Simple Stories

Pick a Card, Any Card

Hi there, Layle with you today for another round of Pick a Card, Any Card!

Each month, 5 of our design team members and I will be picking one of our favorite Simple Stories or SN@P! 3x4 or 4x6 cards and sharing them with you - in more ways than one!  We've introduced so many GREAT cards over the last few years that I thought it would be fun to share some of our favorite cards each month, tell you why they're our favorites and then give you a chance to win not only the specific cards that we picked, but the other cards they're paired up with as part of the set (more on that fun giveaway at the end of this post)!

If you missed last month's picks, you can see them here.

To kick off this month's version of Pick a Card, Any Card, here's one of my favorites -

This 4x6 card is from our Love SN@P! Set.  I love the chalkboard background of the card, the contrast of the white upper case text and that cute little red heart.   Here's a quick layout I made using this card -

Next up is Yuki Shimada with this  3x4 card from our Christmas SN@P! Set -

When I asked Yuki why she chose this card, she said -

This card is just cute and it makes me smile. White whipped cream on the top of the red cup reminds me of milk foam on my kid’s upper lip. This card is perfect for the everyday scene in the winter season.  I’d like to use it for my layout of warm and loving home!

Alissa Fast chose this 3x4 card from our Her SN@P! Set -

When I asked Alissa why she chose this card, she said -

I love all things chalkboard and the old phone is just so cute. Also, I'm still loving the song from 2012. It's just a fun card. 

Next up is Tonya Dirk with this 4x6 card from our Baby Boy SN@P! Set -

According to Tonya -

First of all, how can you go wrong with those darling elephants?  The versatility of this card is what I love most though. It is one that can be used on any type of project…a layout, a card, Life Documented, or home decor.  A bonus is that it would work for baby all the way up to a young boy. Let's not forget that backside with those diagonal stripes in a great color scheme!

Vicki Boutin selected this 3x4 card from our Everyday SN@P! Set - Vicki picked this card because -

The Insta Love card was made for me!!  It is from the Everyday Life SN@P! Set which happens to be covered in all of my favourite colours!!!!  The card also has lots of mini cameras and cameras are one of my fav design motifs!  And finally, I love the ability to take and edit photos with all of the fun aps available.  Love. This. Card.

We wrap it up this month with Allison Landy's favorite 3x4 card, from the Daily Grind SN@P! Cards -

This is Allison's current favorite card because -

Being a big fan of the Life Documented process, but not having much beyond school, work, and dogs in my life these days, the simple everyday moments are truly all I am about. This Everyday card is simple and understated, recognizing that not every day is the "best day ever." Sometimes, it's just the simple, everyday cup of coffee, or the everyday commute to work, or the everyday hello that the stranger on the bus gives us each morning that make up a beautiful and full life. I can't wait to use this card in my album for exactly that - to celebrate all those simple everyday moments. 

So, what do you think?  How about those picks - pretty fun, right?!

OK, now to more good stuff.  At the beginning of this post I mentioned something about a giveaway!  Enter below by end of day Friday, December 6th (WHAT!  December already? !!) telling me which of our 6 cards is your favorite and why.  Check back on this post on Sunday the 8th, where I'll announce the one random lucky winner to win ALL of these cards -

Love 4x6 SN@P! Cards
Christmas 3x4 SN@P! Cards
Her 3x4 SN@P! Cards
Baby Boy 4x6 SN@P! Cards
Everyday 3x4 SN@P! Cards
Daily Grind SN@P! Cards

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The randomn lucky winner is Collins!  Congratulations!

 Good luck!

Silhouette Black Friday Promotion!

Howdy!  Happy Thanksgiving to our U.S. friends :)

Layle here to share an exciting promotion from Silhouette!

As a reminder, in case you missed the news, you can now find some of our favorite Simple Stories designs as cut files with Silhouette!!  Visit Simple Stories at the Silhouette Online Store here to see our design portfolio.  You can also search for 'Simple Stories' directly on their site. 

