Simple Stories

Hey there Simple fans, Nancy here with a little summer sparkle as the season starts to wind down. I based this layout on one of my favorite items in the Good Day Sunshine line - the ombre patterned papers. This pretty pink was the perfect mat for this photo of my niece that really shows her 'sparkle'. It's my nickname for her and the inspiration behind the sequin sunburst. 

The design is mostly clean and simple allowing the sequins and photos to shine. The cluster on is made up of layers of an envelope and tag from the DIY collection and die cuts from the Good Day Sunshine collection.

The colors in the photo are highlighted by placing it on a similarly shaded transparency. Adding two simple matching embellishments adds some texture and a punch of color to this corner.

Hi everyone! Nichol here today with a layout and card celebrating summer sunshine. I thought it would be fun to create a couple of projects using sunshine icons. I love adding sunshine shapes to my projects, whether it be scrapbook page layouts or cards. There are tons of ways to use them and so many of the Simple Stories Collections showcase sunshine icons in one way or another. I'm using sunshine designs from the Summer SN@P! Set for both of my projects today however Good Day Sunshine and the Summer Paradise Simple Set are two recent collections which feature sunshine elements as well.

For my layout I combined 12x12 patterned papers from the DIY Boutique and Say Cheese collections. I love how easy it is to mix and match the paper designs from the Simple Stories collections! I drew several circles in the Silhouette Cameo Software and used the offset button to create approximately 1/4" outer circle for each. I then cut the larger (offset) circle shapes from the Say Cheese text paper and cut the smaller circle from the other Say Cheese black tone-on-tone patterned paper. When these two papers are layered together it provides a lovely "frame" to pop some of the Summer Sn@p! cards behind!

I embellished these circles with stickers and brads.

I printed a 6x8 photo collage and trimmed the top row apart from the rest to split above and below the 4x6 Summer Sn@p! Card I used for the title of my page. I added thin patterned paper strips from the DIY Boutique 6x6 Paper Pad above and below the journaling card and layered a couple of the DIY Collection Office Journal Layers around the title card.

I finished the page with a few phrase stickers on top of some of the photos in the collage and a strip of the tone-on-tone black paper along the right edge adorned with brads.

To create the "hey there sunshine" card I first used a manual die cutting machine and some steel rule dies from my collection to die cut several of the 4x6 Summer SN@P! Set journaling cards with the hexagon background shape. I cut the design again from some smooth white cardstock, matted the "frame" on a piece of cardstock trimmed to the same size as the hexagon background and started replacing the "inside" hexagon shapes using the colorful patterns. This creates a wonderful inlay style background!

I die cut a 3x4 journaling card with a banner die for the "greeting" of my card and adorned the sunshine with some glasses stickers and glued some fun wiggle eyes inside the glasses.

I trimmed a thin strip from one if the other cards to adhere along the top of the banner, layered another die cut banner made from vellum behind and wrapped some pretty twine around the top, tying it into a bow. I stapled the two banners together at the top and secured them to the card.

Easy, bright and FUN!

Want to see how I put both of these sunshine-y projects together? Check out the video below:

Hello there everyone! Donna here with you as your host for the blog today, and I don’t know about you, but I can hardly believe that summer is almost over! Honestly, since we homeschool, life doesn’t change all that much when the school year ends. But keeping three little boys occupied in the summer months means that I don’t have all that much time for scrapbooking. Still, I get a bit antsy when I don’t make time to create. When I do get some time to scrapbook I try to keep it simple, and today I have two easy summertime layouts to share with you.

We’ve had a lot of fun this summer with our Zoku pop maker and ice cream machine. Sam is always up for a sweet frozen treat and my first layout is all about him:

He’s enjoying a bowl of homemade honey ice cream. It was so delicious, if you can’t tell from the photos. He loved it so much he was practically licking the bowl!

I used one of the decorative polaroid-style frames from the Bit & Pieces ephemera pack to highlight the photo of him giggling. I also used a square from the Insta-Squares pack to balance the photo collection. A few pops of pattern and color, from the paper and stickers strips along the bottom of the page, add fun to the page, but keep the focus of the layout on these funny pictures. These were taken just before he got a haircut and so you can see that his hair is a little wild too. But, I think it’s cute!

