I AM...Simply Me!

Well, it's me Susan here!  Today I AM sharing a fun little project I did with the new I AM line of papers and embellishments from Simple Stories.  This collection has ME (and YOU) written all over it and I fell in love with it when I spied it at CHA in January.

I love how I was able to create the cover of my book with the gold letters I cut out from one of the papers.  I then added the "simply me" little flag banner.  That phrase has always stuck with me.  I'm not a complicated person, nor a "deep thinker", so when I saw that little snippet in my collection, I knew I had to use it on the cover!  (Now, that's not to say I'm a ding dong either...but there are times!  LOL!)  There are several encouraging pieces you could use to describe yourself others within the collection, so that you can give a personalized touch to whatever project you are using it for (bible journaling, anyone?).

I used the little flaps to hand-write words that describe my roles on one and my traits and qualities on the other.  That was fun to come up with!

Here's a closer look at how I put my book together...Yes, I took it "old-school" and created a super fast lunchbag minibook.  Most of the ones I've made in the past were a lot more pages than this one, but I wanted to keep it sweet and simple as that IS the theme of my book!

I only used two lunchbags, facing opposite directions.  I folded them together in half and then stapled the ends three times.  Then I turned each book page open and made a fold on the inside to help flatten it out and to "train" the pages to open like a book.  Now it was ready to decorate--the fun part!

Paper bag books are so fun with the little hidden side pockets that you can put "pull-out" pages and tags in!

It's been forever since I made one and now I remember why I loved them so much...just me, keepin' it simple!

One of the things I love about this collection is the fact that it incorporates a lot of black as an accent color and that makes me happy as it just makes everything pop!

So when it came time to start my book's cover, I knew I wanted to bring out that theme.  Here's what I did to create the muslin heart on the front:

I chose a coordinating acrylic paint, diluted it with a little water on my brush and painted just the front of my heart.  I then let that dry and helped it along with a little shot from my heat tool. 

Then I grabbed my SO STRIPEY stamp set from Reverse Confetti and used the large single stripe stamp and some Tuxedo Black Memento Luxe Pigment Ink (dye based ink would not be permanent and may fade) to create the black stripes on the heart.  I then heat set it once more.

I set it aside until I was ready to adhere it.  (I also used this technique on the little aqua triangle pocket on one of the inside pages.)  Here's a closer look at the cover which I also added some clear stickers, a clear overlay and more papers from the I AM collection from Simple Stories.

Ok, friends, I hope this has inspired you to be simply YOU and create using the new I AM collection from Simple Stories.  It's available at The Little Blue House and online now HERE.