Visit Simple Stories at the Silhouette Online Store here to see our design portfolio.  You can also search for 'Simple Stories' directly on their site.  - See more at: http://simplestories.typepad.com/simple_stories/#sthash.5Ij1PDkU.dpuf

If you don't own a Silhouette, now's the perfect time to pick one up; check out these amazing deals, not only on Silhouette machines, but accessories as well!  BONUS - each and every shape in the Silhouette Online Store is HALF PRICE during this time, including Simple Stories designs!

To take advantage of these deals, click the image below or visit www.silhouetteamerica.com/black and enter promotion code SIMPLESTORIES during checkout.

(1)          A Silhouette CAMEO®, Silhouette Studio® Designer Edition Software, a dust cover (the color is decided by Silhouette), a $25 download card, a hook, a scraper, a spatula, and a pick-me-up® tool for $229.99. Retail price for all of this would total $406.93 (over 40% savings!)

(2)          A Silhouette Portrait®, Silhouette Studio® Designer Edition Software, a dust cover (the color is decided by Silhouette), a $25 download card, a hook, a scraper, a spatula, and a pick-me-up® tool for $129.99. Retail price for all of this would total $286.93 (over 40% savings!)

(3)          A Silhouette CAMEO®, a Silhouette Portrait®, and two $25 download cards for $299.99. That’s right: If you buy a Silhouette CAMEO® at full price, you get two $25 download cards and a Silhouette Portrait® ABSOLUTELY FREE! Retail price for all of this would be $406.93 (over 40% savings!)

(4)          40% off consumable products at silhouetteamerica.com. This excludes machines, subscriptions, download and gift cards. Cannot be combined with any other offers. Rain checks not available.

(5)          FREE SHIPPING on orders over $25.

Scrapping everyday life with Daily Grind.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all, or at least to our American readers. Tonya here with you today to share a layout made with our newest line called Daily Grind. It's such a fun collection with all of the latest trends that are really hot right now, for example arrows, chevrons, and cameras.

I've been dying to use the arrow chevron side of the Busy Busy paper, so I made that the base of this layout. 

 

The camera is a die cut from the package of SN@P! cuts. I slightly inked the edges of it to make it stand out against the background paper.

 

I love pulling my camera out when this kid is around. He is the one who is always willing to play along!

Thank you for stopping by the Simple Stories blog today. Hope you all are having a wonderful Thanksgiving day with your family and/or friends.

Products:

Daily Grind:

   Busy Busy Paper #3607

   Hello, New Day  Paper #3604

   Daily Flair Paper #3609

   Orange Chunky Chevron Dots Paper #3617

   Red Chunky Chevron Dots Paper #3620

   SN@P! Cuts #3626

   Brads #3627

   Chipboard #3628

   Ephemera #3629

   Expression Cardstock Stickers #3603

   

 

Simple Storytelling with Daily Grind and Sn@p!

Hello there!! Donna here as your host. For our American friends, tomorrow is a big day. Are you ready? I am almost ready and even though I am the one who makes Thanksgiving dinner at our house, I am definitely looking forward to a day spent with family and those I love most. Today though, I wanted to share a simple layout that I made using the Sn@p! Him set,

 

a few papers from Daily Grind,

and some bits and pieces from the Sn@p! Life Basics Kit and Urban Traveler.

This summer I bought my boys temporary tattoos. Did you ever wear these when you were a kid? Goodness, such a simple thing and yet they loved this so much.

I knew I wanted to use the Sn@p! Him sets to scrapbook this page, but as you know, the sets are made of 3x4 and 4x6 cards (along with the coordinating stickers and envelopes). But I didn't let that stop me. I used the colored stripe pattern you see running along the top of the page to guide my color choices. The strips (there are two) were cut from one of the 4x6 cards and I used a 3x4 card to hide the seam between the two pieces.

