Laura Vegas

Scrapbooking And A Little Bit Of Everyday Life

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Kerri Bradford Studio: Santa Hat

December 12, 2013

How is Christmas less than two weeks away? I put my Christmas tree up about two weeks ago, but my poor pre-lit tree of 11 years only had about 20% of it's lights working. So it took me a full week before I strung on more lights, since I also had to go out and purchase more of them. And I did string on the garland right after the lights. And it has sat like that, just lights and garland, for almost another full week. My ornaments are all just sitting on the kitchen table in bags. It just seems wrong when life is so busy, that you can't seem to make time to decorate a simple Christmas tree.

With all that being said, I have a new layout up at Kerri Bradford Studio today, and it's another Christmas layout. My youngest daughter, Sarah, loves to pull out the Santa hat to wear every Christmas when it's time to open presents. It's become a tradition over the years, and we all know that she will be the one to pass out all of the presents from under the Christmas tree. I thought it would be fun to put together a photo collage of her in the Santa hat from over the years for my layout.

I had some left over sewn star garland from THIS project, and added it along the top of my page to act as a banner. I added a few red and silver sequins to some of the stars to pretty them up. Once again, I choose a fun handwritten cursive word for half of my title, taken from the December Twenty-Five kit, and used Kerri's Weathered Door alphas to create the rest of my title.

I used a template from Kerri's Storyboard #1 kit to hold 6 photos from the last 6 Christmas's, and added little number stickers directly to the photos for the year each photo was taken. I love seeing photos like this side by side, where you can see how your child has grown and changed over the years. But how they've stayed the exact same in many ways too. She's always had that great big smile, with the cute little dimple on her left cheek (just like her mom!).

The grid patterned paper that I used for the background of this page (by Fancy Pants) already has this fun border printed right across the bottom of the page, so that helped speed up the design of this page. I just added a few embellishments to finish it off.

And for a subtle touch I used a circle border, from Kerri's Simplicities: Best Thing Ever page kit, on the green patterned paper pieces on either side of my photo collage. The "believe" glittered chipboard piece is a really old Making Memories product that I happen to spot in my scraproom and it just called out to be thrown on this layout. It fit perfecty, so I figured it was meant to be.

Cross your fingers that I can get that tree finished this weekend. And maybe start thinking about any Christmas shopping I need to do. And I should really get a Christmas card out this year too, since I somehow skipped them the last two years. My list keeps growing, but nothing ever seems to get fully checked off. #christmasissues
Bella Blvd: Christmas Boy

December 8, 2013

I had a new layout up on the Bella Blvd blog last Friday, for our "Friday Sketch" feature, and wanted to share it here as well. Here's a look at the sketch (by Becky Fleck for Page Maps) we used for our layouts.

And here is the layout I came up with. I have openly admitted that I am not a big Christmas scrapper. When I scrap Christmas photos, it's usually with the intention of getting as many photos as possible onto the page. If I could just create a two page layout each Christmas, I'd be good. I'm just not one to scrap numerous layouts when it comes to holidays. But I came across these photos of little Zachary from last Christmas, and decided to make an exception.

I knew these photos would match Bella's new Christmas Countdown collection, and would work nicely with the sketch. I stayed pretty true to the sketch. When I estimated the size for printing the square photos, I must have been a little off, since I couldn't fit the 6 squares that are shown on the sketch.

So I just trimmed the papers on either side of my square photos to fit. I still have the 6 papers/photos, and they all fit together nicely, just like on the sketch. The "December 25" and the "Oh Christmas Tree" came from the Daily Details patterned paper, which is all 3×4" and 4×6" cards that are perfect for Project Life. I was able to trim them up so they're a little skinnier, but still kept the design intact.

Zachary is the Christmas boy in the family. My girls have been the only kids on my side of the family for years and years. I'm the oldest in my family, and the oldest cousin as well. When my cousin Brad and his wife, Issa, had a baby boy on Christmas Eve a few years ago, we finally had another kid in the family. These photos were taken Christmas 2012, right after he turned three years old.

