Laura Vegas

paper saving tricks

January 13, 2012

i promised i would take some photos yesterday of my simple paper saving trick. i came really close to forgetting all about it, but managed to take these super quick in between projects. forgive the sad photos. i had to clear off a space on the desk, and didn't have much room since i was surrounded in CHA goodies 😉

so, here's my layout i shared yesterday. i have mentioned a few times that i have a few paper saving tricks, so that i'm not using full sheets of pattern paper on my layouts. even though it basically looks like i am. this isn't rocket science, and i'm not thinking i just invented some massively unique technique. lol! but i know that sometimes, visuals help things make sense.

so, if i know i want this star paper to be my background paper, but i also know that i'm going to cover the entire middle of the paper, i'll do a little paper trickery. i start by cutting 4 strips of my pattern paper. for these, i cut them into 1 inch strips. if you want more showing around the outside border of your layout, you can cut them wider. this also totally works for cardstock as well, if you're using cardstock as your background and don't want to waste a good color.

i turn two of the strips over, and butt two of the ends together, just as if i was adhering them to 2 edges of the layout. i take one of my 17 rulers, and line it up from the outside corner, to the inside corner, where the papers meet.

then i draw a line. i do this on the backside, so that i don't have to worry about marks on the front of my papers. i usually use a pencil, but all i had handy was a pen.

then i cut the first diagonal piece off the end of one strip. i use that piece as my guide, so that i can trim the second strip of paper, and then the other end of the first strip. only do this on two strips of the papers.

then i take a piece of scrap cardstock that i really don't care about. i usually use kraft, since i have a ton, but am not a fan of scrapping with it. i know, i know. why do i own a ton of it, if i don't like it very much? i have no clue. i adhere the two strips of pattern paper that i did NOT cut the ends of, one on either side of the scrap cardstock. so they're opposite each other.

then i adhere the two strips of pattern paper that i did cut the ends of, to the two opposite sides of the cardstock. so you essentially create a frame.

and the corners actually look a bit like a frame, don't you think? you can get really crazy, and machine stitch or hand stitch those corners, for a really finished look. or add staples or something. then you just build the rest of your layout on top of this, and no one will ever know that you didn't use a full sheet of paper. all it took was a 4×12 inch piece of pattern paper.

here's another example, where i did a little paper saving tricks too. i was layering 2 different pattern papers on top of my white cardstock background. but that green pattern paper is not a full piece.

i just grabbed some green cardstock to demonstrate. i did cut the cardstock (or the pattern paper in the layout example) down to the size i wanted it to be on the layout. i wanted the white cardstock to be on the top, left, and bottom edges of my layout. so the green cardstock would go right up against the right edge of the page. once the paper is cut to size, i then use my trimmer to cut a chunk of the paper out, leaving the 3 outside edges. i just cut in, and leave about an inch or so of paper. doesn't have to be perfect, since the inside edges will be covered.

that leaves you with something that looks like this. that's one piece of cardstock, with 3 edges. you could also easily get this same look with 3 strips of cardstock or pattern paper. in fact, that would save you even more paper. but it would take me forever to get those lined up perfectly on my page, even with my 17 rulers 😉

then i simple adhere that down, and then adhered my other pattern paper or cardstock right on top. easy peasy. and i have extra paper saved for other projects.
niko boy – a bella blvd layout

January 12, 2012

this past weekend, i made 8 new layouts for bella blvd. start to finish, 8 layouts in 2.5 days. it's too bad i can't share any of them with you. lol. sorry, that was mean. soon, i promise. CHA will be here before you know it, and we'll be able to share all the new products and designs. you're going to love them! luckily, i had to do a layout for the bella blog this weekend too (yeah, make that 9 layouts total). at least i have one to share for now.

yesterday, was "free-for-all" day on the blog, where the designers can scrap any sort of layout they want. i decided to do a boy layout. it had been a while since i had created a boy layout, or scrapped about the daycare kids. my actual intention was to scrap about little dude zachary, since he's around here all the time. but as i was searching for photos, i came across these of my boy nikolas. i have scrapped a few of these photos before, but on a layout with haley, about how they came to visit me one day. i wanted to do a layout just about him.