I don't tend to use stickers a lot in my scrapbooking, but they are perfect for certain tasks and the ones in the Sn@p! Him collection are so fun and cute!

 

Here I sneaked in some chipboard shapes from Urban Traveler to draw attention to the title.

The orange, navy and gray from that collection works well with the colors in this particular Sn@p! set.

And in the close-up below you can see how I used another 3x4 card to back my journaling. 

The beauty of Simple Stories is that even though I didn't have a complete collection kit to work with I was able to grab lots of bits and pieces from other collections to make this page. It just reinforces what I have said many times before; all of the collections work so well with one another it really does make telling your stories simple.

As always, thank you for stopping by the blog. And Happy Thanksgiving!!

Products Used:

Sn@p! Him Stickers #4162

Sn@p! Him Stickers #4162

Sn@p! Him Stickers #4162

Daily Grind 12x12 Simple Basics Kit #3601

Daily Grind Green Chunky Chevron/Dots #3618

Daily Grind Teal Chunky Chevron/Dots #3619

Urban Traveler Orange Stripes/Map #2921

Urban Traveler Chipboard Stickers #2927

Sn@p! Life Basics Yellow/Grid #2818

Life Documented with Daily Grind

Hello, Simple Stories fans! Melissa here to share a week in my Life Documented album that uses the new mid-release Daily Grind collection.

This particular week in my album is from early July, with lots of everyday and holiday events going on. We'd just returned from a two week camping trip and had lots to catch up on at home, and later in the week there were Independence Day fireworks displays (twice!) and a trip out of town for me to visit my family and run in a 5K.

With all of that going on, my photos included a crazy spectrum of bright colors, but luckily the new Daily Grind papers were a great match for them!

My first thought on receiving this new collection was just how well it will coordinate with so many past Simple Stories collections. While my layout uses just the new collection (along with a few letter stickers from the Everyday Sn@p Set), I know that in future pages I'll be including older Sn@p lines, Urban Traveler, I Heart Summer, and so many other previous Simple Stories favorites that I haven't finished using up yet. 

While the colors in this collection coordinate well with older lines, there are of course new and exciting designs, too! The new woodgrains (two of them!) and cork texture prints are my favorites, and the new camera designs (you can see one above) are fun, as well. The ephemera pack is also a new addition to Simple Stories' emebellishment lineup, and I paired one up with a brad in the photo below for a little custom layered embellishment.

Sometimes I have a 3x4 pocket left to play with after all of my photos and journaling are in place, and for this spot I pulled out the speech bubble 3x4 card from the cut apart sheet to embellish. I added brads and stickers to each bubble, then outlined them with a white gel pen. Having another card on the page that contains all of the colors used in the layout in one spot helps to further tie things together.

To see more projects using Daily Grind, check out our Daily Grind Pinterest board

 

 

My Sn@p album of choice is still the 12x12 faux leather version in teal- I'm loving how sturdy these albums are!

 

 

 

 

 

All of my weekly Life Documented pages use Design 3 Pocket Pages. I had a 45 minute flirtation with trying to use other design to mix things up, but I have such a good weekly process down with this configuration that I decided to not mess with what already works. You can bet that I absolutely use the other designs in my regular scrapbooking, though!

Daily Grind Products Used:

• Expression Cardstock Stickers
• Ephemera
• Chipboard
• Brads
• 3x4 Journaling Card Elements Paper
• 4x6 Journaling Card Elements Paper
• Sn@p Cards

Scrapping the Everyday with The Daily Grind

Hola Simple Stories fans! Allison L here today with a couple layouts I've been working on using Simples Stories' brand new Daily Grind line! As a single adult with grown children I don't tend to have a ton of excitement in my life. So, when I first saw this line, I thought it had been tailor made for me! I tore into it right away as it seemed like the perfect line to document my life as a doctoral student, which simply means that I sit around a lot and read and read and read.

