Laura Vegas

Scrapbooking And A Little Bit Of Everyday Life

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Bella Blvd: CHA Winter 2016 Reveal Week – Sweet Baby Girl & Cute Baby Boy Collections

December 29, 2015

It’s CHA Winter 2016 reveal time over on the Bella Blvd blog! There are 6 new collections, along with new embellishments and a huge Illustrated Faith release. We started the reveals yesterday, and will be continuing all the way thru Monday of next week. Today we are sharing the new Sweet Baby Girl collection and the Cute Baby Boy collection.

I worked with the Sweet Baby Girl collection for the catalog, and created the layout above. The colors of the collection made me think about these photos of a previous daycare girlie of mine, Haley. I'm pretty sure I used her photos when I worked with the older baby collection several years ago too. Seems that she's my go-to baby girl. Lol. The disadvantage of having all of my girls baby photos on film and not as easily accessible.

I wanted to incorporate several of the chipboard animals from the Chipboard Icons sheet, and decided to create four columns on the page to create sort of a block/grid design. I used one patterned paper for each column, adding my photos into three of the four columns. This helped to create several smaller blocks of patterned paper in which to arrange my title and embellishments.

I've always considered myself a B-side scrapper, as I gravitate towards the tone-on-tone patterned papers more so than the busier patterns. I chose a few of the tone-on-tone patterns for three of my columns – the pink hearts, the purple dots, and the yellow swirls. I also trimmed up some white confetti Clear Cuts transparency pieces to layer over the purple dotted patterned paper and one of the blocks of yellow swirl patterned paper.

I then added the cute little chipboard animals to a few of the blocks, and worked in a few of the Paper Pieces die cuts too. I cut up the yellow scalloped border sticker and used it above/below a few photos, and tucked in a few tab die cuts above my photos as well. The final embellishments were these adorable little bow clips, which we will officially be revealing on Thursday.

The floral patterned paper was the busier paper that I chose to work into the page, and I used a thinner strip of that for one full column. I added the darker pink scalloped border sticker along one side of the floral patterned paper and then added white and pink enamel dots to some of the flowers.

For my title, I used the "girl" chipboard letters from the Chipboard Icons sheet, and added the "sweet" chipboard word, which is from a new embellishment we'll be revealing later this week. I needed some white on the page to break things up, so I ran a piece of white textured cardstock through a woodgrain embossing folder, spritzed it with pink misting spray, and used it to hold my title.

Head on over to the Bella Blvd blog, HERE, to see the entire Sweet Baby Girl collection and the Cute Baby Boy collection, piece by piece, and to enter the drawing for a chance to win-it-before-you-can-buy-it! The randomly chosen winners for ALL of the reveal giveaways will be announced on Saturday, January 9th.
Bella Blvd: CHA Winter 2016 Reveal Week – Let’s Go Collection

December 28, 2015

It’s CHA Winter 2016 reveal time over on the Bella Blvd blog! There are 6 new collections, along with new embellishments and a huge Illustrated Faith release. We are starting the reveals today, and will be continuing all the way thru Monday of next week. Today we are sharing the new Let's Go collection.

I created this layout for the catalog, using some photos I borrowed from my good friend Erin Terrell Clarkson. When it comes to travel photos, she always has amazing pictures. I'm extremely limited on travel photos, so I went straight to Erin. I'll be totally honest here, and tell you that I only had three patterned papers to work with for this layout, as the full collection wasn't ready at the time. There's definitely a lot of white on this page, whereas after seeing the full collection (after creating this), it's full of colorful patterned papers.

When doing catalog work, I also work with mock up products when it comes to papers and stickers. Which is why my cute little green scalloped border "sticker" wasn't quite the full twelve inches it should have been to go the full length of the page 😉 I decided to use the white and grey airplane patterned paper for the main part of my page, where I knew my title and embellishments would go. I knew they would stand out the best against that paper.

I used the text patterned paper for the sides of the page, making the left side quite a bit wider than the right side. I worked the aqua airplane patterned paper into the bottom of the page, below my two photos, where I knew my journaling strips would go.

