Creative Card Ideas With The Crop Stop and LYB

I love the beautiful colors and gorgeous details of Simple Stories' Vintage Bliss collection.  In fact, the Couture Creations doily die cuts completely reminded of the roses and lace in this collection, so I thought I would make a card combining the products.
The Crop Stop sent me the gorgeous embossing folders I mentioned last week, but these great die cuts from Couture Creations are just as much fun, just as beautiful and worked so well with my Spellbinders Grand Calibur.

I thought this rose sticker stacker from Simple Stories was the perfect center for the two layered doilies.  I used some of the Candi Fix foam pads to separate them and add depth to the cluster.  Although the sticker stacker already had a sentiment.  I added one more " Loved." sticker to the mix to extend the thought.  Then I tied a little bit of the sheer green polka ribbon that the Crop Stop sent me into the cluster to complete the look.

The Exotic embossing folder from Couture Creations is such a great background and I love how it looks with patterned paper.  I used this newsprint paper from the Simple Stories Vintage Bliss collection and love how the vines pop right out, but allows you to still be able to see the print on the paper.

Sometimes keeping it simple is a great way to incorporate mixed media elements into a project.  I chose one of the Naturals Canvas Stickers and the Faber-Castell Mix & Match Aquarelle Watercolor Pencils as the focal point of my card.  The colors of the pencils were a perfect match for our Poppy collection.

The Naturals Canvas Stickers are very easy to color and there are so many cool designs to choose from.  I used the Whimsy group, but any of the designs in this collection would have looked great with Poppy.

The watercolor pencils were easy to apply to the canvas and filled in with vibrant color as soon as I added water with the paint brush.  I had a little bit of bleeding, but not too much and the effect is actually pretty cool.  I used some of the Tropical Gelatos to color the leaves of the flower and to add some smudging to the corners of the card.  Finished the card off with some Poppy Vellum Tape

LYB Products:

NA-CV20 Canvas Stickers - Whimsy

PY-109 Pretty Plaid/Aqua Parchment

PY-104 Poppy Field Damask/Aqua Script

PY-160 Vellum Tape (15 pieces)

Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft Products:

Mix & Match Gelatos in Tropical

Mix & Match Aquarelle Watercolor Pencils

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June Guest Designer At The Crop Stop

It is a pleasure to be invited by my friend Vicki Robertson to guest design at The Crop Stop this month.  I was pleasantly surprised at what they sent me because it made me think outside the box a little bit, which is always good for growing creativity.  I even sent Vicki a panicked email about the embossing folders, but we'll get to that in a minute...

I really enjoy creating these Life Documented Pages with many of the Simple Stories collections.  It just brings an element of efficiency to scrapbooking that does not take away from the creativity.  I'm not sure that the pages take any less time than a one page layout, but I feel like I can document an event with more completely and more easily add details, memorabilia and journaling.

The Crop Stop sent me these really fun embossing folders from Couture Creations, some mist and Flower Soft products.  It was a new adventure for me since I am not one to buy embossing folders and I am scared of anything that looks like glitter or has to dry.  I was not sure at first how to get the folders to run through my Spellbinders Grand Calibur, but after a few tries, they worked like charm.  And now after trying them out, I am hooked.  All of the materials add some fun dimension and texture to a paper craft project.  So, rather than build a project around the products, I decided to incorporate them into what I love to create with the Life Documented pages for Simple Stories.

It was so fun to run the 3 x 4 Simple Stories I Heart Summer journal card through the embossing folder.  If you look at the close up, you can see the beautiful vine pattern and how it gives the paper more dimension and texture.  I also added some of the white Flower Soft crystals to the middle of the sun for some shimmer and texture.  I have to tell you that I very much dislike any form of glitter, but the Flower Soft products do not stick to your skin and are easy to clean up.  I did not have to wear it around all day if you KWIM.

The orange Dylusions mist combined with the embossing folder also created a fun effect.  Tip, be sure to add any relevant journaling before you emboss and then add mist and stickers after.

I look forward to sharing another project next week for the Crop Stop.  Please stop by their blog and/or store for more ideas and inspiration.


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Take A Hike With Simple Stories

It's been a LONG winter in Colorado and we are actually still getting snow believe it or not.  However, my family loves to camp and hike so we had to head west on I-70 in search of sunshine and warmth.  We found it in Fruita, CO near the Colorado National Monument last weekend and actually got to spend a few days in 70 degree weather even though the night dropped to 30 degrees (not my ideal for sleeping outside, but still more fun than snow at my house).

I thought the Simple Stories Take a Hike collection was great fit for these photos.  It's almost as if the Simple Stories designers know exactly where the Qualmans like to camp and created the perfect sentiments and color palettes.   This collection was made for the National Park circuit if you KWIM.

The other thing that is so wonderful about this collection is that it is so thoughtful that I did not need to add anything more than my photos and journaling - simple right?  Just the way I like to get the memories of our trips documented.

