... just Laura

Kerri Bradford Studio: Kitchen DIY Project

I have a fun new project up at Kerri Bradford Studio today. Usually, I'm all about the layouts and cards. Maybe an occasional altered project, if I'm feeling daring. I decided to branch out for this next one. I chose to turn my kitchen into my next Silhouette project!

A little backstory first. I am a huge Rachael Ray fan, and I record her talk show every day. They did a segment way back last summer (seen HERE) about "quick fixes" around the house, for those types of things that would normally cost a fortune and require major work. One of those ideas was how to do a quick fix on kitchen or bathroom tiles. The idea shown involved these vinyl squares that you could just stick over the tiles you already had. I looked up the site they recommended and there were about three designs to chose from, and they weren't cute. Soooooo. Why not create my own vinyl squares?

{Please ignore the obviously-not-staged look of my kitchen in this three year old photo. Especially the two remaining tator tots on the baking sheet.}

You see, I can't stand my tile backsplash in the kitchen. We bought this house before it had even started being built. And one of the very first questions, on the day we signed papers to get our name on the lot, was if we wanted a tile backsplash. Right along with the questions of whether we wanted the upstairs loft addition (yes), the studio addition over the garage (no), and where we wanted additional outlets and ceiling fan hook-ups. A tile backsplash? We had no clue to be honest, so we said "yes". I'm sure if it was different tile then the counter tiles (which I can't stand either), maybe I wouldn't detest them so much. Everything in our kitchen blends together too much, and the backsplash was just super boring to me.

But now? I don't think it's boring at all! In fact, I think it's a bit bold and I think it has a certain "wow" factor. I've had a few people see it already and they've all said "what IS that?", and they were a little shocked to learn that I had basically "stickered" my backsplash with a whole new look.

I love circles, so it was an easy decision to use the circle background from Kerri's More Background Basics kit. I knew my tiles were 6" square in size, so I just sized my squares to about 5.8" square in size.

In making them a bit smaller than the 6", I could easily fit four squares on a sheet of vinyl. Speaking of the vinyl. I actually used Making Memories vinyl sheets for this entire project. I had a ton of them on hand, from when I designed for them, and they worked perfectly in my Cameo. The Making Memories vinyl came in 12"x12" sheets, and there were 10-12 sheets in a pack (I'm drawing a blank on whether it was 10 or 12).

These sheets came in white and black, so black was the obvious choice. Silhouette carries vinyl in a ton of colors (seen HERE), and it can be purchased in the 12" width rolls as well as the 9" width rolls. So you could easily cut those rolls down into 12"x12" sheets.

Once I had a few sheets cut, I just started peeling and sticking them on. I definitely questioned myself along the way, if I'm being totally honest. It was hard to imagine the final look, with only certain tiles covered here and there.

There was nothing hard about this. I cleaned off the tiles and wiped them super clean. I let the Cameo do all the cutting while I went about other things around the house. I would cut one sheet, then come back and cut another, and then another. I would randomly peel them off and stick them on, as I was doing other things. 

There were times when I couldn't stop. You cover a few, and it makes you want to cover a few more, and then a few more. I would avoid the tiles that involved a little trimming, or removing outlet plates. I'd do all the easy ones first.

I loved that the vinyl was so easy to work with. In doing all of these tiles, peeling of square after square, I didn't have any of them tear on me. They were super easy to line up and stick down. I rarely encountered any bubble-age either. They went on really smoothly.

I have this little angled section of the counter, with a small "shelf" of tiles. I had six tiles that weren't quite 6" square, so I did have to resize a few squares to make them a little smaller.

When I came to some of the edges (by the window, for example), I just made it work. I eyeballed where they needed to be cut, and used my trimmer to cut them down BEFORE peeling them off the sheet.

I did make one more change during this project. We have 2" wood blinds all through our house. The kitchen and family room had the wood colored blinds, and the rest of the house had white blinds. Eleven years ago, I was all about "oak wood", so the wood colored blinds made sense. I'm NOT a fan of so much oak anymore (much to my mother's dismay). I thought it was the perfect time to switch the kitchen and family room blinds over to the white wood ones. It was much cheaper than I thought, and I'm so glad we did it. It's so much lighter in here now.

My mom saw this and said it would take some getting used too, and my brother saw a few photos and said he wouldn't pick something that bold. But I think it really works with the decor in our house. Over the years, I've added in lots of black, whether through furniture, frames, black canvas prints (lots of those!), and decor pieces.

My goal is to take away some of the oak and light wood, and to at least break up some of the neutral wood/floors/counters/walls that seem to blend together.

Confession time. I still have three little tiles behind this frame that I didn't put the vinyl on yet. I didn't want to shock anyone be actually finishing this project 100%, would I? Lol. The only reason that I haven't covered these yet, is because it involves removing a few outlet covers, including the phone jack and the internet stuff. And heaven forbid I unplug that stuff. With my luck, the internet would never come back on. But I will get to it soon, because I hate seeing the bare tiles peeking out from either side of the frame.

All in all, I cut 124 squares of vinyl, using 31 of my 12"x12" vinyl sheets. I already owned the vinyl, so this project didn't cost me a thing. BUT. If I did have to buy the vinyl, and I bought it from the Silhouette store (since the MM sheets would be hard to find these days), I would have only needed 5-6 rolls of the vinyl. So this project would have cost me only $60 or so, which isn't bad at all for a DIY home improvement project.

I still have more sheets leftover, which will come in handy if I need to replace any. I'm thinking the ones behind/above the stove might need to be replaced at some point, since they're bound to get a little dirtier from cooking. I'm actually keeping that area a lot cleaner now, since I'm always checking to see if anything splattered up there. Lol. And the great thing is that if I change my mind at some point, or if I get sick of the look, I just have to peel them all off.

And here's the fun part. I now have over 3,000 black vinyl circles that I can use for something.These are the negative pieces, after peeling off the squares. Each square gave me 25 circles, times 124, is 3,100 circles. I saved them all, even though I'm not sure what I'll do with them yet. I keep saying that I'm going to polka-dot the heck out of something ;)

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Kerri has all kinds of great stuff over on her blog today, starting with this freebie shape! It's only free for today, so make sure and grab it while you can.

And then there's this awesome sale to get ready for National Scrapbook Day (happening tomorrow!!!). Backgrounds and titles, two of my favorite things, are 20% off thru Saturday.

And to top it off, she has a new kit up as well. Sliders is a fabulous kit full some new and fun frames.

So head over to the Kerri Bradford Studio blog and check it all out! I will also be having another post late tonight, and a few posts tomorrow. Lots and lots of things happening this weekend!

Kerri Bradford Studio: Framed Collage Project

Happy Monday everyone! I had such a productive weekend, and got a TON of scrapping work done. More than I even thought I would, and what's even more surprising is that most of it isn't even due for another week. Anyone that knows me, knows that I never work ahead. Lol.

In case you haven't heard yet, there is a brand new photo template kit up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today! I know how much I love working with Kerri's storyboard templates. I love a good photo collage when it comes to scrapping lots and lots of photos. 

I had been kicking this idea around in my head for a few months now. Well, not this exact idea. The photos I had in mind were of Alyssa's band friends that she's collected this past school year. She did send me copies of all of her photos so that I could try my idea out, but there's a lot more photos to work with (100+), so I thought I would start smaller and go from there.

So I decided to use photos of my daycare kids. Not just the ones that are here now, but a photo of every single child that I have watched over the years. I have created a few layouts that contain a good amount of these kids in one place, but I thought it would be nice to create something that could be displayed out in the open for everyone to see. I think that would help convince any prospective parents to bring their children to me, right ;)

When I first saw Kerri's Storyboard: Instagram Style kit, I knew it would be perfect for this type of project. I chose the template that held 16 photos. I then did a quick count of how many kids I have watched over the years. This was actually fairly easy, since I'm required to keep a "roster" of sorts for the state, which I have been filling out and adding to for the last eleven years. I counted out 35 kids. Which seems like a lot, and yet at the same time, I thought would be a higher number.

Then came the hardest part. Finding a photo for each child. For some of these kids, it wasn't so much finding a photo, but picking just ONE photo. Some of these kids were with me for one year, two years, three+ years. How do you chose just one photo, and from what age to you chose it. What about the ones that came as newborns? Did I chose a baby photo, or one from when they were older?

Then there were the kids from the very beginning. I took tons of photos of them too, but that was before the digital days. I have all of my negatives organized and can easily find what I need. But that's still a lot of digging around, taking the negatives to Costo for reprints, and then they're still not an actual digital file to work with. My scanner only works when it wants to work, so I didn't want to mess with that. Some of those earlier kids I was able to find photos of when they were older, since I've taken family photos for some of them. So even though they might not be the same young faces that I took care of at the time, I'm ok with using a slightly older version of them for this project.

There are three photos on here (the first collage I showed) where I actually took a photo of a photo, from one of my layouts. It didn't work perfectly, but it will do. And sadly, I had four kids that I just couldn't find photos of. I feel bad leaving them out.

I had picked up a poster sized frame that was 12"x36", so my plan was to create three 12"x12" photo collages to fill the frame. Since I ended up with 31 photos, I decided to fill the first template completely, and fill the top two rows of the second template, and the bottom two rows of the third template. I was bummed that I had that one empty square the bottom. And about a week after I finished this project, I got a new little daycare baby. I'll have to add her in there at some point.

    

Just to give you an idea of what my plan was, I created a 12"x36" canvas in Photoshop and copied each of the collages over, one on top of the other. Because I only used the top part of the second template and the bottom part of the third template, once I stacked them up, that left me a 12"x12" section to fill. My plan was to just create something to lay on top of those using cardstock and patterned paper. Keep in mind, I had each template printed seperately. But if you found a spot that would print something 12"x36", you could print something just like this all on one large photo.

