Hello Simple Stories friends. Marcia here today.

With the 4th of July right around the corner, our focus on the blog this week is on the Hero Simple Set.  My first layout features my husband. He is a former Marine and now volunteers his time with fellow police officers from the Minneapolis St Paul Airport Police Department on their Honor Guard. They attend funerals of police officers around the state, but they also volunteer to stand guard over our fallen soldiers coming back from overseas to their final resting place. I used the Bits and Pieces Star Background digital cut file from JustNick Studios.
 

Instead of backing each of those tiny squares with different pattern papers, I opted to selectively fill portions of the negative space with pattern papers from the Simple Stories Hero Collection Simple Set to mimic our American flag ... with the colors reversed. There are a few embellishments thrown in from other Simple Stories collections as well. Then I added some stars scattered across my layout with modeling paste.

I love the overall look. I didn't want to ruin the star focus, so my journaling was done around the edge of the die cuts.

For my second layout I wanted to show how the Hero Simple Set is not just for your military photos. You can use the pattern papers for vacation photos of patriotic places too. I scrapped a photo from our trip to Pearl Harbor this past winter. To add interest, I added lots of banners with a variety of pattern papers from the Hero Simple Set.
 

I used the alpha stickers from the collection to create my title which I placed at the bottom of my layout so it wouldn't get lost among the busy banners. More star stickers and enamel dots are scattered across the page very similar to my first layout.
 

Thanks for stopping by today! Look for the Hero Simple Set at your local scrapbook store or favorite online retailer. I know you will love it.