Simple Stories

I {HEART} Summer layout

Hi there! It's Yuki with you today. Have you seen our new fabulous collection, I {HEART} Summer? I really love it! I made a layout using lots of products from this collection.

Fundamentals Cardstock  Stickers  help you to make your layout quickly.

SN@P Cuts is my favorite item. I put it under the title card  this time.

 

Thanks for stopping by the Simple Stories blog! I hope you enjoyed my layout.

Supplies used:

I HEART SUMMER COLLECTION

Fundamental Cardstock Stickers 12x12 |#3202

Expressions Cardstock Stickers |#3203

Layered Stickers |#3228

3x4 Journaling Card Elements |#3210

2x12 Border & 4x12 Strip Elements |#3214

Yellow  Boardwalk/Ledger |#3219

Sn@p Cuts |#3225

 

Sweet Summer Memories

Hi there.  It's Cari with you today.

I love summer!  It means lots of family time with my kiddos.  And every year we go strawberry picking. They actually look forward to it.  So I decided to scrapbook some pictures of our 'picking' adventure from last summer.

This new Simple Stories release, I {Heart} Summer is amazing!!  When I was creating my projects for today I didn't want to stop ( ... the ideas just kept coming! So I've got a list for a few more projects. :))

My first layout "Sweet Summer Memories" uses quite a few items from this collection. I'm not a big double page creator.  But having a collection where everything goes together so nicely it makes creating pages that will be side-by-side in my albums so easy!

I turned one of the 4x6 Journaling cards on it's side and printed my journaling on it. I love all the embellishments that come with this collection so it was hard to decide what to use.

The chipboard & stickers embellishments are just so easy to use.  I love adding foam squares to some of the stickers, too, for added dimension.

One of my favorite designs in this new release is the chalkboard design.  It's such a hot thing right now and Simple Stories has got it right!

My second layout, "Hello Sunshine",  I kept the design simple to focus on the enlarged photo.  I love the various colored Boardwalk papers in this collection and chose to use the teal colored one for my page.

Again... adding the embellishmnets is so much fun and can really 'dress up' and finish a simple styled layout.

I used one of the border stickers along the right side of my page and kept all the punched out little holes and then used those as dots around my layout.

 Simple Stories has created another incredible collection and I hope that I've inspired you a bit with my layouts today.

Supplies used:

I HEART SUMMER COLLECTION

Fundamental Cardstock Stickers 12x12 |#3202

Expressions Cardstock Stickers |#3203

Chipboard Stickers |#3227

Layered Stickers |#3228

Flair Icons |#3229

3x4 Journaling Card Elements |#3210

4x6 Vertical Journaling Card Elements |#3212

2x12 Border & 4x12 Strip Elements |#3214

6x12 Page Elements |#3215

Red Boardwalk/Ledger |#3217

Teal Boardwalk/Dotted Line Notebook |#3218

Sn@p Cuts |#3225

 

Other:

Core'dinations Colorcore Cardstock; EK Success (Border punch); Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L (foam squares)

Summer Gift Packaging Ideas

Summer is around the corner and it is time to get ready for birthdays, barbecues and summer bashes.  Instead of spending money on a lot of expensive gift packaging, why not use the three R's of Conservation: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?  Reduce the amount of packaging in your life and the world by reusing bags and giving them a facelift with materials you have lying around the house.  I still had some of the gorgeous Summer Fresh collection that I wanted to use up before I break into the Brand New I Heart Summer collection.

I thought is would be really fun to create this large star that would frame the fun tag.  I created the two sized stars with a clip art image in Microsoft Word, printed them onto plain cardstock and then cut them out to be traced onto the patterned paper.  I know, very old school right?  Then I added some hand stitching around the red star.

The tails of the tag were really easy to create and then trace onto the back sides of the patterned paper for easy cutting.  I then layered and glued them together with my Xyron Mega Runner.

These tags were so much fun to make.  All of the elements in the Summer Fresh collection are so bright and bold and look wonderful against the beautiful burlap patterned paper.  I got out my old Fiskars Apron Lace punch to make the red border on the bottom of the tags.

Foam tape is a great way to add dimension to the cardstock stickers in the Summer Fresh collection and to give the fun window box effect on this tag.

 

Summer Fresh Collection:

12 x 12 Fundamental Carstock Stickers

12 x 12 Expressions Cardstock Stickers

Sunshine/Happiness

Easy/Breazy

Burlap

6 x 6 Patterned Paper Pad

 

Stay tuned for the gorgeous Simple Stories I Heart Summer collection which was just received by our design team....

 

Happy Monday!

Simple Inspiration - Guest Designer Becky Fleck

Hello friends!

Layle Koncar here.  I wanted to pop in today and say howdy :)

I'm the new Marketing Director for Simple Stories and I'm so happy to be here!  Over the next few months, you can look forward to some fun new things from us, including a brand new summer line next week (shhhhh, you didn't hear it from me!), some fantastic new releases later this summer, a fun change to our blog calendar with some regularly scheduled features and some 'behind the scenes' posts from me, and even an exciting new website.  Stay tuned!

