wood veneer

Sweet | Love Always collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 09/02/2023

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am sharing a sweet layout featuring the gorgeous Love Always collection!

My assignment for today was to create a project for the Throwback Thursday feature that we sometimes run, I just had to use the Love Always collection for love month!

Documenting a sweet photo of myself and my eldest niece together when she was last visiting. She is always up for a selfie with her Aunty! Love her gorgeous face!

The Love Always collection has such pretty floral ephemera and I knew that I wanted to include a lot of them on this layout. I decided to build some layers of florals below the photo which I made the focus of the page by placing it in the centre of the page. I included both vellum florals and ephemera florals for some different textures on my layout.

Under the photo, I layered a piece of the grey paper with the small white hearts and I tucked in the scalloped border die-cut on the right hand side as well. On top of the photo, I placed one of the cute puffy stickers and a sticker from the accessory sticker sheet.

Also on the right of the photo, I tucked in the die-cut tag and added some twine through the hole in the top of the tag. I stamped the date stamp using black ink on the tag also. On the left I continued the floral layers including some wood veneers this time. Here I also added one of the gorgeous butterfly die-cuts.

For my title, I could not go past the gorgeous wood veneer word, deciding on the word ‘Sweet’ from the wood veneer pack. I did however add the cute puffy banner sticker that says ‘Smile’ too. I added another of the butterfly die-cuts here at the top and also a cute small one down the bottom below the wood veneer leaves.

I trimmed down the patterned paper background that I chose for my layout and matted it to a sheet of plain white cardstock. I then machine stitched around the edge of the entire page to create a border. Some of the last things to finish off my page were to add some more of the phrase and word stickers from the accessory sticker sheet, a few more die-cuts and I also sprinkled some white mist on my 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!

See you next time!

Tarrah x

Summer Fun | Endless Summer collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 08/10/2021

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you today to share a Summer themed scrapbook layout using one of the older Cocoa Vanilla Studio collections called Endless Summer. I chose this collection because of the gorgeous teal colour of the water in my photo, a selfie of myself kayaking earlier this year. The teal in the Endless Summer collection was a perfect match! Don’t you love it when that happens?!

I chose my background patterned paper first – opting for the pretty tropical floral outline paper. I did trim it down so that I could add a double mat of cardstock behind the patterned paper. I pulled out a pink and a teal cardstock to mat the page with. I added the wood grain die-cut frame from the Ephemera pack over my photo and stapled an arrow die-cut to the top right of the frame, I then adhered it using craft foam in the centre of my page. I like the look of various layers of dimension on my layouts so I added foam tapes and regular tape under the floral die-cuts and tucked these into both sides of my photo. I also added some leaves here and bent the edges up on both the florals and the leaves.

On the right of the photo I included the super cute flamingo die-cut and the Summer Holiday ticket from the ephemera pack. I also tucked one of the flair buttons and adhered a wood veneer arrow. Below my photo I adhered the Memories Are Made of This die-cut piece on top of the frame, I also tucked in the banner die-cut underneath the photo. My title is made up of the letters that spelt ‘Summer’ and the ‘Fun’ word in the ephemera pack. I also added the cute anchor wood veneer piece to the bottom left corner of the photo. Near the anchor I placed a wood epoxy bead and also placed another wood veneer piece across the Summer title.

To the left of my photo I added the round ‘Smile’ die-cut piece and a heart die-cut. Above the photo I added some cloud die-cuts with craft foam and layered the ‘Summer Days’ banner die-cut across the clouds. I also scattered some of the gorgeous enamel shapes in the hearts around the page. Lastly I stamped the date stamp and checked that everything was adhered down sufficiently.

Do you still have the Endless Summer collection in your stash? Why not pull it out and get creating with it? You can use my layout here as inspiration. If you don’t have the physical collection you can now purchase the Endless Summer digital collection and print your own papers and embellishments as many times as you like!

Thanks so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today! I hope you enjoyed my layout as much as I enjoyed creating it?!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

World Card Making Day celebration | CVS design team

Zoe Pearn 02/10/2020

Hi everyone, happy World Card Making Day! (And yes, it’s totally a thing and we did not make it up.) Today is a day for all the card makers out there, as we celebrate your special corner of the paper crafting world and the art of creating handmade cards.

