Laura Vegas

Scrapbooking And A Little Bit Of Everyday Life

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Kerri Bradford Studio: Best Part Of The Routine

August 3, 2018

It's time to celebrate! Kerri Bradford Studio is celebrating it's 8th birthday! That's right, Kerri has been offering her awesome kits, stamps, and classes for eight years now. And we're celebrating all week long over on her blog. There's a big sale, of course. On purchases of $10 or more, you can save 30% on downloads and classes using the coupon CELEBRATE8. You can also save 15% on stamps–discount already applied. There are a few exclusions to the sale, like the July stamps that just came out. Yep, you read that right – there are two new stamp sets that Kerri released this past Monday.

Kerri suggested that we work with a few sketches this month. Those of us on the design team, along with some special guest designers, will be sharing layouts based off of these sketches. I love having a sketch as a starting point when working on layouts, as it helps take some of the thinking out of the equation for me. Sketches give you guidelines for where to put your photos, title, journaling, and even some extras like embellishments and papers – but they also give you the freedom to tweak the sketches to fit your needs as you start to work on your pages. I didn't set out to create as many layouts as I did, but I was so inspired that I just went with it, and ended up creating five 6×8" spreads for my personal album, which I'll be sharing over the next few days.

For this 6×8" spread, I used sketch #1 and I stuck pretty much to the sketch as it was presented. I almost always take a quick photo at the salon when I go to get my hair cut. It's such a cute little salon, and one of the only things that I do to pamper myself. I thought a few of those photos would tie in nicely with a few photos I had taken of my favorite hair products, as well as what I use to color my hair.

I recently picked up a few new embossing folders from Joann's (they're from their new store brand, Park Lane), so I used one of those on a piece of white cardstock, before adhering along the top of the page. I added a die cut title, using Kerri's Life Additions #2 kit, along the top of the left page.

I used a full 6×8" photo on the right page of the spread, and created a small photo collage of 6 photos (using a template from the Snapshots #3 kit) to add to the left page of the spread. I used a few patterned papers on this first page from Kerri's Plan It Fundamentals kit, printing them on white cardstock.

I also printed a few labels from that same kit. I added one of the printed labels to the right side of my 6×8" photo, and embellished it with a stamped image (from the Thankful stamp set), and a puffy heart sticker. The second label was added to the first page, to help complete my title.

I'll be back to share another layout tomorrow. In the meantime, make sure to stop by Kerri's blog to check out all of the other fun stuff and projects that are being shared this week!
Jillibean Soup: Everything Is Going To Be Ok Card

July 25, 2018

Hey all! I have a new Jillibean Soup card to quickly share with you today. And I say "quickly", because I feel like I'm drowning in scrapbooking projects/assignments these last few weeks and I'm having a hard time keeping up with things. Luckily, my cards are pretty straight forwards, so they don't need much explanation 😉

There's a patterned paper in the Farmhouse Stew collection that has all these fun quotes and saying on "letterboards". I knew right away that I would be cutting into that patterned paper to use these individually. They'll work great on layouts, but my first plan was to use one on a card.

I picked out two coordinating patterned papers to create the base of my card, and matted the cut out quote on a piece of brown cardstock. I stamped some flowers, using the Bowl Of Dreams clear stamp set, and arranged those behind the cut out quote. Easy peasy.

Now back to juggling all of the stuff that landed on my plate this week 😉
Jillibean Soup: Broken

July 19, 2018

Hey all! I have a new Jillibean Soup layout to share with you today. I was wanting to use the Shades of Color collection for a layout, trying to keep with the "crafty" theme of the collection.

When I saw the "life is about using the whole box of crayons" card, from the Bite Size Bits patterned paper, it reminded me a story worth documenting.

This here little girlie, Emelyn, is such a funny girl. She's full of spunk and sass, and I just love her. She's not a regular here at my little daycare anymore, as she moved on to part-time preschool – but I'm fortunate to have her baby brother here, so I still get to see her all the time.

Her mom had shared a cute little story on an Instagram photo a while back, about how Emelyn told her to throw away the white crayon because "it's broken". Meaning white crayons don't work on white paper, right 😉 She's such a smart girl!

