design team

Good boy | Legendary Mini album | Anna Komenda

Anna Komenda 13/03/2020

Hello my sweet friends. We continue to inspire you with projects made with brand new “Legendary” collection. I made travel themed layout with this line already and this time I decided to make a mini album. I am a mom of two girls and very lovely beagle dog Pirat. It was a great opportunity to change pink and glitter into some other color palette :) After all, he also deserves his own pages, right?

I decided to use circles as a base of my album. I picked some solid patterns from the papers included into “Legendary” collection: All star, Offbeat, Wild one, Total legend, Explorer, One way, Outdoor type and Brave heart. They are very colorful and perfect for any type of project, not only masculine ones.

I used every single item from “Legendary” in this album. Various products add various textures and this is something I am always aiming for. This line can be easily mixed with some older boyish collections from CVS – “Boys rule” and “You rock“. I used some bits and pieces from them to add some decorative hanging element on the album ring.

Each page holds one or two pictures taken during different occasions. My boy is fancy, lazy, sporty, elegant and crazy. “Legendary” line is filled with pretty starts so you can find this motif on almost every page. I mixed them with tabs and words from sticker sheet and ephemera pack. I also added few flair buttons and titles from Titles pack. I finished my project adding enamel dots. here are all the pages included into this mini book:

That is all for today. Do you like my album? Isn’t Pirat the cutest dog ever? It was so fun to scrapbook so many pictures of him at once. He is already a senior dog with 13 years behind him so I cherish every single photo I have. Despite his age he is still full of live and loves to play.

Thank you for stopping by and see you in two weeks <3

XO Anna

Introducing Our 2020 Design Team!

Zoe Pearn 11/03/2020

Hello everyone!

I know it has been a looooong time coming, and well overdue, but today I am so excited to announce our Design Team for 2020!

As always, I was absolutely overwhelmed with amazing applications, and it wasn’t an easy task to narrow it down to just 5 new members out of the hundreds of lovely people wanting to join us… It is always a very humbling experience to have so much talent from around the world taking the time to apply to be part of the team!

So… without further ado, please help me welcome our 2020 Design Team!

We have a great mix of girls here to inspire you… Most of the team that you know and love are here for another year to keep the inspiration flowing, but we have some new (and not so new) faces too!

NEW MEMBERS:

Anna Blades, Spain — Danni Visser, Australia — Laura Alberts, USA — Melissa Vining, New Zealand

I’m also very happy to say that the beautiful Raquel Bowman, Australia, is back where she belongs on the team – yay!

RETURNING MEMBERS:

Anita Bownds, Australia — Anna Komenda, Poland — Gwen Wruck, Australia — Kylie Kingham, Australia — Michelle Stokes, Australia — Rachel Lowe, Australia — Sue Plumb, Australia — Tarrah Maclean, Australia — Tazhi Gordon, USA

Thank you again to everyone who applied, and I hope to see you apply for future calls!

xx Zoe

Adventure | Legendary Collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 08/03/2020

Hi Cocoa Vanilla friends,

It’s Tarrah McLean back with you today to share my second layout using the awesome Legendary collection! Having 2 sons and a hubby, I get so excited when the boy collections are released! It makes it so easy to create pages about the boys with all this amazing product!

As you can see I stuck with a sort of mono tone colour scheme for this layout, pulling out pieces that were blue, grey and black.

For this layout I chose one of the muted background papers to begin my page with and then I added the dark blue paper behind to lift it and act as a frame for the entire page. The photo I have chosen to document, is one of my youngest son when we last traveled 3 years ago, there are lots of exploring references in this collection so this was the perfect photo! I matted my photo in one of the papers from the large 12′ x 12′ cut out sheet and adhered it flat the background in the centre, only adding adhesive to the centre and top and bottom of the under side of the photo. This allowed me tuck in those die-cut pieces either side of the photo with ease.

My title is one of the awesome cardstock titles and I added foam dots under this to pop it up at the bottom of my photo, I also layered one of the accessory phrase stickers over the top of the title. I absolutely adore that bear face die-cut so that had to make it on to this page! He looks super cute just above the title on the left overlapping on to my photo. Some more die-cuts were added including the mountains, the stars, hot air balloon, Limited Edition ticket, compass and Stay Wild banner at the top. Some of the stars are popped up using foam dots, I love how this creates shadows and height on my page.

