I used the Storyteller collection to document this lovely photo of my dog Fiona waiting for her very best friend to arrive!
This month’s theme is “Tell a story”, and that was my focus on this page as I highlighted my cute little story by printing it on a Pocket Card and framing it with one of the frames included in the Storyteller Ephemera pack. Have you notice that it seems like Fiona is looking at the frame? That’s why I placed the journaling frame on the upper left side of the page.
I used my favourite paper of the collection “Brighter Days”, cut it into a big scalloped border and placed it on the right side of the page, adding a zig zag stitch in matching thread between each stripe.
I stamped the letters for my title with an alphabet stamp from my stash for the words “The Wait” and added the “Story” Chipboard sticker to complete my title.
Then, I embellished the page with beautiful floral die cuts and butterflies. I added two Wood Epoxy Buttons and a few Nuvo Drop dots as the finishing touch.
Here are more close-ups:
As you see, focussing on a story doesn’t necessarily have to occupy a lot of space on a layout. Presenting it as a focus point, or even like an embellishment, will guide the eye easily towards it and make it stand out beautifully!
I hope this was inspiring for you, thank you for passing by.
Hello my CVS family!
Lina, on the blog today sharing a layout I created using the latest collection, Storyteller. Can we just take a minute to appreciate the colour palette and versatility of this collection? Whether you’re documenting feminine or masculine photos, outdoor or indoor photos, this paper collection is perfect for any project!
Storyteller, is just full of opportunities to tell a story and I took full advantage of this. I began with the A5 Paper Stack cutting various strips of paper in varying lengths and widths. I arranged them on a white piece of cardstock and once I had them where I wanted them, I secured them down using glue. I decided to use a black and white photo so that it would not get lost in the sea of colour and patterns I was planning on using. I matted my photo with a simple navy blue patterned cardstock to ensure it stood out a bit.
For my title I knew with all certainty I wanted to use the Love this Story chipboard from the Chipboard Stickers. I popped it up with dimensional foam and nestled it next to my photo and began working from there. I really am fond of the height and dimension the foam gives. It just makes the title pop off the page.
Next, my favourite part… the embellishing. I used pieces from both the Die Cut Ephemera and the Floral Ephemera to add florals and add the “pretties”. I also used a few pieces from the Accessory Stickers to add some tabs and layering pieces to my photo. I used some gold thread, created a nest, and adhered a circle embellishment that reads “telling our story” on top.
To begin my “storytelling” I used the phrases from the Accessory Stickers to convey my message. I took inspiration from the phrases and typed out my journaling which is a piece written by Kierstin White that I just adore and feel to my core, printed it out on regular computer paper, cut it out and adhered it down.
Lastly, I rounded out my layout with a very good sprinkling of Puffy Stickers in a variety of colours. It just added the perfect final touch.
I hope you enjoyed my layout today as much as I loved creating it!
Enjoy your day!
Hello CVS fans, Kellie back here today with a layout for Throwback Thursday.
When I was thinking about which older collection I wanted to pull out I went with ‘Sunkissed’…..the bright colours in this collection really are my jam.
To start my page, I decided I wanted to create a sunburst design on the left side of my page. I chose the paper ‘Fun in the Sun’ from the collection and a paper called ‘Home Grown’ from the ‘These Days’ collection. I then hand stitched these down on my page to create more texture. I decided I didnt want to leave between the rays white so I used some distress oxides to colour my page.
To create the illusion of clouds I made a fake stencil with a piece of cardstock and again used distress oxides in pink and blues down the right side of my page.
I decided to use a cutfile for my title and instead of using it as a straight word as it was designed I decided to cut it up so I could curl it around my photo which I cut into a circle and backed using some of the papers from the A5 paper stack. Again I used the ‘Fun in the Sun’ paper to back the word ‘Sunshine’. To add more interest to it I used some of the floral ephemera and puffy stickers between the letters.
To embellish the right side of my page I made a large embellishment cluster with a bunch of elements from the ephemera pack and some of the puffy stickers….. puffy stickers always have my heart! I also added some of the word phrases from the Accessory Sticker Sheet to the bottom of my page to finish it off.
I love how bright and summery this page turned out….yellows, blues and pink… YUM!
Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have been inspired!
