August 2019

Beautiful You | Wild at Heart | Mandy Melville

Mandy Melville 31/08/2019

Hello everyone,

Mandy here with you today to share a layout using the gorgeous Wild at Heart collection. I’ve been wanting to scrapbook this photo of Abi and I taken on Mother’s Day, but until now haven’t been able to find the right collection. I could have converted it to black and whie, but I really like it in colour, and then I remembered the beautiful deep pinks and blues in the Wild at Heart collection and I knew that it would be perfect! I love pulling out an older collection that I haven’t used in awhile and giving it some more love!

I started my layout off by trimming down a four inch wide strip of the reverse side of the Patchwork patterned paper and adhering it towards the top of the page. This paper provided a nice pop of that gorgeous pink colour, but was not too busy so as to overpower the other elements on the page. I then positioned my photo in the centre, overlapping the bottom edge of the patterned paper.

Next I got to work fussy cutting some of the stunning floral clusters out of the Luscious patterned paper, and I tucked them under either side of the photo. I think the florals frame the photo beautifully!

I created a small cluster in the top right hand corner of the layout using another smaller fussy cut floral piece and a circular die cut from the collection. I adhered the die cut with foam tape for added dimension.

For my title, I combined two of the lovely chipboard stickers to create the phrase ‘Beautiful You’. To the left of the title I created a small cluster to balance out the one in the top right. This one includes a label sticker, a chipboard sticker, and a flair button.

I finished the layout off with a few enamel dots and a couple of little word stickers.

Thanks so much for joining me here today. I hope that you enjoyed taking a look at my layout, and maybe you’ve been inspired to pull out an older collection to use on your next project as well. I’ll be back later in the month to share a project using the brand new Unforgettable collection!

Mandy x

Happiness Is | Happiness Collection | Michelle Stokes

Michelle Stokes 29/08/2019

Hello Friends, Its Michelle back again with a bonus layout share for this month! I’m trying to crank out as many pretty layouts as I can using the beautiful Happiness Collection before the brand new Unforgettable collection arrives on my doorstep and all other collections are forgotten HAHA

The layout was inspired by a sweet photo of a few familiar faces from this years Creative Escape Retreat in Coffs Harbour. LOVE LOVE LOVE spending time with these lovely ladies and it was SO good to meet Anna in person

To begin the layout I cut out the Floral Banner cut file from CUT to YOU using white cardstock and backed it using block colours of bright patterns Good Vibes, Expressive & Frame of Mind. The main banner piece is backed using the multicolour spot paper Sprinkles and layered together with a strip of vellum and the woodgrain pattern of the Bright & Beautiful paper. I also cut the florals off the main banner rather than keeping them as one whole piece. This gave an extra layer of depth and dimension. We all know I love small hints of dimension on a layout!

The photo is adhered to the reverse pattern of Botanical Bliss with the addition of a couple of ephemera pieces to create part of the cluster top right.

I had a handful of florals and butterflies, fussy cut from previous layouts, that I added to the florals of the die cut. I tucked in a couple of leaves from the ephemera pack too

I fussy cut a few more florals from the Botanical Bliss paper to tuck into various places of the layout adding hints of orange. There’s also a couple of clear stickers added here n there

The title is made using a couple of accessory stickers and cardstock title piece, raised slightly using glue dots.

Lastly a few splatters of gold ink, a date stamp and handwritten journalling and it was finished.

Thats all from me for my final share this month, thanks so much for stopping by. Be sure to share all your crafty goodness using all things Cocoa Vanilla Studio in the Facebook group HERE

Until Next time, Happy Scrapping!
Michelle xx

Always be yourself | Bohemian Dream Layout | Anna Komenda

Anna Komenda 27/08/2019

Hello crafty Friends. It’s Anna here with my newest page created with CVS goodies. I was cleaning my box with Cocoa Vanilla embellishments to make room for new line (how pretty is it, right? ) and I discovered the set of vellum pieces from “Bohemian dream” collection. It inspired me to use this line in my next project.

I also challenged myself to use up as many vellum pieces as possible. That is why I decided to use white background. Transparent vellum looks best on lightly colored papers. I arranged my composition in three rows adding machine stitching over the vellum flowers. Thanks to that I didn’t have to use a lot of glue, which doesn’t work well with vellum making it wave.

I enriched my composition adding bits and pieces from ephemera pack and few leftover chipboard stickers. I love this collection so much that I almost used it to bits.

I have a little tip for you for leftover ephemera pieces. If some elements are too big or you know you won’t use them the way they are, try to fussy cut elements from them like I did with few little birds. I cut them out from tickets and they became perfect, little embellishments.

