Laura Vegas

have you seen the new vintage findings collection, from making memories? it's available at michaels stores right now. i did some sample layouts quite a while back with a few of the kits from this collection. i have to admit something. when i first got the product, i was a bit scared. i'm not a vintagey person at all. and yet, at the same time, i am very intriqued by it. i actually found it all very easy to work with. these samples ended up on the packaging of a few of the kits. which is really fun to see in person.

 

a 6×6 layout, made with the medium school kit. that is sarah, on her first day in the 1st grade. which was 4 years ago.  

   

 

another 6×6 page, made with the medium bienvenue kit. this is my cousin and his wife, a photo i took about 2 years ago. they havn't seen this yet either ;)

 

 

and i'm not totally positive if this layout is on any packaging. but it was done at the same time as the others, so i would think it would be. this is holly, my friend deneen's daughter (one of her four daughters actually). a photo i took of her a few years ago.

and a big "thanks" to my good friend carla, for tracking down these kits and picking them up for me. the michaels here doesn't have these in yet, and i was getting impatient to see them. lol! the collection is just gorgeous, so many great little tidbits to it. i've done a few other things that i'll share another day. i still find it a bit scary to pull out and use. but like i said, i'm finding it all very intriquing too. finding ways to work it into my own style!

this morning, at 5:20am, sarah turned 10 years old.

 

we had a pretty low-key, quiet day for her. the birthday party with her friends was 2 weeks ago. and we went to dinner for her birthday last night. joe, grammie, and papa were at a golf tournament all day today. so it was just the birthday girl, alyssa, and me. 

 

she passed up the movies, and instead we went out shopping and running all over town. sarah had birthday money and lots of gift cards to spend. alyssa found a few things too. we had jamba juice. came home and had lunch and did some laundry.

 

and then went back out to finish the shopping. then we dropped off alyssa at her dad's, and sarah got some more presents. including more gift cards. which means she is now convinced that we need to do MORE shopping 😉

 

then i remembered to take a few birthday pics. i have done the "show me how many fingers you are" photos with alyssa a few times. but always forgot with sarah. she even made me a note months ago, reminding me to do her 9-yr old pics. but we just kept forgetting and soon that note got lost. so i HAD to remember to do them this year. we waited a little too long, and didn't have much light to work in. but got a few that will work.

 

happy birthday sarah bear!!!

i keep calling this a vacation album. but we don't really go on vacations much. it's really more a "places we go" type album. now, i have done some mini albums for trips before. i did an 8×8 disneyland album a few years back. and an 8×8 album for one of our cabin trips. but i have to be honest … i really have no desire to scrap tons of layouts or albums about trips. not when we have 3 or 4 cabin trips … with basically the same photos (just everyone's a bit older). so i came up with this album idea at the beginning of the year. now this isn't the entire album … i just took pics of select pages to give you an idea of what i'm doing. click on any photo to see it a bit bigger.

 

i'm using the 12×12 MM passport album for this project. i have 3 of them, of which one and a half are filled. so i have room to grow! i'm using a mix of regular page protectors and the divided page protectors. i use the ones from WRMK. at the time, they only had the horizontal ones … but they recently came out with some vertical ones and also some mixed sizes. these are the ones HERE. i did just order some of the new ones … and was going to actually switch some of my photos in this album to the vertical pages. but then i got too confused. so i decided to just leave everything that's done already … and will mix those in for future pages.

 

these are my divider pages for each year. i just happen to have a ton of this road side die cut pattern paper (also from the MM passport collection). i thought it would be perfect for the divider pages. i just backed them with some kraft cardstock. and then used my foam stamps and brown paint to stamp the year on a white tag. i havn't used my foam stamps in ages … can you tell by how off i was in my placement?!?! i was going to redo them … and then decided to embrace the imperfection.

 

so here's my plan. i have the divided page protectors to hold all the photos. like i said, i really have no desire to scrap them all on layouts. and if i want too … i can always pull out photos later and scrap them if the mood hits. i didn't stress too much with the horizontal pages. even if my photos were vertical … they all just got slipped in. not a big deal to me. then i just used either 1 or 2 spots on each page to hold a 4×6 piece of pattern paper or cardstock. this can be for the title, some journaling, or just be decorative.

 

for most of these pages, i just grabbed all sorts of odds and ends from my stash. i did stick to a single paper collection for each "event" or "trip". i'm adding a few embellishments here and there … but keeping these really simple. you can see some journaling cards on here. i havn't really done any journaling yet. i was going too get that done before sharing … but figured it's taken me forever to share this anyways. didn't want to hold off any longer.