Next up is a layout I made of my two oldest boys and a yearly summertime ritual. Our neighbor has several lemon trees in her backyard and their branches extend just a tad over onto our side of the fence. The boys love to collect lemons for me to use in my cooking (or making lemonade or lemon bars).

Again, I’ve kept the layout very simple; just a trio of photos, a few strips of pattern paper and a smattering of stickers and brads to embellish the page.

The title for this layout is a bit tongue-in-cheek because the truth is that our neighbor lets them collect as many lemons as they want. And believe me, they collect quite a few lemons! In the summer I never have to buy lemons at the grocery store since they keep me well stocked.

Both of today’s layouts feature multiple photographs, but I kept the layouts simple with a focus on the photos by using either a grid or ledger background. I finished the designs by adding colorful strips of paper and embellishments from the Good Day Sunshine Collection. And now I have two happy layouts documenting some of our summer fun!

Have you found time to document your summer memories? I’d love to hear from you in the comments. As always, thank you for stopping by!

Hi everyone! Allison here with a Life Documented layout using the Under the Stars collection. I've also got another sketch that combines traditional scrapbooking with the SN@P! Pocket Pages.

You can download the full sketch with measurements and placements here.

The left side of the sketch is a traditional style of scrapbook layout while the right page uses photos and cards with the SN@P! Pocket Page, Design 10.

Here is my layout based on the sketch:

About three weeks ago I went on one crazy road trip! There was one RV, four adults, two teenagers, a nine-year-old, a six-year-old, and we traveled over 4,000 miles through eight different states. I said at the beginning that it was going to be either a complete disaster or the best road trip ever. It ended up being a little bit of both but it was, without a doubt, an adventure that I'll never forget.

I first saw the Under the Stars collection about the same time that we started planning our road trip. I knew, even before I had snapped a single photo, that this would be the collection I wanted to use!

Before we took off on our road trip adventure, I requested that we all line up in front of the RV and take a group selfie. This was the beginning of documenting almost everything we did along the road. It ended up being so much fun trying to come up with different ways to do these pictures at all the different places we visited. I couldn't wait to get all of these pictures together and make a layout with them!

With this sketch, the simple design on the left page was ideal for these photos. The photos have so much going on in them with eight people and the scenery so I didn't want it to be overwhelming with too much going on around the photos.

I numbered each photo and added a short description of the location of where the photo was taken.

For the right page I used a combination of cards and photos with the SN@P! Pocket Page, Design 10. I use this Pocket Page design often for my Instagram photos! I used each square pocket with a photo.

I did the same labeling for the photos as I did on the left page with the numbers and location on each photo.

We spent the last few hours of our trip planning out our final group selfie, back at home at our starting point. We all look so happy and excited in our first photo and we thought it would be funny to do the opposite on our return. Everyone is fighting and going crazy! I'm sure our neighbors thought we were insane! It ended up being a fun photo and a goofy end to our adventure!

I used 3x4 cards in each of the 3x4 pockets and accented them with photos and embellishments.

A lot of times I like use smaller photos on the 3x4 cards. It's a fun way to add in some detail photos of an event and in this case a photo of our RV.

The cute little camper is exactly why I couldn't wait to use this collection with these photos! I add the "hello adventure" sticker to the card.

This piece was actually cut down from a 4x6 card. I added the photos and a few tree stickers to finish it.

I'm using the 12x12 SN@P! faux leather album in black for all of my Life Documented layouts. I love the beautiful construction and details! I also used the 12 x 12 SN@P! Pocket Pages, Design 10 from the Variety Pack. I often use different styles of Pocket Pages and since the Variety Pack has so many great options and designs, I have a lot to choose from!

Howdy friends, Layle back with you again today for Day 2 of our Summer 2014 Reveal Week!

If you missed us yesterday, you can catch the reveal of our first brand new collection, Legacy, here.  Be sure to check back with us each day this week for more new goodies as well as a chance to win our new products before you can buy them!  You can also follow us on Instagram at simplestories_  for additional chances to win!

Today I'm excited to introduce you to the 2nd of our new Summer Release collections - Cozy Christmas.

