floral ephemera

Together | Heart and Home | Mandy Melville

Hello everyone!

Mandy here with you today and I’m so excited to be sharing my first layout using the stunning new Heart and Home collection! I absolutely adore the soft muted colours and lovely ‘homely’ feel of this collection. For my first layout, I decided to document a recent photo of my hubby and kids taken on Fathers Day.

As this layout is focused on my hubby on Fathers Day, I decided to give it a bit more of a masculine feel by narrowing the colour palette down to the blues, greens and browns in the collection. I chose four of the patterned papers – Harvest, Golden Fields, Leaf Litter and Fall Beauty – and cut each into a large triangle before piecing them together to create my background. I matted my photo with the woodgrain patterned paper from the A5 Paper Stack and adhered it in the middle of the page using craft foam to help it ‘pop’ off the page.

To embellish the layout I created three floral clusters which create a visual triangle and help to draw the viewer’s eye to the photo. The first cluster underneath the photo includes some flowers and sprigs from the Floral Ephemera pack, as well as a label sticker that I added the date to, and a die cut phrase. I also fussy cut an acorn and leaf from the Leaf Litter paper to add to the cluster. Underneath the photo I added a sub-title using the sweet Mini Puffy Alpha Stickers.

Next I created a cluster to the left of the photo. Again I used Floral and Die Cut Ephemera, and the same colours that I used in the first cluster. To create some dimension in the cluster, I tucked some elements underneath the photo and adhered some overlapping the edge of the photo.

I created a third and final cluster at the top of the page using similar pieces that I’d used in the first two clusters. By repeating colours and elements throughout each of the embellishment clusters it helps to make the layout feel cohesive and balanced. I also finished off each cluster with a Puffy heart Sticker. Above the photo I added my title using one of the stunning words from the Gold Titles pack and underneath the title I added a final finishing touch with a tiny word sticker that says ‘family is everything’.

Thanks so much for joining me here on the blog today. I hope that you enjoyed taking a look at my layout featuring the beautiful new Heart and Home collection!

Mandy x

 

Love You | Happy Days collection | Mandy Melville

Hello everyone!

Mandy here today to share a new layout featuring the gorgeous Happy Days collection! This collection just makes me happy, with it’s bright colours and pretty florals I just can’t get enough of it! For the layout that I’m sharing today, I chose to document some photos of my hubby and I celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary this month.

I decided for this layout that I wanted to create a grid design so that I could easily incorporate four photos from the day onto the page. To make it a little more interesting I created a frame around the photos using a template that I traced around to create each piece. For my colour palette I chose to stick mainly to the magenta, pink and the dark blue, and so I used the blue Definitive paper and the magenta coloured Flutterby paper to create the frame. I filled the middle of the frame with the sweet pink Lush Blooms paper and added corners inside the frame using an aqua paper from the A5 Paper Stack. I adhered my photos in the middle of the frame using craft foam for added dimension.

To the right of the photos I created an embellishment cluster using a flower from the Floral Ephemera pack, another flower that I fussy cut out of the Lush Blooms paper, as well as a Die Cut flag banner. I chose embellishments that stayed within my chosen colour palette, and I adhered some overlapping the photos and tucked others underneath to create depth and interest within the cluster.

To balance out the cluster on the right, I created another cluster to the left of the photos. I again used Floral Ephemera as well as fussy cut elements to create the cluster. To finish the clusters off I added a Chipboard heart sticker to each.

Finally, I added some typed journaling above the photos and my title below. I used the beautiful Chipboard Titles and decided on the phrase ‘Love You’ as I thought that suited the photos and theme of the layout perfectly.

Thank you so much for joining me here on the blog today! I hope you found some inspiration!

Mandy x

Rainbow Run Mini Album | Happy Days collection | Guest Designer – Niki Rowland

Hey everyone! This is Niki (@nikiclairecreates) and I’m excited to be back with another project and process video Guest Designing for Cocoa Vanilla Studio! This time I have made a mini album. It is a box in the shape of a rainbow, with an arch shaped mini album inside!

To make the box, I started with the front and back covers. I hand drew a rainbow onto a piece of scrap cardstock and cut it out and then used this as a template. I traced around it onto lots of different papers from the A5 paper stack and cut them all out, then distressed the edges and layered them all together. I then mounted this onto a piece of white card and cut out leaving a white border. I added pink hand stitching around the edge using embroidery thread I did all this twice so I had identical rainbows, one for the front of the box and one for the back.

