Laura Vegas

Scrapbooking And A Little Bit Of Everyday Life

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Bella Blvd: Step-By-Step Monthly Project Sheet – Clear Cuts & Instagram Photos

March 10, 2015

It's the second Tuesday of the month, which means that we have the new monthly project sheet up over on the Bella Blvd blog. For this month's layout, I was asked to create a layout using square photos from my Instagram feed and to incorporate the new Clear Cuts specialty papers onto my page.

I don't have a super impressive or pretty Instagram feed, so I wasn't really sure what I would do for this layout to be honest. I really try to do layouts that mean something to me as much as I can, so I didn't want to put something together just to put something together. Know what I mean?

A while back I had printed out all of the photos from my Instagram feed where I had used the hashtag #alyssasenioryear, with the intention of doing a layout with them. So I decided to go with these photos for this layout, although I only used about 1/3 of the original photos.

The ones I choose are a good representation of her senior year, although I did have two more that I really wanted to include. The first day of school photo and a photo from graduation. If this was a layout just for me, where I could really do whatever I wanted, I would have included them, and they would have fit into the page design perfectly. But for a project sheet, it would have been too photo heavy.

Once I knew the theme of my layout and had my photos picked out, it really helped narrow down my paper choices. Green, white, and black are our school colors, so those were a given. And I had touches of yellow in a few photos, so I tossed that in as well.

I love the green woodgrain patterned paper from the Campout collection, and used it as the background paper for my layout. I layered the white Confetti Clear Cut specialty paper right on top.

I added a little adhesive along the top and bottom of the dotted transparency, as I knew I was going to add a thin strip of the black text patterned paper along those same edges, which would cover up the adhesive.

This upper left corner was where I was originally going to put my two extra photos, which I had printed as 3×3" photos. I was going to stack them, one above the other, up to the top of the black text paper strip. By not including those photos, it allowed me some extra room for this fun sticker to hold my journaling.

I printed all of my photos as two inch squares. Actually, what I ended up doing was creating two 4×6" collages, each holding six two inch square photos. So once I had printed them and trimmed them down, I only had two "photos" to adhere. If you were to print them all individually, you would just adhered them side by side, across the page. Printing some of them together just makes it a little quicker.

I adhered them to a piece of yellow diagonal striped patterned paper from the Color Chaos collection, which I then adhered onto a piece of white grid patterned paper, from the Star Student collection. Since I knew the general area where this strip of photos would be on my page, I had also added adhesive behind this area on the dotted Clear Cut, when I adhered it to the green woodgrain paper.

For my title, I used a mix of the white Amorie chipboard alphas and the black alpha stickers from the Color Chaos collection. I had left enough room on the white grid patterned paper to add the "instagram" part of my title, and then added the "senior year" directly above it.

Then I added additional chipboard pieces, a few extra stickers, some crochet hearts, and some enamel stars. I even added some chipboard pieces to a few of the photos, where I had a little empty space to work with. It's a bit more embellishments than I would normally use, but I think it turned out to be a fun layout.

You can download the March project sheet, complete with full supply list and step-by-step instructions, RIGHT HERE.
Bella Blvd: Giggles & Dimples

March 9, 2015

I sort of forgot all about this layout of mine. I created this layout for the Bella Blvd catalog, for our Winter 2015 CHA release. This went on a catalog page that showed off the chipboard alphas, feathers, and crochet hearts. All older products, which I mixed in with our newer patterned papers, chipboard, and embellishments.

And since this was the one layout leftover from CHA that hadn't been shared on the Bella blog yet, I decided to use it for one of our Monday Morning Challenges. Incorporating crochet hearts, feathers, and chipboard elements into a layout. I asked our fabulous designer Katie Rose to play along with me, and you can see what she created HERE.

I had pulled out the photo of Sarah from a pile of leftover photos, just to use as a guide for starting the layout and figuring out the design of the page. Along the way, I decided to stick with that photo, as it's a favorite of mine and it gave me an idea for a fun title.

"Giggles & Dimples". Love it. I used a mix of the pink and brown Amorie chipboard alphas for my title, arranging it across the page in a curved, wavy fashion. I then freehand sketched out that wave on a sheet of white cardstock and cut out a piece wide enough to hold the crochet hearts.

I had already picked out the colorful circle patterned paper to use on the bottom part of the page, so I used those colors to pick out my crochet heart colors. I won't tell you how long I spent trying to arrange the hearts to my liking. I overthink things all the time!