Jingle all the way and deck the halls with Cozy Christmas!  Christmas really is the most wonderful time of year!

So there you have it - Cozy Christmas!  Did you see those SN@P! Recipe Binder Pages and Recipe Cards there at the end?!  They were so wildly popular when we first introduced Recipe Binder Pages and Recipe Cards with Homespun that we just knew we HAD to do them for Cozy Christmas as well!   Wouldn't they just make the best Holiday Favorites Recipe Book?  My mouth is just watering thinking about it!

We'd love it if we could show each and every one of you this amazing new collection in person.  But since we can't do that, we've done the next best thing - we shot a short video at the Sierra Pacific Mixed Media Event last week to show you Cozy Christmas - almost as if you were there in person; so take a peek at Cozy Christmas as I walk you through the collection!  Make sure you head back here when you're done to enter for a chance to WIN Cozy Christmas before you can buy it!

Cozy Christmas begins shipping to retailers mid August, so it won't be long before you can get your hot little hands on it! 

How about a chance to win a Cozy Christmas prize pack before you can buy it?!!  You have 2 chances to win!  

First, simply enter via the Rafflecopter widget below and tell us what you think about Cozy Christmas  -

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Second - PIN TO WIN!  Just pin your favorite(s) of the Cozy Christmas images in this post, name your pin Simple Stories Cozy Christmas, then leave us a comment on this blog post telling us that we've been pinned and include your Pinterest user name.

That's 2 chances to win a Cozy Christmas goodie box before you can buy it!  And because we're feeling extra generous, how about a 3rd chance?!  I'll be doing random giveaways on Instagram as well throughout the week, so follow us at  simplestories_  for a 3rd chance to win! 

I'll announce all of the winners throughout the week in one giant celebratory post here on Sunday the 3rd, so make sure to check back then to see if you're one of the lucky winners!

Good luck - we can't wait to hear what you think about Cozy Christmas!

And remember, today is only Day 2 of 6 fun filled days, so meet me back here tomorrow morning for Day 3 for the reveal of Sweater Weather!

Hello Simple Stories fans! 

I'm excited to share this layout with you today because it combines many of my favourite things! 

First of all, there's these super fabulous colours from the Good Day Sunshine collection, then the Simple Stories Silhouette Print & Cut files (which are so much fun!) and last of all pictures of my family enjoying time together at the beach! It can't get better than that!

I love using my Silhouette when I create my layouts and I'm so excited that Simple Stories has created some Print & Cut files to go along with their amazing collections.  I used 4 different files on my layout.

Here's a close-up of the Silhouette print & cut Surfboards.

I just love this Camera design and used the Silhouette Print & Cut feature for this one as well.

This Silhouette Print & Cut beach sign is so cool. Don't ya think?

I also typed my journaling onto a 4x6 journaling card that comes with the 12x12 Good Day Sunshine collection.  I was enjoying creating the print & cut embellishments so much that instead of using the chipboard of this cloud shaped design I used the Silhouette Print & Cut feature once again!

To finish off my page and add a bit more colour I adhered some of the Enamel Dots in various places on my layout and a few stickers. 

I hope that I've inspired you to use this wonderful collection and for all of you Silhouette lovers you definitely have to give the Print & Cut feature a try.  You will love it!

Thanks for stopping by!

Hello, Simple Stories fans! Teri here today, and I'm here with another Life Documented project. I'm excited to share with you a couple more pages made with the Good Day Sunshine collection. 

A dear friend of mine recently came to town. I spent a fun afternoon hanging out with her and exploring some of our local landmarks. Talk about fun! I had such a good time (and took so many pictures) that I wanted to include a couple pages about the experience in my 2014 album.

Because this meet-up happened during Summer and these pictures were shot on a hot Summer day, the Good Day Sunshine collection was perfect to use for these pages. It's such a happy collection and has so many fun Summer'ish elements. I felt it justed worked.

One of my favorite elements is that title card! I made it myself by mixing and matching together stickers, paper and an overlay from the Good Day Sunshine collection. The great thing about using things from the same collection is that it takes the guesswork out of it. You don't have to think about the colors. You don't have to think about patterns. Everything just goes together because it's designed to do so. I love that.