To make the clouds I did the same: hand-drew a cloud onto a piece of scrap cardstock and cut it out to use as a template. I drew around it onto that super-cute ditsy heart print which I cut out and mounted onto white card. I added pick stitching around all of the clouds, then added them to my rainbows.

To make the inside part of the box, I used yellow cardstock to make an insert. I make these really simple, just two pieces of cardstock cut and folded – you can see more details on the process video.

With the box assembled, I moved on to making the mini album itself. I again created a template from white cardstock for the pages and cut that out. I then used this as a template for all pages. I drew them onto more papers from the A5 Paper Stack and cut them out. I then stuck them all together, back to back, to make a super-easy album, which I secured around the outside with ribbon.

I embellished the front of the box with a Chipboard Title, a few pieces of Floral Ephemera, a fussy cut butterfly and some phrase stickers. I also added the title ‘Rainbow Run’ using those adorable Mini Puffy Alphabet Stickers, to one of the clouds.

To embellish the album itself, I wanted to include the wooden medal from the Rainbow Run (this mini album is all about a sponsored run I took part in) and the actual ribbons from the medals at the event. I managed to incorporate those onto the front page and the ribbons are what tie the album together I think it’s really great to include momentums like that within albums if possible and these were perfect!

The album itself is quite interactive – I have 40 photos to include, so it had to be! Some pages have photos that flip up or flip out, there is a ball-chain containing 11 photos, there is also a pocket page. On one of the pages, I made a shaker pocket: I cut a piece of acetate to the same size as the page, pierced holes all the way around the edge and chain stitched with the same pink thread used for the album covers, trapping the sequins inside. I love how this looks! 

I used more papers from the A5 paper stack throughout the album to decorate the pages and mount my photos. I’ve also used lots of Floral Ephemera,  Phrase Stickers and several of the puffy heart stitchers throughout the album. I also used some of the other Chipboard Titles to make feature pages.

I absolutely love how this turned out, it is just adorable and so pretty to look at and I had the perfect photos for a rainbow album! I really hope you have enjoyed it too.  I have made a process video of this mini album, which includes a flip through too, you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/jvOZK-Qy43o .  Thank you so much Cocoa Vanilla Studio for having me as a Guest Designer, I have loved it!

Happy scrapping

Niki

@nikiclairecreates

My Sunshine | Happy Days collection | Guest Designer – Niki Rowland

Hello again everyone! This is Niki (@nikiclairecreates) and I’m so excited to be back sharing my third layout as a Guest Designer today using Happy Days!

For this layout I wanted to feature the Specialty paper which consists of beautiful foiled gold frames on white card. Inside all the frames are also gold foiled icons – all TOTALLY perfect for fussy cutting! I cut out a few of the frames and cut the middles out too. I then added two of the tiny journaling cards from the A5 Paper Stack inside the frames. They were the perfect size. They needed mounting onto a piece of scrap card first so that the frame had something to stick to (as they were exactly perfect for the apertures). I raised he frames on foam pads. The two cards I chose were the two rainbow ones – these look gorgeous inside the gold foiled frames.

I chose to use the yellow check side of the Feel Good paper for my background. I trimmed this down a bit, distressed the edges and added it to a sheet of white card. I then arranged my frames and my photo onto the yellow background.

I embellished the frames with Floral Ephemera and with the gold foiled icons fussy cut from within the frames – these are amazing as extra embellishments! I added some other little bits of Die Cut Ephemera to my clusters and added some small Puffy Heart Stickers too.

I added a title using ‘my sunshine’ from the Chipboard Title Stickers – I love this font! And the white letters stood out beautifully against my yellow background.

I finished off by handwriting my journaling and splattering my embellishment clusters with white paint!  Here is the link to the process video I made for this layout: https://youtu.be/sb-V5KniUa8

I hope you have enjoyed seeing this layout, I loved making it!

Happy scrapping

Niki xx

@nikiclairecreates 

Fantastic | Happy Days collection | Niki Rowland

Hi everyone! This is Niki (@nikiclairecreates) and I’m delighted to be back Guest Designing with my second layout and process video using Happy Days. I am obsessed with those gorgeous words on the Definitive paper and have spent some time fussy cutting a lot of them out.  I wanted to make a feature out of them on this layout.

I chose the purple side of Flutterby paper as my background, which I paired with the pink strawberry side of Lush Blooms paper. I trimmed these both down and distressed the edges, then stuck them together offset slightly. I then positioned these onto a sheet of white card.

I mounted my photo onto a darker patterned paper and added that to my layout together with a gold fussy cut frame from the Specialty Foiled paper. I then arranged all the fussy cut words around the photo, cascading down from top to bottom. I raised them all on foam pads to give them some dimension.

