Simple Stories - Winter Cottage - Making Memories

Hello there and Happy November!

It's Claire here and this month I am designing with the Winter Cottage collection by Simple Stories. You can view the whole collection in the shop here.

For my first page, I wanted to make a wintery themed layout - capturing a trip we took to Devon last December for Mr Claire's birthday.  I fell in love with the pink, blue and green tones on the papers which set the colour theme for my page.

I made a watercolour wash for my background using a brayer and once dry, used some oxides and a scripty font stencil from my stash to add an extra layer to the background.  

You may have noticed by now that I have a love for stars so added some glittery gold stars on top of my colour wash using the Echo Park Summertime Seashell stencil - perfect as this pic was snapped at the beach - If only we'd had the summer weather to match!

Next came those gorgeous papers! I've wanted to have a go at making 3D stars for a long time now and I decided today was the day! I used the B sides of the  Let It Snow, the 2x2 Elements and the Winter Wonderland papers. The stars were made using a template on my Cricut and adhered using a glue gun. There are lots of ways to make the stars - you don't need an electronic die cutting machine. If you have a 5 point star die (like the Technique Tuesday Nested Stars one in the shop) they are quite easy to make by creating your own score lines. There are lots of tutorials on YouTube should you fancy giving it a go.

I mounted my photo on a piece of the Winter Wonderland paper and an offset piece of vellum and then created a cluster for it to sit on.  For the cluster, I knew as soon as I saw this cute to do list from the Journal Bits & Pieces that it has to feature on my page. 

I paired it with some tags I fussy cut from the Tags paper - my absolute favourite - definitely a must have item!! I decided to add eyelets to each tag from my stash but they really didn't need it. I just seemed to have the corresponding colours so went for it.

Next, I fussy cut the snow globe from the 3x4 Elements paper and the mittens from the 2x2 Elements paper and tucked these in next to the tags, raising the mittens on foam pads.

To echo the gold stencilling, I added the 'Making Memories' title from the Pebbles 2nd Ave Puffy Phrase Stickers. These are the nicest I have seen in a while - they have a really beautiful but delicate sheen to them which is just gorgeous!

To tie all the elements together, I used the Floral and Brrrrrr stickers from the Combo Stickers and added a small bird and some hearts to the to do list. I also made a small rip at the top which I backed with the pink Bazzill cardstock from the Matchmaker Pack.

Finally, I punched a few tiny stars and placed them up on foam pads for a bit of extra dimension.

I really enjoyed making this page and can see this collection being really versatile to use for all my winter and Christmas layouts.  Look forward to bringing you some more pages with this later this month.

Until then, take care.

Claire 

xxx