 

I started with the Journaling Cards Elements sheet and found the perfect 3x4 for my journaling. I love the simple embellishment of the card, but also the roominess for journaling all that I wanted to say. I also love the deep walnut brown woodgrain, which seemed the perfect background for my photo. 

 

Next I used my punch to punch out the icons from the Day In Day Out sheet. I knew I wanted a banner and these were the perfect touch. I used the Sn@p alphabet stickers for my title. After I had it all laid out, I wanted to add some layers. Sometimes a 12x12 pattern is just too bold, and I love the scaled down versions of the prints in our 6x6 pads. So, I took the chevron and calendar tabbed patterns and layered them with my photo and background. 

 

A few finishing touches with some stickers, chipboard pieces, die cuts, and brads and I was done. 

 

Next I decided that this line was just what I needed for my next week in my Life Documented album. A few of the Sn@p Cards from the line, the die cuts, and a little chipboard and voila! One more week accomplished. 

 

To see more projects using Daily Grind, check out our Daily Grind Pinterest board

 

 I hope you've enjoyed getting a glimpse of my everyday life. Remember, life is filled with those everyday moments, so get out there and scrap them. 

To see more projects using Daily Grind, check out our Daily Grind Pinterest board

 

 

Products used:

Daily Grind

• Fundamental Cardstock Stickers
• Expression Cardstock Stickers
• 6x6 Paper Pad
• Ephemera
• Chipboard
• Brads
• Hello, New Day Patterned Paper
• Day In, Day Out Patterned Paper
• 3x4 Journaling Cards Elements Paper
• Yellow Chunky Chevron/Dots Patterned Paper
• Daily Grind Sn@p Cards
• Bingo Cards/Months Patterned Paper

Other Products Used:

• Say Cheese Expression Cardstock Stickers
• Harvest Lane Expression Cardstock Stickers
• Sn@p Stickers - Letters

Life Documented with Daily Grind

Hi all! Kay here with a few weeks of Life Documented using the new Daily Grind collection. I am IN LOVE with this new line. I have done the last 4 weeks with it, and feel it pulls together quickly and easily.

Here are two weeks in October. While this isn't a fall line, it worked perfectly with the fall colors of the week!

Left Side: Sorry about the elk picture. My DH is so proud though! LOL!

Right Side: The colorful Viewmaster cut makes me so happy!

Another week in October. More fall fun!

Left Side

Right Side

To see more projects with Daily Grind, check out our Daily Grind Pinterest board

 

As always I used my Brown Faux Leather album

And I used these Pocket Pages

Supplies Used - Daily Grind

• Fundamental Cardstock Stickers
• Expression Cardstock Stickers
• 6x6 Paper Pad
• Ephemera
• Chipboard
• Brads
• 3x4 Journaling Card Elements
• 4x6 Journaling Card Elements I and II
• Sn@p Cuts
• Sn@p Cards

Products used from Daily Grind:

•  Ephemra #3629
• Chipboard #3628
• Brads #3627
• Everyday Hustle 12x12 paper #3606
• 4x4 Quote & 6x8 Photo Mat #3613
• 2x12 Border & 4x12 Title Strip Elements #3614
• Bingo Cards/Months 12x12 paper #3616
• Ornage Chunky Chevron/Dots #3617
• Teal Chunky Cevron/Dots #3619
• Red Chunky Chevron/Dots #3620
• Yellow Chunky Chevron/Dots #3621

- See more at: http://simplestories.typepad.com/#sthash.eKam94Bl.dpuf

Life Documented with December Documented

Hello everyone, Marie here today to share a Life Documented project using our December Documented line.

For the past few years I've made a December Daily album each holiday season.  What I haven't been as good about is updating my kids' individual albums.  Their Christmas pages are looking a little bare, so I though during the relative quiet of November, I would try to catch up on their albums.

I started with my son's album from 2011.  Pocket Pages made it so simple to put this spread together.  I mainly used green colored cards and embellishments from the December Documented line to tie everything together.