I picked out a light pink feather and a tan feather, and tucked them behind my photo. I really do like the texture the feathers add to the page, without adding any bulk. To adhere them, I arranged them where I wanted them, and stapled the ends in place. Once I adhered my photo, it covered up those staples.

I needed to add something in the bottom corner of the page, so I picked out some of our new chipboard hearts to coordinate with the page, along with a yellow chipboard border. I thought this layout was done at one point, and was even taking the photos of it for the catalog, when I realized it needed another touch of brown. So I added the year that this photo was taken, using some brown number stickers from the Campout collection.

And finally, I added some of our new enamel dots to the center of the crochet hearts. All in coordinating colors, except for the grey heart. I had to use a white dot on that, since we don't have grey enamels.
Kerri Bradford Studio: Content & Happy

February 19, 2015

I have a new layout up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today. I can count the number of 8.5×11 layouts I've created in my 20+ years of scrapbooking on one hand. Ok, maybe on two hands. But I'm pretty sure I have not created more than 10 of them over the years. When I saw the "this is going to be fantastic" cut file in Kerri's About Town kit, it inspired me to switch things up from my normal 12×12 layouts and create an 8.5×11 spread.

I'm not going to lie. I struggled with this layout for days. Add in the handful of days that my Cameo wasn't cutting right, and it was almost two weeks before I actually got this done. At one point, I almost turned all of this into a one page 12×12 layout. But I pushed thru my creative block and got it done.

I was very random when it came to picking out patterned papers for this layout. I knew I wanted some green, since there's green in the photos, so I found an older green paper from Basic Grey. I then came across a navy blue star patterned paper (different from the one I actually used), and for some reason, just had to use it. I did end up switching to a star paper from Bella Blvd, since the other one didn't show as well once cut down (knowing I was going to cut my title from it). And the aqua paper from Studio Calico just sort of happened too, after browsing thru some 6×6" paper pads.

I die cut a whole bunch of flowers, using Kerri's This Everything kit, from white cardstock. I adhered them around the edge of a sheet of white cardstock and trimmed off any excess that hung off the edges. I then spritzed the entire page with green and aqua misting spray and machine stitched around the edges.

Turns out, a 6×6" piece of patterned paper was just the perfect size to back this cut out phrase with. I adhered the aqua patterned paper behind my large die cut piece, and then matted the entire thing onto a piece of navy blue star patterned paper.

I took these photos of Alyssa while she was home on winter break after her first semester of college. I love hearing her talk about college life and how much she loves it there. This was the page that I struggled with for days. It turned out nothing like I had imagined it when I started. I had an entirely different idea going, and it was leaving me no room for journaling. I'm glad I ended up changing everything about this page, since it left me a ton of room for my journaling.

"Happy" is the word I would use to describe her feelings about college, so I die cut the word "happy" from Kerri's Just Because kit, from both white cardstock and the same blue star patterned paper I used on the second page. I used some tiny aqua alpha stickers at the last minute to add the "content and" to complete my title.

I wrote my journaling based off a lot of what Alyssa has told me about her college experience so far (one semester in) and the transition from living at home to living in the dorms. I think the "this is going to be fantastic" sums up her feelings for the rest of her college days.
Bella Blvd: Step-By-Step Monthly Project Sheet – Tiny Tots Collection

February 10, 2015

It's been quiet around here, hasn't it? I ran out of things to share, so I sort of disappeared. But I finally have something to share, as the February monthly project sheet went up on the Bella Blvd blog today. I had used the Tiny Tots collection for a previous project sheet layout, but that was a school themed layout.

So this time I got to use it more for it's intended purpose. Kids! I debated for a bit on whether to create a girl page or a boy page, since the collection can go in either direction. But why pick one, when you can work both onto the same layout?

I had my idea for this layout pretty quickly, and it was sort of inspired by a few older layouts of mine, seen HERE and HERE. The chipboard icons come with the words "little", "lady", and "man". So I knew they would work out great for a this page.

I basically split the page in half, using one side for the girly stuff and one side for the boyish stuff. I started by creating the base of my page, adhering a large piece of white cardstock to the polka dot patterned paper. I used a scalloped border punch on the brown tone-on-tone alphabet patterned paper to create four border strips, and adhered them around the edges of the white cardstock.

