Bella Blvd Studio Blog

March Guest Designer: Suzy Plantamura

We are so excited to introduce you to our talented March Guest Designer, Suzy Plantamura! Let's get to know a little more about Suzy and check out the projects she created to share with us!

My name is Suzy Plantamura and I have been creating scrapbook pages and working in this industry for over ten years. I have been on several design teams including American Crafts, Maya Road, MAMBI, and I’m currently on Studio Calico’s team. I was on the Creating Keepsakes Dream Team for four years. I currently have a stamp line with My Favorite Things. I love to doodle inspirational quotes, make scrapbook pages and cards, and hang out with my family in Southern California – especially at the beach. I was super excited to be asked to be a guest designer for Bella Blvd. I have always loved their products as they are exactly my scrapbook style – colorful, whimsical, and fun. 

"Laugh", by Suzy Plantamura.

For my first layout, I wanted to use a photo I had from a year ago when I attended a retreat for the Studio Calico design team. It makes me laugh every time I look at it as I am laughing so hard! I used a green, yellow, and turquoise color scheme. The large chipboard letters were perfect for the title. I layered some papers behind the photo and then started applying the embellishments.

There were so many cute ones to choose from that matched my theme! I love how easy this page came together with all the star stickers and cute words and phrases. Some washi tape along the top and bottom edge finished it off perfectly!

"Doughnuts", by Suzy Plantamura.

For this layout, I went with a color scheme that isn’t what I usually scrap with – reds, yellows and navy blue. I wanted to use watercolor and mists and do a more trendy look on the background of the layout.

I added mist drops and tilted the paper and let them run down it. I added some of the 4x6 project life cards behind the photos and used lots of stickers and cut out pieces of paper for embellishments.

The black and white doodles are from a paper that was part of a Studio Calico kit recently and I can’t get enough of it! Stephanie does the cutest doodles ever and they are so fun to use on layouts! I loved the contrast of the darker, more serious colors with the funky doodles and playful products.

"Girls Are Sweet", by Suzy Plantamura.

I went with three totally different color schemes for these three layouts and this one is my favorite! I love scrapping with pinks and teals and Bella Blvd is full of products in these colors! It was very easy to pull together this totally girly page with the gorgeous papers and stickers.

I added some more of my cut out images from the black and white doodle paper. I finished it off with sequins. I couldn’t have found better products to work with these funky girly photos from my daughter’s birthday party!

I just LOVED working with the Bella Blvd. products for these layouts. I could have made so many more with all the fun choices! Each of my layouts is totally different yet so me! Thanks Bella Blvd for having me as the guest designer this month!

Show & Tell Saturday: Scraproom Tour

I think everyone enjoys getting to peek into other designers scraprooms, right? It's fun to see how others store and organize the same types of products and tools that so many of us have. And while many of us have totally different ways of setting up our spaces, or have totally different types of spaces that we're working with, you never know when you'll see a new way of storing or organizing products that you can incorporate into your own space.

Scraproom Tour, by Wendy Antenucci.

Welcome to my scrap space! We recently moved and my lovely room became a space. I did a lot of purging to get all of my stuff into my space and now I am in love! My space is in the loft that overlooks our family room and kitchen allowing me to keep tabs on everything that is going on. My scrappy area shares the space with the Wii TV and with an extra bed so I do have to keep things somewhat neat (most of the time).  

My scrappy style and my space hold a lot in common - I LOVE white space! I try to keep everything neatly put away and purged so that I can think and actually enjoy the scrapping process. I do definitely make a mess while creating, but then I clean things up as soon as possible. The best place I found to store my scrappy goodies are in the closet!  I was able to place a few of the sterlite carts stacked and a bookcase into my closet which holds the bulk of my stash.

I have journaling pieces in one drawer, paints in another, stickles/inks in another, punches in another, border punches in yet another. In the other set of drawers I keep kits I am working with right now, layouts that haven't been put away yet, products from other manufactures that I am enjoying working with.

