flair buttons

Joy | Merry and Bright collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 08/12/2020

Hi friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you here on the Cocoa Vanilla blog and today I have a new Christmas themed layout to share with you featuring the stunning Merry and Bright collection! I just can’t get enough of this gorgeous Christmas collection! It’s my most favourite Christmas collection ever!

I decided to use the gorgeous large Christmas Tree die-cut and the backing paper but used it slightly differently to how it comes. I pulled off the die-cut from the backing patterned paper and backed all the spaces with papers from the 6′ x 8′ paper pad. These papers were different to the patterns on the backing paper it comes with. Once it was all backed, I added craft foam underneath and adhered it back to the backing paper, however I moved it over to the right so that the tree pattern underneath could be seen. I love the shadows this creates on my page.

On the right, I layered some of the awesome 3′ x 4′ journal cards under the photo of my Mum with my boys and niece. To the right of the photo I tucked in a tree die-cut and also added 2 over on the left, I tucked one in and the other is adhered on top. I also decorated the tree with a few more die-cuts and accessory stickers too. The flairs are super cute from the Merry and Bright collection, I added the pink one that says 25 December on the left side of the page.

I added more die-cuts including some hearts and phrases and those gorgeous gold puffy stars! One had to be added to the top of the tree and I added 2 more to the other embellishment clusters. To finish I trimmed down the backing patterned paper and backed it with the ‘B’ side of the Countdown paper. I then trimmed this paper down again and backed the entire layout with gold glitter cardstock. Lastly I splattered some gold mist around the layout and stamped the date stamp.

Thanks so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today, I hope you enjoyed my layout and that you were inspired in some way!

Happy Christmas creating!!

Tarrah x

Merry & Bright Mini Album | Rachel Lowe

Rachel Lowe 07/12/2020

Hi CVS friends, with Christmas almost upon us and recently receiving the new Merry & Bright collection I just had to make a mini album in preparation of those Christmas photos.

I only made a 6 pages in this album because to be honest most of my Christmas photos are usually less than average, but I can add the best or highlights!

I used a cut file from the Silhouette Design Store. To protect my album cover I cut one in acetate and used an embossing file (stars) to add texture. I added a pop-pom tassel for that little something extra. I love the coloured O rings you can now get, I chose some teal ones to blend in with the colour schemes of Merry & Bright.

I used the 6×8 inch paper pad for this album, another reason I love 6×8 inch paper pads, the smaller prints are perfect for mini albums and mini albums. I used Season Greetings paper wood grain side to create a thin border and Oh Christmas Tree paper over top. I embellished with florals from the die cut ephemera, a phrase sticker from the Accessory Stickers and finished off adding a flair and puffy gold star.

Here I created a pocket and made a tag. I have used Jingle All the Way paper for the tree page and tag. I added the Santa card from the Oh What Fun paper.

So I could add multiple 2×2 inch photos I added a accordion flap to the page adding another paper element from the Oh What Fun paper.

I added two die cut baubles, a puffy star and finished off with a sprinkle gold paint across the page. I used the Oh Christmas Tree Paper as my base paper.

For my last page which I used Star Bright paper, added a frame die cut and created an embellishment cluster. You will notice I added a machine stitched border around each tree page to add texture and definition.

You could obviously add lots more pages or create double sided pages depending on how many photos you want to add, the good thing about mini albums like this you can make them bulky and they still look great.

Well thats it from me for today! Happy creating!

Rachel X

OH WHAT FUN | MERRY AND BRIGHT | GWEN WRUCK

Gwen Wruck 03/12/2020

Hi Creative friends, Gwen back on the blog today with a new share for Cocoa Vanilla Studio using their brand new ‘Merry & Bright’ collection. For today’s share, I’m working with this picture of me! This one was taken on a Christmas cruise we did a few years back.

It’s been a while since I’ve scrapbooked a photo of myself, so it was definitely the inspiration for the page. I knew I wanted to go with a vertical design and thought it might be fun to include this Christmas Tree Cut File by CUT to YOU. The idea is that both the tree and the photo run vertically and draw your eye up and down the page.

