Hey there, friends!  Missy here with my very first blog post as a Design Team Member!  I’m beyond excited to be working with such talented ladies and such amazing products.  I decided to work with the You Are Here collection for my projects.  I love creating layouts, and I love incorporating die cuts and mixed media into my designs.  I also wanted to show how this collection can be used with color photos vs. black & white photos and also travel vs. non-travel photos.

For my first layout, I used a color travel photo.  My husband and I vacationed in St. Maarten right before New Year’s, and we took a day trip to Loterie Farms.  We went hiking, zip lining and ran through a fun obstacle course.  The photo in this layout is of me walking on a high wire in between some trees.  It was a first for me, and I can’t wait to do it again!  I wanted to create a “forest” feel, so I cut a background die cut pattern of leaves.  Behind that, I used white gesso and some blue spray inks to create a watercolor look.  I wanted to bring that bright blue into my background.

I layered a few papers from the 6x6 Paper Pad under my photo along with some tissue paper from my stash and added pop dots.  I love all of the fun die cuts in the Bits & Pieces pack, and this flower was perfect to layer here.  One of my favorite techniques is to add tangled thread under photos, papers and embellishments.  I think it creates awesome texture and gives an extra pop of color.  This cute brad was the perfect addition to this part of the page.

I love that Simple Stories gives such a variety of sizes in embellishments.  I found a large, medium and small flower embellishment to layer all together here.  And there are always so many colors!  This made it very easy to bring in all the colors of my layout to this area.

The bright orange alphas were perfect for creating my title, and I paired them up with the smaller blue alphas.  I love that you can get a few different colors & fonts on one sticker sheet.  I ran this through my sewing machine here, and then added another brad and a few sentiment stickers. 

Here’s one more close up of the leaf die cut.  I love the pop of green, and I like how it gives my background some interest without being overwhelming.  The leaves tie into my photo and create a nice tropical and jungle feel.  And this patterned paper cut beautifully in my Silhouette Cameo.

***********

For my second layout, I am using three black and white photos of my daughter twirling and jumping all around our patio.  She’s a special little girl, and she loves the simple things in life.  Sometimes she just looks so happy doing her own thing, and it made me think of how she creates her own little paradise here at home.  This collection showcases my idea very well.  As I said earlier, I love mixed media.  I used two different sunburst stencils.  I used a light pink texture paste through the small one and some yellow distress ink through the large one.  I also used blue and pink spray inks to create the watercolor effect.  This is a great way to create your own background.  I chose colors from this collection, so adding layers and embellishments was easy.

Here you can see the texture on the background and the pretty mix of colors.  I used several of the 3x4 SN@P! Pack cards.  They are excellent for layering and even fussy cutting.  I mixed and matched the pink and blue alphas for my title here and added some machine stitching.  I also added in a chipboard piece and a sentiment sticker.

Here’s a closer look at that cute chipboard banner piece.  That orange and pink circle element was cut from one of the Snap cards.  I love that these are part of the Simple Stories collections…you don’t always have to have 12x12 or even 6x6 papers sometimes!

Here’s the top of the layout.  You can see the SN@P! cards layered together and the color & texture above them.  I also used one of the Clear Stickers at the top.

Here’s one more photo of the top of the page.  I absolutely love the Simple Stories brads!  I love that they’re adhesive and stick well anywhere on your page.  I stuck this one right on top of my photo.  Once again, I added a few colors of tangled thread for extra texture and pops of color.

Thank you so much for stopping by today!  I hope these layouts inspire you in some way.  See you soon!