Simple Stories Cozy Days

Just before we all went into lockdown again we managed to get out on a visit to Kew Gardens - both of my kids came (which is nice as now they are old enough to stay home alone!) and my parents.  We explored the top part of Kew Garden and went across the lake and into the woods to the Badger Set area and came across a beautifully carved woodland path. Loads of interesting bits of tree and beautiful carvings to clamber across, perfect for some Autumnal shots.

There are some lovely stickers in this collection and I layered them up with foam pads and added silver cotton and some die cut leaves (a gorgeous Tim Holtz set that has come in useful again and again).

Here you can see one of the beautiful carvings alongside my paint splatters and the October Afternoon (I miss them) alphabet.

For my next page with this collection I dug out my watercolours and tried to match them to the paper....the one that didn't work so well was the blue - I needed a really deep, dark navy and just couldn't get that with what I had, but the others worked pretty well.  I layered up my photos on the corresponding paper and then added lots of the sticker embellishments.  I cut out one of the phrases from the 6 by 4" card and then mounted it on vellum just to give it a rectangular layer like the photos.  I then went about hanging banners and adding flowers - so all in all fairly quick once the paint had dried!

Here you can see a few close ups of the clusters.

Once my main layer of paint was dry I added lots of little flicks of the 3 colours to tie the page all together.

I hope you've enjoyed these and are staying wrapped up and warm.

 

Vintage Traveller - Great Memories

Good morning everyone, there is so much inspiration buzzing around the internet today and I wanted to add a little bit more to it with a page that I created using Vintage Traveller from Simple Stories.  It's a beautiful collection with pastel blues and greens, maps, tickets, old posters....it's gorgeous.

We had a lovely family holiday to Italy - bit of a trip from Pisa over to Venice, there are lots of pages to come on this!  I decided to scrap one of my favourite photos of late which is me and my youngest on the water bus heading over to Venice, the colours and papers went perfectly.  

I started with my torn strips and layers around the photo, but in my kit I also had the sticker pack for this collection and there are a few sheets of rectangular  stickers, some with sayings, some images - they have the texture of some of the washi stickers that Simple Stories do. I often struggle with stickers like this, as they aren't messy so challenged myself to use them in a different way, as neat rectangles just wasn't working for me!  I decided to tear and layer them -  it was great fun to do and I was really pleased with the effect - adding a nice bit of texture without any paint!  The other way I added some texture was with some organza ribbon - it's been in my stash for ages and I added a pleated/stapled band being my photo - I'd seen this technique years ago and again it was using something that had been resting at the bottom of my ribbon box for sometime.  I started off by sticking it very lightly to the page with a tape runner - so the glue wouldn't show and then added staples so the pleats flattened.

I dug out some of my paper clips that co-ordinated - determined to use up some of the little bits in my stash that have been forgotten!  Did the traditional 3 cluster, so layered in a couple of stickers too.

Jill (from ATDML) sent me these fantastic travel thickers (Wander) by American Crafts - all black and white sentiments with a few photo frames and other little embellishments too.

I hope you have a fantastic National Scrapbooking Day!

Winter Wonderland Double Page with Simple Stories

After a beautiful covering go snow this winter I have lots of pictures so decided to have a go at a double page spread, which is something that I don't do too often.  I've used Winter Wonderland by Simple Stories which was in my DT kit from A Trip Down Memory Lane.  I love the way that you can put a Simple Stories page together fairly quickly with all the cards and elements in their collections.

I started this page with co-ordinating strips at each side and then had my photos track across the middle.  I decided to mount them on a rust coloured yardstick (not something I normally do) as it went so well with the colours in the papers and as the photos were white it made them pop a little more.  Once my photos were on I had fun with clusters of embellishments and some of the little word stickers in this collection.

Here are some close-ups.

I love the little snowmen, and sticking to that cluster of 3 rule that seems to work so well!

I love the cards in this collection and this one was perfect for the title.

Here you can see one of the word stickers which are lovely for adding a little bit more information to the photos.

I've also created a wintry video for BoBunny which you can find here.

Love with Simple Stories

Here is another page using Simple Stories Domestic Bliss -really clean and simple.  I started with a diagonal cut across the house paper, and then just added layers around my photo.  I love that the colours of this range blend really well with other Simple Stories ranges, so I can look through all my sticker sheets to find embellishments that match.  I added a few strips of twine and one of the Prima Bark hearts - I still love these and have a few stars as well as hearts left.

The photo is from a coffee shop trip where my kids love to get hot chocolates piled with cream - always a good stop on a shopping trip!

You can see even more inspiration in the ATDML gallery - here is the link.

Together

Here is a page I made with Reset Girl from Simple Stories - I love Simple Stories, but I didn't look too closely at this line because it is fairly feminine....however I love it!!  I used lots of frames to make a kind of comic strip of the day and a game of cricket between my kids and my nephew - I love that some of the other ranges have the same colours so I could fit in some We R Family frames and also a little bit from Carpe Diem too, and all the colours worked together beautifully.....there are also Domestic Bliss stickers in there too.

I have a new page on the ATDML blog - this month we are using Kaisercraft papers and if you would like to check out more of my Simple Stories pages you can also have a look in their gallery.