I’ve started by backing the tree in the ‘Star Bright’ pattern paper. I’ve also used this paper as the background of my page. For the trunk of the tree, I’ve used the ‘Seasons Greetings’ pattern paper and I’ve also used that as a feature border around the edge of my background. I almost always add a border to my pages, I love how it finishes the edges off and am always sure to add stitching for extra detail.

I’ve backed my photo with a cut candy stripe from the ‘A5 Paper Stack’ and mounted on foam for dimension. I’ve added stitching to it as well which you can see below.

For the embellishments, I’ve decided on one main cluster in the top left-hand corner of my photo. I’ve used a mix of Die Cuts from the ‘Ephemera Pack’, some cut apart elements from the ‘Oh What Fun’ pattern paper some fussy cut florals from the ‘Joy to the World’ pattern paper and a flair button.

I also decided to add some cute decorations to the tree. For this, I’ve used some more fussy cut florals from the ‘Joy to the World’ pattern paper and some die cut ornaments from the ‘Ephemera Pack’. All finished off with a star from the ‘Puffy Gold Stars’ pack.

I’ve also made a YouTube video of my layout process which you can watch here.

Until next time,

Gwen

Shine On | Laura Alberts | Daydream Collection

Laura Alberts 28/11/2020

Hey y’all! Laura Alberts here today to share a darling 9×12 layout with you as well as a 12×12 sketch version of the same design! I sometimes create a sketch to plan out layouts that I want to get “just right” before taping everything down to the page. With this layout, I wanted to illustrate how to get a vertical and horizontal photo on the same page without trying to collage them together (which is generally my go-to method!). By creating two separate photo clusters backed with similar elements (i.e. a doily, florals, and banner), that are still connected by the title, I could tie them together despite the different orientations.

I used fussy cut florals behind each of the photos and included other design elements, such as flair badges and rainbows to coordinate the two sections. Now, because I was working on a smaller layout size than the 12×12 I’d sketched out, I did have to compromise on space for the title. So, by keeping it short and to the point, that helped it to fit in the limited space between the photo clusters.

The butterflies, along with the Nuvo drop trails behind them, create a bit of movement on the page and guide your eye from one cluster to the other. Butterflies are my favorite icon and love that they are a consistent part of the Cocoa Vanilla Studio collections! I also love these tiny flowers that can be fussy cut from the floral patterned paper and used for sprinkling around my clusters. Those tiny details make such a big difference in the end!

By layering my photo clusters onto a beautiful mixed media style patterned paper, rather than white card stock, it gives my overall layout a very soft feel to it. The borders on either side narrow the space for my clusters while giving me a linear element to contrast all of the whimsical, soft touches.

I hope the sketch for this layout inspires you to look at your photo placement a little differently! It’s fun to see how you can change things up. If you’d like to see the Shine On layout come together, I have the entire process in the video below!

Easy advent calendar | Merry and bright collection | Anna Komenda

Anna Komenda 27/11/2020

Hello everyone. It’s Anna here and I can finally share my first project made with new “Merry and bright” collection. You have already seen plenty of inspiration from my fellow DT girls and it won’t be easy to beat them :). December is approaching really fast and it seems like our European summer ended like a week ago. If you have kids, you may already prepared advent calendar to help them count down to Christmas Day. If not, I am here to help you. I prepared really fast and easy version, that took me about 3 hours to finish. You can spend your last two days of November preparing this project and make your kids very happy.

My calendar contains of 24 bags and boxes filled with small candy and pieces of Lego blocks. I mixed the shapes of containers to make everything more fun. Most of them are just plain crafts bags that are used to pack lunch or candies. I always keep stack of them in my house.

I also added few square boxes in two sizes made of various papers from “Merry and bright” collection. I used very helpful box punch board. You can make single box in few minutes and you don’t even have to use single drop of glue.

Last group is a few triangular boxes made with 6*6 squares. I just glued two sides together creating a tube, used stapler to seal one side and filled the box. Last step was to rotate it 90 degrees and seal it again with staples.

