... just Laura

PHOTOPLAY: Magic Of Christmas

Hey all! I did a little disappearing act, while my laptop was off getting worked on. I sent it off with some neighborhood dude, thinking it wasn't anything major that needed fixing. Got it back a few days later, since he had to wait for a part to come in. Then handed it back off, and waited a full week for it to come back. And ended up with a whole new hard drive, which while he did let me know I needed (so I knew it was happening), wasn't something I had planned for. I've spent the last few days trying to get everything loaded back on. Programs, software, printers, fonts, photography actions, etc. The Silhouette software is going to be a major time suck, considering my library has all of 51 files in it (the ones that come free when you buy it). I may have cried. For reals :(

Anyways. I have some Project Life spreads to share, but before I get to those, I thought I would share one more of the layouts I created for PHOTOPLAY. I worked with their Mad 4 Plaid Christmas collection. As soon as I saw the collection, I was happy to see that it would totally go with my photos. I've worked with a lot of Christmas collections that just don't match my photos, and it's always easier when they go together effortlessly. 

There are a ton of great patterns in this collection, and I wanted to include quite a few of them. So I decided to use a page design I've used in the past, where I included several square blocks of patterned paper along the top of the row of photos. 

I originally had photos of the girls wearing Santa hats, which was my main reason for using the "Hello Santa" 3x4" card. Somewhere along the way, I switched to the single photo of the girls, and a family photo, so it makes a little less sense. Lol.

Because the 3x3" card I included at the top of the page acted as my title, I didn't need to add a title to the bottom of the page, which is where I would have added one on previous versions of this page design. This left me the entire bottom of the page to add my journaling, stickers, die cuts, etc. 

My blocks of patterned paper were all 3x3" in size, so the "Believe in the Magic of Christmas" worked in perfectly, since it was also 3x3" in size. I pulled out my button collection, and added several red, green, and white buttons to embellish the blocks of patterned paper across the top. 

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If you aren't familiar with PHOTOPLAY, make sure and visit their website and check out all of their fun collections. I have one layout left, and it's a Halloween one. I'll share it when I can.

PHOTOPLAY: Happy Birthday, Birthday Boy

I thought I would share another layout I created for PHOTOPLAY, this time using their Cake: Party Animal collection. I really love the colors in this collection. There are three mini birthday collections, and I have to say that even though I have girls (and the other two collections are more geared towards girls), the birthday boy collection would probably go with the majority of my birthday photos from over the years. 

First up, I had to find some birthday boy photos to use. I knew I'd have to borrow some from a friend, seeing as how I don't have boys, and the first person that came to mind was Susan Weinroth. She has three of the most adorable boys, takes awesome photos, and I knew the colors she usually gravitates towards would match the collection perfectly.

I really liked the aqua "happy birthday" text patterned paper in this collection (it comes in yellow in one of the other collections), and knew that I wanted to use it on one side of my page. I used the white confetti patterned paper on the other side of my page, and added a few small strips of patterned paper along the center, where the papers meet.

I layered a few additional patterned paper pieces together, to mat my photos onto. I wanted to use the navy blue patterned paper, to add that darker blue to the page, but it comes as a 6x6" square on the "Quad" patterned paper. Since it wasn't wide enough, and I had to work with what I had, I added a piece of the green diagonal stripe patterned paper to lengthen my "photo mat". 

I used several of the stickers to create my title, pop dotting both the "happy birthday" and the "boy" banner stickers. 

I added the fun little banner sticker in the upper right corner of the page, and also added the balloon sticker below, with the strings of the balloons coming out of my title piece. I dug through my button collection and found some coordinating buttons to embellish the page. 

If you aren't familiar with PHOTOPLAY, make sure and visit their website and check out all of their fun collections. I'll share my remaining two layouts that I created for them soon.

PHOTOPLAY: It's Party Time

Sorry for the long absence from blogging. The past few weeks have kicked my tush, and I just haven't had much time for creating. I have worked on some layouts, but a lot of them are ones that I'm not able to share at this time. And then life got busy with a visit from my sister, lots of family get togethers, a few vacation days with Joe and the girls, a new daycare baby in the house, and just normal life stuff. Hoping to have more to share soon, so that I can get back to blogging more often. 

I recently created a few layouts for PHOTOPLAY, using some of their most recent collections. I have one to share today, and hope to be able to share the other layouts soon. I created this layout using a mix of two of their Cake collections - Cake: Panda Party and Cake: Rainbow Sprinkles. 

I really love all the black and white in the Cake: Panda Party collection, along with the touches of pink and aqua. I love how colors really pop against black and white, so I'm already a big fan of using black and white on so many of my layouts. I also added in some yellow from the Cake: Rainbow Sprinkles collection, and pulled additional pieces of pinks and aquas. 

I used THIS layout design as inspiration for this birthday layout, as I knew using circles of patterned paper along one side of the page would give me the perfect spots to add some of the fun stickers from the collection. 

The collections have some great cut apart cards on one of the patterned paper sheets, and I love that there's a good mix of 3x4's, 4x6's, 4x4's, and even a 2x4' card. I used two of them here across the top of the page. 

I had to dig deep for some birthday photos. I have TONS of birthday photos, but the majority of our birthday parties have been pool parties, which means that most of the photos are of the girls in swimsuits, wet hair, and in the water. I lucked out and found some photos of Sarah at her 9th birthday party that coordinated perfectly. 

If you aren't familiar with PHOTOPLAY, make sure and visit their website and check out all of their fun collections.