Island Vibes! by Andrea Lake

Andrea with you today sharing a new project using the new Simple Vintage Coastal collection by Simple Stories. Every year, I make a desk calendar to keep on my desk at work. It is one of those meaningful DIY projects that make me smile every time I see it or whenever I am looking through it to find a date I need. For some reason, I didn’t make one to start 2021 and then I just forgot about it. It wasn’t until I had this breathtaking collection in my hands that I decided it was the perfect excuse to make a project incorporating as many of the beautiful elements of the collection as possible. I am really missing going to the beach, and looking at this calendar every day will definitely make me feel closer to it.

The color palette of this collection is absolutely perfect. I used a standing frame as the base of my calendar and printed the months in a small size on white smooth cardstock. I then chose my background papers and decided I cut my pages into hexagons and rectangles for the bases. I machine stitched the edges of all 8 pages and started decorated them.

Dimension and texture are the key elements of this project. I created different clusters combining chipboard and foam stickers, die cuts, layered stickers, fussy cut pieces of patterned paper, and even adhesive decorative brads. Every single product in this collection adds its own touch and I needed to include as many as possible.