I made a little hole in each bag and box and added piece of longer craft string. I hanged everything or artificial pine branch, that I use every year for my calendar. I bough it for few dollars. You can also use real pine branch. It will last only through this season but it will smell amazing. You can also recycle something you already have in your house or just use plain, leafless branch found during the walk. I seal the boxes and bags the way they have to be cut to be opened so they only last one year. I don’t have enough room to store them so I just prefer make new each year.

I used numbers from 1 to 24 as in Poland we only count down to Christmas Eve (the most important dat on the whole Christmas period and the day children get their presents). I cut them our from paper called “Countdown”. You can either do like me cutting our each number or cut the whole squares. I mixed the numbers with elements from ephemera pack using up almost whole pack. Preparing everything took me like 2,5 hour so it went really fast. I played my favorite christmas songs to soak into the proper mood. Last half of hour was dedicated to add things inside, string and hang it on the branch. Just remember to spread the number evenly so the kids will cut the boxes out from left and right side every second day. Otherwise, in the middle of December you will have one side empty and the branch will start tilting.

How do you like my idea? Are you making your own advent calendars or you just buy premade ones? My kids are always very excited for ours and they can’t imagine not having it, even if I am trying to be lazy and bribe them with the bought one, filled with chocolate.

That is all for today. Thank you so much for stopping by and see you in December.

XO Anna

Merry and Bright | Merry & Bright collection | Sue Plumb

Sue Plumb 20/11/2020

Hi everyone! Sue Plumb here to share my very first layout using the brand new ‘Merry & Bright’ collection. For this Christmas page, I couldn’t go past documenting one of my kids Santa photos from last year. Each year we try to do something a little out of the ordinary, as it not only makes it easier to get my kids to do it, but it also gives us something fun to look back on. (Not to mention giving Santa a good giggle as well.) Last year we decided to go with a Queen theme, as Bohemian Rhapsody is one of our favourite car sing-along songs.

Here is my layout…

As soon as I opened this collection, I was immediately drawn to the gorgeous wood grain print on the Season’s Greetings paper. (Zoe always has the best wood grains!) I decided to use it as the basis for my page, so I cut it down to measure 10×10″ and then mounted it onto the script pattern of the Oh What Fun paper to add a border.

I really wanted to make the background bit more “me” so I decided to add some mixed media as well. I brushed on some dark grey acrylic paint, then used a loose script stencil (which tied in beautifully with the script print paper) and some gold glaze to add texture.

Now it was time for some papery layers! I used pieces of some of the scaled down prints from the A5 Paper Stack to use as layers under my photo, adding in a dark grey paper doily (to tie in with the paint) and some frayed gauze for texture. I also added some cardboard to the back of my photo to help pop it up from the page.

For my embellishments, I began with the gorgeous floral pattern of the Joy to the World paper because I couldn’t wait to fussy cut those flowers! I cut two large pieces which I tucked in under the bottom left and top right corners of the photo, to create a diagonal flow to help draw the viewer’s eye through the photo. I also added an extra flower from the Die Cut Ephemera pack.

Then it was time for some pretty little bits and pieces. I used three of the Puffy Gold Stars, which I attached using my stapler; and some small pieces of twisted gold wire, which I also stapled to the page.

For my title, I fussy cut the words merry and bright from one of the 3×4″ Pocket Cards and then adhered it below my photo using foam tape to pop it up from the page. I also tucked in the sweet little Santa Flair Button alongside my title.

To finish off, I stamped the date and a few phrases using a roller stamp from my stash; then added a touch more festive sparkle with some splatters of gold mist and a sprinkling of gold sequins.

I’ve already been busy creating more layouts with this collection and I can’t wait to share them with you soon. If you don’t have this collection yet, make sure you contact your favourite retailer to ask if they have it in stock.

Until next time, happy scrapping!

