Laura Vegas

I had my layout go up over at Kerri Bradford Studio yesterday, and am finally finding some time to get it posted and shared here. 

Back in 2009, we were having all of the family together for Thanksgiving, which hadn't happend in a long time. So I posted HERE about this fabulous plan for a family mini album that was all about what we're thankful for. I took a nice photo of each family member, and had each person write down what they were thankful for on some journaling pages. 

Then, a full year later in 2010, I came back and posted HERE about how I hadn't done anything with the album all year, and how I was going to try and get it done by Thanksgiving (which was the next day). It's now two full years after that, and I never did finish the album. It's been sitting in a bag under my desk all this time. I can be pathetic, I know.

So when Kerri asked us to create some Thanksgiving or Christmas themed projects this month, I decided to take the general idea that I had started with for that album … a photo of each person and their handwritten page … and incorporate them into a two page spread. While the idea of putting out a mini album at Thanksgiving for everyone to look back on sounds lovely, the realistic side of me knew that I would be better off just getting it done and in my album, otherwise it would never get done.

I started by printing out all of the photos 2"x3", and trimmed them all up, leaving a small white border around the edges. I adhered them in three rows, tucking the bottom edges slightly under the patterned paper strip below. Then I machine stitched across the rows, below the photos.

I am IN LOVE with all of the handwritten words that Kerri is working into her new kits! I used a few words from her Giving Thanks kit on my layout. I cut all of my words from white cardstock, and then either the brown or blue cardstock. I thought just a tiny amount of white showing from behind the words would tie in with the white borders around my photos.

I never seem to keep track of the dots to any i's in my cuts. I have gotten to where I don't even attempt to keep the dots anymore, as I will just dot them with a brad or something. I just now, as I'm typing this post and looking at this photo, realizing that I never went back to dot any of my i's. And I highly doubt that I will remember to do it after I finish this post 😉

The leaves are from the This & That: Autumn [Just Shapes] kit. My patterned papers are mostly from Little Yellow Bicycle, with a little bit of Fancy Pants and Bo Bunny mixed in (I just didn't have time to link up products for this layout, but if there's something you want to know about, just ask me and I'll help you out finding it). I made three sets of these three different leaf designs, sizing each leaf in varying sizes. I just eyeballed them, since I didn't have a set plan for them when I did my cutting. I cut them from three different patterned papers, and also from white cardstock for layering.

I knew that I wanted to include the journaling pages, where each family member wrote what they were thankful for that year. I figured an envelope was the most logical way to include those on the page. The nice think about tucking them away in the envelope was that I didn't have to worry about the journaling pages clashing with the papers I chose for my layout.

I chose an envelope from the Signed.Sealed.Delivered kit, and sized it to fit the journaling pages. I was a bit limited in the size I could cut the envelope, since I have the Silhouette SD, and can only cut about eight inches wide. Luckily, when I went as big as would fit on my cutting mat, it was just large enough to hold my pages inside. It's times like this when I really, really, really wish the Cameo was in my budget.

I had all of the handwritten journaling pages adhered within the mini album that I had started. So I had to go through and tear them off. Luckily, the adhesive wasn't super, so they came off very easily. Unfortunately, there is still adhesive on the back of these pages that can be removed, if I had the desire to spend a TON of time doing it. I will probably just put them back to back to make my life easier, even if they do sort of stick to each other.

I had planned on machine stitching down the centers of each leaf. However, I was finishing up this layout while the daycare kids napped, and the machine was making way too much noise (I was doing it in the kitchen). So I just adhered them all with pop dots and added some matching threaded buttons to a few of the leaves.

In fact, as I'm typing this and looking at the above photo, I can even see a stray piece of scrap string. Geez. What's even funnier to me, is that I'm sitting on the couch in the family room typing this blog post, and on the couch opposite me, there is a piece of string stuck to the arm of the couch that looks exactly that same size. I'm not even sure why I haven't picked it off. It's just there for me to keep noticing. Lol.

Don't forget about Kerri's sale going on right now. Place an order over $20, and you can get 25% off by using the code above. This sale goes through Sunday.