For my title, I combined the "go see do" from the chipboard icons, the "travel" die cut from the paper pieces die cut package, and the word "together" which is from one of our new chipboard sheets (coming later this week). I ended up outlining the word "together", along with some of my other die cut pieces, with a black pen to help them stand out a bit more against the white and grey patterned paper.

I really love that the paper pieces are back. The new die cut packs have a lot more designs to choose from, and they're different for each collection. Our previous paper pieces had all of the same shapes, just different colors/sayings, for each collection. I incorporated a few banner pieces, a fun tag, the word "travel", and several clouds from the package. I also worked in a few chipboard elements, with the clouds and the airplane.

Head on over to the Bella Blvd blog, HERE, to see the entire collection, piece by piece, and to enter the drawing for a chance to win-it-before-you-can-buy-it! The randomly chosen winners for ALL of the reveal giveaways will be announced on Saturday, January 9th.
Tackling Christmases Past: Done, Done, and Done

December 21, 2015

Just a little over a year ago, I set out on a mission to tackle 6 years worth of Christmas photos that had never been documented and get them scrapped and in the albums. You can read more about this HERE, if you haven't read it already. I feel like I've repeated a lot of this while sharing each of the layouts I've created over the last year, but I'm going to do a little re-cap anyways! I thought it would be cool to share all of the layouts in one single post.

A quick refresher. I relied heavily on Kerri's Storyboard templates for this project, and created 16 different photo collages, that included a total of 143 photos. These collages covered 6 family get togethers from those 6 years, as well as 3 Christmas mornings with just our little family. In the end, my plan was to end up with 6 two page layouts and 3 single page layouts. Well, it's taken me a full year (and a month, if you want to get technical), but I've finished all 9 of those layouts!

[Post found HERE]

This design was a popular one with me. The full page photo collage, with a smaller collage on the opposite page. I've used this design numerous times for birthday layouts as well. It's just a great design for getting gobs and gobs of photos on the page.

[Post found HERE]

Every now and then, when working on these layouts, I would start to worry that they looked too much the same. With the same basic design, same photo collages, same title placement, etc. I was constantly reminding myself that I went into this project just wanting to knock these layouts off my list. I've mentioned how I don't necessarily enjoy scrapping Christmas's, so I didn't want these to be layouts that I stressed over. If using the same basic ideas over and over helped me tackle something that I don't enjoy, then more power to me.

[Post found HERE]

For most of these layouts, I just dug into my stash of Christmas product to see what I could use up. I did however, dig into my everyday papers as well. This layout is an example of that. I don't believe there's anything on this page that was meant to be a "Christmas" product. I always pull my colors from the colors in my photos, so the photos really dictated my color schemes, even if they weren't the traditional Christmas colors.

[Post found HERE]

Another thing that made these layouts quick and easy, for the most part, is that they're hugely made up of patterned paper, die cuts, and photo collages. I die cut titles with my Silhouette Cameo for every single layout, and on a few of them, I also die cut a few additional pieces for the page. I kept the embellishments super simple, with maybe a few enamel dots, buttons, brads, or pre-made 3×4" cards.

[Post found HERE]

And after looking at all of these layouts together, I guess my love of my scalloped border punch from Stampin' Up really shows! I do love that punch, and it's my go-to border punch when working on projects. I think I used it on six of these nine layouts. I do own other border punches, for the record, so I should show them all some love every now and then.

[Post found HERE]

I keep a 12×12" Iris container that's filled with Christmas themed product and patterned papers. It was so easy to just pull out the box and see if I had anything to coordinate with my photos. I certainly didn't plan on using glittered foam Christmas trees on the design of this page. But as I was digging thru the box, I pulled them out and thought they'd fill in some space on the page. So why not.

[Post found HERE]

I also love that this project gave me a chance to use up some product that I've been holding onto, with only one project in mind. I remember getting this Christmas collection from Chickaniddy over a year ago, when I guest designed for them, and at first glance, I didn't think it was something I would use. But the collection colors worked perfectly with these photos, so I held onto it, knowing I would use it for this layout and most likely this layout only.

