I selected 4 of my favorite patterned papers: Sun Shower, Daisy Days,Happy Place and Garden Variety. I applied Distress Oxide inks directly on my white background watercolor cardstock in four vertical lines. I added water and colored splatters as well, and let everything dry.
I cut four strips of my selected papers that are of different lenghts and about 2 inches wide. I curled the top and bottom of each paper and aligned them in a horizontal line. I inserted a grey ribbon inside the curled top of each strip and tied a bow on the right and left side of the four aligned papers.
I printed my photo in black and white. It adds a little retro feel to the page…!
I used the Daydream Die Cut Title words for my title, and added beautiful fussy cut and die cut flowers to embellish around my photo.
I cut a rectangle out of white cardstock to write down my journalign and placed it on the Sun Shower strip, on the left side of the photo.
Finally, I added a few Accessory Stickers, two die cut butterflies and a few scattered sequins as the finishing touch.
Here are some close-ups:
I will never get tired of using this gorgeous collection ! My design is very easy to scraplift, and it is a simple way to use many different patterned papers on a page.
Hi Cocoa Vanilla fans and welcome back to the blog!
Today I have put my Storyteller collection away and have pulled out the No Limitscollection to play with.
I am documenting some fun pictures of my husband and youngest son on a recent holiday to Bali when we went quad bike riding.
To start my page I used the woodgrain paper called “Big Bang” and tore it about three quarters of the way down to create some texture and added a strip of the “Eclipse” paper underneath it.
I decided I wanted to add some mixed media to my background so I pulled out a circular stencil with some silver texture paste and added some white ink splatters.
I placed my photos in the middle of the page and used some vellum to add another layer. Next, to add more colour and papers to my page, I used a cut file from Paper Issues to add more circular elements to my page… I love these!!!
For my title, I used the word ‘Adventure’ from the Die Cut Titles and the word ‘Fun’ from one of the ‘Pocket Cards‘.
Once this was done I felt like the bottom of my page was too white so I pulled out some circular stamps and added these with co-ordinating colours … love the effect!
To finish my page, I used different pieces from the ‘Die cut elements’ pack’ and some of the Chipboard pieces including the stars to scatter around the page.
I hope you enjoyed my page today and you found some inspiration to get your memories documented.
Good Day Friends,
Lina here on the blog today with an Autumnal layout I created using the fun Sunkissed collection and a photo of my eldest daughter, from this past weekend. I know Sunkissed is a summer themed collection, but I couldn’t resist it’s rich tones of yellow, orange, and pink. I think by looking at my layout, you’d never guess that the collection was geared towards summer. And, that’s the beauty of CVS collections, they’re just so full of fun and colour and that makes them versatile.
I began with a white piece of 12×12 cardstock and created a blended ink background in yellow, coral, and pink. I used water to then add droplets which then I dabbed off to create a reverse splatter as the water removes the ink where it’s placed.
I created the cutfile in Silhouette Studio using two different fonts, layering them and then cutting the background from white cardstock and the rest from papers from the A5 Paper Stack. The Paper stack is perfect for smaller tasks such as cut files or even matting of a photo. I popped up the cut file with dimensional foam and then placed it on my now dry background.
The photo is printed in colour and I feel like the shades and tones in the photo play nicely with the colour scheme I’ve used and do not “get lost” amongst all the colour I have already laid down. I matted my photo with papers form the A5 Paper Stack adding in the same pink, yellow and green.
Time for my favourite part…. the embellishing of the layout. I created a few clusters, one main, large one within the cutfile, a second cluster, mid sized to the left of the photo and lastly a smaller third one, to the right of the photo. I used florals from the Floral Ephemera and a few banners from the Die Cut Ephemera packages. Because I wanted this layout to have more of an autumnal vibe to it, I stayed away from the teal and blue that is included in this collection using soley the shades of orange, yellow, and pink with a pop of green. I also used some gold thread to create a nest for a small Wood Button to sit within. In doing this, I feel like I give the button a home. :P
Lastly, I used some gold ink spray and splattered paint in and around my layout. As always, this finishes off my layout and ties it all together. in my eyes, it similar to adding sprinkles on a cupcake… it’s just that little bit extra that completes your layout.
Thank you for joining me today on the blog and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day!
xoLina
Mandy here with you today to share a new layout featuring the stunning Storyteller collection. This month the design team will be sharing ‘seasonal’ projects inspired by either Spring or Fall. Here in Australia we’re starting to see hints of spring in the air, and the weather is beginning to warm up a little, which is so nice after the cooler winter months. The weather was so lovely last weekend so I decided to take my youngest two on a picnic to enjoy the sunshine. We took some selfies on the day, which were the perfect photos to scrapbook the start of Spring!
