Iris Fox's Blog Posts

03.13.19

Hello my fellow Simple Stories crafty peeps. Iris here with a bright, cheery layout to showcase photos when I first got to discover the magic of pretty things blooming in my backyard last year. We'd only been in our new house fall and winter, so it was all a delightful surprise.

I started off by using The Cut Shoppe Open Letter Alpha cut file to cut letters on my Silhouette out of white cardstock, but I didn't use those pieces on my layout.  Instead, I used them as templates to rough cut my letters out of all the papers in the Springtime Collection because I wanted a hand-cut look.  I then played with the placement until I could fit my photos along with the large letters, switching the order in each line. 

I used the Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks in Candied Apple, Spiced Marmalade, Squeezed Lemonade, and Salty Ocean to add tons of color to my background. I used a blending tool in a circular motion to get an ombre effect and sprinkled water all over.  After letting it sit a minute for the oxides to react, I blotted the excess water off, creating a droplet effect.

I machine stitched the letters down, and ruffled their edges.  I'd placed the two lines of letters and photos roughly equidistant from the top and bottom, leaving space in the middle, which I filled with the large scripty title from the Sticker Sheet.

I concentrated most stickers where the photos overlap each other, flowers on top and a mushroom and word strip at the bottom, continuing the symmetry of the design. But then I also added a butterfly, dragonfly, and watering can to form a trio that stands out from all the symmetry, giving the eye some definite points to travel on. 

The finishing touch was journaling and enamel dots from older Simple Stories lines to fill in a few gaps. I love that I can pull out older SS product and it matches!

I had so much fun making the most of this collection, showcasing the variety of papers and Springtime icons.  It's a Simple Set, so smaller than the normal collections, but it sure packs a punch! You can find the process video for this layout by hopping over to my Youtube channel. www.youtube.com/c/whimsyfox/videos

It's been a pleasure and honor being part of the Simple Stories Team this past year. Some of the best products and the best people in the industry! I'll be moving on to some other commitments, but will continue to admire and use all the cuteness Simple Stories has to offer.

Supplies
02.23.19

Hello my friends, Iris here with all the farmhouse feels in a layout using the lovely Spring Farmhouse collection.  There are so many adorable - and very relevant - icons in this collection, that I wanted to use all of them.  And as you can see on my page, I used quite a bit!  

I made this layout to document one of the areas in my house, which in it's past life was a very dated, 90's (alcohol) bar, but we recently remodeled and transformed it into my very own coffee bar.  To echo the chalkboard wall we have in that space, I started off with the black solid paper from the new Simple Basics Kit that coordinates with this collection.  Having coordinating solids really is going to open up the options when scrapping with our beloved Simple Stories collections!

I built many layers behind my photo, including several papers from the 6x8 pad and one wood grain from the Snap Basics 6x6 paper pad.  I then created clusters at the bottom left and top right corners with stickers, chipboard, doilies, and one of the adorable bows that are my new favorite embellishment! 

This wasn't going to be enough for me, so I decided to build a "shelf" on my page (using the long scallop border sticker) to house #allthethings. :D Just as on my coffee bar shelves, I placed signs, lanterns, vases, greenery and a tiered organizer with cute things, all curtesy of the combo sticker sheet, the 4x6 sticker sheets, and the chipboard set. Some of the flat stickers I propped up on foam, and I also did that with the scallop border sticker.  I backed the shelf area with the soft seafoam green gingham of the Well Said paper. 

I wrote my journaling with a white Uni-ball Signo pen and added some artful splatters and trios of enamel dots to the background.  Yay for the return of the enamel dots!  I added a thin border from the seafoam green gingham to the bottom edge of the page to balance out the top.

Finally, I created a pocket behind my photo and layers. (yes I had to tear it off the background because I did not plan ahead, but the layers and embellishments were all stuck together so they came off in one hunk)  I cut a piece of scrap cardstock to the size of the bottom-most layers so that it wouldn't stick out, added Scor-Tape to two sides, and attached that to the background, adding all the layers on top. Then I cut a rectangle of scrap cardstock that I attached to the backside of my before photo.  I placed one of the sticker tabs with a typed "PULL ME" on the end of the cardstock rectangle, covered the gap with one of the phrase stickers, and when you slide the extra photo in the pocket, the "PULL ME" tab handily nestles in place with the other embellishments to the left of the photo.

I know that last bit was quite a mouthful, so I invite you over to my Youtube channel to check out the process video. :) I truly enjoyed working with this lovely collection and I know you will too.

Supplies
01.11.19

Hello, Iris here with a layout that's all about embracing the Freezin' Season!  This whimsical collection was perfect for documenting the first time we took my girls to play in the snow!

I picked the dark, snowy Shiverin' paper as my background to provide great contrast.  I wanted a design reminiscent of snowballs tumbling down, so I printed my photos at 2", 2.5", and 3", and punched them with circle punches of those sizes.  Then I cut some Doodle Circles (Silhouette Store Design ID: 68077) from the Snuggle Up paper with my Cameo to frame them.  I arranged them across the diagonal, varying placements and leaving space to intersperse some cute elements.  The circles along the edges are cut off because that gives the design even more movement.  For texture, I machine stitched several times around the frames.

I added some of the die-cuts from the Bits & Pieces pack to fill in the gaps, including the snow globe to add some interest in the middle of all those photos.  There's stitching around the globe as well.  I placed word strips form the Combo Stickers and the 4x6 Sticker pack to caption each photo. I always delight in finding just the right little phrase to go with my photos.  Chipboard snowflakes help bring the die-cuts and word strips together into clusters.

The final piece was to add my title, which I propped up on foam, across a small gap between my photos and the journaling. For my journaling, I punched a circle out of one of the journaling cards from the 4x6 Horizontal Elements. See that cute penguin poking up from the bottom instead of another photo within the circle?  He adds something a little unexpected. 

Freezin' Season is so stinkin cute, with fresh fun colors and icons that will make documenting all those chilly winter outings super fun!

Supplies

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