Laura Vegas

july scrapbook trends and cards

August 2, 2009

i try not to make a big deal about when i'm published. i don't want to come off like i'm bragging on myself or anything. lol! but i think most of you know me better than that. i have to say though, july was a pretty big month for me in a few of the magazines. first off, it was my first time being published in creating keepsakes. which then sort of randomly, led to having my studio featured in the august issue. and then there were these.

in the july issue of cards magazine, i was featured as the "designer of the month". i was actually approached for this opportunity last november, over 7 months ago. i was totally honored to be asked. i got to create 3 cards of my choosing, and do the write-up of my bio, info, and tips.

in the july issue of scrapbook trends magazine, i was chosen for the "award winning style" section at the front of the magazine. i had already sent some layouts in for that issue, and they choose one of those to feature. i got to write up the meaning and reason for creating my layout, and also type up 5 fun facts about myself.

i also had some additional layouts and cards in each issue. since i had fun putting together a cool collage of peeks last week, i thought i'd create this one to show you the projects in the july issues. you might recognize some of these little peeks, since some of these projects were shared on my blog at some point. but some of these are new projects. i can't officially share them (or put them back on my blog) until the issues have been out for a while. but here's a peek at my 9 projects in there. and i have to thank my good friend carla for taking the photos of the magazines for me. i havn't actually seen these in print yet 😉
another ADORNit layout

August 1, 2009

wanted to share another layout i did with the ADORNit products. the nancy jane collection really stood out to me and i couldn't wait to use it. the patterns are so cute, and i just love the colors.

i started putting this layout together without a photo in mind. i just knew that there would be a 5×7 photo when i was done. i have a stash of 5×7's that i've had printed here and there, of some of my favorite photos. just to have handy. this one of sarah ended up matching perfectly. granted, i have scrapped this photo a few times already. but i couldn't resist. it's seriously my all-time favorite photo of her. just so cute!

i got my swiss dot embossing folder out again. i think since i put my cuttlebug on the bottom shelf, i have forgotten about it. lol! the puffy letters are making memories. i had some empty space at the top that needed something, so i cut a little strip of pattern paper and added these little flowers. i had these from a kit club thing from years ago.

all the pattern papers, ribbon, and stickers are from ADORNit. and i have to say, that i have missed scrapping like this a little. all the little touches that i think i've gotten lazy about and not used as much. it's not much, just the metal rimmed tag, the little strips with the stapled flowers, just little things. i really like how this turned out.

they're still sharing lots of ideas over on their blog party, so make sure and pop over there to check it out.

supplies –
pattern paper – ADORNit
ribbon – ADORNit
stickers – ADORNit
metal rim tag – making memories
brad – making memories
letter stickers – making memories
other – flowers, staples
ADORNit blog hop

July 30, 2009

hey everyone! welcome to the ADORNit blog hop. if you are starting here at my blog, make sure and go check out the beginning of the blog hop HERE and then hop all the way through. it's an impressive list of designers. there's a lot of great projects to see along the way. and "hopping" is just plain fun anyways. you more than likely will find great blogs and designers that you might not have known about 😉

so if you are new here and have no idea who i am, i'm laura vegas. i'm from california, where i live with my husband joe, and our daughters alyssa and sarah. i work full-time in our home as a daycare provider. so i also have a lot of other kiddos to photograph and scrap. convenient, i know. lol! i've been scrapping for over 14 years now and still love it just as much as the day i started. i love that i can get our memories down on layouts and in albums, and that my girls will never have to question what we did or how i felt about them. i love it for the creative release, and being able to play with paper and glue. i also love that i can share my projects and thoughts through this little blog of mine, and for all the great friendships i've made because of it.

here is the layout i made for the "summer favorites" theme.

excuse the poor lighting. i was in competition with the sun, and it set before i could finish this layout. lol! i thought this collection was so cute. and it made me think about the photos i have of joe BBQ'ing it up in the backyard. what is summer without a BBQ after all. they say that almost all men can BBQ and make breakfast, that's the 2 meals they can make. i've heard that said a lot, i think by rachael ray to be honest. lol! anyways, it's true with joe. those are the 2 meals he likes to cook.

