Laura Vegas

Kerri Bradford Studio: Back 2 School Cards

August 16, 2012

I've been working on a few more projects for Kerri Bradford Studio this past week. Since the girls went back to school last week, I was in school scrapping mode. It's a little crazy that I already have Alyssa's first day of school photo on a layout, with Sarah's in the works as well.

I'm sure if you're a fan of Kerri Bradford, you recognize her This & That kits, like this school one. I love, love, love the designs of these kits, and how they look all pieced together in the 7 Gypsies tray. However, I don't have a tray and just never got around to purchasing one.

While I use individual shapes from the This & That kits all the time (also available in Shapes only kits), I had never really thought about using the print files, which are designed as the background pieces for the trays. It's really just like digital patterned paper, if you think about it. I was working on a school layout (which I'll share tomorrow), and I decided to print out both of these pages to use as my patterned paper (printed on white textured cardstock).

I had some leftover pieces, so I decided to make a few cards. The ruled patterned paper and the red circle/number patterned paper are both from Fancy Pants, but everything else is from those two print file pages. I used a bunch of the smaller pieces from the print file, cut them in half, and tucked them across the top of the card. Super simple, and so much easier then cutting into large sheets of patterned paper.

I really loved the black ruled piece from the print file, and I wanted to use it to cut a few extra shapes from. Like the "ABC" on this first card. I actually did a little tweaking to my print file, so that I had a larger black ruled piece to cut from. More on that little trick tomorrow 😉

Same story on this card. All of the little pieces across the top are from the print file pages. The blue alphabet pieces, with "apple" across the center, was one that I kept wanting to use in full on a card. But I kind of like how it looked tucked in here, once I finally decided to cut it in half.

In case anyone's wondering, the alpha stickers that I used on these two cards are a mix of Jillibean Soup, Bella Blvd, and Making Memories.

I think the This & That: Summertime print files would be fun to use. So bright and colorful.

And I really love fall, so the This & That: Autumn print files would be perfect on some fall cards and/or layouts. Just something to keep in mind, if you have these kits in your files. It's always fun to find new ways to use things, and make the most of our kits.

Check back tomorrow for my school layout, and more on how I tweaked these Print files, to use for cutting out my titles to make them stretch even further.
Creating Keepsakes September/October 2012

August 14, 2012

It's been a while since I've had a layout share from CK. Or a giveaway. I finally have something to share and to give away, now that the Creating Keepsakes September/October 2012 issue is out.

I created this layout for the "Fast Pages" column, meaning that the layouts can be created in 45 minutes or less. I worked on this assignment shortly after Winter CHA, when I had just gotten a hold of the new Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection, and a bunch of the new My Mind's Eye collections. I really loved how the two went together so nicely.

I chose to scrap these photos of Sarah that I took on her 10th birthday, which was 3 years ago. I really loved the wood paper and how it looked with the other sherbet-ey papers against it, so I used that as the main part of my background paper.

The Dear Lizzy paper with the little polaroid frames on it was a favorite of mine, so I cut several of the frames to use on the layout. I distressed the edges of all my papers and polaroid frames to add texture, and adhered some of the photos and frames with pop dots for dimension.

The title was from the My Mind's Eye collection. I simply added a few torn pieces of washi tape on either side of the die cut title, along with a staple to secure it to the layout. That brown ribbon is super old, and I believe it's from American Crafts.

Creating Keepsakes has generously given me a copy of the September/October issue to give away to one of my lucky blog readers. Just leave me a comment to be entered in the random drawing. I will announce a winner on Saturday!
Bella Blvd: Inspiration Layout

August 14, 2012

I'll be honest. I have quite a few things I could blog about. Imagine that. I love options. But since today is our Tuesday Inspiration day over on the Bella Blvd blog, and I have a layout up for it, I figured I would share that one today.

This is our inspiration piece for today (image found HERE). I spend more time than I probably need to picking out these images, for our designers to be inspired by. I spotted this on Pinterest, and it just caught my eye. I love the design and layout of the pieces on the image. I'm such a linear scrapper. But lately, I have enjoyed being a little more carefree in my designs. But still keeping things neat and orderly. And this design allows for those things.

