Simple Stories - Wildflower - Life In Bloom

Hi everyone,

Following lots of lovely new releases from Simple Stories, today I'm bringing you a layout made with the new Wildflower collection, which is a collaboration between Simple Stories and My Minds Eye.

In real life, this collection is absolutely beautiful, way beyond the pictures you see online.

For this page, I'm focusing on the patterned papers and florals, offset against a mixed media background.

I started with a piece of Premium White Cardstock, applying a heavy cost of gesso as I planned to add quite a lot of water to the page.

With watercolour inks, I applied blue, pink and yellow ink in vertical lines with a brayer, letting each colour dry before adding the next.  I love the effect this creates and enjoy the extra level of control the brayer brings so you don't get very messy!

Once the ink was dry, I took a scripty stamp from my stash and stamped randomly in black ink, in a vertical line. Some of this is hidden by the photo, but you can still see a hint of stamping which doesn't overpower the layout. 

To create my layers, I mounted my photo on several pieces of paper, using the b sides of the Complete Bliss and Breath Deep papers, as well as a piece of blue Bazzill cardstock from the Matchmaker Pack, distressing all the edges to give some extra texture.

Once these were in place, I started to embellish.

I decided to create three main clusters, colour-blocking each embellishment cluster with the ink I had added to the page, creating tone-on-tone clusters as much as possible. I used flowers from the Floral Bits & Pieces Ephemera Pack, and Combo Stickers. In this first yellow cluster I also added a pretty yellow tab from the Journal Bits & Pieces pack.

For the cluster on the left, I layered my florals, raising some on foam and some on flat sticky tape to give the cluster some real definition. 

Once they were in place, I added a tag from the Journal Bits & Pieces Pack, adding floss from my stash to tie a bow.

To give my page a title, I used a combination of a sticker from the Combo Sticker Sheet , saying Life' and Alphas from Rosie's Studio Frolic line which complement this collection perfectly and have the added bonus of gold foiling.

My subtitle, sitting to the bottom of my photo, uses a combination of  Wildflower Bits & Pieces and elements from the Journaling Bits & Pieces pack, layered on foam to draw the eye across the page.

I love the smaller design, with multiple layers of mixed media, paper, ephemera and stickers. This collection is so pretty, it was hard to restrain myself from using it allll in one go - so this design helped me focus and choose just a few key pieces to create my page.

I hope it's inspired you to get creating, and please do head over to the shop to check out this gorgeous range as I'm sure it won't hang around for long.

I'll be back later this month with some more pages.

See you soon.

Claire xx

@scrappysoulmate

Hello Gorgeous

Hello everyone,

This month I was able to use the beautiful My Minds Eye range Hello Gorgeous.  The gorgeous florals and teal colouring was an absolute winner for me.  I felt the range had a wonderful retro feel so decided to pair it with some pictures from a "Back to the Future" 50's event that my family went to.  I saw an idea for a pennant layout on Instagram and adapted it to suit my style.

I used various sheets from the Hello Gorgeous range and cut out lots of various sized pennants using my Big Shot Plus , I even cut out my photos into pennants!  I originally used one sheet as my background and decided it was a bit too "busy" and decided to go against all my natural instincts and rip the paper in half and put a co-ordinating sheet of pink Bazzill cardstock to break up the two pieces of patterned paper.  However, I found this looked quite stark in the middle of the floral paper and decided to take my gorgeous Tim Holtz Scribbles stencil and some pink ink and go over the whole of the pink cardstock to acheive a subtle, pretty background.

I then layered my pennants on top of each other with a couple of buttons and ephemera from my old stash from October Afternoon.  I finally decided to try and make my title look like a little banner too and used two paperclip arrows from Freckled Fawn to form the ends of the banner.

I hope you enjoyed this layout, thanks for looking xxx

A Mixed Bag

Hello!!

Today I have a fun little pack on My Minds Eye goodies to show you.
They are called 'A Mixed Bag' and are from the Jubilee collection.
They look like this.

The bag is full of little bits and pieces. 91 pieces to be precise.
Numbers, banners, tags, arrows, leaves, circles, balloons, clouds, tabs....loads!!