So where did cards begin? The custom of sending greeting cards can be traced back to the ancient Chinese, who exchanged messages of goodwill to celebrate the new year; and also to the early Egyptians who used papyrus scrolls to send greetings. In the 1400’s Europeans began selling and exchanging greeting cards (including Valentine’s cards). The first known published Christmas card can be traced back to 1843, although the official Greeting Card Industry was not formed until almost one hundred years later in 1941. These days, despite a booming industry in mass-produced cards, there are still many who prefer the personalised touch of a handmade card, and today we celebrate them with cards created by our entire design team.

(After you have scrolled through the cards, we’ve got a challenge to you at the end of the post!)

First up, a floral friendship card from Sophie using our ‘Daydream’ collection…

And another sweet sentiment, also from Sophie using ‘Daydream’…

A layered birthday card from Tarrah, using our ‘Make a Wish’ collection…

A cute shaker card from Gwen (with a bow, of course!), using ‘Daydream’…

Another beautiful shaker card using ‘Daydream’, this time from Laura…

A simple rainbow thank you card from Sue using ‘Daydream’…

A sweet card to make you smile from Anita, also using ‘Daydream’…

A gorgeous pair of happy cards from Rachel using the ‘Daydream’ collection…

A glorious floral greeting to make you feel fantabulous from Kylie using ‘Daydream’…

Sweet, simple, and sure to make your day brighter – this pair from Anna B, also using ‘Daydream’…

A super fun concertina fold card from Danni, also using ‘Daydream’…

Look at the amazing layered detail when you open Danni’s card…

Super pretty, positive vibes using our ‘Daydream’ collection coming from Raquel…

A stunning pop-up box card bursting with happiness from Anna K using ‘Daydream’…

Pretty and elegant using a floral cut file combined with the ‘Daydream’ collection from Melissa…

And finally, a sweet congratulations shaker card from Michelle also using ‘Daydream’…

We hope you have found plenty of card making inspiration from our team today. Now it’s time to put your own card making skills to the test with a card making challenge (or two!) Pop over to our Facebook Community group where you can join our card sketch challenge or our card colour challenge. We’ve got two $10 store vouchers up for grabs for our lucky winners, but get in quick as entries close midnight (AEST), Monday 5th October.
Happy crafting!

LAZY SUMMER DAYS | ENDLESS SUMMER | GWEN WRUCK

Gwen Wruck 02/09/2020

Hi Creative friends, Gwen back on the blog today with a new share and today, I’m playing along with our Throwback Thursday challenge. For this page, I was really inspired to use my stash of ‘Endless Summer‘. This collection is a few years old now but it’s still one of my absolute favourites, I love the warm tones of this line and as you’d expect it’s perfect to use for Summer adventures. This photo was also taken a few years back now on a family cruising holiday.

I started my page by working on the background first layering up the ‘Blue Skies’, ‘Sweet Treats’ and ‘Sunbleached’ pattern papers. To create the Sunshine rays, I’ve used a cut file from CUT to YOU and added stitching for a really sweet detail.

For my title, I’m working with another cut file, this one called ‘Lazy Summer Days’ which I have backed with the ‘Blue Skies’ pattern paper and mounted on some foam for dimension.

I’ve kept things pretty simple with my photo for this one, no photo mat, just some of my signature stitching around the edge. It ties in nicely with the stitching in the sun rays. I’ve made sure to position my photo and large title first working on a design that flows with the rays of the sunshine in my background.

I’ve added lots of pretty embellishments to this page, there were so many wonderful goodies included in the collection, some still available online. I’ve used the ‘Puffy Stickers‘, ‘Accessory Stickers‘, Flair, Wood Veneer and Woodies.

To round out my title, I’ve taken a few elements from the ‘Ephemera Pack’ such as the cute banner pieces that say ‘Capture This’ and ‘Here’s the Story’. They are all in that lovely warm peach tone so fit perfectly. You can also see here the ‘Wood Veneer’ pieces and the enamel ‘Woodies’. I really just kept playing with the position of everything, adding bits and pieces until I was happy with the layout.

I’ve also created a YouTube video of my process which you can see here.

Thanks for popping by the blog today, I’d love to know, do you have some ‘Endless Summer’ collection in your stash? Why not pull it out and have a little stash bust creative time. I hope my layout has inspired you to get creating.

Until next time,

Gwen

Home Memories | INSD Free Printable Kit | Raquel Bowman

Raquel Bowman 04/05/2020

Hey everyone, its Raquel here with you today sharing a layout that I created using the free printable INSD kit and free live online class that Zoe did last Friday night. Zoe’s class was created in a 12×12 size and inspired by these home days in isolation. I was so motivated to create a page using the page design and kit as a base for an 8.5×11″ size layout.

