Laura Vegas

Bella Blvd: Sweet Sweet Tween

January 21, 2014

I was going to blog this layout last night. But I was too distracted watching The Bachelor (which my family detests), so I told myself I would just blog it tonight. Why do I never think of typing up my own blog posts during the day? Here goes.

I created this layout with the new Molly collection, which is geared towards girls ages 8-13, but can definitely be used for girls of all ages. This collection has a lot of playful and fun patterned papers to choose from. And yet, for whatever reason, I pulled out lots of the more neutral patterns. I'm a sucker for good tone-on-tone patterns, so I guess it made sense.

I've got this new found love for navy blue. Loving it lately. I added this navy blue dotted strip from the Borders patterned paper across the top of the page, and "tucked" lots of fun pieces in before machine stitching across the top. The heart paper is one of the 4×6" Candid Cards, as well as the green and pink 2×2" pieces.

The yellow journaling piece is a die cut from the Paper Pieces package, and even though it has ruled lines for journaling on, I chose to add my computer printed journaling strips. I just can't use my own hand writing on my layouts. Never like how it turns out.

For my title, I used a mix of light pink chipboard alphas and the alpha stickers from the new Treasures & Text sticker sheet. I love the new font for the alphas. I added a die cut "sweet" label from the Paper Pieces package, to make my title "Sweet, Sweet Tween".

And here we have more Candid Cards and Paper Pieces. The pink heart paper is a 4×6" Candid Card. I love these cards are double sided, as they add so many more pattern options to go with the collection. The star an the "peace" tag are both die cuts from the Paper Pieces package. I tucked in a cute little flag, and added a crochet heart and a few threaded buttons to finish off the page.

Oh. And I also added lots of machine stitching and staples. I love machine stitching for the way it adds SO much to the page and gives it a more finished look (in my opinion). But I also love that it acts as an "adhesive" in many ways. I find that I don't need to use as much adhesive if I'm going to be machine stitching things in place. And I think we all know that we spend a fortune on adhesive as it is, right? Machine stitching and staples are guaranteed to hold things in place, so I use them as much as I can.
Bella Blvd: Family Love

January 16, 2014

All this week, over on the Bella Blvd blog, we've been sharing projects created with the new collections that were displayed in the booth at the CHA Winter show. Next week, we're returning to our regular blog schedule, but we will be following that up with another TWO weeks of CHA inspiration. While I didn't have any of my layouts up this week on the Bella blog, I did want to share one of them here with you today.

I used the Family Forever collection for this layout, featuring some photos I recently took of one of my daycare families. That little guy in the pictures hangs out with me three days a week. I really liked the backside of the Borders patterned paper, as it has a sort of bokeh pattern.

I added a few border strips across the top of the page, and a strip of the red "Language of Love" patterned paper along the bottom of the page. I printed out 3 of my favorite photos in a collage and pop dotted the entire thing on the page, tucking one of the 3×4" Candid Cards under the top of the collage.

The heart die cut from the Paper Pieces pack is one of my favorites, and it's usually the first piece used out of the packs. I arranged a few feathers so that the ends would fall under the large heart. After stapling the ends of the feathers to secure them in place, I pop dotted the heart right over the ends.

I sprinkled a few heart stickers, a chipboard heart, and a crochet heart next to the large die cut heart.

I have a few more CHA layouts that I'll share with you next week. But in the meantime, if you haven't been by the Bella Blvd blog, you should head over and see what our designers created with our new collections.
Kerri Bradford Studio: What I Believe

January 15, 2014

I have my second layout featuring an 8×12" photo up at Kerri Bradford Studio today. This one features a favorite photo of Alyssa, also taken back in 2009 at the almond orchards down the street from our house. I have this photo enlarged and hanging in the house, along with a closer shot of Sarah in the orchard as well.

What I love the most about this photo is that I captured her natural smile. Not the posed or forced smile I would often get when trying to photograph the girls. It's a real smile, captured as she was giggling about something.

I don't always have a certain title in mind for my layouts. I tend to scroll thru my library of Kerri's cuts, and see what calls out to me. And also what works with my layout and fits the space I have. The title I choose was from The History Project class, and I cut it from some black text patterned paper and a green patterned paper. And a mini brad to dot my i 🙂

I wanted to keep the rest of the page pretty simple, so I used a strip of embossed white cardstock from Coredinations. I added a strip of silver shimmer ribbon along the inside edge of the cardstock. I printed out a few things that I believe about Alyssa. I could have printed more, but I wanted to keep this layout pretty clean and simple.