[Post found HERE]

This layout looks soooooo similar to the first layout I created for this project, and that's totally fine with me. The beauty of using the same design, is that it saves you time from having to come up with a whole new design, over and over. And because these layouts are all from different years, they're not going to be side by side in any albums or anything. So no one is really going to notice that a few layouts are similar to each other.

[Post found HERE]

I also went into these layouts knowing that I most likely wouldn't include any journaling on most of them. Especially the ones documenting family get-togethers. I don't want it to sound like the holidays are boring and monotonous. Because they're not. However, they usually include the same family members, we're usually at the same house, eating the same foods, opening gifts and doing our pick-a-gift exchange game. So I don't necessarily feel like I need to add journaling to those pages, as it would most likely say the same thing, year after year.

So, what's next? I have Christmas 2014 to do still. I never did edit those photos, so once I edit them, I can get that layout knocked out. And with Christmas 2015 just a few days away, I will have that to scrap as well. I believe I have one more Christmas that was within my "digital years", so that's one more I need to take care of. If I want to continue with the earlier Christmases, it will involve film prints and/or negatives. We'll see how up to that I'm feeling. Otherwise, I'd love to tackle the girls birthday's in the same way, and get those all taken care of. We'll see what I'm feeling inspired to tackle once the new year comes around.
Kerri Bradford Studio: Christmas Joy

December 10, 2015

I've got a new layout up at Kerri Bradford Studio today. In my quest to get 6 years of Christmases scrapped, documented, and in the albums, I finally reached the last of the 9 layouts I set out to make over the last year. Kerri's storyboard templates played a huge part in these layouts coming together easily and without much fuss, and I love that! Every layout I created involved photo collages, and die cut titles, and minimal embellishments. By simplifying my process, it helped me tackle a holiday that I don't necessarily enjoy scrapping.

For this layout, I used a template from Kerri's Storyboard #6 kit and sized it so that I would have a little room on both sides of the collage for some patterned paper and a little room above for my title. I had printed my collage in both color and black & white, since I wasn't sure which one I would want to use. These photos turned out very "flash-ey", and colors were a bit off to me. But in the end, I did decide to go with the color version.

I combined two designs for my title, pulling the word "joy" from the Christmas Countdown kit and the word "Christmas" from the December Twenty-Five kit. I also used one of Kerri's fabulous freebies, and cut the Border Fancy to go along both sides of the collage. I kept this layout super simple, and just added a chipboard piece and some number stickers to add the year. Easy peasy.

I'll be sharing a recap of all nine completed layouts and a little wrap up of my Tackling Christmases Past projects early next week. In the meantime, make sure you're heading over to Kerri Bradford Studio to take part in all of her 12 Days Of Christmas activities. There's been so much inspiration, so many freebies, and a few giveaways shared over the last 10 days, and there's still 2 days left!
Bella Blvd: Step-By-Step Project Sheet – Make It Merry Collection

December 7, 2015

It's the first Monday of the month, which means it's time for a new monthly project sheet layout to go up on the Bella Blvd blog. For this month, I was asked to focus on the Make It Merry collection. This is a smaller collection than most Bella collections, as it is meant to pair up with our Christmas Cheer collection from last year. I set out knowing that I could bring in a few other pieces if needed, but I ended up sticking to just the Make It Merry collection.

As for the handsome little boy, that's Zachary, my cousin's son and a cute kiddo that I also had the pleasure of taking care of for a few years when he was little. When I looked at this collection, these photos of him were the first ones that came to mind, and I knew they'd be perfect.

I also knew right away that I wanted to use white cardstock for the background of my page, so that the reds and greens of the patterned papers would really stand out. I just love how the black star Clear Cut transparency looked laid over the white cardstock, and it picked up the touches of black in the Santa patterned paper. I adhered the Clear Cut using glue dots along the top and bottom edges, and I also added a few glue dots to the center of the page, as I knew my photo/papers would cover that up.

I then added some strips of pattered paper and the scalloped border stickers along the top and bottom of the page, which covered up the glue dots along those edges. I machine stitched along the top and bottom as well, to really secure things.

I picked out three patterned papers – a green tone-on-tone print, a red with white triangles print, and the cute Santa print – and layered them one on top of the other, along with my photo collage. I printed my collage as a 5×7", so you could easily use a single 5×7" photo instead. I thought the little tab stickers worked really well tucked into the different layers of papers.