Under the title I tucked in the round compass die cut and added a navy enamel dot to the centre, I also tucked in one of the tabs from the accessory sticker sheet and the large grey star here too. The ‘Epic’ clear sticker was also added here to enhance the adventure theme. I added a few more of the navy enamel dots around my page and also one of the gorgeous flair buttons. I chose the one with the mountains so that it could be layered over the mountain die-cut on the right. Lastly a few more accessory phrase stickers were added and some black mist splatters to finish off.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you are inspired in some way by my layout and that you can take an idea or 2 from this page and create your own layout!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Epic Adventure | Legendary Collection | Rachel Lowe

Rachel Lowe 07/03/2020

Hi all, Rachel here! I am loving all the boy layouts on the blog currently, the new Legendary Collection is so fab that’s for sure! Here is my first layout featuring a photo of my three boys.

I used this wild bear cut file as the main element of my page, the Outdoors Type paper just so perfect with it’s two colour tones and map print. I added it to my base paper, Offbeat with foam tape. I had already worked out my title so added a clear sticker word (Adventure) and the Let’s Go flair.

My photo is 4×6 inches long as I wanted it to centre it above the bear but needed room to add another die cut ephemera word to complete my title. I used the clear sticker paint brush strokes to frame my photo, using several of the colour options. I also added a smaller green one over my title word Epic.

I added in a random manner die cut ephemera stars around the border and to add texture I added messy machine stitching.

I added some blue paint splotches clear stickers around the bears paws so it gave the illusion of water splashing as he is walking (well that’s the picture in my head lol!).

I finished off my layout using an Accessory Sticker so I could add the date later and a clear sticker arrow. This layout is easy and quick to put together, having a mixed media base paper and a large cut file really just leaved the finer details to add.

The wild bear cut file is available in the Silhouette Design store. Thank you for stopping by today and see you again later in the month where I have a super cute mini album to share using Legendary of course!

Rachel X

Epic | Legendary collection | Sue Plumb

Sue Plumb 06/03/2020

Hi everyone!

Sue Plumb here today to share my latest design team project with you, and my very first using the brand new ‘Legendary’ collection. It’s no secret that I love creating boy pages, so to finally have this amazing collection in my hands was very exciting. This range is fabulous for scrapping boys of all ages, so to prove it I thought I would kick off with a layout I created of my hubby (who really is just an overgrown boy! hehe)

I knew immediately which photo I wanted to use – an awesome shot of my husband hanging off the side of a mountain that was taken by his best mate when they were climbing one day.

So I started my page with the gorgeous wood grain on the reverse side of the Outdoors Type paper, to tie in with the colour of the rock face. I then added a vertical strip of the mixed media style Offbeat paper; and a strip of the Explorer paper alongside it. (This provided me with a strong vertical base on which to mount my portrait oriented photo.)

I then began building a diagonal line of embellishments that would provide flow and help draw the viewer’s eye through the photo. Starting in the top left corner, I added a large star from the Die Cut Ephemera pack, which I topped with the die cut compass using foam tape. I also added a small star sticker from the Clear Sticker pack and a sprinkling of Enamel Dots.

I continued the diagonal line of embellishments to the right of my photo using a couple more die cut stars from the ephemera pack and a journal spot from the cut apart Epic Tales paper.

I added a large cluster of items under and around the bottom right corner of my photo, using the mountain scene and the woodgrain explore label (both from the cut apart paper) and the extreme label from the ephemera pack. I topped these pieces with the let’s go Flair Button; added the adventurous spirit phrase sticker from the Accessory Sticker sheet; and another die cut star and more enamel dots.

Next, I created a vertical title to run down the left side of my photo, by fussy cutting the word EPIC from the cut apart paper; and adding an arrow from the ephemera pack amongst the middle of the letters. (I popped all of these elements up slightly from the page using foam tape to provide extra dimension.)

To finish off, I added some tiny splatters of black and white ink and I was done! I am super happy with how this layout turned out (and had so much fun I had to create another page with the range immediately, but you will have to wait for that one, sorry!)

Stay tuned to see what else the design team have created with this range, or pop over to our Facebook Community Group to share your layouts with us – we love to see them.

Until next time, happy scrapping!

So Rad | Legendary | Tazhiana Gordon

Tazhiana Gordon 05/03/2020

Hello friends and welcome back to the Cocoa Vanilla blog. I cannot begin to explain to you how excited I am to be sharing my first layout with the Legendary collection, so for this page, I’m scrapping a photo of my two favorite guys – my husband and our yummy nephew.