Hey y’all! Laura Alberts back again with a camping layout featuring the new Storyteller collection. This one is a horizontal design with three photos from an epic camping trip my husband and son took together. They hiked for 14 miles! That is definitely a story worth telling. For this layout, I primarily used the stunning Brighter Days patterned paper for this beautiful rainbow stripe in the background with navy paper from the A5 paper stack tucked behind it and layered around my center photo.
I created two clusters at the top and bottom of the largest photo. The top clusters are florals from the icon ephemera pack, with puffy stickers in the centers and fussy cut tiny florals added around the outside. I absolutely love the mix of floral types in this collection. With a variety of sizes and colors, this collection has such a beautiful mix of florals to choose from. I also added some outlining around my patterned papers to give the appearances of dimension, or shadows.
The lower two clusters are a mix of icon ephemera pieces and word phrases. Love the way these two clusters anchor the title on either side. I decided to keep the title very simple, using a foam word ‘Together’, and focus on the journaling instead. Using a T-square ruler, I drew several lines under my title and added in the important information I wanted to remember about my husband’s love for camping. This was such a fun way to document a memorable trip.
I hope this layout inspires you to add a bit of story telling to your layouts! To see how ‘Together’ was created, check out the process video below:
Hello lovely Cocoa Vanilla Studio fans! Danni here, back with another layout featuring the pretty Storyteller collection. On the blog this week the team are focusing on storytelling with our layouts. Today I am documenting what is a very important day of the year for many people, including myself – Mother’s Day.
I am not necessarily the most creative when it comes to storytelling; I am certainly not a prodigious journaller and I tend to go blank when it comes time to put pen to layout. To help overcome this I look for ways to add small areas of journalling in creative ways. This time I chose an envelope cutfile, knowing I would be able to tuck little pieces of my story inside them.
I went ahead and backed my cutfile using the A5 paper stack, alternating the busier patterns with the more solid ones to create variety. I made sure not to glue down the openings of the two envelopes I wanted to tuck things inside. To brighten up my white cardstock background, I took soft pink and yellow hybrid inks and added some subtle mixed media using the packaging technique.
Next, I chose the cut-apart sheets from the A5 paper stack and cut out a journalling spot and a couple of the adorable tags. I added some journalling to the journalling spot and tucked it into the middle envelope of the cutfile. I hole-punched the tags and added some coloured thread to them before popping them into the other open envelope.
To add more detail to the little envelopes, I used the chipboard stickers to add a heart envelope seal, then added some tiny word accessory stickers and a stamped date to another envelope to make it look as if it had been addressed. I also popped a puffy sticker heart inside the stamp – so sweet!
I added my photos above and below my cutfile to frame it nicely, then added my title using the foam title stickers to fill in the remaining large, awkward spaces. I embellished by adding some die cut ephemera florals, some more accessory stickers and lots of puffy stickers sprinkled around the layout.
Finally, I added another small journaling spot above one of the photos to finish. I am really happy with how I told my story with this layout. I hope you enjoyed joining me too. Happy scrapping!
Hello Friends. It’s Anna here with my newest page made with new “Storyteller” collection. I am sure you are all already familiar with this extraordinary line and many of you already got your own stash of it. It’s such a versatile collection, with beautiful color palette that will match any photo. In August we are all focusing on telling stories with our projects. I love making layouts but I usually hide my journaling on the back of the page. I am totally not happy with my hand writting so it’s the best solution for me. Today I am documenting the story of one of the toys my younger daughter got when she was just a baby. It was one of those bouncers with activity toys around the baby, all very colorful and making noises. It was a hit for us – I could take a quick shower knowing Maja will play with all the buttons and creatures. She loved bouncing up and down and she often fell asleep while playing there. She was hopping like crazy and my older daughter, who was five at the time, named this toy “hopek” from hopping (no English word not that correspond to that made up phrase). So the bouncer got it’s own unique name, that made us laugh every time we were using it. Gabrysia was famous for making up new words for many things.
I started my page with white cardstock. I knew I wanted to make something colorful as the bouncer was colorful as well. Plus I was scrapbooking cute baby photo and those scream for playful color combo! I took my inspiration from paper called “Brighter days” (You know I have a thing for rainbows). I used small heart dies and cut out set of four hearts from each color strip. My photo is almost A4 in size, so there was not much space left in the background to play with. I reached for long forgotten Gelatos and scribbles with them using colorful strips as a guide. I smeared them with my fingers a little bit. It created very playful designs, that looks like it was made by little child.
