Laura Vegas

Scrapbooking And A Little Bit Of Everyday Life

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Bella Blvd: Summer 2015 Reveal – Family Frenzy Collection

July 15, 2015

If you missed yesterday's post, we're revealing the new Summer 2015 collections all this week over on the Bella Blvd blog. I shared a peek at the first two collections yesterday, and today I'm sharing a peek at the third new collection, Family Frenzy.

I worked with the Family Frenzy collection to create this layout for the catalog. I knew right away I wanted to use the fun floral patterned paper, and then picked out a few of the tone-on-tone patterned papers to go along with it. I love the colors in this collection!

I usually use busier patterned papers, such as the floral, in smaller amounts on my pages. I used a strip of it across the top of the page, and then arranged my tone-on-tone papers below. I used this fun blue border sticker to section off the floral paper at the top of the page.

Bella Blvd is also coming out with a new collection of Clear Cuts transparency papers (more on those tomorrow!), and I used the white Chevies Clear Cut on this layout as well. I cut a piece the same size as my red dotted patterned paper and machine stitched it directly over the top.

I just love tone-on-tone patterned papers! But I'm pretty sure you know that about me by now. I wanted to add some flowers to the rest of the page, to tie in the floral patterned paper at the top, so I took the time to fussy cut a handful of flowers to sprinkle around the page.

I love that we're seeing more navy blue added into the recent Bella collections, as it's become a new favorite color of mine. And the dotted alpha stickers on the Treasures & Text sticker sheet are so fun, as they add more pattern to the page in an easy way.

I cut one of the scalloped border stickers into smaller pieces to arrange my title on, and spritzed it with white misting spray to tone down the orange a little bit, as I didn't have a ton of orange on the page.

Head on over to the Bella Blvd blog to check out the new Family Frenzy collection, and get in on a chance to win-it-before-you-can-buy-it!
Scrapbook & Cards Today: Pack Your Bags & Fly Away

July 1, 2015

I've been meaning to share this layout for about two months, and with nothing else new to share, I figure this is a good time to share it. I created this layout for the Spring issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today, which if you haven't seen it yet, you can download/view it RIGHT HERE.

This layout was included in an article called Back to Basics, all about using some of your basic supplies in a new way. I was asked to focus on chipboard, and received a few packs of new chipboard elements from Pink Paislee, from both the Citrus Bliss collection and the Atlas collection.

After pondering the two packs of chipboard for WAY longer than needed, I decided to go with a travel themed layout, as many of the pieces I thought would work well together for the assignment were geared more towards travel.

If I'm being totally honest, I've already created a layout with many of these same photos and the same journaling. And even the same title. You can see it HERE. But I don't travel enough to have completely different photos, a different story, and the title? Well, I just really liked the title the first time I used it, and it fit the story of my page.

Because this was the spring issue, I wanted to keep the colors lighter and even a big spring-ish. Luckily, all of the chipboard pieces I wanted to use fit with that idea. I dug through my patterned paper stash and found quite a few papers from Dear Lizzy and Amy Tangerine that worked great with the chipboard.

I used several of the chipboard frames to create a border across the bottom of the page. I spent more time than I care to admit coming up with the perfect arrangement. I backed each frame with pieces of patterned paper and used the frames to hold extra chipboard elements and my journaling.

And a little behind the scenes tidbit about this layout. I'm pretty sure I printed my photo collage at least six times for this layout. I had way more photos on there the first time, but they really weren't standing out enough. So then I changed to a different collage and narrowed down my photos.

Then I was asked to add in a people photo, since there were too many photos of the same thing. Luckily, I did have a photo of Diane and myself, when she was on my Bella Blvd DT and came to visit me at one of the CKU's. Then I was asked to make a few of the photos color, since I had them all black and white. And last but not least (or maybe I should say first), the first 2 times I printed this collage, the coloring was all wonky from not using my photo printer in a while. It's a good thing I'm stocked up on photo paper!
Scrapbook & Cards Today: Perfect Selfie

June 24, 2015

I have a new layout up on the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog! The last time I took a turn sharing on "Design Team Wednesday", I shared a layout using photos that the girls had taken of themselves. That layout can be seen HERE. Well, this time is no different. I'm dealing with sassy teen girls, and the last thing they're up for is mom pointing her camera at them. It's a good thing I can rely on their photos from time to time.