I also had a good time with the smaller pockets on this Pocket Page. I cut down the Koi fish picture to fit into one of them. Yes, friends. No fancy schmanzy photo resizing here. I printed the fish picture as a 4" x 6" photo (to save time) and then just used my paper trimmer to cut it down to size. (By the way, have you seen the Simple Stories' Photo Crops tools? They are designed to make photo cropping easy!) 

I had such a fun time putting together the second page of my spread!

I must admit that I went a bit wild, embellishing some of the pictures with stickers, brads and other Good Day Sunshine embellishments. I even wrote on some of them. I sure love how I was able to mix my handwriting with the Good Day Sunshine word stickers on this one here.

I also love the SN@P! cards on this page! The Awesome Awesome Awesome one was 4"x6". I cut it down to fit in my pocket and then used my trusty typewriter to add some text. 

Let's talk albums for a minute. I'm using a 12x12 SN@P! faux leather album in red to document all my 2014 adventures in. I frequently scrapbook out of order so I really appreciate that the album's ring binding allows me to do that. I used the SN@P! Pocket Pages Design 3 and 5 for these pages. It's nice that Simple Stories offers so many different styles of pages. I enjoy having creative options!

Hi everyone, it's Wendy with you today to share some grid-style layouts using the Good Day Sunshine collection.

As I looked through the Good Day Sunshine collection I was drawn to the cloud paper, it just FIT my beach pictures.  I couldn't resist creating two different layouts using the same background and a simple grid design.

In my first layout, Best Summer 2014 -

I wanted to feature this shot I got of a few of my kids at the beach.  The wide expanse of water seemed to call for the cloud paper, it continued the calm peaceful feeling of my picture.  Because I wanted a calm layout, I chose one 4x6 card to give some color to my layout and to give my layout a title.  This was the basis of my layout and the next step was to add some interest to my page.

I began adding pieces such as the year stickers, the film die-cut and the anchor to give a triangle of colors (woodgrain, yellow, teal) using items that were meaningful to my layout.

I added in some woodgrain chevrons to give some movement to my page and to direct your eyes inward.  I couldn't resist adding a pop of bright color with the flower stickers.  

I used a few of the chipboard circles throughout my page; I loved the tone-on-tone that I achieved with the dream piece.

My Fiskar cloud punch is probably my most favorite tool I own; I wanted clouds, but didn't want to detract from my page, so I used the tone-on-tone approach again.

My next page, Me and my Boy -

This layout was also built on the cloud page again using just the 3x4 cards and my picture.  I chose to do a 2x2 grid design on this layout.  The 3x4 cards provided a place for my title, a pop of color, and a chevron card to direct your eyes to my picture.

I used a scattering of hearts to lead your eyes from the top of my page to the bottom.

Again you can see my clouds; these were created using white cardstock and inked to make them blend more.

The tiny phrases on the sticker sheet add just enough detail to my page without overpowering my design.

Thanks for joining me today!  I have one more page I created using the Good Day Sunshine collection on my blog http://antenucci.blogspot.com/2014/07/hello-summer-simple-stories.html hope to see you there!

Hi Simple Stories fans! Rebecca Keppel here to share a quick way to document your 4th of July today! I take tons of photos on the Fourth of July, and with the summer being so busy, I like to quickly get them into a layout. Simple Stories has a SIMPLE answer - the latest Sea to Shining Sea Simple Set includes everything you need to get your 4th of July or other summer layout done in a snap!

I used 2 strips of 4x11.5 paper and one 3.5x11.5 patterned paper and stitched around each rectangle and adhered those down as horizontal blocks to create my background. I combined 15 photos into three 4 x 4 collages to use on my center strip of paper. I trimmed down the Original Summer Memories card so you could see more of the patterned paper and machine sewing behind it. Plus, I added some letter stickers for a title to it.

I trimmed down the journaling card so that it match in height to the Red White and Cute card and typed my journaling, adding a border sticker to take up some empty space.

The large star was fussy cut from another card on the 12 x 12 Elements patterned paper and then popped up with 3 dimensional adhesive.

Lastly, I love including tiny Simple Stories stickers right on my photos as a banner or in the case of collages right in the middle where the points between photos intersect.

