Chantalle McDaniel's Blog Posts

04.11.18

Hello Simple Stories fans and welcome back to the blog today! When the first release of I AM was released it was an instant hit. One of my all-time favourites! The 2018 version is equally divine and I was so inspired, I’ve created two pages for you today… one traditional and one digital.

The beautiful butterflies in this collection have really caught my eye as you can see! Die cut shapes combined with some butterfly-shaped brushes form part of a bold title as well as build up interest with embellishments. I’ve given a white background a bit of texture and paired it with some pretty pink lined paper with a torn effect. I really like this self reflective page and don’t really know why I don’t do more digital scrapping! New digital collections are released very soon after paper ones so keep an eye on the Simple Stories Digital Store!

The Digital Supplies I used are

D10024-1 I Am Digital Designer Cardstock

D10024-2 I AM Digital Elements

D10025 I Am Digital Stickers

 

THIS IS ME (traditional page):

The I AM collection is not just for scrapping ourselves but the cuties in our lives like my little Miss E, looking adorable on holiday in 2013.

For the base, I’ve used a floral cut file from the Simple Stories collection available in the Silhouette store. I’ve used a sheet of ‘Living Vibrantly’ for the floral shape as the gentle watercolour wash pattern was beautifully subtle underneath the image and embellishments.

I pulled out lots of the butterfly shapes, be it as cardstock stickers, chipboard stickers and ephemera from the Bits & Pieces pack.

For the rounded photo, I used my clever Circle Photo Crops to bring attention to the most important element in this photo, lol.  I’m sure you will agree with me that the white space around her head was unecessary.) The circular shape also softens the page and echoes the mild circular shapes in the die cut shape.

The devil is in the details! Little sticker hearts, some machine stitching and the stamping peeking out from underneath the cut file = heart eyes!

Wishing you lots of fun with your I AM collection!

Supplies
02.11.18
Hello Simple Stories fans and fans of love in general!
I’d love to share a post I created for my DH which captures a really sweet, fun time we had in the park together, while our kids played. He had recently got a new phone and we were trying out all the settings on the camera. It was so much fun and I love the pics that came out of our impromptu ‘photo session’.
 
 
The new ‘Romance’ collection was perfect for documenting this photo. The gorgeous brick work print on a sheet of ‘Love Story’ was hard to resist!  I used it as focal point and then went about fussy cutting some florals from various papers in the collection, until I had a good mix of sizes and colours.
 
 
 
 
There are lots of beautiful hearts in this collection too and I played with the shape, adding some stickers and creating some sweet, dimensional embellishments.
 
 
 
The title has been set above and below some text, which I typed onto my background paper using my typewriter. The stickers are from the Combo Cardstock Sticker sheet which has loads of sweet shapes and sentiments.
 
 
 
I’ve also used some of my (very precious, lol) wood veneer from one of my all-time favourite collections ‘Life in Color’. The little camera shapes were just the perfect finishing touch for this page. (I also asked myself, what good they were just sitting in a box somewhere… use the things you love so you can actually see them!)
 
 
 
The idea for these accordion hearts came from some stickers  I have in my stash. I pulled them apart and cut a few shapes out of a sheet of ‘4x4 Elements’. I scored them at 1/4 intervals on a score board and folded them up. Pretty impressed with how they turned out, even if they are not 100% perfect. I often do this and I think it’s a great way to not only save a bit of money, but also create a few awesome goodies you can use again and again.
 
 
 
Wishing you lots of happy crafting. I can think of no better way to show love, by making something from the heart or simply filling up our own buckets and creating from a place of joy!
 
Happy Valentines Day
 
Chantalle
 

Supplies
01.01.18
Hello Simple Stories fans and Happy New Year!
 
The last 12 months have seen some amazing changes in my little world and I’m so excited to see what this new year has in store for us all! 
I’m kicking off the year with this self reflective layout using the beautiful black, white and gold theme of the ‘2018' Simple Set.
 
 
To draw the eye, I decided to use a section of white cardstock against the contrasting black and white stripe of a sheet of ‘Below Zero’. There is a gold spot printed on to this paper and I have used some gold sequins over them to add a bit of sparkle to the right side of the page.
 
 
The design was based on a sketch which had circles across the centre. I’ve used a circle punch on either end of the four circles and used different sized circles for interest. The numbers 2018 were cut out of the 3x4 Journaling Card Elements.
 
 
I’ve paired the page with some elements from one of my all-time favourite collections, The Reset Girl. The inspiring messages and boss babe imagery are perfect for a layout about the possibilities that lie before us!
 
 
Wishing you an amazing 2018. Go get it girls!
 

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