For my title, I used the white alpha stickers from the Treasures & Text sticker sheet, along with the red Amorie chipboard alphas. I was worried the white alpha stickers wouldn't show up that well, once I had my white background picked out. But since I partially layered them over the patterned papers, it worked out.

I love to distress the edges of my patterned papers on most of my layouts. It takes no time at all, and adds a lot of texture to the page, so the papers don't appear so "flat". I also machine stitched around the edges of each patterned paper, before adhering the entire layered piece to the center of the page.

You can download and/or print a copy of this month's project sheet, complete with a full supply list and detailed instructions, RIGHT HERE.
Kerri Bradford Studio: Merry Christmas 2011

December 5, 2015

It's that time of year again! It's December, which means it's time for the Twelve Days of Christmas celebration over at Kerri Bradford Studio. Everything kicked off this past Monday, which you can find right HERE. You'll want to make sure and stop by each day, as she's got one-day-only Christmas freebie designs that you won't want to miss. There will also be other goodies, projects from her designers as well as some other guest designers that are stopping by to visit and share, and of course a giveaway or two.

And today, I've got a new layout up on Kerri's blog. I've been knocking out the last few layouts for my Tackling Christmases Past project, over the last month or so. This layout here is one of the last ones I had left, and it's very similar in design to what a lot of my layouts ended up looking like. The entire reason that I had those 6 years of Christmas's that hadn't been documented (along with a few more years from my film days, which still need to be taken care of) was that I don't enjoying scrapping Christmas layouts. Not sure why. I just don't. Which is why I went into this project knowing that I would keep these layouts simple and quick.

You know that saying, "if it isn't broke, don't fit it"? Well, I totally apply that to my scrapping. If I have a page design that works, I have no problem using that design over and over again. It simplifies things for me, and lets me get more done. This is one of those page designs, especially for a two page layout, that has always worked well for me. I've used it a ton, whether it was a Christmas layout, birthday layout, or an everyday layout.

A while back, I got to work with Echo Park's The Story of Christmas collection for a layout that is in the winter issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today. Once I was finished with that layout, I figured that I might as well create another layout with it, since I already had all of the products out. The colors in the collection went perfectly with these photos from Christmas 2011.

I combined two cut files to create my "Merry Christmas" title. While the Here Comes Santa Claus kit has a "Merry Christmas" that's all one cut file, I decided I wanted a taller, all uppercase "Christmas", which I found in the Christmas Countdown kit. If I'm being honest, I actually used this same exact title on my layout for S&CT. I used different patterned papers, and did a little layering/shadowing with a second cut, but yes, same title. Like I said, if it's not broke, no need to fix it!

I really liked the border strip with the cute little banner pieces on it, but it was a little too big for my liking. So I went really old-school, and did a little "tearing" technique to make it smaller. Ok, so tearing really doesn't count as a "technique" I suppose, but I don't get all that "technique-ey" anymore, so I'm going with it. I also used one of the 3×4" cards from one of the patterned papers, and tucked the bottom under the top of my photo collage next to the title. It's something I've done on a few of the Christmas layouts and I like the way it looks.

For this layout, I created two separate photo collages. Since I aim to get all of our photos onto the page, I created a full 12×12 collage for one side of the two page spread, and then a smaller collage for the opposite page. Both of the collages used on this layout came from Kerri's Storyboard #7 kit. I stuck with some very simple embellishments, using a few of the brads and enamel dots that came with the collection. And lots of machine stitching of course.