On a side note. Check me out. I took these photos of the girls this past Saturday, and I already have them scrapped. Alyssa walked in and saw this on my desk on Sunday (less than 24 hours after taking them), and told me "Wow. You're really on the ball". Lol. We had picture day for fall soccer. It was at least 104 degrees out, and we were scheduled for 2:40 and 2:45 in the afternoon. Ick. We were all literally dripping in sweat, hot and miserable. And yet they both smiled pretty for me, and let me snap off a few pics, after standing in the sun taking their team photos. Thank you girls 😉

I used the Making The Team collection for this layout. I started the page with my favorite grid patterned paper (from the Family Dynamix collection), framed with four strips of the soccer ball patterned paper. I know, I know. I use that grid paper a lot. I can't help it. It gives me that white background that I love, but with a little interest so it's not solid white. And I can't lie. I love that the grid lines help me make sure everything is lined up perfectly.

I started this layout with the photos and the title. I knew I wanted to use the photo of Alyssa and Sarah together in the center of the layout, just like the main framed photo on the inspiration image. I printed a photo of each of them to add to either side of the main photo as well. I wanted to arrange my title in the bottom right corner, in the same spot that the row of numbers was on the inspiration piece.

I used a mix of chipboard alphas, chipboard numbers, and letter stickers to create my title. "MASL" is our city's leaque, 2012 is the year (obviously, but I had to say it), and this is for the fall season teams.

I choose this "Practice" journaling sticker that I knew I wanted to use, and hand cut the soccer ball from the Cute Cuts paper. I also picked out a chipboard accent and the "athlete" flag that I knew I wanted to work onto the page.

I took out some of my scraps of patterned paper form the collection, and started cutting them into random sizes to fill in the rest of the page. I cut notches out of one end of the patterned paper pieces, to create little banners. I love that I still have the linear, collaged look to my page. But all of the pieces aren't perfectly matched up or spaced out.

I added a few strips of designer tape here and there, along with a few threaded buttons along the bottom of the layout. I'm loving this layout. Not just the design and the colors. But the fact that something we did three days ago is scrapped and in the albums!
Bella Blvd: Birthday Project Sheet

August 12, 2012

It's time for a new monthly project sheet over on the Bella Blvd blog, and this month, I focused on the new Birthday Girl collection.

You can download our Birthday project sheet HERE.

Keep in mind, this layout would totally work with the Birthday Boy collection as well. There are so many pieces in these collections that are the same patterns or designs. Just different colors. If I had thought about it, I could have made a boy layout just to show you how similiar it would look.

I dug out these photos of Alyssa, taken on her thirteenth birthday. I used the heart patterned paper as my background paper, and started by adhereing my photos. I knew I wanted two 4×6 photos side by side, across the center, and then my two smaller 2×3 photos in the upper corner. I added a border sticker to seperate the photos.

I had to get creative with my title, since I only had select chipboard letters left over from my CHA projects. I decided to add in a few letter stickers and an older purple chipboard letter to complete my title. The fun flower sticker is one of my favorites, and you can find one in every collection. Including the Birthday Boy collection.

I wanted to use a wide variety of the different patterned papers in the collection. So I choose to create a layered banner border, below my 4×6 photos. I cut a bunch of small strips of paper, in varying widths and lengths, and cut notches on one end of each piece. Then I started adhering them from the outside edges, overlapping them a bit as I went.

Once I had them all adhered, I added a strip of the designer tape across the layout, to cover up the edges of the banner pieces (since some pieces didn't go all the way up to the photos). I printed out my journaling and adhered it across the banner border, and then added a few threaded buttons to embellish.

And if you have been looking to purchase the new birthday collections, you're in luck. Two Peas In A Bucket got them in last week. You can find all of Bella's new products HERE.
Greatest View: Guest Designer, Part 3

August 10, 2012

I'm so thrilled to be guest designing over at the Greatest View this week! Gail has some super fun and unique embellishments in her Etsy shop, and I had fun working with them for these projects. Today, I'm sharing my last project.