Here is the layout that I created:

I created a process video to show how this layout came together, you can see it here:

The layout features two photos of my kiddies taken recently during our home learning. We are going onto our 7th week of isolation here in our household and are currently home learning. Our school has an amazingly supportive program for these two kiddies, but being 5 and 7 they of course need constant support to complete set tasks. Getting used to this new normal and Mummy as the teacher has been new for us all. While supporting my kiddies to learn, I am also a Foundation school teacher so as well as supporting my own kiddies I have a class of 19 to work with as well. To say its been a juggle is speaking lightly. I am very much looking forward to life resuming to normal and everyone being safe and healthy as I am sure we all are.

The photos are printed on my home printer (an Epson picture mate) and in black and white. Printing in black and white allows any colour palette to use. I will often print my photos in black and white if my photo is very busy with a lot of competing colours. The page kit itself had four approx 3×4″ cards in the printables. These cards were designed to act as photo mats. I used them for the same reason and was able to double mat my photos with what was included.

What I loved about the page kit was the paper strips were already designed to a length and width. Being a smaller layout, I was able to trim these narrower and shorter and still get the desired effect. I machine stitched the strips to the page and was able to curve the ends inwards to create dimension.

The page kit also came with a page of ephemera pieces. I am sure if you are tech savvy there would be a way of print and cutting these with a die cut machine. However, I simply took mine to the couch while I was with my family and fussy cut them out with some precision tip scissors.

I adhered the clusters with a combination of clear glue dots, liquid adhesive and adhesive foam squares. I love the multidimensional look the varying adhesives brings to a page.

I did add a couple of products from my stash to this page, but they were minimal. One thing I added was a piece of pink patterned paper from the ‘Make a wish’ collection to frame the whole layout in. I felt that the layout needed a border to ground it. I also machine stitched around the border. The other thing I added from my stash apart from white cardstock was the wood veneer pieces, they were from both the older collection Free Spirit and Colour me Happy. I had forgotten that I had them in my stash and were a surprising and welcomed addition to help complete this page. They added that finishing touch that I was after.

The digital kits intended title was ‘home life’ however because I work in a smaller size I felt like it was too overpowering. I was happy to find the memories wood veneer piece to finish my title area. I used the tag in the kit to layer my typewritten journaling onto. I didn’t go into too much detail of the whole home learning experience but plan to on future layouts to document this unprecedented time in our lives. The little bow with the crochet thread added that nice finishing touch to the tag and element of journaling.

I hope that you got to join us, the CVS team in the INSD weekend celebrations. It was so much fun with lots of challenges and inspiration shared.

Thanks for stopping by the blog today, stay safe

Raquel xxx

ADVENTURE AWAITS | LEGENDARY | GWEN WRUCK

Gwen Wruck 03/05/2020

Hey Creative friends, Gwen on the blog today with some more scrapbook inspiration. I have a special share for this one using the new ‘Legendary’ collection. It’s my sisters birthday today, so for this page, I really wanted to create a page for her and her fur-baby. I won’t be able to visit her for her birthday this year, so I thought this would be a nice way to help her feel special today.

For this page, I started with the ‘Wild One’ pattern paper as I really wanted to add some colour for this page. I’ve used it as a frame for my layout and also to back the cut file banner here. This cut file is part of the set that was designed by CUT to YOU for the Legendary collection and is available for FREE download here. If you don’t have a cutting machine, CUT to YOU offers a cutting service and ships worldwide. I’ve resized the banner piece as large I could to make it a background feature and used it as an anchor for the other elements in my page.

I’ve also used the ‘Off Beat’ B-Side pattern paper on the banner for contrast. For my photo, I’ve gone with a double mat, using the A-Side of the ‘Off Beat’ pattern paper and the pop of yellow from the B -Side of the ‘Wild One’ pattern paper. **Design Tip – I’ve only used 2 pattern papers for this page, but it looks like more because I’ve made sure to include and A and B sides of both.

With my large banner cut file centred on my page, I decided to offset my photo, pushing it slightly to the right. To balance out the page, I’m going to add my embellishing to the left. For this, I’ve gone with elements from the Die Cut Ephemera pack, starting with the largest elements first.

