Laura Vegas

Jillibean Soup: Happiness Is Homemade

May 25, 2018

Hey all! I've got a new layout up over on the Jillibean Soup blog today. I was browsing thru all of the cut files that Jillibean has to offer in their Silhouette store, and came across this "happiness is homemade" title. I immediately thought about pairing it with some food photos that I've snapped over the last few months.

I sized my title to fit across the top of the page, and die cut it from red and green cardstock. I've always been a fan of mixed font titles, especially ones with a great cursive font for one part and a clean, simpler font for the other part.

I also used a circle background cut file from Jillibean, cut from white cardstock, to layer over the top part of the page which was also white cardstock. I always adhere my background pieces in place, and then add any mist spritzing that I want to do.

I picked out six food photos that coordinated well, and arranged them in a photo collage using a template from Kerri Bradford Studio's Snapshots #3 kit. I added a small green border to each side of the photo collage, using a scalloped border punch.

I had decided to use the File Cards to add my journaling to the right side of the page. I picked out three of the cards that coordinated, color wise, and debated on using my own handwriting (I'm so NOT a fan of it most of the time) or trying to computer print my journaling on them. Which I knew would take me forever to figure out and to get lined up right.

I then decided to just computer print my journaling on white cardstock, and then trim it down to fit on the file cards. This actually worked out well, since the main part of the file cards was a cream shade, and the white works better with my design.

Once I had my journaling added to each file card, I added a few mini staples to the sides of the cards before adhering them in place. I added some simple wood veneer flowers and adhesive sequins to embellish the right side of the page.

I've been working on some new layouts and cards for Jillibean Soup, so they'll be coming up over the next few weeks 🙂
Our College Graduate

May 22, 2018

Yep, we've got a college graduate in the house and we could not be more proud of her! Alyssa graduated a little over a week ago, and it's taken me this long to finally sort through all of the photos, edit them, and get a handful selected to share. We had photos on numerous cell phones, as well as two DSLR's, and it was very overwhelming getting them all organized.

Alyssa graduated from the University of the Pacific, a private university about 20 minutes away from us. She actually finished a semester early, so she's been done since last December. But she came back to walk with her class (she had the option to walk last May, with the 2017 class). She graduated magna cum laude from the Conservatory of Music, with a BA in Music Management and a minor in Business Management.

I have to say, Alyssa took full advantage of her college experience and made the most of her 3.5 years there. She was highly involved in so many different clubs and organizations, joined a music fraternity and a sorority, held on-campus jobs her entire 3.5 years, and still managed to successfully carry a PACKED schedule of classes. Being in the Conservatory is hard. Really hard. There were semesters where she had 10 different classes, and even though a few might have been 1 unit each, she would tell us how they were still treated like regular classes as far as the workload.

She took clarinet lessons most semesters and was a part of the wind ensemble, with concerts several times a year. She went to recitals and concerts for her fellow Conservatory musicians. She was a key part of the Arts & Entertainment team, helping put on all of the events on campus. I'm sure there's a ton more that she did that I'm missing. Basically, she took on all that she could take on, and she was pretty darn successful at all of it.

The college had their main commencement ceremony in the morning, where all of the students graduating from UOP were in attendance. Following the morning ceremony, the individual schools had their own diploma and hooding ceremonies. The colorful banners in the photo above are for the individual schools within the university. Alyssa was in the Conservatory of Music, which is the pink banner (the 3rd from the left).



My obligatory program photo. At just about every concert, play, ceremony, etc that I've attended during the girl's school years, I have always taken a quick program photo, with the stage in the background. It's just something I do.

It's hard to see, but this photo was taken as all of the students graduating from the Conservatory stood to be officially presented to the president of the university as having completed their requirements for graduating. They were way up in one of the front rows, and a fairly small group.

I have lots of family photos that I want to share, and also just want to have documented here on my blog. I couldn't narrow them down any more then I did 😉 I'll just add a quick caption here and there as needed.

Our beautiful graduate. Photo taken right after the morning ceremony.

Alyssa, Joe, and myself. A very proud mom and step-dad (who has been a part of her life since she was a year old).