every time i do my little paper saving tricks on layouts, i think to myself "i should take photos of the steps so i can share". and then i don't. i'm going to do that today. it's on my list.

i used the mr boy collection, from bella. i love the papers and colors in this collection. it's not always easy to find good boy scrapbook products. but this collection is definatley a fun one. i layered a few of the pattern papers together, machine stitching them all together. nikolas also went by the nickname "niko". and i always called him "my boy". which is where my title "niko boy" came from.

i added on some chipboard accents to embellish the page a bit, using pop dots on a few of them. overall, it's a pretty simple layout.

gotta get back to work here. i have errands to run, since i don't have any daycare kids today. finally, a day off, and the girls are back in school after a 2.5 week break. time to accomplish stuff. and i still have an extreme number of layouts and cards to make, and even an altered project tossed in there to mix it up 😉
around the house

January 6, 2012

i wasn't going to post tonight. or today, since it's 1:45am on friday, as i type this. but i hated the idea of not having anything new to look at on here.

the girls are still off school this week. they don't go back until next tuesday. it's been nice to not have to wake up super early (except for daycare kids), or rush around to school and activities. but this also means they've been staying up really late, and sleeping in more. we just don't have much structure to our days, when they're off school.

both the girls have gotten together with friends a few times. had some soccer practices, and sarah's been out golfing with my mom a few times. alyssa's been catching up on some shows, and doing some christmas break homework (darn AP biology class). i've taken them out shopping a few times, to use up some christmas gift cards. random stuff.

i love my crazy girls, and just hanging out around the house, everyone doing their things … that's perfect for us.

did i mention they're crazy?!?! lol!

i'm busy, busy with CHA work this week and all weekend. but i can quarantee you that i will have a few brand new layouts to share next week. and maybe i'll share these fabric flowers that i created for some gifts i made for christmas. and i have some hair related stuff i want to share too. i know, that all sorted kind of random. lol! we'll see how it turns out next week 😉
what i need to scrap

January 4, 2012

i thought i would do something a little different for this post. i don't have any new projects to share right now, but i am working on lots of fun stuff. so i thought i would share the things that i need, to do my thing in the scraproom. i cannot scrap without the following items.

my external hard drives. i only keep the last month or two's worth of photos on my laptop. i keep tons of other stuff on the laptop, but not photos. those all go on my external hard drives. i have three of them right now. the silver one holds all my photos up thru 2008. then i moved to the red one, that holds everything starting with 2009. the black one holds all my digital scrap supplies, design team stuff, photography classes, and all my layouts. since pretty much all my photos are on these, i cannot scrap without them.

someone asked, so i thought i would add this here. i use western digital external hard drives. i get the smaller sized ones that fit in the palm of my hand, and are so easy to pull out and use whenever i need them. they've always been very inexpensive (usually under $90), and hold a lot. the silver one is much older, seeing as it's a bit bigger. but it holds about 6 years worth of photos. nowdays, you can get more bang for your buck, as far as storage. i would recommend something like:
Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1 TB
Western Digital My Passport 500 GB
Western Digital My Passport 750 GB

my trimmer. i have two of these trimmers from fiskars, and they have been my go-to trimmers for about a year now. i have lots of other trimmers laying around, but this is the one i usually pull out.

rulers. i have said this before, but i always have about half a dozen rulers nearby, when i scrap. this sits on the corner of my desk, and i do indeed have lots of rulers. i'm extremely notorious about measuring and double measuring everything i do.

i get on these big kicks where i love to incorporate circles into my layouts. these are my go-to tools for cutting circles. my super old circle cutter system from creative memories, and a few large circle punches from fiskars. i think they're 2.5 inches, and 3 inches.

border punches. i do love my border punches. although, to be honest, i usually use the same 2-3 punches over and over. i should show more love to the others.