This is a terrible photo of the completed project, but it's honestly the best I could get. I even took out the plexiglass, thinking that would help. But I was still getting lot of glare anywhere I went in the house. Hanging it on the wall didn't help. So you'll just have to trust me that it really looks good in person.

I adhered all three of the printed photo collages to the paper that actually came in the frame, just to hold everything in place. I had my collages printed at Costco, and each were $2.99, so $10 for all three of them.

I wanted to keep the paper area of this project pretty simple, since this is going to hang in the playroom (which is really our living room/dining room, so it's right when you walk in the door). I added a sheet of white cardstock that I very lightly misted with pink spray mist. I chose the "If you're happy and you know it ... clap your hands" phrase from Kerri's Happy kit. I wanted something fairly large and I think it kind of ties in with the whole daycare/kids thing. It's a song that plays on about 38% of these toys too, so I find myself singing it quite a bit!

To finish it off, I simply dug out a really old piece of heart patterned paper, a few aqua cardstock border strips, and a piece of brown polka dot ribbon. Easy and not too busy looking. When I get new kids here, and am ready to add a few more to the frame, I can add them right into the templates, since I saved them all as working files. All of the kids are in the order of which they started coming to me, so I would most likely just shift everyone up to make room at the bottom for the new ones. I can always make that paper area smaller as well. 

Next on my list is to find a spot to hang this. I had a spot in mind, and when I hung it up there, it just looked too small, oddly enough. So for now, it's propped in my scraproom. And with the school year coming to an end soon, I need to get working on one for Alyssa with all of her band photos from the year.

Kerri Bradford Studio: Snapshot

I had a new layout up at Kerri Bradford Studio earlier this week.

Sarah had taken these photos of herself, using the remote control for my camera, which was set up in my scrapbook room on a tripod. I didn't know she took these until I was downloading photos from my memory card a few days later. It's totally "her" to ham it up for the camera and take crazy photos of herself.

I used one of Kerri's Storyboard #1 templates to arrange my favorite photos and print them out in a collage. I had actually printed out this same collage in black and white ages ago, with the intention of scrapping them with some particular papers I had been wanting to use. That never really worked out, and I think it's because I knew the photos looked better in color. Luckiy, I had saved it, so I printed it out again, but this time in color.

The "Snapshots: Capturing Every Moment" title is one of Kerri's freebie shapes, and fit the theme of my page perfectly. All of my patterned papers are from Elizabeth Kartchner's Lucky Charm collection.

I also cut a few filmstrip frames from the This & That: Love [Just Shapes] kit from several patterned papers, and tucked them under the top of my photo collage.

I don't plan my layouts out most of the time. Which is why sometimes, I end up with empty spaces that need to be filled. That upper left corner was one of them. I came across some flair badges with the camera theme to them, and figured I'd use them.

Then I came across these very old chipboard circles from American Crafts and realized that they matched the colors of the Lucky Charm collection perfectly. I love when happy coincidences make my scrapping decisions easier.

I have another project that I'm finishing up for Kerri and hope to be sharing soon. The majority of it is done, so I'm not sure why it's taking me so long to finish. It's a larger framed project that I can't wait to hang up on the wall for all of us to enjoy and reminisce about.

Bella Blvd: American

Last Friday we revealed our new All American collection on the Bella Blvd blog, and this week we are sharing All American projects from our design team all week long. Five full days, with a new project from every single designer on the team. My layout was included on today's post.

This collection was perfect for scrapping some of the photos I took on Memorial Day last year. I did use a few of these photos before on a project sheet layout, but I really wanted to create a layout using more photos from the day to give a better view of the day. I used a storyboard template from Kerri Bradford Studio to create my photo collage, allowing me to get 9 photos on this one page. I also love that when I use a photo collage, I'm really just trimming one large photo, rather than trimming and adhering 9 individual photos.

I wanted to use the blue star patterned paper, but I didn't want it to overwhelm the page. So I used my Cameo to die cut this circle border to go along the left side of the page. I like that you can still see plenty of the star pattern on the blue paper, but it still allows bits of the white cardstock background to show through. I think it helps to balance out the white on the other areas of the page.

I wanted to add a little embellishing to the page, since it was mostly paper, stickers, and a few chipboard pieces, so I added some simple metal star brads along my circle border.

I used the "American" chipboard letters from the Chipboard Icons package for my title, dotting the "i" with a silver star brad. Since I was adding my journaling strips directly to the white cardstock background page, I lightly inked the edges of my strips with a navy blue ink pad to help them stand out. I had also lightly misted my white cardstock background with a light blueish misting spray.

Check out the Bella Blvd blog all week to see a wide variety of cards, layouts, and altered projects featuring this new collection (which begins shipping April 1st). There's a good mix of patriotic themed and everyday projects as well, showing how versitle the collection is.

Kerri Bradford Studio: Love Cards

Just in time for Valentine's Day, I created a few cards that went up over at Kerri Bradford Studio earlier this week.

I started out with a few sheet of patterned paper from Authentique that I had picked up at a not-quite-so-local scrapbook store a few weeks ago. We were away at soccer games, and it turned out I was just a few blocks from a LSS. Figured I might as well stop, since I NEVER go to stores. My mom happened to be with me, and she commented about the roughly 11 sheets of patterned paper in my hand "don't you have enough paper???". The first clue that she's not a scrapbooker. Lol. Paper is one of the cheapest things you can buy, and it's always nice to have a variety on hand to choose from. While at first glance, one would assume I was drowning in paper, I'm honestly not. I have quite a bit of paper, but I also have quite a bit of duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates (are these words?) of most of those papers. I came home and put this new paper right to work.

Long paper story that probably wasn't necessary ;)

I used two of Kerri's circle background cuts from the More Basics Background kits to create the base of my cards (the square for this card, and the rectangle for the next card). I cut them from a text patterned paper, adhering it to a white cardstock card base that I very lightly misted with some tan misting spray.

The heart is from Kerri's XOXO kit, and it's one that I use quite often. My go-to heart, I guess you can say. I cut the hearts from the red polkadot patterned paper. One thing I didn't know, or maybe I knew and just didn't remember, is that the Authentique papers have a great texture to them. I love a good textured patterned paper.

Kerri's new Feathers kit is such a fun one, and at just 99 cents for 4 different feathers, you can't beat it! I originally cut these larger feathers for my square card, but then decided they just weren't fitting with the heart like I wanted. So I cut some extra pieces to make a regular, standard card (4.25 x 5.5). That way, I was able to use the larger feathers here, and I simply cut a few smaller ones for the square card above.

And lastly, the "Love" cut is from the This & That: Love kit. These cards are quite simple in design. My plan was to embellish them in some way after getting my pieces adhered. Or adding some machine stitching. But I actually liked them just as they were, and decided that "simple" was good for me this time.

And speaking of Kerri, she is celebrating her 25th wedding anniversary this week! And in honor of that, along with it being the week of love, she has put a selection of her love themed kits on sale for 25% off through the end of the week. Check HERE for the details and to see which kits are on sale.

Kerri Bradford Studio: 2 Words. In. Sane.

I had a new layout go up for Kerri Bradford Studio yesterday. I hadn't used my Silhouette since the last time I did a project for Kerri, which was at the beginning of December. I never use my Silhouette on my CHA projects for Bella Blvd, and that has been the only other projects I've done in the last month and a half. So it was really nice to get my machine out again.

I wasn't really sure at first what I wanted to scrap. I was actually going to do a soccer layout, using some divided page protectors. I was in the middle of printing photos, and had all of my shapes picked out that I wanted to cut. And then I realized that there was no way I would be able to finish it in time, since it was going to end up being two double page spreads. So I switched gears a bit, but stuck with the idea of using some divided page protectors. And this is what I came up with.

We have all been crazy busy around here lately. But Alyssa has had an extremely busy month, with school, winter league soccer, conditioning for high school soccer, County Honor Band, District Honor Band, homework, and every day life stuff. I thought it would be fun to document one of her busy weeks, and get her schedule down in a fun way.

I decided to use one of the Design F pocket page protectors from Becky Higgins. I like that it has room for one 4x6, perfect for the title, and then lots of 2x3 spots. I started out by digging through all of Kerri's kits to see what shapes I wanted to use. I came across the inFORMS kit, which I haven't used yet, and printed out the library card on white cardstock for my title piece.

I spritzed a bit of green misting spray on the card and went about finding a title. When I came across the "2 Words. In. Sane." phrase from the Say What 3 kit, I knew it would be perfect for the title. I first cut the entire title from black cardstock, and then cut a few of the pieces from green and red ruled patterned paper from Bo Bunny.

I picked out the days of the week from the Life Additions: Weeklies #2 kit, and cut them all from black cardstock. In the back of my mind, I thought I might go and cut them from colored cardstock to layer on top. But in the end, I just stuck with the black.

I should add that I actually picked out all of the shapes that I wanted to use, and cut them all from black cardstock at once. I copied and pasted the arrows a few times, so I could print more than one. I wasn't totally sure of my plan going into this, but figured I would have a good selection to start out with and could add or subtract as I went along. I like to layer two cuts together to create a shadow effect, and find that black cardstock works great for that bottom layer.

I also picked out a few phrases that I thought I could maybe incorporate into the page, knowing what my theme was. The "green grass" from the A Beautiful World kit stood out to me, since Alyssa had a ton of soccer stuff going on that week.

For the pockets without a photo, I trimmed 2x3" pieces of patterned paper. I used a few creamish tone-on-tone patterns from Bo Bunny and also some super old white grid papers from Scenic Route. For the creamish papers, I added a block of white cardstock that I machine stitched before adhering down.