Alyssa and her proud dad. I think it's safe to say that we are both so proud of her and all that she's accomplished.

Alyssa and her dads. I am very fortunate that her dad and I have a great relationship, and that Joe and Ken have a great relationship as well.

Alyssa and her grandpa on her dad's side. I only wish her grandma could have been here to see Alyssa graduate. She left us all too soon, but I know she's with her in spirit.

Alyssa, her dad, and her grandpa. And Alyssa and my parents. Aka, Grammy and Papa. And dad – I'm sorry I had to use the photo where you were looking elsewhere, but the other one was blurry. Lol.

The second photo was taken later in the day, but I have to share a photo of her decorated cap. She had an idea of what she wanted, and loved this quote. I found it in the Silhouette store, and die cut it from gold sticker-type paper (can't remember what exactly it's called). The corner pieces were made using some adhesive backed foam and gold leaf flakes.

A program shot for the afternoon ceremony, which was the Conservatory of Music's diploma and hooding ceremony.

We split up as far as where we sat for this ceremony. I sat downstairs, along with my parents and my brother and sister-in-law. Alyssa's dad, his dad, Joe, and Sarah and her boyfriend sat up in the balcony (this was held in the concert hall where all of her concerts have been held). The shot on the right was one taken from the balcony, looking down at all of the graduates in the Conservatory. I was sitting directly to the right of the second row of students.

I never have the best luck taking photos in the concert hall, but between Alyssa's grandpa and myself, we did at least capture the moment. She was the first one called up, and while they read off her degree and future plans, she was officially hooded and handed her diploma (well, the official diploma comes in the mail within a few months).



The graduate, on the steps of the concert hall. The concert hall where she's spent a ton of time over her three and a half years at UOP. And that photo on the right? It's a new favorite of mine, and I have Alyssa's grandpa to thank for capturing it!

Alyssa and Anthony, her boyfriend of almost three years. He was in a different school, within the college, so his diploma and hooding ceremony was earlier in the day. They were able to meet up for a bit after her afternoon ceremony, and I'm so glad we have some photos of them together from their big day. And check out his decorated cap. He was in graphic design, and a bunch of the graduates got together and each of them took a Pantone color to represent on their caps. I love it.

Who knows what's going on in this photo, but they were all pretty much like this. Alyssa's dad took all of his photos on "live" mode on his iPhone, and it's pretty funny to go thru them. The live mode capture them almost more like a very short video, and then gives you a "photo" – but you can also view it and pick a different segment to be the actual "photo". Hopefully that makes sense for anyone that doesn't know about the live mode.

I viewed some of them in live mode, but honestly just didn't want to take the time to go thru them all looking for a better photo for each photo. I had hundreds and hundreds of photos to work with, so I just picked the best ones I could find from whatever was captured.

We also had DSLR photos, and although I really wish we had moved to a better spot for photos, I was able to work some editing magic on the ones we did get.

My brother and his wife came for Alyssa's second ceremony in the afternoon. We were limited on tickets for the morning ceremony, but loved having them for the second one.

Sarah and Dom, her boyfriend, also came for the second ceremony. The morning one was too early for them.

It was such a great day. A long day, but a great day. After the second ceremony, and all of our picture taking, we all headed back to my brother's house, where we had food and desserts ready to go. A few other family members came to visit, and it was just nice to have both sides of the family together for her big day.

And if all goes as planned, this will be Sarah in a few years 😉
Jillibean Soup: Hello Card

May 14, 2018

Well, hello my friends! I've got a new card up over on the Jillibean Soup blog today. I guess quite a few of us had "hello" cards on our minds, since there are a few others on the blog today as well.

I used the Bohemian Brew collection for this card. I have been drawn to the aqua patterned paper with all the adorable little vases of flowers, and the red polka dot of mine because … well, because I LOVE polka dots!

I wanted to use the floral cluster die cut from the Pea Pod Parts package, and decided to "tuck" it down under the top of the polka dot patterned paper. I then machine stitched along the edge of the paper, and added a few tiny staples to each side.