and since the journaling is blurry in the photo above, here's another shot at it. that's honestly my one complaint about his BBQ'ing. that he insists on cooking everything on low heat. and he cooks it forever, as if the meat wasn't dead to begin with. lol! when i take over the BBQ, i crank that thing on high and just get it done.

and had to share a funny story about these ants. my studio is upstairs, but i'm downstairs all day with the daycare kids. so i bring projects downstairs to work on, if i have a few minutes here or there. and i am known to discuss my paper options and design ideas with the little ones. usually when they're eating lunch. they're trapped in booster seats at the kitchen island, so they have no choice but to listen to me. lol! i was showing off how cute the paper and ribbons were, with the ants on them. even though i detest ants, and am actually in a war with them in my backyard as i type this. lol! but nikolas and haley were all excited about the ants. and they insisted on having their own ants to carry around. i cut them both off a piece of the pattern paper to have. and they would walk around saying "ants, ants", and then would stomp on the paper to smush them. it was pretty funny 🙂

i do have 2 more ADORNit layouts to share. just didn't get them done in time tonight. so stay tuned for those this weekend. i hope you have enjoyed my stop on the blog hop. from here, the next stop up is whimsical ink sorority. enjoy!
making memories at CHA

July 30, 2009

i'm still awaiting the official go-ahead to post these. just a disclaimer, in case they disappear later and you'll know i'm in trouble. lol! but i've been dying to share these. i've been watching the photos and projects being shared on the making memories blog for the past few days. i was surprised and very happy when i saw these 3 layouts of mine show up in THIS post, highlighting projects that use the slice. they're 3 of my favorite ever layouts that i've created for making memories.

i actually created these layouts months ago, for a special assignment. it was the first time i got to play with the slice embossing tips. they also sent me the new vellum papers and metallic papers to use, which are perfect for using the embossing tips on.

photo curtousy of megan cristello. love that she lets me scrap her gorgeous kids from time to time! this is her daughter sayler, isn't she adorable!

how cute are the embossed butterflies! i just tied some coordinating embroidery thread around them, attatched coordinating stick pins, and adhered them using 3-d glue dots. the only thing that could have made this better, was if i had purple stick pins 😉 and you can see on the actual layout, i added the metallic silver "flirty" behind this green metallic one. that was a last minute addition, so it's not in this detail shot.

for this layout, i was using the new shadow option on the slice. yes, they have added this new feature to the new design cards called "MS+". it's a mirroring, shadowing, plus speed upgrade. it's on the new design cards, but it will also automatically install this feature onto your slice the first time you use one of these new cards. and it stays installed, so it will give you a ton more option with the design cards you already have. technology sure is amazing, isn't it? you can read more about it HERE, and also see a ton of the new design cards.

i am in love with the fact that you can cut shadow shapes now. especially for titles. i always want the extra dimensional look to my titles, and this has such a cool look.

make sure and spend some time over on the making memories blog, checking out everything they've posted the last few days. lots of new stuff going on. halloween product, christmas product, design shop embellishments, vintage findings product, new slice product, and more. and tons of giveaways too. hope you've been trying for those too 🙂
jillibean soup at CHA

July 29, 2009

CHA started yesterday and it's been fun seeing the photos and products pop up all over. one of these years, i would love to actually attend. have to by happy with looking online for now. anyways, wanted to share some jillibean soup stuff today. they posted some more photos of the booth on the jillibean soup blog.

first off, how cute is their booth (pictures borrowed from the JB blog)! and here is jill (the owner of JB) and kimber (our design team coordinator), the main girls behind jillibean soup. love all they do for us. and for letting me play with their super fun products!

