Laura Vegas

Bella Blvd: District Honor Band

March 11, 2013

I have a quick layout share today that went up on the Bella Blvd blog over the weekend. Twice a month we have designers do their own takes on a sketch from Becky Fleck, and last week it was my turn.

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with this sketch.The one thing that I really liked was how the photo and small blocks of paper formed a long row from one side of the page to the other. It actually reminded me of a recent photo that I thought would work perfectly for this layout.

Alyssa loves band more than anything. She's been playing the clarinet since the 5th grade, I believe. She loves being a part of the high school band. It's become such a huge part of her life, and the majority of her friends are all fellow band members. Yesterday, while trying to persuade Sarah to join band next year as she had to turn in her class picks for freshman year (Eek. I'll have a freshmen and a senior next year!), she said that "all of us in the band are like one big family". She also said today that "Sometimes I want to ask people NOT in band what they do with their life". I love that she loves it that much!

Alyssa is in Honor Band at school, and was also selected to be a part of the District Honor Band and the County Honor Band this year (same as last year). This photo was taken at the District Honor Band concert which took place back in February. Since it was such a long group of band members, I knew that I could crop out a lot of the excess space above them and end up with a long, narrow photo. I think I ended up printing this at 11 inches long and only 4 inches tall.

I knew I wanted to use the aqua tone-on-tone music note patterned paper from the Birthday Boy collection, and that I wanted to mix it with lots of black and white, since band members wear concert black and white for their preformances. I really, really wanted to mix in another color, but no matter what I tried, it didn't work. So I kept with the aqua, black, and white color scheme. I pulled some scraps of patterned paper from lots of different collections to layer behind the large photo.

I am pretty sure that I meant to add a few of the black text buttons to the "D" and the "R" text chipboard alphas. I must have forgotten after I got done adding the clear star buttons to the black chipboard alphas.

You can see more takes on this same sketch, from a few of Bella's other designers, HERE.
Bella Blvd: Step-By-Step Monthly Project Sheet – Feathers & Crochet Hearts

March 11, 2013

We have our new March step-by-step monthly project sheet up on the Bella Blvd blog today.

This month, I was asked to focus on the new feathers and crochet hearts for my project sheet layout. I started with the polka dot patterned paper from the Sand & Surf collection, and chose some feathers and crochet hearts in coordinating colors. I then pulled out a few patterned papers from each of the three new collections, since I really wanted to mix and match for this layout.

But by the time I got done with the layout, all of my papers had come from the Sand & Surf collection. Not sure how that happened, since I had great papers pulled out from the engagment and wedding collections.

I love that the crochet hearts perfectly match so many of the feathers. Such gorgeous colors!

You can download/print the project sheet, which has a complete supply list and full instructions, right HERE.
Jenni Bowlin: Guest Blogger Card Shares

March 6, 2013

Last week I shared a few layouts that I had created for Jenni Bowlin Studio, and today I am sharing a handful of cards that I created that were up on their blog yesterday. They were all made with their December 2012 Papercrafting Kit and Artisan Add-on, both of which are currently 25% off. They are having a 25-50% off sale on all of their 2012 kits, and you check them all out HERE!

I loved all of the great embellishments in the Artisan Add-on kit. Such a great mix to play with, and I have TONS left over. This kit comes with two sheets of patterned paper, so I did pull in some scraps from the papercrafting kit as well. I knew I wanted to get a few birthday cards in, since I always need them. In fact, we've already given this card away.

I love those glittered chipboard alphas. I'm not a fan of messy glitter that I find stuck to me for 3 weeks after coming within 7 feet of it. So I always love when a pre-glittered product doesn't make a huge mess and stays where it's supposed too.

I wanted to use the little fabric tab on this card, so I chose the "You & Me" sentiment to coordinate with the "Let's stick together" saying on the tab. I was addicted to using the aqua patterned paper on most of my projects, so I scraped up any little scraps I could find.

I took this little strip of the aqua paper and freehand cut it into small little squares, overlapping them across the card. Added a nice little bit of interest, as opposed to just adhering down a strip of paper.