I finished my composition adding few enamel dots from various collections, like those glittery ones from “Make a wish” line.

That is all for today. Thank you for stopping by and see you in two weeks.

XO Anna

Winner Announcement – Unforgettable Collection

Zoe Pearn 26/08/2019

Hi everyone!

No, we haven’t forgotten that we promised to announce a winner for our recent giveaway celebrating the release of our new ‘Unforgettable’ collection. (Things have just been a little hectic around here – as they usually are when we are about to start shipping a new range.)

We were overwhelmed with the response to our giveaway, and are beyond grateful for all the lovely feedback and comments we received about our new release. It really does make all the hard work that goes into designing and producing a collection worthwhile to know that you guys are as excited about it as we are – thank you!

So without further ado, let’s announce our lucky winner who will receive the ENTIRE ‘Unforgettable’ collection…

Congratulations Katie Green!

And we have a lucky runner up as well, who will receive an ‘Unforgettable’ collection kit…

Congratulations Kelly Malacko!

Congratulations to both our lucky winners. (Please keep an eye on your Inbox and Sue will be in touch to organise your prizes.)

For everyone else, your favourite retailer should have ‘Unforgettable’ on their shelves VERY soon as we begin shipping in a few days time. I can’t wait to see what you all create with it and hope you love it as much as I do!

Zoe XX

Sweet Thing | More Than Words | Amanda Baldwin

Amanda-Jayne Baldwin 26/08/2019

Hi Cocoa Vanilla Studio Friends & Fans!

Amanda here, & while I am desperately awaiting for our new UNFORGETTABLE collection to arrive, I have decided to make room for it by stashbusting the gorgeous MORE THAN WORDS collection. So, for today’s post, I am sharing a super pretty stamped layout with this lovely line….

“Sweet Thing”

Oh my heart! Sweet thing, indeed! So many beautiful details to this pretty page of my darling girl! And who said old couldn’t be made new again?! I am LOVING creating with this soft and romantic collection again!

To begin, I trim one inch off the side of my 12 inch white cardstock, so that I can layer it onto the reverse side of pattern paper, CV-MT009 SKETCHBOOK. I just love the soft peach tone of this pattern paper, and it frames my layout beautifully! Next, I stamp up the top left and bottom right corners of my cardstock base with the amazing MORE THAN WORDS CLEAR STAMP. To maintain a soft and delicate look, I use a mix of soft blue, pink and yellow inks. So pretty!!! That stamp is all kinds of wonderful!

Here’s a closer look….

The stamped base really breaks up the white space, and adds that ‘extra’ point of interest to the main embellishment clusters.

Next, I create a layer of DIE CUT EPHEMERA blooms, and fussy cut butterflies from pattern papers CV-MT003 GOSSAMER and CV-MT006 TREASURE in the top left corner. Onto this bed of blooms, I position my sweet girl’s photo, which I have backed with a small piece of white tissue paper. I embellish her photo with the sentiment, “My Darling” from the DIE CUT EPHEMERA pack. I tuck a few more DIE CUT EPHEMERA blooms beneath my photo, as well as the wreath sticker from the ACCESSORY STICKERS sheet. Here’s more detailed look for you….

Aren’t those layered embellishments the best?! I just adore how the blooms and fussy cut butterflies draw further attention to my cherished photograph! To complete the photo cluster, I add a few VELLUM ACCENTS butterflies, a scattering of ENAMEL hearts & dots, and some journaling with the typewriter font ACCESSORY STICKERS.

Beautiful!

For the lower right corner of my layout design, I embellish with a larger bloom CHIPBOARD STICKER, and the Sweet Thing fussy cut wreath from pattern paper, CV-MT006 TREASURE….

I tuck a VELLUM butterfly under the CHIPBOARD STICKER bloom, and add a few more of the fussy cut butterflies from the CV-MT003 GOSSAMER paper. I add in an extra typewriter font sentiment with more of the ACCESSORY STICKERS, & while I have these stickers out, I also use the fabulous “love you so much” circular sticker for an added point of interest.

For finishing touches, I apply more of the ENAMEL hearts and dots.

Voila!

Simple, Elegant & Oh So Beautiful creating! I just LOVE how this turned out!

I hope I have inspired you to dive into your Cocoa Vanilla Studio stash while you wait for UNFORGETTABLE to arrive too!