VERY MERRY | MERRY AND BRIGHT | GWEN WRUCK

Gwen Wruck 17/11/2020

Hi Creative friends, Gwen with you on the blog today. For today’s share, I’m working with this sweet picture of Miss C wayyy too excited about Christmas M&M’s. On the blog this week the Design Team have been challenged to mix an older collection with a new one, so I’ve decided to mix the new Christmas collection (Merry & Bright) with Tis the Season. I just love how these two collections came together.

The design for my page is a central one which started with this title cut file by CUT to YOU. I’ve positioned my photo on top taking care to ensure everything is nicely centred.

Then, working with the larger ephemera pieces first, created three embellishment clusters, one in the top left hand corner of the photo, one in the bottom right hand corner of the photo and one centred, at the bottom of the page. I’ve started with the large Santa die-cut element from the ‘Ephemera Pack’ and mixed and matched ephemera pieces from both collections.

Here you can see the die cut piece ’25’ from the ‘Tis the Season collection’, sitting next to the Santa and Holly elements from the ‘Merry & Bright’ collection. I just love how I can use up those leftover pieces of the older collection and give it a fresh new look with the new one.

In the top and bottom clusters, I’ve also added in two of the gold ‘Puffy Stars’ from the ‘Merry & Bright’ collection. These are a great textured piece to add to a layout and are the perfect shade of gold.

You can also see here that I’ve added in a ‘Flair’ from the ‘Flair pack’ as well as some Enamel Dots, these are from the ‘Tis the Season’ collection.

I’ve also made a YouTube process video which you can watch below.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing how this page came together. Be sure to join the Cocoa Vanilla Studio Facebook group to see even more inspiration and ideas for using this collection.

Until next time,

Gwen

Thankful | Daydream & Happiness Collections | Danni Visser

Danni Visser 14/11/2020

Hi there lovely Cocoa Vanilla fans! Danni here with a fun layout using a mix of old and new Cocoa Vanilla Studio collections – Happiness and Daydream. I chose to marry these two collections because although they both have lots of pretty florals and butterflies, the colour palettes are quite different, with Daydream being beautifully soft and muted, and Happiness so bright and colourful. I really wanted to challenge myself to make the two collections work together, and I am really pleased with the result.

I have a photo of myself taken back in 2014 when I was in early pregnancy with my son; I had been suffering badly with morning sickness and this day was the first I felt well enough to get dressed up and go out, so I definitely wanted to celebrate that moment!

I started with the Sweet Serenity 12×12 patterned paper from Daydream, then took two pages from the Happiness 6×8 paper pad, layering them to make a large paper block in the centre of the layout to base my elements on. I also added a couple of strips of Over the Rainbow 12×12 patterned paper from Daydream because I love me some woodgrain!

I layered up some pieces from the Happiness Little Things 12×12 patterned paper behind my photo instead of matting it, and I also took one of the frames from the Happiness die cut ephemera to make a place for my journaling.

To jazz up my background a little I added some pink texture paste through a chevron-pattern stencil either side of my central paper block, elongating it to a more horizontal format. I went ahead and added a few tiny hearts with the same paste too, I just love little details like this.

For my title I chose the ‘Thankful’ die cut title from Happiness and layered it over my central paper block, overlapping my photo slightly. I chose to make two large embellishment clusters on this layout – I could have done a third but I wanted to keep most of my embellishments within that central paper block. I used a combination of accessory stickers from Happiness and die cut ephemera from Daydream to create my pretty floral clusters. I love the bright pops of pink from Happiness paired with the soft pinks and yellows from Daydream!

I decide to go all out with my clusters and added some die cut ephemera hearts and sequins from Daydream, plus some tiny word phrases from the Happiness accessory stickers. To finish it all off I added a Daydream flair and two die cut butterflies, with some pearl drops as flight trails. I really love how soft and pretty this turned out with those bright pops of happy colour shining through. I also really love using that frame to give me lots of journaling space, definitely something I will be doing again in future!

I really hope you enjoyed joining me for this layout today. There is a process video on the Cocoa Vanilla Studio YouTube channel linked below if you would like to watch it come together. Happy scrapping!