I adhered the "hello" die cut tag to the top of the card, and added a few small flower die cuts along the top as well. I used a few of the adhesive sequins to embellish the centers of the flowers.

I know I've been kind of quiet on my little blog the last few weeks. And I haven't shared a "what we ate" post in several weeks (I honestly haven't tried any new recipes in quite a while). My focus has just been elsewhere, which means that I haven't made time to create very much these last few weeks.

My oldest daughter, Alyssa, graduated from college this past weekend!! Such a proud moment and I'll share more about it soon. Leading up to graduation, we went and took a ton of graduation photos on two separate weekends – so LOTS of editing going on here. And now I have LOTS of graduation photos to sort thru and edit as well. Sarah's in her last week of school, so she'll be finishing her first year of college after finals next week. Joe's been crazy busy with umpiring high school baseball, and they're starting playoffs this week. Daycare kids have kept me insanely busy, as they're all at that age where they get into anything and everything – All. Day. Long.

I'm hoping I can get back into a creative routine soon, and then I'll have more to share. And maybe when things quiet down with the rest of my family's lives, they'll be around more to where I'll get back to cooking more 😉
Jillibean Soup: Happy Mother’s Day Card

May 9, 2018

Hey all! This week, Jillibean Soup is teaming up with Therm O Web, and I had a new card that was shared over on their blog yesterday. We were sent a bunch of Therm O Web's fun DecoFoil products to play with, and I used them to create this fun little Mother's Day card.

There were some foam sheets that I thought would work really well with the Jillibean Soup dies, so I picked out a simple label die that I could line up repetitively across the front of my card. I die cut the label from the foam, over and over, to create a large amount of them to work with. I picked out three of the foil colors that worked well together, and then picked out a few patterned papers that matched those foil colors.

I'm not super knowledgeable about the foils, since I don't own a Minc or anything (the main tool/machine I think of when I hear "foil"). But I had seen a quick demo while at CHA this past January, about one of the simple ways to use it, so that's the technique I went with. Since the foam pieces have adhesive on both sides, I simply placed one side on the back of the foil, and rubbed the foil onto the foam shape.

Then I lined up the die cut labels, both from patterned paper and the foil covered ones, along the front of my card, until I was happy with how they looked. I won't lie. This part took me forever. Lol. Once I had them arranged to my liking, I started adhering each label. I started with the foil labels, since they all ended up down the center part of the card. Once those were adhered, I was able to adhere all of the patterned paper labels, trimming off the excess that hung over the edges of the card.

I also left an empty row along the bottom of that card so that I could add my sentiment. I ended up adding a small strip of white cardstock, and machine stitching along the top and bottom. I then used some small alpha stickers, and a "happy" word sticker to complete my sentiment.

I hope you'll stop by the Jillibean Soup blog this week to check out all of the awesome projects that the rest of the team has created using Therm O Web's fun products!
Jillibean Soup: Family Photo

May 4, 2018

Hey all! I've got my first layout as an official design team member over on the Jillibean Soup blog today. I used the Farmhouse Stew collection to scrap our family photo we took this past Thanksgiving.

I knew I'd be keeping part of my background white, so I picked out a background cut file to layer over that part of the page. Jillibean Soup has a TON of awesome cut files in the Silhouette store. I thought the woodgrain background cut file would go well with the patterned papers and our photo.

I cut the entire backgroun from white cardstock, and then trimmed it in half, since I only needed half of it for my layout. I've got the other half saved, as it can be used on another project.

I also used one of their cut files for part of my title, die cutting "family" from the brown woodgrain patterned paper. I paired it with the Farmhouse Stew die cut alphas to complete my title.

I picked out several patterned papers to coordinate with my die cut alphas, and cut a 12" wide strip of each paper to arrange along the bottom half of the page. I love this 3×4" "sweet" cut-apart card from one of the sheets of patterned papers, and played around until I found a good way to add it to the page.

The Pea Pod Parts – die cuts – were out of stock for this collection, so I went looking for some other embellishments that I could add in. I decided to use some of Jillibean's stamps, and loved this simple flower stamp from the Flower: Bloom stamp and die set. I stamped the flowers using brown ink, on white cardstock, and fussy cut each one out.

