Monthly Challenge

You Got This | No Limits collection | Sue Plumb

Hi everyone, it’s Sue Plumb here with another design team project for you. Today I am sharing a mixed media layout that has been inspired by this month’s “Seeing Stars” challenge. As an avid boy scrapper, stars are one of my absolute favourite things to put on my pages, so I couldn’t help myself but join in on the fun. The first thing I did was choose which collection I was going to work with, and I couldn’t go past the ‘No Limits’ collection, which is filled with all kinds of celestial themed elements. I paired it with a photo of my son at soccer, who was definitely a star on this particular day.

I began this layout with a sheet of white cardstock and a piece of the star print Orbit patterned paper that I had left over from another project. As it wasn’t a whole sheet, I decided to tear along the edges of it and have it run vertically on my page. Before sticking it down, I used a pencil to mark out where the paper would sit, then turned my attention to the background.

I wanted to add a splash of colour first, so I used my Mowed Lawn green Distress Oxide to add some loose watercolour underneath where the paper would sit. Once dry, I used some star-themed rubber stamps from my stash to add extra detail over the top. I used a large star first, which I stamped three times to form a triangle; then a background stamp featuring tiny stars to scatter around. I then stuck the starry patterned paper down on top.

With the large piece of paper in place, my background was complete, so I turned my attention to the photo and embellishments. I cut a mat for my photo using a green sheet from the A5 Paper Stack and secured it to the page. I topped it with a grey paper doily, frayed gauze, and then my photo which had some cardboard underneath to help pop it up from the page.

I then added my embellishments, focusing on creating three clusters – above, to the left and to the bottom right of the photo. On the left side I used the you’re the best banner from the Die Cut Ephemera pack. I also added the hand from the same pack, and placed it directly onto the photo. I finished off this cluster with a couple of stars nearby, that were fussy cut from the Nebula paper.

To the right of my photo I created another embellishment cluster, this time using a handmade heart embellishment from my stash, which I topped with a CVS limited edition flair button (from many moons ago). Both of these embellishments were to tie in with the print on my son’s t-shirt. As with the previous cluster, I also added some fussy cut stars nearby. I balanced the stars out by adding a couple more above the photo as well as my third “cluster”.

There were only a few elements left to complete at this point – my title, using the Die Cut Title words alongside the photo. A few more small stars from the Puffy Sticker pack and some small word stickers from the Accessory Sticker sheet. And finally, my handwritten journalling and I was done!

If you love stars as much as I do, then make sure you enter our June “Seeing Stars” challenge which is hosted in our Facebook Cocoa Vanilla Studio Community group. You can enter as many times as you wish (providing each entry is created specifically for our challenge) and there is a $25 store voucher to be won. Looking forward to seeing all those starry projects!

Until next time, happy scrapping!

Family | Heart & Home collection | Sue Plumb

Hi everyone, it’s Sue Plumb here to share another design team project with you. Today I am sharing a mixed media layout featuring the ‘Heart & Home’ collection. Inspired by this month’s “Flower Frenzy” challenge, I decided to document this family photo I took while we were out celebrating an early Mother’s Day lunch. (Family photos with all of us in them are rare, as I am usually the one behind the camera – I am sure many of you can relate!)

I began this layout with a sheet of white cardstock, which I cut down to measure 11×11″, and then backed with the sweet Leaf Litter paper to form a border. I then used pale pink Distress Oxide ink mixed with a little water to create a watercolour paint, which I brushed vertically onto the top half of the page using a wide brush. I then chose a yellow acrylic paint and applied it vertically to the bottom half of the page using a small brayer. This gave me a two-toned background that coordinated perfectly with the colours of the collection.

Now it was time for some paper! I chose a mix of patterned papers, including Fall Beauty, Harvest, and a couple of designs from the A5 Paper Stack to create layers in the central area of my page. I used a mix of both cut and torn edges for contrasting textures, and also added some frayed gauze and a paper doily. My photo was then mounted on top with a little cardboard behind it to help pop it up from the page.

I stuck a couple of stickers from the Accessory Sticker sheet directly onto my photo, then turned my attention to the journalling. I cut a journal card from the Gather cut apart paper, then popped it into my typewriter. (I find the easiest way to do this is to use some washi tape to tack it to a larger piece of paper or card, so it doesn’t get lost in the roller.) I then tucked my journal card under the edge of photo and added a handmade heart embellishment on top.

Then it was time for some flowers! I used a combination of fussy cut pieces from the Bountiful paper, and others from the Floral Ephemera pack to build my clusters. I used my tried and true method of creating a visual triangle around my photo to help me decide placement which in this case was top left / centre right / middle bottom. You can see how this frames naturally around the focal point of my page (my photo). I layered the floral pieces, bending up the leaves to create dimension off the page.

