Bella Blvd Studio Blog

Challenge Week With Guest Designer Shannon Tidwell: Day Two

Hi, it's me, Shannon Tidwell, back again for another day of fun & scrapbooking! We hope you're all working on our first challenge, because we really want to see YOUR takes on the ideas. And now, we're going to dive right into our next challenge.

Tuesday Challenge: Use patterned papers from 4 or more collections on your project

I LOVE mixing up patterned papers. Sometimes I start with the papers before the picture.  I dig through my stacks and put together a mix that I like and then see what photos I have that will go with them. If mixing patterned papers from different collections or even manufacturers seems daunting I have a few tips. You could stick with the same color scheme, mix larger patterns with smaller ones to help the balance, find inspiration from fashion or home decor, and my biggest tip ... don't overthink it!

"Happy", by Shannon Tidwell.

For my layout, Happy, as I was looking through the colorful stack of Bella Blvd papers my eye was drawn to the chevron pattern. So I picked out several of the similar pattern in different colors. To help balance it I added in a couple polka dots. I started with one paper as the background and just kept adding strips of patterned paper. I added in a few chipboard accents as well as stickers to add dimension and separation between the patterns. A couple fun things about the page. I sprinkled sequins across the page and then covered them with masking tape. A fun and easy border. Second, I stacked the chipboard title. I actually couldn't decide between the two colors so I decided to use both! The border sticker across the top wasn't quite 8.5" so I snipped it on one side and left a gap, then I filled the gap with a couple sticker tags and tied them together with twine.

"Birthday Girl", by Shannon Tidwell.

For my second layout today I decided to go with a monotone color scheme. That keeps matching papers super easy, especially with pinks. I based my layout on a sheet of Kraft cardstock to mellow the layout a bit. Then I punched about six 2" circles of each paper I'd chosen. By having such an interesting background I decided to keep the rest of the page relatively simple. I balanced the photo with a kraft tag and a few stickers as well as the pin she wore at her birthday (complete with pink icing on it). I thought the top of the page needed a little something so I combined a few stickers for a fun little embellishment.

I can't wait to see what the Bella Blvd Design Team came up with for the challenge.

"Hello Cupcake", by Melissa Stinson.

Mixing Bella collections is so easy! There are so many colors that are similar across the lines (such as the entire Sophisticates palette), so if you pick a red or yellow from one line, it's pretty much guaranteed to coordinated with the same color from another. For this layout I wanted aqua, yellow, and red, so I flipped through some older (and one of the new!) Bella collections, to pull together several sheets that complimented my photos.

Supplies:
Sophisticates: Blue High Five Alphabets, Essentials Peep & McIntosh Chipboard, Simply Simona McIntosh Chipboard; Baby Blooms a Bella: Azzini, Saffron; Midterm: Blurbs; Designer Tape: Yellow Chevron; Sunny Happy Skies: Creamsicle Clouds; Family Dynamix: Quadrants; Sunshine & Happiness: Borders, Happy Clouds; Hello Beautiful: Just Because; Socialite: Tango

"Happiness", by Laura Vegas.

Collections are great, because you can pull one set of papers out and know that they will all match. But I love the challenge of mixing papers from a wide variety of collections, onto one layout. And with Bella's patterned papers, this is so easy to do. For my layout, I started with the chipboard "Happiness" title, and I pulled all of my patterned papers to match the colors in the chipboard letters. Because so many of the papers are tone-on-tone patterns, they can be used together easily. Even in choosing each color's paper, I had lots of different papers to choose from. For example, I could have pulled a great green pattern paper from 3-4 different collections. (BTW, for a little "tutorial" of sorts, on how I created the sunburst on my layout, visit my blog HERE)

Supplies:
Sunshine & Happiness: Happy Clouds, Alpha+Bits Stickers, Miniatures Stickers, Chipboard Icons; Family Dynamix: The Littlest Things, Words of Wisdom, Quadrants; Too Cute To Spook: Itsy Bitsy Spider; Socialite: Cute Cuts; Tail Waggers & Cat Naps: Blocks N Borders; Sophisticates: Sprinkles & Lace Punch; All Inclusive: Skippin Stones; Ciao Chip Elements: Clouds

"At The Beach", by Kimberly Neddo.