My bookcase is a wire piece from Home Depot; it holds my paper from the different Design Teams I am on, my box of photos, and tools.

I just bought a new piece from IKEA, it is probably my favorite! You can see the one drawer holds a lot of my Bella embellishments/stickers and here is another drawer with my washi tape collection.  

I have my most used things in this cabinet - ink pads, newest embellishments, sewing templates, needles, thread and the list goes on.

I have 2 bookcases that hold up my desktop and they are filled with items I use constantly - mists, dies, stamps, tapes, pens, etc. The last picture is of my work area, I have a box (from Target where most of my items came from) that holds my most loved tools and pens, they are right in front of me when I create. I always put these items back because I can't stand spending time searching for my scissors or ruler when I am on a scrappy kick. My hubby also built a box for my PL pieces - it resembles an old tape box, but he built it to fit what I wanted to store!

To make my area my happy spot, I hang my completed layouts on the wall - these are my favorites that just make me happy (and my kids love to see themselves) and remind me why I scrap. Thanks for joining me in my scrap space; I hope it has made you as happy as it makes me!

Friday Sketch

Who doesn't love a good sketch? It helps to take the guesswork out of the page and/or card design, but still allows you to put your own spin on things just be turning the sketch or altering it here and there. A few times a month, we'll be bringing you a new sketch, and showing you a few takes on the sketch by our designers. Today, we have our first sketch for March. I asked one of our own talented designers, Diana Fisher, to create a sketch for us based off of a previously shared layout, by designer Jennifer Chapin.

Original layout, by Jennifer Chapin.

“Game Night”, by Kelly Holbrook.

One of my favorite things from the new Family Forever collection is the Paper Pieces. Here, I used several of them for my circle elements. Using a journaling spot for one of my circles helped convert the sketch from 12x12 to 8.5x11. I also used 7 strips of paper instead of nine, and 8 circles instead of 11.

Supplies:
Family Forever: Family Photo, Family Rules, Sunday Brunch, Paper Pieces, Candid Cards, Trinkets, Treasures & Text; Freestyle Sophisticates: Freestyle Gulf; Lucky Starz: Color Wheel High Five Alphas; Designer Tape: Yellow Chevron, Red Chevron

“Handsome”, by Jen Chesnick.

Sketches are one of my go-to items when I am in a hurry OR I am just lacking any kind of creative mojo. They really jump start your project. Max is such a cute collection! Thankfully I have lots of little boy nephews to scrapbook. The font of the cardstock stickers is currently my FAVORITE! Especially the orange of Max! 

Supplies:
Max: Rock Star, Borders, Paper Pieces, Candid Cards, Treasures & Text

“Smile Are Contagious”, by Allyson Meinholz.

I enjoyed working with this sketch. I used dimensional adhesive to pop up a few strips of pattern paper, for the photo, and also on the stars to add dimension to the layout. I thought the NEW Lucky Starz collection was perfect for this Dance/Pom photo of Amelia! Love all of the colors and stars! 

Supplies:
Lucky Starz: Pickle Juice Starz, Bell Pepper Starz, Peep Starz, Gulf Starz, Treasure & Text, Trinkets, Color Wheel High Five Alphas; Molly: Refuse To Sink, Unlimited Text, Treasures & Text; Max: Treasures & Text; Family Forever: Treasures & Text; Designer Tape: Pink Dot, Yellow Chevron, Gulf Dot, Pickle Juice Dot

Pinterest Inspired

It's always been fun to browse thru Pinterest, looking at the endless ideas and inspirational images that are out there. Our designers always enjoy taking whatever image we provide them, and using it in whatever way inspires them the most as they work on their projects. It's amazing to see how many different ideas and designs can be inspired by just one image.

{Image credit: The Sweetest Occasion}

“Spunky You” card, by Laurie Schmidlin.