Sarah just turned 16 years old this past weekend. She is truly an expert at taking selfies, and has been for years. I just love this photo that she took of herself while we were driving in the car last month. It's a gorgeous photo of my gorgeous girl. So I asked her to send it to me so I could scrap it. It took a few reminders, but she finally emailed it to me.

I have never been one to work from kits, or subscribe to kits, but I did recently pick up a few kits during a big sale at Studio Calico. It has been sitting on the floor since I got it, and I'm glad I ended up looking through it when I started this layout. I found three patterned papers in there that worked so well with what I had in mind.

The pink dotted pattered paper matched the colors in my photo perfectly. I always love a good brown woodgrain patterned paper, and it went well with the pinks and Sarah's brown hair. And the gold glittered patterned paper added a touch of glam to the page, tying in nicely with the brown woodgrain paper.

I started out with a die cut title, from the gold glittered patterned paper, but it wasn't standing out as much as I would have liked. I also felt like I needed some silver added in, since Sarah's sunglasses had silver rims.

I remembered these silver chipboard alphas that I had bought from the dollar section at Target last year (in full disclosure, I may have bought about 10 packs of them!). I love a good chunky font mixed with a cursive or script font for my titles, so pairing the chipboard alphas with a die cut word ended up working perfectly.

I also die cut a fun circle border from the brown woodgrain patterned paper. It was something I had in my Silhouette library, found in their store. It worked well to cover up the top part of the ruffled paper, since it had an unfinished look to it once I cut it.

One product that immediately came to mind after printing my photo was the ruffled paper from an older Dear Lizzy collection. I have a few sheets of it, and have never gotten around to using it. I always feel oddly accomplished when I finally use a product that I love, but that I've been hoarding for years.

I trimmed off the lighter pink rows of ruffles, which also matched the photo perfectly. I printed my journaling and matted them with the gold glittered patterned paper, to bring in another touch of the gold on the page, and adhered the strips to the page using silver brads.

I know it may appear that my buttons don't actually match each other. I promise you, in real life, they're all the same shade of pink (and a few off white) and match the pinks on the page really well. I also added some tiny silver accent dots around the page, for some subtle touches of silver.
Kerri Bradford Studio: Hello Pool

June 11, 2015

Hey everyone! I've been doing way less scrapbooking these days, so my blogging has suffered. But I do have a new layout up at Kerri Bradford Studio today. With the official start of summer right around the corner, I was itching to create a fun summer layout. So that's what I did.

I dug up some really old photos (taken back in 2007) of a family get together at my brother and sister-in-law's house. Our summer's usually consist of temperatures in the 100's, so most of our gatherings revolve around a swimming pool, to keep everyone cool. To be honest, I have scrapped these photos before. But this layout will definitely take the place of the other layout, since it's way more "me" than the previous one.

Since I had a lot of photos I wanted to include, I pulled up a template from Kerri's Storyboard #3 kit that I felt would work well with my photos. I used this same template twice, once for either side of my two page spread. I just flipped the template for the second page so that it would mirror the template on the first page.

I also printed a few main photos individually to add to the top section of the two pages. I still had a few additional photos that I would have loved to include, but getting 20 photos onto this layout pretty much told the story of the day. I even stuck the one photo of myself on there, even though I hate it.

I knew the top part of my pages would be white cardstock, but I wanted to add something so that it wasn't so plain looking. I decided to use the sun from the This & That: Summertime [just shapes] kit, and cut three different sizes of suns, multiple times.