So make sure and visit Kerri Bradford Studio all this week and next, so that you don't miss a thing. And I'll have one more Christmas layout to share for her sometime next week!
Scrapbook & Cards Today: Winter Issue Now Available

December 4, 2015

Just popping in to let you know that today is the day that the Winter issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today is available to view and/or download, completely FREE, online. You can also get print issues with a subscription (HERE), for just the price of shipping and handling. If you've never had a chance to hold this magazine in your little hands, you're missing out. I love the online version, and it's awesome that it's completely free to view. But there's nothing better to me than having a magazine in my hands, to flip thru over and over. It's such a high quality publication, with nice thick pages. Either way, check it out!
Scrapbook & Cards Today: Under The Tree Are Presents For Me

December 2, 2015

I have a new layout up on the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog today. I do four blog posts a year over there, and when it came time to start thinking about what I was going to create for this post, I started thinking back to the last post I did for the 2014 year, which was in November 2014 (found HERE). I realized that I had shared the new approach I had decided to take to tackling the years of Christmas photos that I had never gotten around to documenting. I had shared my first two layouts (both two pagers) from this project on that post, and I figured with this post being my last post on the S&CT blog for 2015, it would be the perfect time to share another layout from this same undertaking.

Just a quick refresher on this project and my plans for it (you can read more about it in full HERE). My goal when it comes to scrapping holidays and events is to get the entire celebration on the page. I am not one to do a large number of layouts every Christmas, with a single photo, or maybe two or three photos on a page. If I'm going to take the time to scrap Christmas, I'm going to use ALL the photos at once, and "get it done". That just sort of goes in line with my style and how I like to scrap. I had a plan to get all of these photos, from 6 different years, scrapped quickly and without much fuss. And that plan heavily revolved around photo collages. It's the best way to get LOTS of photos on your pages, in a neat and organized way. I like clean looking pages, and photo collages are great for just that.

For this layout, documenting Christmas morning with my girls back in 2008, I had created a large photo collage for one side of the page, and I had two main photos that I printed as 4×6” prints. I’m a firm believer in turning to the colors in your photos when it comes to picking out your patterned papers and embellishments. I’ve been holding onto this older Jolly Good Christmas collection from Chickaniddy Crafts that went really well with these photos. I don’t see pink or even the lighter green pop up in our Christmas photos anymore, so I wanted to make sure and use this collection once I realized how well it matched with these older photos.

Since I fit the majority of our photos into the photo collage for the second page, I choose two main photos to include on the first page. Since they were both 4×6”, I adhered them side by side across the page, which gave me plenty of room above and below to play. Actually, they weren't a true 4×6", since there's a gap in between the photos. Lol. I find it so annoying when things aren't the exact size they should be.

The white and grey circle patterned paper was perfect for the background of this page, as it was subtle enough to let all the other elements stand out against it. This entire layout is pretty much all patterned paper and photos, with a touch of cardstock in my title. I even cut the “Ho!Ho!Ho!” and “The Magic of Christmas” strips from a sheet of patterned paper.

My title is straight from the Silhouette store, and I cut it using both patterned paper and solid cardstock. I love titles that include both a cursive font and a clean font with straight lines, and this title had both.

When it comes to photo collage templates, I think you all know that my go-to templates are from Kerri Bradford Studio, as she has such a wide variety to choose from. I print a lot of my smaller photo collages at home, but anything larger than 8.5×11” I send to Costco for printing, which is super convenient for me as it’s only two miles from my house. And yes, that's a super unflattering photo of me on there. But it's not often I'm even in photos, so I had to include it to show I was there 😉

The only real embellishments that I included on this layout were some enamel dots that I added to some of the flowers on the floral patterned paper. I even fussy cut some of these adorable pink and red flowers to add to the first page of the spread. It’s such a quick way to bring in a touch of that floral patterned paper to the opposite page, without adding a large piece of it.

I'm pretty sure I've said this in every post related to this "tackling Christmases past" project, but it’s worth repeating. I figure if using the same basic design, some of the same elements, and even the same photo templates helps me tackle something that I’ve been avoiding, then it’s all good. I would rather create quick and easy pages and “get it done” … then to keep pushing these photos and memories aside, all because they’re subjects or themes that I either don’t enjoy doing, or am too overwhelmed to dig into!

I have two more Christmas layouts to share during the next week, which will bring this project to an end. Sort of. Once I share the last layout, I'll be doing a post to share the progress I made, some final thoughts on how I went about this, and what comes next related to this same project.
Bella Blvd: What’s Most Important In Life Is Family

November 30, 2015

Last week, I shared the first of two layouts that I created a while back for Bella Blvd, for a special company spotlight feature at Paper Crafter's Library. That feature went up last Wednesday, and there's a giveaway that is still open, if you'd like to get in on a chance to win some of Bella's new Tiny Text alpha stickers! They'll be announcing the winner on Wednesday, this week.