I then added a little round puffy sticker to the center of each stamped flower. I love simple embellishments, and these worked out perfectly.
Kerri Bradford Studio: That Moment

May 2, 2018

Hey everyone! Did you know that this coming Saturday, May 5th, is National Scrapbook Day? Yep, it's that time of year again, and over at Kerri Bradford Studio there's lots of goodness going on in the days leading up to the big day. What exactly is going on?

Well, first off, there's a huge sale going on that you won't want to miss. Thru Sunday, you can save 40% on downloadable kits and classes (when you spend $10 or more) using the code NSD18. You can also save 20% on all stamps, including the newest release (discount is already reflected in the prices). You'll also find new projects from each member of Kerri's Creative Team, and each designer is also sharing some favorite tips and tricks.

And today is my turn to share ;)

I'm sure the image above looks like a crazy mess at first glance. That crazy mess right there is the design I came up with for my layout, and it's pretty much exactly how it turned out.

One of my favorite ways to plan out my layouts is to play around with ideas using my Silhouette software. Since I usually incorporate cut files into my pages, it's a great way to test out different titles, backgrounds, and other designs and see how they'll work with the photos I plan on using. Did you know that you can pull photos into your Silhouette software? It helps to resize them first, cropping them to the size you plan on printing them and saving them at 72dpi. If you do pull them in at full size, you'll simply need to scale them down until they're the right size.

You don't necessarily need to pull in every photo you plan on using – I'll often just pull in one single photo, and then copy and paste it a few times (this works great if several of your photos will be the same size), to mimic the photos that I do plan on using. This allows you to play around with photo placement, and it helps give you an idea of the space you have on the page to work in your cut files. I also do this with photo collages. I'll pull in the finished collage, and often times, I will determine the size I want to print it based off how it plays out with the cut files I want to use.

Instead of guessing what size to cut your title, or any fun shapes you want to use, you can figure out the exact size you need for each cut file, since you know they'll work with the size and placement of your photos. Once I have my page design planned out, I simply delete my photos from the page, sort out the pieces I'll be die cutting, and start the cutting process.

It's been almost a year since my youngest daughter, Sarah, graduated from high school. While I have lots of photos from that day that I want to get in her album, I have one story from that day that I've been wanting to document. It was "that moment" – the big moment when they call out her name, announce her college of choice, and she walks over to accept her diploma. It just so happened that it was also the moment when my camera froze up, and I quickly realized that my memory card was full. Oh.My.Goodness.

I panicked for about 2 seconds and then got to work digging out another memory card from my purse. I was quick, but not quick enough, since I totally missed capturing her big moment, and I also missed even seeing it happen (since I was dealing with the camera and not watching her). My sister-in-law was sitting next to me, and she yelled out "Sarah!!! STOP!!!". She did, and I was able to capture the photo above – a great photo of her holding her diploma with a big smile on her face.

Kerri's Click kit was the perfect choice to help document these photos, and this story. The negative strip and the camera fit the theme of my page, so they were obvious choices to work into my page design, and I also picked out my title from the kit as well.

The negative strip comes in several sizes (as far as how many windows each has), and both square and landscape orientation, so I played around with a few sizes as I figured out how many photos I wanted to include. I settled on 3 photos, in addition to my main focal point photo – the two photos I took right before my camera froze and the photo I snapped right after I changed out my memory card.

Anyone that knows my style, knows that I love white backgrounds for my pages. However, I'm not a fan of plain white cardstock backgrounds, which is why I love to use die cut backgrounds – cut from white cardstock, to create a white-on-white look that's subtle, but adds interest and texture. My favorite backgrounds are circles, so I used a circle background from Kerri's Background Basics kit for this layout.

I knew that I wanted to use a black chalkboard patterned paper for my negative strip (I also used it for part of my title), and remembered that I had a few sheets of it from Echo Park. While I was digging around for that, I came across a few other Echo Park patterned papers that ended up working with my photos. I'm not huge on plaid prints, but this older plaid patterned paper – with the greens, yellows, and a brown that I decided could pass as black 😉 – was perfect for the color scheme I had in mind.

