December 05, 2017

Guest Designer | Haley Pettit

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

Hello, SC friends! I’m Haley—a writer, blogger, and planner girl living in Portland, Oregon. I live at home with my parents, my 13-year-old brother, and our 15-year-old Cairn Terrier. Our quiet 1920s home is the perfect place for me to write and create while I’m still trying to figure out my career path. I have the first drafts of two Young Adult novels that I would love to get published someday, and I have two courses over at Big Picture Classes with another one on the way!

I have been paper crafting as long as I can remember. From scrapbooking with my mom, aunt, and grandmother when I was little to cardmaking in my middle school days, I have always loved getting crafty! Even though I’ve been using a planner since I was twelve, it wasn’t until a few years ago that I started decorating my planner. What started with a few stamps and pieces of washi has turned into an important creative outlet in my life. Decorating my planner is about more than stickers and sticky notes; it’s about spending time being creative just for myself, thinking about my goals and how I spend my time, and nurturing the part of me that craves organization and beauty.

Besides planning, I also love art-journaling, crafty note-taking, sending thoughtful snail mail, and creative novel planning. I'm inspired by the juxtaposition of text and image; it makes an appearance in almost every project I work on! I love that words can convey what an image cannot and that an image can tell a story that words can’t. I'm also inspired by music, fashion, color, texture, and literature. I don’t take a lot of photos in my day-to-day life, so a lot of my “photos” are magazine images that capture what I’m feeling or are beautiful to me in some way. I find that even though I didn’t take the photo, it can still document my life through my choice to use it.

I'm so excited to be a guest on the Creative Team this month! The "Northern Lights" Planner Kit is absolutely PERFECT for holiday planning, but it’s versatile enough to be used year-round too.

Northern Lights Holiday Planner – The first project I created with the "Northern Lights" Planner Kit is a holiday planner in my personal size planner. The large kraft labels are perfect for listing out holiday to-dos, and the washi strips helped me create two other lists for general to-dos and a holiday bucket list of sorts. I punched out a few circles from the patterned paper and stitched them to the page with black thread to make them look like ornaments. I love how functional and festive the pieces in the planner kit are; it was so easy to put this spread together!

Northern Lights Weekly Spread – The second project I created is a weekly spread in my personal planner. Because I'm super picky about inserts, I used the stamps from the Planner Kit to create my own layout! The label stamp is perfect for the days of the week, while the solid circle stamp with colorful ink really made the day numbers pop. I love using my circle punch with the patterned paper in the kit to create appointment and event markers. The combination of circle and rectangle shapes give this spread a geometric look with tons of movement.

Northern Lights 2018 TN Vision Board – The third project I created is a 2018 Vision Board in my Traveler’s Notebook. The 3x4 Goals stamp add-on has the best phrases for creating an encouraging message. For me, a vision board is all about creating a visual emotion, and the phrase stamps really strengthened the positive tone of the spread. Cutting around the kraft labels in the planner kit created these awesome “frames” for layering over images. The negative space inside the frames was perfect for journaling and embellishment. This spread is an example of how the Planner Kit can be used in a non-holiday way; I simply stayed away from the wintery elements of the kit!