Forever in My Heart / Cocoa Vanilla Studio

Happy Thursday, friends!  I'm back today to share a new layout for Cocoa Vanilla Studio featuring flowers and hearts.  I began with one of the beautiful exclusive floral cut files and enlarged it to run off the page in a diagonal manner.  I used a few collections here:  You Rock, Make a Wish and Wild At Heart.  I love mixing and matching!  I backed the cut file with papers from Make a Wish and Wild at Heart. I used watercolors on some scrap paper to create the green leaves.  The background paper is the In Line paper from You Rock.  I added a lot of white acrylic paint first and then used watercolors and gelatos to add lots of yellows and pinks.  I really love how this page turned out.

I'm so sad that I'm almost out of this gorgeous floral paper!  I've tried to make it stretch, but it's almost gone.  I used it to back some of these flowers, and I love how it turned out.  I think the green leaves turned out pretty well, too :)

Backing a cut file is really easy.  The fun part is sorting through all the papers to see which parts of them you want to use.  Once I had the cut file finished, I created the background.  I went back to the Fresh Cut Paper from Make a Wish and fussy cut more flowers out to create a little cluster by the photo.  I also added in some tangled thread and some Wood Veneer hearts from Wild at Heart.

I went small with the title and used a Wild at Heart Die Cut Ephemera piece as well as an Accessory Sticker and a Make a Wish Accessory Sticker.  My journaling fit nicely right under the photo.

Over on the right side I added in a few hearts from Make a Wish.  They were the perfect addition to that area, and the colors match really well.

In addition to the packaging technique, I also sprayed directly onto the background with some spray inks.  You can see a little Wild at Heart Wood Veneer heart tucked in there.

Here are more Wild at Heart Wood Veneer.  I coated them with white gesso and let it dry.  Then I sprayed some spray inks on them and dabbed the color with a paper towel.  Finally I added in some word and phrase Accessory Stickers from Wild at Heart.

I hope this gives you some fun ideas to try on your next project :)  I have a process video if you'd like to check it out...

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Love This / Bella Blvd

Hey, friends!  Happy Monday :)  Today I'm sharing my newest layout for Bella Blvd.  I also have some tips and tricks.  This is the Illustrated Faith Faith > Fear collection.  It's completely black and white, which means it has lots of possibilities.  I love color, so I'm going to share how I added it to my layout.  I used the Illustrated Faith Watercolors on my white cardstock background.  The colors really make the black and white pop!

I coated my cardstock with white gesso first.  This is a really simple technique even if you're not into mixed media.  I just dabbed some of each color on the cardstock and used a palette knife to scrape it down in a vertical fashion.  It was easy to blend one color into the next.




Once I add the black and white letters over the color, you can see what a fun difference it makes.  I used an alpha cut file from The Cut Shoppe to create these letters, and I used various patterned papers from the collection.

Adding color to the Chipboard is easy, also.  Such a quick way to make these fit whatever color scheme you're using.




After I glued down the letters, I traced around the open spots with a black pen to make them stand out a little more.  I embellished with more of the Chipboard hearts and an open heart stamp from the collection.

I love creating rainbows!  The IF Watercolor set has the perfect shades to do that.

Here's the bottom of the layout.  I added the colored Chipboard hearts as well as some stamped ones.  I even used one of the Designer Clips here.  I just cut the clip part off.

I added more Chipboard and stamped hearts on this side as well.  I tucked in some tangled thread for some added pops of color and texture.

Finally, I added in a fun banner die cut from the Paper Pieces pack and wrote my journaling down below.  I added some splatters in each color here as well.

I hope this inspires you to add some color to basic black and white elements.  This collection has so many possibilities because you can pretty much customize it.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week!

Always Cute / Shimmerz Education Team

Happy Sunday, friends!  I have a new layout to share for the Shimmerz Education Team.  I recently found this gorgeous patterned paper with all these butterflies on it at Michael's.  I bought two sheets of it because I knew I could fussy cut them and create something pretty.  I used the colors in the butterflies to make my color palette for the background.  I used a lot of Shimmerz products on this!  They matched perfectly, and I just love how this turned out.  My background paper is an old Fancy Pants Hopscotch paper from 2012!  Yay for using up older stash!

I started out with a big die cut butterfly from my stash.  I tried using it as mask, meaning I laid it down and applied the paint over it. It didn't turn out as great as I'd hoped, so I just wound up creating a messy and abstract background.  I used the packaging technique as well as splattering with my brush.

The colors of these Shimmerz just knocks my socks off!  This gorgeous purple is new Inklingz called Plum Crazy.  The pinks here are a combination of Vibez Sweetheart and another new Inklingz called Hot Stuff.  I splattered some Vibez Sunset Strip and some Inklingz Miner Miner 49er as well.  I didn't need too many embellishments for this...I just added some tangled thread and some sequins from SpiegelMom Scraps.