As much as I wanted to add more embellishments to this layout, I couldn't. The simpler design seemed just right. Why mess with a good thing, right?
Turning Layouts Into A Book

December 4, 2013

"What do you do with the layouts you make of your daycare kids?". That's a question that I've been asked a lot over the years. And my answer has always been the same. I keep the layouts. Sure, I show them off to the parents. But they are layouts with photos that I've taken, stories and/or journaling about what happens when these kids are with me, and they are memories of the time that I spend with these kids. I hope this doesn't sound too selfish, but they are MY memories of MY days with them.

I was searching my blog for something last week and came across this photo from many years ago. At that time, I had accumulated 5 full albums of layouts about my daycare kids from over the years. I believe shortly after this was when I sorted through the layouts and did actually give some away to a handful of the parents. Just a little narrowing down, you could say.

{consider yourself warned: these are ALL cell phone camera pics, and I'm not lucky enough to have a really nice cell phone}

As of two weekends ago, this was what my collection of daycare layouts looked like. I still only had 5 full 12×12 albums, although there were some being stored in a 6th album as well (and notice I had changed my album style at some point). I also had 2 full 9×9 albums, since several years ago I was scrapping a ton of layouts in that size.

This was the massive pile of layouts that I sorted out and put away in albums two weekend ago. There were close to 80 layouts in that pile. I don't scrap the daycare kids as much as I used to, for a few reasons, but I did have about 10-15 layouts in there to add to the daycare albums. And they wouldn't fit. Which got me thinking once again about an idea I had the last time I was putting layouts away, earlier this year.

A while back, I pondered the idea of taking all of those layouts and turning them into a digital book. And then passing the layouts themselves along to any parents that I'm still in touch with. I felt like it was a huge decision. Having pictures of layouts in a book is kind of like seeing layouts online, on blogs, or eve in magazines. It's cool. But it's nothing like seeing layouts in person, where you can appreciate the details, layers, textures, etc.

But at the same time, I was thinking of the space these albums are taking on my shelves. Have I mentioned that I have over 60 albums??? It's one thing to have that many albums of my own family. But when I think about having 7 albums of just the daycare kids, I have to wonder how important they'll be 10 years from now, 20 years from now. When I think about it like that, I actually like the idea of having one compact book that features all of the layouts in one spot.

I have done quite a few books thru Shutterfly and Blurb, and love them all.

I've done several blog books, which is basically turning an entire years worth of blog posts (text and photos) into a nice compact book (SEEN HERE).

Three different years, I created a photo book of just the daycare kids, summing up their year in just a few photos of each child (usually done using a free photo book code, and one of them can be SEEN HERE).

And I also created a book for a daycare girlie that had been with me for 3.5 years, and included tons of photos along with all the layouts I've created of her (SEEN HERE).

Once I made the decision to actually do this, I started by pulling layouts out of their albums. I made it through about 2 albums before I became completely overwhelmed and thought about turning back. Luckily, that passed and I continued on. I already had all of my layouts organized by child (or family, if I had watched siblings) within the albums, so it was easy to pull out each child/family and make a pile for each. I worked with everything from 2001-2011. It was a good cut off point, since the kids that have been here the last 2 years are still super current in our life.

I then took photos of each and every layout. I actually have photos of all of my layouts, but they're resized for the blog, and for the books you need the massively huge image files. I would take each set of layouts, one child/family at a time, and photograph the layouts in order. I didn't stress too much about this part, as I only took about 3-4 shots of each layout (normally, when I photograph layouts I take at leat 10-12 photos). Then I would move on to the next child/family.

I would upload them to my laptop in batches, pick the best shot of each layout and then do some very quick editing. Most of them just needed a little lightening up, and maybe a slight color adjustment. I cropped them all, sharpened, and saved. I created a folder for each child/family, so I could keep them all seperate and easier to work with.

I knew I would use Blurb to create my book. It's easy to use, and the prices are really reasonable. I also knew that I wanted to make a 12×12" book, so that the layouts were just like their original size (instead of going with a 7×7" book, as I have used before). I kept things super simple, with one layout on each page, leaving a page inbetween each child/family to use as a divider. And since I named my images with the child/family name + the number for what order they went in, it took me NO time at all to load all of the images into the book in perfect order.