I’ve decided to go with the ‘Adventure Awaits’ Banner piece which mirrors the cut file shape and also doubles as my title. I’ve also added in some of the round elements from the die-cut pack for interest. I’ve added these into my layers. It was at this point that I wanted to add some more warmth to the page. To do this, I’ve dug deep into my stash and found some vintage ‘Life is Beautiful’ pieces of wood veneer. These are long gone from the store, but you could use any wood veneer you have in your stash to replicate this look.

With the larger embellishment pieces locked into place, I’ve gone back and added in some smaller details such as the die-cut stars and some typed sentiments from the ‘Accessory Sticker sheet’. I’ve also added some enamel dots from the collection as well as a sprinkling of sequins from my stash and called the layout complete.

I had a lot of fun making this page for my sister, I hope she likes it! I hope it has inspired you in some way. If you haven’t seen the new ‘Legendary’ collection, it’s shipping now from a store near you so be sure to check it out.

Until next time,

Gwen

Summer Memories | Unforgettable + Endless Summer collections | Mandy Melville

Mandy Melville 14/01/2020

Hello everyone!

Mandy here with you today to share a layout for our ‘Holidays and Vacations’ theme, using a combination of the Unforgettable and Endless Summer collections. I documented a photo of my youngest daughter Eleanor with my niece Grace, taken when we took a family holiday together back in December. The kids had so much fun spending time with their cousins, and I just love this photo of the two girls ready to head off to the pool together.

I started with a sheet of white cardstock for my background, and then I adhered three different patterned papers, which I trimmed to 8 inches wide, down the middle of the page. I wanted papers that didn’t have very busy patterns on them, and I decided on using the pink and peach patterned papers from the Unforgettable 6×8 inch paper stack, as well as the 12×12 Natural Beauty woodgrain patterned paper.

Next I matted my photo with another paper from the 6×8 inch paper stack, and then I adhered it at the top of the page, using craft foam for extra dimension. I added a couple of stickers on the bottom right hand corner of the photo, from both the Endless Summer and Unforgettable accessory sticker sheets. The label sticker provided the perfect spot to add the photo details to the layout.

Next I layered together two of the Unforgettable floral die cuts underneath the photo, to make one longer floral cluster. The neutral woodgrain patterned paper underneath, helps these florals to really stand out.

I added my title at the bottom of the page using a die cut word from the Endless Summer collection as well as a clear sticker from Unforgettable. I love the combination of the two fonts! I also created a little cluster to the left of the title using a tag and a wood veneer piece from Endless Summer, as well as a little die cut flower from Unforgettable. Above the title I added a sticker with the perfect phrase for this layout… ‘oh I do like to be beside the seaside’, and I also added a scallop border sticker underneath the title.

To finish the layout off I added a few enamel dots in both the bottom left and top right corners.

Today is a bit of a sad post for me, as after three years on the Cocoa Vanilla Studio design team, I’ve had to make the difficult decision to step down this year due to increased work commitments. I’ve absolutely loved my time on this team, and being a part of this wonderful community, so I’m really sad to be leaving. But whilst I won’t be sharing my projects here on the blog anymore, when I get the time I’ll most definitely still be creating with the beautiful Cocoa Vanilla products, and I’ll continue to share my projects over on Instagram. So it’s kind of goodbye for now, but I’ll still be around! I want to say thank you to all of you for the support and encouragement that you’ve shown me over the year, to my fellow design team members for their friendship and for always inspiring me with their projects, and of course thank you to Zoe for giving me this amazing opportunity to be a part of her design team.

Mandy x

Tis The Season | Tis The Season Collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 08/12/2019

Hi there creative friends!

It’s Tarrah McLean back with you and today I am sharing a new Christmas themed layout using the gorgeous Tis the Season collection.

I started my layout by cutting a Christmas Tree cut file design (sorry I am not sure where this one comes from) from white cardstock. I don’t have much of the traditional collection left now but I am so happy to be able to get everything I need in digital form! I will never run out again! If your stash is getting low of Tis the Season, make sure to grab the digital collection here and print your own! There are some of the older collections available in digital form now, so check them all out in the Cocoa Vanilla Store here! I did have some of the green holly paper left and I love how it looks behind the cut file design. I also had a small amount of the red and white diagonal stripe paper and decided to adhere a strip of that to the left side of the page. I chose a photo of my youngest taken on Christmas Day when he was about 3 weeks old, he just turned 9 yesterday so the photo is quite old but its one of my favourites! I changed the colour of the photo to a soft black and white as the colours in the photo would have clashed with the soft colours in the collection. Underneath the photo I layered a small paper doily and a smaller piece of the red and white stripe paper to the right of the photo. I also layered a wood veneer frame on top of the photo, I like how this draws your eye to the photo. I popped up the photo using craft foam and then placed embellishments around the photo. The ticket that says ‘Child’ die-cut definitely had to be added, it was perfect tucked at the bottom of my photo.I used accessory stickers, enamel dots, die-cuts, wood veneer, sequins and a bitty bow to embellish. I have tons of the sequins left, I love the gold stars so I scattered a few of those around to add some sparkle. I placed the white bitty bow at the base of the tree to separate the tree from the pot. To finish the page, I added the date stamp of when the photo was taken. I love how my page turned out even with only minimal pieces from the Tis the Season collection!