The word "love" came from Kerri's Pack Your Bags kit. I cut that from the same black text paper, and "signed" the page with some alpha stickers. The resin flowers are an older emellishment from Making Memories that I've been hanging onto for years.

I dug up the post where I shared two more layouts featuring 8×12" photos, if you wanted to see a few other ways I've used them on pages. You can see that post HERE.
Kerri Bradford Studio: {Heart} This Photo

January 14, 2014

Every now and then, I take a photo that I completely fall in love with. This photo here is one of them. I recently came across a few photos that I had enlarged to 8×12", with the intention of using them on a layout. I've done several layouts in the past with these large photos and I love that it lets the photo take center stage. So when I found these photos, I knew I wanted to finally do something with them.

This photo of Sarah was taken back in February 2009. Almost a full five years ago. We live in almond country, which means we are surrounded by almond orchards in our little city. The almond trees blossom right around February/March each year, and there is usually a two week window to enjoy these gorgeous orchards before the blossoms fall.

This specific spot in the photo is literally a few blocks away from our house, right off a country road. Which means we pulled over on the side of this road, she ran to one side and positioned herself, and I ran to the other side of the road to get the full shot. In between cars whizzing by us, I would snap away. It was crazy how quickly we took this specific shot, and I just loved how it turned out. We took plenty more photos that day, and even went back the next day with Alyssa, so there are lots more where this came from.

This is one of two layouts I created for Kerri Bradford Studio this month. Both of them featuring an 8×12" photo. The great thing about using an enlarged photo is that it takes up a lot of the page, putting the focus on the photo, and you don't need a lot to finish up the layout. Sure, you can add as much as you'd like in that 4×12" remaining piece of the page, and you can even add things directly to the photo itself. But you can also keep it simple and clean, and have a gorgeous looking layout. Which is what I chose to do.

To go with the "love" theme of this page (meaning I LOVE this photo!), I choose a background from Kerri's Heart Backgrounds kit to fill up the rest of the page. I cut the background as a full 12×12 piece from some Basic Grey patterend paper, so I still have the other two-thirds of it left over for another project. I was going to also cut a fun border to add above the ribbon, but I remembered these super old border strips from Bazzill that I had laying around, so I used one of those.

My title is one of Kerri's Freebies, which you can find HERE. I loved this freebie, and it was perfect for this layout. I cut it from a dark brown patterned paper (more of a solid, but not cardstock) and an aqua patterned paper. I had to cut the brown one twice, since my blade wasn't as sharp as I thought it was, so I just layered that extra piece in to add even more texture. You know me. I never keep track of the dots to my i's. So I just plan from the beginning to add a little brad for the dot.

Tomorrow I'll be sharing my second layout, featuring an 8×12" photo of Alyssa, also taken in the gorgeous almonds orchards. Hope to see you back here!
Studio Calico: Copper Mountain

January 13, 2014

Have you seen the Copper Mountain January kit, from Studio Calico? Stephanie was asked to create a custom Bella Blvd paper, specifically for this Studio Calico kit. It is the fabulous yellow heart patterned paper, and on the opposite side is a fun hand drawn doodle pattern (this same pattern was originally aqua in the Snapshots collection). There is the 12×12 version in the main kit, and then the yellow hearts pattern appears again in the 6×6 paper pad in the card kit.

I had fun working with the main kit and the paper pad from the card kit to make these four cards.

I used a strip of the yellow heart patterned paper for this card. The card kit paper pad has smaller scaled versions of all of the papers in the main kit. I love scaled down papers for card making. While the yellow heart paper in the main kit has the doodles on the opposite side, they are a bit on the large size for card making. So I pulled out a scrap from my Bella Blvd stash, as there is a 4×6 card on one of the papers with the doodle pattern on it. Perfect for adding a strip to this card.

I love the wood veneer circle piece in the main kit. I cut it into two pieces, so that I could use it on two different cards. I sprayed the smaller piece with some red Mister Huey misting spray from Studio Calico.

I used a larger piece of the yellow heart patterned paper for this card, paired up with a piece of this fabulous woodgrain paper from October Afternoon. I got to use this woodgrain paper when I guest designed for October Afternoon a few months back, and I absolutely love it. So I was really excited to get another sheet of it in the main kit, and a few 6×6 sheets of it as well in the paper pad.

Aren't these little puffy hearts the cutest thing? I think I might need to find more of these for my collection.

I used the larger piece of the wood veneer for this card. I backed it wit a piece of grid patterned paper from the paper pad. If I had thought about it sooner, I probably would have done the same on the first card, behind the red wood veneer piece. I machine stitched along the striped paper strip, and then adhered it to the card with pop dots.

