Toy Box Reinvented w/Michelle Lanning

Hello there! Michelle here to share a semi-step by step layout using the adorable Toy Box collection. I love that I was able to still use most the boy line with photos of my precious daughter. As it just so happened to turn out, the collection is more versatile than one would think!

I started by grouping my photos into a (roughly) 10 x 8 collage of four total photos. I loved how silly the first three photos turned out and that the fourth shows her finally getting to the task of finishing her homework. To bring focus to this last photo, I used a chipboard frame over the top of it. I also used ribbon beneath it before using the frame as an area for the layout's title.

In realizing that the chipboard piece left some empty space between the pattern paper and photo, the ribbon seemed a fun option to repair the gap.

To add the ribbon, simply flip the chipboard piece and "fold" the ribbon across the bottom portion of the frame. The adhesive on the rear of the frame was sufficient to make it hold. As I was placing it down, I realized that there was still a small gap, so I added a small border sticker to the bottom of the photo.

I then went about adding three dimensional adhesive to frame the photo - note how it stands up a little bit.

Another alterable item on the layout is one of Toy Box's accent cuts (remember them cute journaling cards that Crate released back in February - love them!). I particularly like the "A Boy's Life" accent cut. Though I ran into a problem because it didn't exactly go well with the overall theme of my layout!

So I altered it slightly to make it fit! I trimmed the bottom portion of the accent cut off and then added some woodgrain patterned paper to replace the removed area - it's the exact same size as the title.

Then directly over the top of the woodgrain paper, I placed the title, which is composed of both alpha sets from the Toy Box collection.

Of course, these are just a few of the easy steps I took to produce the layout and to make the Toy Box collection work with my story. The end result is this "homework-savvy" layout - perfect for the subject matter!

This should give a general idea of the flexibility of Crate's Toy Box collection and if you've been hesitant to use the collection in the past because of it's dominant boy theme, this will hopefully encourage you to at least give it a try - there's so much more to it than one would assume!