It was so easy to make these pages that I don't have a lot of tips, except that I love to buy postcards from all of the national and state parks that we visit because then I have the perfect beauty shot of where we are staying with the title already added to the photo.  Makes it even easier to document the trip and the park service profits from my purchase.  Talk about good Karma...

I also cut off a piece of the map we were given at the park entrance to show the trail we hiked along the rim of the canyon and added a smaller photo of the hikers in our party to one of the Take a Hike 4 x 6 journal cards.  Makes a fun and easy compilation.  I used my Xyron Mega Runner to adhere the map and photo to the 4 x 6 journal card.

I cut out this little photo from the park brochure and added it and the fun footprints from the 12 x 12 Fundamental Cardstock Stickers to a 3 x 4 journal card.

The 12 x 12 Expression Cardstock Stickers are great for adding your own sentiment with the letters and journal spots.

My son discovered the water source at our campsite and washed himself off a bit.  He was very pleased with his work.

I love the spacing on the 4 x 6 journal cards because it allows me to write big loopy letters in my cursive.  I just added a couple of journal stickers to this card and called it good.


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Family Fun with Simple Stories 24/7

 

I really enjoy this style of memory keeping.  It is really fun to work with the smaller sized journal cards, but still embellish them any way I want.  I also really appreciate the flat pages that easily fit into my scrapbook albums, plus it is a little faster than making single pages.  And, it's such a great way to incorporate something about everyone.   

Last spring my family and I made a point of visiting a different park each day of our break and each of these pages represents a park.  I thought it would be a great fit to document the memory with Simple Stories' new 24/7 collection.  The vibrant colors are a fun palette to go along with the beautiful spring photos.

I love to mix alphabets together - colors, sizes, texture.  These cork alphabets from Little Yellow Bicycle mix so well with the red and blue cardstock stickers from Simple Stories.

This calendar is a stamp from the Simple Stories Sn@p collection.  I used Ranger Ink to stamp it on to the grid patterned paper and then added that to the cork paper along with some cardstock sticker sentiments.  The Xyron Mega Runner is perfect for putting the journal cards together.

These journal cards make it sooooooo easy to add your memories in your own handwriting.  And the bright colors are really pretty.

These Little Yellow Bicycle Cork alphabets blended perfectly with this collection and added a nice dimension to the flatter cardstock sticker alphas without bulking up the page too much.  I used my Xyron Mega Runner to adhere the patterned paper together.

Love this old typewriter.  The journal card was already decorated this way, I just added the journaling and the sentiment "now" to the card with the Simple Stories cardstock alphabet stickers.

These cork scrabble tiles add some wonderful texture to the sentiment.


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Get Ready for Spring

Now that March is here, it's time to make plans for a festive spring.  Easter will be here before you know it and that anticipated egg hunt is on the horizon.  The Sn@p Life collection from Simple Stories is such a great palette for everyday events AND special occasions like Easter.  I love how the bright colors enhanced this fun photo of my daughter collecting Easter eggs.

I used the Sn@p 6x6 paper pad to cut all of these little banners and then added the days of the week stickers with some foam tape to make them pop.  It's such a fun design element and compliments the single 5 x 7 photo.

I LOVE this sentiment!  Perfect for the expression on my daughter's face and really ties all of the little banners together with the title Hello Happy.  I also added some of Little Yellow Bicycle's Hello Spring! collection chipboard and clear cuts on this page.  They were a perfect match and you can still order the collection HERE.

Added some twine, clear cut shapes and chipboard to finish off the look.


AND...check out the new Spring Issue of Scrapbooking and Beyond Magazine for more fun spring layouts...

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Simple Stories Urban Traveler and Sketch

The new Simple Stories Urban Traveler collection is such a great combination of bright red and blue grounded in creamy yellows and green.  It reminded me of these photos of my daughter going off to camp for the first time last summer.  Can't believe we actually gave her up for 10 days.  I know she had non-stop fun, but it was the longest week and a half of my life.
Thought I might include a fun sketch to make your own page and push yourself to use more photos on your page.  These are all wallet-sized and fit perfectly across the 12 x 12 layout.

Urban Traveler comes with blue cardstock sticker letters, which probably would have worked great too, but because I used the dark blue patterned paper, I opted for some contrast and grabbed alphas from the Summer Fresh collection.  Love how you can easily mix and match alphabets among the Simple Stories collections.

Love how some of the stickers are already stacked in clusters.  All I needed to do was to find the right spot, add some foam tape and stick it to the page.

The cardstock stickers in this collection are so much fun.  Just add a little foam tape and they pop right off the page or photo.

I made these very simple notecards so that my daughter can use them to write home next summer when she goes back to camp.  The graph paper makes a great neutral background so that the stickers pop off the card.  I cut the tails from one of the patterned papers.


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