I love mixing product lines together. It gives such a great realm of freedom to play and inter mix the products. It takes away all limits while you create! Sometimes I like having limits, and sometimes I like to be able to mix and match to get the look I want. The photographs are always what dictate my color pallet. How can I frame them? How can I make them stand out? Playing with colors and dimensions, are always what I play with to start every project. Thanks for looking! I hope this inspires you to get creative with your products too!

Supplies:
Sunshine & Happiness: Happy Clouds, Chipboard Icons; Finally Fall: At the Patch; Spring Flings & Easter Things: Mom's Bouquet; Sophisticates: Stars & Hearts Chipboard, Green High Five Alpha Stickers; Winter Wonder: Miniatures; Baby Boy: Alpha+Bits

"Drive", by Vivian Masket.

It's so easy to combine Bella Blvd products from different collections. The colors repeat across lines, so everything works well together. On this layout, I combined products from six different lines, including patterned papers from five different lines. I created a tone-on-tone effect by handcutting or punching shapes from three of the patterned papers and layered those shapes over the same patterned paper using pop dots. By having the star, heart, and cloud hang over the edges a bit, they are easier to spot, adding interest and detail without a lot of distraction.

Supplies:
Making the Team: Quadrants, Just Write Journaling Stickers; Sophisticates: Apricot Sprinkles & Lace; Finally Fall: At the Patch, Bliss; Family Dynamix: Quadrants; Super Stud: Eclipse; Tail Waggers & Cat Naps: Just Write Journaling Stickers

"Bliss" card, by Deanna Misner.

For both my cards today, I chose to combine pieces of the Spring Flings collection with the brand new baby collections. I really love that I keep seeing these adorable sunshines popping up everywhere, so I thought I'd make one myself. I used the cloudy background to "ground" my card, then used the deeper golden colors from the Spring Flings collection to create my sun. I love how the Ciao Chipboard pieces not only provide the sentiments for the card, but they also give it depth and a more substance. They're quickly becoming my "go to" embellishment.

Supplies:
Baby Boy collection: Heaven Sent; Spring Flings collection: Sunny Sunday; Sophisticates Ciao Chipboard

"Congrats" card, by Deanna Misner.

I had a little fun playing and finding fun color combinations and I ultimately decided to go with the classic pink and purple girly girl combo. I used a tag I had leftover from a previous Baby Girl collection project, so I thought I'd pair it with the pink chevron from Spring Flings. And I most definitely couldn't resist that adorable pink frog that comes in Spring Flings as well! I topped it off with the "Congrats" flag and 2
buttons from the Button Market and called it a day.

Supplies:
Baby Girl collection: Cute Cuts, Borders; Spring Flings collection: Egg Hunt; Button Market: pink flowers

**********************************************************

And now, we are going to ask you to play along with our challenge! This week, we will be featuring FIVE challenges. But it's not just about showing you what we came up with. We want to see your take on our challenges too. And we have a little extra incentive to get you creating and sharing.

We will be drawing one winner, to receive a prize package of $100+ worth of Bella Blvd products!

But this is different than our regular giveaways. You will have to participate in the challenges, in order to be entered in the drawing for that prize package. If you participate in one challenge, your name will be entered in one time. If you participate in three of the challenges, your name will be entered in three times. Make sense? And how about a bonus. If you participate in all five challenges, your name will be entered in not five times, but TEN times! We really hope you'll join in on the fun with us. Just click on the button below, to link us up to your completed projects. You have until Friday, March 2nd, to get your links added on. We will then announce a winner on Saturday, March 3rd. 