For the divider pages, I basically created a digital title page in Photoshop, that I could then upload as an image. I have a HUGE collection of digital products, so I just pulled in some patterned papers, a notebook page (in several colors), some tapes (in several colors), and staples. Once I had the page set up, it was super easy to just swap out the elements to match whoever the page was for. The beauty of digital!

The longest and hardest part of this project was trying to upload the finished book for ordering. It didn't help that I was trying to get in on an awesome sale, which apparently a TON of other people were trying to get in on as well. They actually extended the sale a day, because so many weren't able to upload their books.

After a lot of persistance on my part, and some magic on Blurb's part, I finally got my book all uploaded an ordered. Soon, I will have a 163 page 12×12" hardbound book in my hands, that won't take up much space on my shelves.

I did end up with a pile of layouts that I can't part with. A lot of those are layouts that include a bunch of the kids together, as I have created a lot of those over the years expressing how much they mean to me. I'm keeping layouts that included my girls, as a lot of the previous kids became their best friends. I'm keeping the layouts that document my typical work day, and the things we do here together. But any layouts that were strickly about the individual kids are being passed along to parents that I'm still in touch with (which is about 70%).

It gave me a good reason to use up some really old post bound albums that have been taking up space on my shelves. I made up albums for each child/family that had a good amount of layouts. A few are just in a bag to pass along. And for those that I'm not in touch with anymore? I'm not sure you want to hear what I did with those layouts. Are you sitting down? I threw them away. Yes, I know that's pretty drastic. But I was 100% fine with it, and had no regrets after doing it.

I love creating layouts and cards, and doing everyday scrapping. But honestly, I love when I have some free time from assignments to work on fun projects like this. I feel like I accomplished something big, and it feels really, really good.
Scrapbook & Cards Today: Fall Cards

November 27, 2013

I figured I woud sneak in one more post this week before the Thanksgiving holiday and long weekend. I have two more cards that I created for the Cardmaps Today Vol 3 issue, by Scrapbook & Cards Today, which was released earlier this year.

Both of these cards were based off of the same sketch, so they have sort of the same look to them design-wise. For this first card, I choose patterned papers from Simply Stories and BoBunny, along with the cute little woodgrain house sticker. The sticker had a cut out heart in the center, which I ended up covering with a fun crochet heart from Bella Blvd.

I was asked to incorporate a masking technique using stamps for this card. I don't have a huge stamp collection, so I lucked out when I came across a set of small leaf stamps. I picked out some ink colors that coordinated with the rest of my card, and praticed my stamp placement several times before getting it right.

I stamped the leaf a few times on a post it note, and then fussy cut those out. After stamping the two red leaves on either end of the grid patterned paper, I stuck my fussy cut leaves (on the post it note) directly over the red leaves before stamping the next leaf. I just repeated this process until my little row of leaves was complete.

For my second card, I choose patterned papers from Bella Blvd's Thankful collection. Fall colors, and all of the colors seen on this card, are my favorite colors of all. Brown, red, green, yellow, and aqua. Love those colors together and you'll find them all throughout my house.

For the layered flower, I choose a corrugated chipboard flower, a paper flower, a fabric flower, a few buttons, an a paper leaf to tuck in as well. Love how a good, layered flower looks on a card!

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I hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving, spent with family and friends! We're sticking close to home this year, which is different than most years. While we will miss seeing Joe's family, which is where we normally head for the holiday, it will be nice to spend Thanksgiving with my family for a change. Alyssa won't be there, as she's headed out with her dad to spend the day with her grandparents. But since she's super allergic to my parent's dog, that might be better for her anyways. Joe's been working like crazy, since this time of year in the grocery business is so hectic, and he has to work Thanksgiving night as well. But his Steeler's are playing the late football game on Thanksgiving, so if they win (fingers crossed for his sake), maybe he won't be too grumpy going into work.