Thanks so much for joining me today,

til next time,

Happy Arty Days,

Amanda xo

Sweet Moments | Midnight Collection | Michelle Stokes

Michelle Stokes 24/08/2019

Hello Crafty friends, its Michelle back today. I have a new layout to share with you all that’s based on the super cute Page Maps sketch shared by my fellow team members this past week. I had so much fun using the sketch as a kick starter for this layout, and that Midnight collection worked perfectly with the floral design elements

Love that these photos document a sweet moment shared between both Leila and my nephew from a few years back. They both love to read

TO begin the layout I cut down a piece of white cardstock to roughly 11.5inch square and adhered to a 12×12 piece of the stunningly beautiful INKY DEPTHS paper. Love the tiny floral design of that pattern paper. Once the 2 papers were secure I roughly drew then sewed multiple circle shapes similar to the large version on the sketch.

I gathered a couple of photos, printed black and white so as not to clash with the colours of the sweet Midnight collection. There were layered to the right of the large sewn circles and adhered using foam tape for slight dimension. I’ve tucked some ephemera pieces and fussy cut florals from the BLOOM AND GROW paper above the top photo

Between the photos I’ve layered a strip of roughly torn pink paper from the ombre SHINE BRIGHT design and a piece of the blue and white diagonal stripe frame found in the ephemera pack to replicate the scalloped piece on the sketch. I’ve also added a second piece of the torn pink paper to the top of the layout

TO the left of the photos I created the large title cluster using more elements from the ephemera pack and die cut titles that looked similar to those on the sketch. Especially those mason jars and florals. Perfect pieces! To give them all different dimensional heights I’ve used multiple adhesives – raised and flat glue dots, foam tape and good ol tacky glue.

Lastly I added some handwritten journalling and a few splatters of gold ink and called it done.

Well thats all from me today, thanks so much for stopping by! I really enjoyed playing around with this sketch as it helped get my creative juices flowing when I was stuck in a rut. I hope it inspires you all too!

Until Next time, Happy Scrapping (or sketch scrapping)

Michelle x

You Rock | Page Maps Sketch | Boys Rule & You Rock Collections | Sue Plumb

Sue Plumb 23/08/2019

Hi everyone!

Sue Plumb here today, and it’s my turn to share my layout for the PageMaps sketch theme that our team have been challenged with this week. It has been amazing to see how all my fellow designers have interpreted the sketch so far, and the range of pages that a single sketch can inspire.

Here is the sketch we have all been working with…

This sketch is one from the PageMaps archives from October 2018; and if you would like more sketch inspiration (including card sketches) you can find them on the PageMaps website.

Despite the floral theme of the sketch, I decided to twist it up and create a boy page instead. I used a combination of elements from two different CVS boy collections – ‘Boys Rule’ and ‘You Rock’.

I began with the ‘Boys Rule’ collection – using the Star Fall paper as my page base to form a border, which I layered with a smaller square of the Entitled paper over the top.

To represent the circular element of the sketch, I cut several different sized wreaths from the free ‘Happiness’ cut files using a combination of white cardstock and the Happy Go Lucky paper for my feature circle. I then arranged them so they were overlapping each other.

Just like the sketch, I used two photos for my page (although I did use a different size and orientation). These photos of my son were taken the day after his birthday while he was testing out his new punchbag and boxing gloves.

I added the die cut what the? speech bubble from the Die Cut Ephemera pack onto my main photo.

Due to the busy pattern on the paper, and the fact that I already had the overlapping wreaths on my background, I wanted to keep the embellishments fairly simple. I dug through my stash and chose the wood veneer pack from the ‘You Rock’ collection. I liked the fact that this was an easy way to add dimension and some natural texture to the page.

I added the large You Rock title piece just to the left of the photos – just like the title was positioned in the sketch. I then adhered a selection of wood veneer stars around the page, placing them at points where the wreaths intersected and forming a “visual triangle” around my photos. I also added a small wood veneer lightning bolt directly onto my second photo.

To finish off, I added the that’s my boy rubber charm along the bottom edge of my photo; then added a small label from the Miscellany die cut pack to the bottom corner of my page and wrote my journalling with a felt pen.

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you are enjoying our sketch feature this week. Pop in tomorrow to see another layout from our team inspired by the same PageMaps sketch. Until next time, happy scrapping!

You and Me | Page Maps | Free Spirit Collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 22/08/2019

Hi Cocoa Vanilla friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am sharing a new layout using the gorgeous Free Spirit collection. Today my inspiration comes from the awesome sketch from Page Maps some of the design team were given to work with for this week.

