Simple Stories Sunshine & Blue Skies Binder Kit

Hello friends! Karla back today to give you a look at the amazing Simple Stories Sunshine & Blue Skies Binder Kit now available. Simple Stories has really done a great job putting together their awesome paper collections to create beautiful binders, layouts and albums. This binder kit has complete instructions and supplies included to create a wonderful summertime memento, ready to pop your photos in! You have the fun of decorating now and a finished album full of summer pictures and ephemera that you and your family will treasure.

Here's a look at the video where you can see each page up close!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Be sure to check out all the available Simple Stories Kits in the Scrap Shotz Store, and have a wonderful weekend ahead!!

Sunshine and Blue Skies by Simple Stories

Who's ready for the beach?! I certainly am. Carolyn back again to show you another layout with the Sunshine and Blue Skies Collection by Simple Stories. This collection is bright and fun, fun, fun! Here is what I made:

I used the blue cardstock as a base and chose two matching pictures of the kids playing in the hot tub. I originally wanted to have the word "summer" repeated really large all over the left side of the paper. But once I cut out all the summer words from the collection, I realized they didn't fill the space as I hoped so I changed it up a bit making a smaller "summer" section. I used stickers for the main title and fussy cut them off the yellow cardstock paper and outlined them with a black pen. I also really needed to use the chipboard pineapple banner! The remaining embellishments are a mix of stickers and die cuts. The journaling spot is fussy cut from a Sn!p card which I thought worked really well.

That's it for this layout! Easy peasy! Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Sunshine and Blue Skies Layout Tutorial

Hello everyone! Carolyn here today to show you a summer layout using this month's sketch from Creative Scrapbooker Magazine. I got to play with the new Simple Stories - Sunshine and Blue Skies Collection. If you love pools, popsicles and palm trees ... this is the collection for you!

Here is the sketch:

I stuck pretty close to the sketch. Here is how I put this together. I hope you can give it a try. I used this paper rolling idea that I've seen a few people using on Instagram - it's always fun to do something new!

Step 1 - I chose my pictures based on the swimming theme of this collection. I was lucky to find pictures that had all sorts of colours found in this collection.

Step 2 - I designed the page in my Silhouette Cameo. I was able to add boxes for the sizes of my pictures and draw circles to the size I wanted. I also wrote the title from a font that I liked and cut it from the orange cardstock paper in the collection.

Step 3 - I chose the background paper mostly because of the wave design but better yet, take a look at the back! I wanted these colours to show on the front when I rolled the paper. It was a little difficult to sacrifice this side of the paper, but I think it was worth it in the end!

Step 4 - I cut two 7.5" circles from scrap paper. This could be done with a circle cutter or a die cut machine. This allowed me to move them around and get a sense of where to cut them out. I traced them with a pencil so I knew how far to cut.

Step 5 - I used my Penblade to cut through the paper. I cut the triangles in the picture in half as the rolls were really wide.

Step 6 - I rolled all the triangles back to get an idea of how it would look. Then I added clear gesso around the circles to prep the paper for painting. I used a regular paint brush and used my pencil marks as a guide.

Step 7 - I unrolled the triangles and taped them down so they wouldn't pop up. It also kept them from getting wet. I used Tim Holtz Mermaid Lagoon Distress Paint by dabbing it in a tray and adding water. I painted it around the circle. Then I added larger blobs of paint and sprayed some water and turned my paper around so it looked like it was running across the page instead of brushed on the page. 

Step 8 - I sprayed some Teal Color Shine around the page to get the 'splash' look. I cut the tips of the triangles off before rolling them back because the paper rolls were getting too thick and the tips were sticking out.

Step 9 - I cut out some waves and splashes with my Cameo using the dark blue pattern paper "Let's Escape". They aren't glued down in the picture so I can still move them around. I also started testing background papers for the circles. Without embellishments, this paper looks good, but then I decided it was too much once I added the embellishments so I used the dark blue paper in the end.

Step 10 - So here is the final product! I added some of the die cut people that I thought matched the two girls in my picture. And my daughter wants one of those unicorn floaties so bad but that's not going to happen because we don't have a pool! I added the hammock because - why not?! I used the Sn@p cards for the orange striped borders and used a few stickers from the kit. The beachball is chipboard. Finally, I added the journaling.

I hope you get a chance to play with this collection and try out the sketch! It was a lot of fun!

Have a great week!