Challenge Week With Guest Designer Shannon Tidwell: Day One

We hope you're ready for a TON of inspiration this week! We thought it would be fun to have a week-long feature, revolving around challenges. Challenges having to do with pattern paper, to be exact. Paper is one product that every single scrapbooker has ... usually, in large amounts, right?!?! You can't create a layout, without using paper. We also wanted to invite a special guest designer, to help lead us in our challenges. When I think of a scrapbooker, who is super talented with pattern papers of all colors, patterns, and designs ... there is one name that immediately comes to mind. Let's get to know the talented Shannon Tidwell!

Hi, I'm Shannon! So here's the deal. I feel so silly talking about myself in third person, 'Shannon was a member of..blah blah blah'. Instead I'm going to give you the basics, honestly. I'm just a scrapbooker. I discovered 'scrapbooking' as we know it during the summer of 2000 in the check out line at Wal-Mart, thank goodness for long lines that day and a handy magazine rack. It was if the sky opened up and the angels sang. I then absorbed as much as I could, bought everything I could find, scrapped every spare moment I had. About a year later I was asked to join the Garden Girls Design Team at 2Peas. I've been lucky enough to stay on that team for the past 10+ years. I've taught several online classes at TwoPeas, complete with video tuturiols where I jabber like a goober. I got to be on the Better Homes and Gardens Scrapbooks, Etc. Creative Team in 2005. My favorite publishing accomplishment was having my son's photo on the cover, that's pretty cool. My biggest goal ... to keep enjoying and loving this HOBBY we call scrapbooking. And make a few pretty pages, to boot.

The photo I chose to share as my profile pic isn't anything fancy. It was captured with a phone camera. But it's a favorite because I remember feeling so cute that day. Don't you have days like that? Your hair is good, your clothes are good, and you're happy. Capture it, even if you feel silly posing in front of a crowd of people.

The non-scrapbooking stuff. I'm a mom, a room mom, a team mom, a wife, attempting to be a runner, and always a student of photography (and editing to fix my photography mistakes.)  You can visit my blog HERE. It's a mix of shopping, scrapping and mommy talk.  Enough talk, let's get on with the scrapbooking! Thanks so much to Stephanie, Laura, and Bella Blvd for inviting me to Guest this week!

*******************************************************

Monday Challenge: Use Cute Cuts On Your Layout

I love the Cute Cuts. Using them actually reminds me of the good ol' days when we had to cut out our lettering. I find the cutting therapeutic. The other great thing about Cute Cuts is that you get a lot of big embellishments for not much money, yay! Here are a few ideas for using Cute Cuts that I want to try:

• Create a scene, add a few pop dots to make it 3-dimensional
• Use one as a base for your title
• Add glitter or gems to dress them up a bit
• Punch partial images of the Cute Cuts for fun accents

"Attitude", by Shannon Tidwell.

And the idea I used for my layout is to create a patterned paper of sorts with the Cute Cuts.  I started with a 4x6 photo and a 4x6 of patterned paper.  I added the border below and then the title (which is also a Cute Cuts).  Then I cut several of the circle designs from the Cute Cut and arranged them onto the patterned paper to create a bolder pattern.  My biggest tip when working with circles, make sure you overlap some off the edges to keep the design balanced.  I adhered the baseball circle with a couple pop dots to make it stand out.

For the bottom portion of the layout I added my journaling but still felt like it needed something else.  But I didn't want to upset the 'top heavy' balance I was going for.  So I opted for a pen-line border as well as a few sequins stapled on. I've said before that I think the metal staples adds a little masculinity to the sequins...at least that's the story I'm sticking with.

The talented Bella Blvd Design Team is participating in the challenge too!  Here are their layouts.

"Dreams Are LIke Games", by Loredana Bucaria.

Hi everyone! Today is a Cute Cuts inspiration day and I want to share with you this page:) I have used a collection that you can imagine to use for a boy or a masculine theme and instead I used for me :) Ohh yes, because dreams are like games you have to believe in them hardly to make them came true! Don't you think? This picture was made by my iPhone and I love it. The cute cuts are sooo easy to use and they make a cool touch to my page :) I've added a lot of different embellishments and for this time I 've used one products line, is very fun to play with all kinds of materials from just one line :) Try to challenge yourself you will be so satisfied of the result!