Relentless

I had loads of fun making this page - it started with lots of splatters with the new BoBunny metallic paints, then I layered up lots of Simple Stories Domestic Bliss stickers and tapes, and then all sorts of goodies from my stash.  For this page I didn't use my trusty guillotine but hand cut all the papers, which was really fun, and I like all the slightly jaunty angles it creates.

These photos made me laugh - my sister trying to get a photo with my son in it too - I have to say he is really good about letting me still take photos of him...grown up with a scrapping Mum, but this is what he thought of my sister trying to get a photo!!

I am 11

Each month Ann Freeman sets everyone a challenge over on the ATDML blog and you can win a £5 gift voucher...this month she used this image...

I loved the squares and the large writing, so I dug out some Domestic Bliss papers (and there is a little bit of Reset Girl in there too) and set to work.  I have been playing a bit more with hand cutting papers rather than using a guillotine to get a different (slightly messier) effect - I can't cut straight!  I cut out several squares using a template to make sure they were around the 4" square size, then set layering them up.  For my large alphabet I used the WRMK mini alphabet punch board for the title and in the process discovered there is an app that you can get which shows you all the patterns for the different letters and numbers!  I then used lots of stickers and added some enamel dots too.

Do check out the link above if it inspires you to and share your page.

Simple Stories I am Class

Hi, here are some pages I made using the I Am collection from Simple Stories for A Trip Down Memory Lane.  You can find the instructions here if you would like to make any of the pages.  

I used a large banner for this page and used accents of the jade dot paper to make everything stand out on the pink background.  There is a beautiful paper in this line with loads of type-written words, so I cut some of the words and phrases out to embellish my layout as well as using lots of the stickers.

A page with me in - I need to add the journalling, but I started with the foiled I Am base paper and then cut out the banner from the 6 by 4" cards as well as a few of the feathers - they all have gold foiling and the photos don't do it justice.  I added some of the floral stickers on foam pads to add some dimension too.

Another page with me on - they don't happen that often, so it it good to be forced to document it with these papers.  I have an area next to the photo for journalling.  The base of the journal spot is piled with stickers and embellishments cut from the papers, another strip of the beautiful type-written paper decorated with more of the stickers.  

These are all holiday photos - I'm still making my album for our massive trip last year!

Frozen Fun

Here is another page using Winter Wonderland from Simple Stories - in my kit from A Trip Down Memory Lane.  I started with the beautiful snowflake scatter woodgrain paper in the kit, and then with some of the left over pieces of paper I set about creating a ribbon of rolls (it takes less time than you think) - I used a thin pencil and cut some 1" by 2" strips of the paper, and taped them on the inside and just rolled.  The harder part was wrapping the twine around - which was just fiddly!

I layered up some of the postcard pieces from the journal papers and then added lots of stickers as well as some of the co-ordinating enamel dots.

I am still hoping for a bit of decent snow this year - just a couple of days, I love how it makes the world look, and the kids (and me) still love to play in it - this was our snow day (I think it was only 1 morning) last year and they were out early chucking it around and making the most of it!

Awesome with Simple Stories

We were sent some of the new Simple Stories papers - this is Winter Wonderland to play with from A Trip Down Memory Lane.  Although the collection has 'snow' bits in it, it is also quite Autumnal too, so would work well with both seasons.    Also it is really clean for me - no paint!!!

I started creating a wiggley line on one side and then covered this in different layers of paper.  I created some mounts for my photos and added a journal spot and some of the stickers.  I did use foam pads for some of the flowers to add a little dimension.  The wood veneer title is from a pack at the Works, and then just a few glossy enamel dots (to make up for no paint flicks!).  

It was really fun to make, and I didn't have to wait for paint to dry which is nice, or it's a nice project to do whilst paint is drying.  The photo is from our trip to the States, I always love looking out the window at our planet - this is Greenland and you can see all that geography that you learn about in action - amazing glaciers, and glaciated valleys with pyramidal peaks and moraine - it is so beautiful. I do have a few photos like this as it always amazes me, but this is the first one I have scrapped!

Christmas Glasses

This is one of those photos of what is a small present that suddenly becomes a big part of your Christmas....and it is unpredictable - who would have thought that a straw pair of glasses would bring so much fun!!

I recently picked up a mixed media large stamp that looks like loads of splatters - I love the white splatters of paint that you get on lots of the mixed media layouts now, and I have done it manually and am getting better at it (or closer to the effect that I want to achieve), but having the control of the stamp on some occasions is really good (especially if you are at a crop and have a friend working next to you!!!).  The background is a mix of red, brown and then gold embossed splatter stamps! I then used some of the Classic Christmas papers from Simple Stories around the photo and one of their chipboard frames (still love those).  I also had a play with embossing powder on some Tando baubles - I did half in a glittery red and then half in gold embossing powder and hung them from my photo, adding a few Simple Stories stickers as well

This shows some of the splatters the stamp is called Splatter and is by Impression Obsession - it is a large stamp so I used the rolling technique to just stamp where I wanted the splatters rather than have it mounted on a stamp block.

I added a little interest to the distressed edges with some punching poking out behind the layers.

One of my favourite little frames with one of the Classic Christmas square stickers in the centre.

Here are the Tando baubles - I did add both lots of embossing powder one after the other - I think it would possible work better to emboss half, then add the second powder and emboss again, but I need to have a play with that.