Oh. It's also our 15th wedding anniversary ON Thanksgiving day. Which means we'll do our traditional dinner out on Friday night. This will mean that we have to skip Friday night football, as our high school varsity team is playing in their last playoff game at home. I feel bad that I have to skip helping out in the snack bar, as NO ONE ever signs up to help. But Friday is our one free night, as Sarah is in a Quinceanera for one of her friends on Saturday, which means we're tied up all day and evening with that.

My mind wandered all over the place there. That was a very random mix of info, all to say "Have a happy Thanksgiving"!!
Kerri Bradford Studio: Holiday Gift Extravaganza

November 26, 2013

This week we are having a holiday gift extravaganza over at Kerri Bradford Studio! We've all been busy creating projects with "gift-giving" in mind, and getting a jump start on the Christmas holiday. Today's my turn to share. My first thought when thinking of "gift-giving" was packaging.

When it comes to gift giving during the holidays, I have always been one to keep my wrappings and packaging pretty simple. If you look under our Christmas tree in any given year, you'll see all of the presents wrapped, but not a single bow or ribbon on any of them. Kind of boring, I know.

Turns out, I tend to use the same approach when it comes to creating my own paper crafted items for gift giving. Simple and quick. But hopefully, not boring. I whipped up a few quick projects with gift card giving in mind. I'm always giving gift cards to family members, and it's fun to have something cute to tuck them into.

For my first project, I created a square envelope perfect for tucking a card into, along with a gift card or gift certificate. I used a tear-away square envelope from Kerri's Signed Sealed Delivered kit, but before cutting, I added a Star Background to the envelope so that the front of the card would be covered in little cut out stars.

Before assembling my envelope, I backed the front part of the envelope with a piece of black cardstock. While I think getting a small peek at what's inside thru those tiny stars would be fun, I wanted to add a bit of darker color to the envelope.

The tear-away tab on the back of the envelope is so fun, but I also thought it would be fun to secure the envelope shut with a few pieces of washi tape. The back of the envelope should be as fun as the front, right?

I also cut a basic pillow box design from the Silhouette Store, and added just a few small stars from that same star background before cutting. I made sure to size the box so that a gift card would fit inside.

I added the same "Happy Holidays" sentiment to the front that I used on the square envelope.

I have tons of little silver tins that I've managed to collect over the years, and they come in really handy for giving small gifts. Rather then stick it in a small gift bag (which is what I might normally do), I thought I would embellish the tin instead. I created a long star garland to wrap around the tin. I started by cutting a full 12×12 sheet of stars, from the Christmas Countdown kit, from black dotted patterned paper.

I machine stitched them all together into a long strand, and then wrapped it around the metal tin a few times.

I finished it off by printing the "Merry Christmas" art from the Ho Ho Ho kit onto white textured cardstock, and adhered it to the top of the tin, tucking two corners under the star garland.

I hope you'll visit Kerri's blog this week to see what the other designers have been up too.
Scrapbook & Cards Today: Thinking of You Card

November 21, 2013

I totally meant to get this post up last night and then I just plain forgot. Typical of me, in all honesty. I can't remember anything these days. I think my problem is that I just have TOO much to remember, so things slip here and there. Anyways.

I created a few cards for the Cardmaps Today Vol 3 issue, by Scrapbook & Cards Today, which was released earlier this year. I thought today was a good day to share it. We had our first rain in months and months yesterday and this morning, and it's been pretty dark and dreary outside (of course, as I'm typing this up, it's back to being sunny and bright out). This card is so colorful and bright, and it just makes me happy.

There was a sketch to go along with this card, and I was asked to create a card for the "Spring" section of the issue, using the Basics collection from Pebbles. I did mix in a floral paper from another collection, just for some extra color and pattern. I wanted to add a little something to the edges of the "thinking of you" cardstock sticker, and ended up using some slightly dried up paint. I actually like using my paints when they're slightly thick, since it adds such an interesting texture to whatever you're putting the paint on.

In fact, my paints have been slightly dried up for quite a while now. Going on over two years.