I had borrowed a few photos from Alyssa's Instagram account ("steal", "borrow". same thing, right?) that I wanted to include that summed up what her week was about. Since these were all photos taken with her iPod Touch, they weren't the best quality. Also, because I took them from Instagram, they were square photos. So I couldn't print them as 2x3" photos.

I thought I would print out a few more of the cards from the inFORMS kit. When I pulled up this Score Sheet card and went to put my photo on top, I realized I could actually layer the photo under the form, for a sort of see-thru look. I thought this one looked really cool. You could also achieve the same look by printing the form on a transparency and layering it over your photo (thanks for that idea, Kerri!).

Once I had my three photos printed out and inserted, I started putting together the cards for the days of the week. I added my day, cut from the black cardstock, to each card, and the white cardstock squares. For the white grid cards, I simply misted them with the green spray mist.

I added a few arrows (from the Say What 3 kit and the Need Directions? kit) here and there, cutting them from the same green and red patterned paper that I used on my title cut.

I printed out my journaling, which is really just a list of her schedule and activities for the week. It was fairly simple, since I could copy and paste the things that happened more than once. Like "7.5 hours of school", which I needed four of (she missed school one day to attend a 7.5 hour band rehearsal). I adhered all those tiny journaling strips to the appropiate days.

I added a little washi tape here and there, in greens, reds, and blacks.

I used this group shot from the County Honor Band concert (Honor Choir too, but she's not a part of that). It was a fantastic 2.5 hour performance that just leaves you in awe of the musical abilities of these teens. It's the best of the best from the county, and Alyssa was one of twelve band members chosen from their school to go. I printed it behind the library card, and I meant to add some letter stickers to the top saying "County Honor Band". I am just now noticing that I didn't do that. Oops.

I also added some tiny number stickers to each card for the date. I started to put the entire date for the week on the title card, but it wasn't looking right. So I put the "January 2013" on the title card, and added the number for each day to the appropiate card.

And yes, I am pretty sure that she DID find a little bit of time to relax on Sunday!

I won't lie. This page took me FOREVER. And I am pretty sure that this is the most cuts I have ever made with the Silhoutte for one single page. I am planning on something similiar for the soccer page I mentioned earlier, so hopefully I will find some time for that soon.

Kerri Bradford Studio: The History Project

What is The History Project?

We are the storytellers. We tell the story of our lives. We are all at different places in recording our current lives, some of us have been doing it for a few years and some of us may have been doing it for a few months. But generally speaking, we are in the process of recording our life as it happens now, which is great!

But what about your story? What about the things that happened to you as a child or as a teenager?

We never seem to have time to write these stories down because we are busy scrapping more current events.

We all have a different story. Different ways of growing up. Different family situations. Mine is very unique as compared to even my own children that have lived in the same house their whole lives.

Your story is important. Your story is interesting. Your story needs to be recorded simply and efficiently, without spending all the time worrying about product and laying out pages and finding photos like you do when scrapping. It’s all about the stories, not the foo foo.

It’s all about your history.

What you get in the class each week? (52 weeks total)

You’ll receive a PDF by email with all the journaling prompts and tips on how to journal the subject for that week. Sometimes I’ll even suggest a photo or ephemera idea to include. All this will be in the PDF to make those ideas and thoughts flow easily into your journal. FYI: The email used will be your PayPal email unless otherwise noted.

Additionally the PDF will include my own page examples so you have a base to start with.

You’ll receive an exclusive KB-designed graphic element to add visual interest to your journal. Like I said previously, this isn’t about the foo foo, however, I do like a little visual interest. :) But that can be done in a simple fashion.

**This graphic element may be a cuttable word image or a cute little decorative card or whatever. Please note, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HAVE A CUTTER to do this project. Anything that can be cut can also be printed onto transparency or paper using the PNG version and included in your entry.

What is the cost of the class?

$52. That’s $1 a week for the whole 2013 year for the PDF and graphic element. More than anything, I wanted this class to be affordable, easy, and fun with a little visual goodness mixed in. That’s my vision.

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For even more info about this class, CLICK HERE. And you know Kerri loves to offer us savings, so if you sign up by December 31st the cost is only $47. On January 1 it goes up to its regular price of $52.

[ To purchase, click HERE. ]

Kerri Bradford Studio: Christmas 2007

What a week. My broken power cord forced me off the internet for two days, and then when my new cord arrived, I forced myself off the internet for another day. Too much going on at once, and not enoug time to do it all in. Anyways. I'm finally back and wanted to share a layout I had up at Kerri Bradford Studio earlier this week.

I came across some Christmas photos from a family get-together, taken back in 2007, that I had never gotten around to scrapping. I had quite a few photos, and wanted to get them all onto a layout, so I picked out one of Kerri's Storyboard templates to create two quick photo collages. 

I knew the collages would go side by side, on the two pages, so that it created one large collage across the two-page spread. So I simply turned the template upside down, so that the template design was flip flopped on the second page.

I love using Kerri's handwritten words. I can only dream of having such gorgeous handwriting. Believe me, you would NOT want my handwriting on your layouts. Lol. I used the "Christmas" from the newer December Twenty Five kit, which has TONS of handwritten words.

I never use snowflakes, being as we live in California, where we just don't have true "winters" or see any snow. But since the majority of the family was wearing a lot of blues, browns, reds, and lighter colors, I thought it would be a nice opportunity to go with a more "winterey" color scheme and use the snowflakes instead of Christmas trees, presents, or other typical Christmas themed shapes.

I used one of the snowflakes from the This & That: Winter [Shapes Only] kit. I cut a lot of these, from several colors of cardstock and patterned paper, along with some from white cardstock. I knew what I wanted to do, but I also didn't take the time to figure out how many snowflakes I would really need. Turns out, it was a LOT less than I thought, meaning I had tons of leftovers.

All of the patterned papers that I chose for this layout are older papers from Fancy Pants. I believe from their 2011 Christmas collection.

I didn't add any journaling to this layout, which isn't normally something I skip. But I'm not that worried about it, since this is really just a collection of photos from Christmas day, which we know involved family, good food, gifts, and spending time together. I added the year and called it "done".

I really hope you've been checking Kerri's blog these past two weeks, for her "12 days of Christmas" feature. She's been sharing projects, video's, and tips, along with having a freebie shape available each day. But only for that day. Which is why I will feel terrible if you havn't been checking in, since we're 11 days in now. Rest assured, if you've missed downloading these shapes, she will have them all available as a kit later on.

Kerri Bradford Studio: Family Thanksgiving

I had my layout go up over at Kerri Bradford Studio yesterday, and am finally finding some time to get it posted and shared here. 

Back in 2009, we were having all of the family together for Thanksgiving, which hadn't happend in a long time. So I posted HERE about this fabulous plan for a family mini album that was all about what we're thankful for. I took a nice photo of each family member, and had each person write down what they were thankful for on some journaling pages. 

Then, a full year later in 2010, I came back and posted HERE about how I hadn't done anything with the album all year, and how I was going to try and get it done by Thanksgiving (which was the next day). It's now two full years after that, and I never did finish the album. It's been sitting in a bag under my desk all this time. I can be pathetic, I know.

So when Kerri asked us to create some Thanksgiving or Christmas themed projects this month, I decided to take the general idea that I had started with for that album ... a photo of each person and their handwritten page ... and incorporate them into a two page spread. While the idea of putting out a mini album at Thanksgiving for everyone to look back on sounds lovely, the realistic side of me knew that I would be better off just getting it done and in my album, otherwise it would never get done.

I started by printing out all of the photos 2"x3", and trimmed them all up, leaving a small white border around the edges. I adhered them in three rows, tucking the bottom edges slightly under the patterned paper strip below. Then I machine stitched across the rows, below the photos.

I am IN LOVE with all of the handwritten words that Kerri is working into her new kits! I used a few words from her Giving Thanks kit on my layout. I cut all of my words from white cardstock, and then either the brown or blue cardstock. I thought just a tiny amount of white showing from behind the words would tie in with the white borders around my photos.

I never seem to keep track of the dots to any i's in my cuts. I have gotten to where I don't even attempt to keep the dots anymore, as I will just dot them with a brad or something. I just now, as I'm typing this post and looking at this photo, realizing that I never went back to dot any of my i's. And I highly doubt that I will remember to do it after I finish this post ;)

The leaves are from the This & That: Autumn [Just Shapes] kit. My patterned papers are mostly from Little Yellow Bicycle, with a little bit of Fancy Pants and Bo Bunny mixed in (I just didn't have time to link up products for this layout, but if there's something you want to know about, just ask me and I'll help you out finding it). I made three sets of these three different leaf designs, sizing each leaf in varying sizes. I just eyeballed them, since I didn't have a set plan for them when I did my cutting. I cut them from three different patterned papers, and also from white cardstock for layering.

I knew that I wanted to include the journaling pages, where each family member wrote what they were thankful for that year. I figured an envelope was the most logical way to include those on the page. The nice think about tucking them away in the envelope was that I didn't have to worry about the journaling pages clashing with the papers I chose for my layout.

I chose an envelope from the Signed.Sealed.Delivered kit, and sized it to fit the journaling pages. I was a bit limited in the size I could cut the envelope, since I have the Silhouette SD, and can only cut about eight inches wide. Luckily, when I went as big as would fit on my cutting mat, it was just large enough to hold my pages inside. It's times like this when I really, really, really wish the Cameo was in my budget.

I had all of the handwritten journaling pages adhered within the mini album that I had started. So I had to go through and tear them off. Luckily, the adhesive wasn't super, so they came off very easily. Unfortunately, there is still adhesive on the back of these pages that can be removed, if I had the desire to spend a TON of time doing it. I will probably just put them back to back to make my life easier, even if they do sort of stick to each other.

I had planned on machine stitching down the centers of each leaf. However, I was finishing up this layout while the daycare kids napped, and the machine was making way too much noise (I was doing it in the kitchen). So I just adhered them all with pop dots and added some matching threaded buttons to a few of the leaves.