A few weeks later, she was here with me for the day, and wanted to color. I was in the other room, and she walked past me, right to the garbage. Where she proceeded to toss not only my white crayons away, but my peach ones as well. Lol. And she told me "Laura, I'm throwing these away because they're broken". Well, alrighty. The funny thing was that a few weeks later, I had a few of the older girls here, and they were coloring. And then I heard "do you have a white crayon?". I had to break it to them that Emelyn had thrown them away.

To create my title, I started with the word "broken", using the die cut alphas from the Shades of Color collection. I then used a mix of colored alpha stickers to create the rest of my title.

I wanted to use the patterned paper that has all of the color samples on it (sort of like paint chips), but it took me quite a while to figure out how to incorporate them into my page design. I kept playing around with a full strip of them, trying to use it as a border somewhere on the page.

I finally cut them up into individual pieces, and used them to embellish a few empty areas on my page. I created this after my sewing machine died, and before I had gotten my new one up and running. Otherwise, I would have added machine stitching to finish off the page.
Jillibean Soup: Thanks & Hugs Cards

July 16, 2018

Hey all! I have two new Jillibean Soup cards to share with you today. And yes, I do realize that I've made quite a few cards lately 😉

So, I started these cards with a totally different idea of what they would look like. See that paper along the top of the card, with the three colors? That's half of a 3×4" card that I cut out of the Bite Size Bits patterned paper in the Shades of Color collection. The other half of the card has the three colors on my second card.

My thinking was to have that 3×4" card in the center of my card, and all around the card I would have these stamped and fussy cut flowers from patterned papers that matched the colors on the card. I picked out all of the patterned papers that I wanted to create my flowers with, pulling papers from several different collections, and used the Flower-Bloom stamp set to stamp a flower on each paper.

But after fussing cutting out all of my flowers, and playing around with my original idea, I realized it wasn't going to work the way that I wanted. Which turned out to be totally fine, since I like the new idea I came up with much better.

I decided to cut the 3×4" card in half, and use three colors for one card and create a second card with the other three colors. I always like when I can create two cards at once, so that was a happy bonus.

I adhered the halved card to the top of each of my cards, after spritzing on a little bit of black ink to the white card base. I then adhered my flowers along the bottom of the halved card.

I decided to add a little easy texture to my flowers before I adhered them. I simply crumbled them up and then flattened them back out. Not all the way out, but enough that I could adhere them with a few glue dots on the back of each flower. I also added a small wood veneer flower to the center of each.

For my sentiments, I combined a script word sticker ("thanks" and "hugs") with a stamped "from me to you" (using the Souper Celebration stamp set).
Doodlebug Designs: Quick & Simple Cards

July 13, 2018

Hey everyone! I'm back to share a few more projects I created as the recent guest designer for Doodlebug Designs. There are so many cute die cuts in the Odds & Ends package, and I just knew they would make for some fun quick and simple cards.

I started by pulling out some of the larger die cuts – the house, the typewriter, a phone, bouquet of flowers, vase of of flowers, a bike, and a scooter.

I then matched each die cut up with a sentiment from the Chit Chat die cuts.

I had intentions of using a few of the Doodle-Pops stickers, which are their 3 dimensional stickers, on a few of these cards. I had the house and the typewriter set out – they look exactly like the die cuts, but in 3D. But I got so busy assembly-lining these cards, that I forgot to switch these out to the Doodle-Pop stickers instead.

I then set to work picking out two coordinating patterned papers for each card. For a few cards, I added a smaller piece of patterned paper along the bottom of the card, and a larger pieces along the top of the card, with a strip of white cardstock between the two to hold the sentiment.

For a few cards, I started with a larger piece of white cardstock to hold my die cut and sentiment, and then matted that piece onto two different patterned papers.

I added a little machine stitching to each card, and adhered all of the die cut pieces with thin pop dots for a little dimension.

For these two horizontal cards, I separated my patterned paper pieces with a scallop edged piece of white cardstock, created with my favorite border punch.

Once I had my die cuts, sentiment pieces, and patterned paper pieces all picked out, these took me no time at all to assemble.

