Hey crafty friends, Kimberly here, and I am so excited to share this one with you. Gloria Parra is back with her Kit Kickstart series, and if you have ever opened a fresh kit and felt a little frozen about where to begin, this is the video for you.
Want to create layouts like this? Our monthly kits include coordinated papers, embellishments, and supplies to bring your scrapbook pages to life.
Gloria’s whole approach is to rip the kit open, look through everything that inspires her, and build the bones for three layouts all at once. She is working with our April Go and Enjoy This Life Kit, and oh my goodness, she pairs it with her family travel photos from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The bold, funky colors in this collection are a perfect match for her trip (her girls are even wearing colorful Farm Rio outfits that look like they were styled for the kit). It is one of those happy crafting moments where the photos and the papers just belong together.
What I love about Gloria’s method is how approachable it makes a big kit feel. She pulls in the essentials patterns and the 6×8 paper pad to stretch the collection, leans on the puffy alphabet, puffy stickers, foam stickers, cardstock die cuts, and rub-ons for embellishing, and shows off some seriously fun techniques along the way.
You will see her play with a square-focused page, a half-and-half tag layout, and a double-page spread bursting with layered circles. She also shares her best tip again and again, which is to never adhere anything until the very end so you can move pieces around and audition titles without committing. Grab your April kit and let’s build three layouts right alongside her.
Step-by-Step Tutorial
Step 1: Sketch Out Three Layout Plans
Before you cut a single thing, grab a little notebook like Gloria does and jot down loose sketches for three layouts. She picks a main focus for each page (one all about squares, one all about tags, and a double-page spread built on circles) and notes which products she wants to feature. Having a plan keeps you from feeling overwhelmed and makes the whole kit feel doable in one sitting.
Step 2: Build the Squares Background for Layout One
For the first page, Gloria switches to the bold yellow map paper because it gives more punch than the plain canvas cardstock. She trims two strips of the colorful square pattern from each row, then places one strip along the top and one along the bottom, leaving the center open for her photos. Remember her golden rule here: you are only placing pieces, not adhering anything yet.
Step 3: Audition Your Title Using the Cut-Apart Trick
To finish framing layout one, Gloria covers the exposed paper edges with branding strips and tucks in elements like the building die cuts and a journaling tag. When it comes to the title, she cuts apart title words with their backing still attached so she can lay them down and compare without committing. She tests “enjoy this view” against “perfect place” and goes with the bolder option so the letters do not get lost in all those colorful squares.
Step 4: Cut Travel Tags and Add Eyelets for Layout Two
Layout two starts with the fun diagonal stripe paper, and Gloria reminds you that the back of these patterns is packed with travel tags worth cutting out (this is why she buys two of each pattern pack). For a little extra texture, she punches a tone-on-tone eyelet into a tag using her Crop-A-Dile, which also helps use up the eyelets in your stash. If you only have one pack, swap the backing for any solid or leftover pattern, but do save those tags.
Step 5: Create the Half-and-Half Design
Gloria divides this page with a branding strip to get her favorite half-and-half look, pulling the yellow and blue 6×8 papers into the mix. One half holds three small photos and the other half features the travel tags peeking out from behind, trimmed at the bottom and ready for a little twine. She finishes the foundation by setting the puffy alphabet title “let’s wonder together” and tucking in a suitcase and hot air balloon for a playful travel touch.
Step 6: Layer Five Circles Across the Double Page
For the double-page layout three, you will want a circle cutter to create five different sizes (Gloria uses 10, 8, 6, 5 and a quarter, and 4 inch circles, cutting the bigger ones from 12×12 paper and the smaller from 6×8). She arranges them so they flow from the left page across to the right, slicing any that overlap the edge. This sweeping line of circles becomes the heartbeat of the whole spread.
Step 7: Add Texture and Pop the Photos
To give her three matted 4×6 photos depth, Gloria cuts five or six pieces with the grunge brick texture die in the periwinkle blue and tucks them behind the photos and tags. She then mounts the photos with foam adhesive so they pop off the page, and arranges them in a visual triangle for a balanced eye flow. These little texture and dimension tricks are what take a layout from flat to finished.
Step 8: Build a Circle Wreath to Finish
The final touch is a loose wreath of circular elements that ties the whole spread together. Gloria layers in puffy stickers with circles and half circles, adds fussy-cut leaves to soften the look, and works in building and tree die cuts that remind her of the trip. Keep auditioning pieces (cut your circles and set them in place before committing, since foam and puffies are hard to reposition) and only adhere once you love it.
About the Designer
Gloria Parra
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