Thank you so much for stopping by today! I hope you enjoyed my page today and that you are inspired to create your own Christmas themed layout using your stash of Tis the season!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Beautiful Girl | Sugar & Spice Collection | Anna Komenda

Anna Komenda 27/11/2019

Hello Friends! Have you seen the newest products in CVS store? You should run there quickly because Zoe released digital versions of older Cocoa Vanilla collections! I am over the moon happy about it, because I really loved them and I was missing my favorite stuff. You can purchase both papers and elements and they are already prepared to be printed in A4 size PDF files! You will also get each element separately if you want to use them your way. I am an embellishment person so I use up my embellies faster than the papers. Being able to print more elements to work with my paper leftovers is so amazing. What is ever more amazing is that if you purchase those digital versions of CVS lines, you will help support victims of current Australia bushfires.

I am in CVS team from the very first DT call so I own every collection that was released. We started with two lines: “Sugar and Spice” and “Flying High”. Those two collections were the reason I fell in love with Cocoa Vanilla and I cherish them so much. Especially the girly “Sugar and Spice”. I am almost run out of embellishments but I still have some paper scraps left. That’s why I decided to purchase elements and print them in bunches. Flowers are always my favorite, that’s why I printed a whole sheet filled with them. You can make yourself some print and cut file in Silhouette software or, if you are OK with fussy cutting, just cut them by hand.

I used paper scraps to make several fishtail tags and arranged them over the pink cardstock. Second step was adding a picture of my daughter above them and fill the space with a lot of flowers.

“Sugar and and spice” line came with 12×12 sticker sheet, wood veneers pack and some cork hearts. I still got some of them left and I was so happy to be able to use them up. I mixed in them between the flowers creating colorful and very cheerful page.

I already purchased few more element packs from other collections and I can’t wait to use them in my projects. If you run out of papers, you can also print them at A4 size! Or, if you are lucky and have A3 printer, you can get full 12×12 papers. The best thing is that you will never run out of your favorite papers and embellishments!

Thank you for stopping by and see you in December.

XO Anna

Happy Christmas | Tis The Season Collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 20/11/2019

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah McLean back with you on this Thursday! I hope all my fellow Aussie friends are all safe from these horrendous bush fires we are experiencing in our country at present?

Today I am sharing a layout for the Cut Files theme we have on all this week and being that its Thursday I was also given ‘Throwback Thursday’ where we create with an older collection. I decided to create a Christmas layout since it is fast approaching!I started my page by taking a sheet of white cardstock and adding a piece of vellum over the top to mute the white a little bit, as I had lots of the sequins left from the Tis The Season collection, I decided to add lots of them under the vellum to create a shaker pocket. Once I had added the sequins, I then machine stitched all the edges so that they wouldn’t fall out. I love how this turned out! I like that it adds another feature to my layout.

I took two of the 12 x 12 papers and cut some vertical strips from them and placed them down each side of the layout. then chose a gorgeous cut file title design by Cut To You and added some of the patterned papers behind each of the words. I added craft foam to the underneath and placed it in the centre of my page. I also popped up the photo of my sons on Christmas Day with craft foam so that it was at the same level as the title on my page. I love the shadows and dimension this creates on my page.

I then began to embellish my page using some of the accessory stickers (that are still available in the store) some of the die-cuts, wood veneers and of course a bitty bow and the tiny metal key! I only had 1 of the poinsettia flowers in the die-cut pack left so I added just the one to the very bottom of the title and layered the bow over the top. Lastly I added some of the enamel dots from the Tis The Season collection. Have you got any of the Tis The Season collection left? Pull it out and get creating with it! Its such a soft and gorgeous collection for Christmas photos.