I still have quite a few pieces left that I want to use on some additional cards. I love that I've got a super cute batch of cards in my stash, ready to send out at a moment's notice.

I'd like to thank Doodlebug Designs for having me along to guest design this month. It was a true pleasure to play with one of your newest collections and I had so much fun creating these projects!
Kerri Bradford Studio: Thank You Cards

July 11, 2018

Hey everyone! I have a few new cards up at Kerri Bradford Studio today. I realized a while ago, that with all of the handmade cards that I have made over the last year or so, I don't seem to have any "thank you" cards. I thought it might be a good idea to create a few, so that when I have someone that deserves a special "thank you", I'll have cards ready to go.

I picked two different designs to use for the backgrounds on my cards – a circle design from the Background Basics #2 kit, and a leaf design from the new Leaves kit.

I die cut each one several times from white cardstock, as I planned to layer them over patterned paper.

For the leaves design, I also took the time to remove all of the inside cut lines from each leaf, so that I could have a solid piece to layer behind the intricate design.

After assembling the base of my cards, using patterned paper, and the die cut backgrounds, I adhered a die cut "thanks" to each card.

I used two different "thanks" designs, both cut from black cardstock – one from the Hey Mama kit, and one from the Design Team Picks kit.

For my patterned papers, I turned to my 6×6" paper pads. I love using these smaller papers for cards, as the designs are usually scaled down for smaller projects.

I used a mix of Studio Calico and Amy Tangerine patterned papers for these cards.

As always, I like to keep my cards fairly flat in design, to make them easier to mail. I don't tend to add many embellishments to simple cards like these, as I think they're just fine on their own.

These cards were quick and easy to create (other than waiting for my Silhouette Cameo to finish cutting these intricate designs), but full of texture and interest at the same time.
Doodlebug Designs: Hello Sunshine

July 10, 2018

Hey everyone! I'm back to share another layout I created as the recent guest designer for Doodlebug Designs. I love a good girl themed collection, as I have not only two girls of my own, but a ton of adorable little girls that I've had the pleasure of watching over the years as a home daycare provider.

I have a few favorite photos of one girl in particular that I've been wanting to use on a layout, and the Hello collection was perfect for doing just that. I printed my photos as 3×3's and 3×4's, and set out to create a grid of photos and patterned paper along the outside edges of the page.

I wanted to use up 3" of space along the outside edges, so I made sure to keep my two 3×4" photos on either the right of the left sides of the page. I worked the two 3×3" photos along the top and bottom of the page.

This left me with a 6×6" area in the center of the page for my title and journaling. I matted my 6×6" piece of white cardstock with a navy blue patterned paper and then added a scalloped border around the outside edges using my favorite border punch.

I wanted to work "sunshine" into my title, as our nickname for Alora was "Miss Sunshine". I used my Silhouette to die cut the word "sunshine" from a yellow grid patterned paper, and added a die cut "hello" from the Chit Chat package.

I added some cute die cuts and word/phrase stickers to a few of the patterned paper blocks, using pop dots for a little dimension.

I created a bunch of cards with the Hello collection as well, and I'll be sharing those later this week!
Doodlebug Designs: Sweet Girls

July 9, 2018

Hey all! I was thrilled to be asked to guest design for Doodlebug Designs this month.I'll be sharing my projects with you here this week. First up, a new layout! As soon as I saw the Hello collection, I feel in love with it! The colors are so bright and colorful, and they are all colors that I love to work with. I knew right away that this collection would be perfect for documenting a favorite photo of my girls and I, taken back on Mother's Day 2017.

I was originally going to create a 6×8" pocket page spread, so I had printed my photo as a 6×8". Somewhere along the way, I switched over to a traditional layout. I trimmed a little bit off either side of my photo, to give me a smidge more room for my title.

There are so many great flower die cuts in the Odds & Ends package, and I thought it would be fun to create a floral border going from the top of the page to the bottom. I started by adhering my photo and a few pieces of patterned paper on the right side of the page, and then started arranging the flower die cuts alongside, tucking them under the edge of the photo and patterned paper.