I knew exactly which daycare kiddos I would feature on this page. Miss Haley was with me for almost four years, ever since she was a itty bitty thing. So she was definitely my "little lady".

Because the chipboard icons came with only one "little", I used the white Amorie chipboard alphas on the boy side of the page. The font is very similar to the other "little", that it worked out perfectly.

And my little man had to be Nikolas! I have a few all-time favorite boys, one of whom I still watch, but Niko was definitely special to me. And he was here at the same time as Haley, so they were best buds. They go so well together on a page.

I was basically creating the guts of my page on the white cardstock in the center of the page. To split it half, I adhered a strip of yellow dotted patterned paper down the center, top to bottom. I knew I wanted to use the green scalloped border sticker on the boy side of the page, but I wanted a similar pink scalloped border on the girl side of the page.

I laid the green border sticker on my pink diagonal striped paper, upside down, and then traced the scallops with a pencil. After cutting it out with scissors, I had a scalloped border strip that matched the scallops on the green sticker.

For the girl side of the page, I picked out a 2×2" and a 2×4" card from the Daily Details patterned paper to adhere right up against the center of the page and in between the title and the photo.

For the boy side of the page, I picked out a 2×2" card and cut a 2×4" piece from one of the 4×6" cards, both from the Daily Details patterned paper. I adhered them right up against the center of the page and in between the title and the photo, to mimic the opposite side of the page.

To download our February project sheet, complete with step-by-step directions and a complete supply list, CLICK HERE.
Bella Blvd: First Day of School

January 26, 2015

If you haven't been by the Bella Blvd blog recently, you should make a point to visit. We are spending three full weeks, beginning two weeks ago (I'm late mentioning this!), sharing every single booth project created for CHA Winter 2015. Tons of ideas for all of our new collections and products.

I thought I would share the second layout I created using the new Star Student collection with you today. I started out knowing that I really wanted to use the black sketch patterned paper and the glasses patterned paper. I just liked the idea of using them together, and then adding in tons of color with additional patterned papers and embellishments.

I printed my photos in a collage, so that I was working with one larger "photo", and used my finger to rub navy blue paint around the edges of the collage. I then adhered my photo collage onto some white grid patterned paper, and matted that on the red arrow patterned paper. I lightly distressed the edges of all of my papers, which adds so much texture without much work.

I spend forever and a day deciding on a few more patterned papers to layer together under my photos. I finally decided on the yellow dot patterned paper and the green patterned paper (not even sure what to call that pattern!). I also used a portion of the "the world is yours" card, which is from the Daily Details patterned paper.

I knew I wanted to add some paper strips in between the black sketch patterned paper and the glasses patterned paper. I thought it would be fun to use a strip of the typewriter Clear Cut, which is a transparency overlay. I cut it a little wider than I needed so that I could add adhesive to the two sides to adhere it in place, knowing that my additional borders strips and stickers woul cover up that adhesive and it wouldn't show thru.

I added the blue arrow border from the Borders patterned paper, along with the red dot patterned paper strip, which I used a scalloped border punch on, on one side of the transparency. On the opposite side of the transparency, I added a striped, scalloped border sticker, which helps tie in all of the fun primary colors going on throughout the layout.

I used a mix of the red alpha stickers from the Treasures & Text sticker sheet, and the blue Amorie chipboard alphas to create my title. I embellished the page with some chipboard pieces from the Star Student collection, as well as some chipboard stars from the Color Chaos collection, topped with our new enamel dots.

I have one CHA layout left to share, and will share that one in the next week or two. I created eight layouts total, all in a little over a week and a half. And then I stayed away from my scraproom for a few weeks, which is why it's taking me a while to get back into the groove of creating again. But I do have a few things in the works, so hopefully, I'll have some other new projects to share soon.
Kerri Bradford Studio: The View From Up Here

January 21, 2015

I have a layout up today over at Kerri Bradford Studio! A while back, I had been searching thru Kerri's cut files in my Silhouette library for a totally different project, and I came across one from the Pack Your Bags kit that said "the view". It might have come from a travel related kit, but it immediately gave me an idea for a layout about some of my daycare kiddos.

One of my favorite ways to take pictures of the little ones is to stand above them and wait until they look up at me, which is when I snap the picture. i find that when I'm trying to get them to look at me, it's so much easier to get their attention when I'm standing up and holding something interesting above them. It makes them look, because they want to know what I'm doing. Or I will have one of them sitting in my lap, and I will hold the camera above us and snap away, hoping that one actually captures us in the frame. I thought it would be fun to gather up a bunch of these photos from over the years for a layout.