In fact, as I'm typing this and looking at the above photo, I can even see a stray piece of scrap string. Geez. What's even funnier to me, is that I'm sitting on the couch in the family room typing this blog post, and on the couch opposite me, there is a piece of string stuck to the arm of the couch that looks exactly that same size. I'm not even sure why I haven't picked it off. It's just there for me to keep noticing. Lol.

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Don't forget about Kerri's sale going on right now. Place an order over $20, and you can get 25% off by using the code above. This sale goes through Sunday.

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And now for my randomly drawn winner for the $25 gift card to Kerri's store:

Congrats Kim! Send me a quick email, and we'll get your info over to Kerri, so that you can get shopping!!!

Kerri Bradford Studio: Incredibly Grateful Holiday Celebration

There's a fun celebration going on over at Kerri Bradford Studio this week. It's the Incredibly Grateful Holiday Celebration, and in addition to projects from her creative team, she's having a fabulous sale! Just use the code in the image below to save 25% on all orders over $20.

Here's a peek at the project I created for the celebration. Look for it later this week!

Kerri has also generously given me a $25 gift card to give away to one of my lucky blog readers! Just leave me a comment to be entered in the random drawing. I will leave comments open until Thursday night, and will announce a winner on Friday.

Yes, I Really Am That Adorable

I managed to get another layout created on Tuesday, as the adorable little dude in these photos stayed home for his first birthday! They grow up so stinkin fast!

When Kerri Bradford first sent me her new Here Kitty Kitty kit, I wasn't in a huge rush to open it. After all, I don't have a cat, and if I'm being totally honest, I'm not even a cat person (sorry if you are one!). However, I knew that there would be pieces in the kit that I could still put to good use.

Like this title. It was the first thing that caught my eye in the kit. And I knew right away what I would use it for. A layout about one of my adorable little daycare babies. Mateo is one of the most adorable little boys you'll ever meet. And we tell him that over and over, all day long. Every two minutes, you can hear us saying "you are soooooooooooo adorable"!

I chose my colors based off of the colors of Mateo's shirts in a few of the photos. My patterned papers are older papers from Basic Grey, in red, blue, and yellow. I actually went looking for a ledger paper for my background, but then I came across this gorgeous embossed cardstock and had to use it. I love the texture and interest it adds to the background.

I have this assortment of products and tools laying around that have been so generously sent to me, and I've been meaning to play with them. One of them was this fun star border metal die from Die-namics. It's six inches long, so I ran it through my Cuttlebug twice, so I could make a full border across the page.

I also used a few stamps from Technique Tuesday. I honestly can't remember the last time I have stamped on any projects. I have some great stamps, and TONS of fabulous ink pads. I have no clue why I don't use them more. Usually, I will test out several shades or kinds of ink pads before stamping on a project, so that I get just the right one. I grabbed one ink pad and stamped right onto my layout. If I had taken a bit more time, I would have chosen a little bit darker shade of brown.

I also used a metal burst die from Die-namics, designed by Laina Lamb (who I was on the Jillibean Soup DT with a few years ago), to create a few accents on the page. I folded a few in half, and stapled them over the top edge of my layout, and then I layered a few together to fill in an empty space on the page.

I also dug out some older star rubons and some newer tiny wooden stars, both from Studio Calico. I went with the brown woodgrain stars, so they were very subtle on the background cardstock.  

Supplies Used:

Kerri Bradford Studio: Altered Halloween Project

As part of the Halloween Extravaganza going on at Kerri Bradford Studio this week, I have a new altered Halloween project to share.

I have a confession. I don't go all out every Halloween and decorate my house top to bottom. I'm closer to the not-decorating-at-all side of the spectrum. Lol. I see photos everywhere I look of spooky, but really cute, Halloween decorations filling up every nook and cranny of homes, and I wish I could learn to incorporate it into my house in the same way. But I can't. So I limit my Halloween decor to the one small table by my front door. Which means I keep my decor items nice and simple, just like these paper mache "BOO" letters.

I picked up these 8" paper mache letters at the craft store a few weeks ago. I always enjoy working with paper mache letters and boxes for altered projects. They're so easy to paint and cover with papers.  

I knew I wanted to use the diamond background shape from the Foundations: Trick or Treat kit on the front of each letter, so I cut 3 seperate pieces from some Bella Blvd Halloween patterned paper. The other side of this paper is orange, which was what I was originally going to use. But I just wasn't feeling it. I didn't want to re-cut any pieces, so I just flipped it over and used the backside. 

I also re-sized the tree from the This & That: Halloween [Just Shapes] kit to the same height as my letters (8 inches), and cut it from black cardstock, along with some bats from the new This & That: All Hallows Eve kit.

I thought about painting the letters, but I just couldn't settle on a good color. Some sort of cream seemed to be the right choice, but I'm not a cream kind of girl. I thought some text tissue paper might be fun to decoupage on, and I thought for sure I had some. But I didn't. What I did find was some cream washi tape with black dots from 7 Gypsies. So I simply covered the front of each letter with torn strips of tape. 

I wasn't too neat about it, and I didn't even worry about how much tape was folded over the edges of the letters. I then painted on some black acrylic paint around the edges of the letters. Once again, I wasn't neat about it at all, and just made sure the paint went up to the edge of the tape.  

I spritzed on some white misting spray over the taped/painted letters. That part didn't work quite as planned, since the ink never did dry. I'm guessing it was because of the texture of the tape. I didn't stress about it smearing, and just covered the entire letters with Mod Podge.

After that dried, I then adhered the diamond paper pieces to the letters, using glue dots. I used my scissors to cut off the excess from around the edges of the letters and the insides of each letter. I added just a few layered bats to the letters, and called it "done".

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And don't forget to check out Kerri's Halloween Extravaganza sale going on this week. It's a great time to stock up on Halloween and Fall kits!

Kerri Bradford Studio: Enjoy Card

Over the weekend, I had a card go up over at Kerri Bradford Studio.

I am constantly in need of birthday cards, and never seem to have enough on hand when I need them. So I thought I would whip up some quick and easy cards to have on hand. I know I've said this exactly same thing before, and made more birthday cards. But I seem to have gone through all of those already. So I'm on a mission again, to restock my card drawer.

I've been wanting to try out the confetti trend that is so popular these days, and thought it would be fun to add to the top of a cupcake. I used the cupcake from Kerri's This & That: Love [just shapes] kit. I cut the bottom part of the cupcake from patterned paper, and the top part from vellum. My intention was to put the punched confetti under the vellum and sew around the edges, but it didn't work out so well for me.

So I ran the vellum part of the cupcake through my Xyron, so that the entire piece was covered in adhesive. Then I sprinkled punched confetti over it, and pushed it all down to cover the piece. The word "enjoy", from Kerri's Pack Your Bags kit, was perfect for my sentiment.

Speaking of Kerri, she's having a Halloween Extravaganza this week on her blog. All Halloween kits, with the exception of the new All Hallow's Eve kit, are on sale for 30% off. She's also sharing Halloween projects all week long, starting with a gorgeous, detailed canvas by Nichol Magouirk. I put together a little something as well, that will be up later this week.

Kerri Bradford Studio: Monday Thru Friday

I have a new layout up at Kerri Bradford Studio today. When Kerri came out with her Today kit a while ago, I knew right away one of the layouts that I wanted to make with it.

I thought it would be fun to cut out the days of the week, and use them on a layout about my work week with the daycare kids. My Monday thru Friday week with them. It's really kind of a monotonous job, if I'm being honest. Every day is different, and yet every day is the same. What makes it different is what kids are here with me, what time they come and go, who's in a good mood and who's in a grouchy mood, whether they make it a good nap day or a bad nap day. Those kinds of things.

What makes it the same is that when you get right down to it, my day is really about diapers, bottles and sippy cups, and lots and lots of toys. I'm constantly changing diapers, making and washing bottles, filling sippy cups and dishing out meals, and picking up the same exact toys over and over that I have been picking up for the last 11 years. Pull out any given toy, and I can mimic the sounds it makes or the song it plays. I have no idea what movie "Just smile and wave boys. Smile and wave." and "Progress report" comes from, but I can say it exactly like that little penquin toy ;)

Don't get me wrong though. There's lots of fun things about this job too. Seeing the kids grow and learn is a perk. I have one that's just about 11 months old, and is trying out the whole walking thing this past week. I'm sure he'll be chasing us all around soon. Another one is going to be 3 in a few months, and it's ridiculous what a fun personality he has. He carries on full conversations with me, and I think that's super cool. I get the advantage of enjoying the different ages, and then conveniently sending them home in the evening, so I can get some peace and quiet.

First, I have to tell you that this layout ended up looking NOTHING like the one I had in my head. Lol. I had this vision of the days of the week going all down one side of the page, and creating a photo collage to go on the other side. But once I cut the days out, I ended up arranging them in a more random way on my page. 

I used the Note To Self collection from Echo Park for this page. To cut my days of the week out, I used the 6x6 paper pad, since the patterns are on a smaller scale and would look better with the thin design of the words. I just eyeballed the size of my days, so they're all a bit different in size.

Since there wasn't room for a photo collage anymore, I cut a few frames from Kerri's This & That: Family kit, and sized my photos to fit behind the frames. I adhered the photos down first, and then adhered the frames using some pop dots.

I used some alpha stickers from a sticker sheet, included in the collection pack, to add a description of each photo onto the frames. And yes, diapers are very important!

I thought the "it's a good day" viewfinder sticker would be fun to add to the center of a clock, cut from Kerri's This & That: School kit. It's got the same look as the numbers on a clock, right? Remember those old viewmaster's? That's one toy that I don't have here.