But enough about a few of the many things in store we have for you - besides popping in to say hello, I wanted to introduce our Guest Designer this month, Becky Fleck.

Becky  is the editor of Scrapbook and Cards Today, one of Canada's most popular craft magazines. She is also owner of the PageMaps (www.pagemaps.com), which provides scrapbook layout and greeting card sketches to over 20,000 readers each month. Becky has authored the best-selling books Scrapbook PageMaps and Scrapbook PageMaps 2, available from Memory Maker Books. She teaches extensively throughout the U.S. and internationally at expos, retreats, scrapbook stores and conventions.

Today Becky is sharing with us 6 fabulous cards she made using our 24/Seven and Urban Traveler collections -

Such a CLEVER card with the glassine envelope full of confetti punched from patterned paper!  And how about those 'take one' strips along the bottom of the card?!  Love it!

What a fun, bright card this one is, right?!  The balloons are super happy, especially the one that's die cut from the front of the card.  The greatest thing about this card is that the design could easily work for other themes such as birthday, even bon voyage - simply change the sentiment on the front! 

How fun is the little flag Becky made on this card using a red pin and a small piece of paper?  One thing you'll notice on these cards is that she's incorporated twine/string in various ways on each card - great inspiration!

Becky loves using Copic markers in her work.  In these next few cards, notice the beautiful coloring/shading she does!

Supplies: patterned papers, shape stickers, letter stickers, journal cards, (Simple Stories 24/7 and Urban Traveler); cardstock (Bazzill Basics, Jillibean Soup); twine (Montana Misfits); ink (Ranger); dies (Spellbinders); pens (Copic); pencils (Prismacolor); reinkers (Stampin' Up!)

Thanks Becky for sharing your beautiful creations with us!!

Making Cards

Hi there! Yuki here to share a couple of fun cards with you today. First up is a card using Simple Stories / Cocoa daisy collaborated papers.

Next is a card for boys. I mixed up the SN@P! and the Take a Hike collections.

The last is a card using the SN@P! collection.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.

 

 Supplies Used:

SN@P! Life 12x12 Fundamental Cardstock Stickers

SN@P! Life Basics it

SN@P! Polaroids

SN@P! Stripe

SN@P! Chipboard Stickers-Hello

Take a hike Simple Basics Kit

Take a hike 4x4 Quote & 6x8 Photo Mat Elements

Take a hike Brown Wood/ Map

Take a hike Green Dot Prints

Simple Stories/ Cocoa Daisies collaborated paper

 

 

 

 

{Simple} Fun!

Hi there!  Cari with you today.
I've got a couple of layouts to share with you and a fun little card as well.

As I was going through my photos I came across some of my boys and their cousin. I thought the colors went great with the 24/7 collection ... plus the theme of the whole collection was a good fit as well. I decided to create a more 'grid' style layout and cut various pieces of patterned paper forming 3 rows of paper and photos.

 I created the sombrero and #3 using my Cricut Expression 2, ....

... and used lots of fun stickers & chipboard embellishments from the 24/7 colleciton.

 

I then looked through my photos again and came across some pictures of my husband and boys playing in the pool while away on a mini summer vacation.  I decided to use Urban Traveler for this layout.

I love the rich colors in this collection and kept the circle theme throughout by cutting my photos into circular shapes as well.  (trust me ... this was no easy task as I haven't cut my photos up like that in a loooooong time! But I like how it turned out.)

I love the new embellishments (brads and layered stickers) as they add so much visual interest & texture to my projects.

I also created a little card using some of the 24/7 collection. (Love that little phone.)

Thanks for stopping by today.

 

Supplies used:

Urban Traveler

Fundamentals Cardstock Stickers |#2902

Expressions Cardstock Stickers |#2903

Decorative Brads |#2926

Layered Stickers |#2928

4x6 Vertical Journaling Card Elements |#2912

Bingo Cards/Colored Arrow Dots |#2916

Navy Dots/Ledger |#2918

Orange Stripes/Map |#2921

 

24/7 Collection:

Fundamentals Cardstock Stickers |#3102

Expressions Cardstock Stickers |#3103

Chipboard Stickers |#3128

Decorative Brads |#3126

Layered Stickers |#3128

Take Note |#3105

3x4 Journaling Card Elements |#3110

Cork/Ephemera |#3117

Red Twee/Calendar |#3118

Blue Chevron/Grid |#3120

 

Family Fun with New 24/7

It was so much fun to make these layouts of a vacation we took last spring with the Simple Stories 24/7 collection.  Our goal was to visit a different park each day of the break, so each page are photos from a different park.  I love the vibrant colors of the 24/7 collection.  It has the perfect combination of reds, greens, yellows and blues, which make bright, fun pages.

It is so much fun to break up the parts of this project into the different sized photo sleeves.  Working on the smaller sized backgrounds of 4 x 6 and 3 x 4 cards really allows you to focus on details without getting lost on a bigger canvas.

I like to mix and match alphabets to create a title, so I added both of the Simple Stories cardstock sticker alphas to these more dimensional cork letters from Little Yellow Bicycle.  They match the cork pattern in the 24/7 papers perfectly.

