... just Laura

Digital Layout Share: Here We Go

Hey all! I hate that I haven't been blogging. I miss it. Another thing that I've been missing? Scrapbooking. In the last 5 months, I have only created 4 layouts and 3 pocket page spreads. That's it, layout wise. And one of those layouts and one of those pocket page spreads I am unable to share in full. There's plenty of other projects that I've been working on, and I should really get each of them to the point where I can share what I've been doing. Instead of waiting to have the project fully finished. 

I mentioned in THIS POST, at the start of the year, that I was debating whether I want to do my Project Life albums this year with physical products - or digitally, with the Project Life app. I'm still debating if I'm being honest. I already had all of my January photos printed, just in case I want to do physical albums. I also dumped all of my January photos onto my iPad, just in case I want to use the Project Life app. Decisions, decisions. 

I have been playing with the app, creating a few pages here and there. Not necessarily pages for my Project Life album. More like digital layouts. I had quite a few soccer photos from January, so I thought why not toss together a quick page. 

There are things that I love about using the app to get pages done. It's incredibly easy. I can do it wherever, whenever. The fact that I can do it while sitting on the couch, watching my shows - that's awesome to me. It's simpler. There's no printing photos, digging out supplies, die cutting titles (because that's what I love to do), fussing around with pieces, printing journaling, photographing the layout, etc, etc. 

Yet I do miss playing with paper, die cutting fun titles, digging thru my supplies and picking out the perfect pieces to match my photos. I just miss getting in my room and getting creative. The hard part is that I just don't seem to find the time to do that as much as I used too. Or when I do have time, I'm too tired to go in there. Also, there's no TV in there, and that certainly doesn't help ;) 

I'm just rambling. But at least I have a layout to share, right? I also promise to be back Monday, with a recap of my time at CHA two weeks ago. And I'm going to do my best to get one of my album projects ready to share later next week. If I wait till they're totally done, they'll never get shared. Lol.

Bella Blvd: Liberty Softball

I've got my last official layout up on the Bella Blvd blog today. Not that you won't see Bella on future projects, because you will! But I had committed to creating one of my monthly projects for September and here it is. And if this layout looks familiar to any of you long time readers here, it's because I decided to lift one of my favorite layouts that I created for Kerri Bradford years ago (seen HERE). 

When the new collections arrived on my doorstep a week ago, I knew the first collection I wanted to play with was Oh My Stars. I'm a sucker for star patterned paper, as it's such a great fit for so many every day projects. I wanted to continue with my recent focus on sports themed layouts, and dug up some older photos of Sarah on one of her softball teams.

I started out by die cutting an open circle background from the navy blue star patterned paper, using a cut file from Kerri Bradford. I built my entire page on the white grid patterned paper background, so I knew the background piece would stand out great against the white. I pulled out a few additional patterned papers to incorporate into my design, all from the new collections. 

You all know that I love to mix a cursive font along with a clean font for my titles. I often achieve this using all die cut words/alphas, along with my patterned papers. On my Bella layouts however, my go-to choice is to mix the Sienna chipboard alphas in with a die cut cursive word. In a way, I think this title work has become a signature part to almost all of my layouts. Also, I never even attempt to save the dots to my i's when I die cut words, so I always dot my eyes with a coordinating enamel dot. 

I always pull my colors from my photos when it comes to choosing patterned papers. Which helps explain the pink, as Sarah had pink on her glove. I didn't want to use just black, navy blue, and green, so the pink was a nice touch of color to mix in. I wanted to add the "shoot for the stars" designer clip to the page, and while I couldn't clip it to my journaling block, tucking it behind it worked just as well.

If I were to create this layout again, I probably would have picked a different pink patterned paper to mix in, as the one I used didn't quite match the designer clip and the chipboard star (which I picked out at the end of the design process). 

I adhered my photos along the bottom of the page, adding a few small strips of patterned paper in as well to add some more color. I also tore off small pieces of the navy blue washi sticker (from the Alex collection) to add where the photos overlapped. 

And that's a wrap! Catch me back here next week, where I plan on sharing three never-shared-here-on-the-blog before layouts with you all. I even dug them all out of albums to get the detail shots I was missing.

Kerri Bradford Studio: Celebrate A Freakin' Awesome Season Lady Buffs

Hey all! I had a new layout up at Kerri Bradford Studio yesterday. I know I've said this a few times lately, but I honestly can't remember where I've said it. My blog, Instagram, in conversations with friends, in my head. Who knows. Anyways. I've had sports on my mind lately, when it comes to layouts and even some album projects!