they have some more photos of the booth on their blog. but i had to share this one, since that's my girl up there 😉

i was assigned the new soup staples collection. which is right up my alley. just love the colors of these papers. and found this favorite photo of alyssa that went so well with it. for the record, this was my first ever 8.5×11 layout. i have been scrapping for 14 years now, and have never tried that size. kind of liked it. lol!

and a few cards, both of which have one of the new stamped sentiments on them. so make sure to check out the new products. and i'm sure they'll be adding more photos and samples over on the blog soon 🙂

btw, if you want to see more jillibean soup peeks, i found THESE.
green tangerines winner

July 28, 2009

thanks to everyone for their great comments. appreciate it! hope you all checked out the green tangerines kit club, because they have some great stuff put together. i'm posting this super quick after the cutoff time, since we're heading out to soccer practice. and now for the winner that the random number generator picked for me.

Wow, I love all of your layouts! I am so stealing the googly eyes idea — my kids will love it. Thanks!

Posted by: Karen | July 28, 2009 at 02:35 PM

congrats karen! please email your info over to kitclub@mygreentangerines.com, since they'll be sending the kit directly to you. thanks to everyone for playing along!
green tangerines kit club

July 27, 2009

have you heard about the new green tangerines kit club? this is actually a LSS that is about an hour or so from me, although i have yet to get out that way to check them out. they recently started a new kit club, and have been having a huge blog party for the past two months. they asked me to be one of their guest designers for the party, and of course i said "yes". i'm all for a good kit club. and trust me, this one is good! there was so much product in there, and all fabulous stuff that coordinated so nicely together. for anyone that is interested, all these projects were made using the january kit and it is still available for purchase.

this monster paper was so adorable. and i was planning on using it for a layout about nikolas. but i also had this photo of sarah and alyssa laying around that i wanted to use with the kit. it was just screaming to be used with this paper. the colors were all perfect. the girls were obviously very bothered that i would imply that they were monsters. lol! but i told them that i would make it cute, and i think i did. and i had to add some googley eyes to the paper too. if you can't read it, the journaling says "they spend half of their time fighting and being monsters to each other. and half of their time being friends and loving each other".

i have two favorite parts of this kit. the first was the october afternoon papers. because i've seen a lot of great things with them, but have never actually had any of their papers to play with. lol! and the second favorite part was the thickers. i love me some thickers. and this kit had 2 sets. i can't believe the mileage i got out of the packs, and i still have a TON left. i wanted the raw chipboard ones to be colored for this layout, and i was going to paint them. then it dawned on me that i could color them using my ink pads. i'm sure this is a fairly old technique. but it was the first time i've tried it. i just stuck the back of the thicker letter to my finger and pushed it down on the ink pad a few times. then stuck it right on the layout. super simple.

i wanted to use up a bunch of number chipboard pieces, and came up with this title for a recent photo of nikolas. i never seem to use numbers, and this let me use quite a few. i painted the raw chipboard with orange paint. any idea how hard it was to find an orange that even semi-matched? lol! the black letters are the foam thickers. if you can't read it, the journaling says "yes, there are really 2,749,358 reasons that we love and adore nikolas. we are to lucky to have him in our lives".

i've had these photos of the girls (along with amanda and ashlen) for 2 years now. this kit gave me the perfect chance to scrap them. this was from their first day of school in july 2007, when we were year round schooling here.

i was totally fine with this layout, and now i'm not sure. it looks sort of blank, like i forgot to add the embellishments. lol! at the same time, i love how simple it looks. i'm still debating. might toss some buttons on there or something. just had this photo of the girls and grammie from bible day camp a few weeks ago, and it matched the papers.

and a quick card using some ribbon scraps. i had all these little strips of ribbon left over. i didn't want to throw them away, but i also didn't want them to get lost in some big ribbon jar. so i just adhered strips along this card, and a flower, brad, and rubon sentiment from my own stash.

