Laura Vegas

Chaos & Cuddles

April 13, 2018

Happy Friday everyone! I wanted to share one of the layouts that I created for my design team submission for Jillibean Soup. I've used quite a bit of Jillibean's products over the last year. It just so happens that they were projects for things that I wasn't able to share. One of my favorite products are their die cut alphabet packs. I love the larger alphas, and knew that I wanted to use them on one of my layouts.

I don't do layouts about the daycare kids as often as I used too (personal choice), but every once in a while, I like to add one to my collection. I had a title in mind when I went to pick out my photos – a mix of the good parts of this job, and the chaotic parts of this job. I created a photo collage using a template from Kerri Bradford Studio, and changed all of my photos to black and white.

I knew I wanted to mix a die cut word in with the die cut alphas for my title, so I picked out one of Jillibean's cut files from the Silhouette store. "Chaos & Cuddles" – that's exactly the kind of mix I have here on a daily basis.

I also used one of their background cut files to create a white-on-white background for my page. You all know that I love a good circle background, right ;)

The fun messy circles are also Jillibean Soup cut files, and they're a cut file I can see myself using a lot. Once I had my die cut alphas picked out for my title, I then picked out several patterned papers to coordinate with the colors of the alphas. I lined up four pieces of patterned paper along the left edge of the page, and added a die cut messy circle to each of those pieces.

I added a few super old Jillibean buttons (I still have those from when I designed for them years ago!) to the die cut messy circles, and a die cut heart from their Pea Pod Parts pack. I also added a few small puffy heart stickers here and there.

I'm so looking forward to designing for Jillibean Soup this year, and have already started working on some new projects for next month. I'll share my second design team submission layout with you next week, along with a few cards 🙂
Project Life 2018: Week Nine

April 12, 2018

Happy Wednesday everyone! Hopefully you're all surviving the week. I've got one more finished week in my 2018 Project Life album to share with you today. Here's a look at week nine.

For this year's weekly title cards, I'm using the Pocket Guide No.4 kit from Paislee Press. All of my filler cards for this week are from the Project Life app, which I had printed along with one of my photo orders earlier this month.

I'm finding that there's a few weeks where I end up with one single photo that doesn't have a story at all. I mean, it has a story, but there's no journaling card to go with it. Crazy that it bothers me, since I know a lot of people don't set out to write details about every single photo. I might go back and add something here. I could actually add a little text digitally, sort of like a Snapchat photo, to keep with the look I have going.

Never mind. I went and changed the photo (the one of Sarah on the stairs) to a Pocket Map cards, so that I could include a little story with it. And updated the photos of my spread. I realized after the fact, that I had only included two Pocket Map cards in this week's spread, so it made perfect sense to add a third (since most of my weeks have three).

These four. They make up my squad these days. And they're the reason that I'm always so tired by the end of the day. Lol. I've always had a good mix of ages. Or that's how I'm remembering all these others years going. Having four kiddos soooooo close in age is rough.

I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but I find that if I stick to my original plan – 4 digital journaling cards, and 3 Pocket Maps cards – that leaves me with one photo (since I almost always have 8 photos a week) that doesn't have a specific spot for journaling. It works out when one of those eight photos is a Snapchat photo, since it will most likely have some text on it.

I seem to always get good stories after a trip to the grocery store. Like this, when the bagger put my last 3 items (a 2 liter bottle of soda, half gallon of milk, and bananas) haphazardly in the cart – and then tossed my 3 extra reusable bags in with them. I mean, I don't get it. Why didn't she use one of those bags to hold my last 3 items??? Lol.

So I feel pretty good about finishing up the first two months of the year before the end of the March. Now that I have my March photos, let's see if I can finish my March weekly spread before May rolls around.
Project Life 2018: Week Eight

April 11, 2018

Hey all! I've got two more completed weeks in my 2018 Project Life album to share this week, and I'm starting with week eight today. I just got my March photos a few days ago, and am looking forward to getting some more weeks checked off my list and in the album.