I used one of Kerri's collage templates from the Storyboard Instagram Style kit for my photos. I used the template that had two rows with five photos on each row. I created two of these collages, as my original idea for the page was to have the two collages separate from each other. In the end, I ended up combining them together, so that it actually looks like one large collage.

I had a good mix of colors going on in these photos, so I wasn't really sure where to start in picking out papers. Oddly enough, these are often the times when I end up making simple and easy choices.

I had this itch to use some of my Dear Lizzy patterned papers, and came across a good mix from the Lucky Charm collection that seemed to go well with the photos. The polka dot paper is actually a sheet of vellum.

I cut my title, "the view", from the yellow and red patterned papers and from the navy blue patterned paper as well, so that I could layer them together to add a little dimension. I don't always remember to cut my titles out twice, once from a darker paper. But I think it looks so much better when I have the two pieces to layer together.

That aqua circle is a die cut from the Lucky Charm collection, and it just so happen to be the perfect size to adhere my "the" too. I didn't even plan that. Love when things just magically happen! And since I am almost always guaranteed to lose the dots from my i's when I die cut my titles, I added a little enamel dot in it's place.

I wanted to add a little something across the bottom of the page, but didn't really want to use a single strip of patterned paper. So I punched out some half circles from several coordinating patterned papers (two of which I used for my title), and layered them across the bottom strip on the page.

I pulled out some of the coordinating embellishments I had from the Lucky Charm collection, and added some stickers here and there on the page. I had to use that fun little "hello sunshine" badge too. The enamel dots are all from Doodlebug.

I had really wanted to print my journaling on this little die cut, lined journaling card from the collection. But I just couldn't get the text to line up on the lines. And it would have bugged me to no end if everything hadn't lined up right. After much debate, I finally gave up and printed it out on white cardstock. I know when to admit that I'm not smart enough to figure something out :)
Scrapbook & Cards Today: My Story

January 14, 2015

Hey everyone! Today I thought I would share my layout from the Scrapbook & Cards Today Winter Issue. If you haven't checked out this issue, make sure and take a few minutes to peek inside the pages. It's free to view and/or download, so you can't pass up a deal like that!

I was sent the gorgeous Open Book collection from Maggie Holmes to work with. At first glance, this collection is so different from the products I normally gravitate towards. But right away there were patterned papers that I just loved and couldn't wait to use, and I really ended up loving so much of this collection.

I knew that I wanted to use the dark brown woodgrain patterned paper, and was also drawn to two different yellow patterned papers. The shades of yellow in the collection pair up so nicely with the rich brown. I added a small strip of the brown woodgrain patterned paper at the top of the page, and used my favorite scalloped border punch on the yellow ruled patterned paper to go right below.

That small, thin mint green strip of paper was a very skinny piece that I cut off one of the border papers. It had the darker green on it, which was like a little bonus, since I have the look of two papers, but only used one. I also used my scalloped border punch on some text patterned paper to add above and below the center strip of photos and papers.

I wanted to use quite a few of the patterned papers, and sort of kept THIS layout of my in mind as I worked on this page. I cut random sized pieces of four different patterned papers to spread across the top of the page, distressing the edges and adding machine stitching to each before adhering in place. I also added in some stickers, tags, and even a rub-on to embellish the paper blocks.

I am trying to remember what was under the chipboard flower. I want to say that 3×4" card had a heart on it, but don't quote me on that. I just decided that the chipboard flower fit so nicely there, and it added a lot more dimension, so I used it.

I also picked out the bullseye 3×4" card to include across the center of the page. I added the large fabric floral brad to the center.

I love the large chipboard sheets that are a part of the Crate Paper collections. I really wanted to use the "my story" for my title, but had to add a little subtitle, to make it work with my journaling. The brown alpha stickers are from Jillibean Soup.

I used the "the storyteller" border strip from the borders patterned paper along the bottom of the page, with another scalloped punched border from the brown woodgrain patterned paper. I printed my journaling onto the yellow ruled patterned paper, and adhered it in the bottom corner of the page, embellishing it with a die cut label, a few stickers, and a rub-on.
Scrapbook & Cards Today: 2015 Team

January 12, 2015

So, last week, in the midst of all the pre-CHA madness, the new S&CT 2015 Team was announced over on the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog. And I am completely honored to be a part of that team, along with so many talented and creative designers! This will be my third year on the S&CT design team, and I couldn't ask for a better magazine, better editors, or better designers to work with.