I just so happen to have written a little tutorial of sorts about this paint "technique" (I doubt this really qualifies as a "technique", but that's what I'm calling it!) way back in the day. You can check out that post RIGHT HERE, if you're interested.
Scrapbook & Cards Today: 2014 Scrapbook Planner + A Layout Share

November 19, 2013

Guess I took another break from the blog. Totally unintentional. I promise. I'm back though, with a few Scrapbook & Cards Today shares for you today.

First up, have you had a chance to order your copy of Scrapbook & Cards Today 2014 Scrapbooking Planner and Sketch Calendar?

SCT’s new 2014 Scrapbooking Planner and Sketch Calendar is now portable, ready to go wherever you go! This 14-month, 64-page planner is coil bound, brimming with 30 page sketches, how-to photo techniques and layouts created by your favourite designers. Each month features a full page of journaling prompts, page starters, photo ideas and areas to jot down notes, memories and special moments, perfect for those who are following Project Life.

You can preorder today, RIGHT HERE, for only $12.95 (plus $3.45 shipping in Canada and the USA, and $10.95 shipping for international orders). The planners will begin shipping with the Winter issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today magazine on November 28, 2013.

Speaking of calendars, I thought I would share my layout that I created for the 2013 calendar that Scrapbook & Cards Today put out last year. I was assigned the month of January, given a specific sketch to work with, and was sent some Echo Parks products to work with. And this is the layout I came up with.

I was also asked to incorporate a washi tape technique into my title. I chose a chunky title that I could die cut, and that would give me a good negative cut to work with.

I then backed my title letters with different tapes to coordinate with my papers. I used all Bella Blvd tapes for this, as they matched perfectly. *** Ignore the cursive sub-title in this image. That was something that got switched out during the approval process.
Bella Blvd & Kerri Bradford Studio Team Up: Harvest Party

November 8, 2013

I hope you've all been checking out the projects for our Kerri Bradford & Bella Blvd team up! Tons of great stuff being shared. Wednesday, I shared a layout I created for Kerri's side of the team up, and today I have a few projects I created for Bella's side of the team up.

I wasn't really sure what I was going to create for layout. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with me pulling up those super old photos of Sarah from 1st grade (for the layout I shared Wednesday), but for whatever reason, I thought about these photos of her from kindergarten. It's not often I have great "fall" looking photos, so I knew these would be perfect for pairing up with Bella's Thankful collection and our older Finally Fall collection.

These photos were all on a layout already. One that I made years and years ago. The photo placement was really close to what you see here, with just one additional photo mixed in. Because these were taken in my non-digital days, and I had no desire to dig out my negatives and have reprints made, I simply pulled them off the old layout to use. I didn't do any trimming or anything. Just used them in the same sizes they already were.

After arranging the photos across the two pages, I went about picking out shapes to work with. I came across the fence, from Kerri's This & That: Autumn kit, and knew that I wanted to work that in across the bottom of the pages. Since I had that extra space next to the photos on the first page, I decided to use the fun tree shape, from Kerri's This & That: Graditute kit, to help fill up that side of the page.

I actually got so busy filling up my pages with die cuts, that I almost forgot about adding in some fun Bella embellishments. I knew I needed to add something in the top part of the tree brances, and this cute little owl seemed perfect to perch up there. I adhered the owl, along with the chipboard cloud, using pop dots.

Since the kids all had on these adorable feather headbands (not sure they're "headbands", but I'm not sure what to call them), I thought it would be fun to add some feathers to the page. Kerri has a feather kit, so I cut small feathers from several patterned papers and mixed them in with some of Bella's real feathers.

I cut the top half off a few feathers, and then used the bottom half of a few to create more feathers. If I'm being honest, I'm not a fan of trimming up the feathers too much. I like when they retain their natural shape, and I know that when I trim them (and maybe others do a better job at this), they lose their fluffyness and end up too shaped. If that even makes sense. But at the same time, I didn't want to cut up too many of my feathers, so making small feathers out of the bottoms just made good sense

For my title, I used one of Kerri's handwritten words from the Giving Thanks kit, along with the Weathered Door alphabet kit for the word "party". I cut all the die cuts for this layout from patterned papers. I've always been a huge fan of Bella's tone-on-one patterns, and the make die cutting really easy, as the patterns aren't too bold or busy.