I had the idea to kind of create a circular element of triangles so I pulled four papers that were patterned but felt like a solid in green, blue, orange, and yellow and cut out a series of progressively smaller triangles and then layered them on top of each other in this kind of circular shape. I also distressed the edges with my distressing tool because that is one of my go-to techniques on a page and tried to vary the direction the triangles were going in. I chose to print my photo in black and white and mat it on a single paper since there was so much pattern in the background already.

Next, I pulled out the ephemera pack and started embellishing and I literally gasped out loud when I saw all of the stars and the variety of sizes and colors. I decided to make the stars my main shape element and tucked them in front of and behind my photo to add height and interest. Next, I added a few other pieces of ephemera around my photo and propped the whole thing up on foam. I added a few stars cascading on top of my photo cluster and underneath it to kind of continue that vertical line and I love the effect that gives.

For my title, I decided to do what always works- pick one from the cardstock title pack and I also propped this up on foam tape. I added a few sentiments from the Accessory sticker sheet as well as some clear stickers around the page and called this one done!

I hope you enjoyed this layout and it inspired you to play with shape and paper on your next project. There is a process video of this page if you want to see how it all came together. Till next time!

FUN ADVENTURE | LEGENDARY | GWEN WRUCK

Gwen Wruck 03/03/2020

Hey Creative friends, Gwen back on the blog today and I’m super excited to be sharing my first scrapbook page using their new collection ‘Legendary’!

Whilst you’ll all know I’m not normally a ‘boy’ scrapper, I love these opportunities to create pages featuring my husband. Cocoa Vanilla Studios really is the only masculine products I’ll use; I just love how Zoe puts her boy collections together. This one is going to be great for all things ‘boy’ and ‘adventure’ so if you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check it out!

So, the idea for the layout started with my photo. This one was taken a few years back on a family cruising holiday. As it was my first page with the collection, I was keen to dive into all the patterns and papers, but not really sure where to start… you know, that ‘first cut’ anxiety? I suffer from that A LOT! To combat that, I’ve started with the ‘Total Legend’ paper. It’s a fab sheet of patterns that can easily be cut apart. I’ve used these to back a cut file, this one from CUT to YOU.

Working around the cut file, I’ve just backed each of the squares with a different pattern paper, making sure to put contrasting designs side by side. I’ve then placed this onto the ‘Epic Tales’ pattern paper for my background. I usually use a white background, but I just love how this paper is subtle enough to use but has those fun arrows for interest.

I’ve also mounted my background onto the ‘Explorer’ pattern paper. I like that bold deep blue to frame my layout. I made sure to keep the inner section of this one, and plan to fussy cut out the design and use on another page. Next, I’ve added a photo mat using the ‘All Star’ pattern paper and then some stitching for added detail.

I’ve positioned my photo and mat onto the page adding in some foam for dimension. Now the design for the layout was locked in, I can get to adding my embellishments and finishing touches.

I’ve started with the ‘Die Cut Ephemera’ pack, there are over 50 pieces in this one, all really great to add to your layouts. I’ve used fun flags, sentiment banners and stars. I also love the compass element, which is a nod to the fact that my photo was on a cruise ship. I’ve also pulled out the flair that says ‘Let’s Go’. It helps the other circle element to fit in with all the other square elements and it helps tell my travel adventure story.

I’ve also added in some of the tiny word stickers from the ‘Accessory Stickers Sheet’, (this collection really has a lot of Adventure and Travel themed elements) as well as the tab that says ‘noteworthy’ down the right-hand side of my photo. My title ‘Adventure’ is from the ‘Die Cut Titles’ pack, these are a ‘must grab’… so versatile and you get so many in the pack!

Thanks for popping by today to see my latest project, I hope it inspires you to grab this collection and get making! As always, be sure to pop into the Cocoa Vanilla Studio Facebook group to share your pages, I love seeing what you make.

Until next time,

Gwen

Incredible adventure | Legendary | Anna Komenda

Anna Komenda 27/02/2020

Hello Cocoa Vanilla fans. It’s Anna here with fresh from the oven page. I got my stash of brand new “Legendary” collection and I knew I had to use it right away. You know I am a mom of two girls, big fan of flowers and pink, but Cocoa Vanilla masculine lines are always so colorful that I would want them anyway. “Legendary” line is also perfect for all your outdoor adventures and this it the way I decided to use it first. I am planning some mini album with my oldest, furry child, who is a good boy but I needed a warm up first.