If you missed it, I posted HERE about the approach I'm taking to this year's album. It explains the four basic digital journaling cards that I'm incorporating into my weekly spreads. Like the one above, which is from Cathy Zielske. This specific card is set up with four on a sheet, so it's so easy to whip out four journaling cards in no time at all. Especially when I copy and paste my journaling straight from my Instagram photos 😉

While I like having a few basic journaling cards in each weekly spread, that take literally no thinking on my part, I like to have 1-2 that I can play with more. The card above is just a simple lined card, and then I can fill the space at the top with whatever I want. I should start working my physical stamps into these cards, but for the time being, I'm all about the digital.

Whether that means a digital stamp, or even a PNG file from a cut file. Which is exactly what I used on this card, as I used the "breakfast" PNG that goes with a cut file from Kerri Bradford.

One of the first things I do, once I have my photos arranged in the pocket pages, is pick the 2-3 photos that I want to use for the Pocket Maps by Sara Gleason. I look for photos that don't have a big story. Photos that only need a short sentence or two, which is all that will fit on these cards.

I mentioned in my last post that I had some 3×4" cards from the Project Life app printed in a previous photo order. And I ended up pulling all of my filler cards for weeks seven, eight, and nine straight from those cards. A lot of these particular cards don't even feel like they need anything added to them, which is nice.

It's rare if I get a photo from Sarah that isn't a Snapchat photo. I'm just grateful when she does send me some, so I take what I can get.

I'm also working one of the Recorded Journaling Cards from In A Creative Bubble into each weekly spread. She's got a great selection of these simple black and white cards to choose from, so I can always find one that fits my photo/story.

I'll be back tomorrow to share another weekly spread with you 🙂
Kerri Bradford Studio: Celebrate Birthday Cards

April 10, 2018

Hey all! I've got a new project up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today. Once a year, I like to create a new batch of birthday cards to have on hand. I never seem to be prepared for birthdays, so I like having a stash of cards that I can pull from that will work for family, family, or anyone celebrating their special day. As much as I would love to create a wide variety of cards, I'm a big fan of creating just one simple design – and then mass producing that one design for all of my cards.

I usually pick 2-4 different patterned paper schemes, making some fitting for the boys/men in my life, and some for the girls/women in my life. For this round of cards, I picked out some patterned papers from Amy Tangerine. I will most likely be making more of this same exact design, but with another assortment of patterned paper.

I started by die cutting a circle background, from Kerri's Life Additions: Background kit, from patterned paper, and then adhering that to the front of my card, layering it over a white grid patterned paper. I decided to go with a simple "celebrate" for my sentiment, found in the July Four kit.

I added a die cut flower to the girl cards, using the Funky Flower cut file, and a star to the boy cards, using a cut file from the This & That: Family [just shapes] kit. I like to keep my cards fairly flat, so they're easy to mail, so my only real embellishment was adding a black enamel dot to the center of the star and flower.

I never seem to have much to write in the inside of birthday cards. Please tell me I'm not the only one that keeps by birthday wishes simple. Lol. So I stamped a birthday message on the inside of the card using Kerri's For You stamp set. This still allows me room to write the recipients name at the top, and a quick message below.

I love a great design that's easy to replicate, and mass produce assembly line style. And I think this card works perfectly for just that. I'm so glad my birthday card stash has been replenished for all of the upcoming birthdays on our calendar!
What We Ate: Week Fourteen

April 9, 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.

Sheet Pan Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars | Six Sisters' Stuff

Thoughts: I have my go-to chocolate chip recipe that I've used for years, and I'm pretty sure that it could be baked on a sheet pan just like this, as opposed to individual cookies. But I thought I would give this recipe a try. Sometimes, you just don't have time to do batch after batch of cookies, and a pan cookie is the perfect way to still get your cookie fix. This took me no time at all to whip up. In fact, I mixed the batter up while the daycare kids were eating their breakfast, spread it all on a sheet pan and popped it in the oven. By the time I had cleaned up everything from breakfast, they were done. And they were yummy. I used mini chocolate chips in this, just like the recipe called for, and they were perfect.