I used another one of the stencil cards on this card. I painted it white this time, and used the exclusive stamp in the Papercrafting kit to lightly stamp over the stencil with some aqua ink. Just a very suble touch. I then backed the stencil with some reddish patterned paper.

I had this fun kraft typography number set, and choose the 24 and 7 to make it a "24/7 Love" card. I used most of the suede leaf trim on my layout, but had a few leafs left over. I tucked them under the numbers, which I adhered with pop dots.

I knew I wanted to creatively use a bunch of the kraft typography numbers on a birthday card, and this is what I came up with. I created a frame around the card with a piece of the yellow gingham pattered paper. I added the little scraps of the reddish patterned paper as an afterthought. Which is why I went with small pieces that I could tuck in, since everything else was already adhered.

I want to thank Jenni Bowlin Studio for having me along to play with some of their kits. It's not often I create with kits, but I like the challenge of working out of a bag of coordinating product that's all been assembled for me!
Jenni Bowlin: Guest Blogger Layout Shares

March 1, 2013

I am excited to be sharing projects over at Jenni Bowlin Studio this week and next. I was sent a few of their older 2012 kits as they are having a big sale on them right now. I have two layouts to share with you today and next week I'll share my cards.

I used the December Papercrafting Kit for this first layout. The more muted colors of the patterned papers reminded me of these photos of the girls and one of their best friends, Amanda, from years ago. The colors in the photos worked perfectly with this kit.

I started out with a few larger trimmed pieces of patterned papers that I knew I wanted to layer up against the right edge of the background paper. I distressed the edges of all of the papers to add some texture and had every intention of going back in and adding machine stitching along the edges. But it never happened. I did end up taking smaller pieces of some of the patterned papers and tucking them in here and there, adding even more layers to the mix.

I wanted my photos to stand out a bit more, so I rubbed some acrylic paint along the edges with my finger. In digging out my paints, I realized that the majority of my Making Memories paints are getting really dried up. But they still worked great for this. I loved that aqua burlap rose and debated whether to use it on the layout or on a card. The layout won.

I chose this "Friends" title card, made by Fancy Pants. These are manilla colored and are easy to alter to fit your needs. I painted the piece with some pink acrylic paint, trimmed off a little bit from the bottom, and distressed the edges. I then took the stamp that comes in the kit and stamped it onto the piece using some sort of ink. I wish I could remember what kind it was. It gave sort of a subtle glossy look, with a little touch of glitter.

You can find the December Papercrafting Kit on sale HERE.

I used the August Papercrafting Kit for this second layout. Since I had been digging around in older photos to find the ones on the layout above, I decided to keep looking to find more photos from back in the day. These photos of Sarah and Amanda are hilarious to me. There are even more crazy ones of them making all sorts of faces and being goofy. Not sure why I have never scrapped them before.

I stared with the graph paper which had a fun border of mixed patterns. So what you see going up and down the left side of the page is all one piece of paper, including the little tab up top. I wanted to adhere the green patterned paper piece right up against the edge of the border piece, but wanted to keep the tab intact. So I used my dreaded exacto knife (it's not a bad tool. I just really detest using one!) and cut a slit under the tab, so that I could actually slip my green patterned paper under it.

Once I added the green patterned paper, the black striped border sticker, the cream patterned paper, and the orange diagonal striped border sticker, I ended up covering up the entire graph pattern on the background paper. If I'd have planned things better, I would have just trimmed off the border strip so I could make good use of the graph paper. Hindsight, right?

I created my title using my Silhouette Cameo and one of the yellow patterned papers in the kit. I also wanted to use the fun stamp that came in the kit, with all the circles and dots. I picked out a navy blue ink pad, since there were touches of blue in the border paper, and stamped the image a few times onto a scrap of the same cream patterned paper that my title is adhered too. Then I used a circle punch to punch out lots of circles, and adhered them going up the edge of the page, slightly overlapping them as I went.

You can find the August Papercrafting Kit on sale HERE.

