Tarrah McLean

Choose Happy | Happiness collection | Tarrah McLean

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you today to share a new scrapbook layout featuring the gorgeous Happiness collection! I was given the Throwback Thursday theme for this week so I decided to revisit the gorgeous Happiness collection and got creating! I don’t know about you but the Happiness collection would have to be one of my all-time favourite collections by Cocoa Vanilla, I am in love with it!

I chose to document a photo of my honey and I on a date a couple of months ago, opting to print the photo in black and white so that it would stand out amongst all the colour in the Happiness collection. I began by choosing a title cut file from CUT to YOU, cutting it out on white cardstock, I then took one of the papers from the A5 paper stack and backed the open letters in the cut file. I added craft foam to the underside of the larger letters and adhered it down in the centre of another sheet of plain white cardstock. I did leave adhesive off the top part of the cut file so that I could tuck in my photo and some embellishments and the cut file would be able to overlap these. I trimmed this white cardstock down to measure roughly 11′ x 11′ and adhered it to the ‘B’ side of the Botanical Bliss paper, I machine-stitched a border around the outside to add some texture and some interest.

I layered another of the papers from the A5 paper stack underneath the photo and also one of the frames from the ephemera pack. I also tucked one of the journal spots from the Accessory sticker sheet into the top of the frame and photo. Next, I cut out the ‘You Are My Happy’ from the A5 paper pad and adhered it to the right-hand side of the photo. I also tucked in the tag from the Accessory sticker sheet into the top of the You Are My Happy piece. I took some more ephemera pieces like the florals and butterflies and layered them around the cut file, I also layered the phrase banner die-cuts on top of the cut file.

The clear stickers in this collection are gorgeous so I added them around my page and also some of the phrase stickers from the Accessory sticker sheet as well. As I don’t journal on my pages all that much, I love how these phrase stickers help to tell the story behind my photo.

I cut a strip of the ‘B’ side of the ‘Frame of Mind’ paper and punched out a scalloped border using my border punch. I then adhered this piece below the cut file and machine-stitched through the centre to add some extra texture. Lastly I stamped the date stamp to finish my layout. A love how it turned out and hope you are inspired to get creative!

Thanks so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Road Trip | Great Escape collection | Tarrah McLean

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am sharing a new layout created using the awesome Great Escape collection! I can not get enough of this collection! I think this is my 6th layout using this awesome collection and I still have heaps of ideas flowing! Talk about value for money!  I pulled out a super cute photo of my youngest son from when he was about 3 going for a ride in the car, I just love the thumbs up gesture- so cute!

I chose to work with a darker background paper choosing the ‘Journey’ patterned paper for this layout. I knew I was going to be adding the white cut file title and I really wanted that to pop off the page. The cut file I chose is from CUT to YOU, I cut out the title in white and cut out the road in black and backed it with some white cardstock to make it resemble a road as close as possible! For the large open letters in the cut file I took the A5 paper stack and choose various papers to add in the open holes. Once the cut file was all backed, I adhered the road down first using regular adhesive and then for the title, I added craft foam and then adhered it down in the centre of the page, I love adding craft foam so that it creates some dimension on my layout, this also allows me to tuck in bits and pieces where I want to if I feel some places need extra detail.

I added my photo on the right side, tucking it in behind the ‘D’ in Road I would normally layer a paper or a die-cut underneath my photo but this time I left it free of these. Once I was happy with the photo placement and the title it was time for my favourite part and that is embellishing! Below the photo I added a chipboard piece and I also added the flag chipboard piece overlapping the road and coming out of the ‘A’ in Road. The So Much Fun chipboard piece I added on top of the cut file and also added some of the phrase stickers from the Accessory sticker sheet to help tell my story.

I took a few die-cuts from the ephemera pack and also added these around my page too, I love finding the perfect piece that is the perfect shape or perfect colour to fit in spots! One of the many things I love to do when I create! I like to balance my pages and describe my style is very clean but colourful too!

Some of the smaller embellishments like the puffy shapes were some of the last things I added to my page, along with stamping the date stamp which is one of my go to things on every page! Do you have something you like to include on every project? Kind of like a signature? Lastly I trimmed down the ‘Journey’ patterned paper to roughly 11′ x 11′ and matted the entire layout on white cardstock. I then machine-stitched a border using black thread around the entire edge of the layout.

Thanks so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today! I hope you are inspired to use your Great Escape collection and create some adventure layouts!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Explore | Great Escape collection | Tarrah McLean

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am sharing a new layout featuring the awesome Great Escape collection.