Sea to Shining Sea is such a fun collection and could be used for a number of summer themes, but I loved getting my Fourth of July memories down on a page so quickly!

Hi everyone ! It's Mindi here with you. I'm going to be sharing a life documented layout with you today, featuring the Good Day Sunshine collection. 

The bright colors along with the wood grained paper were a great match for our fun and fast road trip down to the beach. 

We were fortunate enough to be able to join my husband down by the beach while he was working in the area. I wanted to make sure that I included the "work" and the "play" aspects of our trip. For this journaling card I wanted to keep it clean and fun, I loved the rainbow ampersand and thought it was perfect for the top of the journaling card. I had some fun mixing different texts for my journaling. 

For this layout I thought I would play around with some watercolor paints. I broke out the kids watercolors and made my own journaling card. After I was happy with my paint job,  I added a few stamps and some embellishments. 

I needed to add my "play" factor to my layout and added a photo of Maddie at play in the water. 

Here is a look at the second page of my layout. The weather was foggy and on the cooler side. Noah was the only one we could get in the water that day for more than one or two times. But once he got in, meaning his feet, we couldn't get him out ! 

I loved mixing a little of the wood grained cards and colors in here and there. I used the wood grained SN@P cuts and put some patterned paper behind it. Then added the chipboard sun and cut up the word "Smile" from the DIY photo overlays. 

I played around with a few different things on the photo that is split over the two pockets and ended up adding a vellum tag onto half of the photo. Finishing it off by using a fun DIY word sticker and a few extras. 

I really didn't have too much to say about our short trip so I decided to play around with one of the colorful cards. I started off with the chevron patterned card and wanted to fold it over so I could add my journaling. The other side of the card didn't work for what I needed. I simply found a simple patterned and glued the two cards together and folded it over. 

I have really loved working with the fun products from the Good Day Sunshine line. They make it so easy to make fun and fast pocket pages. That is key when your working in the summer months, when time is tight !! 

Hi there. Angella here with you today!  I have created a layout using the The Story of Us collection -  a layout of my darling daughter turning 21 and it was perfect.  I love that you can use this collection for so many other things besides love/wedding!

I have used the Forever and Always Designer Cardstock and the 2x12 & 4x12 Elements for the base page with circle ink stenciling using a light gold ink.

Gold and black sequins go really well with colour tones in the papers, and with so many elements for fussy cutting make creating with this range so easy and fun.

Here is close up of the hearts I have fussy cut

I love how the paper range was so perfect for my daughter's photo, fresh and beautiful tones to match in.

Thanks for joining me today, and I hope I have inspired you today with the  The Story of Us collection.

Hi there, Nichol here!  I'm a huge fan of the Simple Stories Insta-squares  and I'm always looking for new ways to use them in my traditional scrapbooking. Like many of you, I have loads of older photos to scrapbook and I grabbed a couple of old layouts from my "to re-do" pile that had zero journaling and only 1-2 photos and created two new layouts that I absolutely love. The Insta-squares make creating an eye-pleasing arrangement just as easy for a traditional 12x12 layout as they do for pocket scrapping!

I created both "boy" and "girl" versions to show just how versatile this collection is.

The girl-ish layout features four photos, three trimmed down to 2" wide by approx 5" tall and one 4x6 photo. Once I had the photos cropped and/or arranged, I "filled in" the rest of the 10" square design with Hello Baby Insta-squares and a piece of ledger paper from the Good Day Sunshine Collection which I trimmed down for my journaling.

I popped up some of the Hello Baby Stickers on foam adhesive to give them some dimension and help them stand out from the tone-on-tone look of the Insta-squares. I also popped up the 3" Insta-square which works as the title of the page and is matted on one of the 4" Insta-squares!

I let the photos dictate the design of the pages and simply laid them out and then added Insta-squares and strips of 6x6 paper to fill in the design so it would make a 10" square. I laid out all the blue, yellow and white/cream squares I could find for the "boy-ish" layout and put it together similar to the girl version.

I used one of the 3" Insta-squares for my page title again, this time adding some Simple Stories phrase stickers as well.

I combined the chipboard moon, cloud and star stickers onto one of the 4" squares to create a perfect sleepy accent for my page.

