Sharing a layout today that was inspired by many things. For one, the story for this layout came out of the Ali Edwards' Birthday Story Stamp. I was inspired to work on it as part of a class at Simple Scrapper called Layout Loop for a layout that starts with a product, which in this case was the Story Stamp set. 

I also used two starting points to inform the design. The first page was inspired by a layout I had found on one of my Pinterest Boards. I scrap lifted the photo strips from the design. The second page was inspired by a Simple Scrapper sketch (#316) as part of another class, Square One.

 

I haven't been in the habit of creating many event based pages, so I was excited when I had the opportunity to use some birthday themed supplies. I found a Scrapbook Generation kit in my stash that the colors matched and the icons seemed most appropriate for this story. I had to give myself permission to use the supplies my own way rather than how the sketch and design had been originally used for.

The supplies were from Simple Stories and with my son going to an engineering school with robots and all, the icons worked!

I used a Vicki Boutin mixed media background as the base of my layout. 

I managed to squeak a Birthday Story Stamp on the layout by using one in my title. I also used one from the Family and Ampersand Story Stamps to create it as well. I used some lovely Felicity Jane puffy alpha and some Kelly Purkey alpha stickers to finish it off. 

I stuck pretty closely to the sketch for this one. The title is on the first page so I replaced that with some embellishments.

Because of the kit inspiration, I cut many of the icons from the square cut apart paper out and used them as die cuts instead. Great for matching embellishments! 

Finished the page off with some enamel dots and puffy phrase stickers from Elle’s studio.

Happy to have this event documented and loved how many challenges inspired it to become what it is!

Care Bear Love

This layout was inspired by Ali Edwards Care Story Stamp. It was something that came up when brainstorming ideas for this Story theme even though it didn’t match well with the stamps in the set. 

This layout design was influenced by Simple Scrapper sketch #853 in this Journey’s Spark Magazine and challenge. 

Most of the supplies are from Pretty Little Studio’s You Are My Sunshine collection. 

I have to admit that the paper texture threw me a bit when I got it in my hands. It almost has a glossy texture and the print seems to sit on top of the paper. It is not my favorite but I love the designs so used it anyway. The rainbow of bears and the rainbow paper were calling to each other!

For the journaling, because it contained a conversation I had with my girls, I found these speech bubble stickers and tried to color code them with who was speaking. The long form journaling I then added to the background using clear sticker paper, same for the speech bubbles. 

The title was made using the Story Stamp word, some alpha tiles from Shimelle’s Box of crayons sticker folder and Thicker phrases. 

Finished the layout off with some enamel dots from my stash.

Love how it all came together and glad to have this story documented!

Swim Progress

The layout I am sharing today was inspired by Ali Edwards Story Stamp for the theme of progress.

Simple Scrapper’s challenge this journey is to use a grid in the layout design. I had started with the cut apart piece of swim paper and found a grid the best way to house them and my photos.

The wave strip was from a scrap I had left over I found in my stash. Love that the colors coordinated so well and love the touch of sparkle. The background was from my stash. I liked the idea of arrows and progress and thought the paper was a good color match. 

I used the Story Stamp set on the title card and then sentiments on the photos. 

 I used another stamp to create a border at the bottom of my grid and separated them with enamel dots. 

Used a cluster of enamel dots around my layout in a triangle. 

Used a summer  Ali Edwards stamp plus a number stamp to add the date. 

Happy with how this turned out! Thanks for stopping by!

Summer Adjectives

 

This layout was inspired by a journaling prompt to describe the summer in 5 adjectives. It also works for Simple Scrapper’s Member Challenge to use text as design. 

I started with the alpha stickers in my stash in creating a kit to create this layout. From there, in working toward using more of the SCT kits in my stash, I found one that matched the color and theme to put in my kit. 

I wanted a fairly neutral background so I found a Vicki Boutin mixed media background in a grey that made the letters pop.  

The title was made from a 4x6 pocket card that I fussy cut out and the smaller letters are Thickers from Paige Evans. 

Pulled some summer themed stamps from my stash and used to make word strips and on the paper clip. 

Finished off with enamel dots and some iridescent zigzag trim from my stash.

Best Birthday Ever

The layout I am sharing today was inspired by Ali Edwards' Best Story kit and stamp. I thought the story of the "best birthday ever" was perfect for this theme. Who can beat a free day at Disney plus an evening with scrapbooking with friends!

I used Simple Stories Magical Birthday Collection Kit to create the layout and finished it off with the acrylic word from the Best Story Kit and some enamel dots. 

Was able to use a stamp to finish this one off. 

So happy to have this story captured from so many years ago!

 

Quirks

This layout was inspired by Ali Edwards Story Stamp for the theme of Habits. 

This was a fun one to look back on! My kids got a kick of the journaling. It was a reminder that sometimes documenting these little things in the moment are the best stories to look back on!

The supplies for this were from Felicity Jane. The tags were perfect homes for each child’s journaling and matched the papers from the same collection. 

 I love the look and feel of the Felicity Jane puffy alphas! Put many to use on this layout. 

Love how this came together and having these quirks 

captured.

First Days of School-Aaron

This layout was inspired by a Refresh Retreat challenge from May of last year. The challenge was to combine 9 or more versions of a similar style of photo to help visually tell a story. My son resent my graduated high school and I thought it would cool to get all of his first day of school photos on a layout!

I used Simple Scrapper sketch 717 and decided to put these plastic slide frames that have been in my stash a long time to good use. 

I struggled with using the sketch a bit, since all of my photos were vertical. But with some friends at an in person crop and moving things around quite a few times (which also meant reframing many photos) I finally came up with a composition that worked for me.

 

Used Jillibean Soup’s Alphabet Soup II collection for paper and die cuts that matched well with the stickers.

I had some stickers in my stash that had labels that fit on the slide frames perfectly and had the title piece to match. 

Love seeing these photos all together to see the growth year after year.