Laura Vegas

a full month ago, i did a post about the new scrapbooking tips & tricks: fabulous flowers issue from creating keepsakes. and i showed a peek at this layout of mine, and said "i'll share more about it next week". let me repeat. a full month ago. lol!  better late than never, right ;)

 
as seen in the Scrapbooking Tips & Tricks: Fabulous Flowers issue, from Creating Keepsakes magazine. copyright creative crafts group. posted with prior permission from the publisher.

i really love how this layout turned out. i created this layout months and months ago. it happened to be around the time when i was using white cardstock backgrounds a LOT. and i was doing very linear designs, with the photos all lined up in rows. i wanted to mix it up a little.

and it all started when i was choosing my pattern papers. i had these two bella blvd papers picked out, and side by side, to visualize my spread. instead of using just pieces of the papers, and adding cardstock or more pattern paper, i decided i liked the look of these together.

the photos are from a trip to my uncle's cabin, back in 2005. i grew up, going to the cabin with my family every summer. we've managed to get there a few years with the girls. this family shot of us, is a favorite of mine, from our trips. i have had it printed as a 5×7 for years. glad i finally got around to scrapping it.

this is a fun technique that i have used before. i used a circle cutter, to cut a few circles from my sheet of pattern paper. i knew where i wanted my photo and title to go. so i just eyeballed where the circles would look the best, and cut them out. i then adhered the entire sheet of pattern paper to a full sheet of white cardstock, using lots and lots and lots of pop dots.

this creates a "window" of sorts. and you can then fill up this window, with whatever kind of embellishments you want. since this was the "fabulous flowers" issue, i went with flowers. i have a fun mix of paper flowers, felt flowers, plastic flowers, acrylic flowers, button flowers, and flower brads. i tucked some of the flowers under the edges of the circles, so that they were peeking out. and i added some coordinating rhinestones to some of the flowers as well.

the embossed sun sticker is from little yellow bicycle. i adhered it to some white cardstock, and then cut around the edges with my scissors. i do this a lot with stickers, so that i can then pop dot them up. i added a few brads to the sun, before adhering it with pop dots to my page. i also added a few strips of additional pattern paper from bella blvd.

i knew i was adding my journaling to a text based pattern paper. so i decided to go with white text, on brown. to do this, i created a text box in word and typed my journaling inside the box. i then changed my font to white, and changed the color of the text box to a dark brown. when i printed this out, there was a brown box on my paper, with the white journaling lines. much easier then trying to print on brown cardstock.

my photos on the second page of the spread still have the collaged look. but i didn't line them all up perfectly in rows, which is something i was doing a ton at the time. i arranged them in a way, that i could fit another cut out circle and this fun lace cut wave die cut from little yellow bicycle. 

i was originally only going to use the wave on the left side of the spread. so i had cut off the part of the wave that extended off the page, and i threw it away. then i realized that the first page needed a little something else along the bottom. so i dug that piece back out of the trash, and added it to the first page. i'm very glad i did, since i think it pulls the two sides of the spread together.

i used some brown foam thickers, and my favorite doodlebug loopy letters, for my title. the checklist die cut is also from little yellow bicycle. there were little check boxes in front of the items on the list. so i added a few mini brads to those boxes.

the second page of the spread was done the same way as the first page. i cut out my circle, once i knew where i wanted it to go. then i pop dotted this entire sheet of pattern paper, onto a sheet of white cardstock, using lots and lots and lots of pop dots.