One layout that I've been wanting to make is this one here, documenting an awesome season - a freakin' awesome season - our high school girls varsity soccer team had. Seeing as how they took home not one, but two major championships, I knew I wanted to create a layout filled with photos taken throughout the season. 

I'm sure you all know by now that I love creating white-on-white backgrounds for a lot of my pages. Since I only needed to cover about half of each page with the die cut background, I was able to use a smaller sized background from the Life Additions: Backgrounds kit. Usually, I just cut full 12x12 backgrounds, and then save the extra parts I don't use for other projects. But it was nice to be able to use just two 8.5x11" pieces of white cardstock for my two background pieces. 

For my title, I turned to the Weathered Door [all] kit for the "Lady Buffs" part of my title. Our school mascot is the buffalo, so the varsity soccer players are referred to as the "Lady Buffs". The Weathered Door kit comes in so handy when you need a word that Kerri doesn't have in kits. I mean, obviously there isn't a demand for "lady buffs", so it's not something Kerri would have ;) I went back and forth on the first part of my title, and finally settled on "celebrate", from the July Four kit. 

I had every intention of using small alpha stickers for the middle part of my title, and it was going to read "an amazing season". I'm glad I stopped, just before adhering my stickers, and checked out Kerri's stamps I have on hand. I came across the "freakin' awesome" from the For You stamp set and it was perfect for this title! I knew I wouldn't be able to stamp it directly to the page, with my die cut background, so I stamped it onto a scrap piece of cardstock and simply cut it out and adhered it in place. 

All but three of my photos are cell phone photos, taken by either myself or my daughter. I had this thing going (which I've mentioned when sharing a previous layout), where at the start of each game, I would snap a photo of the team getting ready to take the field. I would Instagram them each time as well. So I managed to collect a good amount of photos by the end of the season.

I was able to get Sarah to send me some photos she took during the season as well, with a little begging and pleading. I gathered up all of these photos, and arranged them into two collages using a template from Kerri's Storyboard: Instagram Style kit. My two main photos, both taken by the newspaper photographer, were printed as 4x6" photos to include on either side of the collages. 

My journaling took me forever to type up. I started out making it about Sarah and how she did this season, but then realized that with my title, the page was really about the team as a whole. Then I would get to certain parts, and I felt like I should have pulled out the newspaper articles/clippings, so that I could add in the stats and facts about some of these big wins. But those were already put away in her school album upstairs. Let's just say that both of their big wins - the VOL title and the Section title - were huge for the school's soccer program, and the school itself. I did end up adding some tidbits about Sarah and how she did this season at the end of the journaling. 

I also cut a tab using the Simplicities: Best Thing Ever kit to add to the side of my journaling block, so that I could add the year. If anyone is wondering about my paper choices, my green patterned papers came from Simple Stories, and my grey patterned papers came from Amy Tangerine. 

I just love the two main photos on this spread. The one on the left side of the page, with the green jerseys, was from their VOL win. And the photo above, with the white jerseys, was from their Section win. Both such huge moments for these young ladies, for their team as a whole, for the soccer program and their dedicated coaches, and for the school. Once I add this layout to her school album, I will most likely add all of the newspaper articles and clippings directly after it. Just need to figure out how to arrange all of those still. 

Bell Blvd: He Will Forever Love The Game

Hey everyone! I've got a new two pager up on the Bella Blvd blog today. I've had sports on the creative brain lately, and have numerous projects started using sports photos of my two girls. But when a photo of my husband, Joe, popped randomly into my inbox one night, I knew it was time to make a layout about him doing what he loves to do - umpiring baseball. 

Joe has been umpiring for years and years, and I have to admit that I've never been out to watch him in action. He does mostly high school baseball, so I'm usually working when games are happening. So to have a photo of him land randomly in my inbox, sent from another umpire, it's a nice surprise. I have a few of those photos that I wanted to include here, and I also have some photos I took of him and his gear several years ago. I printed my two main photos as 4x6's and the others as 4x4's. 

When it comes to scrapping sports photos, I turn to some simple basic patterns for my patterned papers, as Bella doesn't have a recent sports collection. I'm a huge fan of star patterns in general, and they're perfect for sports layouts. I also love a good grid pattern, and anything with circles. Three of my favorite patterns to scrap with. Although in all honesty, when I set out to pick my papers, I really look for anything and everything that will match my photos. That's my main goal. 

An on-going trend you'll find on my layouts is a multiple font title. I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I love to mix a large cursive die cut word with clean looking alphas. And the Sienna chipboard alphas are my go-to pick, as they add a bit of dimension to what is often an "all paper" layout. I die cut the word "forever" using a cut file from Kerri Bradford's Grateful kit. 