After cutting out the handwritten "harvest", I realized it was too thin and just wasn't standing out enough. Not a problem. Did you know that you can make her handwritten words thicker? Kerri did a little tutorial a while back on how to thicken up her words, which you can see HERE. I thickened up the word and then cut it again from the same paper. Since I had the thinner word cut already, I decided to adhere it right on top of the thicker word. I think it gave it a fun look.

I also used Kerri's Family Banner kit to cut the fun banner pieces at the top of the page. I added the little cut out heart (that comes in the kit) to each piece, and cut a bunch of pieces from several different patterned papers.

I mixed in some of Bella's chipboard banner pieces as well, taken from the Finally Fall collection. The die cut banner pieces have a preforated fold at the top, so I folded them over some twine, and then added a tiny staple to hold the fold down.

I adhered all of the banner pieces down with pop dots for extra dimension.

When I cut basic shapes, I like to cut several extras at the same time. They're nice to have on hand for quick cards. I whipped up these two cards in no time at all. I already had the fall collections out, and I had lots of scraps of patterned paper. The only extra product I dug out were the flags.

I adhered the "happy fall ya'll" sticker to cardstock, and then adhered it to the card with pop dots. I used a few of the banner pieces below the sticker, adhering them with pop dots as well. I tucked a few flags in and just like that, my card was done.

I used the same basic design to start this card. A piece of my favorite grid patterned paper, misted with tan spray mist. I used a few of the extra die cut feathers for this card.

You can check out my layout over on the Bella Blvd blog today, along with even more fall themed projects, and then make sure to visit tomorrow as well, as we share the last batch of projects. Also, head over to Kerri's blog, where Nichol Magouirk is sharing her work. There are giveaways happening on both blogs as well, so make sure and watch for those!

Speaking of giveaways, I have a few giveaways of my own today. As some of you know, I taught a Bella Blvd sponsored class, all about designer tapes, at the CKU events this year. I ended up with some leftover tapes, and have been given the go-ahead to do a few giveaways. I have four sets of the 7 designer tapes you see pictured here. They are all full rolls, just taken out of the packaging for class prep.

Leave me a comment here, on this post, for a chance at winning a set of these fun tapes. I will randomly choose four winners, who will each receive a set, and will be announcing the winners by Sunday evening.
Bella Blvd & Kerri Bradford Team Up: Red, White & Blue

November 6, 2013

Kerri Bradford + Bella Blvd = my two worlds colliding! Since I'm lucky enough to design for both Kerri and Bella, you'll often find me combining the two onto my projects. But I'm really excited that we're having an official team-up together. Over the next few days, a handful of our Bella designers are teaming up with Kerri's designers. We've all created projects using Bella's collections and Kerri's digtal shapes, storyboard templates, and more. Today I'm sharing a project that I created for Kerri, and tomorrow I'll be sharing a layout I created for Bella.

I know we're right smack dab in the big holiday season of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. But I came across these photos of Sarah way back in the 1st grade, celebrating the 4th of July (we were in year round school at the time), and really wanted to scrap them.

Since I had quite a few photos to include, I used one of Kerri's awesome Storyboard templates, from her Storyboard #1 kit, to create a photo collage that included eight photos.

I pulled out Bella's All American collection, which was the perfect match for this independence day/school themed layout. I started by using Kerri's sunburst design from the This&That: Freedom kit to cut a 12×12 sunburst from the blue star patterned paper.

I was intending on using the actual sunburst on my page, but ended up using the negative portion of the cut so that the blue paper actually framed my page at the same time. I added some strips of flower patterned paper in between some of the "rays", and then machine stitched along the rays as well.

I cut the "red, white and blue" title, from the Stars & Stripes kit, from white cardstock, red patterned paper, and aqua patterned paper. I sprayed the "and" with some silver mist, to pick up bits of grey in the flower patterned paper. I then layered them all together to form my title.

