Guest Designer | Magdalena Hanell

We're thrilled to have the lovely and talented Magdalena Hanell as one of our guest designers this month and are excited to get to know her better today! Be sure to follow Magdalena here at Studio Calico to keep up with her and see more of her beautiful work.

Hej allihop! Hello, everyone! I was super happy to be asked to be a guest designer for September. When the kits arrived, I was even more excited because the colors are incredible. I've been a member of Studio Calico since 2011. "Paper Moon," the June kit of that year, was my first kit ever. Back then, it was all about scrapbooking. I started scrapbooking in 2008 by making an album for my mother's retirement party. After that, I was hooked! I'm married and have two children, born in 2008 and 2009. We live outside of Uppsala in Sweden, and I work full-time teaching fourth grade. Art, English, and history are my favorite subjects to teach. 

I first came in contact with pocket page scrapbooking on Lisa Truesdell's blog. I thought, "Wow, what a huge project! I would never be able to keep it up." It looked so overwhelming. That's why it took me awhile to finally decide to try it out in 2013. And I was so very wrong! For me, pocket page scrapbooking is the project that's most easy for me to work on. Layouts take more time because of the design factor, but pocket pages just fall together with help from the kits—all matched up and ready. I'm not the type of person that keep extensive journals. Since I almost always put the pages together within a couple of weeks from taking the pictures, I can journal from memory. The way I look at it, pocket pages are for memory keeping, and layouts are for the fun of making them. I usually pick out my favorite photos and use them for layouts. It doesn't bother me if I've used the same photo on a pocket page. I keep my pocket pages and layouts together in the same album, sorted chronologically. My albums extend from January to July and from August to December. I make the occasional mini album, too—usually travel albums or December Daily.

I've been on two stamp based design teams: Stromsvigt by Nina Christensen and Kellie Stamps by Kellie Winnel. I recently had my fourth class, Old & New, go up at Big Picture Classes. 

Magic Moment: I decided to have fun with the colored cardstock for my scrapbook layouts. I also wanted to use every single candy colored button! I picked the bright pink cardstock to print out the annual birthday interview I do with my daughter. She turned eight in August. The photo is printed to 11" x 5". I glued the right side down and popped the left side up using foam dots. After that came the title stamp, the yellow banner, and a random scattering of buttons. I finished the layout by adding some detail to the stamp with a gold gel pen.

Be Wild: This floral paper was my favorite patterned paper in the Scrapbook Kit. I tried out different background colors, but I liked black best. It really made the flowers pop! This silly photo was taken on a tour of a 17th-century farm this summer. I blew it up to 6" x 8" and printed it black and white for contrast. After adding the banner and the cut-out flowers, I felt that the photo still needed framing, so I cut off the teal bottom strip of the paper and glued it just to the left of the photo. 

GISHWHES: This layout's title is short for the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt The World Has Ever Seen. It's a worldwide charity event organized by actor Misha Collins. It takes place during the first week of August. My daughter took this photo of me dressed up as a cavewoman. It summed up this crazy week perfectly! I printed the GISHWHES quote and then the stamped title. I wanted the layout to be like a colorful explosion and the rainbow paper was perfect for this. I cut small triangles and scattered them around the title, making sure to point a corner of each towards the photo. The stitching also points towards the photo. 

Gröna Lund: The neon sequins were the focus of my pocket page. I printed the photos from our visit to the Gröna Lund amusement park in Stockholm and picked out the most colorful cards to match. I used the alphas and word strips to create a visual triangle across the spread. And last, I ended with a picture of Alice Cooper whom we saw in concert that evening. It was such a fun day!

Expect to see more projects using these kits popping up in my gallery this month. I'll use them to the very last bits! Thank you so much, Studio Calico, for having me as your guest designer of the month. I had a great time working with every part of the kits.