To start this layout off, I cut a wreath out of white cardstock using a cut file from the Silhouette Design Store. I decided on using the beautiful woodgrain Cross it Off paper for my background. I had already cut a circle out of the middle of that paper for a previous layout, and by no pre-planning on my part, the wreath cut file happened to fit perfectly around that circle. I love it when things work out like that! I backed the circle with white cardstock as I thought this would allow my photos, title and embellishments to pop.
Once I had adhered the wreath, I added my two photos, one in the top left and the other in the bottom right. I matted the top photo with the yellow Little Love paper and the bottom photo with the pink Oh My Heart paper. I also tucked a few embellishments around the photos using die cuts from the Ephemera pack.
I wanted to build on the wreath cut file with some gorgeous florals to accentuate the ‘Spring’ theme and to add lots of colour to the page. I did this by fussy cutting a couple of floral clusters out of the beautiful Spring Fling paper. I added one in the bottom left and the other in the top right. When I adhered them to the page I only added adhesive to the middle of the floral clusters so that the leaves and sprigs would lift off the page and create some nice dimension.
I added a button to the centre of the larger flower in each floral cluster, the yellow one from the Die Cut Ephemera pack and the red one from the Chipboard Stickers. I fussy cut a few extra little flowers to scatter around the floral clusters and I also added a couple of Puffy Sticker dots around each cluster. These little details help to add some extra interest and make a layout feel complete.
I decided on the phrase ‘Hello Spring’ as the title for this layout. I used the gorgeous Foam Title Stickers for the word ‘Hello’ and then cut the word ‘Spring’ from the green Fly Away paper using another cut file from the Silhouette Design Store. I love the way this title makes a statement without detracting from the photo.
I finished my layout off by adding a couple of butterflies that I fussy cut out of the Fly Away paper as well as some little hearts from the Foam Title Sticker pack.
I hope that you’ve been inspired by my Spring themed layout using the fabulous Storyteller collection, and that you’re enjoying the change of season in whatever part of the world you live in!
Hey y’all! Laura Alberts back again with a fun art sculpture inspired layout! Back in April, my son and I visited a beautiful sculpture garden in Twin Lakes, Minnesota, USA. It was such a fun, quirky place to explore art and experience sculpture in a new way. I decided to channel the quirky feel of the garden with this layout using the Storyteller collection! Using the Cross It Off patterned paper for my background, I built a diagonal layout with a really fun collage look. Loved squeezing four 3×4 inch photos on this one!
For my title, I used the Love This from the Chipboard stickers and then layered a journaling spot and hearts from the icon ephemera underneath. For the photos themselves, I kept the embellishing very simple, so that it didn’t become too busy! I set two photos in each of the cross-filled corners and layered them up with word phrases, a banner, and a label.
I really enjoyed playing with white space on this layout, leaving large areas to allow the eye to rest on the opposite corners and keeping a fairly tight cluster of embellishments in between my pairs of photos. This adds a lot of balance to the page and made for a clever place to add splatters as well!
I hope this layout inspires you to find ideas in the least likely of places! It’s such a fun design and captures the mood and feel of the garden really well! To see how ‘Love This’ came together, check out the process video below!
Hello Cocoa Vanilla fans. It’s Anna here with my newest page. I decided to put the new “Storyteller” collection away for a short while to use up my stash of older lines. They looked so sad and lonely in the box :) First, I need to add a disclosure and explain myself a bit. We got a new puppy over a year ago, and as my daughters are quite big and independent, I poured all my parental feelings into my poor dog. 99% of my phone photos are of my furry boy… Crazy pupparazzi – I know! So most of my pages are with my dog’s photos recently as those are almost the only pictures I get. Last time I shared with you his sleepy version mixed with “Storyteller” and today will be his needy version with a bit older “No limits” line. Masculine collection for a good boy!
Let me start with a back story of the photos. As I work from home, I have this big privilage to work from the cosy couch covered with soft blanket. My dog is always somewhere near as he is very social and coodependent (my fault…). He likes to be a star of the show, so when the attention is not on him, he is not the one who waits patiently. When my computer took his place, he decided it’s time to try to sneak into my laps. I snapped few photos of him checking which side would be the best to approach. He is very needy when it comes to attention hence the title of the page.
I had a little bit of trouble figuring out how I should scrapbook those photos. I didn’t want to repeat my usual patterns so insted of straight lines, I decided to add some funky waves. I picked three pattern papers: “Latitude“, “Spark” and “Nebula” and nested them together sketching a simple wave pattern, that would be wider on the one side and making thinner on the other. I started with the orange paper and drew and cut the wave. Then I glued it over the yellow paper, marked the lines with pencil and cut everything again. I repeat the same with the greenish one. My original idea was to put everything on “Stardust” paper as a background buy it was just too busy. I switched to white cardstock instead adding some mixed media layers.