here's the best part of their blog party. they are giving away over $1000 worth of free scrapbooking products during the event. and you have a chance to get in on that. leave me a comment here on this post, and one lucky winner will get a free kit that contains over $50 worth of scrapbooking greatness! and also make sure and head over to the green tangerines kit club blog and leave them a comment (under the post with my photo), where you'll have a second chance at winning a free kit. comments must be posted by 5:00pm PST on tuesday (tomorrow!) to be eligible to win. and then we'll both be randomly picking a winner shortly after that.

comments now closed. i said 5:00 and it's 5:05. sorry to be so prompt for once, but we're headed out to soccer practice. lol!
proof that i’ve been scrapping

July 26, 2009

one of the hard parts about scrapping assignments and projects months in advance, is that it all stays secret for quite some time. it's hard to sit on projects and not share them. and you all might start to think i havn't been scrapping all that much. lol! just for fun, i thought i'd take some of those projects and put together my own little sneek peek.

looks kind of cool, right? so many different things. a lot of them are for CHA, which is this week. so some of those might make an appearance soon. and a few of these are projects that will be shared tomorrow night, along with some others i havn't photographed yet. i have something cool coming tomorrow night at 7:00pm. yep, scheduled and everything. lol! 4 layouts and a card. so just be patient and know that i'll share when i can 🙂
i {HEART} hero arts blog hop

July 24, 2009

when ashley told me she was putting together the i {HEART} hero arts blog hop, i had to join in. she wanted to do this to show our appreciation for hero arts being such a generous and awesome manufacturer, and i couldn't agree with her more.

my hero arts story? i really came to know about hero arts stamps from the very talented jennifer mcquire. i've been a huge fan of her work for years and years, and she always rocked the hero arts stamps. i was never really a stamper at all. just not something i had tried much. until one day, jennifer herself asked me if i'd be interested in playing with some of their stamps. hello? of course i would! i'd probably do anything she asked me to do, in all honesty. lol! since getting that first little box of hero arts stamps, i have been learning and working on my stamping abilities :)

why i {HEART} hero arts? i love hero arts for their great quality stamps. so many awesome designs, it's hard to choose sometimes. i love their blog, which is filled to the brim with ideas on a daily basis. and not just one idea, but a TON every day. love their designers, such talent amoung them. i love them for their great customer service. and also their extreme generousity. they're the reason why i have these amazing stamps to design with and have fun with. i totally thank them for it!

supplies –
pattern paper – making memories
buttons – autumn leaves
jute – jillibean soup
brads – making memories
embossing powder – tim holtz by ranger
stamps - hero arts (screen shadow, butterfly, sentiment)
peek inside the slice inspirations box

July 23, 2009

over a year ago, i was asked to be a part of the book team for the newest making memories project. these projects were all about the slice. and this is what came out of that team project, the slice inspirations box.

i got permission to share a project or two with you. but you'll have to get one of your own to see all the other great projects, from me and the other talented designers ;)

this was one of my layouts that i had created, and the one that ended up in the box. this is my gorgeous neighbor girlie, ayana. i had originally started this entire design with the christmas collection. but the darker colors weren't working for me, and i just couldn't seem to finish it. so i started the entire layout again, but with lighter and brighter papers. these photos of ayana matched perfectly.

i had the basic shapes 1 design card to work with. which was right up my alley, since i'm a basic kind of girl. lol! i used the slice to cut out the circles in the orange pattern paper. i had adhered the printed acetate paper onto my white cardstock background, and then adhered the entire orange pattern paper over it using large pop dots. added a ton of dimension to the layout.

now i know that the basic shapes 2 design card has butterfly shapes on it. but i didn't have that card. lol! so i used the heart shapes to make my butterflies. i cut the hearts from the glitter paper and some white cardstock. on the cardstock pieces, i heat embossed them with a glittery clear embossing powder to give them some shine and sparkle. i pieced all the hearts together to make a buttefly, and then added some buttons to the centers with some pins for the antenee. the scallop circles were also cut with the slice, and layered with the circles i had cut from the metallic paper (and embossed with the cuttlebug).

supplies –
all supplies are making memories, except the pearl accents on the flowers (which are hero arts)

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