I finished my page with a Gold Foil Title in the lower right corner; some stamped words and the date; and tiny gold ink splatters scattered around. Love how this one came together!

If you love flowers, then make sure you enter our May “Flower Frenzy” challenge which is hosted in our Facebook Cocoa Vanilla Studio Community group. You can enter as many times as you wish (providing each entry is created specifically for our challenge) and there is a $25 store voucher to be won. Looking forward to seeing your floral masterpieces!

Until next time, happy scrapping!

May Floral Frenzy | Happy Days | Rachel Lowe

Hello everyone! I thought I would join in the May challenge fun by creating a layout using the Floral Frenzy theme. I have used Happy Days collection which I love so much.

I don’t do ‘busy’ layouts generally but I wanted my flowers to be the focus and went all in! I chose three papers to layer with the larger floral on the outer so I could layer my florals on it. I used Little Blossom, Lush Blooms and Flutterby papers.

I then took my floral ephemera and started layering under and over the Lush Blooms paper strip. I used foam tape of some of the florals to create dimension. I added enamel dots from my stash to some of the centres. Lastly I added some leaves from the floral ephemera

I used the reverse of the Flutterbuy to mat my 6×4 inch photo, I went with a black and white photo my  daughter as there is so many colours and patterns in this layout, I didn’t want my photo to get ‘lost’.

I created three embellishment clusters around my photo using the die cut ephemera, adding the super cute cloud (which I added heart puffy stickers) , the bike and a phrase sentiment added over it with foam tape and another floral bunch, finished off with a butterfly and phrase sentiment from the Accessory Stickers.

Lastly I created my title using the chipboard titles and a super cute strawberry die cut to tie it all together.

And there you have it, one super girly layout! I look forward to seeing what you create with the floral frenzy challenge.

Thank you for stopping by and see you again soon.

Rachel x

Happy B’Day | Happy Days collection | Sue Plumb

Hi everyone, it’s Sue Plumb here to share another design team project with you. Today I am sharing a layout that has been inspired by our April “Chasing Rainbows” challenge. This month the criteria is to use a BIG rainbow as the main design element of your layout. Now if you know anything about me, you already know I am not great at following rules, which is why anytime I try to follow a sketch I end up somewhere completely different. So it should be no surprise to you that my interpretation of this challenge is a little loose. Here’s what I came up with…

 

I was determined to create a boy page for this challenge, so how do you create a boy rainbow? Simple! You just cut the pink and purple off! I really loved this striped Sunshine Lollipops paper from the ‘Happy Days’ collection so decided to use it as my big feature. I really wanted the colours to pop, so I first added some dark grey acrylic paint to my cardstock for my background. I wanted to keep the paper intact for my main feature, but add some extra interest, so I snipped a little along the line between each colour and used a narrow wooden skewer to help roll the ends up (some I curled a little more than others).

The photo of my boys was taken whilst we were out celebrating their 11th birthday, so using bright colours was perfect for the occasion. As the rainbow was to be the main feature of my page, I didn’t want to mess it up by muddling the colours at all, so I decided to use the tone-on-tone technique for my embellishments.

I used a mix of pieces from the Die Cut Ephemera and Floral Ephemera packs (yes, you CAN have flowers on a boy page!) as well as Accessory Stickers. I placed the embellishments on top of (or as close to) the corresponding colours on the paper and used foam tape to add dimension to some of them.

I really love the effect that using this technique gives, and it makes it super simple to decide where to place things, so putting this page together was a breeze! I finished off the page by adding the Chipboard Title across the top (I ADORE these chipboard titles – the font is so awesome!)

Thanks so much for stopping by today so I could share this with you. I hope I have inspired you to tackle this month’s challenge (who doesn’t love rainbows?!) You can load your entry over in the Cocoa Vanilla Studio Community group to be in with a chance to win. I can’t wait to see all those rainbows!

Until next time, happy scrapping!

 

WINNERS | March Great Escape Challenge

Hello everyone, and happy Wednesday!  I’m here to announce the winners of our “Great Escape” themed Monthly Challenge for March!

There were so many wonderful entries for this challenge, and it was awesome to see so many lovely pages documenting your adventures!

It was hard to pick just one out of all of the great entries, so we have not one, but TWO winners this month:

Fleur Milli went all out and scrapped six layouts for this challenge, but we couldn’t go past this grid design with all of those beautiful photos that matched the theme so perfectly!