 

 

then if i happen to have any layouts that go with that trip … i just added those into the album along with the photos. like i said, i havn't really scrapped too many photos from these trips. but i do have a few that i found tucked away. and these photos are probably in the divided page protectors too. not sure if i'll pull those out and only have them in there once.

 

no idea what happend in 2006 … but i didn't have any photos that caught my eye from any trips. so on to 2007.

 

i had this layout for our trip to marine world. which is really called six flags discovery kingdom now. but i've always known it as "marine world" growing up. and i just now noticed that one of the chipboard 0's fell off and over to the side. see it?!?! i've found a lot of chipboard letters that don't stick anymore … have been going back to add my own adhesive to them. remind me to get that zero fixed 😉

 

and then i have the photos from that trip. i have 8 photos on the layout. but i had more … so into the divided page protectors they go.

 

on some of the vertical photos … i had cropped them to 3×4 and put 2 of them side by side on a 4×6 photo. that would allow for all the pics to be going the same way. and wouldn't require tilting the head so much while looking through the album. i was tempted to do this on some of the other trips … but it seemed like a lot of work in the end. plus, the earlier trips were from my film days … so that wouldn't work. but a good idea for future ones.

 

2008 has a lot of pages. be warned.

 

2 layouts i've done with some of the photos from our day out golfing. i know, they have some of the same photos. this happens. 2 layouts done for 2 different reasons.

 

and then the pics.

 

yeah, this would have been a good spread to use the vertical protectors on. and i started to switch them. but then realized that the photos on the back side would have to be going vertical too. and they weren't. so i kept it this way. i'm cool with it. still have to journal.

  

on to the girls disneyland trip with alyssa's dad last year. this here is a 6×12 page protector. i cut a piece of pattern paper to 6×12 … and then slipped in the park map and itineray. fun to mix this smaller page in there.

 

dug into the super old product here too. some disneyland rubon books that i've kept. knowing that one day, i would use some of them.

 

i worked in a lot of their memoribilia for this trip onto the pages. it was the "year of a million dreams" at disneyland last year. and they were lucky enough to score some special passes on 2 of the days they were there … allowing them special access to the rides and other things. those are pretty thick passes, and were on lanyards. so i took them off the lanyards and glue dotted them onto some of the pattern paper spots. i also included their park tickers, fastpass tickets, and some of their autopia drivers licences.

 

 

 

another cabin trip. sort of the same type of photos from the 2005 trip … we're all just 3 years older. and i actually have done a layout for this trip. it is a 12×12 single page layout, with 16 photos on it. i havn't shared it yet … because it will be in the july issue of scrapbook trends. but then i'll add that in to this album, right after the photos. 

 

 

i've been slowly working on pieces of this album over the past few months. a little here and a little there. and i LOVE it! sure, it could be done even simpler … just photos slipped in. but i think adding little pieces of paper or stickers makes it kind of cool looking. even though it's not technically layouts … it IS sort of like layouts when you get right down to it. but it makes the process so much faster than trying to scrap full albums from each trip or event. i've been using the divided page protectors a lot … on several different types of albums and projects. they're really helping me to get a lot done and organized.

so, was that worth the wait?!?! it wasn't too long though, right? i think i started mentioning this album at the beginning of the year. i have to say .. i feel so much better, having posted this finally. now if only i could finish the journaling 😉

i think i mentioned earlier in the week, that i was going to share a few big things this week. that never happened. typical of me. i like to promise things on my blog … and then forget all about them. lol! i'm working on them though … so they're coming soon. until then, i thought i would share a few of my jillibean soup projects from last month. these have all gone up on the jillibean soup blog in the last week or two. there's one more coming up later this week i think.

 

i actually did this layout for THIS challenge. i based this layout off a design by lisa storms. i thought the 4 photo layout would be perfect for a layout about family. and the 4 embellishments … keep the theme of "4" going.

 

this is a smaller card … i think it's 4×4 in size. love the journaling sprouts … perfect for cards. and can you believe it … it's a birthday card. the one kind of cards i never seem to make.

 

i promise to share more of my other project in the next day or two. i just got an order of fun divided page protectors in last night … so i was waiting for those to switch out some of the other ones i had in the album. since they were on their way … i figured i'd wait to share until it's all set up the correct way. really … i promise i'll be back 🙂

yes, it’s my birthday today … and here was my birthday song, sung by my favorite 4 kiddos!

my girls, alyssa and sarah. they’re the crazy ones … with wet hair because they had just taken a shower. and haley and nikolas … the little ones that were singing all morning and then got shy once the camera came out. nikolas refused to wear his shorts … and was copying haley. when she got on the floor … he followed and you can see him trying to cross his legs like haley was. and he’s singing “happy birthday to niko” … because his birthday is coming up in the next week. but aren’t they all so cute! 

if you got the making memories newsletter a few days ago, you might have seen this idea for a summer planner for kids.

