the embellishments to wind up stuck to the bottom of someone's bag.

The cover on the kraft/polka dot journal was really very thin...and I imagined it being ripped off easily...so I added a piece of patterned paper to the inside front cover to sturdy it up a bit.


In order to make the new paper look like it belonged there, I cut the paper to include the space beyond the binding coil, lined up the coils with my paper, marked their positions with a pencil and punched holes with the smaller setting on my Crop-A-Dile.

Next, I snipped the paper from the edge to the newly-punched hole...making sure to NOT cut past the hole.

Finally, I pushed each of the holes on the paper around each of the wires on the journal.




When that was all finished, I adhered the patterned paper to the cover so that the pieces acted as one...the cover was now much stronger and the inside front cover was much prettier.

The mint-green journals had a much stronger cover...so I didn't need to a add a piece of paper to them. BUT, I did a piece over the start of the journal paper...just because it looked so darn pretty.

I used a little glue dot to stick a flower cabochon to some mini-clothespins and then used that clothespin to attach a little tag (that the children wrote "thank you" notes on) and a Dunkin' Donuts gift card to the inside of the journal.





And just to add that little something extra, I adhered an envelope or glassine bag to the inside back cover of each journal. It's always nice to have a place to keep little notes or receipts.



And that was it!

A fun way to dress up these little notebooks...without taking away any of their natural "wow!"



Wouldn't these be great to make for your girlfriends as a "just because" gift? Inexpensive and so fun!

Eeeeek!

You guys!

Have you heard the news?

We R Memory Keepers is launching its BRAND NEW die cutting machine tomorrow exclusively on Home Shopping Network! TOMORROW!

The Evolution Advanced!


This new die-cutting machine is amazing...and it has everything you could possibly want in a die-cutter...

*it's compact...AND it folds up for easy storage!

*it has automatic settings for letterpress, embossing & die-cutting...no more figuring out which plates to use for which process!

*it has built-in storage!

*AND with the addition of a small motor (sold separately) you can turn this manual cutter into an electric cutter!

So cool, right?

Now go mark your calendars! Midnight Eastern TONIGHT!

woo hoo!

Today I'm sharing the projects I made last weekend for National Scrapbook Day...specifically the layouts I made for Heidi Swapp's #5wordsgiveaway...

See...Heidi was a contributor for Big Picture Classes' NSD10K event...and this was the layout she made...


...5 words to describe her beautiful baby girl, Capri.

Part of Heidi's contribution to the 10K event was a video with some great stenciling tips using her new Mini-Stencils and Jumbo Numbers. Heidi challenged her followers to spend some time over the weekend playing around with the numbers and stencils and creating their own 5 Words layout.

So that's what I did...

And here's what I made...




...and...





...and finally...




I really enjoyed creating these...and they came together fairly quickly (I spent probably 2 hours or so on each one) because Heidi had already done all the really hard work...I just had to make my own versions.

I truly hope these inspire you to do something similar for the people you love. My kids were so excited to see their "words" - I'm pretty sure I made them happy with these...

To see even more "5 words" inspiration, check out the hashtag #5wordsgiveaway on Instagram.

Oh yeah...I used so many different collections on these projects I'm not going to give a supply list...BUT if you see something specific and you'd like to know where it came from, just shoot me a message - maggie@midwesterngirldiy.com - and I'll let you know.