Hi everyone! If you have a special boy in your life that is celebrating a special occasion or needs some extra love and affection, make any day a party with the bold and bright 'Lil' Dude' paper collection from Simple Stories! This collection is full of everything boy- trucks, dinosaurs, frogs and dogs along with the coolest boy sentiments!

This fun party set includes treat holders, cupcake wraps and a cute drink bottle! All super easy to make and they look even more fab with all of these awesome embellishments! I used a Silhouette cut file to make these adorable popcorn boxes that can hold all kinds of edible goodies or prizes. The papers in this collection have great prints on both sides so they look wonderful inside and out!

For the cupcakes, I simply traced a cupcake wrap that I had on hand onto the patterned paper and then cut them out. I then wrapped them around the cupcake and taped them together in the back before layering on the charming stickers, chipboard and Bits & Pieces. Voilá, the cutest treat ever!

For the milk bottle wrap, I cut strips of the patterned papers with decorative scissors to add details around the edges and then decorated them with more of the marvelous stickers and chipboard, layering some with foam adhesive for dimension. You could easily do this with water and juice bottles too! The treat holder is cut from a die and is also embellished with more bright pieces from the collection! These cool touches will bring a smile to any boys face and make for the raddest party ever!

Hello again, it’s Emma back today!! I keep saying how I can ‘smell spring!’, it’s definitely in the air!, can you feel it? This month I’d like to share with you the glorious new Spring Farmhouse Collection! I have decided to set it up in the new Hello Floral A5. 

How bloomin’ gorgeous is that!! Of course I’ve used the Hello monthly inserts in it!! Well, it would be rude not to, wouldn’t it!! Ok, let’s take a look at the Spring Farmhouse Collection, it’s full of beautiful spring colours, and I’ve chosen to pick up a lot of the yellows for my set up, unfortunately taking the photos for my blog, I found the yellows just didn’t show up just how sunny and cheerful they really are! So, you’re just going to have to put your ‘sunshine’ tinted glasses on and use your imagination!!

I don’t really need to say again, just how much I love to stuff my pockets full to bursting with off cuts of the paper I’ve used on the dividers and plenty of the chunky chipboard pieces! 

I’m not sure what it is, but I have quite a soft spot for wellies!! ...don’t get me wrong, I’m real life I’m a complete flip flop lover but when crafting I love to use a wellie or two!! I’ve used the black and white check throughout to tie everything together and that of course is what made me choose to use the A5 Hello planner for this collection, as you can see the gorgeous check lining! 

For my March monthly pages I’ve once again grabbed the Number Sticker Tablet for numbering the days, this really is the most useful sticker tablet I’ve ever come across!! I’ve also used the delicate nude check washi which works so well with the watercolour touches on the monthly insert pages! I’ve also used lots of the stickers from the 12x12 sticker sheet. A very easy and simple style to decorating! 

See!!! I told you I had a thing for wellies!!! When I saw the new metal dies that Simple Stories had bought out to go with the new collections I squealed with delight!! ...and when I spotted the Wellington boot die, well, I knew I had to use it!! I cut out a few in two different papers and chopped the tops off and swapped them over, I think it looks quite fun and will definitely make me smile when I turn the page!! 

There we have it, a quick look at what I’ve done so far with the spring farmhouse collection. Hope you’ve enjoyed it and I’ve encouraged you to have a play around with the metal dies! If you would like to see more pictures using Simple Stories products then checkout my IG account  Heartsbyemma (@heartsbyemma) • Instagram photos and videos

Hello Simple Stories Friends and Fans!  

Nathalie with you today with a super fun layout that features the new Say Cheese 4 collection.  What can i say!, Simple Stories has created the perfect collection as it can be used to document your memories at the theme park as well as your every day memories.  There are so many embellishments, papers, and designs to chose from that it makes is so easy and fun to create projects.

The inspiration for this page of my Goddaughter ready to visit the most magical place on the world was her head band.

I used the stencil as a guide to create the silhouette of the mouse head on white paper.  Next i used a few paper edge punches to create the scalloped paper strips out of all the black color papers that i found in the SAY CHEESE 4 collection, basic paper pack and 6x8 paper pad.   I glued the strips together on the paper silhouette and stitched around the edge of the silhouette to hold them all together.  All the extra pieces were trimmed so that the silhouette can be easily recognized. 

To keep the focus on the head band, i drew and cut  the image  of the bow onto the b side of the 4x6 Element paper of the Say Cheese 4 collection, and use some white thread to hand stich it to a piece of white cardstock.  Once the image was completely stitched and detailed, i fussy cut the cardstock leaving a small offset around the image, and glued it straight onto the head silhouette.

The B side of the Make a Wish paper serves as the base for the page.  A bit of white acrylic paint was added as a background for the head silhouette.   Once the piece was glued to the page, i used some of the Sn@p cards to back and pictures and glued to the layout.   There are so many embellishments to  chose from that it was so easy to create clusters of stickers, ephemera around the pictures.