Supplies Used:

Kerri Bradford Studio: Just Add Color Class

The ever-so-talented Kerri Bradford has a brand new class coming up on JessicaSprague.com! It starts October 8 and you can sign up for it HERE right now!

If white is all the colors in the world, then what better foundation could there be for your pages than white? 

They make every color you use pop off the page. Your accents, your patterned paper pieces, and most importantly . . . your photos.

So that's where we start with this class.

A clean + fresh palette to work our magic.

And now all we need to do is Just Add Color.

So within the class, Kerri will be sharing some color+design secrets “according to Kerri”. She’ll be sharing some fun resources, making color palettes, and the most important part - utilizing the new color fun in Silhouette using the color tools and all the other fun tools to make great accents for your pages.

This class is a little shorter than Kerri’s previous classes, but that doesn't mean it isn't chock-full of creative goodness! It has three lessons (vs. 5) and each lesson will have multiple tasks in each one. As usual, everything you need - digitally speaking - for the lessons is included. And the icing in the cake? The freebies! That's 'on top' of what we use in the class, so it really is appropriately “the icing”!

Oh, and then the sweet colorful sprinkles on top of the icing would be some surprise goodness from the talented Nichol Magouirk! You can only see those babies in the class! She'll show you what kind of foundation her white cardstock provides for her.

And because it's a smaller (in length) class, the price is smaller too. It's only $18. This would definitely be called more of an intermediate class. You should really have a good understanding on how to use the basics in Studio. And it doesn't matter if you have the Standard or the Designer Edition … it will all work the same.

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Kerri is giving away THREE spots in her new class over on her blog today! Head on over HERE, and leave a comment that includes your name, where you're from, and your favorite color. She'll be drawing winners on Tuesday!

Kerri Bradford Studio: Back To School Layout + A Tutorial

I'm a few days later than planned on this. Sorry if you thought my "I'll share my layout tomorrow", actually meant "tomorrow". Lol. Anyways. I have this layout up over on at Kerri Bradford Studio today.

Here’s the layout that came before the cards that I shared last Thursday. I started this layout, wanting to use the Print files from the This & That: School Kit as my patterned paper. I did end up using a few other patterned papers. The red number circle paper and the lined paper are both from Little Yellow Bicycle. 

All of the pieces making up the patterned paper border along the left side of the layout are cut straight from the Print file sheet. I just pulled up the file and printed it. Didn't resize anything. Then I cut out all of the individual pieces and started laying them out, coming up with a plan.

I added a few embellishments to these layered pieces. A few badges from October Afternoon, some brads from Crate Paper, and a chipboard accent from Fancy Pants. And a favorite polka dotted ribbon from Jillibean Soup.

Even these little word pieces were from the Print file. They remind me of the old school word fetti stickers from Making Memories.

I also wanted to cut a few of my titles from those same patterns, so that they would match perfectly. This is where I had to get a little creative, since I needed pieces that were much larger to cut from. I came up with an idea at the last minute, and if I had thought about it last weekend, I would have filmed a little tutorial video. But my week has been rough and hectic, so we'll have to settle on a screenshot tutorial. Edited to add: since we waited a few days to share this, I actually did have a weekend where I could have filmed something. Totally slipped my mind.

I started by pulling up one of the Print files that I wanted to work with, and choose which paper shape I was going to use for my cutting.

Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, I select the paper that I want, by dragging a box around it and then selecting Copy from the dropdown menu (under edit). This black ruled piece can be seen up at the top of that border strip on my layout, with the A+ badge on it. Much too tiny of a piece to cut from.

I opened up a new canvas to work on. I choose an 11” x 8.5”, since my printer only prints standard paper sizes.

From the dropdown menu (under Edit), choose Paste, which will paste the image you copied onto the blank canvas. You will go to your dropdown menu again (under edit), and choose Free Transform. Normally, I would hold down the Shift button while dragging one of the corners in or out to make the images smaller or larger in size, but still keeping the general shape intact.

However, I wanted to make this image larger, but also wider so that the ruled lines didn’t end up too far apart. So I didn’t worry about holding down the Shift button, while dragging out the edges of the shape to make it stretch across the page.

Since I was going to be cutting out a few different titles, I wanted to cover my entire paper with the black ruled patterned paper. Had I just made my original shape larger, to fill the page, the ruled lines would have been very far apart. So this is why I made the shape shorter and wider, and then simply copied and pasted it, so that were actually two on the sheet. When finished, just flatten the image, and send it through your printer (I used textured white cardstock).

Here’s a look at what I was cutting out on my Silhouette. The “And so it begins” and the “Junior Year” were for my layout, and the two “ABC” were for my cards. Sidenote: I really wish I was showing you a Cameo cutting mat in my screenshot. Lol. One day, I will upgrade. I hope.

And here’s a look at how it all cut out of my printed paper.

I also needed to cut the “And so it” and “Junior” to add to my layered titles, and I wanted to cut them from papers that matched the ones that were on my layout from the original Print file. So I pulled up the second Print file, and choose the two papers that I wanted to use to cut from.

I choose this lined yellow paper.

And this grid blue paper.

I used the same steps that I used before. Selecting the Free Transform from the dropdown menu (under Edit), and dragging out the edges of the paper until the size looked right for what I was going to cut.

You could easily enlarge several of the paper shapes from the Print files, and combine them onto a sheet or two to print out.

You can see here that I had plenty of room to work with once I cut out the titles I needed. I could have added more shapes to cut, use the extra on another card or layout, or even use it with punches for embellish my layout or cards.

And a look at the completed titles on my layout. I think I have mentioned before that I tend to lose track of any dots for my i's, j's, etc. This time, I was so careful to keep track of mine, and even ran them through my Zyron, so that they'd be adhesive ready and in one spot.

And then I lost that strip. I'm not a messy scrapper at all, so it's weird for me to lose things like that. I ended up tossing some brads on there, to dot my i's. And then later that night, I found my dots. Figures.

While Kerri’s This & That kits are fabulous for their intended purpose, which is for creating the gorgeous altered trays, keep in mind they can be used for lots of other projects as well. Break them down, and think of other ways to get the most out of them. And if you’re looking for a fun alternative to your regular patterned paper stash, really take a good look at the Print files, as you have a good selection of patterned paper right there. And you only have to print what the amount of paper you need!

Kerri Bradford Studio: Back 2 School Cards

I've been working on a few more projects for Kerri Bradford Studio this past week. Since the girls went back to school last week, I was in school scrapping mode. It's a little crazy that I already have Alyssa's first day of school photo on a layout, with Sarah's in the works as well.

I'm sure if you're a fan of Kerri Bradford, you recognize her This & That kits, like this school one. I love, love, love the designs of these kits, and how they look all pieced together in the 7 Gypsies tray. However, I don't have a tray and just never got around to purchasing one.

While I use individual shapes from the This & That kits all the time (also available in Shapes only kits), I had never really thought about using the print files, which are designed as the background pieces for the trays. It's really just like digital patterned paper, if you think about it. I was working on a school layout (which I'll share tomorrow), and I decided to print out both of these pages to use as my patterned paper (printed on white textured cardstock).

I had some leftover pieces, so I decided to make a few cards. The ruled patterned paper and the red circle/number patterned paper are both from Fancy Pants, but everything else is from those two print file pages. I used a bunch of the smaller pieces from the print file, cut them in half, and tucked them across the top of the card. Super simple, and so much easier then cutting into large sheets of patterned paper.

I really loved the black ruled piece from the print file, and I wanted to use it to cut a few extra shapes from. Like the "ABC" on this first card. I actually did a little tweaking to my print file, so that I had a larger black ruled piece to cut from. More on that little trick tomorrow ;)

Same story on this card. All of the little pieces across the top are from the print file pages. The blue alphabet pieces, with "apple" across the center, was one that I kept wanting to use in full on a card. But I kind of like how it looked tucked in here, once I finally decided to cut it in half.

In case anyone's wondering, the alpha stickers that I used on these two cards are a mix of Jillibean Soup, Bella Blvd, and Making Memories.

I think the This & That: Summertime print files would be fun to use. So bright and colorful.

And I really love fall, so the This & That: Autumn print files would be perfect on some fall cards and/or layouts. Just something to keep in mind, if you have these kits in your files. It's always fun to find new ways to use things, and make the most of our kits.

Check back tomorrow for my school layout, and more on how I tweaked these Print files, to use for cutting out my titles to make them stretch even further.

Kerri Bradford Studio: Birthday Celebrate + A Layout

There's big stuff happening over at Kerri Bradford Studio this week! Kerri's store is coming up on it's second birthday. I was a huge fan of Kerri's design style from way back in the day. In fact, I even got to meet Kerri, about four years ago (picture proof HERE). She was one of the biggest reasons I finally bought a Silhouette, and I filled my library up with tons of her designs. When she branched out on her own, I followed. And I was totally honored when she asked me to be a part of her creative team. I just love getting to play with her kits every month.

When Kerri asked if we wanted to do a little extra project for her party, of course I was up for it. My first thought was do a birthday layout, for this birthday celebration. But after all of my CHA work for Bella, I admit, I was a little birthday'd-out. Lol. So I went another route, which is up on her blog today.

This is another set of photos that I swiped from Sarah's iPod a while back. These girls are all of Sarah's closest friends, and they took these photos of themselves (or someone else helped for the group shots, I would assume) at school. They were posing in front of a firetruck that was visiting the school, most likely for a safety day or something. I'm not actually sure who took these photos, but they came from one of the girl's cell phones or iPod's.

I knew these photos would be perfect to use with Fancy Pant's Off To School collection. Fancy Pants is an extremely generous sponsor of the 2012 CK Dream Team, and I am always grateful for the goodies they send us. This was a collection that I was really excited to play with, but I just never seemed to get around to it. I love the aqua and browns in this collection, mixed with the more traditional red and yellow school colors.