I combined one of the Chit Chat word die cuts ("sweet") with a word cut using my Silhouette machine for my title.

I pulled out one of the banner die cut pieces to use, and decided to create a few more banner pieces from patterned paper to add across the top of the page. I traced the die cut banner onto my patterned papers and cut them out by hand.

In the bottom left corner, I added the yellow "you make me so happy" sticker, and added a few additional die cut flowers.

I used to print my journaling strips on plain white cardstock, but I found that when I was adhering those journaling strips on white cardstock, it didn't quite match. So I tend to print my journaling on the same textured cardstock that I use for the base of my pages now.

I'll be back in the next day or two to share another fun Doodlebug layout with you.
Jillibean Soup: Hello College

June 28, 2018

Hey everyone! I had a new layout up on the Jillibean Soup blog last week and wanted to share it with you all today. When I sit down to create my layouts each month, I try and look for any photos that are an easy match – whether to the theme of the collections/papers, or to the colors. These photos of Sarah, visiting the college she would later decide to attend, were a match in both ways.

I pulled a few of my patterned paper from other collections, but most of what's on this layout is from the 2 Cool For School collection. At first glance, this collection is boy themed, but it can most definitely work for girl layouts as well.

I was originally going to fussy cut a few of the banner flags out of a sheet of patterned paper, until I realized there were a few in the Pea Pod Parts die cut package. I had some small scraps of the brown woodgrain patterned paper, so I used a few thin strips to go along with the banner flags.

Anyone that knows me knows that I love to use die cut backgrounds, and I love to create that white-on-white effect when using them. I have a few of Jillibean's backgrounds cut from white cardstock already, so that I can cut off pieces as needed for layouts and/or cards.

I cut out the "best ever" circle off of one of the 3×4" journaling card on the Bite Size Bits patterned paper and adhered it in the upper corner, trimming off the excess that hung over the edges of the page.

I used one of Jillibean's alphabet cut files, found in the Silhouette store, to die cut the word "college" from both patterned paper and navy blue cardstock. I used some corrugated alphas for the other half of my title, using a smiling emoji in place of the "o" in "hello".

I used the computer monitor stamp, from the Computer stamp & die set (intended for use with their shaker cards), and stamped it with black ink onto a scrap of aqua dotted patterned paper before die cutting it. I backed it with a scrap of ruled patterned paper and added the "class of 2021" with tiny alpha and number stickers.

This page design is one that I've used often, and is perfect for those times when you have several 4-5 photos that you want to include. I love to add three 3×4's or 4×4's down the left side of the page, and then add another photo or two across the page. Then I just add strips of patterned paper and journaling above and/or below those photos in the center, adding my title along the top of the page. Easy peasy.
Jillibean Soup: Congrats On Your Special Day Card

June 25, 2018

Hey everyone! I've got a new card up on the Jillibean Soup blog today. I'm sure you've seen all of the super fun shaker cards that Jillibean has to offer. A wide variety of card bases, shaker inserts, stamps, dies, and fillers. I had every intention of trying my hand at one of these shaker cards when I started creating my projects for this month, but time got away from me with SOOOOO much going on in May.

So I decided to keep things a little simpler for this card. I used one of the shaker card bases, but not in the way it was meant for. I realized that the card with the large circle cut-out was perfect for using along with their felt flowers from the Mix The Media collection.

These felt flowers are just gorgeous. While this may be too bulky for mailing out to someone special, it works just fine if you're seeing that loved one in person. Which I was, as I created this for one Amanda – who was one of my very first daycare kiddos forever and ever ago, and who graduated from high school a few weeks ago.

I added a piece of patterned paper from the 2 Cool For School collection to the front of the card, after cutting a circle out to match up with the cut out circle on the front of the card. I then used the Flower Bloom stamp and die set to create my sentiment and stapled it under the cut out circle.

The card base is more of a cream color, and I had stamped my sentiment on white cardstock. To make the inside of the card match with that, I simply adhered a piece of white cardstock to the inside of the card. I then picked out one of the yellow felt flowers and adhered it to the inside, positioning it so that it peeks out from the circle cut out on the front of the card.