Loterie Farms / Simple Stories

Hello again, friends!  I just realized that I never announced here on my blog that I was asked to be a part of the 2016 Simple Stories Creative Team!  I know I posted it on my Instagram, but I just totally spaced and didn't post it here.  I'm very honored and excited to be on this year's team, and I was up on the Simple Stories Blog a few days ago with my first two layouts.

I'm sharing one of them here today, and I used the You Are Here collection.  My husband and I took a little vacation to St. Maarten in between Christmas and New Year's, and one day we went to Loterie Farms.  It's a gorgeous wooded and mountainous area that you can hike and climb and take part in obstacle courses with  high wires and zip lines.  It was so much fun!

I wanted to focus on all the leaves going on in the photo, so I found the perfect leaf cut file from Just Nick.  I used inks and gelatos on the background to add more of that pretty turquoise color in the embellishments.  I adhered the leaf cut file right on top of that and then added my layers and embellishments on top of that.  I used a few flower die cuts and stickers...I wanted to bring out the tropical feel of the photo and memory.  That cute palm tree die cut was perfect, too.

I just love this collection!  It's so perfect for travel photos, and not just tropical vacations.  I added a fun adhesive brad here and some tangled thread.  I used a few pieces of paper from the 6x6 Paper Pad.

More layers and flowers!  I added my title (from the sticker sheet alphas) on top of the leaf die cut and ran it through my sewing machine.

Here's a better look at the title area.  I love that Simple Stories always has a lot of sentiment and phrase stickers...they are perfect for adding touches to small areas on your pages.

One more close-up of the die cut...I really love how it looks cut on this beautiful green patterned paper, and I love that it's so open for the background to show through.  You could also take a different approach with this and back the leaves with other patterned papers...that would look awesome!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog today...see you soon with more projects!