I came across these photos of the girls a while back, and printed them out with the intention of scrapping them. Then they got tucked away somewhere. When I was trying to decide what to do for my second layout, I was really just trying to find some photos that I wanted to scrap, but that would also match with some of the embellishments that Gail had sent me. I had an entirely different layout started, and it just wasn't working, so I gave up on it. Then I saw these photos tucked away, and thought that the blue and purple color scheme would be fun.

I picked out some of the purple and navy blue chevron badges and sunburst badges, and mixed in some of the aqua chevron ribbon and an aqua chevron bag.

Then I went looking for some patterned papers to match. The purple dotted paper is a super old KI Memories patterned paper. For some reason, when I thought about purple, I automatically went to my KI Memories folder. Then I decided to add in some tan/light brown pieces, so I pulled out one of the new Bella Blvd birthday boy papers.

I am not going to lie. This chevron ribbon is gorgeous, but it really did a number on my eyes. Lol. An optical illusion of sorts. Add in the fact that, for the first time in years, my paper trimmer isn't cutting perfectly straight anymore. And that when I use border punches, I usually never manage to punch straight either. I am usually tucking the borders under another paper, so I just adhered it so that it looks straight.

But add all these uneven and illusional (is that a word?) things together, and I could not figure out if anything on my layout was straight. Which may not seem like a big deal to most of you. But I am very anal and particular about my papers, photos, etc being totally and perfectly straight. My poor rulers worked overtime on this layout. Lol.

I used my Silhouette to cut my title. The "Sisters and Best Friends" was all one cut. I just cut it from my tan patterned paper and some navy blue cardstock. It never fails. I always lose the dots to my i's, after using my Silhouette. They're tiny, and I usually scrape them off the mat like they're scrap pieces. Which is why I tend to use brads to dot my i's 😉

Every now and then, the girls will write each other fun notes or hack into each other's Instagram accounts and write about why they love their sister, and I thought it would be fun to print some of those out and tuck them inside the chevron bag. These photos were taken 4 years ago (I'm convinced that is wrong, but I'm too lazy to go back and see when these photos were taken. I'm thinking it was more like 6 years ago.), and it's nice to know they still can have as much fun together as they did in these photos.

Take a visit over to Gail's Etsy shop as well, as I noticed she has lots of new goodies in the shop for purchase. I want to thank Gail and the Greatest View team for letting me join them on their blog this week, and share some of my projects with them. It was definately a lot of fun!
First Day Of School

August 9, 2012

Once again, it's time for the first day of school for these two girls of mine. They've been on summer break for almost 2.5 months, and I'm pretty sure we are all ready to get back to the craziness that is the school year.

Alyssa is now a Junior in high school. Still not sure how that happened so quickly. She was up before 6:00am, and out the door at 7:00am. I wanted to take just a quick photo before we left, but being up that early, we didn't quite get the good lighting.

Sarah is now in 8th grade. Her last year of Junior High. That's even more weird to me, thinking about how she'll be joining her sister at high school next year. She didn't have to get out the door until a little after 8:00, since she just has to walk across the street. That meant she got some fabulous light.

We always take our official "first day of school pics" after school. Or even a few days after. I just find that it's too hectic to get those pics before school. I was lucky enough to get these!
Greatest View: Guest Designer, Part 2

August 8, 2012

I'm so thrilled to be guest designing over at the Greatest View this week! Gail has some super fun and unique embellishments in her Etsy shop, and I had fun working with them for these projects. I thought I would share a couple of cards I made today, and then I'll share my second layout tomorrow.

I wanted to use a few of the small chevron bags, along with the happy birthday badges, to make a few birthday cards. I choose my patterned paper colors to coordinate with the badges and bags I choose.

For this card, I pulled a few scraps of Pebbles patterned papers out to use. I distressed the edges of the papers and layered them all together. I pulled out some larger flowers to layer together, and adhered them to the center of the grey chevron bag.

I added a petite paper doilies and my birthday badge to the center of the flowers, and added a few colored sequins to finish off the card. Super easy to tuck a gift card right inside theh little baggie!