I layered the suns on the top half of each page, adding adhesive only to the centers of the suns. This added some easy dimension and texture to the page, as they weren't adhered totally flat. I then misted over the top half of each page, using pink, green, and aqua misting sprays.

All of my patterned papers on this spread are from My Mind's Eye. I came across the floral patterned paper, and thought it would work well, so I went searching for a few tone-on-tone papers in pink and aqua to match. I honestly believed that the papers matched well when I started this layout. I was matching that pinkish paper to the small amount of pink you can see in the floral paper (and also matching it to the girls swimsuits). In the end, I think my colors were a little off, but it still works.

For my title, I choose the words "hello" and "pool" from Kerri's Summer Lovin' kit. I knew I wanted a large title along the top of the page, so I sized each word fairly large. I cut each word from patterned paper, as well as black cardstock, and layered them together.

I had every intention of adding a subtitle, "you know we love you", and then completely forgot about it until I was editing the photos of the layout. Opps. At least I worked that thought into my journaling 😉

When it comes to buttons, I always thread them. But very rarely do I take the time to hand stitch them to the page anymore. I usually thread them, and then add a glue dot to the back and stick in place. But since I was using clear buttons on a white background, I decided to take the extra time to hand stitch them all in place. Really not that time consuming, but it did take me longer than glue dotting them.

Speaking of 100 degree days of summer, we had one of those earlier this week. And we were all miserable. The air conditioning can't keep up when it gets that hot, so it's just constantly turning on and off, on and off, over and over. At one point, I realized it was 82 degrees in the house, when I had it set at 78. So I turned off the air and gave it a break, knowing it was 102+ degrees outside.

I left to go get a haircut after all the daycare kids left, and when I got home a few hours later, the family informed me that they were dying and it was 87 degrees in the house. No one had even thought to turn the AC back on and cool things back down. Lol. We're looking at 100 degree temps again this weekend, so wish us luck and hope we survive!
Bella Blvd: Step-By-Step Monthly Project Sheet – Color Chaos & Invisibles

June 2, 2015

Hey everyone! I finally have something new to share with you. We are now revealing our monthly project sheets on the first Monday of the month, over on the Bella Blvd blog. This month, I was asked to feature the Color Chaos collection, along with the Invisibles specialty papers.

I was also asked to use time as the theme to my page, along with a comparison, such as the "AM vs PM" idea I used for this layout. If I was doing this layout idea completely on my own, I would have done something entirely different. Since I create these layouts with the idea that others will be recreating something similar, that usually plays into what I end up making. I was able to pull up some really old photos that I thought would work well for comparing a few things that are different in my mornings and my evenings.

When it came to which Invisible specialty paper I would use, it was an obvious choice. The "A Day At A Time" was perfect, since I was going with a daily routine theme. I knew I was only going to use a portion of it, so I cut it in half before getting started.

I used my finger to roughly add some black acrylic paint around the outside edges of the Invisible and then traced it onto a sheet of white cardstock. Once I had cut that out, I adhered the two pieces together. Adding the white cardstock behind the Invisible just helps it to stand out more, and keeps it from overwhelming the page.

I thought the white and grey star patterned paper would make a great neutral background to lay the Invisible against. Once my other patterned papers were adhered in place, I added the white scalloped border sticker and did my machine stitching. I used the black alphas from the Treasures & Text sticker sheet for my title, and lined it up along the white border sticker.

For the top "AM" part of my page, I added a piece of the yellow tone-on-tone diagonal striped paper. Yellow just seems like a morning color, right? I printed two strips of photos, one for AM and one for PM. Each had three 2×2" photos, but you could easily just print three individual photos for each section.

I used the Amorie chipboard alphas for my "AM" and "PM", and also added an assortment of Ciao Chip Elements, like the sun and clouds.

For the bottom "PM" part of my page, I added a piece of the aqua tone-on-tone diagonal striped paper. I was originally going to use navy blue, but it was a little too dark for the page. I think aqua still worked well for an evening color, plus it matched my clouds.

