Laura Vegas

CK Club: NSD Countdown Kitchen Challenge

May 3, 2012

This week, on both the Creating Keepsakes Blog and the CK Club Blog, we are celebrating the week leading up to National Scrapbook Day with the theme "scrapbooking around the house". Each day this week, we are focusing on one room of the house. There are activities, tips, challenges, and prizes, on both blogs. Today, we are visiting the Kitchen, and I volunteered to do the Recipe Challenge over on the CK Club blog.

If you've never done a recipe challenge before, you're in for a special scrapbooking treat! Sometimes it's really easy to get stuck when you have a scraproom full of beautiful papers and accents. Forcing yourself to use a few specific items on your scrapbook page is a great way to switch your creative gears! Today, we are giving our challenge a little bit of a kitchen twist! Think of your supplies as ingredients. Pull out a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, just like the recipe calls for. Then follow that recipe, as you assemble and mix your ingredients together, to create a perfect layout!

The Five Ingredients:
1. 3 patterned papers – measure out 1/3 of each paper, to use on layout
2. 1 all purpose title – letter stickers or die cut title
3. 1 perfect photo
4. 1 baker's dozen journaling strips/blocks/tags
5. 3 sprinkles of embellishments – button and/or brads

The Recipe:
Step 1: Start with 3 patterned papers. Measure out 1/3 of each paper, to use on your layout.
Step 2: Add 1 all purpose title, using letter stickers or a die cut title.
Step 3: Find 1 perfect photo, and combine with the layout.
Step 4: Computer print or hand journal 1 baker's dozen journaling strips/blocks/tags.
Step 5: Sprinkle on 3 clusters of embellishments, such as buttons and/or brads.

All you need to do for this challenge is to create a scrapbook layout using the five ingredients, and keeping to the basic recipe. Upload a picture of your layout to the Club CK idea galleries and you could win some scrapping goodies! For all of the details and cut off dates, go HERE.
Kerri Bradford Studio: NSD Week – Photo Templates

May 1, 2012

As part of the week-long NSD celebration at Kerri Bradford Studios, today is all about the photos!

Photo templates! One of my favorite things to use on my layouts. I've been using photo collages on my layouts for years and years. I used to sit and create my own collages, which is fun. But takes forever and a day. This is why I am such a huge fan of photo templates. It has all of the design work done for you, and you simply drop your photos into the template and POOF … you have a photo collage!

I created this fun collage, using some photos I randomly took of the girls and myself, back in January. No big story behind them. I just took my camera upstairs one night, snapped some photos of them where they were, and left. I might not have scrapped these photos together, when originally looking at them. But I had the fun Bright Side papers out, from one of the new My Minds Eye collections, and knew they would match perfectly and tie in the colors in the photos.

I love the simple look of white on white. I don't do it often, but I thought it would be fun to do with these flowers. The larger photo collage has a lot going on and takes up a lot of space on the page. So I didn't want to add to many other elements that would make it feel cluttered.

I like how the white on white adds interest, but also keeps the design clean and easy on the eyes. I added some threaded buttons to the centers of each flower for a fun touch.

I cut my title, using a few of the Bright Side patterned papers. I love Kerri's titles, that allow you to cut a word, or several of the words, from different papers. Adds such interest to the title.

Supplies Used:

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For my tips and tricks part of the week, I created a little video on how you can play with your templates a bit and customize them to fit your different photo needs. The template I used on this layout originally held 11 photos, but I only used 8 photos. You'll see how I did that in the video. A few things I have to say about the video. I thought it would look clearer, but it seems quite blurry. You have no idea how many ways I tried saving this and uploading this, to make it better. Didn't seem to help. It might work better to watch on Youtube, if it's looking cut off here. I've been sick for 5 days, so excuse the voice or any sniffles you hear from me. I'm a rambler, so no matter how many times I did this, I could not get it any shorter 🙂