Our high school colors were green, black, and white, so those were obvious color choices. I added in little yellow, since some of the photos had touches of yellow, as some students had yellow cords and sashes. I die cut my camera pieces from yellow and green cardstock, along with some of the black chalkboard patterned paper that I used for my negative strip and title. To add a little extra texture to the camera, I ran the yellow cardstock pieces thru an embossing folder.

I wanted to print my journaling on the same yellow patterned paper that I used for the camera, but wanted to soften the yellow a bit (and I sort of wish I had softened the yellow in the camera as well, but that didn't cross my mind until I was done). I printed my journaling on a piece of vellum and laid it over the yellow patterned paper, and then machine stitched them together across the top.

When it came time to add a few embellishments, I started poking around in a few baskets and came across some old Making Memories metal flowers. I thought they would be a fun addition, and went looking for another metal piece to add in the bottom right corner of the page. These metal photo turns were perfect. I wanted to add a black brad to each, but apparently I don't own any black brads. Weird. So tiny enamel dots was the next best thing, as I also added black enamel dots to the centers of the flowers.

If you've never tried planning out your layouts (and cards as well) within your Silhouette software, give it a try the next time you are incorporating cut files into your page design.
What We Ate: Week Sixteen

April 23, 2018

At the start of 2018, I decided to challenge myself to work at least 2-3 new recipes into our meals each week. I decided to also share those new recipes here on my blog every Monday. The following recipes made their way into our meals last week.

Garlic Butter Steak & Potatoes | Eat Well 101

Thoughts: This was crazy good. Who doesn't love steak and potatoes, right? I followed this recipe exactly as it was, with the exception of using dried herbs as opposed to fresh herbs. I rarely buy the fresh stuff, since it just doesn't get used enough. There was also a note mentioning that you could boil the potatoes for a few minutes (just to speed up the cooking time), and then add them to the pan to cook, and that's what I decided to do. I know my potatoes, and I just wanted to be sure they were cooked enough. This recipe was super easy to make, and I will definitely make it again.

Sloppy Joes | The Pioneer Woman

Thoughts: Sloppy Joes aren't something that I've ever really made before, and yet I've tried out two recipes for them in the last couple of months. This was a good recipe, and while it had a few more ingredients than other recipes I've seen, it was still super easy to make. I had some slider rolls on hand, so I used those, instead of buying kaiser rolls (which I was totally going to do). Just like the recipe suggested, I put some butter on the rolls and grilled them in a pan on the stove top. Everyone loved them.

Baked Salmon in Foil | Low Carb with Jennifer

Thoughts: I think I've used the exact same recipe for salmon, every single time I've made it. I wanted to try something a little different, and this was a recipe where I happen to have everything it called for on hand. The chili powder and ground cumin added a nice kick, and made it totally different from what I normally use. And super easy clean up, since I used the tin foil. I like easy clean up 😉

Butter Garlic Asparagus Pasta | Diethood

Thoughts: I had some asparagus in the fridge that needed to be used up, so figured I would give this recipe a shot to go along with the salmon above. This recipe actually calls for orzo, which I'm guessing is a pasta – since the name of this recipe says "pasta". Lol. But I have to admit, I've never looked into orzo, so I have no clue what it's about. I just used the thin spaghetti that I use for so many of my pasta dishes. But I followed everything else in the recipe, and it was really good.
Jillibean Soup: A Few Card Shares

April 19, 2018

Hey all! I had a few cards that I had created for the Jillibean Soup design team call that I wanted to share with you today. This first card started with the gorgeous floral die cut. I had the perfect card design in mind as soon as I saw it.

I picked out a few coordinating patterned papers, and created a grid-like background by piecing together three small pieces of paper. I left a little space between each of the papers, as well as around the outside edge of the card, to add a little white to the card. I also did all of my machine stitching before adhering the papers to the front of the card, since it's just easier to do them first sometimes.

I adhered the floral die cut using pop dots, and added a few brown enamel dots to the centers of the flowers. I used some dark brown corrugated alphas to add my sentiment.

