Someone pinch me, but not too hard :o)  I am beyond excited to be joining such an amazing team of ladies and to be working with one of my favorite manufacturers.  Today is my first project ever as a Simple Stories Creative Team Member!  I'm Mary-Ann and I've been a crafter forever and a scrapper since 2000.  There should be support groups for us paper addicts, don't you think?  

 

For my first project, I had these photos printed for some time.  When I heard the theme for my post was to be about 'LOVE' I knew I wanted to use these along with the Life in Color collection.  Even with it being close to Valentine's Day and I do love my husband, I also love my boy and my mom which you will see in my second layout.  

 

 

 

 

I have attached two examples of how I have altered stickers and chipboards.  I did not want to waste the tab portion of the long sticker so I used my paper trimmer to cut it evenly right down the center, then added the portion I wanted to my layout.  

 

 

 

For the chipboard, this was a complete afterthought.  Because my clump was already stuck down, I chopped my chipboard as you can see and slid it beneath both sides of the photo section for more depth and embellishment.  

 

 

 

For my next layout, I wanted to focus on my mom.  She is the first person I have ever loved!  I dug a little deeper into my stash and grabbed out the We Are...Family collection.  It happened to match the colors in my photo perfectly.  

When I first saw the Our Story paper, I was intimidated by the floral sections in the corners.  Then I thought I would just enhance them since the photo was of two absolutely amazingly beautiful women, right!  I searched all the papers for floral sections that I could cut out.  I fussy cut some and used stickers, ephemera pieces and chipboards for others.  I did back a few with foam tape to help with dimension.