Here you can the shimmery gold.  The Shimmerz Paints layer very well together, and it's fun to mix and match different ones.  I did add some tissue paper and foam under my photos to give them some dimension.

To jazz up the background even more, I traced a circle in pencil and then machine stitched over it several times using metallic gold thread.  I love these butterflies...so beautiful!  The green here is Creameez Lettuce Get Together, and the blue is Vibez Jeni B Bleu.

I have been hoarding these shiny gold Thickers.  This layout was perfect for them.  The gold on the butterflies and these gold words bring it all together.  I added my journaling underneath the title.

Here's the top of the page.  Aren't these photos too cute?  My daughter is silly hot mess, but she sure is adorable :)

Here's one more close-up.  I love this green!  Looks so pretty up against the pinks.

I had a blast making this!  I can't get enough of Shimmerz...they are so fun to create with and the results are always awesome.  Check out the store and you'll be blown away by all the colors!  I have a process video here for you...be sure to watch it to see how I created this page.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a great day!

Supplies: 

Vibez--Sweetheart, Mango Tango, Sunset Strip, Jeni B Bleu

Inklingz--Plum Crazy, Hot Stuff, Miner Miner 49er

Creameez--Ride the Tide, Lettuce Get Together

Shimmerz--Winter's Mist

Go Get That Dream / Paige Evans Design Team

Hey friends! I’m so happy to be sharing a fun project featuring stars today for the Paige Evans Design Team. The new Turn the Page collection has a lot of stars and I decided to jazz up an old photo frame using them. I started by fussy cutting out several stars from Paper 11 and Paper 19. I took a small piece of white cardstock and added some clear gesso and watercolors to it for a base. I added more stars by using the Layerable Stamp Set - I heat embossed them with gold powder to add some sparkle and then sort of created a tiny layout using a photo of my daughter. At first I hadn’t planned on using a photo. I was going to create more of a motivational piece with a few of the speech bubble quotes. But I decided to add the photo and add all the stars around it and I love how it turned out!

Here you can see the detail of the heat embossing. I also hand stitched around a few of the stars for added interest and texture. I added a few of the Chipboard Stickers and fussy cut the Dream quote bubble from one of the gold foiled papers from the 12x12 Paper Pad. The foiling is just so pretty. I also added in some thread from my stash.

Most of the embellishments are under the frame’s glass, but the Chipboard Stickers are on the outside of the glass. I love the dimension this creates and just keeps things interesting. I also added a few of the rose gold stickers from the Sticker Book on top of the glass.

On the outside corners of the frame I glued down the rest of the fussy cut stars, which I layered together. I even added a few of the Wood Veneer stars. I tucked in this “magical” arrow from the Ephemera Die Cuts because it looked perfect right there. I love how it’s more of a vertical element and works with this design.

 

I hope this inspires you try something different and be inspired by all the stars in this collection! This was fun to make and now I have a fun home décor piece to add to my shelves!  Be sure to check out my process video to see how I made it :)

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a great FRIDAY....yeah!!

You Rock / Cocoa Vanilla Studio

Hello, friends!  I'm back again today, and I’m excited to share my newest layout for Cocoa Vanilla Studio. I love challenging myself, so I decided to create a girl layout using the You Rock collection. It’s primarily a boy line, but you most definitely can make girl pages with it. I scrapped this cute photo of my daughter rockin’ out some sunglasses. I have been hoarding that gorgeous blue ombre Experimental paper and just had to use it as my background. I fussy cut all those stars from the Starshine paper and layered them all over the background. I did jazz up the background a bit with some white gesso and some Shimmerz watercolors. The white splatters are watered down white acrylic paint. I went minimal with embellishments since all those stars were such a big statement.

I used the collection’s name as my title.  I fussy cut the letters from the Random Paper and tucked them inside some of the stars.  I added a few of the Rubber Charms in a few places as well.  You can see that I also did a bit of machine stitching inside some of the stars with gold metallic thread.

I took all the stars from the Wood Veneer Shapes pack and heat embossed them with gold embossing powder.  I love the pop of gold it gives to the page, and it adds some shine.

Here you can see that the embossed detail on the wood still showed up really well after I added the gold powder.  I just love how they turned out!  I tucked a few of the bigger ones under the sides of the photo along with some tangled thread.

I added in a few Chipboard Accent Stickers below and above the photo.  I fussy cut “smile” from the Random Paper and added it right on top of the photo.

Here’s the top of the photo that I just mentioned.

And one final image of the cute Flair Button I used.  I added a few Die Cut Ephemera stars as well.  I think I used up all the stars that I had left ;)

I hope this inspires you to try making a girl page with this collection.  It was a fun challenge, and I love how it turned out.  The color scheme is so bold and fun, and those stars were really fun to design with.  Be sure to check out my process video if you’d like to watch how I made this page.

Thanks so much for stopping in....have a great day!