I first marked when my paper layer will be, and then gently added some yellow ink using a brush, on the top and on the bottom. Then I used star stencil and lime green ink to add a layer of stars and finished everything with orange splatters. When everything was dry, I glued my wave on top and started embellishing. I picked some tickets and stars from ephemera pack and tucked them behind the photos and my wave. You can spot some stickers from 6*12 sheet too. Next step was to add a title using some Thickers from my stash, following the curve of the wave. Who said your titles have to be straight? Actually, I love keeping them messy and uneven!
Tiny enamel dots and stars were a perfect finishing touch along with wood epoxy button. I think this is the embellishment piece I use up the fastest in each CVS line. I just love them. The final result has a bit retro vibe I would say. Do you have similar feelings about it? I think I need to reach for wavy, handcut lines more often as they create very unique result.
That’s it for today! I really enjoyed making this layout and scrapbooking another photos of my puppy / son. He is my youngest baby, and you know how tempting it is to scrapbook baby photos, right? I can not promise my next page will be with people either…
Thank you so much for stopping by and see you in two weeks!
Hi everyone, its Melissa here and I’m so happy to be back again with you. This month we are creating with sketches, which is something I love to do! I know some people find it hard to create from a sketch, but I find it a great way to kick start my creative flow. Last week I put a poll up on the Facebook Group asking for people to vote for which collection I should use. Storyteller was the winner, and because of this I decided to choose a sketch by co-creator Traci Reed (of Traci Reed Designs). Here is my layout:
And here is Traci’s super fun sketch:
I decided to use Fly Away for my background torn paper strips. I just love the green colour and the subtle circular patterns. I also fussy cut several butterflies from the other side of the paper to use as embellishments.
I fussy the Love this Life heart from one of the Pocket Life Cards and used it as embellishment. Then I used lots of florals for the pinwheel shapes on the sketch. I love how they look through the central white card stock background. I also embellished with more fussy cut butterflies and Puffy Hearts.
I love using the Foam Title Stickers to make an easy title. I used the word “Together” which was perfect to document Brielle and Ava dressing up and eating watermelon.
I had fun making this layout, and you can watch the video below.
Hello Hello! It’s Michelle here today to share another layout for our month of sketch inspiration using the wonderful StorytellerCollection. I had so much fun creating my last layout that I thought, why not create another using a fun sketch from Page Maps. This one was based on a grid design and brings together multiple photos to tell a story, perfect for sharing one about a new blossoming doggy friendship.
We recently welcomed another sweet pup into our home, his name is Sonny and boy is he a handful. He’s the most hilarious little ball of fluff we’ve ever encountered, and is a great new addition to our little family. Our first doggo Daisy only took a few days to get use to having him around, and so far they seem like they’re going to be the very best of friends.
As you could imagine theres been a lot of photo taking in the last few days, so it was hard to narrow the selection down to just 4 for this project. I edited them all using an iPhone app and printed them out in black and white as per the size on the sketch below.
The sketch I was inspired by from the Page Maps website has a grid of pattern papers with 4 photos across the middle, machine stitching around the edges and clusters of flowers. I love creating with sketches as it takes the guess work out of how to start a layout when you’re stuck in a creative ‘rut’.
Seeing this little friendship begin has been so magical..
I used 4 different pattern papers from the A5paperstack cut down to roughly 4inch squares, distressed the edges slightly and adhered to the white cardstock using pieces of foam sheet to raise them up off the page. I sewed around the edges next using my machine and some off white coloured thread.
I added the photos across the middle of the layout using the same foam sheets to add a little more dimension to the layout.
Next I worked on creating the clusters, bottom right was first using the ‘Love this’ tag from the STORYTIME cut apart sheet, a bunch of florals fussy cut from the A5 version of SPRINGFLING, journaling tag from the EPHEMERA pack, black heart from the FOAMTITLES pack and sticker from the ACCESSORYSTICKER sheet.
In the top left corner I added another cluster of fussy cut florals, black heart and ephemera pieces. Using coordinating elements within all the clusters on a page really helps to give it a cohesive look
I added the title to the top left of the grid cluster also, using a mix of both a word from the FOAM TITLE STICKERs and a piece from the EPHEMERA pack
In the top right corner I created a smaller cluster, again using the same floral elements as the other 2 clusters. I used different types of adhesives in all 3 clusters to create different heights of dimension giving the clusters a more 3D feel. My go to adhesives for this are double sided foam tape, sticky thumb ‘sticky dots’ and tacky glue.
I added the usual splattering of gold ink to the layout after adding some hand written text to the journalling card
Here’s one last look at the entire layout..