I knew I wanted this layout to be more about Sarah and her friends, rather than the fact that they were posing with a firetruck at school. But I also wanted to tie it into a school themed layout, if that makes any sense. I choose this title from Kerri's Graduation kit, and added a little subtitle using some tiny letter stickers from Jillibean Soup.

This layout came about quite a bit differently then most of my layouts. I printed out the photos, without really knowing how they would go on the page. They ended up taking up quite a bit of space, which led me to a more random design. I like the change, from my usual "linear, all lined up" style. I misted my white cardstock before adhered anything, and then ended up covering up most of my good misted areas. I printed my journaling, and then realized how tight the space was, so it got crammed together in order to fit.

I wanted to include the grade Sarah was in when these photos were taken, so I chose her school year from the School Years kit. And because I don't like to have to do the math, when trying to figure out what year corrulates to what school year, I added the actual year (2012) with some tiny number stickers. 

While I was cutting out my title pieces, I also die cut a few stars from each patterned paper, thinking I could work them onto the layout. I believe there are stars in quite a few of Kerri's kit, but my go-to star is from The Ol' Ballgame kit. I wasn't really thinking about how I would use them, or where on the layout, so I made them totally random sizes. No measuring, which is completely unlike me. I decided to add threaded buttons to the centers of the stars, so I wish I had made some of them a bit larger. 

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Here are a few of Kerri's newer kits that I've been itching to use. With all of the CHA work going on, I hadn't used my Silhoutte for a while. So I was unprepared when I realized I needed a new blade. And didn't have any on hand. Ugh. My new blades came just in time for me to whip out this layout last weekend. But these are the kits that I'm really wanting to use next.

To celebrate this big birthday milestone, Kerri is having a big sale all week long! Use the code "BIRTHDAY" and save 25% off orders over $15. It's a great time to pick up all of those kits you've been eyeing.

Supplies Used:

Kerri Bradford Studio: Layout & Card Share

I was just looking at my posts from the last few weeks, and realized I've been sharing Bella Blvd goodness for a full THREE weeks now! And there's still more to come on that end, since I did so many projects. But today, I'm switching gears, to share a few projects that I did for Kerri Bradford Studio this week! 

There's still at touch of Bella on here, since truthfully, this started as a Bella layout about 2 months ago, for our team-up with Core'dinations cardstock (isn't the dotted embossed cardstock gorgeous!). It never got finished, and what I did have done, I didn't love. So I tore most of the layout apart, keeping the photo collage and a few of the papers I had picked out, and started over. I'm so much happier with how this turned out.

I wanted to use one of Kerri's storyboard templates from her Picture That [Squared] kit, for my photo collage, but didn't have quite enough photos to fill up the spaces on the one I choose to use. I played around with the layers, combining two of the openings to make it a bit larger.

For the upper left corner photo, my photos wasn't cropping in how I wanted it to, to fill up the full space. So I adjusted the photo to how I liked it, leaving a bit of empty space on the right side of the photo. So when I printed my collage, there was actually some of the grey box still next to the photo. I printed out my journaling on a piece of graph patterned paper, and adhered it over the empty space next to the photo. Just an easy way to add your journaling right into your collage.

I cut out several hearts, using the XOXO kit, to sprinkle around the page. Good old basic hearts are always great for embellishing in my book. I dug out some coordinating buttons to add to the center of each heart. I also wanted to add a little interest to my pattern papers on the layout, so I used a few background shapes with circles (I'm slightly addicted to circles these days ;)). It's hard to see it here, but that white text patterned paper is cut with a circle background.

Since my collage was being adhered over the strips of pattern paper, I only needed to cut a small strip of paper to go on either side of the photo collage. The Life Additions: Backgrounds kit worked perfectly for this, with the small sized background pieces. Btw, all of the patterned papers on this page are a mix of Bella Blvd and Echo Park. 

For my title, I choose this fun phrase from the All About You kit. I cut an extra phrase from white cardstock, and layered it behind the patterned paper phrase, just to help it stand out against the blue cardstock.

I had some leftover hearts cut from my previous layout, cut from the XOXO kit, and thought I would create a quick card to use them up. I had also cut the word "Happy", from the Say What 3 kit, for another project, and didn't end up using it. It just happened to be the perfect width for the front of a card. I love happy coincidences!

I thought the colors of my sentiment and hearts looked great against a white card base, but wanted to add a bit more interest to it. So I cut a few of the circle backgrounds from the Life Additions: Backgrounds kit, and spritzed them with a bit of pink misting spray. The background pieces cut 3 circles wide, so I cut out two of them, and then overlapped one of the rows of circles when adhering them to the card base. So you can see it's 5 circles wide in the end.

I added a few rows of random machine stitching, before layering all of my cut pieces on the card. A few tiny alpha stickers from Jillibean Soup helped complete my sentiment. 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Summer Escape

I finally had a layout up yesterday, over at Kerri Bradford Studio. I say "finally" because my Silhouette Studio software stopped working for a full week. My laptop was having issues too, so I knew it was somehow related. Got the laptop back up and cleaned up, but the software still wouldn't work. Finally, the fine folks at Tech Support got me back in business, and I was finally able to work on this layout.

About two weeks ago, Joe and Alyssa's dad took the girls, our two neices, and one of Sarah's friends to Great America for the day. They were both on vacation, so it worked out perfectly. Sadly, I had to stay home and work. Bummer. Anyways. The girls all took photos with their iPod Touch's, so I made sure they sent me all of the photos.

Because the photos from the iPod aren't the best quality for printing, I printed all of the photos at 2x3 inches. I really didn't have a plan for how I was going to arrange them on my layout. I just started with some white cardstock for the base of my pages, and lightly misted the pages.

Next, I laid out the photos, in a semi-collaged way. Once I was happy with the arrangement, I adhered all of the photos down. Then I went about adding my pattern papers, die cut pieces, and embellishments around the photos. 

All of the pattern papers are from My Mind's Eye. I originally picked up that ticket stub paper to scrap some photos from a trip to the county fair a few years ago. But it just seemed to go with these photos. I die cut the sun from Kerri's This & That Summertime kit, and layered it with a punched pattern paper circle and a large button.

I really went looking thru Kerri's kits to find shapes that I could use on this layout. I knew I was looking more for words/expressions, rather than fun little shapes, just because of the theme of the layout. I choose this "summer escape" title from the Escape kit. I'm always a fan of titles that have the different fonts, and where I can mix different papers together.

I randomly came across the fun quotes from the Say What #2 kit, and thought they would be fun to incorporate along with my journaling.

I typed up the journaling from the girls point of view, so it looked like I was quoting them.

I also cut the word "park" from Kerri's new Summer Lovin' kit, and added the year with a shape from the twentyTWELVE kit.

These 5 girls had a great day together, and I love that I was able to capture the day through their eyes/lenses, and with their journaling. 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Every Picture Tells A Story

I have a new layout up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today. It's quite a bit different than my normal style, but I kind of like it.

I have no idea why, but I was randomly thinking about these photos of two of my previous daycare kids, Miranda and Nikolas, last week. I have used these photos on a layout before. But it was using a kit that I was doing some package samples for, and the products I had to use didn't do much for me. So I pulled up the photos and decided to scrap them again.

Now, I am really loving the look of Instagram photos. However, I don't have an iPhone, or a cell phone with a decent camera, or anything special device with a camera. So my personal way of using Instagram is a bit involved. I find the photos that I want to share (or this case, add a filter and print), and email them to myself. Then I take my older hand-me-down iPod Touch, and pull up that email. I save the photos to my iPod, and then from there, I can load them into Instagram. I add the filters that I want, and turn them into the cute square images. They automatically save themselves, and then I email them back to myself. Then I go back to the laptop, pull up that new email, and download the Instagram photos. Lastly, I pull them up in Photoshop and get them ready to print. Time consuming? Yes. LOL.

All of the papers I chose for this layout are from Echo Park. I am in love with using grid patterned papers lately, for my backgrounds, and this one here is from the Note To Self collection. The green, pink, and yellow papers are all from the This & That collections. When I dig around for titles to cut on my Silhouette, I love to look for ones that have a fun mix of fonts. The mix of a more block-ish font, along with a cursive font, is my favorite.  

Since my photos were all squares, I thought it would be fun to use a few more square pieces on the page, and just fit them all together randomly on the page. I'm such a linear scrapper, and love to line up my photos, that I wanted to be a little more random in design for this layout. I found these sunburst shapes in the This & That Freedom kit, which is geared towards Independance Day. While this would look awesome on a full 12x12 (sadly, I don't have a Cameo yet), I just cut them into smaller squares to use.  

Lastly, I set out to find some embellishments to add to the centers of the sunbursts. Normally, I would go straight to my buttons, but I decided to try and stay away from them on this layout. I came across these tissue paper flowers from Studio Calico, which for whatever reason, I have never used. There are three different sets, and the colors all matched my papers perfectly. Such a simple way to finish the page.

Supplies Used:

Kerri Bradford Studio: NSD Week - Photo Templates

As part of the week-long NSD celebration at Kerri Bradford Studios, today is all about the photos!

Photo templates! One of my favorite things to use on my layouts. I've been using photo collages on my layouts for years and years. I used to sit and create my own collages, which is fun. But takes forever and a day. This is why I am such a huge fan of photo templates. It has all of the design work done for you, and you simply drop your photos into the template and POOF ... you have a photo collage!

I created this fun collage, using some photos I randomly took of the girls and myself, back in January. No big story behind them. I just took my camera upstairs one night, snapped some photos of them where they were, and left. I might not have scrapped these photos together, when originally looking at them. But I had the fun Bright Side papers out, from one of the new My Minds Eye collections, and knew they would match perfectly and tie in the colors in the photos.

