Little by Little from Shimelle
When I first saw the new collection from Shimelle, I knew I would have to have it for my stash! Such a fresh mix of colours; suitable for girls, boys and everyday; and with some beautiful metallics. There’s a great variety of paper designs. Everything from geometric to floral and from large scale to tiny repeating patterns. You can see the products here in the shop:
Shimelle Little by Little
My first page features a photo from last summer than really makes me laugh. My daughter was enjoying playing in the little car, but had her first taste of “road rage” when Frank the tortoise kept getting in her way. This photo was in the midst of an exasperated head-on-steering-wheel moment, and I can just feel her frustration!
American Crafts sticker books are always good value for money, and the book that completes this collection is no exception. It features two alphabets, washi, larger icons, small phrase stickers and a page of translucent flowers and leaves to build your own wreath. I used that page to create a frame around my photo, starting with the larger flower pieces in a visual triangle around my photo and then adding in the smaller flowers and leaves to fill the gaps. I love how it came out!
My second page page is about my youngest son, and a trip to a pebble beach on holiday last year. He thoroughly enjoyed the location, and spent a long time trying to taste each and every stone! I will definitely relish the day when my children no longer have a strong desire to eat everything they find on the floor! At first glance this collection doesn’t scream boy pages. There’s a lot of pink, purple and flowers, but there are also lots of blues, greens and yellows. By not using any of the pinks in this layout, I made a page which feels very different to the last.
After building up my page with photos, title block and journaling, it still felt like it was missing something. I cut out some of the hearts from one of the patterned papers (ignoring the ones with pinks, red & purple in them), folded them down the middle and attached them down the side of my photo with small staples, adding foam dots to each “wing” of the heart to make them dimensional. I then got to work with my Nuvo drops and filled in my background with tone on tone polka dots. I didn’t have a green or navy blue Nuvo so I used dots of clear glossy accents instead. It’s not as dimensional as the Nuvo drops, but it does the job. I’ll have to invest in the colours I don’t yet have! I love the wooden buttons in the Shimelle collections, and used three on this page. They’re chunky and shiny and lovely!
For my third page I picked out the words ‘adventure’ and ‘magic’ that feature in the collection. It was a toss up between a photo from the Warner Brothers Harry Potter studio tour, and Disneyland for this page. They fit equally well with the theme that I was going for! In the end I decided that my Disney photos blended better with the colours in the range, so I went with a shot of wizard Mickey from the parade. I used lots of sets of three in this page. Three wooden buttons, three star elements, three puffy flowers, sets of three Nuvo drops, three lots of three staples, three camera icons and three tickets to write on.
I placed my photo bottom right of the page an drew then added various squares and rectangles to build up the page. Some of these are cut from the papers, some are stickers, some are washi tape, and I also used lots of the printed strips that come at the bottom of full 12×12 paper sheets. I usually keep all of these and never get around to using them, so I was pleased to use some up here!
I really love the Thickers in this collection – words and shapes with one sheet white and one sheet black. So many options for titles right there. In addition to the Shimelle goodies, I have also used enamel rainbow hearts from Hey Little Magpie, resin heart charms from Paige Evans for Pink Paislee Oh My Heart and ticket tag from Dear Lizzy Lovely Day.
I love this collection, and I hope you do too. As always thanks for reading.