I can't get enough of the 4x6" transparencies that are included with the collection.  I used one over a picture of my son trimming his grandparents' tree.

In order to include extra pictures I added a 6x8" insert between my pages.  I love the fact that the holes fit the same size as the 12x12" Pocket Pages.

On the back of the insert I included a journaling card I typed out on the computer of some of the highlights of the holiday.   I added a chipboard embellishment to make it a little more festive.

It's a relief to catch up on my kids' albums, and the nice part is I still have lots of supplies left over to use in my December Daily this year.

To see more projects using our December Documented collection, check out our December Documented Pinterest board

 

What types of projects are you working on this holiday season? 

I am using a 12x12 Sn@p! Faux Leather Album in teal for all of my Life Documented projects.

Today I am using the Design 2 Pocket Pages

and the Design 4 Pocket Pages

The December Documented products I used today were:

• December Documented Fundamental Cardstock Stickers
• December Documented Expression Cardstock Stickers
• December Documented Chipboard
• December Documented Journaling Cards
• December Documented Title Strip Elements
• December Documented Sn@p! Cards
• December Daily Sn@p! Cuts

 

Simple Stories, Silhouette & a Giveaway!

Hello friends, it's Layle back with you again today! 

I have some super exciting news to share along with a FABULOUS giveaway....

You can now find some of our favorite Simple Stories designs as cut files with Silhouette!

Visit Simple Stories at the Silhouette Online Store here to see our design portfolio.  You can also search for 'Simple Stories' directly on their site. 

We have great designs currently available, with MANY more to come :)

Design team member Yuki Shimada used our 'Been There Done That' design on her Life Documented pocket page spread.

Design team member Tonya Dirk used our 'Arrows' design on this fun card!

 Now for the REALLY FUN news....

How about a chance to win your very own Silhouette CAMEO® from Silhouette?!!

Enter below for your chance to win a new Silhouette Cameo.  Contest ends on Thursday, November 28th at midnight moutain time.  We'll announce the lucky winner here on Sunday the 30th.

Best of luck to you!

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

"Your December Inspired" Interactive Online Class Giveaway!

Howdy!  Layle here with you today with a fun giveaway!

If you're planning on creating a December Daily™ album this year, it's not too late to get started!  If you're not familair with the December Daily concept, it was started by Ali Edwards in 2007 as an album project that documents the 25 days leading up to Christmas; you can read more about it here on Ali's blog. 

A few weeks ago we showcased some great December Daily albums created by our design team as well as some shared with us by Simple Stories fans.  Click here to check them out.  You can also see MANY December Daily ideas using our SN@P! Binders on our December Daily Pinterest board - 

Speaking of December Daily using our SN@P! Binders, check out this awesome December Daily album using our December Documented collection created by Monica Bradford

Isn't that fun?!

She even has her date cards designed all ready to go -

Monica has put together an interactive online class so you can follow along with her in creating your own December scrapbooking project.

Here's some information from Monica about the class -

You try every year to complete a December scrapbooking project but you often find yourself struggling to finish. You are wondering if you should even attempt one this year. With “Your December Inspired” you can stay motivated to complete your holiday scrapbooking project!

In this interactive online class you will receive:

• Two weeks of daily email prompts.
• Tips and tricks to keep you inspired from Monica and two guest contributors.
• Live class chat with Monica
• Album cover and foundation page process videos (available immediately upon purchase)
• Regular behind the scenes videos as Monica creates her daily album.
• Access to a private Flickr group where fellow class members can share projects, ask questions, and get personal feedback from Monica.
• An EXCLUSIVE bonus video interview with Katrina Kennedy on the topic of inspiration.

Doesn't that sound like just the inspiration you need to get going?!

Good news!  Monica has graciously offered a seat in her interactive online class to one of our lucky readers!! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Contest is now closed.  Congratulations to Alexia Misso, the random lucky winner of the giveaway!