I then added some of the Floral Ephemera to the bottom corner of my photo, and another cluster in the top right corner. I chose mostly pinks and purple flowers but also added a few yellow ones. Purple and yellow are opposite each other on the colour wheel, so are therefore ‘contrasting colours’.  Contrasting colours work best when there is a lot of one colour with a small amount of the contrasting colours and this is exactly what I did with the yellow – just a couple of small pops of it in amongst all the beautiful purple.

I added another tiny cluster in the bottom right corner of the layout using some of the Die Cut Ephemera. I added some butterflies and handwrote my journaling under all the words. I also embellished the words with lots of Puffy Heart Stickers.

I finished off with a few splatters of white paint over the top of the embellishment clusters! I absolutely love how this turned out, I adore purple as a colour so love how this looks as a background!  Here is the link to my process video for this layout if you would like to watch along: https://youtu.be/2ygAZcQKt0c 

Thanks so much for joining me today and happy scrapping!

Niki xx

@nikiclairecreates

Days Spent with You | Happy Days collection | Mandy Melville

Hello everyone!

Mandy here today to share a new layout showcasing the fabulous new Happy Days collection. This week our design team are sharing projects that feature the Puffy Alpha Stickers. My favourite way to use these sweet little alphas is to combine them with a larger alpha to create a longer title. This is exactly what I did on this page that documents a selfie of my hubby and I.

I started this layout off by trimming down a sheet of white cardstock and matting it on the gorgeous magenta Flutterby paper. I added a doodled border around the white cardstock to add some further definition and interest. Next I cut two triangles, one larger than the other, out of the beautiful yellow Feel Good paper, and adhered these on each side of the page. I matted my photo with a paper from the A5 Paper Stack and adhered that over the larger triangle on the left hand side of the page.

I love all of the different colour combinations that can be used from this one collection, and for this layout I decided to focus on the teal, magenta and yellow. I chose flowers in these three colours from the Floral Ephemera pack to create my floral clusters. To create interest and dimension I love to layer some flowers under the photo and others on top. I added one cluster to the top right hand corner of the photo, and another to the bottom left.

I created a third cluster in the bottom right hand corner of the page, over lapping the smaller yellow triangle. Again I created dimension within the cluster by adhering some elements with foam tape.

As I said, I love to combine the Mini Puffy Alpha Stickers with words from the Chipboard Titles. By using the mini puffy alphas, it enables me to create a longer title that also doubles as my journalling. These sweet little alphas are so fun and colourful and add so much interest to the page!

I finished the layout off with some cute banners in the top right hand corner of the page, a couple of little phrase stickers from the Accessory Sticker Sheet, and of course a sprinkling of hearts from the Die Cut Ephemera and the Puffy Sticker Pack.

I hope that you enjoyed taking a look at my layout and seeing how I used the Mini Puffy Alpha Stickers on my page. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Mandy x

Smile, Crazy, Funny | Happy Days collection | Guest designer – Niki Rowland

Hi everyone,

We are thrilled to be able to welcome a special guest designer today – the very talented Niki Rowland! Niki will be joining us with some projects featuring our ‘Happy Days’ collection and we know you are going to LOVE them!

 

 

I’m Niki, I live in the UK with my creatively challenged husband and my three children. I’m a pretty paper addict who makes the occasional cupcake and likes coffee and shortbread biscuits. I love turning bright colours and floral ephemera, into scrapbook layouts, with a few mini albums along the way too. I currently create for Simple Stories, and GoGo Getaway which is my own scrapbooking retreat business. That keeps me pretty busy but because I wouldn’t want to get bored, I also am a governor at my children’s school and somehow, I also ended up leading the PTA as well…so now I can add ‘fundraising’ to my list of skills too!  Creating feeds my soul and I try to do something creative every day. I hope you enjoy my creations x  

Hi everyone! This is Niki Rowland (@nikiclairecreates) and I’m delighted to be guest designing for Cocoa Vanilla Studio today!

I will be sharing four projects during June and July, and today I have my first layout and process video to share with you, using the Happy Days collection. I cannot tell you how much I love this collection, it is so bright, happy and fun! I absolutely fell in love with the colourful stripes on the Sunshine Lollipops paper and decided to focus on that for this layout.