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Kerri also asked us to share 5 of our favorite things. Hard to pick just 5 favorite things. But when asked to choose, I made impulsive decisions. Java Chip Frappacino's from Starbucks, which help me get so much done every day. Pinterest, which helps get me inspired, when I'm in a creative rut. Jeans, which are my daily staple to my wardrobe, and I just love a good pair of reliable jeans. Music, because I can't live without it. And Friends, which is my all-time favorite TV show, and one that I have recently become addicted to watching late at night on Nickelodeon 😉

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Now, I'm not quite done. I still have the shape that Kerri designed, per my request, available as a FREEBIE DOWNLOAD today. But only for today. If you don't go and download it today, it goes into Kerri's magic vault (wouldn't that be so cool to see if she really has one ;)), and will be available to purchase, along with all the other daily freebies, at the end of the week.

So head over to Kerri's blog, where you can find my FREEBIE shape, and also enter in her giveaway for the day. It's a gorgeous one, so you'll want to get your name in there!
Pebbles Guest Designer – Country Picnic

April 28, 2012

I'm back today, with the rest of my projects that were featured on the Pebbles blog yesterday, as a Guest Designer! I shared my projects with the Hip Hip Hooray collections yesterday, and today, it's all about the Country Picnic collection.

This collection is gorgeous! I love the shades of greens and pinks, paired up with white and krafts. This was another one of my layouts, that I started to create, without even having any particular photos in mind. When it came time to dig out some photos, I came across these photos I took of my friend Deneen's daughter, Holly. I have already created a layout of her twin sister, Heather, so it was only right that I scrap a layout about Holly as well.

Once again, I started with my favorite paper saving trick (the second trick on that post), to create the base of my layout. I cut out the entire center of the embossed green dotted paper, and the white heart paper as well. I just left the framed around all four sides and layered them together, since I knew my kraft dotted paper would cover the inside parts that were missing. Do you notice anything funny with the hearts? Kills me that once I got to adhereing photos and embellishments, I wasn't paying attention and now the hearts are sideways. LOL.

I love that Pebbles came out with the corrugated alpha stickers! They are available in 3 colors, and are a great size for titles. I trimmed a strip of flowered patterned paper, just a tad bit wider than the alphas, for my title piece. I cut a notch at one end of the strip, distressed the edges, and machine stitched right down the center before adhered my title letters.

Just a little side note. Green is my favorite color, and this shade of green is my favorite kind of green! I have tons of this green in my house, including a lot of the walls 🙂

The dimensional flowers were my favorite embellishment in this collection. They have thick, canvas-like petals, and a fun button in the center.

I also created a set of cards, using some scraps and the layered kraft tags. The layered kraft tags are so pretty, and have so much dimension to them. I love that it looks like you put a lot of work into creating the tags, but all you had to do was pull them out of the package!

I started each card with a white cardstock base, and I gave each one a light mist of pink misting spray. I used one of my border punches along some green cardstock, and adhered a small strip along the left edge of the card.

Then I dug out a scrap of pattern paper, distressed the edges, and adhered along the bottom of the card.

Then I adhered the layered kraft tag to the card at a slight angle, peeking out from behind the pattern paper strip. I added a few of the masking tape stickers along the side of the tag, and stapled down the tag strings.

I had lots of fun working with the Country Picnic collection! Thanks to Pebbles for letting me work with their super fun products, and for letting me join them on the blog today! Make sure to go over to their blog, and check out the rest of my projects. I also did a fun little Question & Answer thing, where you can read a few fun tidbits from me. AND, there's a giveaway over there, so you'll want to leave a comment for a chance to win!
Pebbles Guest Designer – Hip Hip Hooray

April 27, 2012

I'm super excited to be guest designing on the Pebbles blog today! I worked with two different collections, so I thought I would share one collection today, and one tomorrow. First up, is the Hip Hip Hooray collection!

This collection is all about birthdays and celebrations. So I knew I wanted to scrap one of the girl's birthday parties. I hadn't done anything yet with the photos from Sarah's 11th birthday party, which was almost two years ago. It was a swimming party, of course (she's a fish!). And the photos all looked great, paired up with the fun, colorful Hip Hip Hooray papers. I choose two main photos for this layout. One group shot, and one of the birthday girl.

