these days

Love These Days | These Days collection | Sophie Delorme

Sophie Delorme 05/09/2021

Hello Cocoa Vanilla friends !

Sophie with you on the blog today sharing this new layout created with the beautiful “These Days” collection.

My focus today was to use the A5 Paper Stack. Ohh this was fun !!!

Here is a look at my process;

This frame paper is really what got me started. I fussy cut plenty of those cute little frames and I knew that I wanted to incorporate them on my page.

I selected 3 other A5 patterned papers and printed my photo in black and white. It’s actually a selfie that Sabrina took while trying to cuddle our dog !

I teared the 3 patterned papers and planned to align them on the bottom of my layout.

I also played with some Lindy’s Stamp Gang magical powders to create a soft mixed media background on a thick white cardstock as shown here:

Then, I tied everything together. I added tissue paper and adhesive foam behind my photo. I layered the 3 pieces of patterned papers, stitched them down and curled them a little bit for more dimension.

I mounted most of the frames on adhesive foam and placed them in a horizontal design around my photo.

I decorated each of them with different elements from the collection; Accessory Stickers, Die Cut Ephemeras, Floral Ephemeras, Wood Epoxy buttons and Puffy Stickers. My title is from the Clear Stickers that I first sticked to white paper and fussy cut.

Here are more close-ups:

I am so happy with the result ! I really can’t stop creating with this gorgeous collection !

I hope you felt inspired today, thank you for stopping by and have a great crafty day !

Sophie xx

This life | These days Layout | Anna Komenda

Anna Komenda 27/08/2021

Hello, hello. How are doing, everyone? I hope you are ready for another dose of “These days” inspiration! This week we are focusing on puffy stickers and puffy hearts to show you how you can incorporate them in your projects. I must tell you I struggles a while for what I should do. I didn’t have any photo on my mind, or specific design so I came back ot basics by using tried and true grid design. To make things a little bit different than usual, I used heart dies and created my grid using them.

I went even further and used the die to cut the photos too. You can’t do this with every photo as you loose a lot of background. I managed to find few pictures with my daughter standing a little far, so I only lost part of her hands but you can still see what was the main focus of the photo. All my hearts are cut out from “Good life” paper, with lovely and cute pattern. They look great on warm wooden texture from “Pretty posies” paper.

After I glued down all the hearts and photos, it was time to decorate everything. I reached for ephemera and flower packs. This such a fun and quick to use product. I love fussy cutting but it takes a precious time and with pre cut elements you can create much faster. I glued down flowers and other elements using 3D foam, adding dimension to my page. Each heart got it’s own mini composition.

When it comes to puffy stickers and hearts – I added one golden heart on each element on the grid. They add a little bit of blink and sparkle to my layout. I love using puffy stickers as they are great tiny accent and perfect for finishing touches. I especially love those mini hearts – I could have a whole sheet of them only in all colors of the rainbow.

Last step in making this page was to add a title. I wasn’t vey inventive here and I used Foam titles, that are part of “These days” collection. I needed someting short so I chose THIS LIFE phrase. It’s very generic and in this case it tell about idyllic childhood of my kids. They get a chance to spend time in the countryside, run bare foot, play in the big pile of sand, spend time with the farm animals, bath in puddles and be as dirty as they want.

That is all for today. Thank you so much for stopping by and see you in September. It will be time for some fall page, right?

XO Anna

You and Me together | Josefine van der Hoeven | These Days collection

Josefine van der Hoeven 25/08/2021

Hello creative paperlovers,
Welcome and so happy to see you at the Cocoa Vanilla blog today. It’s Josefine here and share with you a new layout that I made with this amazing collection ” These Days”

I really wanted to work with these super cute puffy stickers and the shimmering gold hearts. I thought it would be fun to make a wreath and used the golden hearts in the center of these paper flowers.

I first draw a circle with a pencil on my white cardstock background. Then I stamped several times with the Distress Oxide color “evergreen bough”
I use a background clear stamp and print several times. Until I have a green circle in the middle. I mix the Distress Oxide with water and with a water brush I splash several times.