I added some of the little chipboard circle accents to the circles in the wood veneer piece, which I sprayed with a navy blue Mister Huey misting spray.

I also loved this darker blue patterned paper. I definitely stuck with the red, blue, yellow, and brown (woodgrain) colors for these cards. The woodgrain circles here are actually left over from a layout I made months ago. I have a ton of them and have been holding onto them, because I love that paper so much, and knew I'd work them into lots of projects.

I machined stitched down the centers of the circles, and then added the puffy heart stickers to the center, along with a small heart flair button.
Bella Blvd: CHA Winter 2014 Reveal Week – Max Collection

January 7, 2014

CHA Winter 2014 is just days away! I know Stephanie and the rest of her Bella team is really excited to leave their freezing cold homes and make their way out here to a much warmer Anaheim, California. This is the second year in a row that I'm not going to the Winter show, and I will really miss not getting to see everyone again. There's just too much going on here at home, and it's all stuff that I'm not willing to miss out on. So, being that it's almost show time, we're finally ready to reveal the new collections over on the Bella Blvd blog! There are 4 new collections, which we will be sharing through out the rest of the week, along with a special feature on Saturday. First up is the Max collection!

I lucked out and get to share one of my layouts with you today, since it's the one that's featured on the blog along with the reveal. While this collection is definitely geared towards the slightly older boys, it can still be easily used for younger ones as well.

I chose these photos of Nikolas, one of my previous daycare kids, from when he came to visit me about 2 years ago. He's one of my go-to boys for scrapping, because he's so stinkin cute!

The dark blue star pattern is actually a 4×6 card from the new Candid Cards package. I ended up adding a small strip of white grid patterned paper along the bottom of the card so that my alpha stickers would stand out.

One of the new products you'll find with each collection is a package of Candid Cards. It's filled with double sided cards in a few popular sizes. You get three 4×6 cards, nine 3×4 cards, and nine 2×2 cards. The fronts of the cards have fun images, sayings, quotes. While the backsides have everyday tone-on-tone patterns, such as the diagonal stripe you see on the yellow card above.
Bella Blvd: January Monthly Project Sheet

January 6, 2014

If you didn't notice, I've been playing around with the design of my blog this weekend. Felt like time to switch things up a bit. Bear with me as I tweak things here and there throughout the week.

Today we released the January Project Sheet over on the Bella Blvd blog. For this month's project sheet, I focused on the Play Date collection for my layout. It's a collection that is filled with bright and happy colors and patterns, making it perfect for those photos of your kids playing and having fun, indoors and outdoors.

I had printed out some photos of the girls playing around with the soccer ball in the backyard quite a while ago, but had never got around to scrapping them. I was originally going to scrap them in a divided page protector. With all of the fun 3×4 and 4×6 cards on the Daily Details patterned paper, I decided to mix them in with my 3×4 and 4×6 photos on a regular layout. But in the same layout/design as a divided page protector.

I love this 4×6 card that says "Today's List Of Awesomeness". While there's plenty of room on this 4×6 card to make a list or write your journaling, I knew I wasn't going to include anything else on there. So I trimmed down the card to "tuck" into the bottom of the 4×12 strip going across the center of the page.

I wanted to add some more dark blue to the page, so I adhered a few strips of navy dot designer tape to a piece of white cardstock, and then used it to mat the title card. Using washi tape to create "patterned paper" is a great way to give yourself more options when it comes to paper choices.

The "let your light shine" is actually a 4×6 card, but I trimmed it in half to get a wider variety of cards and color on the page. Since I didn't have any additional journaling to write on the "a little birdie told me" card, I used a few stickers to embellish it, along with a crochet heart. The blue sentiment sticker was one long piece which I trimmed into three pieces to make it fit.

Even though the action shots of the girls are pretty blurry, I still love them. They're in their 12th year of playing soccer, and I love that they still love the sport so much.

You can view and download the January Project Sheet, complete with supply list and step-by-step instructions, RIGHT HERE.
Scrapbook & Cards Today: My Diva

January 3, 2014

Happy 2014 everyone! Hope you all had a safe and happy New Years. With CHA just days away, I will soon start sharing lots of Bella Blvd goodies here on my blog. Before that all starts, I thought it might be nice to share this layout that I've had sitting in a blog "draft" for quite a while now. Not sure why I haven't gotten around to writing a little something about it and hitting the "publish" button. I just like to drag things out sometimes.

