National Scrapbooking Day – Guest Post + Sale + Giveaway!!

Hi everyone! Tomorrow is National Scrapbooking Day, and we cannot let that go by without a little celebration! We have several exciting things to share with you today! First, we're having a sale this weekend on our wildly popular Clearly Kelly line by Kelly Purkey. Kelly loves to travel the globe and document her adventures, as well as add character to her everyday planning and journaling, and her products are perfect for NSD!

The sale runs now through Sunday, May 8 at 11:59pm PT - save 15% off everything Clearly Kelly by using code scrapbook2016 at checkout!

We also have a fabulous guest joining us here today! We are a huge fan of her Instagram account and has been a guest here before, and we knew she'd have some great Clearly Kelly inspiration to share with us today! Take it away, Kathleen!

Hey there, it’s me again, Kathleen aka ScatteredConfetti, and I’m really excited and honoured to be here on the Hero Arts blog again to celebrate National Scrapbooking Day with you all! I know it’s a day early, but the guys over at Hero Arts wanted to treat you to a special something and thought it might be nice to start a day early so you can enjoy the special offers on the Clearly Kelly products even longer. Isn’t that awesome?!

Last time I already shared some ideas and techniques for how you can use your Hero Arts products on scrapbooking layouts and today I want to add another one to that list: create your own patterned paper with your stamps!

For my layout I mainly used the [hero_product_link sku="LP395" text="Kelly’s Coffee and Donuts"] stamp set and the dark brown stamp pad (from the [hero_product_link sku="AF325" text="coordinating set"]) to create a unique background. I used 13 of the 16 different little stamps from that set and repeated them over and over again until half of the layout was done. To get a neat border in the middle of the layout, I adhered two sheets of printer paper with washi tape to the right side of the layout and then just started stamping.

I didn’t bother with getting the spacing or the pattern completely even, I think it’s actually more interesting if there are some slight “mistakes” :) What I did, however, to finish this pattern more quickly (because, let’s be honest: covering a whole 12x12” paper with small 0.5” stamps can be quite time-consuming) was that I put together two sets of 6/7 stamps each and adhered them to some washi tape. Then I wrapped the tape around the stamps to tie them together. This way I had two long stamps that I just had to ink up and stamp onto my page.

(In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can see what I mean in the photo below)

After I had put down my photo, the copper heart washi tape and the doily, I added some more stamps from different Clearly Kelly stamp sets, as well as two labels made with [hero_product_link sku="DC180" text="Kelly’s Labels Stamp & Cut"] (one of my favourites – so versatile!) and the title that says “Never without..” in German (the English title was just too long :D ) and called it done. Apart from stamping the background, which is a little more time-consuming, this is a really quick & easy layout. And I really like how it turned out because no-one else will have this exact pattern on one of their projects :)

What do you think? Have you ever tried creating your own backgrounds/patterned papers with your stamps? Any tricks or techniques you’d like to share?

Okay, so if you think this is already it, you are absolutely wrong ;) I have one more idea to share with you using the awesome Clearly Kelly stamps and inks!

When I saw the three big wood stamps from the Clearly Kelly line (you can see them at the end of this post in the list of products I used!), I fell in love immediately. I am a sucker for making to do-lists and buying pretty notepads/notebooks. I wasn’t really sure how to use them since they are a little too big to use in my particular planner, but I decided to make it work somehow.

What I like to do with them is make my own notepads! I stamp the image onto a card that is about 4x4” (it’s great to use up paper scraps) and then keep this stack next to my computer so that I always have them on hand when I am working on my desk. Sometimes I take them with me in my purse or wallet (like the shopping list) or put them into my planner or journal.

When I don’t have a lot of time, I just write my notes down, but when I have some more time I also like to use my Clearly Kelly planner stamps on those note cards. This makes to do-lists a lot prettier and less intimidating :D

By the way, you could also easily make some of those cards and then put them in a pretty box (store-bought or handmade) and gift them to one of your planner-addicted friends – we all have them ;)

We sure do have those planner-addicted friends! Thanks so much, Kathleen! Great projects - that coffee background is fantastic! Now before we go, we have one more exciting thing to share with you! It wouldn't be a National Scrapbooking Day celebration without a giveaway, now would it?

Inspired by Kelly Purkey and her love of travel, let us know your favorite place to travel! Or perhaps your dream destination? Do you document your travels? Leave us a comment by Monday, May 9 at 11:59 PT, and we'll draw our winner from all of the comments, and announce it here on the blog the following week.

We hope you have a chance to get inky this NSD weekend! Enjoy!