It’s time to make a wreath and I used the flowers and leaves from the “Floral ephemera” set
I put everything in a circle and used the punch floral set from We R keeping memories to punch out the five flowers from the design paper. In the center of these paper flowers I paste a gold heart. These flowers look so cute.

I punch out some more leaves from the green colored designer paper and slide them between the homemade paper flowers. I decorate my wreath with butterflies, wooden buttons and of course the puffy stickers. I place several puffy stickers between the leaves. Everything together gives such a festive effect. Really I love it. I cut out the photo in a circle and also cut out design paper in the shape of a circle. I use my sewing machine and stitch the edges. Then I place the photo in the center of the wreath. Finally I splash some white acrylic paint and gold acrylic ink on my page. So happy how this layout turned out.

I had so much fun with this amazing new collection “These Days” by Cocoa vanilla Studio. I hope I was able to inspire you to use the golden hearts and puffy stickers on your layout. Thank you for visiting my blog post today. Have a great time with the beautiful collections by Cocoa Vanilla Studio and wish you a beautiful and crafty day! XoXo, Jo

Family Together | These Days | Kylie Kingham

Kylie Kingham 23/08/2021

Hello friends! It’s Kylie back with you all today with a layout I created recently featuring the new ‘These Days’ collection. I wanted to use a cut file background for my page and one that would almost fill the page. I selected this gorgeous Rainbow cut file which was designed by Paige Evans. I really love all the pastel tones in this collection and chose the ‘THE GOOD LIFE’ paper as my main background.

When backing the cut file, I worked with the A5 PAPER PACK. The size of the papers are great for this as you aren’t cutting into the larger 12 x 12 sheets and it saves the wastage. I cheated with backing the actual rainbow, as the pastel striped paper, ‘FAMILY TIES’, was perfect for adding in a solid piece rather than adding individual sections. For the clouds I also combined some white and gold glitter card stock from my crafty stash.

My photo was printed to a smaller 3″x 4″ size and adhered over the fully backed cut file. With so much colour to the background I really didn’t need to over embellish and have just added an appropriate title from the die cut pack.

To complete my page, I added a small cluster of flowers and a cute phrase from the die cut collections. Some of the flowers were adhered with foam tape so that they added some extra dimension to my page.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you have enjoyed seeing my latest page and it gives a little inspiration for your own scrapbooking. Take care!

Kylie.

Grateful | These Days | Raquel Bowman

Raquel Bowman 19/08/2021

Hey everyone, it’s Raquel here today sharing a new layout featuring the new and amazing These Days collection. I was really inspired by the icons and elements in this collection and had a similar layout idea rolling around in my head since I received it. I had wanted to create a layout with a house design, and include the sentiment and quote “home is whenever I’m with you”.

Here is the layout I created:

The subject of this photo is hubby and I from our wedding back in 2011. The warm tones in the photo suited this colour palette beautifully. The main design of the page was a house cut file. To create this cut file I actually just found a house icon via google and traced that in my cutting machine software. This was a quick and easy way to customise my layout to suit the design I had in my mind.

The title ‘grateful’ was from the foam stickers. I love the bold and striking contrast the black has against the woodgrain paper and white of the cut file. The ‘together is the best place to be’ is from the accessory sticker sheet.

At the left and right sides of the house there was shrubbery style shape. I decided to use that as a base for embellishing and adding floral elements to the house – in a way to replicate garden beds out the front. I used a combination of the regular ephemera and the floral ephemera packs. I adhered these in a variety of depths. To finish this embellishment cluster below I added some puffy stickers, a clear sticker paint swipe and a ‘love you so much’ tiny word sticker.

The cluster to the left of the house was completed much the same using the same ephemera packs and puffy stickers. Again, using a variety of dimensions to adhere through the use of tapes and foam adhesives.

I wanted to add a smaller detail to the top left of the page so I tore the white background, and added a pop of the woodgrain under it to add another touch of that pattern. Machine stitching the edges of the layout helped to tie all this in together.

The ‘home is whenever I am with you’ is one of my favourite elements on this layout. I love that it mimics a photo frame and is the ideal and perfectly worded sub heading.

