Laura Vegas

I'm a few days later than planned on this. Sorry if you thought my "I'll share my layout tomorrow", actually meant "tomorrow". Lol. Anyways. I have this layout up over on at Kerri Bradford Studio today.

Here’s the layout that came before the cards that I shared last Thursday. I started this layout, wanting to use the Print files from the This & That: School Kit as my patterned paper. I did end up using a few other patterned papers. The red number circle paper and the lined paper are both from Little Yellow Bicycle. 

All of the pieces making up the patterned paper border along the left side of the layout are cut straight from the Print file sheet. I just pulled up the file and printed it. Didn't resize anything. Then I cut out all of the individual pieces and started laying them out, coming up with a plan.

I added a few embellishments to these layered pieces. A few badges from October Afternoon, some brads from Crate Paper, and a chipboard accent from Fancy Pants. And a favorite polka dotted ribbon from Jillibean Soup.

Even these little word pieces were from the Print file. They remind me of the old school word fetti stickers from Making Memories.

I also wanted to cut a few of my titles from those same patterns, so that they would match perfectly. This is where I had to get a little creative, since I needed pieces that were much larger to cut from. I came up with an idea at the last minute, and if I had thought about it last weekend, I would have filmed a little tutorial video. But my week has been rough and hectic, so we'll have to settle on a screenshot tutorial. Edited to add: since we waited a few days to share this, I actually did have a weekend where I could have filmed something. Totally slipped my mind.

I started by pulling up one of the Print files that I wanted to work with, and choose which paper shape I was going to use for my cutting.

Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, I select the paper that I want, by dragging a box around it and then selecting Copy from the dropdown menu (under edit). This black ruled piece can be seen up at the top of that border strip on my layout, with the A+ badge on it. Much too tiny of a piece to cut from.

I opened up a new canvas to work on. I choose an 11” x 8.5”, since my printer only prints standard paper sizes.

From the dropdown menu (under Edit), choose Paste, which will paste the image you copied onto the blank canvas. You will go to your dropdown menu again (under edit), and choose Free Transform. Normally, I would hold down the Shift button while dragging one of the corners in or out to make the images smaller or larger in size, but still keeping the general shape intact.

However, I wanted to make this image larger, but also wider so that the ruled lines didn’t end up too far apart. So I didn’t worry about holding down the Shift button, while dragging out the edges of the shape to make it stretch across the page.

Since I was going to be cutting out a few different titles, I wanted to cover my entire paper with the black ruled patterned paper. Had I just made my original shape larger, to fill the page, the ruled lines would have been very far apart. So this is why I made the shape shorter and wider, and then simply copied and pasted it, so that were actually two on the sheet. When finished, just flatten the image, and send it through your printer (I used textured white cardstock).

Here’s a look at what I was cutting out on my Silhouette. The “And so it begins” and the “Junior Year” were for my layout, and the two “ABC” were for my cards. Sidenote: I really wish I was showing you a Cameo cutting mat in my screenshot. Lol. One day, I will upgrade. I hope.

And here’s a look at how it all cut out of my printed paper.

I also needed to cut the “And so it” and “Junior” to add to my layered titles, and I wanted to cut them from papers that matched the ones that were on my layout from the original Print file. So I pulled up the second Print file, and choose the two papers that I wanted to use to cut from.

I choose this lined yellow paper.

And this grid blue paper.

I used the same steps that I used before. Selecting the Free Transform from the dropdown menu (under Edit), and dragging out the edges of the paper until the size looked right for what I was going to cut.

You could easily enlarge several of the paper shapes from the Print files, and combine them onto a sheet or two to print out.

You can see here that I had plenty of room to work with once I cut out the titles I needed. I could have added more shapes to cut, use the extra on another card or layout, or even use it with punches for embellish my layout or cards.

And a look at the completed titles on my layout. I think I have mentioned before that I tend to lose track of any dots for my i's, j's, etc. This time, I was so careful to keep track of mine, and even ran them through my Zyron, so that they'd be adhesive ready and in one spot.

And then I lost that strip. I'm not a messy scrapper at all, so it's weird for me to lose things like that. I ended up tossing some brads on there, to dot my i's. And then later that night, I found my dots. Figures.

While Kerri’s This & That kits are fabulous for their intended purpose, which is for creating the gorgeous altered trays, keep in mind they can be used for lots of other projects as well. Break them down, and think of other ways to get the most out of them. And if you’re looking for a fun alternative to your regular patterned paper stash, really take a good look at the Print files, as you have a good selection of patterned paper right there. And you only have to print what the amount of paper you need!