I decided to cut the stripes into their colour groups and make rosettes in a variety of colours. I really enjoy making rosettes and love how they look and really went for it on this layout! I cut out two wide pieces (four stripes wide), several smaller stripes (two stripes wide) and one teeny stripe (one stripe wide). I scored them every quarter-inch and concertina folded them. To make the rosettes themselves I glue the two ends together to make a cylinder, then press the cylinders down in the middle and glue a punched paper circle on top to hold them in place. I did this for all the smaller rosettes, but for the two wide ones the strips needed to be longer to make full circles, so instead I just made semi-circles. These were perfect for the edges of my layout!

I then arranged the rosettes across a white cardstock background, but felt they needed something more, so I added some ink in coordinating colours under each rosette. I also added splatters in the same colours. This creates a ‘glow’ behind each rosette and make them pop off the page even more! I then glued the rosettes in place onto the background, using hot glue.

I cut out the subjects of my photos and added them to each of the large rosettes. I also fussy cut several words from the Definitive paper and added these to all the smaller rosettes – I love these words so much, the font is awesome and the words are perfect for my photos!

I then added Floral Ephemera colour-on-colour, tucked in around the photos and rosettes. I raised some on foam pads for added dimension. I also added a few bits from the Die Cut Ephemera pack including two very cute pinwheels, several hearts and a couple of phrase banners.

I handwrote my journaling in black ink and underlined it to make it stand out more. I loved the look of the black against the colourful rosettes so decided to add splatters of black paint…a bit of a risky move but I LOVE how it turned out! I finished off by adding a few of the mini heart Puffy Stickers in the coordinating coloured areas.

Thank you SO much for joining me today, I really hope that you have enjoyed reading about my layout. I have also created a process video so that you can watch it all come together, it can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/ooh3f_t6Mo4.

Once again thank you so much for joining me, and thank you so much to Cocoa Vanilla Studio for inviting me to guest design!

Happy scrapping and see you again soon

Niki xx

@nikiclairecreates  

Happy Days | Happy Days collection | Mandy Melville

Hello everyone!

Mandy here today to share a new layout using the beautiful new Happy Days collection! I absolutely love all of the gorgeous bright colours in this collection and for this layout I wanted to create a fun and happy layout featuring all of the colours! What better paper to use for this than the Rainbow Bright paper! I knew that this would be perfect for documenting a photo of my youngest daughter with her besties on her 5th birthday.

The Rainbow Bright paper made such a gorgeous background for this photo and really brought the layout to life! Once I had decided on this paper, I then matted my photo with one of the papers from the A5 Paper Stack. I adhered it to the page using craft foam in order to give it some nice dimension and to help it stand out against all of the bright colours in the background.

   For my embellishing I decided to keep it mostly tone-on-tone. So on the pink section of the rainbow I added pink embellishments, on the yellow I added yellow embellishments, and so on. I started with a fun little cluster on the bottom right hand corner of the photo. As this was on the blue and purple section, those were the colours that I chose for this cluster. I included some florals from the Floral Ephemera pack, as well as some that I fussy cut out of the Lush Blooms paper. I also added a couple of Die Cuts to the cluster.

Moving over to the left hand side of photo, I added another embellishment cluster using similar items that I used in the first. I tucked some of the flowers under the edge of the photo and some on top to give the cluster some dimension. How gorgeous are the Puffy Hearts?! I couldn’t resist adding one to each of my floral clusters!

I added a third cluster above the photo, creating a visual triangle to draw the viewer’s eye around the page. To keep the clusters looking balanced I again included similar items to the first two. You can also see that I fussy cut a few butterflies out of the Flutterby paper and I scattered these around the page, again keeping them tone-on-tone.

For my title I decided on using the ‘Happy Days’ words from the Die Cut Ephemera pack. I positioned the words so that they curved around the arc of the rainbow. It was the perfect title for this happy photo!

I finished the page off with some typed journalling strips and a few little hearts from the Chipboard Titles pack.

Thanks so much for joining me here on the blog today! I hope that you’re able to create some bright and fun layouts with this collection too!

Mandy x

So Awesome | Happy Days collection | Sue Plumb

Hi everyone, it’s Sue Plumb here and I am SO excited to be sharing my first design team project using the brand new ‘Happy Days’ collection. I am sure by now you have seen the collection in full (either here on the blog or in person), so I know you will agree with me when I say how gorgeous it is! All those bright, vibrant colours really do make me happy.

For my first layout I decided to document some recent happy photos I took – my daughter on her 15th birthday. She was ecstatic to receive her first pair of “Docs” (Dr Marten boots) as a gift – definitely a happy day for her.