The whole house design was adhered to the page with a adhesive foam sheet. This gives enough shadow to create interest but also allows me to layer under and around it.

Thanks so much for stopping by the blog today. I hope you have been inspired by my layout today!

Take care

xxx

Bloom | These Days Collection | Danni Visser

Danni Visser 15/08/2021

Hi Cocoa Vanilla Studio friends! Danni here with a layout inspired by this month’s gorgeous moodboard. I was incredibly inspired by all the bright rich colours and the quote, so I decided to pull out my watercolours and have some painty fun.

When I first received the new ‘These Days’ collection and saw the sketchy florals in Neighbourhood 12×12 patterned paper, I thought it was perfect for making a customized painted background. I pulled some of the beautiful bright colours from the moodboard and used my watercolour paints to fill in the outline of some of the leaves and flowers.

I wanted that soft hand painted watercolour effect, so I kept the painting quite messy and imperfect. I also left some of the outlines unpainted to avoid the background looking too clustered and added some delicate splatters.

I chose a single photo of a beautiful kookaburra my husband took several years ago and matted it with the woodgrain paper from the A5 paper stack. Using the floral images from the moodboard, I chose some floral cluster cutfiles from my stash and backed them with Daybreak 12×12 patterned paper and one of the 3×4 pocket cards. I tucked the clusters around opposite corners of my photo.

To fill out the floral clusters I tucked some of the floral ephemera in amongst them, layering them to create an illusion of depth and dimension. I added a sticker from the accessory stickers as a small title, layering it with a label below my photo. I added in some small leaves and flowers from the floral ephemera to tie this in with the rest of the ephemera clusters.

To finish everything off I added three tiny butterflies that I fussy cut from the A5 paper stack butterfly paper, bending them in the middle to make them three dimensional. I love how the hand painted background turned out! This is such a great way to add colour and tailor a paper to exactly what you are going for. I hope you enjoy trying this out too. Happy scrapping!

Danni x

Fun in the sun | These days Layout | Anna Komenda

Anna Komenda 13/08/2021

Hello, hello! It’s Anna here wnd I come to you with another layout. After so many years me being on this Team, you probably already know I love colorful collections and scrapbooking summer and vacation. That’s why you may be a little surprised today as I scrapbooked summer, beach photo but I used very soft “These days” collection, that has nothing in common with sea. I know I could cut into fantastic “Sunkissed” line, and to be honest, I even had it on my desk, but photo I picked turned out so dreamy and light that I just couldn’t fit it into so many colors. It’s full of sandy beiges and washed blues – colors that appear in “These days” line. So I challenged myself to use it with this particular photo.

“These days” collection is filled with fantastic motifs but none of them matches my beach photo. That’s why I focused on simple and versatile patterns and used dies to cut out shells and starfishes. I mixed papers from A5 Paper Stack and few 12*12 sheets like “Good life” and “Family ties”. Next step was to make myself very soft background. I quickly painted few blue stripes on white watercolor paper. I added a lot of water to the color because I wanted to achieve a very light shade.

After the background was dry, I glued my square photo in the middle and surrounded it with my die cuts mixing colors and shapes. Some of the shells are glued directly to the base and some are raised with one layer of foam squares. Thanks to that my composition is more dimensional and full of texture. For my title I reached for gold glitter foam titles from “Sunkissed” line. It has perfect words and color. Black words from “These days” would be too dark.

I went through the ephemera pack and picked few versatile shapes, like banner, to add them to my composition. I also found few matching stickers with generic words on them. My light background was perfect for displaying clear stickers so I picked few hearts and small crosses and scattered them between the die cuts.

My favorite wooden epoxy buttons are perfect for any type of project and they add fantastic texture. I added three of them here and there and finished everything with few small hearts from puffy stickers sheet. Few blue and gold splatters connected everything together perfectly.

I just love using scrapbooking collections in unusual ways and spreading my stash and this is a perfect example. I hope it will inspire you to look at your papers in a new, fresh way. Thank you so much for stopping by and see you in two weeks.