Now, to complete this page, i used the new Fun Large Words Metal Die to cut part of the title from 6x8 paper - i used some white cardstock die cuts to create depth on the die cut-, and then used the  Happy Words Stamp and Dies to create the word "day".  To just finish this page, i added a matching bow clip to  the title, and a few lines of journal around the mouse head silhouette.

Stylized picture

I am totally in love with this collection, and the possibilities (trust me i have created a few layouts with it already).  Whether you love the theme park or just want a fun colorful collection, the new SAY CHEESE 4 is definitely one  of the funnest releases from Simple Stories this year, and a must  for your documenting.   You can always contact me if you have questions on how this came together.

XO

Jeanne here today!  Spring is in the air and my thoughts are turning to warmer weather and spending more time outdoors!   Easter is one of my favorite holidays for just that reason.  I love having a house full of people to share a good meal, but sometimes the kids get wrestles.  Easter is eggstraspecial because it’s usually the first get together of the year that we can step outdoors.

I made 6 cards to share today, all made with the Simple Stories Bunnies and Baskets Collection.  This is a 12” paper pack that includes a sheet of journaling cards, as well as a sheet of cardstock stickers.

The cut apart journaling cards make the perfect focal point for your cards.  Isn’t this bunny adorable?

The cardstock stickers are great for embellishing your cards.  The stickers are thicker than regular stickers.  To make them easier to work with I use my embossing buddy and powder the sticky adhesive backs.  This makes them easy to move around while I’m deciding for the perfect placement.   When I’m ready to adhere them I use liquid glue or adhesive foam squares to set them in place.

The cardstock sticker sheet even includes sentiment strips with sweet sayings.

I think the collection kit is a great value too!  All the elements are color coordinated and look at all the cards I make.  I still have an entire sheet of journaling cards and lots of paper to make more with!

There are 6 12 x12” double sided pattern papers in the pack.  I cut them down to 4x6 to make them more manageable for card making.   

I know your friends and family will appreciate the time you take to make a hand made card.  The beautiful papers and sweet images will announce the season and brighten their day!

Hello my friends, Iris here with all the farmhouse feels in a layout using the lovely Spring Farmhouse collection.  There are so many adorable - and very relevant - icons in this collection, that I wanted to use all of them.  And as you can see on my page, I used quite a bit!  

I made this layout to document one of the areas in my house, which in it's past life was a very dated, 90's (alcohol) bar, but we recently remodeled and transformed it into my very own coffee bar.  To echo the chalkboard wall we have in that space, I started off with the black solid paper from the new Simple Basics Kit that coordinates with this collection.  Having coordinating solids really is going to open up the options when scrapping with our beloved Simple Stories collections!

I built many layers behind my photo, including several papers from the 6x8 pad and one wood grain from the Snap Basics 6x6 paper pad.  I then created clusters at the bottom left and top right corners with stickers, chipboard, doilies, and one of the adorable bows that are my new favorite embellishment! 

This wasn't going to be enough for me, so I decided to build a "shelf" on my page (using the long scallop border sticker) to house #allthethings. :D Just as on my coffee bar shelves, I placed signs, lanterns, vases, greenery and a tiered organizer with cute things, all curtesy of the combo sticker sheet, the 4x6 sticker sheets, and the chipboard set. Some of the flat stickers I propped up on foam, and I also did that with the scallop border sticker.  I backed the shelf area with the soft seafoam green gingham of the Well Said paper. 

I wrote my journaling with a white Uni-ball Signo pen and added some artful splatters and trios of enamel dots to the background.  Yay for the return of the enamel dots!  I added a thin border from the seafoam green gingham to the bottom edge of the page to balance out the top.

Finally, I created a pocket behind my photo and layers. (yes I had to tear it off the background because I did not plan ahead, but the layers and embellishments were all stuck together so they came off in one hunk)  I cut a piece of scrap cardstock to the size of the bottom-most layers so that it wouldn't stick out, added Scor-Tape to two sides, and attached that to the background, adding all the layers on top. Then I cut a rectangle of scrap cardstock that I attached to the backside of my before photo.  I placed one of the sticker tabs with a typed "PULL ME" on the end of the cardstock rectangle, covered the gap with one of the phrase stickers, and when you slide the extra photo in the pocket, the "PULL ME" tab handily nestles in place with the other embellishments to the left of the photo.

I know that last bit was quite a mouthful, so I invite you over to my Youtube channel to check out the process video. :) I truly enjoyed working with this lovely collection and I know you will too.

Hello everyone, it is Kelly here today with a new blog! I just got my creative team box filled with products from the new Spring Farmhouse collection and it is absolutely gorgeous. I decided to switch my A5 planner to the Blush color and setup the pockets with the new collection.