Restaurant Style Mexican Rice | Favorite Family Recipes

Thoughts: I'll be honest. This is NOT a new recipe for me. In fact, I've been making it for at least a year now. But I did try this recipe after seeing in on Pinterest last year, and I did in fact make this last week. I actually make it every time I make tacos or fajitas now, as I love to have some rice along with my tacos and fajitas. Figured it was worth sharing 🙂 It's super easy to make, and uses ingredients I always have on hand. And since I've been making it consistently for over a year, I guess you could say we like it!
Project Life 2018: Week Seven

April 6, 2018

Hey everyone! I've got a few more finished weeks in my 2018 Project Life album that I wanted to share, so I thought I'd start with week seven today. I'll be sharing week eight and nine next week.

I know that I've mentioned that I used the Project Life app to add two 3×4" photos onto a 4×6" photo before doing my photo orders, and I've used the calendar cards from one of the kits thru the app in my 2017 album. I've never really put too much thought into using other cards from the kits thru the app. Until this year.

I went thru all of the kits I've purchased thru the app, and looked for good filler cards that I could see myself using on these weekly spreads. I especially looked for cards in colors that I tend to need a lot, but don't always have handy. Normally, I would print digital cards like that on cardstock or presentation paper, which is what I print all of my journaling cards on.

But it's so easy to add these to my photo orders, and have them printed on photo paper. Even if I've used all of my free prints for the month (remember, I use the Freeprints app each month, so I get 85 prints free – I just pay for shipping), it hardly cost me anything for additional prints over the free ones.

I had about 30-40 filler cards printed in one of my orders this year, and I pulled them out while working on the last few weeks of February. I ended up pulling all of my filler cards for the last three weeks in February from those cards. Which was kind of cool, considering I had such a small selection to work with. I just did my March photo order earlier this week, and I made sure to order a bunch more cards from the PL app (98 to be exact) – all ones that I could see myself using.

Week seven included the Super Bowl. My brother and sister-in-law host their annual Super Bowl party every year, which is where you'll always find us. But I never seem to take any photos while we're there. I wanted to document a few things about the game – who won, who sang the National Anthem, and who performed at the halftime show. So I found a few images to use on Instagram, screenshotted them, and added them to my photo order.

I've still been sticking to using four main journaling cards for each week (I talked about my plan for this year's album in THIS post, in case you missed it), and it really has simplified the process for me when working on my 2018 album.

I mentioned in my last post (or possibly the post before that), that I changed my mind about not including any embellishments in this year's album. If I feel that I need to add something, I will – although my plan is to not add anything to my actual photos. On this weekly spread, the only things I added was a chipboard label and word sticker, an enamel arrow, and the enamel heart seen above. Super simple embellishing.

I hope you all have a great weekend! I have quite a few deadlines that I need to attend too, which means I'll be making some layouts this weekend 😉
Change Is Coming: A Pocket Page Spread

April 5, 2018

Hey all! I'm back with another spread in my 6×12" personal album. This is another spread that I started ages ago, and just never finished. I have a knack for printing photos for layouts and/or pocket page spreads, and then not quite getting around to doing anything else with it.

I had the idea for this spread about two months into my weight loss journey, as I wanted to document my plan to have something to look back on. I had a few photos of salads (my main meal the entire time I was actively trying to lose weight), my water cups (I drank water, and TONS of it, about 95% of the time), and one of the first photos I had taken of myself where I had that "this is working" moment. I thought they would all tie in nicely for this story.

I pulled this 4×6" card from an Ali Edwards Story kit – the Change kit. I was actually looking thru my digital story kits, and was super close to printing this out before realizing I could just pull the physical card out of the kit to use.

I used a few cards from the Love Your Body digital kit from Sahlin Studio on this spread, one of which is the "#GOALS" card above.

I created this journaling card myself. I wanted the top color to coordinate with the "you got this" filler card on the second page of the spread. I simply copied part of the solid part of that filler card, and then used it along the top of my 4×6" card here. I added the "The Story" text and then my journaling.

