Laura Vegas

I had a birthday layout up on the Bella Blvd blog on Tuesday, and it seemed fitting to share it here today. How about the layout first.

This was another one of my layouts for CHA, using the new Birthday Girl collection. If I'm being honest, it wasn't one of my favorites that I made. But it was also the second to last of about 24 projects that I made for CHA, so I was at the bottom of my creative well, so to speak. Lol. I dug out some older photos of Alyssa from her 10th birthday party, since I knew the colors would work well with the papers. Most of our birthday parties are swim parties, but I wanted more traditional "birthday" pics for a booth layout.

I took the "happy" chipboard letters from the Birthday Girl chipboard icons, and then added "b-day" with some Sienna chipboard alphas.

A few of the chipboard accents that I wanted to use were banner shaped, so I thought it would be fun to create an entire border across the page of banners. This was a great way to use up a lot of the scraps of patterned paper I had from my other projects, since I only needed small pieces of paper.

I just trimmed them into strips of varying widths, and roughly the same height, and cut banner notches at the bottom of each piece. I also added in some stickers here and there. I adhered them across the page, "hanging" off of a few strips of designer tape that I had layered together. On either end of the border, I added some fun embellishments. Buttons, chipboard pieces, a crochet flower, and some flags.

My journaling says "So hard to believe you turned 10 years old this year". Which was so true at the time. I think we say that just about every year, right? Every birthday I think "how are you another year older already???". Just like every school year, I say "how are you another grade higher already???". And before you know it, this happens:

Your daugher, that in your head is still just your baby, goes and turns SIXTEEN YEARS OLD!!! Seriously, how did this happen? How has it been sixteen years since she made her way into our lives, taking her sweet, sweet time to come into the world? I am so very proud of the young lady she's becoming, and she amazes me more and more every single day. Happy birthday Alyssa!