For this card, I was inspired by both the colors and the diamond pattern in the inspiration photo! I combined papers and elements from the Family Forever and Molly collections. For embellishment, I added a Bell Pepper Crochet Heart.

Supplies:
Family Forever: Mom & Dad, Trinkets; Molly: Refuse to Sink, Paper Pieces, Treasures & Text; Sienna Chipboard Alpha: Ice; Crochet Hearts: Bell Pepper

“Beautiful” card, by Laurie Schmidlin.

I love blue and yellow together, and that is what inspired me with this card. I layered patterned paper from the Lucky Starz and Family Forever collections. The focal images are from the Molly Paper Pieces set. For embellishment, I added a Bella Feather and a Crochet Heart.

Supplies:
Family Forever: Family Game Night, Mom & Dad, Trinkets; Lucky Starz: Surf N Turf Starz; Molly: Paper Pieces; Crochet Hearts: White; Feathers: White; Button Market: Outdoors

“Smile”, by Kay Rogers.

I was inspired by the amazing color scheme against the white. I decided to use a linear approach (shocker, I know ;)) and found a PageMaps sketch that would help me with the block design. The use of the Candid Cards led my design choice, and made the layout come together quickly. These happy colors make me think of sunny skies and warm temps. Just what I need this cold winter!

Supplies:
Lucky Starz: Treasures & Text, Trinkets, Candid Cards; Max: Candid Cards; Family Forever: Candid Cards; Freestyle Sophisticates: Freestyle Banana; Daily Chevies: Bell Pepper; Sienna Chipboard Alphas: Ice; Crochet Hearts: Bell Pepper, Scallop, White; Designer Tape: Yellow Chevron, Navy Dot, Ice Stripe

“Cast On”, by Wendy Antenucci.

Can you say FISH? When I saw the Pinterest images I instantly thought of my newest pass time, fishing. The colors looked just like a fish with its scales in the diamond shapes; I couldn't resist adding a little striped pattern on the edges of my page to match that straw too! To make my page, I began by cutting 1.5 inch squares in the navy, yellow striped, and the teal heart patterns and laying them down the center of my page giving the impression of a fish running down the page. I then added in my pictures careful not to obscure the "fish" image I just built. The addition of the scroll pieces were my idea of the grass floating in the lake. I added a few stickers bringing in a little pink to match my title which was inspired by the candid card in the Molly pack and to make the layout more girly. A few splashes of mist and some stamping gave the impression of bubbles on my page. The final touch was the "fishing" line that meanders across the page!

Supplies:
Molly: Candid Cards, Trinkets, Sparkle & Shine, Treasures & Text, Peace, Refuse to Sink; Lucky Starz: Treasures & Text, Trinkets; Family Forever: Family Photo, Treasures & Text, Mom & Dad; High Five Alpha Stickers: Piggy Punch

What's New Wednesday

Welcome to "What's New Wednesday"! Every Wednesday, our designers will be sharing projects using the latest and greatest products from Bella Blvd. Especially our newest collections, which our designers are having so much fun creating with!

“Hey Dude”, by Nicole Nowosad.

My oldest gets a little neglected in the scrapping department, so I was very excited to work on a fun project using lots of the new Bella Blvd CHA releases! I love the various star papers in the new lines and mixed a couple lines together to use make a masculine page. I mixed a lot of fun colors from the lines into one pie chart shape and then repeated the circular idea across my page, using some stitching to create pie charts out of the rest of the circles. I love all the new collections and their versatility to mix together to create whatever kind of project you are working on.

Supplies:
Lucky Starz: Oreo Starz, Bell Pepper Starz, McIntosh Starz, Gulf Starz, Carrot Starz, Treasure & Text, Trinkets, Color Wheel High-Five Alpha; Family Forever: Mom & Dad, Family Game Night, Sunday Brunch, Borders; Molly: Unlimited Text; Max: Treasures & Text, Candid Cards, Trinkets; Designer Tape: Chevron Combo

“Beautiful You”, by Jodi Wilton.