Supplies:
Making The Team: Wall Of Fame, Cute Cuts, Borders, Alpha+Bits, Just Write Journaling Stickers, Ciao Chip; Mr Boy: Ciao Chip

"A Mild Winter", by Megan Klauer.

I am super bad about taking photos of my kids during the winter, and well this year we just haven't had much snow to play in. So, I decided that would be my focus for this page; a mild winter. I focused on how in January {in the midwest!} I was able to run outside to help reach a few goals. I used the "photo tabs" from two of the alpha+bits pages to create a simple pattern down the side of my design. I also decided to do most of my journaling on my computer as I knew it would be long. I still wanted to add some of my own handwriting, so I left a few pages to fill in a bit of information.

Supplies:
Winter Wonder: Ski Slopes, Cute Cuts, Alpha+Bits, Just Write Stickers, Miniature Stickers

"Baby Boy", by Kim Arnold.

How cute is the elephant on the Cute cuts paper from the Baby Boy range? I just couldn’t resist cutting it out to include it on my layout. I also cut around his ear with a craft knife and popped it up with foam tape.  I thought it (and the whole super cute Baby Boy range) was perfect to include on this layout where I finally got around to scrapping the ultrasound photos of my son.

Supplies:
Baby Boy: It’s A Boy, Cute Cuts, On The Go, Baby Blue, Wild About You, Miniatures, Ciao Chip Icons; Button Market: Stars

"You Need Froggy on A Cloudy Day", by Katherine McElvain.
{A Winter CHA Layout}

Sometimes a die cut perfectly fits a theme of a layout. The Cute Cuts Bella Frog, with its bulgy eyes, looked just like my daughters favorite stuffed animal. So I had to add him to this layout of her snuggling with her froggy when she was in a gloomy mood one day. To add the umbrella in Froggy’s hand (do frogs have hands? Not sure) completed the theme.

Supplies:
Spring Flings: Cute Cuts, A Tisket A Tasket, Sunny Sunday, Borders, Alpha+Bits Stickers, Chipboard Icons; Sophisticates: High Five Alphas (blue, green, yellow), Card Sentiments Miniatures, Punch, Ciao Chip Clouds; Designer Tape: Yellow Chevron; Flags: Floral

"Smile" card, by Kathy Martin.

With spring being my favorite season, I’ve really enjoyed creating with the Spring Flings & Easter Things collection. Any spring craft or celebration I can think of works with these colorful papers and accents! Both my son and I have spring birthdays and this versatile line is perfect for birthday celebrations too!

Supplies:
Spring Flings & Easter Things: Egg Hunt, Sunny Sunday, Borders, Cute Cuts, Alpha+Bits; Sophisticates Miniatures: Card Sentiments; High Five Alpha Stickers: Green

"It's A Boy" card, by Kathy Martin.

I’ve lost count of how many scrapbook pages and cards I’ve created with this line! I can’t help myself, it’s so darn cute and fun to play with. I’m really smitten with these images like the animals and this adorable onesie!

Supplies:
Baby Boy: On the Go, Borders, Cute Cuts

********************************************************

And now, we are going to ask you to play along with our challenge! This week, we will be featuring FIVE challenges. But it's not just about showing you what we came up with. We want to see your take on our challenges too. And we have a little extra incentive to get you creating and sharing.

We will be drawing one winner, to receive a prize package of $100+ worth of Bella Blvd products!

But this is different than our regular giveaways. You will have to participate in the challenges, in order to be entered in the drawing for that prize package. If you participate in one challenge, your name will be entered in one time. If you participate in three of the challenges, your name will be entered in three times. Make sense? And how about a bonus. If you participate in all five challenges, your name will be entered in not five times, but TEN times! We really hope you'll join in on the fun with us. Just click on the button below, to link us up to your completed projects. You have until Friday, March 2nd, to get your links added on. We will then announce a winner on Saturday, March 3rd.