Simple Scrapper CT Layouts: June!

Before I share my layouts I made for the Simple Scrapper Creative Team this month, I want to share a promotion going on RIGHT NOW to save 20% on a 6-month membership before June 1st! I've recently told Jennifer, the owner of Simple Scrapper, that I think the content she provides month after month is invaluable and now's an even greater time to sign up!

So first up is a layout I made for our Disney album, using a Sketch Template from Simple Scrapper's Premium membership of course! I changed this one up a bit and loved how I was able to get so many great pictures onto one layout! I basically used this layout instead of a pocket page :) I ended up just using small squares from last year's Sandlot kit by Studio Calico because I had leftover papers from the 4x6 pad, so bonus: I used up some older supplies!

Next I made this layout of us at the annual Lilac Festival they have here in good old Rochester, NY. I just loved bringing my daughter there, especially because I have such fond memories of it as a child... I go half for the nostalgia and half for the food hehe!

I used a Story Starter also from the Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership as well as a sketch template and stamped my own partial background in different colored rings to keep the photos connected even though they are apart on the page. I also used Studio Calico's Carolina Moon for this one.

The last thing I want to mention is that I've decided to take a step back from the Simple Scrapper Creative Team, though I will continue on as a member! There's no drama or much to say, other than I've decided it's time to turn to attention to other things, mostly my walk with Jesus and making that my focus. I still plan to scrap here and there and share on my creative Instagram, but changing up my priorities for a bit :)

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Simple Scrapper CT May Layouts

Happy Monday after National Scrapbook Day, hope you had a nice "holiday" and weekend! In case you want to continue the crafty fun, this month's membership materials are up and ready over at Simple Scrapper and they really got my brain a nice creative workout this month! For this first layout I used one of the new sketch templates posted this month (every month there are 5 new ones), and one thing about this month's that stood out were there was lots of room to journal. I realized I would definitely need a place to record this story about how Natalie had a temper tantrum in the middle of Belle's performance at Magic Kingdom and we had to make a quick exit... and it was pouring rain when we got outside etc etc... let's just say it was CRAZY and probably the craziest public spectacle I've been a part of since I was a kid myself... I think!

Anyway, for this next layout, I started with a Story Starter, for which the theme this month was "leisure time". I love the different types of layouts I get when I start with a story in mind versus my pictures. After I decided on my story or basic idea of one, I found some pictures, all of them were me doing various work at my scrap table in the basement haha! I ended up telling a different story after collecting the pictures and realizing that I tend to have company when I do my work - in the form of Jesus, Chris, or Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men haha! I used an older sketch template to complete the layout, which made it super fast to come up with the design and layout.

Next up, let's talk about the latest (and FREE) event over at Simple Scrapper!

The membership at Simple Scrapper offers tools and support to help you enjoy scrapbooking more – to use the supplies you have, tell your stories, and have some fun among like-minded friends. The best way to experience our community for yourself is at the upcoming Photo Crush event. During this 7-day challenge, Jennifer Wilson will help you streamline your photo library so that memory keeping is even easier.

Click here to sign up for FREE.

Let me repeat myself, it was what they were ORDERED to do! OK I've been watching too much A Few Good Men on repeat lately. I meant, that last part - Jennifer Wilson will help you streamline your photo library so that memory keeping is even easier! I definitely will be participating in this event right alongside you guys, so I am excited to take hold of my photo library, which is just out of control right now, oh and it's free, which is super generous of her! The event runs next week, May 11-17th, so hope to see you there!

P.S. If you're on Instagram, don't forget to check out my Instagram feed and also feel free to tag #SimpleScrapper and for the Photo Crush event, use #SSPhotoCrush :)

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

April Simple Scrapper Layouts!

I am behind on posting these layouts, but the April Premium membership materials are available at SimpleScrapper.com and I truly enjoyed working with them! You can ask 5 different members at Simple Scrapper, what makes the membership worthwhile and you can get 5 different answers! I think the number 1 value is just the help Jennifer Wilson (owner) gives you to use supplies, make time for scrapbooking, and overall simplify everything from photos to finished albums/projects!