very simple tools, but very important to me. my paper piercer and my tweezers. i know there are newer styles out there, and they're probably cuter and more colorful than these plain silver, metal ones. but these do the job, and that's good enough for me. i use the paper piercer for poking holes for brads, or when i want to mark where i'm threading buttons to a page. the tweezers are for adhering stickers. they're really helpful for getting letter stickers, especially the tiny ones, where i want them.

staplers. a regular old plain stapler. and my tiny attacher from tim holtz. love them both. i mainly use them for stapling on ribbons, but i also staple stickers, tags, or die cuts.

this is kind of a boring one. but all my layouts start with either white or kraft cardstock. i like to leave a white border around a lot of my layouts, so then i start with white cardstock, and build on top of it. if i know i'm covering my entire page with pattern paper, or colored cardstock, i will start with kraft and build on top of it. why kraft? because for some reason, i have TONS of kraft. and because i'm not actually a fan of using kraft cardstock on it's own. so i'm sort of recycling it 😉

adhesive. you cannot scrap without adhesive. and i have TONS of it. this bucket sits on my desk, and is filled with a huge assortment of adhesives. i use different kinds, for different things. it all depends on what i'm adhering. i have my favorites, but i also get a lot of different kinds to try out. so i try to put a good mix in here to pull from.

my go-to adhesive for paper is my duck adhesive. it's the tape runner type, and i have used it for years. i can get it pretty cheap. i get the 4 packs at joann's when they're on sale, and it's a great deall. it holds really well, and is just easy to use.

ahhhhhhhhh. my glue dots! i love, love, love my glue dots! zots, from therm-o-web, are my favorites. i buy all the sizes. mini (not shown here. must not have any in my backstock), medium, large, and 3D.

i'm also big on pop dots. love my pop dots. my favorites are from scrapbook adhesives. they come in two sizes. the ones shown here, with the small squares. and then there are mini little ones as well. i buy these in bulk.

i have a few different size xyron adhesive machines. but the "X" gets the most use from me. there are several things that i use these for, but the most often one, is my journaling strips. my tape runners are all too wide for adhering my thin journaling strips. so once i trim them all up, i just run them through my little red X or my sparkle pink X, and it makes for really easy adhering. i can fit 3 strips side by side, so it works really well.

and this might seem like a wierd one. but i cannot stand having dust, glitter, tiny pieces of paper, or anything on my desk as i work. so i have a swiffer nearby, and i'm always dusting off my desk 😉
yearly intro pages – a creating keepsakes layout

January 1, 2012

happy new year's, everyone! i was such a bad blogger last week. and then i had every intention of blogging before the year ended. i sat here on new year's eve, with a blank post pulled up, just waiting for me to write something. i was at a loss for words. i didn't have any photos or layouts to share. nothing. plus, i was sick all of new year's, with a terrible head cold. so i just decided to let it go, and come back in the new year. to hopefully do better at blogging, taking more photos, and scrapping more layouts.

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

i created this layout for an article about using calendar products on our scrapbook layouts. when these diecut calendar papers came out, from ki memories, i stocked up a bunch of them. but i hadn't gotten around to using any of them. so i knew right away that i would use a few of these for my assignment. i took on the task of creating title pages/divider pages for our albums.

i organize our albums chronologically. the girls each have albums, with any pages about just them. and then i have family albums, which hold all the layouts that feature both the girls, or our family as a whole. i have large envelope protectors inbetween each year, so that i can keep them easily seperated. and so that i can slip in any memorabilia from the year, until i figure out what to do with it. but i like the idea of creating an intro page for each year. i have done something a little similiar in the past (see HERE), but this is a simpler version of the idea.

i choose this month border shape, and cut it out with my silhouette. since this is an into page to the entire year's worth of layouts, i liked the idea of having the months go all the way down the side of the layout. i added a wide ribbon next to the border, and embellished with a few buttons. i searched through my photos for the year, and choose a favorite photo of each of us. four simple photos.

when it came time to add the year, i knew i wanted to use something cut with my silhouette. i couldn't find the year i wanted, so i emailed the fabulous kerri bradford, who so kindly whipped up this "twenty eight" for me. she also created the "two thousand nine" that is seen on the following page. i cut these shapes twice, from two different colors of cardstock, and offset them just a bit when adhering them to the page. then i typed up some of the high-lights from the year, and added the journaling strips to the intro page.