The border of 2" squares along the bottom of the page are embellished with Hello Baby cardstock stickers adhered with foam adhesive for dimension, a 2" square photo and sequins in blue and yellow.

Hi, Heather Leopard here today and I'm happy to say that the sun is shining and the pools and beaches are packed, which means summer is well underway. 

We spend a lot of time in the water during these hot Texas summer days so I thought I'd scrap this photo of my oldest in her water gear - goggles, braid and swim suit. Does it get any better than this?!?!

As I was looking through the papers to find my background, I decided to go a different route and use a strip from the 3x4 Elements paper. I found the perfect cards, cut them out, folded up the edges and stitched them to the rainbow background paper. 

I adore the banner stickers and I decided to simply line them across the top of the page and top it with the beautiful cloud paper.

The journaling is hidden in the little blue insert card at the top of the photo. Although the 3x4 cards have fun sentiments on them, I added a larger title at the bottom of the page. I love the large yellow chipboard dot. It helps being a definite end to the title statement, like a super-sized period.

I hope you are having a fantastic summer (or had a great one if yours just wrapped up).  As for us, we'll be in the pool (with a trip or two to the beach mixed on here and there) for the next couple of months so I'm hoarding this collection so we can scrap our memories.

Hello Everyone! It's Kristine Davidson here today with a Life Documented post using the NEW Good Day Sunshine Collection.  

This spread uses photos from the month of August 2012. It was a bit of a busy month but hubby and I took a week off and enjoyed Las Vegas for the first time. This month will concentrate  on this trip.

My first page, i used a 3x4" SN@P! pocket which is fantastic for adding extra journaling, ticket stubs, receipts and more.

I have to showcase my love for a good Tim Horton's Iced Coffee! It makes me happy, it is my go to when I get to work,  after shopping, or even for a little ah... moment!

Hubby and I also enjoyed our new outdoor propane fireplace. So clean and easy to use. He won this during a promotion at our local hardware store !

Then Comes our trip to Vegas.  Our first time ever. I have a few mini albums of our trip but nothing ever included in a Life Documented Spread.

We have so many photos of this trip and I wanted to include as many as possible in my spread for this month. I added a 4x4 Photo Flip to add another picture of me enjoying a drink in our room with a view at MGM Grand. Photo Flips are awesome when it comes to adding that extra photo or journaling.. It would be perfect to use on a layout too!

I created this page with more photos and of course I added another photo flip sized 4x6 on the top right!  

As you can see adding those photo flips makes it easy to add those extra details in your albums. I added the extra 4x6 pics and then on the other side just finished journaling about our day at the Grand Canyon.   

The end of this Life Documented spread focuses on the trip to Vegas since it was also August 31st.  This was a simple spread but i shared what was most important to me during this month.

For my Life Documented 2012 album I am using the 6x8 Sn@p! Leather Album in black. The sturdiness, metal corner accents, and stitch details are fantastic features to this album but I really like the fact that it's timeless and because they are so well built will endure the  many years to come.  This Sn@p! album is so far the best I've been using.

I used a variety of inserts for this month's spread. The Sn@p pocket pages come in a variety that you can add to your album. PERFECT for any project!

I hope you enjoyed my LIFE DOCUMENTED post today !

Happy Fourth of July, Simple fan! Nancy here - I hope you are celebrating today and making fun summer memories.

Today's page highlight the bright and colorful Good Day Sunshine collection. I used the fun icons and ombre brights to scrapbook some of my favorite summer photos.

I created a cluster of embellishments along the left side of the page to draw the eye to what's important - the photos! I started the layers with the photo frame transparency and wood grain patterned paper. Then I added photos, die cuts, chipboard and a fun splash of enamel dots for texture.

The chipboard title is highlighted with an arrow sticker and chipboard heart just so it doesn't get lost in the bold design.

Good Day Sunshine is perfect for all of your summer celebrations - big and small! I hope that your Fourth is a happy one.

Hi everyone! Allison here with a Life Documented layout using the Sea To Shining Sea Simple Set and I've got a new sketch to share with you that combines traditional scrapbooking with the SN@P! Pocket Pages.

You can download the full sketch with measurement and placements here.