I created this layout for the Scrapbook & Cards Today Fall Issue (that link doesn't show the Fall issue, but it should be there somewhere). I was asked to incorporate feathers into my design, with the theme of my page focusing on the diva personality of my daughter. Luckily, I did have these few photos that show a slight "diva" side of Sarah. Because honestly, I don't really think of my girls as divas.

If you saw this layout in the magazine, you might remember the feathers being a lot smaller in size. I was asked to make some changes along the way, but I never did take good photos of my final layout. And I haven't been able to track down my layout to take new photos of it. Most likely because this is a two page 8.5×11 page, and I never scrap that size. I most likely stuck them somewhere until I could track down some page protectors to get them into my album.

I chose my feathers based off my patterned paper choices, which were based off the photos. The black text paper to match her sunglasses (or my sunglasses, since I'm pretty sure she put mine on for the photos) and the skulls on her shirt, the aqua to match her scarf, the green to match the ivy in the background of the photos, and pink just for fun.

I came across this old rhinestone peace sign sticker from Making Memories and knew I had to use it on my page, as she's giving me the peace sign in one of the photos. It seemed like a good way to "anchor" the feathers to the page, since I like to tuck them under or into something to give them a little purpose. Instead of feathers randomly floating on the page. I adhere the sticker to a black metal rimmed tag (also an old Making Memories product) before adhering it to the page.

I cut thin strips of the black text paper to create a border around the entire two page layout. Then I started cutting strips of varying widths to layer together across the center of the spread.

I picked out the green glitter paper to add a bit more texture to the page, and also a bit more sparkle. You can't have too much sparkle on a diva layout, right? I also used a chevron embossing folder on the aqua patterned paper, giving it some nice texture as well. I used to be so addicted to my embossing folders, and this reminded me that I should make a point to use them more often. Although, I did create this layout in April of 2013, and I'm not sure I've really used my embossing folder too much since then. Lol.

That rhinestone star is also an older sticker from Making Memories. I used some of those fabulous tiny alpha stickers from Lily Bee to add the "super star" to the rhinestone star.

The pink fabric frame is from Maggie Holmes first collection thru Crate Paper. I'm 99% sure the frame came with the little date tag adhered to it. But once again, I created this layout so long ago, that I honestly don't remember for sure. Those tiny alpha stickers came in handy again to add the date, as well as Sarah's name to the black metal rimmed tag.

Hope you all have a great weekend! I shipped off my CHA projects today, so I will be spending lots of time this weekend setting up blog posts, both for the Bella blog, as well as my own. Hope to see you back here next week, as I'll be posting every day! Making up for my absence lately 😉
Happy Holidays

December 29, 2013

I got caught up in the busyness of the holidays and just never made it back here to wish you all a merry Christmas. So I figured I would stop in before New Year's rolls around and I miss that one a well. From my house to your house, I just wanted to say "Happy Holidays" to all of you! I'll be back to posting more regularly next week, so stay tuned 🙂
Digital Book Share

December 19, 2013

Sorry it's been so quiet around here. We're in that last week before Christmas, and I'm far from being ready. My girls have half days at school this week for finals, before getting a two week break. Which means I have extra kiddos here during the day, with school being out. Last weekend, we started our winter soccer league, which keeps our Saturdays busy. And to top it off, it's CHA time, which means I'm spending a lot of time doing general CHA planning, and will be creating projects as soon as the new product shows up on my doorstep. Yep. Just a little busy around here.

I thought I would quickly share my digital book that I blogged about HERE, as it arrived about a week ago. It took barely a week to come, and I couldn't wait to open it up. I think it turned out great I did second guess myself a bit, wondering if I should have upgraded the paper. I can't even remember how much extra the other two paper options were, but it might be worth checking into next time.

What I love the most about this book, is that at 163 pages, it's so nice and compact. It's not even as thick as a roll of my Bella Blvd designer tape. If you saw the other post, and that huge stack of albums, it'll show you how much shelf space I'm saving my combining all of those layouts into this one digital book.

I won't bore you with photos of every page in the book. Because honestly, all of the layouts are right here on my blog and in my galleries. But I thought I would just share a handful of pages, just to give you an idea of how it all turned out. And excuse the awesome glare on the left side of the photos. I obviously didn't take too much time taking these photos, or I would have ended up with some better ones to share.

So far, I've only handed out one stack of layouts to one previous daycare family. I've been too busy to track people down, and I don't think ahead enough to take them with me if I'm driving by one of their houses. Eventually, I will get them all handed out, so they can enjoy them.

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