Because I often use quite a bit of patterned paper on my layouts, I like to add a bit of die cutting to the background of my page. In this case, I die cut a circle border piece to go on both sides of the spread. Even though I die cut the border from patterned paper, that bit of whiteness that shows thru helps break up the heaviness that can come from covering the entire page with patterned papers. 

I started out having four 4x4" photos, but one of the photos just didn't look right on the page. So I decided to leave that photo off, and added a 4x4" piece of star patterned paper in it's place. To help my chipboard star stand out, I punched a circle from patterned paper to layer beneath it. 

I am a huge advocate for journaling on layouts, and it's very rare that you'll see a layout from me without it. Sometimes, I have more to say than other times, but there's always journaling there. I had more to say for this layout, so I printed out my journaling in a large paragraph, and matted it with some green patterned paper. I took out some of my older Bella Designer Tape to add to the top, and machine stitched over it. 

This photo here is the one that recently showed up in my inbox, and it's such a great shot! It was this photo that inspired me to create a new layout about Joe, doing what he loves and what he puts his whole heart into. I fully admit that most of my layouts are about our girls, my daycare kids, and even about myself. I guess I needed a little nudge from the universe (or whoever sent that photo to me) to get my husband in the albums too!

Bella Blvd: Positively Love Watching Her Play

We're at the tail end of high school soccer season for my youngest, Sarah, and I thought it would be fun to create a layout around where you'll find me every Monday and Wednesday evening. At the majority of the games, I'll snap a quick photo with my phone, and share it on Instagram right before the game starts. I picked out a few of my favorites for this page. 

We brought back the sketch feature today over on the Bella Blvd blog, and this is the sketch that I created that both myself and fellow Bella designer Missy Whidden used for our layouts.

I love incorporating sketches into my design process. It takes so much of the guesswork out of the equation, as the general placement of photos, title, etc are done for you. Of course, I always remind people that you can tweak the sketch as needed or to give it a whole new look. Turn it or flip it around. It's all up to you how to interpret it. I'm pretty straight forward when I use sketches, and use them as is, but that's just me. 

When I sat down to start this layout, the first thing I did was go searching for patterned papers to go with my photos. Our school colors are green and white, and I always like to add in black and grey as well. I ended up with a random mix of patterned papers, some older and some newer, with most of them being tone-on-tone with simple patterns. I thought the star patterned paper from the Just Add Color collection would be perfect for the background of the page, instead of my original plan of using white cardstock.

I matted each of my three photos with different patterned papers, distressing the edges of the papers and then machine stitching around the edges before adhering them across the center of the page. Instead of cutting one large piece of the grey Strandz patterned paper (from the Color Chaos collection) to layer under the photos, I cut four separate pieces of the grey patterned paper. By tucking two pieces above the photos, and two pieces below the photos, it gave an even more layered look to the page.

As most of my titles go, I browsed thru my Silhouette library for a word and/or phrase to use for part of my title, knowing I would mix in either chipboard alphas and/or letter stickers to complete the title (the one I chose is from Kerri Bradford). I like to die cut my titles from both patterned paper and black cardstock. By layering them together, but keeping them just slightly offset from each other, it creates a shadow effect and adds some dimension to what is actually a flat title. I also used the grey chipboard heart in place of the word "love" in my title. 

I cut a few small, thin strips of coordinating patterned papers to add to the bottom and top corners, as shown in the sketch. I kept my embellishments super simple, as usual, by adding some enamel dots to the page. I hope you'll give this sketch a try the next time you sit down to create! 

Just Because: Daily Practice

I'm back to share another "just because" layout with you. I love that I've had more time lately to create ... well, just because. I mentioned on a post last week that I had ordered a bunch of 4x4" photos using the FreePrints app on my phone, and this is another layout where I put several of those fun square photos to use. 

All of the square photos across the top of the two page spread are ones that I have borrowed (aka - stole) from Sarah's Instagram account. It would be awesome if she would willingly send me photos when I ask, but there's a massive lag in her response time ;) So I have learned to just screenshot the photos, and as it turns out, most of them print just fine. 

These photos were all from cross country season at school last fall, and I'm so glad that I was able to get a nice variety of photos. It may have only been six photos (the bottom two photos seen above are ones I took at the awards ceremony), but I'm so glad I have them. She may have more. In fact, I"m sure she has more. But I'll take what I can get for now. 