i had created two layouts, to show another take on the same general idea. but they only ended up using one of the layouts in the magazine.

i'm really hoping to get some new layouts to share soon. but it's also CHA time, so i'll be creating up a storm for that, and won't be able to share my projects until the end of the month. i am swamped with work for bella blvd right now, and getting the design team all set up with assignments for booth projects, using the adorable new products that will be debuting at winter CHA. i think you're all going to love them!
christmas 2010 – a bella blvd layout

December 28, 2011

finally. a new layout to share. it's been a while since i scrapped anything, layout wise. this one went up on the bella blvd blog today.

i knew i had a layout to get done for this week, and wasn't really sure what i wanted to do it on. since i'm the one that writes the bella blog, and sees all the assignments coming in, i've loved seeing all the great christmas layouts from the design team. i'm sure i've mentioned this before, but i'm just not a huge christmas scrapper. no idea why not, since i have lots of photos from every christmas. maybe it's the daunting task of narrowing down all those photos and working them onto a layout.

but i decided to go for it, and i knew i would start with a good photo collage. i've gotten away from my photo collages that i love and used to use ALL the time. i miss them. so this layout started with a collage of 16 photos from our 2010 christmas get together with my side of the family. i printed this out at 7.5 x 7.5 inches, and rounded the corners.

i started with pieces from the christmas wishes collection. i knew i wanted to use the red chipboard "christmas" alphas, which would add a nice amount of red to the layout. next, i went looking for greens and browns. i ended up pulling the brown woodgrain paper from the tail waggers and cat naps collection, because i loved the way the collage looked against it. once i had my main colors of red, green, and brown, i added in some touches of aqua and yellow, using the stickers and chipboard border piece.

it was a very last minute decision to add this little chipboard reindeer. i had this empty space, and figured i would add the date or a few more stickers. but the reindeer was so cute in the package, and he fit nicely there, so i added him.

this journaling could go with just about any christmas get together with my family. and i love that. we have our traditions, and our way of doing things, and i love doing those things every year.

and a quick photo of us from this christmas. it was a busy holiday weekend, with three family get togethers in three days. we were all so tired yesterday, and spend the majority of the day trying to recover from all the hustle and bustle of the festivities.
merry christmas

December 24, 2011

{photo credit}
Holiday Hoopla Blog Hop

December 23, 2011

My Mind's Eye is having a Holiday Hoopla Blog Hop, and I'm excited to be playing along for it! We are going to send you on a scavenger hunt to collect all the parts of a secret phrase, and to get yourself entered for a chance to win one of two great giveaways.

T H I S H O L I D A Y

It's very important that you start at the My Mind’s Eye blog, and “hop” on over to every blog you are sent to (be sure to hop in order). You can also find out all the details for what you need to do and what you need to collect, on the My Mind’s Eye blog. So definately go and hop over there, if you're just landing on my blog!

We were all asked to share our favorite My Mind's Eye layout, and this one immediately came to mind. I created this as part of my guest designer feature, back in October. You can read more about it HERE. It's a favorite of mine, because it's a layout about our family. And because it has all my favorite products and colors. And it's just such a "ME" layout, that shows my style.

There will be two ways to win at the party:

1) Grand prize: After visiting every blog, email Amber the secret phrase. One winner will receive the 12 Days of Christmas collection and both Kraft Funday collections!

2) Bonus entry: We will randomly draw one of our designer’s blogs and draw one winner from the comments on that designer’s blog. This winner will receive the entire 12 Days of Christmas collection!

You will have through Wednesday, December 28, 2011 to hop.