I chose to start with the yellow plaid pattern on the B side of the “Feel Good” paper, which is the cut apart sheet for this collection. I didn’t really want to sacrifice the cut apart first up, but I could not resist that gorgeous happy yellow for my background. To add a little extra colour I added some teal acrylic paint using 2″ wide brush and the dry brush technique. Initially I had planned for the brush strokes to be horizontal on the page, but after spinning the page, I decided I like them better vertical.

Next, I started building my paper layers. I matted each of my three photos using the sweet strawberry print on the B side of the “Lush Blooms” paper. I also used an extra piece of this paper to place horizontally across the page as an anchor point for my photos. I tore along one edge to add a textural element. I topped the strawberry paper with a thin stripe of plum purple, which was cut from the top edge of the striped pattern on the “Sunshine Lollipops” paper. I then added some frayed gauze and an aqua paper doily before adding my photos on top.

Now it was time to start embellishing my page. I couldn’t resist reaching for the gorgeous florals from the collection; so I used a mix of flowers fussy cut from the “Lush Blooms” paper and pieces from the Floral Ephemera pack. The first cluster I created was around the top left corner of my photos. I also used a small banner piece from the Die Cut Ephemera pack across the top edge of my photo.

The second cluster I created was below the centre photo and here I used a larger fussy cut floral piece with foam tape behind it to add a little height. (I had already planned at this point that my title was going to go alongside it, even though I hadn’t added it yet.) With two clusters in place, it was time to add my third cluster to balance my page.

The position of the last floral cluster was alongside the photos on the right edge. The positioning of this final cluster completed my visual triangle around the focal point of my page. Again, I used some foam tape to create dimension.

With all the flowers in place, I then set about adding some text to the page. I chose the die cut hello flag from the ephemera pack to place along the bottom edge of my main photo. This formed the first part of my subtitle, which was Hello 1st Docs, with the letters for the second part coming from the Mini Puffy Alphabet Stickers pack. The main part of my title, So Awesome, was using words from the Chipboard Titles pack.

At this point it was simply a matter of a few finishing touches. I created a small cluster along the bottom edge of the page using a scrap of paper, a flower, a phrase stickers from the Accessory Sticker sheet and a sweet little heart shaped Puffy Sticker. I added a couple of extra phrase stickers and heart puffy stickers to the page as well. I also added a die cut butterfly (I am sure you already know how much I love them) and the final finishing touch was one of the gorgeous Puffy Hearts stuck directly onto my centre photo. Oh, and a little black ink splatter.

And that was it!! I hope you love my layout and it inspires you to get creative too. Even if you don’t have the ‘Happy Days’ collection yet, grab out some other Cocoa Vanilla goodies and get busy! ‘Happy Days’ is already shipping to retailers so keep an eye out at your favourite store.

Until next time, happy scrapping!

So Happy | Happy Days collection | Mandy Melville

Hello everyone!

I’m so thrilled to be sharing my first layout featuring the brand new Happy Days collection! As always, Zoe has knocked it out of the park with this collection! It’s bright and fun and it’s perfect for scrapping all of your happy snaps! The hardest part for me was deciding which photos I should scrap first with these beautiful products! I ended up deciding to document the first time that my eldest daughter rode her bike with no training wheels.

I couldn’t resist using all of the gorgeous patterned papers in the collection and decided to trim the papers into one inch strips and arrange them along the top and bottom of the page. I love the way this adds lots of beautiful pattern and colour to the page and draws the viewer’s eye in towards the photos. I also added the rainbow border from the Feel Good paper along the edge of the strips. For my background I chose to use the Rainbow Bright paper with the tiny hearts on it as this provided a nice neutral contrast to all of the patterned paper strips. I matted my photos with the magenta Flutterby paper and adhered them to towards the left hand side of the page, using craft foam for added dimension.

Tucked under the top edge of the photo on the left, I added a die cut pinwheel and a flag banner. These add a fun element to the page, complementing the theme of the photos. I adhered the pinwheel with foam tape and added a chipboard star to the middle of it for some extra interest.

Of course I had to use that sweet bicycle die cut on this page! I also added the ‘Love that smile’ die cut and one of the super gorgeous Puffy Hearts to finish off this little cluster of embellishments. The puffy hearts are soft and pretty!

For my title I used the words ‘So Happy’ from Chipboard Titles pack. I love the fun and playful font that’s been used for these titles! To finish off the layout I added some typed journaling, and I couldn’t resist adding a few blooms from the Floral Ephemera pack.

Thanks so much for stopping by the blog today and taking a look at my layout! I hope that you’re as excited for this new collection as I am! I can’t wait to share more projects using Happy Days!

Mandy x

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