I love the simple look of white on white. I don't do it often, but I thought it would be fun to do with these flowers. The larger photo collage has a lot going on and takes up a lot of space on the page. So I didn't want to add to many other elements that would make it feel cluttered.

I like how the white on white adds interest, but also keeps the design clean and easy on the eyes. I added some threaded buttons to the centers of each flower for a fun touch.

I cut my title, using a few of the Bright Side patterned papers. I love Kerri's titles, that allow you to cut a word, or several of the words, from different papers. Adds such interest to the title.

Supplies Used:

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For my tips and tricks part of the week, I created a little video on how you can play with your templates a bit and customize them to fit your different photo needs. The template I used on this layout originally held 11 photos, but I only used 8 photos. You'll see how I did that in the video. A few things I have to say about the video. I thought it would look clearer, but it seems quite blurry. You have no idea how many ways I tried saving this and uploading this, to make it better. Didn't seem to help. It might work better to watch on Youtube, if it's looking cut off here. I've been sick for 5 days, so excuse the voice or any sniffles you hear from me. I'm a rambler, so no matter how many times I did this, I could not get it any shorter :)

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Kerri also asked us to share 5 of our favorite things. Hard to pick just 5 favorite things. But when asked to choose, I made impulsive decisions. Java Chip Frappacino's from Starbucks, which help me get so much done every day. Pinterest, which helps get me inspired, when I'm in a creative rut. Jeans, which are my daily staple to my wardrobe, and I just love a good pair of reliable jeans. Music, because I can't live without it. And Friends, which is my all-time favorite TV show, and one that I have recently become addicted to watching late at night on Nickelodeon ;)

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Now, I'm not quite done. I still have the shape that Kerri designed, per my request, available as a FREEBIE DOWNLOAD today. But only for today. If you don't go and download it today, it goes into Kerri's magic vault (wouldn't that be so cool to see if she really has one ;)), and will be available to purchase, along with all the other daily freebies, at the end of the week.

So head over to Kerri's blog, where you can find my FREEBIE shape, and also enter in her giveaway for the day. It's a gorgeous one, so you'll want to get your name in there!

And there's even more!!! Kerri is so super generous and sweet, that she has given me TWO $25 GIFT CARDS to give away to two of my lucky blog readers! How awesome is that! Just leave me a comment, and I will randomly choose two winners on Friday!

Kerri Bradford Studio: NSD Week-Long Celebration

Did you know that this coming Saturday is National Scrapbook Day? Or NSD, for short. My family still laughs when I try and claim that it's a holiday ;) Big things are going on over at Kerri Bradford Studio this week, in honor of NSD!

All week long, Kerri will be having sales, giveaways, and freebies! As part of her Creative Team, I, along with Nichol, Robyn, Shari, have all came up with some fun tips for you, projects, and a peek at our favorite things. Kerri will also be designing a free shape, inspired by each Creative Team member, that you can download on our featured day. But only on that day, because at the end of the week, they will all go into a kit that will be available for purchase!

Long story short ... you will want to visit Kerri's blog every day ;)

Each day this week, there will also be something different on sale! But if you see something you like, you must get it that day. Because the following day, that item will go back to normal price, and there will be new things on sale! Let's see what Kerri has on sale for today, Monday:

Check HERE for a video tutorial tip from Kerri, her freebie shape for the day, and to see what the giveaway for the day is (hint: project life)!

And check back here tomorrow, to see what I put together for the big week! If all goes as planned, there will even be a video ;)

hello spring - a kerri bradford studio layout

i have a layout up at kerri bradford studio today.

i know that pretty much everyone, everywhere, has had some strange weather this past year. just two weeks ago, we had some of the craziest thunderstorms, a bit of rain, and even some hail. not your typical april weather for us here. but the following week, we had some gorgeous weather. it finally felt like spring, with all of us dragging out capri's, shorts, tshirts, and flipflops.

the girls were outside taking photos of themselves one afternoon, using their ipod touch's. it's what kids do, right? sarah alone has over 3000 photos on her ipod. lol! i find some great ones in there though, and i often think that i should save them and use them for something.

i "borrowed" some of their photos from that one afternoon, to create this layout. because the ipod touch's don't get you the best quality photos, i knew i wanted to keep them fairly small on the layout. i choose a filmstrip type photo template from kerri's storyboard #6 kit, and filled 3 of them with photos. because the coloring wasn't the best on a few, and because they changed shirts at some point, i decided to change all of the photos to black & white to keep a consistent look.

i wanted to add a touch of black across the top of the page, and went looking for a border to use. i came across these birds on a wire and had to use them.  

i choose several papers from amy tangerine, along with the black dot paper from crate paper. the colors might not be your typical "spring" colors, but i thought they gave a more funky vibe to go along with my teenager and my pre-teen's photos. i always love to use the titles with different fonts on them, and that i can cut from several different papers. it adds such a fun look to the titles.

i cut several daisies, from different pattern papers, in varying sizes, and added threaded buttons to the centers. to add more color to the page, i dug out some wide turquoise ribbon and adhered it across the page.

Supplies Used:

birthday cards: a kerri bradford studio project

i have some new cards up at kerri bradford studio today. i knew when kerri asked us to focus on cards this month, that i wanted to make some birthday cards. that's the one kind of card that i always need, but never seem to have on hand.

for my "happy birthday" cards, i started with the loopy card base from the for you kit, and added on a few rows of circles using the envelope insets from the signed, sealed, delivered kit. i cut it out of tone-on-tone pattern papers, and then adhered graph paper to the inside of each card.

i cut it out of tone-on-tone pattern papers from bo-bunny, and then adhered graph paper to the inside of each card. i have a definate obsession with graph paper lately.

then i adhered a threaded button in the center of each cut out circle. all of the buttons i used are from basic grey. they make some of the best buttons, and i love the colors.

the first card was my more "boyish" card. although my girls told me the buttons aren't "boyish". oh well, the colors are and that's good enough for me. this card is the "girlish" version.

when you open up the card, you're just lifting the pink piece on top, with the loopy borders. so the buttons will actually be on the inside of the cards, in two neat little rows.

for my sentiments, i spent forever looking for the perfect "happy birthday" stamp, and couldn't find one that would work. then i remembered these "happy birthday" rubons from pebbles. i LOVE these, and they're perfect for card making, since you get so many in each little package. i added the rubon to a label sticker from my mind's eye, and adhered it to the card front, along with a piece of ribbon from pebbles.

for my next cards, i wanted to use the tear-away envelope from the signed, sealed, delivered kit. i love the idea of tearing off that little strip, to get to what's inside of the envelope. i also took a little inspiration from robyn's cards that she shared a few weeks ago, since i love how she added them right to the front of her cards.

for my actual card base, i just used a regular old card. all of the papers are from amy tangerine's first collection.

i resized the envelope, so that it would be the perfect size for a gift card. we are always giving out gift cards for birthday gifts, so this will come in really handy. i cut these from some graph paper. to add a little something to the tear-away strip, i used a teeny tiny stamp from technique tuesday.

i added a few stars to the cards, embellished with threaded clear buttons. i'm sure there are stars in several of kerri's kits, but the first one i found during my search was from the christmas countdown kit. i also used a sentiment stamp from hero arts.

i had a few extra stars left over, so i also added one to the front of each envelope, along with a "Celebrate" sentiment from the all about you kit. the envelopes for all of the cards are also in the tear-away style. i cut them from kraft cardstock, and then lightly sprayed them with white misting spray from studio calico.

i love that i have a few birthday cards on hand now. i made 2 of the second style, which means i have 4 cards. only problem is that i have 3 birthdays in the extended family, during the next week. which will leave me with only one spare card. guess i'll have to make some more cards one of these days :)

kerri bradford studio: new designer and giveaway winner

time to announce a winner for kerri bradford's new class, silhouette: getting to know you, being held at jessica spraque.

congrats heidi!!! shoot me an email, and i'll get your info over to kerri, so you can can get all signed up! 

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and did you all see THIS. i'm so excited that loni stevens is teaming up with kerri bradford to share her amazing die cut designs! i have just about ALL of loni's designs in my silhouette library, and she's been a long time favorite scrapper/designer of mine. so i love that she'll be designing exclusive kits through kerri bradford studio. 

here's a look at her first kit, which you can find HERE.

Jessica Spraque + Kerri Bradford + Silhouette

I'm guessing you've all heard of Jessica Spraque, right? And I know you all know about the fabulous Kerri Bradford. Well, guess what? They are teaming up to bring a new Silhouette class, taught by Kerri, to the Jessica Spraque site!

Here's some tid-bits about the class: 

• Class: 'Getting To Know You'. It's a self-paced class, so you can go as fast or as slow as you'd like. It includes 5 lessons, with the fifth one being a mini album project.
• Start date: April 2
• Cost: Normally $24 but pick it up for the Introductory Price of $19. Price is good until the class starts.
• Great for beginners, but also fun for those who've started to familiarize themselves with the program.
• Purpose: To get people to not be afraid of using their Silhouette.
• Description:  You just got your new baby . . . *ehem*. . .  Silhouette. She's all hooked up and now you're wondering how to get to know her better. Join Kerri Bradford as she leads you through the ins and outs of what you see in Silhouette Studio. She'll give you a basic overview of how to use the library for Silhouette shapes + shapes from outside sources as well as show you the basic tools and menus to help you get on your way to making your first cuts!
• Project includes: exclusive printable papers + icons along with Silhouette shapes to make a cute mini album (shown in photo)

You can find more information and sign up, right HERE.