I was so excited to get to play with the new collections, but I found it hard to pick one to play with first, because they are all fantastic! I decided to go with what I was drawn too first- which was the pink Doodle page- Sketch with Style from the Molly Collection! I absolutely LOVE the doodling on here, and it reminds me of my oldest daughter who loves to doodle and draw! I decided to accent the Beautiful by very carefully outlining the word beautiful and then adding the YOU underneath.  I then started to build my layout from there, and added photos stacking up from the left side to the right side. I then added some paper strips and stickers on a diagonal to finish off the layout. 

Supplies:
Molly: Sketch with Style, Refuse to Sink, Selfie, Borders Molly, Treasures & Text, Trinkets, Paper Pieces; Sienna Chipboard Alphas: Ice; Designer Tape: Chevron Combo Pack, Gray Dot 

“My Guy” card, by Shellye McDaniel.

It was pretty easy to be inspired by all of those adorable, hand-drawn robots on the Science Fair Paper! I pulled one of the squares from the Candid Cards' pack, die cut and punched a few circles and set out to make my own original robot guy. The arms and legs are just strips of paper; the arms, I attached with brads so that it's actually interactive! So fun for any little guy on your list!

Supplies:
Max: Text Me, Science Fair, Rock Star, Treasures & Text, Trinkets; Lucky Starz: Carrot Starz; Crochet Hearts: White

“Smile” card, by Shellye McDaniel.

I used a mixture of stars and hearts for this clean and simple card. I started with some basics from the Molly Collection: Candid Cards, Paper Pieces and a few stickers and then added all sorts of stars from other new collections. I love how they all can mix and match together!

Supplies:
Molly: Paper Pieces, Candid Cards, Treasures & Text, Trinkets; Max: Treasures & Text; Family Forever: Treasures & Text; Lucky Starz: Color Crazy Starz Paper; Button Market: Pickle Squares

Project Life: Bella Style

Project Life is everywhere these days, in many shapes and forms. Whether you create full Project Life albums, a few Project Life inspired layouts/spreads here and there, or even simply working Project Life style products (such as Bella's new Daily Details papers) onto your everyday layouts, there are so many ways to incorporate this popular style into your designs. We are asking our designers to be inspired by Project Life, and show us how they work that inspiration onto their own pages.

“Love, Love, Love You”, By Stephanie Buice.

I remember the day we brought our dog Chevy home. He was a tiny black ball of fur and my heart was stolen. Chevy was my baby and my best friend, my everywhere companion. Then Brady came along. These pictures are of them beginning their awesome relationship, as soon as Brady was old enough to throw that ball, Chevy's world changed. They are now best friends, Chevy is now Brady's everywhere companion and they are always excited to see each other. You should see them give high-fives, it pretty much melts my heart. 

Supplies:
Max: Candid Cards; Lucky Stars: Candid Cards, Trinkets; Family Forever: Trinkets; Tail Waggers & Cat Naps: Alpha+Bits; Super Stud: Label Additions; Molly: Trinkets; Engaged At Last: Alpha+Bits; Trick or Treat: Captions; Designer Tapes: Gray Dot, Navy Dot, Chevron Combo

“Sleepover”, by Jennifer Chapin.

I love using Project Life as an inspiration for a regular layout. I took some cues from this style of page protector and designed my layout in a grid fashion. For extra texture I stitched around my paper pieces and Candid Cards before adhering them to the background. I added black and white photos so they wouldn't compete with the bright colors in the Molly collection. Try this for your next layout! It's a great way to grab some new inspiration and put together a page in a snap!

Supplies:
Molly: Sketch with Style, Sparkle & Shine, Peace, Paper Pieces, Candid Cards, Treasures & Text, Trinkets; Max: Treasures & Text; Crochet Hearts: Gulf