Saturday, June 4, 2016

Let's Grow a Garden | Simple Stories

Hello everyone ! I am so happy to be here with you today. The kids are out of school and summer has officially begun. I am looking forward to lazy days, swim days that linger into swim nights, popsicles, pajama days, adventures of many kinds, sleeping in, and so on. How is your summer so far ?

About a month ago the family and I got together and started planting our garden. We have a rather large side yard that is mostly dirt where we have 4 garden boxes set up. It took many man hours, a few set backs, and three weekends to get to the point of planting. But alas, I was determined to at least get a few things in the ground this year.

We purchased a few vegetables and some seeds and set to work. I took some photos that day and I was so excited to put these pocket pages together this past week.

Simple Stories has a new collection that came out that is called Bloom & Grow. You guys, it is the cutest thing ever ! Lots of great colors, some wood grained elements, and lots of adorable gnomes.
I created these two pages for an assignment that was on their blog yesterday ( June 3rd).


Typically I create weekly spreads for my Project Life album but this one was a theme based one. So I created this sort of title card. There is a filler card that has this fun Garden quote on it that I wanted to put on my title card. I finished it off with a few embellishments.


This is a closer look at what the left side looks like. I really loved how the collection was a great color match to my photos. The wood grain and the navy are beautiful together. Then the hint of green was perfect.


This year the kids each picked out a bag of seeds to plant. Noah picked carrots, Maddie picked watermelon, and Katelyn picked corn. I wanted to get a photo of the seeds in his hands to remember that we planted seeds this year. The journaling card next to it was perfect. The wheelbarrow on the bottom, I love it !

The bottom left corner photo is of Katelyn and Patrick getting Katelyn's corn all ready to plant in rows. They worked really hard on this project and they planted a whole garden box of corn. The photo next to it is of all of us working on the garden. I cut up one of the bits and pieces die cuts and added it to on the photo along with a few stickers.

These pages turned out to be more photo heavy and not a lot of story. There wasn't really much to tell other than the couple spots that were used. I filled a few of the pockets with some fun filler cards.


Here is a closer look at the filler cards. Most of the cards from Simple Stories are mostly embellished for you. That is what I love about them. I can simply add a stamp, or a few stickers, and end up with a great looking card.


Let's move on to the right side.

On this right side I used a Simple Stories Design 4 page protector. It is a lot like a few out on the market today but it has this fun 2x12 pocket. I cut up some patterned paper and simply embellished it.


I wanted to use the white space in the photo of me holding the carrot package. I decided to cut up a 4x4 card and add it to the corner with some embellishments.

The journaling card in the corner came together easily. I knew that I needed some white to balance out the photos and other elements. I paired a little doilie with a 2x2 card. I used the card as an embellishment with a few stickers.


Here is another journaling card talking about the garden stakes I got for the garden.


When there is some white space on a photo it tends to be used up. I added some embellishments on the top and then some journaling to the bottom.


I really enjoyed creating these pages for Simple Stories and using their wonderful collection. While I stayed fairly simple this time around I believe it was the right choice. I was able to keep the focus on the photos that tell a story about how we planted the garden this year.

Thank you all for joining me today. I have a small insert that I created using this collection to share with you shortly. Also my Week In The Life Tuesday pages.

Take care and happy weekend.




1 comment:

Debbie P said...

Oh my goodness, I am so envious! Love the garden! Your pages are fabulous! Love all your elements and photos and the the little clusters of embellishments! Beautiful job!