I started out by doing my favorite paper saving trick, and framing my page with a few strips of the glittered dotted patterned paper. I trimmed down a sheet of white cardstock, and misting it with some pink misting spray, and adhered it to the center of the page. I knew I wanted to use the glittered flag banners in the upper corner. The banners come with two flags in one, so that you can fold them over, and string them along the cord that is included. Which I think would be cute. But I also knew that if I simply cut them in half, and seperated the flags, I could get even more banners out of it! I added the fun little sequin candy dots inbetween the flags.

For my title, I wanted to mimic the banner in the upper corner. I choose a fun banner "Birthday" title from the Silhouette store, and cut it from one of the aqua pattern papers. I used the pink glitter alpha stickers to add the "Happy" to my "Happy Birthday" title. I really love those glitter alphas. They're thick, and I didn't find glitter all over the place, like a lot of glitter stickers will do.

I adhered my die cut title to the page, using pop dots. Then I tucked in a few of the adorable pinwheels, to embellish the title.

Some journaling. I find that most of our birthday parties have the same stories. There's lots of swimming, games and joking around, eating, presents, cake and ice cream. Just what a party should be about!

The upper corner needed a little something, so I added her age. It's a very important fact to get down on the page, since all of the swimming parties start to look the same 😉

But I didn't want to stop there. If I'm going to scrap some birthday photos, I'm going to scrap the entire party. Even though my two main photos were the focus of my layout, and this one page could easily stand on it's own, I wanted to add all the other photos in as well. I decided to use some divided page protectors, from Becky Higgins.

I'm actually going to have 3 of these pages, to go along with the single page paper layout. So I will have two 2 page spreads in the album, to cover the entire party. This first page has a selection of photos from the swimming fun. The next page will have photos from the games they played out of the pool, and the last page will have photos of the gift opening and cake and ice cream.

I printed photos in three different sizes. I did a few 3×4", which will fit perfectly in the page protectors.

Then I printed some at 2.5×3.5", which I then matted on white cardstock, and then on some pattern paper.

And lastly, I printed some at 2.5×2.5". For these, I started with a 3×4" piece of white cardstock, which I misted with the pink misting spray. I took a scrap of dotted patterned paper, distressed the edges, and adhered in the corner. Then I adhered my photos using pop dots. I finished embellishing with alpha stickers and other embellishments. This entire page only took me about 20 minutes to throw together. I still need to do the other 2 pages, but I wanted to show what I had so far.

Since I am ALWAYS in need of birthday cards, I decided to use some scraps to make a few cards. I used my Silhouette to die cut "Party" from some pink patterned paper.

For all of these cards, the thin strips of pattern paper across the bottom or top of the cards, are actually the UPC strips from the sheets of paper.

I had lots of fun working with the Hip Hip Hooray collection! Thanks to Pebbles for letting me work with their super fun products, and for letting me join them on the blog today! Make sure to go over to their blog, and check out the rest of my projects. I also did a fun little Question & Answer thing, where you can read a few fun tidbits from me. AND, there's a giveaway over there, so you'll want to leave a comment for a chance to win! Come back by here tomorrow, and I'll share the rest of my projects using the Country Picnic collection 😉
hello spring – a kerri bradford studio layout

April 26, 2012

i have a layout up at kerri bradford studio today.

i know that pretty much everyone, everywhere, has had some strange weather this past year. just two weeks ago, we had some of the craziest thunderstorms, a bit of rain, and even some hail. not your typical april weather for us here. but the following week, we had some gorgeous weather. it finally felt like spring, with all of us dragging out capri's, shorts, tshirts, and flipflops.

the girls were outside taking photos of themselves one afternoon, using their ipod touch's. it's what kids do, right? sarah alone has over 3000 photos on her ipod. lol! i find some great ones in there though, and i often think that i should save them and use them for something.

i "borrowed" some of their photos from that one afternoon, to create this layout. because the ipod touch's don't get you the best quality photos, i knew i wanted to keep them fairly small on the layout. i choose a filmstrip type photo template from kerri's storyboard #6 kit, and filled 3 of them with photos. because the coloring wasn't the best on a few, and because they changed shirts at some point, i decided to change all of the photos to black & white to keep a consistent look.