Well thats all from me today, thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing another sketch inspired post from me, and the rest of the team this month. It sure was a fun theme for us to be inspired by. Be sure to share your sketch inspired layouts with us in the Cocoa Vanilla Studio Community Group on Facebook, we love seeing what you all create using the CVS Collections!
Hello everyone, it’s Kylie back with you all! Over the past few weeks on the blog the design team has been creating layouts following a sketch. A scrapbooking sketch provides a guide for the placement of photos, a title, journaling and embellishments for your layout. But it doesn’t mean that it’s set in stone. Based on your photos and scrapbook supplies, you may alter the sketch to fit your needs. There are lots of websites that can provide some wonderful sketches, however for my layout today I have created my own sketch for you. Whenever I find a sketch I want to create from, I usually like to print it out and place in a binder folder. That way I can create and recreate using the same sketch as many times as I like.
Sketches don’t necessarily provide measurements, however for my design I did provide the size I trimmed my photo. Sometimes that’s all you need to be able to bring all the other elements together into place. As I mentioned previously creating with a sketch plan doesn’t have to be followed ‘exactly’ – but in this case I did with my own layout. I thought the new ‘Storyteller’ collection would be perfect since I have a strong feature on blooms!
When scrapbooking, I like to co-ordinate the colours in my photo memories with the papers etc that I use. In this case I knew I wanted to include some lovely blue and yellow tones. I chose the reverse side of the SPRING FLING paper. It has a lovely watercolour effect to it in the most perfect shade of blue. From there I followed my sketch and layered several contrasting papers to include the fun LITTLE LOVE paper. For once I did not adhere any of the papers or my photo with foam squares. I kept everything flush except for the floral die cuts. These were layered with foam adhesive squares to really ‘pop’ and stand out from the page.For texture and pure cuteness I also added some of the wooden flairs.
What would a layout be without a big title?? This was secured snuggly next to my photo using the foam title stickers. My photo was trimmed down to a 5″ x 4″ size- mostly because I had a lot of open negative spacing I felt I could trim away. Once completed I also think this sketch would allow journal space too if you like.
I hope you will have some fun too creating with my sketch!
It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am sharing a new scrapbook layout featuring the STUNNING Storyteller collection. For this project, I had free choice to create whatever I wanted with no theme or anything. I chose to scrap lift one of my friend and fellow design team member Mandy Melville’s gorgeous layouts.
This is the layout I created using the gorgeous Storyteller collection, documenting a pretty photo of a beautiful rose from my Mum’s garden.
This is Mandy’s stunning layout below that she created using the beautiful More Than Words collection.
I decided on the Ditsy Daisy 12′ x 12′ patterned paper as my background paper and took a piece of plain white cardstock and trimmed this piece down to around 8′ x 10′, I then chose the ‘B’ side of the Spring Fling paper to mat under the white cardstock. Like Mandy did on her layout, I decided to machine stitch the white cardstock and the Spring Fling paper together and then I adhered it to the Ditsy Daisy paper. I love the look that machine stitching adds to a layout, I love the texture it gives the page and the extra detail it adds as well.
For the main element where my photo was placed, I created some paper layers underneath the photo using various papers from the A5 paper stack and also tucked in a pocket card for some extra colour and another layer. I did distress some of the papers here to add some texture and I adhered some down using craft foam for some dimension also. Here in the bottom right corner of the photo cluster I tucked in some of the beautiful flowers from the floral ephemera pack, added a banner sticker to the photo from the accessory sticker sheet and also placed a phrase die-cut from the ephemera pack.
On the left of the photo, I created a small floral cluster using some of the florals from the floral ephemera pack and I added a wood epoxy button here to the centre of one of the flowers. In the top right corner of the page. I added the cute banner die-cut piece from the ephemera pack using pop dot adhesive. I love the shadows and dimension this adds to my page. I also took the small frame with hearts die-cut from the ephemera pack and tucked this piece into the top of the photo layers. I like how this peeks out from the top.
I decided to place my title in a similar position to where Mandy had placed hers and also created another small embellishment cluster in the bottom left corner. My title is one of the gorgeous foam title sticker words and I also took a phrase sticker from the accessory sticker sheet and placed it the bottom of the title. You can see in my floral cluster in the bottom left corner that I have adhered some of the florals flat to the page and then I have adhered the red one with some dimensional adhesive, again I love the shadow this creates and the extra interest it brings to my page. I also like to bend the edges of the flowers and leaves to make them look a little more realistic. Some of the smaller details and final things I added to my page were the gorgeous heart puffy stickers and another cute wood epoxy button. The last thing was to stamp my date stamp which is something I always add to my layouts.
Thank you so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today! I love how my scrap lift layout of Mandy’s page turned out and I hope you enjoyed reading how I created it!
Make sure to keep an eye on the Cocoa Vanilla online store as the Storyteller collection should be in store really soon!