Next step was to glue down the photo with a little frame made with “Oh my heart” paper. I just wanted to make the picture pop from the white background. I reached for Flower Ephemera pack and picked flowers in corresponding to the strips colors placing them on the bottom edge of the photo. I also added my hearts using pieces of sticky foam to add a bit of dimension.
I also added some flowers on top of the photo making sort of a frame around the cute baby face. Bits and pieces from Ephemera pack landed on the photo as well. I used colorful banner, camera with flowers and a tab. Few chipboard butterflies enriched my composition around the flowers.
Last step was to add few puffy hearts (I just love those puffy stickers!) and three wooden epoxy buttons. I tend to hoard them as they are the cutest embellishment ever and I am always afraid I will run out of them.
I love how simple, playful and colorful this page turned out. It’s an essence of my scrappy style and it has rainbow! Rainbows always make me so happy. That is all for today. Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you feel inspired by my design.
Hi everyone, Its Melissa here and I’m back today to share a layout that I created with the beautiful Storyteller collection for our current Tell a Story theme! If you’ve followed my work for a while you’ll know that the story behind the photo is just as important to me as the photo! So for this layout I carefully selected a photo that had a big story I wanted to tell. The photo is of Ava at her first Pediatrician’s appointment when we first moved a year ago.
I had a lot to write for my journaling on this layout. So I went into my stash to find lined paper to ensure that I wrote straight! My background paper is Spring Fling and if you watch my video below you’ll see that this isn’t the paper I started with. I added white acrylic paint splatters to make it more painterly.
I added some distress oxide ink using the packaging technique to provide some distress and interest onto the lined paper. I love how it looks against the mixed media look of the blue background paper.
I backed my sweet photo of Ava with three papers from the A5 Paper Stack. I distressed all of the edges and went with an lining them up unevenly. I embellished with a cute banner from the Die Cut Ephemera, and I created my title with two of the Chipboard Stickers.
Other embellishments I used are Chipboard Stickers, Accessory Stickers and Wood Buttons. I added twine from my stash and machine stitching helped adhere the lined paper and added texture.
I adore the sweet camera ephemera pieces, and was thrilled to get on onto this layout.
Howdy friends! It’s Kylie back with you all again for a new month and a new project! My assignment for this week was to ‘tell a story’ within my project. As Scrapbookers, I think we always ‘tell’ or ‘preserve’ a story in the pages we create. But I wanted to share with you all a few extra tips of how to spell out a complete novel on your pages. For todays design I have used the sublime ‘Storyteller’ collection.
To really tell a story on a layout I believe you need more than one photo. A ‘series’ of photos will showcase an event or happy memory you wish to preserve. The first thing you will notice with my page is that I have used a true grid design for my layout. By doing so I was able to add 6 different photos from a fun day at the Strawberry Farm. Now I know it looks like I have a major in Geometry to get everything SO square and neat but the truth is I cheated! I have used a fabulous 16 square grid cut file designed by Gwen at Cut To You.
First I resized my cut file to around 9.5″ x 9.5″ and cut from white cardstock. This was sat aside whilst I prepared my background or ‘border’ pages. I cut a 10″ x 10″ piece of ‘SPRING FLING’ paper and adhered it centred over the ‘DITSY DAISY’ paper. I saved the inside squares from my cut file mat to use as templates for my photos and cardstock to fill each square. It was very simple, I held a template over cardstock and with my scissors I cut a square just slightly larger than the template. These were then added to my grid.
‘But how did you print your photos so small?’ I hear you ask?? I have two methods I use to do this. It can be done by resizing all of the images onto one page using my Silhouette software and then printing on an A4 sheet of photo paper. However for these photos I resized them on an **app called ‘Moldiv’ which then allows me to just print them out on my printer. (**I am in no way affiliated with Moldiv, this is just a recommendation.) Once they were printed I used the exact same method as I did with my cardstock to cut them out.
Another great way to tell a story is to write one! I have added some journal strips which I typed on sticker paper and cut out. They are never the same width and are often crooked but I always love that rustic appearance. It gives a fun sense of ”homemade”. With my photos and cardstock squares in place it was fun to start embellishing. I added a cute title with the ‘FOAM TITLE STICKERS’ and used quite a few of the CHIPBOARD STICKERS which added a nice dimension.