I had six 4x4" photos, so I decided to line them up across the top of the two page spread. I knew the title I had planned would look better spread out along the bottom of the page, with the photos up top. 

I will say the one thing about screenshotting the photos from Sarah's Instagram account (and even a few that she was conveniently tagged in, and I happen to see them) is that a lot of them ended up with different looks to them. I did my best not to get too hung up on that, and spread them out in a way that spread out the different looks. I like that there's a few photos of them at meets, a few they took after having team photos taken, and even a photo they took after an early morning practice in the rain. 

I started by digging around in my Silhouette library for cut files I could use on this spread. My intention was to use this layout for Kerri Bradford this month, which is partially why all of the cut files I picked out where from her (the other reason is that I'm very partial to her designs!). Then I decided to go with the love theme for my layout for her, so this became a layout just for the heck of it. 

I started with a background cut, as I wanted to add a subtle patterned paper to the pages, but didn't want solid papers. And anyone that knows me, knows how much I LOVE this circle background from Kerri's Background Basics kit. I was looking for a neutral, subtle patterned paper, and ended up using this woodgrain patterned paper from Bella Blvd (from the wedding collection of all places).

It took me a while to come up with my title for this layout. There aren't necessarily a lot of sports themed cut files out there. Although maybe I'm not looking in the right places, or the ones I see just don't appeal to me. So I had to do a little brainstorming. I came up with "Daily Practice", knowing that I would also add a subtitle along with it.

I picked out the word "daily" from Kerri's Grammar School: The Adverbs kit, and pulled the word "practice" from Kerri's Something To Say kit. I cut them both from a green patterned paper from Little Yellow Bicycle (remember them?), as well as black cardstock. It was actually a sports patterned paper (some sort of field), but the main reason I used it was because it was the right shade of green, our school color. 

I eventually figured out what I wanted my subtitle to say, and used some older High Five alpha stickers from Bella Blvd to spell it out. And just now, I'm questioning whether that should have read "lead" instead of "leads", but whatever ;)

To add a little something above the row of photos across the two page spread, I dug up this fun star border from Kerri's Stars & Stripes kit, cutting it from the same green patterned paper I cut my title from, as well as black cardstock. This cut file has a flourish you can use as well, but I left that part off for this layout.

I tucked it down under the photos a bit on both pages of the spread, and then machine stitched across to really hold it in place. I also added a black scalloped border sticker below the row of photos on both pages of the spread, machine stitching across as well. The majority of the time, when I want a scalloped border, I'll simply use my scalloped border punch on cardstock or patterned paper. But I happen to have a large stash of Bella Blvd stickers, and can usually find duplicates when I need more than one. 

I finished the page off with a few small blocks of journaling, each matted on black cardstock to help them stand out. Sarah always comes up with the best captions/quotes for her Instagram photos, and I wanted to include one of them on this page. I also had a few stars I die cut from black cardstock, and added those across the bottom of the two page spread. I'm pretty sure I was going to add some enamel dots or buttons or something to those stars, but I must have forgotten about that idea at some point. 

I really am becoming a patterned paper, cardstock, photos, die cuts, and sticker scrapper, aren't I ;)

High School Sports Album

I have an album project to share today that I spent the last week working on. It's also up over at Kerri Bradford Studio, since I used so many of her Silhouette designs throughout the album.

I recently got a call from a previous daycare parent, asking if I could do take on a sidejob for a friend of his. His friend was looking to put together an album as a graduation gift for his daughter who was graduating from high school last week. I remember talking to both of them, and hearing them both ask "is this something you do?". My first thought (in my head, of course) was "not really", since I don't often put together projects for other people.

But there were a few reasons that I couldn't say "no" to taking on this big project. The previous daycare parent that first asked was one of my absolute favorite familes to work with. If I had a third daughter, Amanda would be her name (their daugher). This graduating senior went to the same high school that Alyssa goes too, and they also went to the same elementary school. Alyssa and this senior played on the varsity soccer team together this past year, and I've watched this senior play in previous years while waiting for the junior varsity games to play. And this senior's dad had saved all of the newspaper clippings from her high school sports years and wanted to do something special with them, and I think that is pretty cool!

This album is almost all newspaper clippings from her years on the high school soccer team and volleyball team. There were only a few photos from "Senior Night" that he wanted to include. These were taken at the last soccer game of the year, where the seniors are recognized and walked out by their familes for their last game. This album is also ALL cardstock and patterned paper. No embellishments or bulky items of any kind. This helped keep the cost down for the parents.