Under each of the photo strips, I added a few small strips of patterned paper. Both the black days of the week paper and the paint splatter paper were 4×6" cards cut from the Daily Details patterned paper. Since my photo strips were wider than the paper strips, I couldn't mat them. So I just cut some thin strips, and tucked them under the top and bottom of each photo strip.

I added some chipboard flowers in coordinating colors, and topped each one with black enamel dots. I had to stick to just one color of enamels for this layout, but you could easily add in more color using a variety of colors of the enamels.

You can download our step-by-step project sheet, complete with a full supply list and detailed instructions, RIGHT HERE.
Kerri Bradford Studio: Hilarious Game Face

May 21, 2015

I have a new layout up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today. I honestly wasn't sure what I was going to do for my layout this month. Then, about a week ago, I saw Kerri share a photo on Instagram (seen HERE) of these 4" foam alphas that she designed for a kit-of-the-month years and years ago.

She mentioned that she felt like she should pull them out and use them, and that some things never go out of style. And she's right. Those alphas are still amazing, years later. And I still happen to have two sets of them, so I thought it would be fun to incorporate them into my next layout for her.

I love a big and bold title, but I knew that I'd have to keep it fairly short, since the 4" letters did fill up the page more than I thought once I laid a few letters out. I've had these old photos of Sarah in mind for a layout for at least the past year.

I knew some sort of "game face" title would work great, so I pulled out the foam letters to spell out "game" to get the page started. I collaged my photos together using a template from Kerri's Storyboard #8 kit, and sized the collage to fit below my title.

I had originally printed my photos in color (lots of burgundy, and a few shades of blue), but just wasn't feeling the color combo choices. So I went back and printed them in black and white, which gave me the freedom to use whatever colors I wanted to use.

My first instinct, for whatever reason, was to turn to my patterned papers from Amy Tangerine's Plus One collection. The bright pink, aqua, and yellow called out to me, and then I added in the black and white diagonal striped paper as well (not completely sure if it's from the same collection or not). I had scraps of all of these papers, since I've used them before. And the nice thing about die cutting, and also the way I tend to pull my pages together, is that I can make scraps go a long way!

I've said this before, probably more than once, but I love a good chunky font mixed with a cursive font for my titles. So the foam letters were perfect to mix with a few of Kerri's handwritten and brush script words.

I cut the word "face" from Kerri's Oh Baby kit, keeping it on the smaller side, so that I could layer it right over my foam letters. I also cut the word "hilarious" from Kerri's Something To Say #2 kit, because I do in fact think that Sarah's "game face" (or faces) is pretty hilarious.

I went looking for something else to die cut for this page, with the intention of adding a border of some sort or some stars. I came across this star cluster from Kerri's Stars & Stripes kit, which fit both of those ideas. I sized it to almost 12" in length, and tucked it under the striped patterned paper to turn it into a border.

The thin yellow strip of patterned paper on the right side of the page was embossed and spritzed with black misting spray from a previous layout I had made. So I ran the yellow bottom layer of the star die cut thru the same dotted embossing folder, and spritzed it with black misting spray before adhering the black piece on top.

I decided to print my journaling on a full 12" strip of white cardstock, so that I could adhere it along the left side of the page. I didn't have any regular old cardstock that was 12" wide, so I had to use textured cardstock. Which I love way more than non-textured. But it did make the journaling look a little weird in a few places. Not a huge deal to me. But if you're trying to read it, and you feel like you need to put your glasses on to make it clear, just know that it's not you 😉
PageMaps: May Sketches

May 13, 2015

Earlier this month, the new May sketches were released over on the PageMaps site, and Bella Blvd was invited to be the guest manufacturer to play with the new sketches. Ten of our designers were each given a sketch and asked to create a layout based off that sketch. You can check them all out HERE, where you'll also find the sketch that my layout above is based off.