I created quite a few cards using these two kits, and one more additional kit. I will share those sometime next week.
Bella Blvd: Epiphany Team Up

February 22, 2013

All this week, over on the Bella Blvd blog, we have been teaming up with Epiphany Crafts for a week full of inspiration. A handful of our Bella designers were each sent one of Epiphany's punch tools and accessories to use along with our favorite Bella products. I was sent the Shape Studio Pennant Tool, along with the coordinating epoxy shapes.

I've had this photo collage of Sarah printed forever now. I never did use it for what I had originally printed it for, and was determined to finally get it scrapped. I went through my Bella stash to find some patterned papers that would match. The little hoodie she's wearing in the photo is green, with red cherries on it. So it seemed natural to pull some browns, blues, reds, and greens in.

I had a totally different idea in my head for the banner pieces. I was going to drape them, in a more curved way, above the title. The title which was originally "Sweet", an then got changed to "Sweetness" when I changed my mind on the banner pieces and ended up with an empty spot.

So in the end, I used the epoxy banner pieces as simple embellishments on the top and the bottom of the page. I kept wanting to add more to this page, but finally decided that I was happy with it the way it was.

I think I've mentioned before that birthday cards are the one type of card that I need the most, yet I never seem to have any on hand. I figured the banner shape seemed like a natural fit for birthdays, so I might as well make a few birthday cards.

I pulled out scraps of paper from the Birthday Boy collection to create this cute little row of epoxy covered banner pieces under the sentiment sticker.

And for my birthday girl card, I had to use the "You are the frosting to my cupcake" card from the Cute Cuts patterned paper. I adhered it to a brown patterned paper from the Birthday Boy collection and adhered it to the center of the card using pop dots.

Then I pulled out all the tiny scrap pieces of Birthday Girl patterned paper that I had, and went to town punching banner pieces. I decided to skip the epoxy shapes on this one, and just used the tool as a punch. I then started layering the pieces along the outside edge of the sentiment card for a playful look.

Stop by both the Bella Blvd blog and the Epiphany Crafts blog to see what the rest of the designers have created for you this week. You will also want to check out today's post on the Bella blog, as we are doing a BIG giveaway and you will want to leave a comment for a chance to win!
Bella Blvd: She Is My Entire Heart

February 19, 2013

Hey everyone! I've got two things to share with you today. First off, I have the second half of my guest blogger post up on the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog today. On Monday, I had shared a layout inspired by a Pinterest image, and that layout included feathers. Today, I am sharing lots of tips and tricks to working with and adhering real feathers to your papercrafting projects. You can read more HERE!

And speaking of feathers, I realized that I never got around to sharing my last Winter CHA layout from Bella Blvd. Which is kind of strange, since it was actually the first layout I made of the bunch. It includes feathers, so it ties in well with what else I've been sharing this week.

I created this layout for the catalog, and I was asked to make a "awesome layout with as much of the new product as possibe". I love a good challenge! I started with these photos that I had taken of Holly, my good friend Deneen's daughter (one of four daughters). I knew they would be neutral enough with the colors to go with any product I picked out.

Then I started picking out patterned papers. I set out to pick at least one patterned paper from each of the four new collections. The green dot paper is from the Sand & Surf collection, the aqua chevron paper is from the Freestyle Sophisticates collection, the pink hearts paper and the black ruled paper are from the Love And Marriage collection, and the striped paper is from the Engaged At Last collection.

I cut strips of varying sizes from each patterned paper and pieced them together on a sheet of white cardstock. I added a strip of the new black chevron designer tape across the top of the page, and also used some torn strips of pink and aqua designer tapes on other areas of the layout. We didn't release any new buttons, but I knew I had to include a few of the fun black text buttons to help embellish the page.

I choose three of the new feathers to include on the page: black, green and aqua. I also picked out some of the new crochet hearts to use. I had only gotten a few color packs for my CHA work, so I decided to stick with all pink hearts, since they matched the best.

I layered the feathers together and stapled them in place. I used my tiny attacher on the ends of the feathers, since I knew I wanted those staples to show. I actually added some staples further up on the feathers to help secure them better, knowing that I was going to add this "I love you. The end" sticker (from the Love & Marriage collection) on top of the staples to cover them up. I adhered the sticker to a scrap of cardstock first and cut around it, which made it much easier to adhere the sticker with pop dots over the feathers.