I did the same basic idea on this second card. I wanted to pull in some green in my patterned paper to coordinate with the green candle on the birthday badge. I choose this green grid paper from Bella Blvd, but wanted to soften it up a bit.

So I used a trick that I see my good friend Wendy do all the time on her layouts. I pulled out some vellum, and laid it over the green paper to soften up the color a bit. I added my adhesive to the vellum on the areas that I knew would be covered up. And then I used a few mini brads on the corners to make sure the vellum stayed put.

We already gave this card away, to Joe's mom, who celebrated a birthday yesterday. And we tucked a gift card inside the orange chevron bag. When I called her last night, she said she just loved how clever this card was and thought it was such a fun way to give a gift card. I thought so too 🙂
Bella Blvd: Brothers

August 7, 2012

Someone asked me last week when I was going to share this particular CHA layout. How about today, Janet? Lol. Good timing, since it was up on the Bella Blvd blog yesterday.

First things first. I am well aware that there should NOT be an apostrophe in "Brothers". Was I aware of this when I adhered my letter stickers for my layout title? NO. But it was pointed out to me by a good friend. AFTER I had photographed it, and AFTER it was on it's way to the Bella office. Soooooo. I've received numerous grammer lessons on this already. Lol. I actually photoshopped the apostrophe out when posting this layout to the Bella blog yesterday, because I didn't want another lesson. But I figured I would just post the real deal here. I'm the furthest thing from perfect, and here's the proof 😉

Soooo. Now that I got that out of the way. Lol. Aren't these boys so handsome? Remember THIS LAYOUT from a few weeks ago? That was Miranda, little sister to Sam and Jeromy. Sam (the younger boy) was one of my very first daycare kids, about 10 years ago. I took these photos almost 5 years ago, so he's so much bigger now.

I created this layout to showcase Bella's stick pin flags. I laid out every pack of flags that Bella makes, including the new designs, and then set out to pick a variety of flags from those sets that would all coordinate nicely for this boyish layout.

I did have to get a bit creative. See that yellow flag? I knew I needed a touch of yellow, to tie in with my border sticker. But I wasn't finding a yellow flag that would work. But there was a yellow flag that said "Cat's Rule", and it had a pawprint on it. I figured I would just cover that up with a sticker or something.

Funny thing was, I forgot. So I sent this layout in for the catalog, thinking I rocked it. A while later, Stephanie emailed me, saying she loved it … BUT … she wasn't sure how the "Cat's Rule" flag tied in. Lol. See. Just more proof that I'm far from perfect. I quickly covered it up with a piece of the border sticker, and re-photographed it. Too bad we didn't catch the apostrophe 😉

I've used this trick before, to add a bit of subtle interest to my patterned paper. I cut an extra strip of my striped paper, and then punched some half circles from the paper and from some scrap chipboard. I adhered the paper circles to the chipboard, sanded down the edges, and then adhered them across my striped paper strip, matching up the stripes. It's subtle, but still interesting.

If you're loving the new Bella collections, you'll be very happy to know that all of the product has arrived at the Bella offices, and is in the process of being packed up and shipped out to LSS's and online retailers! You'll be able to get your hands on our fun products very, very soon!
Greatest View: Guest Designer, Part 1

August 6, 2012

Hey everyone! I'm so thrilled to be guest designing over at the Greatest View this week! When Gail contacted me about guest designing for her Etsy shop, full of fun and unique embellishments, I knew I'd have lots of fun with it!

I think I was most excited to use her gorgeous flair buttons! I love the Chevron badges and the Sunburst badges. The assortment packs give you such a fun variety of colors to choose from. The photos I choose for this layout left it wide open, as far as what colors I used, so I choose an aqua, orange, grey, and black color scheme.

I pulled out quite a few patterned papers for this layout. I then settled on some really old blue dotted paper from KI Memories, some orange grid paper from Pebbles, and some black tone-on-tone diagonal stripe paper from Echo Park. And in the end, I really only used a few small pieces from each paper. So unlike me, since I really LOVE my patterned paper. But I had so many fun embellishments to work with, I didn't need all the paper.

