Cara Vincens's Blog Posts

It’s Cara today from the Carpe Diem team and I love making my own traveller’s notebook inserts! Usually I use plain, lined or dotted paper for my pages. This time, I was inspired by the free ‘I Am’ printables to use those as the pages. 

Using Photoshop, I trimmed each page, made them into a PDF and then printed them as a booklet in Adobe Reader. This worked for the most part, only there’s a white border around the edges of the pages. My printer won’t let me print the pages of a booklet all the way to the edges of the paper. I’ll have to try a different technique next time.

I used the I Am… collection to match the printables and I started with the ‘Staying Positive’ paper as the cover and stitched down the middle of the whole lot before folding it all in half and trimming the pages to size. 

Since spring is still too shy to poke her nose out here in Luxembourg, I thought I’d try and coax her out with some flowers and butterflies. So after layering washi, paper and a sticker for a border, I added a floral tag and stickers and topped it all off with a chipboard butterfly.

I love to add pockets to the inside of my inserts. These are great for tucking away spare Project Life cards, stickers, receipts and memorabilia. I added some cards cut from one of the cut apart sheets. 

Pockets are easy to make, just take a strip of paper the height of your pocket and about 2 inches wider than the size needed and accordion fold each side down to size. Stick down the two sides and the bottom, being careful not to glue the folded bits together, and voila!

More butterflies are added here to further invite spring! One sticker and 4 die cuts. The die cuts are only adhered down the middle and I bent the wings up to make it look like they’ll take flight at any minute. A few more stickers and die cuts and the pocket is complete.

The ‘I Am…’ page is my favourite from the printables. I love capturing the everyday moments of life. They are what make life rich and wonderful and I love looking back over pages like this to see what I had been up to at that time in my life. Life seems to move slowly, but really it does change quite quickly, so these little records become priceless peeks into our own story.

I added a layered washi border to cover up the white border left by my printer and then layered some stickers to finish it off. What are you loving? liking? doing? etc…

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Hi planner girls! It's Cara here with you today for my very first post on the Simple Stories blog! I'm so excited to be part of this year's Carpe Diem team, I'm dancing in my chair. I have only just recently stopped pinching myself, but the happy dancing goes on! 

I'm sharing how I set up my new Aztec Black & White TN. I'm going to use it to plan out my crafty projects, so I chose the 'Crafty Girl' line, nothing could be a more perfect fit. 

The first thing I decorate when I set up a new planner is usually the pockets, this one is no exception. Once the pockets are decorated, the whole planner feels ready to be filled with plans and dreams. My pockets are about 75% show and 25% function, so I added a few of the Bits and Pieces from the line. I made a few clips from some of the chipboard pieces, aren't the crafty girls adorable?

I wrapped some washi on a piece of card, I cut a strip of stickers that could come in handy from the Planner Basics Sticker Tablet and tucked a piece of patterned paper from the 6x8 pad in the large pocket behind after adding that adorable measuring tape sticker from the Cardstock Stickers along the edge.

To decorate the cover of that darling polka dotted insert, I layered cards cut from the 3x4 Elements cut apart sheet with a fab pink glue gun die cut and some Crafty Girl stickers. A couple of strips of washi finish it off nicely.

I snagged the March printables and used the calendar for the first spread of my insert. I used strips of paper from the 6x8 pad, and some washi, then layered lots of the Bits & Pieces and stickers from the line. 

I added a tab, with 'March' added to both sides and covered it with one of the clear tab stickers to keep everything snug and the tab protected. My favourite bit of this spread is those fantastic flag numbers from the Numbers Sticker Tablet, they are so cheerful and really brighten up the page, don't you think?

No wait! I change my answer! That teeny tea mug clip is my favourite. So stinkin' cute.

Happy Planning!

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