The filler card above is also from the Love Your Body digital kit. The black and white pattern filled the entire card, but I wanted to have a little bit of room along the bottom to add some journaling. So I just tweaked it in Photoshop to add the white along the bottom, and then added my text.

The filler card above was from Ali Edward's Drive Story kit. I love having the digital kits for her Story kits, since I can print the cards as needed, even if I've already used the physical card on another project.

Feels so good to have finished three spreads in my 6×12" personal album in the last week. Now if I can finish the other two that are started in there, I can get to creating some newer ones to add in as well.
Gilmore Girls: A Pocket Page Spread

April 4, 2018

Hey everyone! So, I'm a huge Gilmore Girls fan. It's one of my top two favorite shows, with the other being Friends. Sometime last year, I had the idea to do a pocket page spread about my love of the show. I rounded up some photos to use, printed them, slipped them into the pockets, and that's as far as I got.

I revisited the spread last week, pulled out a few things that I thought I was going to use, and printed out some new pieces to fill the empty pockets with. Sometimes I actually think my procrastinating on projects works out for the best, since I love how this turned out using some recent digital finds.

So this spread goes in my 6×12" personal album, and I added in a 4×12" insert as well. I had this idea of the photos that I wanted to include, and this plan worked out perfect. Here's a look at the first half of the spread, with the insert on the right.

I remember spending a lot of time on Google images, trying to find decent sized images that would print well for this project. This "Gilmore Life" coffee cup image is one that was all over Instagram leading up to the revival series coming out on Netflix back in 2016. It didn't print the best, but it works. And it serves as my title as well.

This filler card was a last minute addition, and I love it. Kellie Winnell does these Friday Freebies on her blog, where she has free images that you can download, and they're perfect for 3×4" filler cards. I had downloaded a ton of them one night, thinking they would come in handy for my Project Life pages. And I was just sort of browsing thru them the other day, and when I saw this one about Netflix, I knew I had to use it.

Since I binged watched the entire series of Gilmore Girls the summer before the revival series came out in the fall that year. I have the entire series on DVD, but it was so easy to just watch them on Netflix.

For my main journaling card, I used this simple 4×6" card from the Agenda digital set from One Little Bird.

I knew that I wanted a photo of Lorelai and Luke and one of Rory and her guy. I searched Google images for one that would print well and that would go with my color scheme if possible.

I remembered that Kelly Purkey had a Gilmore Girls themed digital set in her shop, so I had picked that up a while back when I first had the idea of doing this spread. It's the But I'm A Gilmore digital stamp set, and ended up being just what I needed to make a few simple filler cards.

And if you ask me – as much as I did love Dean and Jess, I think Logan is Rory's guy. I'm Team Logan all the way ;)

Here's a look at the second half of the spread, with the insert on the left.

I also thought it would be cool to use a photo of Lorelai and Rory from the beginning of the series and a photo of the two of them from the time of the revival. I'm not totally sure if the photo above was from the very beginning, but it's close enough.

To create the two filler cards for my insert page, I created a 4×4" canvas in Photoshop and added my digital stamp to the center, sizing it as needed to fill the space. Super simple.

The photo above was one that they used to promote the revival, and one that I even shared on my Instagram after I finished re-watching the entire series that summer before the revival.

They also used these four images (the two above and the two down below) to promote the revival, with a photo for each "season", as the revival was broken down into four "season" episodes. I had screenshot them at the time, knowing that I wanted to use them for something. I simply cropped them to 3×4" and printed them along with one of my photo orders.

Several months ago, I had picked up the Rate This digital stamp set from Kellie Winnell. I think it's such a fun set, and I need to remember that I have it to work into my Project Life album. I used the "show rating" digital stamp at the top of my second filler card, to journal a few quick thoughts about the revival and how I enjoyed it.

The filler card on the right was created using a card from the High Street Stories digital kit from One Little Bird. I added one of the digital stamps from the But I'm A Gilmore set to the empty space at the bottom of the card.