To get to know more about each of these designers and contributors, click HERE.
Bella Blvd: CHA Winter 2015 Reveal Week – Simply Spring Collection

January 9, 2015

It’s CHA Winter 2015 reveal time over on the Bella Blvd blog! There are 4 new collections, along with new embellishments and specialty papers. We started the reveals last week, and today we are sharing our last (but certainly not least) new collection, the Simply Spring collection!

When I went to create this layout for the catalog, I knew I wanted to use it for an Easter layout. I know I've used these photos before (numerous times), but they were the easiest photos to get too. Any other year where I had good Easter photos was back in my film days. It's a constant struggle. Lol.

I did my little paper saving trick and cut four strips of the aqua patterned paper to piece around the outside of the page. This is a great way to save paper, when you know that you'll be covering the center of the page, and only the edges will show.

I used a trimmed down white cardstock in the center of the page, which I lightly spritzed with pink and green misting spray. I wanted to use the easter egg patterned paper in smaller amounts, since it's a busier pattern (at least to me, it is), so I used a small strip of it at the top of the white cardstock, and a big larger strip of it along the bottom of the white cardstock.

I mentioned in another post how I don't usually use much gingham patterned paper anymore. But maybe I'm coming around on it, since I used the green gingham print across the page to hold my photo collage. I added a few chipboard flowers on either side of my photo collage, and sprinkled a few enamel dots on as well.

I always love when there's a good word on the Chipboard Icons sheet that works well for a title, and love to mix the alpha stickers in as well. The "sunshine" is probably meant more for general spring layouts, but it worked perfectly for my title, as our Easter's are almost always full of sunshine!

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 Sunday, January 11th.
Bella Blvd: CHA Winter 2015 Reveal Week – Clear Cuts & Invisibles

January 8, 2015

It’s CHA Winter 2015 reveal time over on the Bella Blvd blog! There are 4 new collections, along with new embellishments and specialty papers. We started the reveals last week, and will be continuing all the way thru tomorrow. Today we are sharing our new Clear Cuts & Invisibles!

I created this layout for the catalog, so I knew that a shaped layout was out of the question. A shaped layout would have been too hard to photograph and make look good in the catalog. So I knew right away that I would use one of the Invisibles on top of a sheet of patterned paper, to make a true 12×12 layout.

I picked the A Day At A Time Invisibles paper to use for my page. In order to make it really stand out against the green tone-on-tone diagonal striped pattered paper, I traced the Invisibles onto a sheet of textured white cardstock and cut it out by hand with scissors.

I took out some pink arcylic paint, and using my finger, roughly brushed some paint around the outside edge of the Invisibles. Once that had dried, I adhered it to the white cardstock piece I had traced and cut out. To adhere the Invisible, I added some glue dots behind the spots where I knew my photos and title card would be. This held the Invisible in place for the time being, and once I got to the point of adding other embellishments, I would then add more glue dots behind the Invisibles where they would be hidden, for extra security.

I thought it would have been pretty cool to machine stitch around the edges of the scalloped shaped Invisibles paper, but I also knew better than to think that I am talented enough to pull that off with my sewing machine. Lol. So I decided to do some random machine stitching here and there, adding two to three inch long bunches of stitching in different spots on the page.

I was sewing thru two sheets of paper and the Invisible, which is plastic paper. I did practice first, on a scrap I had, just to be sure it would work ok. My needle did just fine, although some of the thread puckered up a bit on the top side of the page. I actually didn't mind, as it wasn't that noticable and it added an interesting bit of texture.

I had decided to use this 4×4" card from the Daily Details collection for my title. The "love, love, love this moment" card. I loved the large amount of black it had, and the green cursive tied in with the green background patterned paper I had picked out. From there I went to the Color Chaos stickers sheets and chipboard sheets, and pulled out hearts, flowers, and other embellishments in blacks, greys, and pinks.

I created three embellishment clusters on the page, mixing stickers and chipboard pieces in each color. I pop dotted the majority of these embellishments for extra dimension.

Then I pulled out the new enamel dots in white, pinks, green, and black and sprinkled some of those along with my embellishment clusters. To help my journaling stand out against the text on the Invisibles, I used a white font with a black background and printed it onto white cardstock.

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 Sunday, January 11th.