 

i really love how this turned out. so much so, that i plan on making one for my girls to use. all products are from the new great escape collection … which is one of my new favori. and the album is so fun … with tab pages, page protectors, envelopes, and pockets mixed in. my thought was to have the calendar page for each month of the summer … where kids could write down their plans and what they had going on. then there's the journaling page … where they can journal about all the things they do. there's room for additional pages, where you could add photos or layouts. and then the envelopes and pockets could hold memorabilia from their activites. 

go check out the making memories blog for more photos of the pages, and instructions. you can find it all HERE. 

nikolas is pretty much surrounded with girls these days. he has 2 brothers at home (along with a sister). but here, it's all girls. but i think that can be a good thing. he's the sweetest little boy ever. definatley that "boy" side to him … when he's climbing all over and banging things around. but he is also a very calm, easy going boy. and for the most part, he is just perfect with the girls.

 

i took these 2 photos of nikolas and haley last week. they just love to play on the bricks by the fireplace … no idea why. haley will sit there with her baby and take care of her. nikolas is usually just running around … doing what he does best. he'll run by her or around her, and see what she's up too.

 

but last week, i overheard her say the cutest thing. she called out to nikolas, and said "niko, come sit by me and let's talk". and of course, nikolas responded with his famous "ok haley". and then he ran over and sat down right next to her. she was playing with her baby … and he was playing with his train. and they talked. about serious baby and train stuff 😉

then today, we had miranda come for a visit. her and nikolas have always gotten along so nicely. they just play really well together. and today was no exception. they played, they talked. and then … they shared a moment. click on any of these to see them bigger.

 

i actually have no idea what was going on here. i was laying on the floor taking photos of someone else … and the older girls told me i had to look up to these 2 kids. and i'm glad i did. because i caught this little series of photos. miranda was having a serious, quiet talk with nikolas … one that obviously required his full attention. she wanted to be sure that he was listening and paying attention to her. although look at his face … he's not totally looking at her. that look just makes me laugh. and yes, he had a haircut over the weekend … just noticed the big difference in the photos.

 

i'm not sure if she was delivering some bad news … or if she felt like he needed some comforting after their talk. but she then gave him a hug. such a gentle, careful hug. as if this rough and tough boy could even be broken. look at her little hands there on his back … as if patting him gently to tell him it's all going to be ok. and do you see his right hand there on the bottom? it's getting ready to reach out … and here is what came next.

 

i couldn't ask for a cuter photo! look at their faces. and the way he's leaning right into her hug … totally taking in the love. you'd think they were the only two in the room. when in fact, there were 7 of us right there. miranda, the loving comforter. and nikolas, just going with the flow and playing the part. and then the moment was over. because about 20 seconds later … he was screaming and running around again. lol! and about 20 seconds later … miranda proceeded to step on the little one i was actually photographing when this all went down.

 

it's another boy! this is miranda's new baby brother, aiden. isn't he adorable? yes, he is … the older girls told me so about 37 gazillion times today. lol! we get to hang out with these two cuties a little bit this summer. so now nikolas has another boy to keep him company 🙂

did you know that you can enjoy scrapbook trends magazine as a digital download? and cards magazine? and simply handmade and bead trends? northridge media has added an online option to their magazines and idea books recently. you can read more about the details HERE.

i'm all for holding the actual magazine in my hands and flipping through the pages. but this is a nice option to have. i spend a lot of time on the computer, so it's kind of nice to have a magazine i can browse through online. you can bookmark ideas you like, make notes, and print out pages that catch your eye. if you don't have a subscription, or if it's too pricey for you … the online edition might be the way to go for you. or if you can't always find the issues in stores near you. i know that around where i live, they're hard to come by. i get antsy when i have a project or two in the new issues … but i can't find them for weeks. the instant download is great, because it's instant. lol! i love the all-access pass … allowing you access to all the magazines for the month, for one low price. just $9.99, which is such a great deal for all 4 magazines. 

and to give you a chance to check out the quality, they are offering a free download of one of their most popular idea books. it'll give you a good taste of what it's all about. so make sure and check it out: mini albums 2008 download.   

thanks for all the sweet comments. i wish i had more of the slice inspirations boxes to give away. but since i have to pick just one of you … this is who the random number generator site told me to pick.