Last year I was lucky enough to go to Ayers Rock for work, this collection is absolutely perfect for my photo, the colours match so well!

Lately I have been creating layouts that mainly just use embellishments, with very little patterned paper added to my layout, this layout is one of these where I chose just 3 different papers however 2 of them were just small strips, 1 strip from the Adventurer paper and 1 from the Wild Life paper. My background paper is the Happy Camper paper. I created my layout on plain white cardstock and trimmed the plain cardstock down to measure 11′ x 11′, once trimmed, I adhered it to the Happy Camper paper. Next, I machine-stitched a border around the outside.

Next, I added my photo with a frame die-cut layered underneath, adhering it with some craft foam to add some dimension. On the left-hand side of the photo, I tucked in the tag from the Accessory sticker sheet and also another piece of paper from the Wild Life paper. I then added both of the strips of patterned papers to the bottom, placing them horizontally. At the top, I added some chipboard and another die-cut. I layered the banner sticker in the top right-hand corner of the photo too. On the right of the photo, I placed another of the stickers from the Accessory sticker sheet.

My title is one of the puffy title stickers, I placed this at the bottom of my photo. I placed some more chipboard pieces including the arrow on the left hand side and the road sign on the bottom left corner of the photo and the Let’s Go banner also from the chipboard pack. I also placed some of the puffy stars from the title pack around the layout. Lastly I added some of the phrase stickers from the Accessory sticker sheet to help tell the story, stamped the date stamp and sprinkled some black mist.

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

Happy creating,

Tarrah x

You Are Awesome | Boys Rule collection | Tarrah McLean

Hi creative friends!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Our Best Adventure Yet | Great Escape collection | Tarrah McLean

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am here to share a new scrapbook layout featuring the awesome Great Escape collection! I don’t know about you but I love travelling and I love documenting those travels too! Recently my partner and I took a trip to gorgeous Tasmania, it was wonderful, these photos are from beautiful Cradle Mountain and this collection has been perfect to document our travels.

I started by cutting out a cut file from CUT to YOU from white cardstock and then backed the different words and frames with papers from the Great Escape A5 paper stack.

I added 2 photos in the frames of the cut file as well and I had to be strategic with what photo I added in the top frame due to the frame below covering up part of the photo. I chose the ‘Direction’ patterned paper as my background, I then cut the navy blue strip from the ‘Wild Life’ patterned paper and adhered it to the left hand side of the paper. Once the cut file was all backed, I adhered it to the same background paper. Usually I adhere my cut files using craft foam to pop them up, however for this layout I knew I wanted to pop up the mountains and other die-cut embellishments in the middle. I added the mountains, the Fun Times sign, the wood piece and the Adventure word all from the ephemera pack.

I also placed the compass die-cut to the middle of the ‘O’ of the word ‘Our’ in the cut file, I used craft foam for this piece also to pop it up off the page. Down next to the ‘Yet’ word, I placed the super cute camper die-cut and layered some phrase stickers from the Accessory Sticker sheet on top from the ephemera pack. Once the larger elements were added to my page, I then added a few smaller embellishments including puffy enamel shapes and some more stickers from the Accessory sticker sheet, including the arrow sticker and the journal spot above the word ‘Our’. I love how the puffy enamel shapes add a touch of colour and dimension and I love how the phrase stickers help to tell the story if you don’t feel like journaling!

Lastly I stamped the date stamp and journaled where the photos were taken. I love how this cut file helped to make the design and placement decisions on my layout and the Great Escape collection really does make it so easy to create great memories!

 

Thanks so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today! I hope you enjoyed reading about how I created my layout as much as I enjoyed creating it! Make sure you get your hands on the awesome Great Escape collection!

Happy crafting!

Tarrah x

Adventure Awaits | Great Escape collection | Tarrah McLean

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you today to share another scrapbook layout featuring the gorgeous new Great Escape collection! I have documented another photo from my recent trip to Tasmania, this time a photo taken at pretty Horseshoe Falls. The Great Escape collection is absolutely perfect for outdoor adventures, nature photos and road trips!

I decided to start with a cut file found on the internet and cut this from white cardstock. I then took the A5 paper stack and backed the spaces in the cut file with a variety of different papers. Once the cut file was backed, I adhered it using craft foam to the Horizon 12′ x 12′ patterned paper. I cut a small strip of the ‘B’ side of the Wild Life patterned paper and tucked it in under the cut file t the bottom.