Debbie Lollie Henningsen scrapped this super fun double page layout and made a gorgeous chevron pattern with the patterned papers for a really striking and unique page!  We love that she fit so much in to this spread, and that cute little caravan and car was the perfect finishing touch!

Congratulations ladies, I will be in touch soon with your coupon!  Thank you so much to everyone who played along in our challenge – I just love seeing everyone’s take on the inspiration!

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If you want a chance to win a $25 coupon to our store, make sure you join the Cocoa Vanilla Studio Community Group on Facebook to join in on our monthly challenges!

Thanks for joining me today, and until next time… happy scrapping!

xx Zoe

You Are Awesome | Boys Rule collection | Tarrah McLean

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am sharing a new layout inspired by the new April challenge to include a big rainbow as the main element on your layout. I decided to go with a non-traditional rainbow and created my own using various papers from the Boys Rule collection.

The new monthly challenge for April is to include a BIG rainbow as the main design element on your layout.

To help create the arches of the rainbow, I used various sized dinner plates and traced around the tops of them on the different patterned papers I chose from the Boys Rule collection.  I chose these following papers from the Boys Rule collection: ‘Fun and Games’, ‘Straight and Narrow’, ‘Entitled’, ‘Expressionist’ and ‘Star Fall’. I then arranged them on a plain white cardstock background and adhered them down. I trimmed the white cardstock down to measure roughly 11′ x 11′ and adhered it to the ‘Boys Stuff’ patterned paper. I then machine-stitched each individual colour in the rainbow with matching thread.

At the base of the rainbow, I adhered a strip of the ‘Straight and Narrow’ paper horizontally to add another layer to my layout. I added craft foam underneath my photo and placed it over on the right side of my page, I layered the frame and journal spot from the ephemera pack tucked in on the left hand side of the photo, on top of the photo I added one of the banner stickers from the Accessory Sticker sheet. My title is from the chipboard pack, I love these words! I added the ‘You’ and  ‘Are’ words at the top of the rainbow and the ‘Awesome’ word under the photo. Either side of the ‘Awesome’ word, I added the scalloped border sticker from the Clear Sticker sheet. Above the photo, I added one of the banner stickers from the Accessory Sticker sheet. I punched out some stars from the ‘Happy Go Lucky’ paper and then layered some of the star stickers over the top. I placed a few of these around my page.

Once I was happy with how the larger elements were placed on my layout, I started adding some smaller embellishments including more clear stickers, more accessory stickers and some more ephemera also. One of my signature features on my layouts is to stamp the date of when the photo was taken and this layout is no exception, I stamped the date stamp using some black ink.

I don’t often journal on my pages so I love the phrase and word stickers from the accessory sticker sheet. I add them to all of my Cocoa Vanilla layouts, where I can, to help tell the story. Boy layouts are one of my favourite projects to create and this one was so much fun to create! I really love how it turned out too. Make sure you create a layout and add a big rainbow element as your main design feature and share it with us by uploading it to the Cocoa Vanilla Studio Community Facebook page.

Thank you so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today! I hope you enjoyed reading about how I created my layout as much as I enjoyed creating it!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

April Monthly Challenge

Hello everyone, and welcome to our new challenge for the month of April!
If you’re not already a member of our Facebook Community, make sure you join us to be in the running to win a $25 store coupon each month!
If you’re a fan of our collections, it’s no secret that I love rainbows! This month we are challenging you to use a BIG rainbow as the main design element of the page… easy peasy!
As you can see from these awesome pages from our fabulous Design Team, we have lots of collections that feature big rainbows… or you can make your own! I’m excited to see your pages with this prompt! ❤
To Enter:
  • Cocoa Vanilla Studio products must be used. Yes, you can use other supplies as well, but the majority of products used should be CVS.
  • Entries must be created solely for this challenge and not combined with other challenges or design team projects
  • You may enter as many times as you wish and entry is open to participants worldwide
  • One winner will be randomly drawn from the entries to receive a $25 voucher to spend in the CVS online store
  • By entering the challenge you automatically give permission for your work to be shared via the Cocoa Vanilla Studio social media channels
  • The promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with Facebook

**Winners from the March 2024 challenge will be announced on the 17th April here on the blog!**

Thanks so much for joining me today, and I hope you have a wonderful week!