But what really made me sign up originally as a member last year were the sketch templates! I didn't know much about what they were, but simply put, they are sketches provided as a regular jpeg file that you can simply open and use to get your layout started AND they come as layered templates that you can open in Photoshop/Photoshop Elements, and use them in their complete digital format to create a digital, hybrid, or regular layout! As a regular paper scrapper, I didn't know how much I would love that they came as layered templates too until I opened one one day, and dragged in my photos to get a feel for how a layout would look before I printed my photos to size and then worked with physical products after that. I LOVE getting to see how my photos might work or even what color papers might work first.

Anyway, so this first layout I used a new sketch template to create this travel layout, for a trip we took to Disney World at the end of February!

I made the travel words paper myself, by printing it out onto 8.5x14 (legal size in the US) and then cutting it to 12inches across!

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For this next layout, I began with this month's story starters that are about faith and spirituality. The story starters are a great part of the membership as well, often I end up documenting something that I wouldn't normally if I didn't challenge myself to use them each month! Since I am a Christian and a Mom, so I got a chance to document my daily intentions with Natalie - namely, trying to start everyday by reading the Bible and praying! She says the cutest little prayer now too, simply, "thank you Jesus, amen!" haha!

I also used an older sketch template and again, it just makes it so easy to piece together a layout by starting with the sketch templates! And guess what, the membership provides 5 new sketch templates every month! That's 60 a year... that's a lot of inspiration and layouts to make!!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Then & Now

Well here is quite a different layout for me, one that is a comparison of how I used to take pictures vs. today, which turned into how I got my camera back then vs. now!
I used a Story Starter from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership and loved how my story developed from there (no pun intended)!

I began with a sketch template also from Simple Scrapper, but then I really wanted to use that geometric silver metallic paper from this month's Cirque kit by Studio Calico and ended up cutting out the center and the border triangles that I backed with smaller papers from the same kit. I definitely needed to add my journaling to the front somewhere so even though it made it pretty busy, I added black journaling strips with white pen.

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

C&N

First of all, my apologies for not updating my blog recently! Since my last post I've made 2 more layouts, finished my December Daily album, and made 2 cards, plus I've worked on some art work for myself and others. I hope to share some more of that here soon, but until then please follow me on Instagram: @ScrapperEmily!

ABOUT THE PHOTO:
Anyway, today's photo is from a lovely (aka not so lovely) and cold Friday night last month, so Chris and I decided to have a coffee date at Wegmans, our local+fave grocery store. The coffee was excellent, and it was perfect just to get out of the house for a bit and also get some errands done.

LAYOUT DESIGN/MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I used a Sketch Template from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership, then changed it up a bit to work with my photo and papers. I used this month's Cirque kit from Studio Calico, which went perfectly with the "date night" theme of my layout haha!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Just Like Her Dada

ABOUT THE STORY/PHOTO:
Part of my "scrappy resolution" or intention this year is to do more "story first" layouts, so I don't end up with a whole bunch of layouts that look nice but have no meaning. So when I didn't have any photos printed up yet, but wanted to work on a layout, I started by reading over the few stories I wanted to scrap and decided on this story about my daughter, who talks in her sleep just like her Dada! Since I didn't have a specific photo for this story, I found this recent one in my phone of her yawning and thought that would work! Now I could make a layout with a cute photo and have a story to go with it, perfect!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
I used a new Sketch Template from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership and just loved it! It was 8.5x11, so I decided I would keep it 8.5x11 and add the page to Chris' ongoing album!