Because the page was looking quite busy already, I kept my embellishments simple. I cut some stars from red and aqua patterned paper, using Kerri's July Four kit, and combined them with some of Bella's chipboard stars along the left side of the page.

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You can check out my layout over on Kerri's blog today, and then make sure to visit over the next few days to see what her other designers have created. Also, head over to the Bella Blvd blog, where we're sharing a ton of projects today. There are giveaways happening on both blogs as well, so make sure and watch for those!
Kerri Bradford Studio: Perfect & Priceless

November 1, 2013

I have two new layouts up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today. When I sat down to do my project for Kerri last month, I decided to lift one of my own layouts, using a page design that I loved. This time around, I used the same basic page design to create two layouts at once. I'm a big believer in getting the most out of your products/designs/time, and an easy way to do that is to use the same page design for multiple layouts. Most likely, these pages won't end up next to each other in the albums anyways.

I've said on numerous occasions that a lot of my layouts start out with new products that I'm wanting to use. I will even go so far as to start a layout, getting a good majority of it put together, without even knowing what photos I'm going to use. That's kind of how both of these layouts started. I had recently gotten a few new 6×6" pads of patterned paper, and set aside two of them from My Mind's Eye (from the Cut & Paste collections) that I thought I would make a point to use right away.

I pulled out four coordinating 6×6" patterned papers from each pad and paired them up with two sheets of white cardstock, to create 2 layouts. Then I went about finding photos to match the two sets of papers. There's no rhyme or reason to how I find photos. I just dig around on my external hard drives until I find something that works, and hopefully that I haven't scrapped before. I ended up with a few photos I took of my brother and his wife a few years back, and a set of photos taken at my parents 40th wedding anniversary party six years ago.

I created a photo collage for my first layout, using a template from Kerri's Storyboard #8 kit, as I had quite a few photos that I wanted to include.

Each layout has the same basic page design. I arranged the four 6×6" patterned papers on a white sheet of cardstock. I had one paper on each layout that was more of a solid, sort of ombre', color. From each of those, I cut a 6×6 background piece to add a little interest to the page. For my first layout, I used my favorite circle background from the Background Basics kit.

I'm still loving the look of combining a chunkier font and a cursive font for my titles. I came across this "together" cut, from the Love: Every Little Thing kit, which was actually a page tab. I tucked that under my photo collage, and then added the cursive "perfect" taken from the Oh Baby kit. And that little green chipboard heart? I've been cleaning out a lot of my supplies this past week and had gone through some drawers of chipboard the other day. I guess I missed that little heart, and I randomly found it on the desk while working on this layout. Rather than put it away, I just adhered it by my title 🙂

I cut a flower border from Kerri's Borderlines #1 kit, and adhere a piece of it along the left side of the photo collage to add a bit more green to the page.

I kept the embellishments simple on these pages. I remember talking to one of my all-time favorite scrappers a while back, who is also a good friend of mine, and she mentioned that if she had an awesome die cut machine (which she didn't), she could probably get by scrapping with just cardstock, patterned paper, photos, and a few basic embellishments.

I'm not sure I agreed with her at the time. But I'm finding that I'm fine with the simpler look for a lot of my layouts. I'm sure if I dug through my stash, I could find lots of fun little things to add to these layouts. But I'm totally cool with adding just a few buttons (my favorite basic embellishment) and calling it done!

For my second layout, I printed out three photos to line up across the page. I printed the main photo as a 4×6", and the other two as 3×4" photos. I cut a few scalloped borders from the Borderlines #2 kit, and adhered one above and one below my row of photos. I pulled out these navy blue jewel borders that I've had laying around forever, and adhered the larger strip along the bottom scalloped border.

I chose a flower petal background (once again from the Background Basics kit) for this page.

I love this chunky "Love" title from the This+That: Love kit. Once again, I wanted to pair a cursive word along with the chunkier word to create my title. "Priceless" is from the Giving Thanks kit, and once again, I misplaced the dot to my "i". Happens every time. I cut some smaller pieces from the smaller navy blue jewel border and added them to my title letters.

One page design, two layouts. Created at the same time, saving me lots of time. Love it!