Hi, Cara here, your go-to-gal for all things planner!! 😀

Since Spring has finally decided to poke it’s nose out into my little corner of Europe, and pretty, happy colours are everywhere, I wanted to make some bright, happy fun projects this week. The April kits are bursting with fantastically happy colours, so which products to choose? The butterflies were jumping out at me, so I decided to do a little fluttery theme.

Imagine butterflies lightly landing on your planner. Such an airy, whimsical feel, right? You can do that with any spread. Cut-out butterflies add dimension and interest. But here’s the kicker! They don’t add any bulk! Just like their real counterparts, they are light and delicate.  When your planner is open you can bend up their wings to have your desk look like magic is happing right there in your planner… what could inspire you more into action to get that to-do list done? Magical planner butterflies!!

Then, when it’s time to close up your planner they simply flatten down and tuck sweetly and oh so flatly into their pages

…ok, that said, I feel like I need to confess something.

I added enamel dots to my planner!

What!?!!

Yah, I know, bumpy! But in my defence I added them around the edges where I won’t write anything on the backs of them and hey, I’m a scrapbooker at heart and they just looked soooo pretty and were calling out to me to use them!

Ok, now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s look at some planner pretties!

First up is some planner pages! This is my main, keep-me-on-my-toes-and-organised planner so feel free to have a nose at my busy to-do list. It’ll get a lot more full as the week plows on.  It’s the Commit30 planner and I LOVE it!

Ok, let me pause here for a moment and just say… Shimelle is a genius!

I ADORE every last bit of her Star Shine line from American Crafts.  That is why my week is covered in Shimelle goodness! I’ve got die cuts (including that amazing globe, OMG!!), and lots of stickers. I even cut up one of the sticker strips that had little stars to use as a check list, see them cuties at the bottom of Tuesday? 😀

I also added some butterflies punched from some of the papers from American Crafts, plus the butterfly from the cut apart sheet (by our very own lovely, and very talented, Kim Watson).

Oh, just as a head’s up, please don’t glue the bodies of the butterflies down with hot glue… they’ll just pop right off, use liquid glue instead. Um… yah… please, don’t ask how I know this 😉

I topped the spread off with the clip I made last week and one of the flag paper clips from Heidi Swapp.  Oh yes, and those enamel dots, we’ll just pretend they are flat, mmm ‘kay? thanks! 😉

Next up is my May spread, again in my Commit30 and again with the beautiful butterflies!!

This time they are fussy cut from the ‘flutter’ paper from Crate Paper.

I punched a circle from the spotty blue PL card from the kit and added the back of the branding strip of the Elle’s Studio ‘all my heart’ paper to get the teeny black dotted paper.  There are a few more of Shimelle’s stickers and die cuts and some cut part bits, along with rub-ons from Amy Tangerine and her sparkly pink washi as well.

Alright, moving along to my Gillio… this is my wallet and I had been noticing that the back pages were getting a little messed up.

I think it was Angie Jarboe that I saw first make a dashboard for the back of her planner to keep those pages neat.  One of the unique things about the Hip Kit exclusive papers is that there is a bit of gloss to them. I’ve been finding that this helps my dashboards stand up to the constant wear and tear, they really can take a beating. So I reached for that paper first and lucky me it matched my Gillio!

I trimmed down one of the PL cards and added it to the other side, that is also a bit glossy and decorated it with a bit of fun stuff, Shimelle and glimmery washi anyone? And a sweet little butterfly. I think I may have to flip to the back of my planner more often, just to take a look at her 😉

I may or may not have saved my favourite project until last.

As soon as I saw these Heidi Swapp frames, the first thing I though of was shaker dashboard!  I actually was planning on adding them to the front of a larger dashboard, but I like this mini guy even better, it fits perfectly in my little pocket wallet planner. I simply used my Fuse to make a little pocket from a page protector, sizing it so the seams would be hidden by the edges of the frames. Along with the sweet little stars that are exclusive to the kit I tossed in some random sequins I had on hand. I stuck 2 pieces from the cut apart sheet back to back, as well as 2 of the Shimelle word stickers and added those in and fused the top closed. I used my glue gun to stick it all together. On the outside I added enamel dots and one of the epoxy bits from Pink Fresh.

Here’s the other side:

Ok, but here’s my favourite part! I didn’t want to punch holes directly in the shaker, so I had to figure out a way to get it in my planner. I ended up hot gluing in a piece of packaging from enamel dots (you know that little plastic bit that the enamel dots are stuck to) and punching holes in that. I picked up some glare so that you could see it better here:

The plastic is pretty thick and should hold up to wear and tear and the hot glue is holding it in there pretty strong. I’m in love and I can’t wait to show it off next time I whip out my wallet at the grocery store.

Hope you are having a fantastic week and don’t forget to pop into the Hip Kit Club facebook forum this weekend for our online crop interNational Scrapbook Day! And planner girls, don’t think that because you are not a scrapbooker, this isn’t for you! I’ll be on pericope tomorrow with lots of ideas on how us planner girls can take advantage of this fun, creative day. I’m @caravincens. I’ll be scoping at about 8am EST, I know that’s early, but I’m in Europe, so you can watch over breakfast, in your bed… or just catch me on the replay, you’ll want to know these tips so that you can play along with the crafty scrapbookers.