I also love the enormous ampersand on this 4x6 journal card, but I trimmed it down so I could back it with another patterned paper.  I also used the new Simple Stories Sn@p stamps to add the numbers 1,2,3 for interest.

I also used the new Sn@p Stamps to add this little calendar to this 3 x 4 journal card.  First I stamped the calendar on the grid paper and then trimmed it and added it to the cork paper.  A few cardstock stickers from the fundamental sticker page finishes it off.

These little notecards make it easy to add journaling in a jiff and I cut out the tab from this 3 x 4 journal card with a kraft knife and then overlapped the photo with it so the beautiful graphics could still be seen.

This is the other park we visited and my son was excited to pose next to this statue of a coyote.  Again it was fun to use the particular template so I could add photos of all of us and still have plenty of creative freedom and space to add journaling.

The cork alphabet looks even better against the darker patterned paper and matches beautifully with the colored cardstock letters.

Who doesn't love an old typewriter?  Adds a fun detail to the journal card, which I hand journaled and then added the sentiment "Now" with the cardstock alphabet stickers.

LOVE these cork scrabble tiles.  They add such a great texture and sentiment to the project.  Hope you found some inspiration from my ideas and will try the 24/7 collection to make your own memory project.

 

Please see the entire 24/7 collection HERE.

 

Happy Monday!

Travel Album with Urban Traveler

Hi there! It’s Yuki here with you. Today, I have a project to share using new Urban Traveler collection with you.

I made this travel album with a 6x8 SN@P! binder last year. I had a chance to get more photos lately, so I have decided to make more pages and insert them in my album.

The Urban Traveler collection is perfect to document your travel memories in a short time!

Products Used:

Urban Traveler

12x12 Collection Kit #2900

Expressions Cardstock Stickers  #2903

SN@P! CARDS #2925

Have you seen the Simon Says Stamp blog? It’s a wonderful blog and full of inspirations! My cards using Simple Stories products were introduced in their blog, check them out!

Thanks for stopping by today!

 

 

Simple Inspiration: Adventure Seeker

Last summer I moved from the Sonoran Desert of Phoenix, AZ where we rarely see weather below 80 degrees to the northern Arizona pines, a mere 7000 feet higher in elevation. That meant new adventures and also new experiences - SEASONS - awaited. So, last week when we were enjoying sunshine and 60 degree weather, we were fooled into thinking winter was over (I have a foot and a half of snow to shovel out of my driveway as I type this). We loaded up the car and headed out to one of my favorite areas, Sandy's Canyon, which is also a section of the Arizona Trail.  Cool, huh? I got a great shot of my daughter on the rim of the canyon that I was immediately inspired to scrap. 

The Take a Hike line was a perfect starting point with its greens, oranges, and rich woodgrains. I knew I wanted to play with the colors and patterns a bit, so I started by creating these square embellishments. 

I found a great print on Pinterest which inspired the embellishments, and I love the way they give visual interest without taking away from the photo. Next I played with the title a bit. I knew I wanted to use those amazing woodgrain alphas prominently. So, I layered them on top of one of the mini flashcard stickers. 

Finally I wanted some weight at the bottom of the layout, and I needed space for journaling. The "Field Notes" journaling block is cut from one of the 6x6 pad sheets. I love that those offer smaller versions of many of the 4x6 cards!

I finished the layout off with some woodgrain strips stitched to the top and bottom of the layout. 

I love how all the elements came together! Hopefully this has inspired you to get out on the trail and seek out your own adventure! Oh, and to scrap it, too. 

 

Simple Stories products used:

 

Adventure #2508 

Back to Nature

#2505

Brown Wood/Map

#2516

Green Dot/Prints

#2518

Orange Stripe/Ledger

#2517

Yellow Chevron/Grid

#2519

6x6 Paper Pad

#2501

Expressions Cardstock Stickers

#2503

Fundamentals Cardstock Stickers

#2502 

It's a Sn@p to Mix Your Media

Happy mid week!  Wanted to share a fun idea for adding mists and other mixed media elements to a project.  This page was created for a series I am working on at Scrapbooking and Beyond Magazine, so if you got the Spring issue, you can see a few other ideas as well.  I thought the bright happy Sn@p patterned papers made excellent photo frames against the rainbow misted background.

This plain notebook paper made the perfect background for the misting.  I simply added a mask from a REALLY old die cut I had in my stash (bet you can guess the company by looking at it), and then took yellow, red and blue mists and sprayed them diagonally across the page, letting them blend together where they overlapped.

I combined the Sn@p alphabets with an old chipboard letter I had lying around and used some even older Cream Chalk to color it.  It left a fun shimmer and blended perfectly with the other letters.  I colored the wooden buttons with some markers to get a really vibrant color.

These bottle caps are so much fun.  They make perfect photo frames or journal spots.  I traced the bottom onto a plain piece of white cardstock and then ran it through my typewriter to add the jouranling.  Bet it wold look just as cool with a handwritten sentiment.  Here you can see the really fun blending of mists with the rainbow effect.

 

 

Hope you get out some mists, paints, chalk or ink soon and have a wonderful time adding color or elements to your next project.