I volunteered to take on an 8.5×11" sketch, and it called for two smaller photos. I already had these photos of my cousin's cute kiddos in mind for a layout, and decided they would work well for this layout. I pulled a few patterned papers from Bella's new Simply Spring collection to use, and then realized I had the perfect embellishments for my page.

See these fun layered flowers? They were originally on THIS layout, that I created for a monthly project sheet a full three years ago, back in 2012. I was recently cleaning out some albums and pulled out a stack of layouts that I … wait for it … threw away. People tend to cringe when I tell them I throw layouts away. Lol. Truthfully, the layout had no special meaning to me, no journaling, and I had already scrapped the photos before. So I didn't really feel a need to keep it.

But I did feel a need to keep the layered flowers, thinking I would use them on a few cards. Well, a few of them matched this layout so well, that it just made sense to use them. And it made creating this layout so much quicker. Love when things work out like that!
Scrapbook & Cards Today: Adventure On The Green

May 6, 2015

I had mentioned in my post last Saturday that there was a big National Scrapbook Day celebration going on over at the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog. Did you check out the 12 posts that went up that day? There were tons of giveaways going on, in each of those 12 posts, and there's still time to get in on them, if you haven't already. You have until Saturday, May 9th, to leave a comment for any and all giveaways.

I wanted to share the layout I created for the celebration, which you can also see HERE. I didn’t realize until I was halfway done with this layout that I had created a two page layout, using lots of 3×4” photos and accent cards, for my NSD project last year. It’s how I love to scrap, so I guess it makes sense that you would see this type of design a lot from me.

If I make a two page layout, you can bet there is going to be a TON of photos on it. I love putting the focus on the photos, telling the entire story with those photos, and if I can get these pages done quickly, than that’s just an extra bonus.

I wanted to scrap these photos of a little golfing adventure we took with the girls several years ago (or 8 years!), and printed out twelve 3×4” photos and one 3×3” photo. I lined up all of my 3×4” photos, along with a few 3×4” project life style cards, along the top and bottom of my two page spread. I’m a huge fan of collages and linear pages, so lining up photos and papers is my favorite way to start my pages.

Across the center of the two pages, I added in 4” strips of a more neutral patterned paper, knowing that I would want my title to stand out against it. I love good text patterned papers, and this one just happen to have a summer theme to it, which worked perfectly for this page. The patterned papers and cards on this spread are all from Simple Stories.

For about half a minute, I thought about die cutting a golf bag that I found in my Silhouette library. But it involved lots of different pieces, that I would assume look best cut from different colors/papers, and then pieced together. I ended up going with this cute little golf cart (even though we didn't use one that day), since it was simple and all one piece.

I love die cutting my titles, using my Silhouette Cameo, as it allows me the freedom to make my title as big, or as little, as I want. And I also love that it lets me use additional patterned papers, getting more color and patterns onto the page.

I used a few cut files from Kerri Bradford for my title. I pulled the "adventure" from the Something To Say kit, and "green" from the A Beautiful World kit, and cut them both from patterned papers from Simple Stories. Some older Jillibean Soup alpha stickers helped complete my title.

The majority of the time, I will also die cut my title pieces from either black or brown cardstock, as well as cutting the pieces from my patterned papers. I like to layer the pieces together, slightly offsetting them, so that it adds a little dimension to my title.

I had two 3×4" spaces left to add my journaling to. I typed it up in two different text boxes, so that I knew it would fit the space, and printed my journaling onto white grid patterned paper. I matted them both on brown cardstock and adhered them in place.

While I do love my embellishments, I often finish layouts and realize that I didn’t even use any actual embellishments on my page. This entire two page layout is made up of photos and patterned paper (and a few alpha stickers), and I love it!
Bella Blvd: Step-By-Step Monthly Project Sheet – Star Student

May 4, 2015

It's a bit earlier than usual, but it's time for another monthly project sheet to be released over on the Bella Blvd blog. From here on out, I believe we'll be sharing them on the first Monday of the month. For the May project sheet, I was asked to focus on the Star Student collection. Most kids are finishing up their school years in the next month or so, so it's the perfect time to work on a school layout or two.