Danni x

Find beauty in little moments | Daydream Layout | Anna Komenda

Anna Komenda 13/11/2020

Hello friends. It’s Anna Komenda here with another page created with amazing “Daydream” collection. I am still not ready to move to christmas projects, enjoying beautiful, fall color palette. I have bunch of new and shiny photos of my girls taken in the nearby forest and I picked one to scrapbook. They look so adorable together holding hands. This little moment made me melt in tenderness. It also made me think how important it is to cherish them and scrapbook even small things, not only those big ones.

Inspired by the forest, I reached for paper called “Over the rainbow”, with pretty wooden texture, and used is as a base of my page. Next step was to cut word “beauty” using my digital die cutting machine and “Sun shower” paper. I wanted letters to be bold and big. To spice things even more, I run each letter through floral embossing folder, giving them unique texture. I highlighted the “bumps” with golden ink.

You know I am a big fan of fussy cutting so I took paper called “Garden variety” and cut out most of the flower clusters from one sheet. I placed them around my letters to make everything more cute and feminine. The same thing happend with butterflies from paper called “All aflutter”.

After such a bold intro with the title I knew I needed to be more modest with the photo to make it stand against the big title. That’s why I didn’t add any paper layers under it. I only embellished it with the rainbow from ephemera pack and few flower leftovers.

Fabric heart and cute flair buttons are fantastic do add some finishing touch to the page. They also give this special texture. Brown, wooden paper makes everything pop from the background. I used gold, foam thickers to finish the title adding few words that all together sound: “Find beauty in little moments”. This is something I need to remember, especially recently. “Daydream” collection has so many faces and I have seen so many amazing projects made with it from my fellow DT girls. Each layout look so different. I just love that with one line you can scrapbook fall, cute baby photos, rain and puddles adventures and unicorns and rainbows. I still haven’t said the last word here too.

Thank you so much for stopping by and spreading your love in comments. See you in two weeks.

XO Anna

Tis The Season | Merry & Bright collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 09/11/2020

Hi friends!

Welcome back to the Cocoa Vanilla Studio blog! Today I am very excited to be sharing my first design team layout using the AMAZING new Merry & Bright collection! I have documented a fun Christmas photo of my 2 sons from last year. Oh my goodness, seriously this collection is stunning! It is the perfect Christmas collection without being too over the top. The colours and all the elements are so gorgeous!! Even if you are not a fan of Christmas, this collection can be used for any themed project!

I decided to make good use of the 6′ x 8′ paper stack and began backing a holly wreath cut file design from CUT to YOU with the pretty papers in the stack. I tried to have the green for the holly leaves and I added red for the berries. The other florals I added a mixed floral paper and a striped paper. I will admit this did take some time but I feel the end result is worth it. Once the cut file was all backed, I turned it over and added craft foam to the bottom of the cut file.

I chose the Happy Holidays paper as my background paper and adhered the cut file at the top and bottom of the page to create a wreath shape. I then trimmed down the Happy Holidays paper a little smaller and matted it onto the Oh Christmas Tree paper. I like how this brings out the green/teal in the leaves in the cut file. On the top large in the cut file, I added one of the super cute gold puffy stars. See image below.

I matted my photo using some more of the 6′ x 8′ papers and also layered a paper doily underneath. I adhered the photo and mats to the lower centre of the wreath. I then cut the Tis The Season words from the Season’s Greetings paper for my title and adhered it using craft foam to the bottom of the photo.

I added the green Merry Christmas die-cut under the title and one of the beautiful flair buttons to the left of my photo. I also stapled a banner die-cut to the top left of the photo and adhered a heart die cut to the right of the photo. I tucked in some leaf sprig die-cuts into the cut file to enhance the wreath design.

Lastly I stamped the date stamp just below the heart die-cut of when the photo was taken.

Are you getting the new Merry & Bright collection? If you are considering buying it, considerate no more and do it! You will not regret it!!

Thanks so much for stopping by today, I hope you enjoyed my layout and that you are inspired to create with Cocoa Vanilla goodies!

Happy creating!