In this collection you can find a whole set of only floral bits and pieces!! I used them in my front pockets together with some pieces of paper and floral chipboard pieces.

Besides the floral bits and pieces set in this collection you can also find enamel dots and bow paperclips. These products got me inspired and I made some of my own paperclips. Two flag paperclips, a layered butterfly clip and a scalloped round clip. I decorated the paperclips with some word stickers, floral pieces and the enamel dots.

I cut the ‘Love a lot’ paper as a front dashboard and used the Carpe Diem punch to punch the six holes. I decided not to decorate the dashboard because I just love the floral print. However, I did cover the paper with a gold dotted acetate piece from my stash.

For my horizontal weekly spread I used a few of the floral bits and pieces as main decoration. I also used the Planner basics sticker tablet and the Bloom sticker tablet from Carpe Diem for some functional stickers to finish the spread. I left enough blank space in the spread to write down all my to do’s and appointments for the week.

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and you can find more fun planner inspiration on my instagram account.

Have a lovely day!

Hello Simple Stories friends!

Marcia here today with an adorable layout that I created with the new Simple Stories Little Princess collection. This collection is so cute!!!! It's perfect for those little girl layouts, but versatile enough with lots of pattern papers that could do double duty on birthday layouts and more. My two girls loved to dress-up when they were little and pretend that they were fairy princesses. On my layout today, I am scrapping one of the dress-up photos I have of my daughter, complete with ballerina tutu, magic wand, and baggy tights, lol.  I wanted to create a fairy tale scene for my background so I decided to create some fluffy clouds using a stencil and distress ink. It was the perfect backdrop for a dragon protecting a castle, a beautiful princess, a magical swan, and royal banners. 

I used die cuts from the Tags & Frames pack to create a grid based layout. I embellished each frame with fun, adorable die cuts from the Bits & Pieces pack as well as chipboard and stickers, creating little make believe scenes within my frames.

Of course my little princess needed a frog prince who desperately needed a kiss to embellish her photo. Check out these cute bow clips too!

The banners were created from lots of different pattern papers. These I stitched together with my sewing machine before adhering to my layout with foam dots. I love how bright and colorful they are! 

If you have girls, the Little Princess collection is a must. It is perfect for documenting your little girl's adventures in the land of make believe. Thanks so much for stopping by today! Enjoy the rest of your week.

Hi, Odessa here with a SN@P! layout using one of my favourite collections, Dream Big. I love the saturated playful rainbow of colours and fun imagery. 

I was looking through my supplies for the perfect collection to go with some winter fun photos. I just love the contrast of the white snow against all that colour! I made a two page spread with some fun extras - a shaker divider and a photo booklet. I had so many photos that I picked my favourites to go in the pockets and featured the rest in the booklet.

The left side is the simple part of the layout. a couple of photos and a cute journal card from the collection. Dream Big has some great embellishments and I used stickers, puffy stickers, bits and pieces and chipboard stickers on this page.

In the middle of my spread I made a cute shaker just because I really wanted to make one. I used one of the Insta-Pocket Pages cut down to a long single pocket. I slid a strip of the Be Younique cardstock down the side of the page protector to make it stand out a bit more. I used the Believe stickers from the combo sticker sheet and then added a few chipboard pieces and a bunch of confetti made with a hole punch and some of the Dream Big Cardstock. I added a tab sticker from the combo sticker sheet and sewed it up with my sewing machine. Now I want to make all the shaker pockets!

On the right side it looks like a couple of pocket cards and a 4x6 photo but one of the pockets is actually a photo booklet! I had a bunch of photos from that day and didn’t feel like they’d be great as a bunch of layouts. The photo booklet pulls together all of those extra photos into one layout with an added surprise.

I used the backside of Dream Big 3x4 cardstock to make a cute pocket card with some of the chipboard stickers. They’re supposed to spell out Dream, but Rad fit better in a 3x4 pocket. I embellished with a few more stickers to make a personalized journal card. Next to it is my photo booklet. I covered it with the Be Younique paper to make it match the rest of my layout a bit better and added some stickers for extra cute. Finally I added a tab to make it a little more obvious.

I lined the inside cover with the backside of the Dream Big 4x4 element paper and filled the pockets with my extra photos.

I kept the embellishment in my photo booklet simple with mostly just phrase stickers. I love how phrase stickers look on instant photos!

I just love that sideways adorable sticker. Dream Big might be thought of as a more “girly” collection but I didn’t let that stop me from using it with photos of my boys!

Finally, I used one of the 3x4 journalling cards to add some words to my layout. If you have a ton of photos I recommend giving these little photo booklets a try! They slide nicely into the pocket pages and are great for collecting images together. I put it all in the Robins Egg Striped Designer Binder which might be my favourite Simple Stories binder ever.