I started this page by die cutting a large star from the Art Journal patterned paper, using my Silhouette. I don't usually incorporate any sort of die cutting on my project sheet layouts, since I'm supposed to use basic tools that anyone and everyone would have. But you could also sketch out a large star and freehand cut it out with scissors if you don't have a die cut machine capable of creating a star that large.

I wanted to use the aqua map patterned paper, since it matched Alyssa's dress in her graduation photo, and decided to lay the Typewriter Clear Cut on top so that the map pattern wasn't super obvious. On the left side of the page, I used a strip of the yellow dotted patterned paper, with a thin strip of the white grid patterned paper separating the two sides of the page.

I thought it would be fun to use a photo of Alyssa on her very first day of high school as a freshman, and a photo of her from four years later, as a senior on graduation day. It's hard to believe she graduation from high school a little less than a year ago (end of May 2014), and she'll be finishing off her first year of college this week.

A little tip for adhering the Clear Cuts transparencies. I added little glue dots along the top and bottom of my transparency, since I knew I was going to add a border along the top and bottom of the page. The border sticker along the top and the patterned paper strip along the bottom both covered up those glue dots once adhered. I also try and figure out what larger pieces will cover the transparency (such as my photos or the star), and add some adhesive in those areas as well, since they'll get covered up.

You can download the May project sheet, complete with a full supply list and detailed instructions, featuring the Star Student collection RIGHT HERE.
Bella Blvd: National Scrapbook Day

May 2, 2015

Happy National Scrapbook Day!!! It's pretty cool that this hobby of ours has a special day dedicated to it each year. I know that there are a ton of sites that are doing fun and cool things today, and I wanted to mention two of those sites that I contributed too. Over on the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog, you'll find twelve straight hours of posts, with a new project and giveaways every hour on the hour. I'll have a project in there that I'll be sharing next week.

And on the Bella Blvd blog, we're doing eleven straight hours of posts, with a total of seventeen new layouts being shared from seventeen of our Creative Team members, and four giveaways spread out throughout the day. I wanted to share my layout here with you today.

I asked our designers to create "all about me" layouts, so that we could get to know them all a little better. I love asking my team to create these layouts every NSD, and seeing what they come up with.

And for me? Well, I wasn't sure what I was going to do for my layout at first. Until I was browsing in my Silhouette library for a totally different project and came across this "oh snap" title. It reminded me of a layout I started years ago, where I had die cut a similar title with my Silhouette, but never finished the layout.

The fact that the photos were already printed was a huge plus! I had originally planned on placing my three 3×4" photos across the page, and this ended up being perfect for a title that popped into my head. I used Bella's Sienna chipboard alphas to spell out "the struggle is real" (which btw, fit perfectly), and added my die cut "oh snap" directly above.

When I started this layout forever and a day ago (hence the curly hair, which I haven't had for years and miss desperately), I was going to journal about my struggle with photography. And oddly, it hasn't changed in the last few years.

You can probably just read my journaling, but basically I used to be able to take out my camera and take great photos without even thinking about it. For the last few years, I take out my camera, use all of the same settings, and end up with terrible photos. Mostly for indoors. I can do outdoor photos just fine. I tend to get frustrated and put the camera away. Seems like I never have the time (or think to make the time) to get in there and figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I kept this layout pretty simple. The grey tone-on-tone camera patterned paper made for a great background paper, and I mixed in some navy blue diagonal striped patterned paper and some black star patterned paper strips. I added the two little black enamel stars on either side of my journaling, since I had a little space on either side, and added a chipboard camera above my title.

I went back and forth on adding more to this page, and finally decided that I loved it just like it is. It's not everyday that I get to make Bella layouts that are totally for me, with no requirements or expectations. So it's nice to be able to create something that's a bit more on the simple side, but still so much my style.