tone on tone

Happy B’Day | Happy Days collection | Sue Plumb

Sue Plumb 21/04/2024

Hi everyone, it’s Sue Plumb here to share another design team project with you. Today I am sharing a layout that has been inspired by our April “Chasing Rainbows” challenge. This month the criteria is to use a BIG rainbow as the main design element of your layout. Now if you know anything about me, you already know I am not great at following rules, which is why anytime I try to follow a sketch I end up somewhere completely different. So it should be no surprise to you that my interpretation of this challenge is a little loose. Here’s what I came up with…

I was determined to create a boy page for this challenge, so how do you create a boy rainbow? Simple! You just cut the pink and purple off! I really loved this striped Sunshine Lollipops paper from the ‘Happy Days’ collection so decided to use it as my big feature. I really wanted the colours to pop, so I first added some dark grey acrylic paint to my cardstock for my background. I wanted to keep the paper intact for my main feature, but add some extra interest, so I snipped a little along the line between each colour and used a narrow wooden skewer to help roll the ends up (some I curled a little more than others).

The photo of my boys was taken whilst we were out celebrating their 11th birthday, so using bright colours was perfect for the occasion. As the rainbow was to be the main feature of my page, I didn’t want to mess it up by muddling the colours at all, so I decided to use the tone-on-tone technique for my embellishments.

I used a mix of pieces from the Die Cut Ephemera and Floral Ephemera packs (yes, you CAN have flowers on a boy page!) as well as Accessory Stickers. I placed the embellishments on top of (or as close to) the corresponding colours on the paper and used foam tape to add dimension to some of them.

I really love the effect that using this technique gives, and it makes it super simple to decide where to place things, so putting this page together was a breeze! I finished off the page by adding the Chipboard Title across the top (I ADORE these chipboard titles – the font is so awesome!)

Thanks so much for stopping by today so I could share this with you. I hope I have inspired you to tackle this month’s challenge (who doesn’t love rainbows?!) You can load your entry over in the Cocoa Vanilla Studio Community group to be in with a chance to win. I can’t wait to see all those rainbows!

Until next time, happy scrapping!

2023 Favourite layout | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 23/12/2023

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

Happy Days with You | Happy Days collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 24/05/2023

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am sharing a new layout featuring the gorgeous, new Happy Days collection!

For this week’s project, I was given the fun task of including the Sunshine and Lollipops paper on my project. There are a total of 3 designers including this paper in their projects this week, so be sure to check out their gorgeous work too!

I have had this lovely photo of my niece printed for ages, don’t you think it goes perfectly with the Sunshine and Lollipops paper?!

I love it when my photos go with my craft supplies!

I chose a plain white cardstock background (as I mostly do) so that those gorgeous colours in the collection can really pop!

I then decided to cut up the Sunshine and Lollipops paper into strips, you can see I cut them so there was a lighter and darker version of each colour together.

I then pulled out my scoreboard and bone scoring tool and scored at every inch. Once this was done, I then just folded the creases in a concertina fashion to create the zig zag/chevron effect on the paper strips. I had to think about how I was going to get the strips to adhere to the plain white cardstock background. I ended up choosing double sided tape, running a piece down the centres of each one and adhering them on the cardstock. I did pull some of the folds out so that some were longer and shorter than others, I love how this turned out.

I adhered my photo at the bottom of the layout, overlapping onto the yellow and green paper strips. I added the ‘Good Times’ die-cut tab from the ephemera pack to the right side of the photo and also adhered my title above the photo. I chose the gorgeous Happy Days cardstock titles also from the ephemera pack for my title and also added a few phrase stickers from the Accessory Sticker sheet to add to the title.

To embellish my layout I chose a tone on tone look. What this means is that you place same or similar colour elements against each other. For instance on the yellow paper strip, I have placed a yellow puffy heart and a yellow flower top and bottom of the paper strip. I repeated the same tone on tone look for each of the paper strips, choosing lots of fun embellishments from the ephemera pack, the puffy hearts pack, the puffy shape stickers and accessory stickers.

I love how the folded paper strips create lots of dimension and shadows on my layout! Some other ways you might recreate this layout is by adhering the paper strips horizontally instead of vertically. Or you could even try weaving them for a really effective look as well! The possibilities are endless! The Sunshine and Lollipops paper would have to be one of my favourite papers in the Happy Days collection! What is your favourite? Lastly I added the heart paper strip to the very bottom of the layout and I stamped the date stamp of when the photo was taken.

Thank you for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today! I hope you are inspired by my layout and enjoyed reading about how I created it. You are always welcome to recreate this layout if you wish using your Happy Days collection! I would love to see what you come up with!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Lovely | Happiness collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 22/02/2021

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you today to share a new layout featuring the stunning Happiness collection! My assignment for today was to scrap lift a layout from the Cocoa Vanilla Community on Facebook. Scroll down to see the gorgeous layout I chose to lift!

The layout above is my scrap lift of this gorgeous layout below created by Niki Rowland! I just love the colours and how everything was centred underneath and around her photo on the page. Niki used the stunning Daydream collection on her layout while I chose to use the Happiness collection as there are similar elements in both collections.

I love how Niki used so many titles from the Daydream title pack, I chose to use 1 title however I added a few coloured rainbow cut files ( an old cut file from The Cut Shoppe) to balance and replicate Niki’s title placement. She also added small rainbow embellishments so the cut files I chose to use were a perfect addition to my page.

The photo I am documenting is of my eldest niece – she is wearing a cute rainbow dress, the photo was my inspiration for this page with the colours and theme I was going for. To make the photo stand out from the colourful background, I added a small piece of the navy paper under my photo. As I don’t really do a lot of mixed media and Niki has done a little on her page, I opted to use the gorgeous water colour clear stickers from the Happiness collection, I love how these add a little subtle colour without the mess and having to wait for things to dry! (I am so impatient!) You can see I did add a little sprinkling of gold Heidi Shine, that’s about as messy as I get!

When it was time to embellish my layout, I simply went with a tone on tone look. I arranged the rainbow cut files how I liked them and then added similar coloured small embellishments close to the colour of the rainbow. If you look at Niki’s layout, she did a similar thing. You can see in the above photo that I placed an orange clear sticker under the orange rainbow, fussy cut an orange butterfly and adhered it with a small orange flower. I did this for all the colours on my page. I also added some green sequins like Niki did and a pink and white stripe bow from an older Cocoa Vanilla collection. I trimmed down the white cardstock so that I could add the navy 12′ x 12′ paper as a mat to the entire layout. I do this quite often if I use a plain white cardstock background in the beginning.

I hope you enjoyed seeing my take on Niki’s beautiful layout today. Be sure to check out the Facebook Community group for amazing inspiration from fellow crafters. Share your projects in there too!

You can find the stunning Daydream collection and the amazing Happiness collection all in the Cocoa Vanilla online shop.

Thanks for stopping by today, happy creating!

Tarrah x

tone on tone

Happy B’Day | Happy Days collection | Sue Plumb

2023 Favourite layout | Tarrah McLean

Happy Days with You | Happy Days collection | Tarrah McLean

Lovely | Happiness collection | Tarrah McLean

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