For my second layout, just like the first one, I used Bella’s Family Frenzy collection, along with the new Clear Cut transparencies and Tiny Text alpha stickers. The Clear Cuts come in a wide variety of colors, as well as patterns – confetti dots, chevron, stars, and hearts – that coordinate with all of Bella’s paper collections. I’m a simple girl at heart, so my favorite Clear Cuts to use, and the ones I turn to the most, are the white patterns.

Bella’s new Tiny Text alpha stickers, which are 12×12 sheets, come in 10 different styles – 8 sheets that contain 5 different colors in 2 fonts, 1 sheet of all white in 2 fonts, and 1 sheet of all black in 2 fonts. These tiny alpha stickers are perfect for adding subtitles to your title work, or adding additional little details to the page.

I love to create large die cut titles, and then using tiny alpha stickers to finish out my title. So these new Tiny Text alphas are perfect for that. I love that there are so many color options to choose from, and they will coordinate with any and all of Bella's colorful collections.

The Clear Cuts also work perfectly in die cut machines. I used my Silhouette Cameo to die cut the word “family” from both patterned paper and the white heart Clear Cut, and layered them together for a really cool looking title.

To adhere the outline of the word "family", I ran it through my Xyron so that I would be guaranteed to have a good amount of adhesive on the entire piece. I then adhered it to the transparency "family". To adhere the transparency die cut "family" to the green die cut "family", I used some mini silver brads to secure it in three different areas.

When laid over patterned papers, they help tone down the busier patterns and really stand out against the simpler tone-on-tone patterns. The floral patterned paper along the bottom of my layout isn’t necessarily that busy of a pattern, but by laying the white chevron Clear Cut transparency over it, it softens the look of it.

I also love that floral patterned paper for fussy cutting out the flowers to embellish my projects. I'm not a huge fan of fussy cutting, but sometimes it's well worth the few extra minutes it takes.
Bella Blvd: They Are All Mine

November 25, 2015

I created two new layouts a while back for Bella Blvd, for a special company spotlight featured at Paper Crafter's Library, which went up today. Just a head's up – Bella is sponsoring a giveaway on the Paper Crafter's Library site, so you should definitely stop on by and leave a comment for a chance to win some of their new Tiny Text alpha stickers.

For this layout, I used the Family Frenzy collection, along with the new Clear Cuts transparencies and Tiny Text alpha stickers. Our newest patterns for the Clear Cuts are chevron, stars, and hearts, and I wanted to show all three of those on this layout.

Bella is known for their great tone-on-tone patterned papers (usually found on the B sides), and they are the patterns that I turn to the most. I pulled out several patterns that coordinated with the Clear Cuts that I wanted to use. By layering the same color patterned paper and Clear Cut together, it keeps with the tone-on-tone look, and doesn’t overwhelm the page.

I cut strips of each patterned paper and Clear Cut – the green chevron Clear Cut over the green striped patterned paper, the aqua star Clear Cut over the aqua confetti patterned paper, and the red hearts over the red dotted patterned paper. For adhering the transparencies, I try to add my adhesive to places on the Clear Cut that I know will be covered, so that the adhesive doesn’t show. I also use my sewing machine, and machine stitch around the edges to really secure them.

I also layered the white heart Clear Cut over my white cardstock, to add even more interest to the page. I love to use white cardstock, but often feel like it looks to plain. Adding the white transparency on top gave it a whole new look. I’m also a fan of adding mist to my white cardstock, so I simply did my misting ahead of time, and then layered the Clear Cut over the top once it was dry.

If you haven't seen the new Tiny Text alpha stickers, you should check them out. There are 10 different sheets, with one being all white and one being all black. The other 8 sheets have a mix of colors, and each sheet contains two different fonts, with three lowercase typewriter sets and two uppercase set, along with a tiny little circle alphabet in the center of the sheet.

I want to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving tomorrow! I hope you enjoy your holiday, and time spent with family and friends. And of course, lots of turkey and mashed potatoes, which is my favorite part!