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I used some of the softer, pretty papers from the main Far Far Away scrapbook kit by Studio Calico - and it helped that I had the digital papers to first drop into the layered templates that are part of the monthly sketch templates from Simple Scrapper. I enjoy working with the layered templates first to get a general feel how my layout will look with the photos dropped in! I used of the thin wood veneer diamonds to fill the space next to the picture, and ended up liking how it sort of points to the picture. I used the rubber alpha from the Walden kit because I wanted a nice soft gray to go with the colors. Thanks for stopping by!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Love layout and a FREE file for cutting + tutorial!

ABOUT THE PHOTOS:
What's wrong with a green Christmas? This was the day after - we got to go for a walk while Chris was still home for Christmas break, so nice!!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
I used a Sketch Template from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership and just LOVED this one, but needed to change a couple things to make it work for me.

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
So I started by making the "Love" title myself and turning it into a cut file to cut out of white paper to match the background. (see below for quick tutorial how I did this, as well as the title as a jpg for free download!) I put my three strips of paper down approximately where they would go and traced the top portion of the title with pencil then hand cut with scissors a little above the pencil marks to leave some extra space above the title. I also die cut some sketchy hearts in all different sizes in 3 card stock colors and just played around with filling in the top area with them till I got them how I wanted them, then picked up each one and adhered with my Martha Stewart glue pen! Phew! Other than that I stuck pretty closely to the sketch template and used Studio Calico's Far Far Away scrapbook kit to complete it.

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CUT FILE FOR DOWNLOAD (png file):
Click here!
Right-click and you can download it :)

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Beginner tutorial for Silhouette Cameo (how to turn image into cut file):
Open your Silhouette software, this is what you'll see:

Open the file you want to trace, and make sure to select "All Files" from the file type dropdown:

When you open it, it will open huge and also have a warning sign about the resolution, but unless you plan to cut that large, you can ignore that and resize to about where you want it.

(to resize: select the image by clicking on it, then grabbing one of the corners to resize and keep the proportions).

Here's the crux of tutorial:
1. Click the tracing tool
2. Click "Select trace area"
3. Make a box around the image
4. Uncheck "high pass filter"
5. Click "trace"
Then you can remove the original image by selecting it and deleting it, and you are left with your cut file!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

You Are My Fave

ABOUT THE PHOTO(S):
I'm back with some layouts to share over the next few days! I hope to keep up a little better this year, and update at least once a week with what I've worked on. Anyway, I had this cute photo of Natalie in her winter gear that I couldn't resist adding to her scrapbook!

LAYOUT DESIGN/MY PROCESS:
I didn't really have a story for this photo, so I used a Story Starter from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership to add my journaling. (I finished on the back to write about how much I appreciate how my husband "invites" us to hang out with him whenever he has things to do, no matter how "boring" it is.) I also used an older sketch template from Simple Scrapper as well - I flipped it on its side to work with my vertical photo!

PRODUCTS USED:
I used Studio Calico's Park Ave kit, as well as the Waldorf Add-on kit, that is quite possibly my favorite add-on kit... in recent memory? I'm scared to say of all time, but anyway, that polar bear stamp was too adorable not to use, and I really loved how Catherine Davis used the digital stamp version to make her background on this layout!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Sharing Our Story

ABOUT THE PHOTO:
My daughter and her 3 boy friends, no not boyfriends, she's only 16 months old!! Even though I used a photo from this same day for my 30 Days of Thankful album, I used it to write about my friend Rachel and how we came to be friends and then introducing me to her friends which are now my friends etc. I finally got this story down on paper after using a Story Starter from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership! The story starters are really helping me go much deeper with my stories and not just scrapbooking by event (not that there's anything wrong with that either, I am liking a mix of both)!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
So of course I also used a Sketch Template from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership, this time an older one (the membership provides you access to ALL of the previous sketch templates and story starters - a tremendous value I might add!).

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
So once I picked the sketch template, I just had to use the papers from this month's Park Ave kit by Studio Calico... oh how I wish it wasn't December and I've been so busy with December Daily, I don't know that I'll get much more done in terms of layouts, because I LOOOVE all the papers in this kit!! Ahh!!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Discover

I'm taking a break from December Daily to bring you a 12x12 layout for the Simple Scrapper Creative Team!