One of the many things I love about Cocoa Vanilla is the very generous FLORAL EPHEMERA packs. Florals are my jam and there are always oodles to play with. I layered several together and combined them with the WOODEN EPOXY FLAIRS also.
Thanks so much for stopping by the blog today. I hope you find my few tips useful with your own creating! Have fun!
It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am sharing another new scrapbook layout featuring the stunning Storyteller collection!
I have had this lovely photo of my parents printed for ages, I was finally able to document it using the Storyteller collection because look how the colours in the photo match perfectly with the colours in the collection?!
I chose the gorgeous woodgrain side of the Cross It Off paper as my main background paper, trimming this down and adhering it to a plain sheet of white cardstock. I decided to cut out a gorgeous book cut file from CUT to YOU from white cardstock using my Silhouette Cameo machine. I chose a variety of the papers from the A5 paper stack and backed them behind the cut file. Once the cut file was backed, I added some craft foam to the underneath and adhered it down on the woodgrain background paper. The reason I do this is so it creates dimension, shadows and texture. Once it was adhered to the background, I bent the edges of the ‘pages’ to make it look a little more realistic and to add even more dimension.
I adhered the photo to the right side of the cut file and tucked in one the pocket cards on the left side of the photo. Under the bottom left corner I took one of the accessory stickers and placed it down. Further left of the pocket card, I took one of the banner chipboard pieces and adhered this down. Around my photo I added a few different embellishments including at the bottom of the photo, I added the ‘Love This’ ephemera piece using craft foam and tucked the half circle Our Story ephemera piece below it. To the right of the photo I added one of the super cute wood epoxy buttons and a small heart die-cut between the photo and the pocket card. Above the photo and below the chipboard banner I added some phrase stickers from the accessory sticker sheet to help tell the story.
The title for my layout is ‘Our Story’ made up from the gorgeous black foam title stickers. I placed this at the bottom of the cut file and love how it looks there. I also placed the swirl and a heart from the same pack here too. As I had the black at the bottom of the page, I wanted to create a visual triangle and did this by adding 2 more hearts in 2 different places on my layout to draw your eye around the page. Creating a visual triangle is important when designing and for the finished result as it becomes pleasing to the viewer. With my layout all of the colour going on in it, the visual triangle with the solid black elements helps to break up some of the colour. Under the title, I took more of the phrase stickers from the accessory sticker sheet and placed them down.
At the top of the book cut file, I knew I wanted to tuck in quite a few of the stunning florals from the floral ephemera pack. I played around with a few of them for a little while until I as happy with how it looked, I bent the edges of the petals and leaves also. In either corner of the book cut file, I took 2 of the floral chipboard pieces and tucked these in how I liked them. After the florals were added to the top, I felt like the very bottom of the page was a little bare so I took the floral book chipboard and placed it in the centre at the bottom of the page. I love how that added a little something to the page. I also placed a phrase sticker from the accessory sticker sheet on top of it. Lastly I stapled the ‘Love This’ tab on the right of the cut file and stamped the date stamp below the title.
Thank you so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today! I hope you enjoyed seeing and reading about how I created my layout as much as I enjoyed creating it?!
Haven’t got yourself the beautiful new Storyteller collection yet? Make sure you keep an eye out in the Cocoa Vanilla online store for its arrival soon!
It’s Sophie on the blog today and I am happy to share a brand-new page created with the Storyteller collection.
I used two cut files for this layout. They are designed by Paige Evans.
I used a thick white cardstock for my background. I backed a few of the clouds with a blue patterned paper from the A5 Paper Stack. I added a little bit of white gesso on some areas to create a more faded and fluffier look.
I placed the clouds on the upper part of the page, mounted on foam adhesive.
I backed the little houses cut file with many different patterned papers, again from the A5 Paper Stack and added a few white scalloped borders created with a border punch.
I also created a shaker heart on the middle bigger house and used some coral sequins from my stash.
I used a colored photo of my daughter Sabrina watering the garden with the “help” of our two dogs…
My title comes from the Foam Title Stickers pack.
I wrote down my journaling on a fussy cut piece of patterned paper and embellished around the shaker heart, journaling and photo with bits and pieces from the Die Cut Ephemera pack. I scattered a few Puffy Sticker Hearts as the finishing touch.
Here are more close-ups:
I love to use cut files on my pages. Do you use them often?
Well, thank you for passing by, and I will see you again soon!