The left side of the sketch follows a traditional style of scrapbooking design and the right side uses the SN@P! Pocket Page, Design 3.

Here is my layout based on the sketch:

Independence Day is by far my favorite holiday. I love the food, our annual "parachute run", and most of all the fun we have together as a family. Plus, any holiday or event that involves sparklers is a win in my book!

The Sea to Shining Sea Simple Set was a great fit for my 4th of July photos. I really like that there are different shades and textures of the traditional red and blue throughout the collection.

I love using stars on my layouts. Maybe a large part of that is due to having two boys and stars just being a go-to! I like to challenge myself when I create a layout with something that I use over and over. In this case, the stars were my challenge. I wanted to find a way to use them in a way that I hadn't before.

I used small stars in columns to accent and frame the photo block on the left page.

I finished the stars with some hand stitched lines down the center of each column.

For the right page I used a combination of cards and photos with the SN@P! Pocket Page, Design 3.  I love adding little accents to the cards and photos. There are always so many fun stickers or elements to choose from in each collection.

On the "USA" card I added the celebrate sticker.

There was a lot of empty space in this photo so I added a few strips of paper and the "Stars & Stripes" sticker to that space. I arranged the patterned paper strips to almost look like a flag with the blue with white stars on the top and the red and white stripes on the bottom.

This was another photo with a lot of empty space so I added the large star, the "Independence Day" sticker, and some smaller stars.

On the bottom, right card I added two small photos, some small stars, and the "freedom" sticker.

I'm using the 12x12 SN@P! faux leather album in black for all of my Life Documented layouts. The quality of the faux leather is fantastic and I love the stitching accent on them.  I also used the 12x12 SN@P! Pocket Pages, Design 3 from the Variety Pack. I enjoy using several different styles of Pocket Pages and since the Variety Pack has so many great options and designs, I have a lot to choose from.

I hope you enjoy the new sketch and for those of you in the US, have a happy, and safe, 4th of July!

Hello Simple Stories fans! Lisa here to share two layouts with you today. I didn't realize, until after I decided to post these together, that they both repeatedly feature the word "hello". Must be my current addiction or something or maybe the word just worked well with both pages. :)

Let's start off with a Good Day Sunshine layout about an opportunity my daughter had to take classes at her dance studio with choreographer Kim McSwain.

I turned the photo black and white so I could work with all of the colors in this fabulously happy collection. The colors not only reflect Kim's upbeat personality, but also the fun time my daughter had. Even though Good Day Sunshine is primarily a summer collection, you'll notice it certainly works equally well for other topics.

Here's a closer look at one of the embellishment clusters on the page:

For this cluster, I layered up a number of items from the Bits & Pieces pack. Grouping them together like this gives them a cohesive look. The enamel dots are a fun way to add dimension and groupings of color.

In this detail shot, you can see more elements from the Bits & Pieces pack, again layered together to create a grouping.

Next up I have a Homespun layout to share. Simple Stories was the featured manufacturer in Scrapbook Generation's CREATE magazine last month. This is one of my projects that appeared in the issue. I used one of the Snap Pockets as a design element next to the photo, layering other items on top of it. The "hello" card inside the pocket is actually product packaging from an iPhone.

Let's take a closer look at some of the details on this page:

A Kraft Tag from the DIY collection provides the perfect foundation for chipboard and die cut embellishments and provided a way to ground them to the page. You may have noticed I used three tags around the page — one larger tag, and two smaller ones. Odd numbers of embellishments are more pleasing to the eye and create a visual triangle to help move your eye around the page.

This second detail shot shows another mix of embellishments, also grounded by a Kraft Tag.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you enjoyed getting a look at Good Day Sunshine and Homespun in action.

Hi! Kim Kesti here with some great summer themed cards for the patriotic at heart. I have loved crafting with the Sea to Shining Sea Simple Set; we have three summer birthdays in the family with my Mom’s birthday actually on the 4^th of July! This first card is specially made for her.

This next one is a fun mix of beach and patriotic themes. Love that lighthouse!

And lastly, a great card for anyone who loves the Good Ole USA!

Thanks for letting me share these fun cards. Enjoy your special summer and make lots of great memories, okay?