ABOUT THE PHOTO(S):
I had a bunch of photos from Natalie's first trip to the museum back in September, but didn't get a chance to scrap them till now.

LAYOUT DESIGN:
I used a Sketch Template from Simple Scrapper's Premium membership and ended up combining a couple of them and rearranging one to come up with this layout! So if you saw either of the original sketch templates, you may not even recognize that this layout came from either one! I also used a story starter to help tell a deeper story other than, today we went to the museum. I finished my journaling on the back to talk about how I suddenly realized how much easier Natalie had gotten once she could walk and go where she wanted to go, and how I felt very hopeful and excited seeing her walking all around the museum and I just had to follow along with the stroller.

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I used this month's Park Ave kit from Studio Calico, along with some stuff from my stash (pink cork stars that I just ordered, wood veneer letters, and printable labels from another month by Hello Forever). For the large circle, I printed it in a large format rectangle and instead cut the circle from the paper with my Silhouette and laid it over the photo - it made it much easier than trying to line up a cut on the picture itself.

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

December: Simple Scrapper content available!

Well this is my first time I've ever been "published" and it is in the Simple Scrapper monthly emagazine called Spark! Not only that, but look, my layout made the cover - so cool!!

Every month, Simple Scrapper provides new content to their premium membership - 5 sketch templates, Spark magazine with inspiration from the Creative Team plus articles written by SS owner Jennifer Wilson, Focus lessons, and Story Starters! There is so much value to the content of the membership, that I was a member even before I became a Creative Team member! With so many holiday projects and how busy life gets this time of year, now would be a great time to join Simple Scrapper and see all the new December content, get motivated, organized, and inspired to create those projects and actually use some of your supplies haha!

As a bonus, Jennifer offers a free calendar printable to help keep you organized this month and also see what's going on over at Simple Scrapper. I hope you'll consider joining this fun and energizing community!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

A Hot Dog Party!

ABOUT THE PHOTO(S):
Well, we had a hot dog themed birthday party for Natalie's 1st birthday! It was awesome, but such a whirlwind! Luckily Chris took on the task of planning all the big stuff - our friend Mike's hot dog truck and transporting it, the tent, tables + chairs, and even staking the "Pin the Topping on the Hot Dog" game into the ground for me so the kids could play! It was a success, thanks to his help and all I took care of were the decorations and small details!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
I really was having trouble where to begin with these photos because I had so many and I didn't know how I was going to get them all scrapped! I found a solution and selected a double page layout Sketch Template from Simple Scrapper's Premium membership to work with! Once I had that selected, I was able to overcome my mental hurdle and get started!

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
Then the next hardest part was figuring out what paper to use, since my current Studio Calico kit wouldn't work with these bright summery photos... off to my stash I went! I figured the kids in the picture would pair well with the Sidewalks collection from October Afternoon... and I was right, the papers and embellishments (that I still had all of) went perfectly with my hot dog themed party pictures as well!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Instagram Snapshot

ABOUT THE PHOTO(S):
I decided to use a Sketch Template from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership and make a layout of my last 12 Instagrams as sort of a feed capture right now!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
The sketch template made it easy to get going on this, but I changed it up a little with my placement of the Instagram captions.

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I used very little product in this - a piece of paper from the Pine Hill add-on kit from Studio Calico, letter thickers and 4x6 papers cut up from the Walden main scrapbook kit, and thin washi tape that was part of the Bluegrass PL kit from Studio Calico back in April.