i wanted to add a touch of black across the top of the page, and went looking for a border to use. i came across these birds on a wire and had to use them.

i choose several papers from amy tangerine, along with the black dot paper from crate paper. the colors might not be your typical "spring" colors, but i thought they gave a more funky vibe to go along with my teenager and my pre-teen's photos. i always love to use the titles with different fonts on them, and that i can cut from several different papers. it adds such a fun look to the titles.

i cut several daisies, from different pattern papers, in varying sizes, and added threaded buttons to the centers. to add more color to the page, i dug out some wide turquoise ribbon and adhered it across the page.
CK’s Simple Scrapbooks Special Issue

April 24, 2012

Creating Keepsakes has a new special issue that just came out, called Simple Scrapbooks. I'm sure a lot of you remember Simple Scrapbooks magazine, which came to an end a few years back. This special issue is filled with tons of ideas for simplifying our scrapbooking process.

As seen in the Simple Scrapbooks Special Issue, from Creating Keepsakes magazine. Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher.

My layout was created for an article about scraplifting. I was given a layout from a previous issue to lift, and I choose the flowers as my main focus of the scrap lift. I'm sure this would make more sense, if you had the issue and could read the article. LOL. Trust me, I lifted the flowers. The original layout also had lots of layered pattern papers along one side. I got the same look, by using a large piece of a pattern paper that was all borders. One piece of paper, versus combining lots of strips of paper. Same look, less time.

The pre-made flower embellishments, from Basic Grey, made this layout super quick and easy to create. The flowers are all 3-D, and have lots of dimension and layers, and even tiny rhinestones on them. I just took them out of the package and stuck them down. Easy peasy.

I just randomly came across these number die cuts, from Pink Paislee, while digging for the flowers. It was a very random decision to use these, and I choose a totally random number to use.

I used those number die cuts, to come up with my title. "Reason No. 714 Why I Love You". And then I came up with my journaling, based off of the title.
a bella blvd layout & some bella blvd news

April 19, 2012

we had quite a bit of stuff happening on the bella blvd blog yesterday, and i wanted to share it with you, in case you missed any of it.

first up, i had a layout on the blog. this was another one of my CHA layouts. i think it's the only one left that i hadn't shared yet. i used the sunshine & happiness collection, to scrap these favorite photos of the girls out by the pool.

it's kind of hard to see here, but i covered the chipboard sun piece with diamond glaze, to make it shiny and glossy. then i added the "you are sunshine" chipboard piece to the center of the sun.

i took a few strips of dotted patterned paper, and cut notches at the end of each one, before slightly overlapping them on the page. i machine stitched down the center of each strip, and then gently bent up the edges to add a little more texture.

for my title, i started out with a journaling block, and added on a few torn strips of the yellow chevron designer tape. the string going under the buttons, on either side of the title piece, was an after thought. since i had already adhered my title piece, i just decided to run the string right over the journaling block, and then add the letter stickers over the string.

it was actually a bit tricky to get the letters to keep from popping up. a little extra adhesive fixed that problem. then i added some diamond glaze to my letters, to give them a shiny look, and also to match the chipboard sun at the top of the layout.
creating keepsakes may/june 2012

April 17, 2012

have you gotten your hands on the new creating keepsakes may/june 2012 issue yet? it's got a gorgeous layout by stacy cohen on the cover. you can also find some additional online extras HERE, such as contests, downloads (you must download the sketches!), and additional techniques that are found in this issue.

