Laura Vegas

Hey everyone! Has it really been almost a month since I've blogged anything? Oh my. I feel like I had a ton to share at the beginning of August, all at once. And it just so happen that all of the layouts I created for Jillibean Soup for August ended up being scheduled at the end of the month. So I'm just now able to share them. And oddly enough, all of the layouts I created for September are scheduled for this week, so I'll be sharing lots of Jillibean Soup layouts over the next week or so 😉

Anyways, I've got a new layout to share that was up on the Jillibean Soup blog last week, so let's get to it.

A while back, my mom gave me a few old albums filled with my childhood photos. I was looking for a photo for a layout idea I had, and came across this photo of myself back when I was eleven years old. It gave me an idea for a totally different layout, and I printed out the other two photos right away.

And then the photos got pushed to the side, and I never got around to making that layout. But since I was asked to make a few summer themed layouts last month, it seemed like a good time to finally get these photos scrapped.

It took me a while to decide on a title. I usually start by looking to see if any of Jillibean's cut files catch my eye. Whether they work as a full title on their own, or if maybe a portion of the title/phrase will work – whether on it's own, or mixed with some die cut alphas or alpha stickers. 

For this layout, I thought the "every summer has a story" phrase would work well. I knew I could work my journaling, and what I wanted to say about these photos, off of that title. I die cut the title from patterned paper and cardstock.

Since the top part of my layout was white cardstock, I wanted to add a little texture and interest. I usually do this by adding a die cut background, cut from white cardstock as well. But I just happen to have a ton of white cardstock circles from one of my other layouts (they were the negative pieces from a circle background that I had cut), so I decided to use a bunch of those along the top of the page. 

I used an embossing folder, and ran them all thru my Cuttlebug. I don't always think to use my embossing folders as often as I should. I love the easy texture they add, with very little effort. 

I thought it would be cool to find photos of the girls, similar to the photo of myself – and taken around the same age that I was in my photo. I was eleven in my photo, and Sarah is eleven in her photo. Alyssa is actually ten in the photo I found of her, but it's close enough. 

I printed the photos as 3×3" pics, and arranged them across the page, adding small pieces of patterned paper below each photo as well. I was looking around for something to embellish those patterned paper pieces, and thought it would be fun to add the two digit year that each photo was taken. I probably should have added an apostrophe after the number, so that you know it's the year. And not just random numbers. Lol. 

Since the photos had different looks to them, and the photo of myself was a much older photo (that I scanned using my printer), I ended up changing the photos to black and white. This also allows you more freedom when it comes to picking out products, as you can use any colors you'd like. 

I actually started by picking out this 3×4" card from one of the Bite Size Bits patterned papers, and then picked out all of my other patterned papers based off the colors in the card. I also added a little puffy "love" sticker to the center of the larger flower on the card. I usually keep my embellishments pretty simple, so that little circle, and a few additional stickers at the top of the page were all I felt the layout needed. 

I'll try and get another layout posted on Thursday or Friday. Hope you're all having a great week!