Dream Chaser / Paige Evans Design Team

Happy Tuesday, friends!  I'm still playing catch up since being off the grid last week.  Today I have a fun layout to share today for the Paige Evans Design Team featuring “leaves.” I used the beautiful Turn the Page collection for this and I enlarged a leaf cut file from The Cut Shoppe. I used a few patterned papers I had already cut into for another project. I used Paper 24 and Paper 08 as well as some of the 6x6 Paper Pad papers to back the cut file. I used a beautiful light coral ombre paper from the 12x12 Paper Pad as my background. I went around the edges of the leaves with some white gesso first and then used some gold Color Shine and a few gelatos to add some color around the edges. These photos of my daughter looking for leaves were perfect for today’s theme. I kept them in color because they looked so pretty with this collection.

I did a bit of metallic gold machine stitching through the center of each leaf. I mixed and matched with embellishing here. I tucked some floral elements under the photo, which include an Ephemera Die Cut and Chipboard Sticker. I decided to use a sticker from the Sticker Book as my title, which I adhered to some vellum first and then cut out.

Over on the right side I added a Wood Veneer leaf sprig and topped it off with some fussy cut flowers. I cut those from one of the 6x6 Paper Pad papers that has rose gold foiling… so pretty! I cut that cute little piece in between the photos from one of the 2x2 Paper Pads. I finished off this area with a strip of the rose gold Washi Tape Book flowers.

Above the photos, I tucked in a rose gold butterfly from the Ephemera Die Cuts and a butterfly sticker from the Sticker Book. I love how all the gold looks! To finish everything off I added some aqua splatters.

I think these birds are just adorable!  The larger one is from the Ephemera Die Cuts, and I fussy cut the smaller one from a 6x6 Paper Pad paper.  I tucked in some metallic gold thread there and added a gold phrase sticker from the Sticker Book.

Here's one more close-up of the photo area.  I tucked in some rose gold flowers from the Ephemera Die Cuts and some yellow flowers from the Chipboard Stickers.  I also added a row of rose gold flowers at the bottom from the Washi Tape Book.

I hope this inspires you in some way...it sure was fun to create!  Check out my process video here if you'd like:

Thanks so much for visiting me today!

Sweet / Hip Kit Club

Hey, friends!  I haven't posted in so long...oh my goodness.  Hurricane Irma came right over us here in Florida last Sunday.  We've been out of power for over five days.  Many in our little town still don't have it.  It has been a rough week.  We are still trying to get back to normal.  None of our parents have electricity.  My mom is staying here with us...she still doesn't even have running water at her house.  We were very fortunate to have come out of this with no damage to our home.  Others here had trees crash through their roofs and have water up to their windows.  It was such a long and powerful storm.  The recovery is going to take a while for so many. 

I am just very thankful and lucky to be back to somewhat of a reality over here.  I have several layouts that I created prior to the storm that I never got to share.  I'll start with this one.

I created this one for Hip Kit Club for the week before last.  This page features the August 2017 Hip Kits.  I used one of Kimberly’s cut files, some fun mixed media and lots of Crate Paper Maggie Holmes Carousel collection.  I used the scalloped border piece from Kimberly’s cut file set and made square frames with it.  I made them small and cut them on a few different patterned papers.  I used a Pink Paislee patterned paper from the Main Kit and Paper Kit as my background and covered a big part of it with white acrylic paint first.  Then I used the Shimmerz from the Color Kit along with the Echo Park stencil.  I also used a few gelatos from my stash to add a few different shades of color.  I added lots of embellishments including some of the exclusive wood veneer buttons, lots of Crate Paper Ephemera Die Cuts and Puffy Stickers from the Main Kit as well as those cute little pom poms and tangled thread.

I split my photo strip so I could add this “sweet” die cut as my title.  I used some of the Project Life cards and exclusive die cut frames as layers here along with the die cuts.  All of these colors are just so yummy together!

I decided to create a fun little cluster over to the left side using more Project Life cards, Crate Paper Die Cuts, a scalloped frame and more.  I also created a fun banner and machine stitched through it.  Those Crate Paper Banner Stickers are my favorite!  They are in the Project Life Kit.

I just love these little pom poms.  I scattered them around in a few places like I would enamel dots or sequins.  I raised my photos up with some foam adhesive to create some depth. This also makes the layers look really good and allows you to tuck some things under neath...like the wood veneer buttons.

I know I created a little banner like this on a layout already with these kits, but I couldn't resist doing it again!  It's just the easiest thing to do with these little sticky banner pieces.  I machine stitched through it to make it look even more like an actual banner blowing in the breeze.  I tucked in a few things over on the left to create a little cluster.  My journaling fit nicely right under the banner.

Here’s another look at the left side of the photo strip.  Everything in these kits just works so well together, and I love how this turned out!  My silly child makes my photo taking so much fun…haha!

Here's one more look at all the layering from the upper right hand side.  I almost didn't use those black and white flower die cuts, but I'm glad I did!

I hope you enjoyed this…be sure to check out my process video so you can see how I created the background and built the layout.

Thanks so much for stopping in today, and have a great Monday!