Are you ready for your next stop? You will want to head on over to Suzanne Sergi's blog!
christmas projects i wish i had time for

December 21, 2011

christmas is in just four days, and i'm not even close to being ready. my tree was set up, without lights, for a full week. then i added the lights and garland, and it sat for another week. then i added half the ornaments, and it sat for another week. and just a few days ago, i finally added the other half of the ornaments. the only other spots i usually decorate in the house, are the mantle above the fireplace, and the entry table by the front door. those are both decorated nicely, with lighted greenery and christmas decor and accents. and yet yesterday, one of the daycare girlies asked me "why didn't you decorate for christmas?". lol! oh, and btw, i haven't wrapped a single gift yet, so there are NO presents under the tree yet.

this year, it just seems that we haven't had time for so many of the things that i wish we could do. work, school, soccer, band concerts. it's just been really busy and hectic. since i haven't done a single crafty things in ages, i figure i would use my love for pinterest to show you some of the things i have "pinned" on my boards, that i would like to make. if i had time.

love the pom pom garland. i have a basket of yarn covered styrofoam balls in my family room already, in these same colors, that i keep out year round. need to make one of these for my mantle. info and tutorial HERE.

and i have to have the pom pom ornaments to match. into and tutorial HERE.

these star ornaments are perfectly simple. love them. info and tutorial HERE.

i love this tree skirt! would match my home decor so much better than the tree skirt i've been using for the last 8 years. info and tutorial HERE.

these stockings would match the tree skirt perfectly. from etsy, but no links, and could be easily made. i think.

i have a thing for covered styrofoam trees. love these, but i'd choose a different color to match my decor. instructions HERE.

super cute felt trees. love these. info and tutorial HERE.

love this paper tree too. so simple, and love the sheet music paper. info and tutorial HERE.

these tissue paper covered trees are adorable and fluffy! i'd do different colors, to match my decor. info and tutorial HERE.

if i had a big chalkboard wall, i would love to do this for a unique advent calendar. love the simple brown bags. info found HERE.

i kind of wish my mantle looked like this. love the painted pallet, and the rustic stockings. info found HERE.

maybe after christmas, i'll make an effort to start planning for NEXT christmas, and actually try some of these projects ;)
surprise happy birthday blog hop for stephanie

December 19, 2011

welcome to a very special surprise "happy birthday" blog hop, for bella blvd's one and only, stephanie hunt! for those of you that don't know, stephanie is the owner, designer … well, she's the "everything" of bella blvd. when i found out she was having a birthday this month, i knew i had to get the design team together to do something special for her. she is so generous with all of us, and we wanted to do something for her on her special day.

so we put together this surprise "happy birthday" blog hop for her!

if you're just finding our blog hop, you will definitely want to go back and start at the beginning HERE, on the bella blog. we have TWENTY SIX of our design team girls participating, along with three girls that are sharing their cards on the bella blog, and you won't want to miss a single card!

happy birthday stephanie! i hope you have an amazing birthday, filled with all sorts of goodness, family and friends, and definitely some cake and ice cream! you're one of the hardest working women i know, and i really hope you get a chance to relax, take it easy, and just truly enjoy your day.

for my card, i choose to use the hello beautiful collection. i love this red text paper, and really wanted to use it. i added the floral paper to the top of the card, and went looking for some ribbon to add between the two patterned papers. i found this wide green and white striped ribbon, and decided it was perfect.

i wanted to pleat the ribbon up a bit, to add lots of texture to the card. when i do the pleating with my ribbons, i like to add brads to each pleat, since it really secures the ribbon down. i pulled out my itop tool, so that i could create my own brads, using this yellow patterned paper from the spring flings and easter things collection. love the dimension those brads add to the card.

your next stop on the blog hop, is wendy wagner.

even though it's stephanie's birthday, we have some gifts for a few of you lucky readers as well! we know how generous and giving stephanie is, and we know she would never have a fun blog hop, without a few giveaways up for grabs too. so we got permission from robin, who works alongside stephanie in the office, to pick TEN lucky winners, who will each receive a bella blvd collection. all you need to do to be entered in the random drawings, is to leave stephanie your birthday wishes in the comment section. you have lots of opportunities to up your chances, since you can leave a comment on each blog you visit, as you go through the blog hop. there are 26 blogs, plus the bella blvd blog, for a total of 27 chances to get your name in the pot. we will randomly choose winners, from 10 randomly choosen blogs, and announce them on friday!

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