Kerri and Jessica have given me a spot, in her first class, for a giveaway to one of my lucky blog readers! All you need to do is leave a comment on this post to be entered, and I will announce a winner on Wednesday!

the very thought of you - a kerri bradford studio layout

i had another layout up at kerri bradford studio yesterday. i really should have posted this yesterday, since it fits with the february/valentines/love theme. and now it's march. we can still have some love though, right ;)

this was one of those layouts that i started without photos, or without any idea of what photos i would use. i knew i was making a love themed layout. and i knew i wanted to use the love story collection, from fancy pants. i figured i would go looking for photos at some point. but i ended up pulling these photos of the girls, from years ago, that i had printed out for another layout.

i knew i wanted to use the circle background, from the more background basics kit. my intention was to cover the entire 12x12 page with these. three rows, with four in each row. so i started out cutting twelve circle backgrounds from white cardstock.

on the first run though the silhouette, when i cut the first eight, it turns out i should have changed my blade. i knew it was wearing down a bit, but i figured i could get a bit more use out of it. i spend forever trying to get these off my mat, and all the circles out. that'll teach me to be sure and have a good, sharp blade.

i pulled out my pattern papers, and started trimming an assortment of papers into the same size as my circle background pieces, and rounding the edges. i adhered them all together, and lined them up on a sheet of aqua cardstock.

i had two photos of the girls, that i printed for another layout. they were printed quite a bit larger, but it worked out perfectly to trim them into the same size as my circle background pieces. somewhere along the line, i decided to add the strip across the center of the layout, and only use the circle background pieces along the top and bottom.

i used my title and subtitle, to do double duty for my journaling as well. i like to think i'm pretty good about journaling, but sometimes, i don't have a lot to say. i got my title piece from the smitten kit, and cut it from a text patterned paper and some pink cardstock.

i wanted to keep the rest of the embellishments pretty simple, since there was already a lot going on with the different patterned papers. so i simply cut some hearts, from the XOXO kit, using different patterned papers and cardstock. a single threaded button on each heart and i was done!

valentine's day - a kerri bradford studio layout

i had a new layout up over at kerri bradford studio yesterday! i got my silhouette out, broke out some new papers, and created two new layouts over the weekend. in between a full day of soccer and regular life stuff, of course.

for the month of february, we were focusing on "love" projects. i honestly wasn't sure what i was going to do, until the day i was digging around on my external hard drives, and came across these photos from alyssa's kindergarten valentine's day party at school. these photos are from 2001, which means they're 11 years old. and i've never scrapped them. these were actually digital photos too. i didn't hop onto the digital wagon until around 2006, so these were from alyssa's dad's camera.

digital images back then, are a lot different than digital images these days. lol! but i fixed up all the images a bit. there's a few blurry ones, but that's ok. i used a template from kerri's storyboard #1 kit, and printed out this photo collage. i used to use photo collages so much more in the past, and kind of got away from it because of magazine work. i've been having fun with them again though, since kerri has SOOOOO many great ones to choose from.

i used the large circles from kerri's background basics kit, on my red & white dot pattern paper (from bella blvd). this is one of those square background shapes, so i actually only cut a small section of the shape to use here. i cut three rows of the circles, just a tad bit shorter than 12 inches high. i also used the scalloped scribble border from kerri's borderlines #1 kit, on some aqua cardstock. i've used that shape before, and it's so cute.

for my title, i cut out the "valentine's day" shape, from kerri's XOXO kit, from aqua and red cardstock. i also cut the word "day" from white cardstock as well, to layer under the red word. i felt like it needed a little bit of white on that corner of the layout. you might notice that my "valentine's" word looks a little worn.

well, i had this bright idea to cut a few hearts from that same aqua cardstock. i positioned them to cut below where i had cut "valentine's" from, since i had just enough cardstock left to fit them. i had already removed my cutting mat from the silhouette though, so i knew i couldn't line it up perfectly. well, i forgot to delete the word "valentine's", before i hit the "cut" button, so it went and cut that word again. and i wasn't lined up, since i wasn't planning on cutting it. instead of starting over, i just used the word as it was. with a little raggedness to it, which i personally think looks fine ;)

i wanted to be sure to add the year to this layout, since it was from so long ago. i found the 2001 in kerri's decade 2000 kit. i did add a very light misting of mister huey's calico white spray from studio calico, to my 2001 piece and to my hearts.

here's one of the hearts that i cut out, using kerri's smitten kit. i ended up cutting these from the aqua cardstock, red cardstock, and some of the pink scrabble patterned paper (that and the woodgrain paper are both from jillibean soup).

when i went to crop this photos of the girls together, there was this huge blue pole next to them. i could deal with the blue showing behind them, but not with a huge blue pole next to them. so i just cropped them over to the side, and i figured i would add a little embellishment to the empty space on the photo.

i also added some little pearl accents to the hearts, and randomly next to my title piece. i shouldn't say randomly. i like things to appear "random" at times, but i put a TON of thought into the placement of each piece. lol! just a cute little extra touch.

i have one more "love" themed layout that i did for kerri over the weekend, that i'll be sharing later this week. stay tuned ;)

happiness: a bella blvd challenge layout

we have lots of great stuff going on this week on the bella blvd blog. first off, we have a special week-long guest designer joining us. shannon tidwell! i've been a long time fan of her work, mostly at 2peas and for KI memories. it's been a lot of fun working so closely with her on this feature. she's heading up a week long challenge feature, where we have a different challenge every day this week. shannon has created lots of layouts for the challenges, and then our design team is playing along as well.

today's challenge is to use patterned papers from at least 4 different collections. that's actually really easy for me. i've always loved picking and choosing patterned papers from lots of different collections, and using them together on one layout. so i decided to double the challenge for myself. i choose patterned papers from EIGHT different collections for this layout.

the great thing about bella blvd papers, is that they have such great tone-on-tone patterns. this makes mixing papers easy to do. and you'll find so many of the same colors and shades, in many of the collections. when i was looking for a green patterned paper for this layout, i ended up with about 5 different choices, from 5 different collections, all of which would have worked. same with the aqua, or red, etc.

i thought it would be fun to do another sunburst on my layout. it's such a great way to use lots of patterned papers, and it looks super cool too! but, these sunburst do take a lot of work and thinking. lol! i snapped a few quick photos, while i was creating mine, to let you peek at my process. keep in mind, this is just the way i do them. doesn't mean it's the best way ;)

the word "happiness" from the sunshine & happiness chipboard set, was the starting point for this layout. when i went to choose my papers, i used these colors to make my choices.

and here's the final papers that i decided on. like i said, there were lots of choices for each color. i just made sure to have a good mix of patterns. chevron, polka dots, plaid, etc.

i knew i wanted my sunburst to go across the top of the page. so i cut a piece of white cardstock to the same size that i wanted my sunburst to be. i believe this is 4.5x12 inches. usually, you'll want to have something placed over the center of the sunburst. a photo, an accent, etc. my intention was to put my title over the center, and i knew i was going to use a large circle to add my title too.

so i arranged the circle template over where i knew i would be putting it, and then traced around it, onto the white cardstock. i made a pencil mark in the center of the circle, along the edge of the paper. then i used my ruler to draw the lines out ... from that center pencil mark, to the outside edge of the paper. i varied the size of the bursts, making some thinner and some wider.

since i was going to be placing a large circle over the center of the sunburst, i knew i didn't need the bursts to go all the way to the middle. if more of the bursts would have shown, and i had something smaller being placed over the center, i would have traced the lines further in. if that makes sense. after drawing all my lines, i numbered each burst, so that i could easily keep track of where they go. otherwise, it's like a puzzle, getting them back together. then cut them all apart, using your paper trimmer.

i then used each burst, as a template, to cut out my patterned papers. i used just a tiny bit of removeable adhesive, to stick the template piece to the backside of the patterned paper, and then cut them out. i won't lie. i spent FOREVER getting a color combo and arrangement that i liked. several of these bursts, i cut out numerous times, from different papers, trying to get the right look.

then i adhered each piece to a 12x12 sheet of white cardstock. this is just the piece that i'm building my entire layout on. i started with the two orange corner pieces, and then worked my way in. on a few other projects, where i have created sunbursts, i have machine stitched along each burst. which takes FOREVER. so i skipped that on this layout.

and here you can see where i placed my large circle, over the center of the sunburst. i used my circle cutters, to cut two different circles, slightly varying in size. the top piece is an embossed white cardstock, and the bottom is a text paper. i adhered the layered circles to the layout using pop dots.

in my journaling, i mention "all my girls".

i should clarify that only two of these are technically "my girls". the other four are previous daycare girls of mine. i've always lovingly called almost all of my daycare kids "mine". i used a photo template from kerri bradford studio, to create my photo collage.

i used my favorite grid patterned paper for the bottom part of my page. i really need to get more of it, because i'm down to my last sheet. the text paper along the left side, is the same paper that i used as the bottom circle on my title piece. the text is mostly red, which i thought was good, since i only used one piece of red paper on my sunburst. plus, lots of the words in the text are printed in other colors. most of which are the other fun colors that i used. it was meant to be used.

i ended up with all of these oddly shaped scraps of patterned paper, from cutting out my bursts. the day i created this layout, i had bought this tiny flower punch. i picked it up, after i realized i had no small flower punches, and recently, i had the need for one. since it was on my desk, i just decided to use it. i punched these little flowers out of each of the six papers i used on the sunburst. i adhered them along the text strip of paper, and then added little silver accents to the centers. i finished embellishing the layout with lots of little word stickers, in my six coordinating colors, and a few chipboard clouds.

make sure and stop by the bella blvd blog all week long, to check in on the fun. there is a TON of inspiration going on, with LOADS of new projects being shared. and we want YOU to join in on our challenges too. we're inviting you to play along, and then upload your projects showing your take on any or all of the challenges. you can link your layout at the end of each post this week. we're giving one lucky participate a prize package worth $100! but to be entered in the random drawing, you have to participate. for each project you create and link on our posts, your name will be entered in the drawing. so the more you create, the more chances you have to win. have fun, and good luck!