For my title, I used a mix of the new green Sienna chipboard alphas, the new black alpha stickers from the Engaged At Last collection, and some new aqua High Five alpha stickers.

Oh, and I also snuck on a few of the new flags from the Engaged At Last collection. Almost forgot about those. I think I did a pretty good job at representing each of the new collections as well as each of the new embellishments.
Scrapbook & Cards Today: February Colour Suite

February 14, 2013

Happy Valentine's Day! I have a new layout to share today. Summer Fullerton puts together a fun colour challenge each month for Scrapbook & Cards Today, and the February installment went up on the blog today.

Summer invited me to play along with her and I couldn't pass it up. I love a good color challenge, and when I saw the colors she picked out, I was excited to dive into my stash and see what I could come up with.

Purple, two pinks, yellow, and white. Such a lovely color combination that I most likely would have never put together on my own. I started out digging through my patterned papers, putting together a mix of papers in the chosen colors that might work. I ended up with papers from Pebbles, Jillibean Soup, and Bo Bunny. One thing I learned? I don't have a wide selecion of purple patterned papers.

The next thing I did was go searching for photos. I really didn't have any particular ones in mind, so I just browsed through my external hard drives. Nothing was grabbing my attention or calling out to be scrapped. I'm not sure what made me think of this photo of Alyssa. I just suddenly thought about it, which worked well, since it was already printed.

My next step was cutting the circle background piece with my Cameo. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to cut this from a full sheet of patterned paper and adhere it to a sheet of white cardstock. Since I had my Cameo out and plugged in, I went digging for a possible title to use.

I usually just type in key words in the search box, since it's easier than browsing through my entire library. I believe this popped up when I had typed in the word "beautiful". It is a print and cut file, an it just so happened that the colors matched perfectly! Love when stuff like that happens. I printed it on white textured cardstock and trimmed around the edges.

I cut two large pieces of the two pink patterned papers to layer behind my photo, and tucked the title piece on the side. I wanted to add a bit more purple, so I used a large circle border punch along my tone-on-tone purple dot paper and tucked them under the top and bottom of my title piece.

I added some buttons and ribbon pieces to embellish my title piece. I won't lie. It was hard to find some purple buttons. Which is strange, because I own a gigantic amount of buttons.

And this trim from Webster's Pages. Pure yumminess! Such a gorgeous shade of yellow. I helped secure it on the ends with a few pink and purple-ish brads. I used the title piece to help guide my journaling. And a small secret? I have no clue how close that date is to the actual date that this photo was taken. Lol. This photo was take at a modeling session Alyssa attended when she was about 4 years old. I have scrapped other photos from this day, but I apparently never dated any of those layouts. Yes, I do guesstimate dates from time to time 😉

To see this challenge in it's entirety or to see Summer's past challenges, make sure to stop by and visit the Scrapbook and Cards Today site.
Kerri Bradford Studio: Love Cards

February 13, 2013

Just in time for Valentine's Day, I created a few cards that went up over at Kerri Bradford Studio earlier this week.

I started out with a few sheet of patterned paper from Authentique that I had picked up at a not-quite-so-local scrapbook store a few weeks ago. We were away at soccer games, and it turned out I was just a few blocks from a LSS. Figured I might as well stop, since I NEVER go to stores. My mom happened to be with me, and she commented about the roughly 11 sheets of patterned paper in my hand "don't you have enough paper???". The first clue that she's not a scrapbooker. Lol. Paper is one of the cheapest things you can buy, and it's always nice to have a variety on hand to choose from. While at first glance, one would assume I was drowning in paper, I'm honestly not. I have quite a bit of paper, but I also have quite a bit of duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates (are these words?) of most of those papers. I came home and put this new paper right to work.

Long paper story that probably wasn't necessary 😉

I used two of Kerri's circle background cuts from the More Basics Background kits to create the base of my cards (the square for this card, and the rectangle for the next card). I cut them from a text patterned paper, adhering it to a white cardstock card base that I very lightly misted with some tan misting spray.

