Hello, hello, friends! Welcome to the SCT blog today! It’s Meghann Andrew with you and I don’t know about you, but I am still ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ over the fantastic projects in the summer issue! One repeated element that I found on projects throughout the issue was a sun ray design on the background. I loved each one—you can find one from Paige Evans on page 36, a tropical sun on page 63 by Marcia Dehn-Nix, a sweet buttery sun on page 71 by Sandra Mott, and this beautiful layout from Gloria Parra on page 66:

I wanted to recreate the sun ray look, but on a smaller scale using the Boho Sunshine collection from Simple Stories. Here’s what I was inspired to create:

Supplies | Boho Sunshine collection from Simple Stories: 6 x 8″ paper pad, floral bits, 12 x 12″ sticker sheet, enamel dots; Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L: Crafty foam tape, 3D foam squares, EZ Runner Grand permanent adhesive, EZ Runner Grand repositionable dots adhesive; Therm O Web: iCraft adhesive eraser XL; Bazzill: Avalanche cardstock; WeR Makers: Hole punch; The Stamp Market: circle die; Album: Citrus Twist Kits Life Crafted album; Elle’s Studio: date stamp; Ink: Close to My Heart; Other: paper trimmer, washi tape, ruler, pencil

My sun rays are not as regular as Gloria’s above, but I thought that it added to the playful nature of my page, and it was very simple to create using a 6 x 8-inch paper pad from the Boho Sunshine collection and my paper trimmer!

Selecting tone-on-tone patterns for my rays helped to keep the design graphic and bold, as they contrasted against the white background. Each ray radiated from the photo of my son, and I also placed a circle die cut at the corner of his photo to ground the sunshine design.

To keep the design clean and simple, I colour-blocked my embellishments on the background as closely as I could to the sun rays that they were near. Adding the floral bunting on the left side of the spread helped to break up some of the straight lines and added another element that pointed directly at my photo.

Check out how easily this traveler’s notebook spread came together in this process video by watching below, or click “watch on YouTube” to go to the SCT YouTube channel to watch!

How have you been inspired to create after flipping through the pages of our summer issue? We hope you’ll share your projects with us on social media by tagging @sctmagazine and using the #sctmagazine hashtag! Happy creating!

Find more of Meghann’s work here: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube