... just Laura

Kerri Bradford Studio: Even Better Here With You

 

Hey everyone! I'm back with another puppy themed project that I created for Kerri Bradford Studio. We have only had our new little puppy for a few months now, but the camera roll on my phone is filled with photos of him.

 

 

I wanted to pick out a few of my favorite photos to create a photo collage, to use as part of a travelers notebook sized spread. I picked out a template from Kerri's Travelers Templates: Wander kit, and got to work adding my photos. 

 

 

I then had the idea to add a few digital stamps to one or two of the openings on the template, using the new Blocks of Togetherness digital stamp kit. Digital stamps are great, since you can size the stamps to fit your exact needs.

 

 

I don't have many pet themed scrapbook products, but I remembered Kerri's older A Dog's Life cut file kit (no longer available), and I knew I could use the PNG files digitally to add "embellishments" to my page. 

 

 

I had full intentions of having a full page photo collage on one side of the spread, and a title/journaling combo on the opposite page. But once I got going, I decided to use the same collage template for both sides of the spread.

 

 

I rotated the template 180 degrees to create the second collage, kept filling up the template openings with a mix of photos, digital patterned papers, digital stamped phrases/words, PNG images for the embellishments, and my journaling. 

 

 

When I was happy with my collages, I printed them both out onto photo paper and trimmed them down. I added a single enamel heart to my otherwise all-digital spread. 

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Milo & The Love

 

Hey everyone! I have a few new projects that I created for Kerri Bradford Studio that I've been meaning to share. We welcomed a new addition to our family several months ago - a cute little Maltipoo puppy named Milo - and I figured it was about time to start documenting his cute little self on paper. I decided to go with travelers notebook sized pages, which I will be adding to his own Life Crafted album (from Citrus Twist). 

 

 

For his first official layout, I kept it every simple. I used a full page photo on the left side of the spread, adding his name using Kerri's new Headline Lower XL stamps. I like stamping chunkier font alpha stamps individually, and fussy cutting them out. Not only does this give me more control over placement on my project (I'm not the straightest stamper!), but it also adds a little texture to my pages, since I like to keep them relatively flat. Since I stamped my letters using yellow ink, to match the yellow patterned paper on the opposite page, I used a fine tip pen to lightly outline each letter to help them stand out.

 

 

For the right side of the spread, I printed out my journaling (copied and pasted from an Instagram post), and added a few pieces of patterned paper. 

 

 

The second layout features a couple of cute photos that my youngest daughter, Sarah, took with Milo a few weeks after we got him. I printed the photos as 3x4's, adhering one on either page of the spread.

 

 

I stamped the word "love" using the Headline Lower XL stamp set, fussy cutting out each letter individually to adhere on the top half of the left page. I then stamped "the", taken from the same stamp set, directly to the page above "love" to complete my title.

 

 

I also stamped a few phrases from the new Blocks of Togetherness stamp set around the edges of the first photo. After adding a few stamped ink blotches to the white cardstock background, using Kerri's Inked stamp set, I finished off the spread with a few puffy star stickers and enamel dots.

 

 

I don't scrap in the travelers notebook size regularly, so I often forget how quick these little pages can go together. I think this size will be perfect for creating simple pages about our newest family member, and documenting his little stories.

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Happy & Simple Habits Mini Album

 

Hey everyone! I had a new little project go up at Kerri Bradford Studio this week. I actually created this mini album way back at the end of October. It sort of slipped thru the cracks since then. I forgot about it, Kerri forgot about it, we both forgot about it again, etc. Lol. So this "write-up"/description was written about 4 months ago ;)

 

This has been a rough year for so many of us, am I right? I will fully admit that the last 7-8 months have been hard on me. And most of it isn't even related to the fact that we're all living thru a pandemic. Although that hasn't helped either. 

 

 

I realized that there are a handful of things that have been helping me thru the difficult times lately. Some are "habits" of sorts. Some are routines or things that I do on a daily basis without really thinking. When you get right down to it, they are all just simple little things that I've been doing to keep my mind off of the crappy parts of life, and allow myself to add a little sunshine into my days. 

 

 

I had the idea to create a quick and simple little mini album devoted to this hard time in life. I used an old 4x4" felt KI Memories mini album that I've had sitting around for years, and kept things super simple by not including photos at all. Just words and pretty papers. And a little stamping, of course ;)

 

 

 

I used Kerri's new Jordan Lower SM stamp set, along with some office tags, to create a tag for each "habit" that I wanted to document. To go along with my simple formula, I used the same color ink (navy blue) for all of my stamping.

 

 

I also used the new Jordan Numbers XL stamp set to help create my little title page, stamping "12" onto two tags, as I ended up with 12 "habits" that I included in the album. 

 

 

I simply adhered each tag onto a piece of patterned paper, adding a coordinating fiber (remember how they were all the rage years ago?) to each tag.

 

 

My patterned paper/tag combo went on the left side of each spread, and my journaling page went on the right side of each spread. For my journaling pages, I used a template from the Four By Four album set by CZ Design. 

 

 

I rarely make mini albums. But when I do, I usually follow the same design format throughout the entire album.

 

 

By sticking with this simple design, I was able to complete this entire little album in one sitting - which rarely happens with any of my projects ;)

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Love These 2

 

Hey all! I have a new layout up at Kerri Bradford Studio. When I saw Kerri's new love themed stamps, I knew it was about time that I created a layout about Alyssa and her boyfriend, Andy.

 

 

I rounded up some of my favorite photos of the two of them and created a photo collage using Kerri's Snapshots #1 template kit. I decided to print the collage in black and white, which can be helpful when you have an assortment of photos with different colors and looks.

 

 

This also gives you unlimited options when it comes to picking patterned papers and colors for the page. My patterned papers are all from Dear Lizzy collections, as well as the two little stitched heart embellishments.

 

 

I found this fun diagonal patterned paper that I thought would work great down the left side of the page, adding a few other patterned papers above and below my photo collage. I stamped the little row of tiny hearts along my green patterned paper, using the Love Is Everywhere stamp set, and adhered my photo collage above the stamped border.

 

 

I stamped the word "love" from Kerri's So Much Love stamp set and fussy cut each letter, adhering them along one of the diagonal rows. To complete my title, I used the new Better Together stamp set, stamping each letter/number onto a scrap piece of white cardstock and trimming each letter/number into an individual block, adhering them below the word "love". 

 

 

I also used the script "I love you" stamp from the So Much Love stamp set, and stamped it along another diagonal row on my patterned paper. I also stamped a few of the striped hearts from the same set, and fussy cut them out to help embellish the page, adding them alongside buttons and paper hearts. 

 

 

While I had everything out, I stamped an extra "love" using the So Much Love stamp set, and using a scrap of my patterned paper, created a quick card to coordinate with my layout!

 

2020 Reading Album: Books 25 - 29

I shared a bit more about my plans for this project in THIS POST. Since I'm following the same basic format, and using a lot of the same basic supplies, I won't be sharing too many details in these posts - so please refer back to that first post to find the main info on this album project :)

Book #25 | Out With The Ex In With The New, by Sophie Ranald

Book #26 | A Match Made At Christmas, by Courtney Walsh

Book #27 | The Twelve Dates of Christmas, by Jenny Bayliss

Book #28 | In A Holidaze, by Christina Lauren

Book #29 | Christmas Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella

You can read previous posts on this project and see all of my reading pages RIGHT HERE.

2020 Reading Album: Books 20 - 24

I shared a bit more about my plans for this project in THIS POST. Since I'm following the same basic format, and using a lot of the same basic supplies, I won't be sharing too many details in these posts - so please refer back to that first post to find the main info on this album project :)

Book #20 | I Invited Her In, by Adele Parks

Book #21 | Didn't See That Coming, by Rachel Hollis

Book #22 | Would Like To Meet, by Rachel Winters

Book #23 | No, We Can't Be Friends, by Sophie Ranald

Book #24 | My Favorite Half-Night Stand, by Christina Lauren

You can read previous posts on this project and see all of my reading pages RIGHT HERE.

2020 Reading Album: Books 15 - 19

I shared a bit more about my plans for this project in THIS POST. Since I'm following the same basic format, and using a lot of the same basic supplies, I won't be sharing too many details in these posts - so please refer back to that first post to find the main info on this album project :)

Book #15 | Lies Lies Lies, by Adele Parks

Book #16 | She's Faking It, by Kristin Rockaway

Book #17 | You Deserve Each Other, by Sarah Hogle

Book #18 | Twice In A Blue Moon, by Christina Lauren

Book #19 | Tools Of Engagement, by Tessa Bailey

You can read previous posts on this project and see all of my reading pages RIGHT HERE.

Kerri Bradford Studio: Books I Read 2020

 

Hey everyone! I had a new project go up at Kerri Bradford Studio last week, and wanted to pop in and share it here as well. I love having a wide variety of alphabet stamps to work into my projects, and I am excited to add all of Kerri's new Max alphabet stamps into my mix. I used the Max alpha stamp set to create a title for my 6x8" spread. 

 

 

I've never been great at lining up stamps all even and perfect, so I usually avoid stamping directly on the page when it comes to titles. I l like to either stamp each letter onto a small block of cardstock to use individually, or I will stamp each letter and fussy cut each one out to arrange individually - which is what I did for my title here. 

 

 

All of the patterned papers on this spread are from Dear Lizzy. Her papers have been my go-to papers for many, many years, and I can almost always find what I'm looking for in her collections. 

 

 

I used Kerri's Outnumbered (One) stamp set, which coordinates perfectly with Max, to stamp the numbers for the year "2020".

 

 

I created a tag using the new Fill In The Blank stamp set, stamping "29" (using the Brooklyn Etc stamp set) to represent the number of books that I read in 2020. I "hung" my tag from the top of the page with string, and embellished the page with a few stars.

 

 

I'll be back tomorrow and the following day to share the rest of the pages in my 2020 reading album ;)

 

2020 Reading Album: Books 10 - 14

I set a goal to read 25 books in 2020. And seeing as how it's 2021, and 7 months since I last shared any updates on this project, I'm happy to report that I did in fact read 25 books in 2020 - and then read 4 additional books, for a grand total of 29 books! I started this 6x8" album project to document the books that I read, knowing that I can continue to add to it for several years (and I have a second matching album I can use as well). 

I shared a bit more about my plans for this project in THIS POST. Since I'm following the same basic format, and using a lot of the same basic supplies, I won't be sharing too many details in these posts - so please refer back to that first post to find the main info on this album project :) I will add that the one thing that I did decide to change while catching up on these pages was that I decided to use the same exact journaling card for every book. I even went back and re-did the journaling cards for the first 9 books that were already done, so that I'd have a consistent look throughout the album.

Book #10 | Love Her Or Lose Her, by Tessa Bailey

Book #11 | Fix Her Up, by Tessa Bailey

Book #12 | The Friends We Keep, by Jane Green

Book #13 | One To Watch, by Kate Stayman-London

Book #14 | Josh & Hazel's Guide To Not Dating, by Christina Lauren

Project Life 2020: June Memories

Hey everyone! I finished up my June and July pages in my 2020 Project Life album a week or two ago, and finally took the time to snap some quick photos and edit them. I'm taking a monthly approach to my album this year, and I shared quite a few details about my plans in THIS post, where I shared my January pages.

I mentioned that I wasn't going to limit myself to a certain number of spread each month. I'll use however many pages I need, as I love to include the majority of our photos each month. For June, I ended up with 7 spreads, one of which includes a 6x12 insert. Technically it's 6 spreads, and the 7th is dedicated to the pandemic.

I've been using the One Little Word 2019 Digital Monthly Stories stamp set, from Ali Edwards, to create a lot of my monthly title cards. I just add the digital stamp to a blank canvas, and pick a coordinating color for the background. 

I'm working at least one of the 3x3" configured pocket page protectors into my album each month (but will use a second if it works with my photos). 

So many of our photos work well as squares, and I can simply trim the 3x4" photos down to the 3x3" size without having to re-print them. 

** The spread after this page will be dedicated to Coronavirus related things - some factual, some funny, and some personal stories. I started this with my March monthly pages, and have continued to make a spread like that for all of the months following. I just don't happen to have those pages totally finished yet. So I will share those once I have them done. 

Here's the third spread for the month of June, with a 6x12" insert on the right.

I came across this cool Bachelorette drawing of one of my favorite couples, Jo Jo and Jordan, in a promotional post for one of the specials they were airing over the summer. I screenshot it to specifically use in my album. I need to be better about including more things like that.

Sarah participated in a Black Lives Matter march in the beginning of June, and I came across this photo on the neighborhood watch page on Facebook. I have no clue whether she's in this photo at all, but I downloaded it to document the march. 

Here's the forth spread for the month of June, with the 6x12" insert on the left. 

I often take lame Snapchat photos to send to one of the girls, without any intention of having them seen anywhere else. Lol. But I've been shorter on photos this year, for whatever reason, so I will use any and all photos I have at this point. 

Here's the fifth spread for the month of June.

Here's the sixth spread for the month of June.

And the seventh spread for the month of June.

If you have any questions on anything specific within these pages, feel free to message me. I know I'm not sharing too many details, but my approach to my PL pages has been pretty much the same for the last several years. I am also currently working on playing catch up on my August, September, and October pages - and working on ordering my November photos. 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Starry Night

 

Hey everyone! I had a new project up at Kerri Bradford Studio a few days ago, and wanted to pop in and share it here as well. I decided to create a small album giving an updated look into some of the ways that we celebrate Christmas. I created a similar album way back in 2007, and it's so fun to look back and see what "traditions" have changed and which ones are the same. 

 

 

This little spread is decorating - when and how I start decorating for the Christmas holiday. And my journaling is so true. The part where I say it's not unusual for the trees to be up with just lights for a week or two before I put on the decorations. We have two Christmas trees, and while one has been decorated for two weeks - the other has sat without decorations up until today, and even as I type this, it only has about 10 decorations on it. Lol. I'll finish eventually ;)

 

 

I love using stars as embellishments, so I couldn't wait to use Kerri's new Starry Night kit.

 

 

I die cut two sets of the stars from white cardstock using my Cameo, and then arranged them on my 4" x 8.25" page. I'm a huge fan of white-on-white for backgrounds! I spritzed on a little silver misting spray and also added some fun silver star outline stickers that were in my Christmas stash from years and years ago. 

 

 

For my title, I used Kerri's Printers Block | Letters stamp set to stamp my title in black ink on white cardstock, trimming each letter individually and adhering vertically on the page, tucking the ends under the ribbon just a little bit. 

 

 

I printed the black and white "merry & bright" piece from Kerri's Christmas Cheer kit, and adhered it on the left page along with my journaling. I had a few die cut stars left over, so I adhered them on the red and white patterned paper on the bottom of the page. 

 

 

I'm hoping to create additional pages to add to my album over the next few weeks. The small page size, and the fact that I'm not worrying about including photos, should help make them doable. Quick little projects that I can fit in when I have a short amount of time.

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Very Merry Christmas

 

Hey everyone! I have a few new projects up at Kerri Bradford Studio today, as part of her 12 Days of Christmas event! Each of the 12 days, there is a new design that you can download for free - for that day only. If you happen to miss out on any of the free downloads, you can still purchase them for a very low price starting the following day ;)

 

 

Very Merry Christmas is the today's free design (Friday, December 4th only), and the first design that I picked to work with for our little event. I had full intentions of using the "Very Merry Christmas" phrase to create some holiday cards, but then came up with a new plan once I started die cutting the words.

 

 

I love to watch everyone document their Christmas holidays in projects like December Daily, but I have to admit that I am not one to create many holiday projects (other than a layout or two each Christmas).

 

 

One Christmas project that I did participate in, way back in 2007, was Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas. The album that I created didn't contain a single photo - just pretty paper and little stories to document the ways that we celebrate the holiday.

 

 

I thought it was about time to create an updated look at some of the same topics I included in that album, all those years ago. I decided on doing Travelers Notebook sized pages, which I'll add into a Life Crafted album from Citrus Twist. I used Kerri's Very Merry Christmas kit to create two spreads for this album - an intro spread and a spread about our holiday photo tradition. 

 

 

I die cut both words included in the kit - "Very Merry Christmas" and "Holiday Photo" - from black cardstock using my Cameo. I also die cut a circle background from white cardstock, using the Background Basics kit, so that I could create white-on-white background on which to adhere my die cut titles. 

 

 

My pages are 4" x 8.25" in size, and I dug deep into my Christmas supplies for patterned papers to add to the pages, along with my title pieces and my journaling blocks.

 

 

I have jars and jars of ribbons that I haven't used in years, and added a piece of ribbon to each spread, adding metal brads to the ends of the ribbons. 

 

 

I came across a die cut rose (from Kerri's Roses kit) on one of my cutting mats that I didn't end up using on an old project, and figured I would toss that onto my "Holiday Photo" spread.

 

 

I also printed a few elements from Kerri's Fa La La Labels kit and her Merry Little Words kit to help embellish the spreads. 

 

 

These little pages were so fun to put together, and by not worrying about including photos (although photos would be a great addition if I had them), they came together in no time.

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Little Wins

 

Hey everyone! Kerri Bradford Studio and Everyday Explorers Co teamed up last week to bring you inspiration and fun projects that pair up stamps and products from both companies. I had a new 6x8" pocket page spread go up last week, which can be seen HERE, and wanted to pop in and share it here with you all as well. 

 

 

I chose to work with Everyday Explorers Co.'s Little Wins stamp set and I paired it with Kerri's Jordan Lower SM alphabet stamp set to document a few "little wins" of my own over the last few months. 

 

 

I used the Little Wins stamp phrases to guide me in picking out a handful of photos, and little stories, to highlight for this spread. The pocket pages that I decided to use have lots of 2x2" openings, so I printed 2x2" photos, along with 1.75x1.75" journaling squares that I matted on 2x2" squares of patterned paper.

 

 

I stamped each of my Little Wins phrases onto a square of patterned paper as well.

 

 

I used Kerri's Find The Beauty printable kit for the black and white quote filler card, since I thought the "find the beauty in the simplest of things" quote tied in nicely with the theme of the spread. I decided to go with "little wins" as the title of my spread, inspired by the Little Wins stamp set name, and used Kerri's Jordan Lower SM alpha stamps to create my title. 

 

 

I loved using a stamp set as the starting point for a project, letting the stamps inspire which little stories that I wanted to include on my spread. I could have easily found a photo/story/little win to go along with each of the stamps in the Little Wins set - I may need to add another page in to highlight a few additional wins!

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Holiday Cards

Hey everyone! I have a few new cards up at Kerri Bradford Studio and wanted to quickly share them here as well. I've been really into card making these past few weeks, so when I saw Kerri's new Christmas stamps, I knew they would be great for whipping up some simple holiday cards. 

 

 

My style of card making is pretty clean and simple. I love a good white background for my cards, and will usually either run them thru an embossing folder or add a white die cut background on top of the card base for texture. I used a few stamps from the new Merry News and The Holidays stamp sets to create strips to go across the width of the card, adding in a small piece of diagonal striped patterned paper as well. 

 

 

I added a few of the fun wood veneer pieces that Kerri designed for Jessica at Color Cast Designs to each card, as well as a few black brads, to finish off these quick and easy cards.

 

Kerri Bradford Studio: Hey Beautiful Cards

 

Hey everyone! I had a few new cards go up at Kerri Bradford Studio last week. How gorgeous is the huge floral stamp in Kerri's new Big Blooms stamp set? As soon as I saw it, I knew what my first project would be with it. Cards.

 

 

I have never gotten into coloring when it comes to stamping, although this large floral stamp could be fun to color! Because it's such a large stamp, I knew simply stamping the outline in black ink onto patterned paper would work out great. 

 

 

I picked out several tone-on-tone polka dot patterned papers (all from Sunny Studio Stamps), stamped the floral image, and then fussy cut around the edges. I added a simple black and white patterned paper to my card bases, before adhering the floral pieces.

 

 

The black and white patterned paper did have a few ink splotches printed directly on the paper, but once I cut it down into smaller pieces, some of the cards didn't show any of the ink splotches. So I pulled out Kerri's Inked stamp set and quickly added a few stamped ink splotches of my own.

 

 

I used Kerri's new Jordan Lower alphabet stamps, along with a "beautiful" stamp from her Around The Block stamp set, to stamp my sentiment onto white tags and adhered them in the lower right corners. 

 

 

I am a huge fan of creating multiple cards at once, and it's something I do regularly, just to add to my card stash. I actually created these five cards for five special friends in my life that are always there for me, and I'm always there for them. I've relied on these amazing friends more than usual lately, so I wanted to send them a little something to let them know how much I appreciate their friendship. The Big Blooms stamp set made creating these cards a breeze and I love how they turned out!