For my second card, I went with a birthday card. The word "party" fit perfectly going across the card, using the die cut alphas, so I adhered them using pop dots to a ruled patterned paper. I played around with different patterned papers, a few die cut phrase pieces, and some puffy stickers until I was able to get all of the colors distributed around the card to my liking.

I added some yellow patterned paper along the bottom of the card, with a few scalloped edged pieces of navy blue cardstock (created with a border punch) added along the top and bottom of my ruled patterned paper. The grey gear patterned paper felt like a good "boy" paper, and went well with all of the colors I had going on.
Celebrate Fall Bid Day at Theta

April 17, 2018

Hey everyone! I wanted to share the second layout that I created for the Jillibean Soup design team call. This layout actually started with the die cut alphas, as I love the chunky shape of them and wanted to play with them. I also loved the color choices within the package.

The pinks, yellows, and oranges reminded me of a few photos that Alyssa had sent me from their fall Bid Day at Theta (her sorority at college), and I knew they would be perfect to use for my layout.

I printed one of my photos as a 3×4 and two photos as 3×3's, leaving a white border around each when I trimmed them down. I pulled out some patterned papers from different collections in orange, yellow, green, and pink to coordinate with my title letters and the colors within the photos.

I adhered my photos onto a piece of green patterned paper, and added a fun little tab sticker to the side of each. I picked out a few little word stickers, and added one to each tab sticker as well.

I used a combination of different alphas – die cut alphas, corrugated alphas, and alpha stickers – and a die cut word, to create my title. The corrugated alphas are an older Jillibean Soup product, and one that I always loved (and still have a lot of in my stash).

Since I hard worked in some corrugated alphas to my title, I thought I would also add a few corrugated flowers as well. These flowers have holes in the centers, as they're meant to look like buttons. I had a few flower die cuts that I had wanted to use, so I simply added one to the center of each of the corrugated flowers.

And check out that flamingo. I've seen flamingos a lot on scrapbooking products, and never thought I would have a need to use one. But it just seemed to work with these photos. I actually thought there had been a flamingo somewhere in the photos, but I guess I was thinking of the palm trees.

Alpha sets that have mixed colors are really fun, but there are occasions where you need a letter in a different color than what's in the package (or maybe you used the one in the color you need already). I ended up cutting two T's out of patterned paper to get the pink and yellow that I wanted, by tracing one of the other T's onto the paper and then cutting them out.

I've also got a few cards that I created for the design team call that I'll share this week as well. So keep your eye out for those next 😉
What We Ate: Week Fifteen

April 16, 2018

At the start of 2018, I decided to challenge myself to work at least 2-3 new recipes into our meals each week. I decided to also share those new recipes here on my blog every Monday. The following recipes made their way into our meals last week.

So, it looks like I only tried two new recipes last week. I tried both on the same night, and they're basically the same thing. But I'll be making up for that this week, as I have four new recipes on our meal plan for this week.

Pizza Grilled Cheese Sandwiches | Kirbie's Cravings

Thoughts: This is a super simple concept, and one that doesn't necessarily require a recipe once you try it. But then again, I don't think I would have ever thought to make a pizza grilled cheese sandwich. So when I saw this pop up on Pinterest, I knew it would probably go over well with Joe, as he's a huge pizza fan. I had a few ciabatta rolls on hand, and thought they would be perfect for this. I did hesitate a bit, wondering if I could grill a ciabatta roll. Lol. But it totally worked. I made this on a night when Sarah was working, so I just wanted something quick and easy to make for Joe after he got done umpiring. He loved it, and since it took me all off 5 minutes to make, I loved it too.

5-Minute Pepperoni Pizza Quesadilla | Two Healthy Kitchens

Thoughts: I had also seen a few recipes for making pizza quesadillas, and those sounded like they might be good too. Since I had everything out to make the pizza grilled cheese, and since the two recipes could be done in the same pan – I figured I would just try the quesadilla at the same time. Personally, I think these would be really good dipped in sour cream and/or guacamole. But my family isn't a fan of either of those. Again, Joe was the only one that ate these the night I made them, but he said it was pretty good. He preferred the sandwich over the quesadilla, but mainly because he said it was more filling.

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