I was very inspired by the paper with a map pattern “Outdoors type”. Because let’s be honest – what can be better as a background for travel page? The problem is that I love the B side too… Such a pretty wooden pattern. So I combined them both :) They look amazing with my photos taken in Tatry mountains during our first (me and hubby) trip as a couple. It was time before fancy cameras and I do not have many decent photos from that time. I managed to pick few when we were reaching a high peak using a cable car. Landscape from above looked amazing that day.

I picked some ephemera pieces that may fit the travel theme and gathered then under the photos. I also added a title using a word from “Die cut titles”. This is such an amazing product and it makes adding titles so easy. You can use words separately or build longer sentences.

I also have an idea for a very simple embellishment – add little wooden sticks to the flags included into ephemera pack and you will have some dimensional element to add to your projects. I placed my flags over the mountains silhouettes.

I finished my page adding date stamp, few stars and enamel dots. Did you noticed that they are back to the CVS products range? “Unforgettable” collection had them and this line also has matching ones. I love this product and I am so happy to see it back.

That is all for today. I hope you love “Legendary” line as much as I do. It’s appearing in the shops around the world already if you feel you need to have it right away (BTW – I know you do :D). Thank you for stopping by and see you in March.

XO Anna

Cool Dude | Legendary Collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 22/02/2020

Hi creative friends,

It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am excited to be sharing my first layout using the AWESOME Legendary collection!

As the mother of 2 boys and hubby, I am slightly outvoted in my house and love all the boy collections to document their antics with! The Legendary collection is absolutely perfect for their pages, on this page I have documented a photo of my handsome youngest son hanging out at the shops one day!One of my favourite papers from the collection is the rainbow one called ‘Wild One’, I love how it is in a diagonal design! I trimmed it down slightly and added it to the ‘Explorer’ paper, I like the navy as a mat for the page. I then cut out a diagonal triangle cut file design from The Cut Shoppe from white cardstock and placed it over the top of the paper. I love how the white breaks up some of the rainbow paper. I machine stitched around the outside edge of the layout.

The large stars in the ephemera pack have a line drawn on them so they were perfect to machine stitch, see the detail on 2 of the larger stars in the photo below. I matted my photo using the wood grain frame die-cut and one of the small cut out papers from the ‘Total Legend’ paper, I also stapled one of banner die-cuts to the top left corner of my photo. I adhered the largest star in the top left corner and the smaller one in the bottom right corner and then adhered my photo over the top.

The Die-Cut title pack are awesome and I love the font of these! I chose the words ‘Cool Dude’ for my title and popped it up with pop dots underneath and placed to the right of my photo. I took lots of the coloured stars from the die-cut pack and popped them up in rainbow fashion like the paper. I love the height and shadows this creates! I also added one of the awesome flair buttons with the star on it to the right of the ‘Cool’ word in my title. Lastly I added a few of the clear stickers, accessory stickers and enamel dots to finish my layout.

Make sure you keep an eye out for this amazing new boy collection, it is now in your favourite retailer stores and will be coming to the Cocoa Vanilla Studio online store really soon!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Smile | Unforgettable Collection | Rachel Lowe

Rachel Lowe 21/02/2020

Hello CVS friends I hope you are having a fab week! My photo is of me in Croatia (because a pretty bike like this has to be scrapped!), I made my husband take about 50 shots as historically he takes terrible photos, out of the 50 odd shots I got one where the actual bike and me ended up in the photo lol!!!!!

I have used Unforgettable collection and the bike with flower baskets cut file is by Paige Evans/Silhouette Design store.I cut a piece of white cardstock at 10×10 inches matting it on Unscripted paper. I then set about create tiny flowers to fill the baskets. I used Forget-Me-Not paper to create them and a flower punch that I had in three sizes. I used white NUVO crystal drops in the centres.I then paper pieced the bike and hearts, I used Garland paper turquoise side, for the baskets I used Glorious paper the grey side and finally I used Class Act paper from Love Always collection.I used the Clear Stickers from Unforgettable collection, butterflies and the paint brush stroke which I added under my photo (as I chose not to matt it). I added some Accessory Stickers under my photo. My photo is 5×4 inches.I chose a Flair from the collection which is also my title, choosing it over a traditional title as I didn’t want my layout to become cluttered.