I had so much fun using them to make this LO here.

I love using them to form clusters on a LO. Aren't they fun?!

I also used this 12x12 paper.

To add extra dimention and interest I've stuck some on with foam pads and added some hand stitching.

I just love these colours in this Jubilee collection. Perfect for this time of year.

I hope you like this pages that I've shared today. I have loads of the pieces left over from the mixed bag. I'm off to make some cards with them now.

Lisa x



Project Life with MME and some Photo Tips

Hi, it's Lisa here today with some Project Life pages.

I've been sticking to my relaxed take on PL and have been enjoying documenting our every day lives.
I've been using instagram to take various photos. I love how the photos are captured and how they look through instagram.
I've used some My Minds Eye - Collectable on these pages.

These journal cards make the Project Life pages very easy to make.

I've added a few little extra pieces like a doliee, pins and some twine.
It's also a great way to use up alpha stickers.
I'm finding my corner punch is being very well used too. I love those rounded corners on these pages.

I would also like to talk more about the photo printing and editing.
I've been asked a few times now how to print off instagram. I used my pc and by following the instructions on this site here you can down load your instagram photos and save to your pc. You can then print them off yourself in any size you want.
If you don't use instagram but would still like to edit your photos and add fancy frames then I really recommend this site here. Picmonkey.
Both are free to use.

I hope you find this useful.
Thanks for stopping by.
lisa x

Our Story - Mini Book

Hello, it's Lisa here with you today sharing a new mini book.

I am absolutely loving the new My Minds Eye collection. Collectable.
When I saw this journal paper I knew I would be making a mini book with them.

- My Minds Eye - Collectable Memorable - Journey Journal

I made this little book.

Here's how.

First you need a 12x12 piece of cardstock.
I chose Vanilla. You need to divide it in to 3 and cut across giving you 3 strips and then score it down equally so you end up with this.  

And then you stick the ends together, I use doublesided tape. You will then have one long piece.

Then it's time to decorate.
I used the following papers from the same My Minds Eye collection.
Story Tale, Today Remember and Firsts Fresh from Unforgettable.
I alternated the papers for a colourful look and used the journal cards from the first paper I showed.

I haven't gone over the top with the embellishing. For me personally the papers are so beautiful and colourful, I didn't think it needed it. I did use a flower punch and a small heart punch though.

My Minds Eye have these cute 'Enamel Dots' that are sticky backed that match the colours of the collections. They make perfect little flower centres.
And there are a few little Word Sticker Sheets to match too. I used this one here, but there are some more here too.

I've left some blank pages without a journal card so a photo can be added.

I needed something to tie the book together to keep it neat so added some ribbon.
I made a hole on each end piece of card halfway up so I could ties the ribbon through.

You can see here that the ribbon has been cut so that one piece is short and then the long piece is pulled around the back to tie up. In the photo above you can see the ribbon is secured behind the journal card and below it runs under the title of the book on the front cover. I have added a little glue to hold the short piece in place.

 I used the Story Title Card for my front cover.
There are lots of different ones to choose from here.

And here is the finished book again.
It makes me feel so summery looking at this : )

I hope you love this little book.
I had so much fun making it.

Lisa x

Miss Caroline Gift Set

Doesn't it make a difference when you receive a gift and it's beautifully wrapped?!!

When I give a gift I like to make an effort to make the wrapping look really pretty.
I love seeing a friend's or family member's face light up when I present something that looks like I've put a lot of thought and effort in.

It was a close friend's birthday recently, so I thought I'd make her a gift bag to match her card.
I always keep decent bags so I can use them for this.



I used the MME - Miss Caroline 6x6 pad for both. These pads are such a prefect size for these kind of projects.
With these MME collections, there are so many bits and pieces that you can buy to match so it makes projects very easy to embellish.
Quite often I make a LO or two when I first receive my goodies and then use up the leftovers on creating cards and gifts bags.
I love the sticker sheets that you can buy to match aswell.
They make the perfect finishing touch.

Remember to keep your gift/paper bags in future and tart them up with your leftovers : )

Lisa x