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Shine

ABOUT THE PHOTOS:
This photo was taken last year on December 1st for December Daily! Why am I just now scrapping this photo? I began this layout "story first" by using a Story Starter from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership. I had a story that I started to write, and ended up with a much deeper story that I printed and slipped into the glassine bag pocket. It's been interesting how using these prompts has really made my pages seem more meaningful, when I honestly didn't think much would change!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
Onto the layout design, I again used an older Sketch Template from Simple Scrapper's Premium Membership! I really stuck closely to the sketch template, even though it was for an 8.5x11, I easily stretched it to work with 12x12. At first I was thinking I didn't "change" it enough from the template, but then I realized that's why I love the templates - when someone goes back to look at my pages years from now, they will not be thinking, "Oh, this is like an exact replica of such and such Sketch Template from Simple Scrapper" haha! (I'd be impressed if they did!) Anyway, I love how the membership includes these templates, that come to you as a layered PSD template as well as just sketch image, so I can drop my photo(s) in and see how the end result might look and move things around even if I don't work fully digital!

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I used this month's Christmas themed add-on kit, Pine Hill, from Studio Calico, as well as a few items from my stash. The 3x4 card was from a printable set by Geralyn Sy for In A Creative Bubble from last year and the vellum label is from Crate Paper a couple year's ago. The glassine pocket came with this month's kit and Chris just came downstairs and looked at it and goes "that's cool you used an eggroll bag" hahaha.

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Hello Deer

ABOUT THE PHOTO/STORY:
I love that this photo looks like, ah nice fall day with Natalie at the park. But looks can be deceiving, in fact, Chris was feeling quite ill but he still offered to take me to the park to snap some photos of me after hearing me fret about not having a good head shot for the Simple Scrapper Creative Team!

LAYOUT DESIGN:
I used a Sketch template from the Simple Scrapper's Premium membership - something I've done quite a bit, but this is my first layout for the Creative Team; how fitting!

MY PROCESS/PRODUCTS USED:
I ended up printing up one large photo and wanted to make it look like a "window". Originally I was going to cut out the squares, but to save me a little work lining them all up perfectly, I just kept them on the photo paper and went with a piece of white card stock to hide it. I used some older leaves from Amy Tangerine and a gray tag I had in my stash. This was a fun one - I really love working with the sketch templates from the Simple Scrapper!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Exciting News!

A few weeks ago, there was a call to be on the Simple Scrapper Creative Team, and without hesitation, I began filling out the application! I joined the Premium Membership to the Simple Scrapper back in April and have absolutely loved it and found great value in the membership ever since - in fact, every month I'd be saying to Chris, this is how I used my Simple Scrapper membership and why I need to keep it and best of all, he totally agreed! We don't have much superfluous money to toss around anymore now that I am not working so it was a big deal that he let me have and keep this membership.

Anyway, after I hit "send" on the application, which I did hastily because Natalie was waking from her nap, I was feeling like I should've really proofread more and expounded upon my desire and qualifications etc, thinking I rushed through it and wouldn't get on the team. Then last week, I got an email and saw that it was from Jennifer Wilson and I read the first couple of lines thinking I didn't get on the team, but lo and behold, I did - I couldn't believe it!! I started yelling woohoo and dancing around outside (Chris and I were just returning from a walk to the store with Natalie) and my whole family rejoiced with me haha! I am officially on the Creative Team for the Simple Scrapper!! Here's the official announcement!

So now what? Well I will still be posting my layouts to this blog, but I am drawing my inspiration from the new and archived sketch templates provided with the Simple Scrapper Premium Membership every month! I will also be using Story Starters to scrap the stories I want to tell and remember down the road. The layouts will then be featured in the Membership e-magazine "Spark" along with the other team layouts as well as articles written by Jennifer.

I have to say I am excited for so many reasons, but mostly that this couldn't seem like a better fit for me. I already utilize the sketch templates a ton - in fact, I went back and counted 27 sketch templates that I have used since April!! It is something I love to do and am very comfortable with. Then the added bonus that I will be challenged to use the Story Starters - I am excited to do this because I love the few pages I have created "story first" instead of "photo first" - I think the pages are richer and have such a deeper meaning! I can't wait to get started!

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.