Bella Blvd Studio Blog

Layouts On Wednesday

I love Wednesday's, because it's a sign that the work/school week is halfway over. And it also means it's time for another round of free-for-all layouts from our fabulous Design Team!

"1 Inch Of Bliss", by Becky Williams.

This has been kind of a funny year for weather, one where the weather has been a bit of a roller coaster for so many of us. It is 70 degrees one day and then 30 the next. On this particular day we got a little bit of snow and my Aimee couldn't have been happier. I love the happy look on her face and wanted to pair that with lots of fun, colorful papers- it's my favorite thing about Bella Blvd. The "Bella Baby Bump" paper is intended to be for maternity scrapping but I thought it would be a cute addition to this page about the tiny bit of snow we got that day. 

Supplies:
We're Expecting: Bella Baby Bump; Making the Team: Borders; Sunny Happy Skies: Borders N Blocks; Sophisticates: Short Stories; Finally Fall: Apple Holler; Sweet Celebration: Stardust; Winter Wonder: Borders, Alpha+Bits, Miniatures, Icy; Tail Waggers & Cat Naps: Ciao Chip Icons; Simply Simona Chipboard Alphabets: Brownie, Saltwater, Pickle Juice, White Numbers

"So Huntsville", by Melissa Stinson.

Huntsville, Alabama is the home of LOTS of geeky engineers. We've got everything from NASA projects to missile defense going on at any given engineering firm in the city, so it's safe to say that many of us are geeks. And when there are geeks, we find great things to geek out over ... like a little show on the space shuttle. Huntsville actually doesn't get that much snow, so that in and of itself was a big deal, too, and a perfect excuse to use Bella's Winter Wonder collection!

Supplies:
Winter Wonder: Icy, Borders, Toasty, Blizzard, Alpha+Bits Stickers, Miniatures, Just Write Journaling Stickers; Flags: Winter; Button Market: Snowflakes

"Everyday", by Loredana Bucaria.

Hello everyone! It's spring time sooo a lot of colors, bright or soft and a lot of fun playing with the colorful materials from bella Boulevard! I fall in love with colors in this period with a white background! I know that you have a lot of scrapbooking  leftovers so this layout would inspire you to use them and create a wonderful and colorful page! What do you think? Play is the key word and Bella boulevard really inspires me to play with many embellishments and paper to mix up! I love these products, just looking at them I feel happy and free :) I'd love to see what you are creating with Bella Boulevard products:)

Supplies:
Too Cute To Spook: Itsy Bitsy Spider; Winter Wonderland: Blizzard, Icy, Toasty; Spring Flings and Easter Things: Egg Hunt, Mom's Bouquet, Borders, Alpha+Bits Stickers; Sophisticates: Sprinkles & Lace Peep, Essential Peep & Mcintosh; Lovely Dovey: Bear Hugs; Hello Beautiful: Cute Cuts, Thanks a Bunch; Sunshine & Happiness: Miniatures, Alpha+Bits, Borders

"Poser", by Kim Arnold.

Being a mum of one ratbag son, the Mr Boy collection is always a “go to” for me and this layout was no exception. The gorgeous blue patterned paper on the reverse side of the Cute Cuts paper was a perfect match for Benson’s vibrant blue cast so how could I not use it? I love the graph pattern on one of the journaling stickers, so I used it to punch out the clouds (great alternative use). And yes, my son is a serious poser!

Supplies:
Mr Boy: Borders n’ Blocks, Quadrants, Cute Cuts, Icons Chipboard, Alpha+Bits Stickers, Chit Chat Chipboard, Journaling Stickers; Sophisticates: Ciao Chip Simply Simona Oyster

"Love Each Other", by Sue Mylde.

I wanted to try a combination of papers from the Bella Blvd collection this time to shake things up a bit. I've taken papers and embellishments from five different collections to play around with and see how well they all go together. I've also challenged myself to add a bit of florals even in a layout with my son so here's what I came up with. Love how the blues and greens stand out in this page. Hope you'll be inspired to try something different today too!

