Love & Adore plus Heart Day

Hi all, it’s Jen here with some projects featuring two Valentines collections now available in the shop.
Crate Paper Heart Day
Simple Stories Love and Adore 
I wanted to take these collections a little off topic, so I have made layouts about pregnancy and a trip to beach, alongside the Valentine’s Day project that these paper ranges were designed for!

Firstly I made this page featuring a favourite photo of my daughter from the summer. We took a trip to the beach and she just loved jumping around in the shallow water, splashing and leaping with a big beaming smile on her face. It really reminded me of my own childhood summers spent here, a truly wonderful way to while away an afternoon.


I had fun layering up papers and die cuts around my photo, and you can see how nicely these two collections blend together. The background sheet, the pink chevron design and the pale pink with messy red dots are from the Crate Paper line, while the other papers are from Simple Stories. I really liked the splashes of yellow, and combined with aqua they felt right for a beach photo! The Crate paper die cuts pack has some lovely acetate designs in it, like arrows, hearts, and the tag I’ve used behind the XOXO (which was part die cuts from Simple Stories, and part cut out from one of the papers).
My second project was the Valentine’s Day card. These two lines do have some specific sentiments related to Valentine’s Day like “February 14th” and “Happy Valentine’s Day” in the die cut packs so I used one of the tags on my card alongside some other stickers and die cuts. I love the sticker packs that Simple Stories produce, with eight 4×6 sticker sheets – a combination of letters, tags, icons, words and sentiments. They are always really useable and great value!
On this card I also added a bit of glitz courtesy of Pebbles My Funny Valentine glitter heart stickers. You get pink, gold and red hearts in 3 different sizes, and 123 stickers in total – I love them! The glitter is chunky and super sparkly and doesn’t shed at all.

My third project, and second page, was actually inspired by the outfit I am wearing in this photo. The black and white spotty top with white skirt felt like a good match for the black and white paper design from Simple Stories. I placed my photo bottom left of the page and again layered several paper designs behind it. I tend to cut a couple of pieces and then stick down using removable herma glue rollers so that I can move pieces around. Then I cut additional smaller paper pieces and tuck these in too. I’m not really a planner, instead I stick as I go and then move it if it doesn’t seem right.
Many of the sentiments intended for couples, like “you + me” work just as well for a baby bump photo. I also hid some of the words on pieces like the white square die cut with pink writing (under the word bump). This actually said “Happy Valentine’s Day” but I just left the word happy visible for my layout.

I created two clusters of embellishments around my photo and made a third mini cluster up in the top right of the page by tuning down the corner of the background paper and placing another design behind it, on which I added some tags and stickers. I have used this turned down corner before and really love the look it gives. I don’t fold the paper flat, but roll it, adding glue just up from the corner that’s rolled down (just between the two rows of dots on this design). This gives lots of dimension to the page.


I had a lot of fun with these collections, and hope I’ve showed you how they can be perfect for non-Valentine’s pages, as well as being ideal for cards too.
Happy scrapping!