The heart is from Kerri's XOXO kit, and it's one that I use quite often. My go-to heart, I guess you can say. I cut the hearts from the red polkadot patterned paper. One thing I didn't know, or maybe I knew and just didn't remember, is that the Authentique papers have a great texture to them. I love a good textured patterned paper.

Kerri's new Feathers kit is such a fun one, and at just 99 cents for 4 different feathers, you can't beat it! I originally cut these larger feathers for my square card, but then decided they just weren't fitting with the heart like I wanted. So I cut some extra pieces to make a regular, standard card (4.25 x 5.5). That way, I was able to use the larger feathers here, and I simply cut a few smaller ones for the square card above.

And lastly, the "Love" cut is from the This & That: Love kit. These cards are quite simple in design. My plan was to embellish them in some way after getting my pieces adhered. Or adding some machine stitching. But I actually liked them just as they were, and decided that "simple" was good for me this time.

And speaking of Kerri, she is celebrating her 25th wedding anniversary this week! And in honor of that, along with it being the week of love, she has put a selection of her love themed kits on sale for 25% off through the end of the week. Check HERE for the details and to see which kits are on sale.
Bella Blvd: Step-By-Step Monthly Project Sheet – Kiss Me

February 11, 2013

We put up our February project sheet over on the Bella Blvd blog yesterday, just in time for Valentines Day.

{Photo by Krista Lund Photography}

I used the Kiss Me collection for this month's project sheet layout. I knew I wanted to do a fun border along the side of the page using lots and lots of hearts. I used my Cameo to cut out the hearts, but you could easily use any die cut machine or a few punches. I cut two hearts for every one you see on the layout, since I was doubling them up.

I adhered the first set of hearts with regular adhesive. For the second set of hearts, I lightly folder the hearts in half so there was a crease top to bottom, and then adhered them by putting adhesive only down the center. This allowed the sides of the hearts to lift up for some extra dimension.

You can download/print the project sheet, which has a complete supply list and full instructions, right HERE.
My Week Facebook Style: A Creating Keepsakes Layout

February 8, 2013

Once again, my week got away from me. I'm pretty sure the month of January got away from me, just like the month of December did. Lol. The last two months have been a crazy blur. Between work, scrapbook work, the holidays, winter break, school, soccer, band, etc, we never seem to know if we're coming or going. Luckily we are finishing a few things up that will free up a bit more time in our days. Give us a little breathing room. We're all playing catch up and getting things back on track. As best we can.

As seen in the January/February 2013 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher.

I realized I hadn't gotten around to sharing this Creating Keepsakes layout yet. I was asked to create a two page layout, incorporating Facebook status posts into my journaling. What seems like ages ago, I used to occasionally do these "Facebook Style Randomness" posts on my blog, where I would round up a bunch of my status updates and put them all together in one post. It was a way to catch up on little odds and ends in my life, for those of you that aren't on Facebook.

So when I got this assignment, it was easy enough to pull up just those posts, and find one that would work on a layout. I looked for a post where I had a decent number of status updates to pull from. I also made sure that I would have photos to support several of the status updates.

I was working on this layout right after Summer CHA, so I picked out several of the Bella Blvd patterned papers that we were coming out with at that time. I choose papers from the birthday collections and the fall collection, along with some of the new buttons.

I chose to print all of my journaling (or my Facebook status updates, I should say) and my photos in squares, since I was going with a grid design on my two page spread. I created text boxes in my word document and copied my updates into the boxes, formatting them to fit.

I had a few of these photos in my blog post to go with the updates, and some of the updates I had to find photos for.

I also added digital frames around the text squares. Don't ask me what frame, because I honestly don't remember. I made this layout forever ago.

See that little wood grain Facebook logo? By the time I had all of my status updates printed out and my photos printed out, I ended up with one empty spot on my grid. So I thought a Facebook logo would be nice to add in there. But the usual dark blue one you see wasn't going to work. I just googled "brown facebook logo" and ended up with tons of them to chose from.

I guess it is true. If you can't google it, it doesn't exist!

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