Maggie Holmes Bloom Collection

Hey there! It’s Jo back again with my monthly Creative Team projects for the Hey Little Magpie blog. I’ve been playing with the new Maggie Holmes collection ‘Bloom’ by Crate Paper. It’s another very pretty collection from Maggie with Easter pastels, spring yellows and lovely neutrals too.
This month I created four layouts and a project life spread with bits and pieces from the collection. Let’s start with the Project Life spread for Week 8.

I used the yellow chevron b-side of the Garden Party paper for my 4×6 inserts. I chose this paper because it reminded me of the beautiful yellow daffodils in a couple of the photos.

I used the black and white floral b-side of the Peony paper for my header insert and for four of the 3×4 inserts. I just love that paper! The other four inserts are made from the word b-side of the Moments paper.

The gold glitter thickers ‘W8’ are from the collection too and are really pretty, a lovely warm gold. The yellow floral on the header card is from the sticker pack and the journal spot beneath it has been cut from the Sweet Rose paper.

Finally I’ve added little word strips and embellishments here and there from the sticker pack. The black letter stickers are from my stash and are old October Afternoon mini market stickers, however the new Webster’s Pages collections have some perfect alternatives to these.

Moving on to the layouts. My first layout was inspired by the sweet Little Bird paper in the collection and a photo I’d taken last Easter in Rome when we were visiting the Roman Forum. I wanted to take a photo looking down from The Palatine hill with the Roman Forum below and the Colosseum in the distance. However a seagull was sat on the wall and was quite happy to remain where he was, not bothered by us tourists. I thought he was great and took a photo of him in the foreground as well as another with him out of shot!

In addition to the Little Bird paper I used a piece of the Peony paper as a photo mat and cut a strip of Basic Grey ‘Photo Shoot’ paper to go along the top of my bird paper. I also cut a couple of the cameras out of this paper to create matching embellishments. The Photo Shoot paper is actually darker than shown here, but I wanted a more subtle look so I stamped my white ink pad over it and gently removed the excess with a tissue. I created a little cluster at the bottom of the page with a strip of the yellow chevron Garden Party paper cut into a banner, a camera added on top and a word sticker from the Bloom sticker pack.

I repeated the yellow and black colours at the top of the photo with another cut out camera and die-cuts from the Bloom Die-cuts Ephemera Pack. As you can see I used foam pads to raise the photo up from the page and I did the same with that top camera and the two tags you can see in the photo below.

The journaling tag is from the Die-cut Ephemera pack, but the title tag is actually from the sticker pack, I just put foam pads under it to give it height, tying some yellow bakers twine to both tags. I tucked a yellow flower die-cut under the photo and title tag and popped a little bird sticker on the journaling tag. I used the gold thickers again for the title and added a little heart sticker from the pack to finish the title.
My second layout incorporates yellow again with more of the chevron paper Garden Party and more gold, I can’t get enough of it!

I added a strip cut from the Peony paper to divide the two papers and used the Moments paper for the top of my layout. I didn’t mat my photos this time, I just tucked die-cut ephemera under them instead. The gold arrow tab is actually part of the XOXO die-cut from the pack which I couldn’t see myself using so I cut it up! I added a gold glitter heart to the corner of the right photo and a fringed heart to the left.

My title uses the ‘sunshine’ word sticker from the sticker pack and more gold thickers for the rest of the title. Once this was added I could see where to place my journaling which I’d written on a sticker from the pack. I tucked a piece of Peony paper underneath to match the strip across the centre and added a smaller piece in an embellishment cluster at the top of the page with a yellow die-cut heart and a word sticker. Finally I added two more word stickers from the sticker pack to the bottom of the page on top of the printed washi tape.
For my final layout I wanted to use the gorgeous pink flowers from the die-cut ephemera pack and combined these with that lovely Peony paper b-side. I had a beautiful photo of our cat Chloe in a tree which I’d printed out and have had on my desk for a couple of years. I wanted the die-cut leaves to represent the  foliage in the trees surrounding the photo and added the pink flowers because, well they’re just so pretty!

I think this layout is now one of my favourites ever, so many things to love about it, including the funny story of our cat who got her belly wedged stuck between the branches and needed lifting down!

I used a piece of Spring paper as a photo mat, cutting into the bottom section to make it really look like a fringe. I cut apart the Sweet Rose paper and used the ‘note paper’ section for the journaling, lifting it off the page with a foam pad behind. Surrounding the photo and along the centre line are die-cut flowers and leaves from the die-cut ephemera pack which I raised up on foam pads too. The tags, heart and word strip are also from the die-cut pack.

I cut a green line strip of Together paper (b-side) and added that to define the top of the Peony paper, you can just see it peeking out from under the leaves. Then I cut out the C and the B from the a-side of the Together paper and tore off the bottoms which had words on. I tucked them under the flower and that became my title ‘CB’, the initials of our cat and a name we sometimes call her.
Thanks for stopping by the blog, I hope you’ve found some scrapping inspiration.

You can also find me on Instagram @jobo_creates and on my blog Half a cup of coffee.
[NB. Some of the items are currently out of stock in the shop, but don’t worry more are on the way. American Crafts have had a big warehouse move and it’s delayed the shipping of restocks everywhere. Just log in to your HLM account and sign up for an e-mail notification for any of the out of stock items and you’ll be informed as soon as it comes back into stock.]