Any other Gilmore Girl fans out there? I'm secretly hoping they come back with some more episodes. Those final four words left me wanting more 😉
Time To Eat: A Pocket Page Spread

April 3, 2018

Speaking of my "What We Ate" posts, I've got a new 6×12" pocket page spread from my "all about me" album to share with you today. I realized I had all of these yummy looking photos of the recipes I've been trying out (they're not my photos, but the ones I save from the websites I get the recipes from), and thought it would be cool to do a page about my personal challenge in the kitchen for this year.

I went through my photos of the recipes I tried in January, and picked out a handful to use. I went back and forth on my plan, since my original idea was to do a layout. Then I thought about doing a 6×8" pocket page spread. Somewhere along the line, I settled on doing a 6×12" spread. I printed my photos as 3×4's and slipped them into the pockets.

Funny story. I've been cleaning out my patterned papers this past week, and when I came across this fun paper from Echo Park, I immediately thought about this pocket page spread. I cut a 4×6" piece to add into the top pocket, which I intended on adding a title too. I wasn't sure what I would use for that title, but I was going to add one.

It wasn't until I was in the middle of photographing this spread, that I realized I never added a title. Oops. I was in such a rush to photograph it, after finishing my journaling card, that I didn't even think about the title. I decided it was totally fine as-is though, since I had also added a 3×4" filler card to the second page that could totally act as my title.

I did think about adding a little label to each photo, either digitally (before printing) or a physical label, to add what the recipe actually was. That might have been a smart idea. But I guess I was keeping things simple, because I didn't end up doing that.

I used a few digital cards on this spread from the Hangry digital kit by One Little Bird. For my journaling card, I used a 4×6" card from the kit, but since I wanted a little more room to journal then the card offered, I tweaked it a bit in Photoshop to give myself more room to add my text. I also added a little black border strip below the "good food is everything" image, by copying a small part of another digital card and pasting it below.

I'm getting so hungry typing up this post! Lol. That pasta looks amazing right now, and those bacon wrapped little smokies would really hit the spot.

I originally had another photo in the pocket on the left, but I wanted to add in another filler card. Which ended up being my title card 😉

Sadly, that crock pot mac and cheese recipe was the one recipe this year that was a dud. I still included it, because it looks really good in the photo. And it coordinated so well with the other photos.
What We Ate: Week Thirteen

April 2, 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.

Damn Good Chocolate Bundt Cake | The Domestic Rebel

Thoughts: You want to know my thoughts? This was a damn good chocolate bundt cake!! I should be honest here, in that I didn't actually have any. My self-control is amazing sometimes. I'm on a little fine-tuning diet right now, so I held off on trying this. But you better believe I'm sticking what's left in the freezer for later 😉 It smelled amazing, and looked amazing. Just like the photo in fact, which isn't always the case. I took this to my parent's house for Easter dinner, and everyone loved it. I may have heard a few "that's a LOT of chocolate" comments, but in my world, there's no such thing as too much chocolate. As far as making it, it was super easy to make. Took no time at all to mix all of the ingredients and bake, and then after it cooled overnight, I added the chocolate ganache and mini chocolate chips to finish it off. So, so good!

No-Churn Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream | Marsha's Backing Addiction

Thoughts: I started seeing these "no-churn" ice cream recipes on Pinterest a while ago, and was super intrigued. I'm an ice cream fanatic, and could possibly live off of it if needed. I've been meaning to try making one of these recipes for a while now, and figured an Easter get-together would be the perfect time to try it out. I picked mint chocolate chip for my first try. The hardest thing about making this was whipping up the heavy cream. I wouldn't say it was hard to do. But I had never whipped up heavy cream before, so I was a little unsure of what I was doing. I guess you just have to be patient, since it does take a while. Other than that, this was so incredibly easy to make. Only 6 ingredients, and it seriously took no time at all to do. I plopped it in a metal loaf pan and stuck it in the freezer overnight. Everyone LOVED this, and said that it tasted better than store bought! I can't wait to try making other versions, since I have so many yummy looking ones pinned.

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