I placed my photo on the right-hand side of the page overlapping the cut file and allowing one of the clouds in the cut file to overhang onto the photo. I used craft foam to adhere the photo too. Above the photo, I placed a banner sticker, and on the left of the photo I placed a tab sticker all from the Accessory Sticker sheet. Below the photo, I placed the die-cut title ‘Explore’ from the ephemera pack and also added a puffy shape.

Also from the Wild Life patterned paper, I cut out the 3′ x 4′ card that says ‘Adventure Awaits’ and placed this right under the stars on the cut file again using craft foam to adhere it. I added another tab sticker to the left of the photo and also added the round sticker at the top of the mountain peak, both from the Accessory sticker sheet. I absolutely LOVE the chipboard elements in this collection! I added 2 of the stars, the flag popping out of the clouds, the log piece between the mountains and also the hexagon shape overlapping the mountains at the bottom.

Once the larger elements were placed and I was happy with them, I went ahead and placed some smaller finishing touches like some more puffy shapes and some extra die-cuts from the ephemera pack, I also stamped the date of when my photo was taken.

Thanks so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla Studio blog today! I hope you have purchased the Great Escape collection or have plans to purchase it really soon so you can get busy creating with it!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Tasmania | Great Escape collection | Tarrah McLean

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am sharing a new travel layout featuring the new Great Escape collection. I decided to document our recent trip to Tasmania, printing a total of 6 favourite photos all in a small format to create a vertical filmstrip look.

 

I chose 3 patterned papers to use for the background of my layout. I turned the Direction patterned paper over to show the green side, the Happy Camper patterned paper was left with the flags showing and I also turned the Horizon patterned paper to reveal the yellow suns. Once the papers were arranged and adhered, I placed the photo strip over to the right side of the layout.

For my title, I decided to spell the word Tasmania using the ‘Fun Times Ahead’ chipboard title. As I was spelling the word Tasmania in my head, I thought all of the letters were there in the 1 packet of chipboard except Tasmania has 3 A’s so I did have to open a new packet of the chipboard elements and steal one of the A’s from that pack! I placed the title along the top line of the Horizons paper and I also added one of the puffy titles under the chipboard title too.

Just above the Tasmania title, I placed one of the round die-cuts and also placed one of the banner stickers from the Accessory stickers through the centre of the photo strip. On the right of the photos at the top, I added the Let’s Go flag die-cut and bent up the edges slightly to add some texture. To the direct right of the photos at the bottom, I added the tree chipboard and layered one of the phrase stickers from the Accessory sticker sheet over the top. I also added more of the phrase stickers above the Tasmania title.

Once the larger elements were added to my page, I added some of the smaller elements including one of the banner chipboard pieces below the Let’s Go title and I created a cluster of embellishments at the very top of the page using stickers from the Accessory sticker sheet and a puffy sticker too. I added a couple more puffy stickers and finished by freehand drawing a border around the outside using my journal pen, stamping the date stamp and sprinkling some black mist to finish.

Thank you so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today! I hope you are inspired by my layout and got some ideas for your next project!

Make sure to keep checking back here on the blog for all the other gorgeous creative projects from our design team!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Adventure | Great Escape collection | Tarrah McLean

Hi creative friends,

It’s Tarrah here with you today to share my first layout using the awesome Great Escape collection!

I decided to create a layout featuring a large A4 photo taken from the bridge over the amazing Cataract Gorge in Tasmania from our recent trip visiting Tassie. The Great Escape collection was the perfect collection to focus mainly on the photo for this layout and layering lots of the elements straight on top of my photo.

I started out with a plain sheet of white cardstock and placed my large photo in the very centre of the cardstock. I left the edges free of adhesive so that I could place the papers down the sides. I then cut some paper strips from the ‘B’ side of the ‘Happy Camper’ patterned paper and the ‘B’ side of the ‘Direction’ patterned paper, placing these vertically, the ‘Direction’ paper was placed at the outer edge and the ‘Happy Camper’ paper closer to the photo. I then fussy cut the scallops from the ‘Wild Life’ patterned paper and tucked this piece in on the left-hand side and bent the edges up to add some dimension.

My title is the ‘Adventure’ title from the chipboard pack, I placed it down the bottom of the page, in the centre of photo and also placed one of the circle die-cuts from the ephemera pack just above the chipboard title. I took 2 of the stickers from the Accessory Sticker sheet and placed these below the chipboard title. I journaled the location and the date on the smaller sticker.