As seen in the May/June 2012 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher.

speaking of wedding layouts and sketches, i have a wedding layout in this issue. and it was created for the sketch column, which you can find on page 27. i scrapped some gorgeous wedding photos of my cousin rachael and her new husband ryan, taken by heidi-o-photo.

all of the papers i used, including the lace paper, are from basic grey. i loved the rich colors of the burgundy and green's that they used in their wedding decor. so pretty together. then i added in some silver and pearls, to help give the layout an elegant look.

i wanted another silver flower on the second page, to match the netted one on the first page. so i took some satiny trim, by pink paislee, and created my own little flower. just a little trick i picked up teaching some flowers classes at CKC 2 years ago 😉
pool time – a bella blvd layout

April 16, 2012

this past saturday, we had our first sketch for april up on the bella blvd blog. we are really excited to have the one and only becky fleck designing exclusive sketches for us! i got to work with this sketch:

i knew i wanted to use a few horizontal photos, so i decided to flip the sketch counter-clockwise, one turn. when i was teaching at the CKC's the last two years, i taught a lot of the sketch classes. i always reminded everyone to rotate their sketches. you get so many more options out of a sketch, by simply turning them around and around.

i used some of the simply simona chipboard alphas for my title. i LOVE these letters! i added a few threaded buttons to the centers of the O's, and a chipboard accent to the center of the P.

i didn't really have any specific journaling for this layout. i have TONS of photos every year of the girls in the pool. we don't have a pool, by my parents and my brother have pools. there's only so much i can say, year after year, about them swimming and having fun. lol! so i decided to use the "summer checklist" sticker in place of my journaling. I used mini brads to "check" off the things that applied to these photos.

the sketch had a fun little banner on the top of the layout. since i had flipped the sketch for my layout, i didn't want to add a sideways banner. so i created a fun little banner to add to the opposite side of the page. I used a banner punch from fiskars, stapled the top of each piece, threaded some string through the pieces, and then adhered them using pop dots.
crab and shrimp boil – a layout share

April 13, 2012

as promised, here is another layout share, from that family get-together that i shared on tuesday's layout.

this layout is about the food we ate that day. yummy, yummy crab and shrimp! my brother and his wife do an annual crab and shrimp boil every year. since my sister was out to visit, they decided to do it for our family get-together. there's nothing better than when they dump out that huge pot of food on the table, and pour TONS of butter over everything. it's so good!

i started with another digital template from janet phillips, but this time i choose a one page template. this one holds 9 photos, but i knew i only had 6-7 photos to use.

i started by taking off the scalloped border, title, grey behind the photos (for paper), and the staples.

i was ok with having a few empty spots in the collage. i knew this would print fairly large, and take up a good amount of my page. so i figured i would use the empty spaces in the collage to hold my title and journaling.

i cropped around the collage, leaving a bit of white space around the edges since i wanted a white border after trimming this down. you'll notice that i left the black boxes on the collage to print. i left them there, so that i could measure out the area for adding my papers. looking back, i'm thinking this might have used up a decent amount of ink to print all that black. lol! maybe i should delete those out next time 😉

this collage looked pretty square to me, but it turned out that one side was longer than the other. so i flipped my collage on it's side, to add it to my 8.5"x11" canvas. when i first copied my collage over, it was a lot bigger then the canvas. because this was a one page layout, all i had to do was shrink down the collage to fit the page. what you see here, is how i printed it out. if this had been a two page layout, and my collages were both the same size, i would have wanted to make sure i was shrinking them to the same exact size.

when i started putting this collage together, i had no idea i might trim it into two pieces. it was something i thought about later, once i started to assemble the page. i liked how the digital template had the scalloped border going across those bottom 2 photos. and there was a scalloped border on one of the pattern papers, that i thought would be fun to use. but it would have covered up a lot of the photos. so i simply cut across the collage, and put the border in between them.

since this layout goes right along with the one i shared yesterday, i wanted to use the same papers to tie them together. so i pulled out the wave searcher collection, from fancy pants again. this layout is pretty much paper and stickers. very simple.

i trimmed some graph paper to cover up the empty spots in the collage. i covered up two of the black boxes, with one piece of paper, for my title piece. i used some smaller alpha stickers from october afternoon for my title. they small size worked great, since i didn't have a lot of room to work with.

i must have adhered and un-adhered (is that a word?) this piece of graph paper at least 4 times. which is why it looks all curled up on the sides. too small at first, tried to make it appear bigger, was going to hand journal, then decided to print onto the paper. i should really plan ahead more before adhering things.

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