Here is the awesome Page Maps sketch we were given for inspiration. It can be found under the October 2018 archives here

I still have a few bits from some of the older CVS collections so I decided to pull out the pretty Free Spirit collection and work with that. I stuck to the sketch design pretty closely, even adding the same elements the sketch suggested. I changed it slightly to balance the page and also replaced a suggested photo for paper instead. I started off by trimming some white cardstock down and then machine stitching 2 circles. I then adhered the white cardstock to one of the gorgeous floral papers. I matted my photo with one of the papers from the Free Spirit collection and also layered another one above to replace the 2nd photo as I mentioned earlier. I also added some of the journal spots as a layering piece. I added one of the scalloped border stickers above the photo of my sister and I also added a few embellishments to this area also. I fussy cut the ‘You and Me’ title from one of the journal cards included on one of the papers from the Free Spirit collection and positioned it where the sketch suggested. I cut out the pink phrase ‘Hello Happiness’ and added that tucked in under my photo and also layered the ‘Wonderful’ die-cut phrases over the photo also. One of the cute flair buttons and a die-cut heart were added to the left of the photo. On the sketch, the suggestion is to place a large embellishment like a jar of flowers, I added one of the floral stickers from the accessory sticker sheet here instead and I really like how it looks. Lastly I added the die cut banner popped up using pop dots to the top left corner touching the machine stitching, I also sprinkled some white sequins around and some navy Heidi shine mist. The date stamp was the very last thing added and that completes my layout.

Be sure to check out Page Maps for inspiration, there are so many designs over there to kick start your creativity.

Check them out and get creating with your favourite Cocoa Vanilla collection!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Wonderful Sweet Days | Page Maps Sketch | Midnight Collection | Rachel Lowe

Rachel Lowe 21/08/2019

Hi everyone Rachel here and today I have a sketch inspired layout using the beautiful Midnight collection.

I love sketches, they really help get your mojo going! This sketch is from Page Maps.

I had not used the beautiful large die cut from the collection but this sketch totally inspired me to use it. Instead of leaving it as a circle, I altered it by cutting it into a flower shape, including the paper background.

I cut down the gorgeous pink and white striped paper, leaving my white cardstock as my border. I machine stitched to add definition around the pink and white striped paper.

I next added my two photos which are 5×4 inches with foam tape so I could embellishments later. I created two floral clusters next to each photo.

I clustered one floral bunch over and on my photo, but on the other photo I layered my flowers under my photo. This creates more visual interest and although you are repeating the same concept it will look different.

I then created my title using the accessory stickers and the die cut titles.

I added my titles with foam tape so they stood out.

Then it was adding little finishing touches! I added a banner embellishment at the top of my page, adding some machine stitching a butterfly which I added with foam tape.

I added some more sticker butterflies from the accessory sticker sheet and also added a tab behind the top photo. I added some extra leaves and sprigs in my floral bunches from the die cut ephemera pack

I love how this turned out and the sketch really pushed me, like using two larger photos for me was a challenge lol! I also love how many layers there are to this layout.

Well that’s it from me today, make sure if you try this sketch post on the CVS FB page so we can all see your take! See you again soon.

Rachel X

So Lovely | Happiness Collection | Kylie Kingham.

Kylie Kingham 20/08/2019

Hello there! It’s Kylie back on the blog today and I’m sharing a brand new layout I have just completed featuring the “Happiness” collection. Sometimes I get Scrappers block when it comes to working and bringing a layout together. I think it happens to all of us at some point. That’s where using a sketch design becomes so helpful.For my layout today I am using a sketch design by Page Maps. You can find a whole bunch of page sketches via their website.The one I am using today is from the archives, October 2018.

I must admit, when using a page sketch I am sometimes a little bit of a rebel. I like to mix it up a little, bringing elements of the sketch into my layout and add my own touches.

I decided to use a white background for my layout and trimmed 3 cm off each edge before adhering to the lovely MEADOW paper. Instead of white thread, I machine stitched my circle and border in a light pink cotton.This made it stand out a little more from the background. A small plate was used to trace around to give me a template for my circle. I then stitched around it 3 or 4 times so it had a lovely thick edge.

I really loved the scalloped border used in the sketch so I cut 2 from a cut file from the Silhouette Design Store and added them to the top and underside of my page.

My photo was printed a little smaller so that it fitted nicely for my circle. I printed it twice and have layered both together, backed with some tissue paper from my craft stash. The floral die cuts from the Happiness collection are so gorgeous and I have layered them around my photos keeping them well balanced.

In keeping with the sketch theme I borrowed a mason jar die cut from the ‘Midnight’ collection to add into my layout. It too was centred with floral blooms for balance. I’ve layered some with foam tape so that it gives the overall appearance balance.The adhesive sticker sheet was perfect for adding in some of the typed sentiments as a sub title.

To complete my layout I added some watercolour splatters and a large title with the phrase die cuts. I was nearly finished at this stage but decided to add some punched flowers.These are quite small but I scattered them randomly around my layout.

Thanks for stopping by the blog today. I hope you enjoyed seeing my latest layout.

Happy Crafting!

Kylie xo