Hugs, Anna

Always Happy | These Days Collection | Melissa Vining

Melissa Vining 12/08/2021

Hi everyone, Its Melissa here and I’m so happy to be back sharing my second layout created with the beautiful new “THESE DAYS” collection. For this layout I really wanted to create a layout mixing two patterned papers as my background, and I chose “TAKE FLIGHT” and “FAMILY TIES”. I love that one is subtle and the other is bold. My photo is of my daughter and her TY soft toy collection, and the colours in my photo were perfect for the soft colours in These Days.

My sewing machine is broken at the moment, and ordinarily I would have stitched between the two papers, but I actually love that I distressed the edge of the white polka dot paper and left it lifted. I added mixed media with inks and shimmery splatters, predominantly on the white paper to tie the two papers together.

I backed my photo with papers from the “A5 PAPER STACK” and embellished with lots of flowers and some leaves from the “FLORAL EPHEMERA”. I also cut out one of the small cut aparts from the A5 Paper Stack and used it as additional journalling.

I fussy cut lots of butterflies from “TAKE FLIGHT” and placed them to look as though they flew over my photo. I glued the centres down and lifted up the wings with dimensional adhesive.

The “FOAM TITLE STICKERS” were perfect for my title, and I love how the two words look nestled together.

I created a process video which you can watch below:

Have an awesome weekend!

Melissa xx

HELLLO GRATEFUL LIFE | JOSEFINE VD HOEVEN | THESE DAYS COLLECTION

Josefine van der Hoeven 11/08/2021

Hello Paperlovers,

It’s Josefine here with you today at the Cocoa Vanilla Blog sharing a new layout that I created with the beautiful “These days” collection and I couldn’t wait to combine my photos from Paris with the beautiful patterns and designs of this awesome collection.

I started by stamping on the white cardstock background by using a background clear stamp that looks like a stain. I make a mixed media background in the center of this page and stamp several times. The color of the Distress Oxide I am using is “tattered rose”
The color is very light and doesn’t stand out very much with photographing this layout.

I cut several picture frames from the design paper and placed them in the center of the page. I choose some different design papers and cut them into strips and fold them in half. I slide them under the picture frames.This gives a great dimension and extra details to your layout. I choose different die-cuts, labels, (puffy) stickers, word strips and wooden buttons to decorate my layout.

On both sides I make clusters of die-cuts, labels, flowers and stickers. I love creating different layers. I use 3d tape to make my clusters. Through the middle of the trees I sew with gold sewing thread. I love using sewing thread in my layouts.The great big black title ” Grateful” gets a nice spot under the photo. With the cute small alpha set I make the word life. My layout calls “Hello Grateful life” In love with the little puffy sticker typewriter. So cute!

Finally, I add some butterflies to my layout and splash some more with the Distress Oxide colors, tattered rose, speckled egg, victorian Velvet. I hope I was able to inspire you with this layout and want to thank you for visiting the Cocoa Vanilla Blog today! I wish you a beautiful and crafty day!

XoXo, Jo

Just So Sweet | These Days collection | Sophie Delorme

Sophie Delorme 05/08/2021

Hello Cocoa Vanilla friends !

It’s Sophie on the blog today and I am SO EXCITED to be sharing my very first layout with the amazing These Days collection !!!

Ahhh where to start when everything from the collection is so gorgeous ?!

I decided to go with a simple page and wanted to use plenty of different patterned papers.

I cut strips of different width and length of many patterned papers from the collection as well as a few colored cardstock from my stash and curled one end of each strip, turning them around a brush. I aligned them in a horizontal line on the lower third of the page to “ground” the rest of the design.

I stitched one or two French Knots with matching embroidery floss on each strip.

I used a square photo of Sabrina hugging our dog Fiona (what’s new ?!!). I printed it in color and I think it matches perfectly with the color scheme of the collection. I backed it with tissue paper and adhesive foam and placed it on the right side of the layout.

For my title, I used a beautiful frame from the Die Cut Ephemera pack, added adhesive foam and the B side of the “Home Grown” patterned papers. I used the Mini Puffy Alpha Stickers for “Just So” and the Foam Title Stickers for “Sweet”. I placed it on the upper left side of the photo and added a die cut banner and a few die cut hearts scattered around the title frame.