I also got some of this gorgeous chevron ribbon, in both aqua and orange. I cut a few small strips to add to the top and bottom corners of my page, snipping out a little notch at the ends, and adding a few staples to secure them. The buttons are all from Fancy Pants, one of my go-to buttons choices.

This layout really started with this die cut title from the Silhouette store, and cut from black textured cardstock on my Silhouette machine. I was honestly just browsing through my Silhouette library, hoping that a title jumped out at me. And this one did. I knew I had these photos of Sarah from ages ago, that would go perfectly with it. I also added a few mini silver accent pieces to the sides of the sunglasses on the title piece. A fun, but simple touch.

To help make my flair badges stand out more, I layered them together with some really old Doodlebug flowers from my stash, and some petite paper doilies from Gail's shop. I actually put the doilies to the side when my package arrived, since I don't consider myself much of a doilie person. Lol. But the badges are such the perfect little fit on top of them, and I think they ended up adding a fun touch.

I also added some misting to my white background cardstock, before I started adhering all of my pieces to the page. I'm very hit and miss with my misting. Sometimes, it works well. Sometimes, it doesn't. If you ever see the bigger blotches on my layouts, they are most likely added after my layout was finished. If I feel like it needs a bit more, I tap the tube from the nozzle (not sure I described that right) on my paper. Sometimes a bit too much, and I don't always know when to stop 😉

And the chevron papers peeking out from under my photos? Those are small chevron bags. I cut down the sides of the bags and opened them up. To make the most of them, I just cut a piece from each end, and adhered them under my photos. I still have the center part of each bag that I can use on another project.

Head on over to the Greatest View blog, where you can read some of my Q&A's. Take a visit over to Gail's Etsy shop as well, as I noticed she has lots of new goodies in the shop for purchase. I may have loaded up my cart while I was linking products for this blog post. Lol. I'll be back later this week with a few more projects, using these fun and colorful embellishments!
Bella Blvd: Birthday Cards

August 3, 2012

This week, on the Bella Blvd blog, we've been having a bit of a birthday celebration! Bella Blvd is turning FOUR years old this week, and we wanted to share lots and lots of projects using the new Birthday Boy and Birthday Girl collections. I figured it was a good time to share a few of my birthday cards that I created for CHA.

I think this card was my favorite out of the seven cards I created for CHA. I really, really love the colors in the Birthday Boy collection.

I wanted to have a bit of a confetti look to my card, so I used a small circle punch along with a regular hole punch, and punched out a ton of circles from the polka dot patterned paper. Punching out the polka dots is a great way to get solid colors that will perfectly match your other pieces from the collection.

There is a sticker on just about every Just Write Journaling sticker sheet, that goes with each collection, that is the perfect width for the front of a card. I used a scalloped edged border punch along some patterned paper, to frame the sticker. Such an easy card.

I knew this adorable chipboard froggie would have to land on the front of a card. I thought the quote sticker would be perfect, along with the frog, so it looks like he's sending the birthday wishes.

I distressed the edges of the quote sticker, and adhered it to a scrap of white cardstock, trimming around the edges. This allowed me to adhere it to the card using pop dots. Then I cut one of the little phrase stickers, into smaller pieces, and used it for my sentiment.

One of my two cards using the Birthday Girl collection. Except my second card isn't really a birthday card, so I'll share that another day. This one is pretty simple.

I used the alpha stickers from the Alpha+Bits sticker sheet, to spell out "birthday". I machine stitched along the pink strip of patterned paper several times, before adhering my stickers. I added the little banner "wishes" stickers below the pink patterned paper.

I pop dotted the chipboard cupcake to the bottom of the card, added a few strips of designer tape, and finished it off with a little sticker.

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Make sure and visit the Bella Blvd blog to see all of the fun projects we've been sharing all week, using these two new birthday collections. We had one day focusing on birthday cards, one day focusing on birthday layouts, one day focusing on everyday layouts using the birthday collections, and today is all about birthday mini albums! And be sure to leave a comment on both of the TWO posts we have today, since we are giving away a total of FOUR birthday collection kits!

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