xx Zoe

March Monthly Challenge & WINNERS | Great Escape Challenge

Hello everyone, and welcome to our new challenge for the month of March!
If you’re not already a member of our Facebook Community, make sure you join us to be in the running to win a $25 store coupon each month!
This month, in keeping with our new Great Escape collection, we want to see your biggest adventures on a page! Scrap about your adventures, big or small, near or far… even if its your dream escape!
And as you can see from these awesome pages from our fabulous Design Team, you can definitely use ANY CVS collection with this theme – not just Great Escape! I’m excited to see your pages with this prompt! ❤
To Enter:
  • Cocoa Vanilla Studio products must be used. Yes, you can use other supplies as well, but the majority of products used should be CVS.
  • Entries must be created solely for this challenge and not combined with other challenges or design team projects
  • You may enter as many times as you wish and entry is open to participants worldwide
  • One winner will be randomly drawn from the entries to receive a $25 voucher to spend in the CVS online store
  • By entering the challenge you automatically give permission for your work to be shared via the Cocoa Vanilla Studio social media channels
  • The promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with Facebook

Now on to the…

And I have a few to catch up on here because with the new collection going out, I completely forgot to post winners from the Great Escape Give-Away and the December/January challenge… oops!! I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, but here are the lucky winners!!

GREAT ESCAPE GIVE AWAY

All of your comments mean so much to me, so a HUGE thank you to everyone who left a comment on the reveal post! Usually we randomly choose the collection reveal winners, but this time I just couldn’t resist this clever & creative poem from Penny White. Congratulations Penny, you’ve won yourself a full collection!

And our runner up, who wins a collection kit, is Danielle Berry with this lovely comment… Congratulations Danielle, I hope you get lots of use out of this collection – it sure sounds like you will!

December/January Monthly Challenge

All of the challenge entries for this moodboard were gorgeous – thank you so much to everyone who joined in!! I have picked two winners for this challenge. First up, we have Debra Beer with this super cute page!

And this gorgeous page from Chantal Bruce-Bays – that Christmas tree is so full of texture and looks like it was a real labour of love!

February Scraplift Challenge

All of the entries for this month were just stunning, and I’m so happy that so many played along!

For this month’s challenge, I have chosen this gorgeous layout from Amee Jay! How beautiful is that photo – the combination of our Daydream + Heart & Home collections is the perfect match!

I will be in touch with all of the winners ASAP, so keep an eye on your messages/email!

Thanks so much for joining me today, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

xx Zoe

Fun Times Ahead | Scraplift Challenge | Kel Moore

Hi Cocoa Vanilla friends and welcome back to the blog.

It’s Kel here today and I am sharing my take on the Scrap Lift challenge that is running this month. Have you had a chance to enter the comp? There are 3 different pages to choose from…or you could lift all 3! I decided to scrap lift this layout from design team member Michelle Stokes….

For my page, I am using the brand new The Great Escape collection..here is my page..

 

I changed the design by not using squares, instead using elongated hexagons. I mounted a smaller hexagon on top and added hand stitching to give them texture.

I have used 2 photos like Michelle, applying them slightly offset, and mounted them onto black cardstock to help them pop off the page, then embellished on a diagonal through the photos.

To the top left of the page I have used a piece from the die cut ephemera with a hand cut star and a black star that I cut from cardstock, to add a pop of black to the top of the page..

Next I used a sticker above my photo from the Accessory Sticker Sheet and a chipboard banner from the Chipboard Stickers which I added onto my photo. Under the photo I used a label from the A5 paper stack to add my place and date.

To the bottom right of my photos is where I added my title. I used the Chipboard Stickers for “Fun Times Ahead’.. I love how they pop off the page… and of course I had to add some of the signature Cocoa Vanilla stars that Zoe adds to her more masculine collections..

Under the title I used some of the phrases from the Accessory Sticker Sheet. I always find these easy to use..

I hope you have enjoyed seeing how I scrap lifted Michelles gorgeous page today and I look forward to seeing your pages in the Cocoa Vanilla Facebook group.

Keep Scrappy!

Kel x

 

 

February Monthly Challenge | Scrap Lift

Hello everyone, and welcome to our first challenge of 2024!
If you’re not already a member of our Facebook Community, make sure you join us to be in the running to win a $25 store coupon each month!
We’re starting off with an easy one this month, and your challenge is to scrap-lift one (or all) of these three layouts from our fabulous Design Team! Can’t wait to see your versions of these beautiful layouts ❤
To Enter:
  • Cocoa Vanilla Studio products must be used. Yes, you can use other supplies as well, but the majority of products used should be CVS.
  • Entries must be created solely for this challenge and not combined with other challenges or design team projects
  • You may enter as many times as you wish and entry is open to participants worldwide
  • One winner will be randomly drawn from the entries to receive a $25 voucher to spend in the CVS online store
  • By entering the challenge you automatically give permission for your work to be shared via the Cocoa Vanilla Studio social media channels
  • The promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with Facebook

 

We can’t wait to see your versions of these gorgeous layouts!

Happy scrapping <3

xx Zoe

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