Altered Mini Day Planner using Maggie Holmes Flea Market Mini Kit

I love finding things to alter in my local thrift store.  I found this mini day planner, pictured below, at the Hospice of Amador County Thrift Store last week—the purchase price—30 cents! Wowee!

I thought it would be fun to give the above planner a makeover with the NEW Maggie Holmes Flea Market Mini Kit now available at Digital Project Life and fill it with recent photos of my family.  This post will include LOTS of pictures and a synopsis of how I gave the above mini planner some TLC and transformed it into a brag book that easily fits in my purse.  It holds three dividers, one for pictures of me and my husband, pictures of my children--Brandi, Jake, Gwen, and Raiden--and pictures of places we’ve visited, like Disneyland and the beach.

The planner was already sturdy, with a binding system—that’s a plus-so I thought I would just print some of the filler cards from the digital kit onto some printable cotton canvas to cover the planner and make it more “me”.  To do this, I opened the planner and placed it down onto some white cardstock and used a black pen to trace around it and the closure in order to get the basic shape of the planner.  Then I scanned this sheet into my computer, retrieved it in Photoshop Elements, and cleaned up the file by erasing the white space, and saved it as a png file to open in the Silhouette Studio software.  When I retrieved the file in the Silhouette Studio software, I traced it to make it a cut file, and then reduced the size to 95%, so that it would be just the size to fit inside the shape of the planner, not cover it completely—I wanted the sewn seam to show on the outside.  Then I filled the shape with some filler cards from the digital kit.  I printed it onto the printable cotton canvas and then cut it using the appropriate setting  for the media used.  I applied it to the top of the planner and the closure—it was very easy—after all this printable cotton has a sticky back which is very convenient and crafter-friendly.  Yay!  I also printed and cut some of the filler cards with a button cut file and washi tape cut file onto the printable cotton canvas to make embellishments.  For the buttons, I also cut complimentary chipboard to back the buttons for weight.  The buttons were machine sewn onto the photo layouts.

Here are some pictures of the inside of the little planner utilizing Maggie Holmes Flea Market Mini Kit with my family photos inside (backed with kraft cardstock), some journaling cards in the pockets, and a pen in the holder.  Following the pictures, I will post some information regarding Maggie Holmes’ new kit at Digital Project Life as well as a list of the cut files I used from the Silhouette America Online Store.  I hope you like it as much as I do. It really feels good in my hands.  This supply will be something I will look for in future thrifting. I kept the left side blank of each spread, so that I can add pictures in the future quite easily. 

 

Click on the above collection image to be taken directly to the product pages at Digital Project Life.

Here’s the description from Digital Project Life:

The Project Life® Maggie Holmes Flea Market Mini Kit is full of gorgeous florals, stripes, dots, and whimsical patterns in vibrant, cheerful colors. Mix these cards in with your other Project Life® Editions or use them on their own to whip up a beautiful mini album. The options are endless.

The Maggie Holmes Flea Market Mini Kit includes:

• 40 3x4 Filler Cards in PNG format
• 37 3x4 Journaling Cards in PNG format
• 10 4x6 Journaling Cards in PNG format
• 10 4x6 Filler Cards in PNG format
• 10 4x6 Title Card designs in horizontal & vertical format for a total of 20 Title Cards in PNG format
• 8.5x11 PDFs with all of the cards for printing**

**Printing Tips: Set your printer to a "borderless" setting. If your printer has an "expansion" option, make sure it is set to minimum. If you are sending this to a commercial printer, verify that they have the ability to print borderlessly before placing your order.

As indicated above, here’s a list of cut files and fonts I used from the Silhouette America Online Store, listed in order of appearance in the planner photos:

Photo(s)

Slide Frame Cards

You, Me, & Us

Dotty Font

3 Tab Divider Mini Binder Pages

Phrase:  Home Is Where Your Heart Is

Buttons

Love You Forever, My Baby You’ll Be—Vinyl Phrase

It’s A Parade

7 Lori Whitlock Journaling Shapes

Washi Tape

Sister

Journaling Label Cards

Handsome Polaroid Phrase

Little Brother

Delightful Phrase

Love Label

Instant Photo Frame

Sunday Font

Oh The Places You’ll Go—Vinyl Phrase

Arrow Tabs, Vacation

Arrow Tabs, Friends

Amy Tan Journeys

Instagram Photo Frames