On the right-hand side I placed 2 more of the chipboard pieces to help balance the scallops from the left-hand hand side. I placed one of the phrase stickers from the Accessory Sticker sheet layered over the top of these pieces. I also placed one of the enamel dots from the enamel shapes pack here.

At the top of the photo, I placed the ‘Wild by Nature’ die-cut using foam tape to add dimension to the page. I also placed another of the enamel dots over the top of the arrows on this die-cut.  This collection is perfect for your travel and outdoor adventures such as camping, road trips, hiking, fishing, walking, running or even documenting the boys in your life! I hope you get a chance to purchase this awesome collection to create some projects of your own!

Thanks so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today! I hope you are inspired by my layout and enjoyed reading about how I created it. Make sure you visit the blog to see all the other gorgeous inspiration from the Cocoa Vanilla design team!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

The Best | No Limits collection | Tarrah McLean

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am sharing one of my favourite to create – a boy layout! Because I have 2 sons, there is never a shortage of boy photos around here! I decided to pull out the awesome and very cool No Limits collection, one of my favourite boy lines by Cocoa Vanilla Studio! This photo is an older one of my youngest son who is now 13 – he is about 5 or 6 in this photo! I loved the way the shirt he is wearing matched some of the colours from the No Limits collection – that is where I got the inspiration from for my layout today.

I started off with a plain sheet of white cardstock – as I mostly do- then trimmed it down to measure approximately 11′ x 11′, backing this onto the ‘B’ side of the Big Bang patterned paper (the woodgrain side). I then pulled out a few of the various papers from the A5 paper stack and sorted through them to find some that co-ordinated with my son’s shirt. I decided to cut some into triangle shapes and then layered them top and bottom of the page. For some extra texture, I bent the edges of these papers and also applied a little mixed media to create a sort of shadow effect.

I placed craft foam underneath my photo and placed it in the centre of my layout, adding some layers underneath like a pocket card, a die-cut frame and a sticker and tag both from the Accessory sticker sheet. I love to layer embellishments on top of my photos and under my photos too, how about you? In the top right corner, I stapled a banner sticker here and tied a bow through the tag using some white wax cotton. In the bottom right corner, I placed the large star die-cut and added some chipboard ones on top.

In the bottom cluster of papers, I added another chipboard piece and also one of the super cute wooden epoxy buttons all from the No Limits collection. I love how these small details add some interest to an area to help draw your eye in. My title is ‘The Best’ letters from the chipboard sheet, I also added a phrase under the title, cut from the ‘Universal’ patterned paper. Another of the wooden epoxy buttons was also placed here and I love the teal/aqua coloured chipboard arrow pointing to the photo too.

Once I had most of the design in place and the larger elements on the page, I started to add smaller details for the finishing touches. I added some phrase stickers around the page and stamped the date stamp and added some sprinkles of mist in various colours also. Lastly I machine stitched a border around the entire edge using white thread.

Thank you so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla Studio blog today! I hope you have been inspired by my layout in some way! Make sure you share your creations with us if you get some time to pull out your Cocoa Vanilla collections and create some cool projects!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

2023 Favourite layout | Tarrah McLean

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you for the last time this year sharing my favourite layout created in 2023!

Like some of the other design team members, my favourite layout of this year was created using the gorgeous Happy Days collection! Don’t you think there is something about the rainbow colours in the Happy Days collection that really catches the eye!? I sure do!

So besides the gorgeous colours in the Happy Days collection and placing vertical strips in rainbow order, I wanted to make the strips a little different so I decided to score lines in the strips and then fold them in a concertina fashion to create a zig-zag effect. I love how effective this looks against the white cardstock!

 

Another of my favourite things to do is to embellish my layouts in a tone on tone fashion. I chose co-ordinating embellishments for each colour and added them on top of the strips of paper and also tucked into the top and bottom of the strips as well.  I used lots of various embellishments like puffy shapes, ephemera, puffy fabric hearts and accessory stickers.

I placed my title in the middle along with the gorgeous photo of my niece! Another thing that I love is that photo of my niece! Her outfit was perfect for this collection! I love how the rainbow colours in the collection bring out the colours in her jacket.

Have you got the gorgeous Happy Days collection? If you have, I hope you are inspired to use it up and create some cute projects with it?!

Thanks so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog! I hope you have enjoyed the inspiration from myself and my fellow design team members throughout the year? Looking forward to sharing more Cocoa Vanilla projects with you again in the new year!

Merry Christmas and a safe and happy new year to you all!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

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