 

Luckily, her dad was great about keeping all of the newpaper clippings organized by year, from freshman year through senior year. I simply went through and put them in order within each year, and trimmed up the chippings a bit more so they were all nice and neat. 

I had decided on using lots of my favorite white grid patterned paper from Bella Blvd for the background pages. It's a great neutral background paper, and I happen to have a ton of it on hand. I lightly misted each grid paper with some tan misting spray. I also used kraft, green, and black cardstock for my background pages as well. Our school colors are green and black (or maybe it's technically green and white), and I wanted to stick with that color theme.

 

When I was laying out the newspaper clippings to get an idea of how many pages I would need, I got a good sense of how they would fit together on the pages. I decided to mix in some 6"x12" pages and some 8.5"x11" pages, as I keep those size page protectors on hand. In the end, I even ended up creating a few custom page protectors (using my sewing machine and then cutting them down to size), for 9"x12" pages, 10"x12" pages, etc.

I made four piles, one for each year of high school, and worked with those four seperate piles through out the entire process of working on this album.

I started by adhering all of the newspaper clippings to my background papers. I stuck with a sheet of white grid patterned paper on the left side of each spread, and then alternated using black, green, and kraft cardstock on the right side of the spreads.

I knew that the decision on where to place the newspaper clippings on each page would really be based off how they fit together, since most had 2 parts to each article (they're almost always continued on another page of the newspaper). I wasn't taking titles or accents into consideration at all at this point. Just adhering the clippings however they looked good on the page. 

I then went through all of Kerri's kits, as well as my Silhouette library, pulling out any shapes (soccer ball, volley ball, and some stars), words, and phrases that I thought would fit in with the sports theme of the album. I created a folder in my Silhouette library for this project and dumped everything in there to work from.

Kerri's new Weathered Door Alphabet kit came at just the right time, as I was short on sports words and had planned on creating some of my own. I have to admit that I have never used regular fonts to make my own words. I love having things done for me, so I was glad to have this new kit to work with. I just love the chunkier font and slightly distressed look of the Weathered Door Alphas, and they have just the right look I was going for.

After collecting an assortment of shapes, I went page by page and choose words and phrases that fit in the space I had on that particular page. I set up four different sheets to work with in the Silhouette software: grid paper, black cardstock, green cardstock, and kraft cardstock. I knew that all of my cutting would be on those four papers.

As I chose a word or phrase, I would place in on the color I wanted to cut it from and size it to fit the space on the album page. I also kept notes (most of the time!) as to what cut went on what page, so that after I ran all four of the pages through my Cameo, I would know what shapes went where. Because believe me, it got really confusing.

Kerri's School Years: Add Ons kit came in really handy for the divider pages, to seperate the years in the album. I made the "freshman year", "sophomore year", "junior year", and "senior year" really big so that it filled up the page really well. I also cut out the actual years that that particular school year covered, by using the Decade 2000, twentyTEN, twentyELEVEN, twentyTWELVE, twentyTHIRTEEN kits. 

I also used shapes from Kerri's Touchdown kit, The Ol' Ballgame kit, A Beautiful World kit, and her Graduation kit. I had shapes and phrases picked out from other kits as well, but didn't end up using them, most likely because they didn't fit the spaces I was working with.

Once I had my phrases and words down, I started adding in small strips of patterned paper. I stuck with just a few patterns from the Making The Team collection from Bella Blvd. I didn't want to make it too complicated, so I chose a few patterns to work with, and used just those and small strips of cardstock as well. I also took out just one border punch, and used that here and there on some of the strips.

I did sneak in some pink patterned paper, but only on 2 spreads in the album. This was for our "Kicking For A Cure" event, which our girls soccer team does each year to support cancer patients and research. The players all wear pink jerseys, and they paint a huge pink ribbon on the field. I thought it was a nice touch to add some pink in for those articles.

My only "embellishments" were the soccer balls, volley balls, and stars. I cut a ton of these shapes from all four of the main papers, and sprinkled them in throughout the album. I ended up cutting some small stars from a sheet of yellow star patterned paper, just to add a touch of additional color.

In the end, I think it ended up being 64 pages, or 32 front and back. That includes the handful of 6x12" pages, and 8.5x11" pages that were mixed in.

I was really happy with how this turned out. The parents were super happy with how it turned out. I don't think they really had any idea that this is the direction I was taking with it, and I love that it was such a fun surprise for them. And I hear that the graduating senior really loved the album as well.

Working on this project has me really wanting to make the time to get Alyssa and Sarah's school albums caught up. And maybe even tackle the 11 years of soccer photos that have piled up!