Supplies:
Honey, I'm Home: Label Additions; Midterm: Physics; Hello Beautiful: Cute Cuts; Sunny Happy Skies: Alpha+Bits; Family Dynamix: Borders N Blocks

Cards on Thursday

Before we get to our Cards on Thursday sharing, I wanted to give you a quick head's up about what we have planned for the next few days. Stephanie will be dropping by tomorrow, with her Fridays with Stephanie post. It's always fun to see what she's going to share each week. On Saturday, we will have the first of our two monthly sketches going up, and we have some fantastic projects that our Designers came up with, based on the sketch. On Sunday, we have two mini album shares, from two of our Altered Project Designers. And to kick off next week, we have two of our special On-Going Guest Artistas joining the blog for the first time on Monday. We're packing as much inspiration into the blog as we can for you all ;)

"Family" card, by Kathy Martin.

Today is another project day where I get to choose the Bella Blvd collection that I want to use for my cards! I love free-for-all days because there are so many cool lines to choose from! For my ‘Family’ card I thought I’d take a break from holiday crafting, and use the Sunny Happy Skies collection. These houses caught my eye … they’re so detailed, colorful and fun! Makes me want to move into that little neighborhood! I’d move into the little red house with roof-top patio and shades lined with hearts!

Supplies:
Sunny Happy Skies Collection: Cute Cuts, Borders N’ Blocks, Creamsicle Clouds, Blurbs, Alpha+Bits; Ciao Chip: Essentials Peep & McIntosh

"You're Awesome" card, by Kathy Martin. 

After Halloween, I thought it was time to stash away the Too Cute to Spook collection, but I didn’t want to! I’ve been having a good time playing with this line and decided to challenge myself to use it in a different way. So, I came up with this thank you card. Usually when I sit down to make a thank you card, I start by choosing colors and accents like bright colors, butterflies and flowers. This time, going at it from a challenge to use a particular product, I ended up with a look I would have never thought of. I don’t think I would have used black for a thank you card, but I love the results!

Supplies:
Too Cute to Spook Collection: Jacks-A-Glow, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Quadrants, Just Write; Hello Beautiful Collection: Alpha+Bits; Ciao Chip Essentials: Oyster & Oreo; Miniatures: Card Sentiments

"You Melt My Heart" card, by Deanna Misner.

I really love that one of the cute cuts with this line is a steaming hot cup of cocoa (or coffee). I thought that it went really well with the miniature sticker "You melt my heart". And since so many people do coffee dates now, either with a friend or their significant other, it just seemed like the perfect combination of paper, details, and sentiment. I couldn't NOT make a sweet little card for our next coffee date.

Supplies:
Winter Wonder: Blizzard, Toasty, Cute Cuts, Alpha+Bits, Borders, Miniature stickers

"Winter Forecast" card, by Deanna Misner.

For this card, I wanted to try a little bit of color blocking but instead of using patterned paper, I used the cute stickers and cut outs that come with each collection. I used my "go-to" color combination of blues with a touch of red and brown, to combined the snowflake and Just Write stickers with mittens and "forecast" cut-outs. I love that Winter Wonder is so versatile, and it allowed me to create a card that I could use any time during the winter.

Supplies:
Winter Wonder: Borders, Alphas+Bits, Just Write stickers, Miniature stickers; Spring Flings and Easter Things: Borders

"For A Super Great Friend" card, by Stephanie Hunt.

Since we have officially seen snow flurries for the first time here in Wisconsin, I thought "Hey. Why not at least try to get into the cold-wintery spirit & create a winter card!" The Super Stud star pattern resembles white snowflakes and a blue wintery sky so I combined it with the Winter Wonder collection for my card. 

Supplies:
Super Stud: Planetarium; Winter Wonder: Borders; Sophisticates Miniatures Stickers: Card Sentiments

"Thinking Of You" card, by Morgan Bandkowski.

I really get so much use of the Cute Cuts paper. I was able to cut out the tree and pumpkin along with the leaf on the inside of the car. Ink & pop dots are the items I use on almost any project. It is a great way to add a little dimension to any project. The tree, pumpkin & sentiment are all popped up. 

Supplies:
Finally Fall: Leaf Pile, Cute Cuts

Guest Designer: Kelly Noel

We have another super talented Guest Designer to share with you today. Let's all give a very warm welcome to Kelly Noel!

 

Hi everybody! I’m so happy to be this week’s Guest Designer. Bella Blvd’s products are so fun and I just love the bright colors and graphic patterns … they fit my style so well! I’ve been scrapbooking since college, but back then it was just pictures and stories/captions. I got into it more seriously once my oldest son was born, 7 years ago. I found the online scrapbooking world and never looked back :) Now, I can’t imagine NOT scrapbooking … it combines my love of art and photography perfectly, so it was such a natural hobby for me. 

 

"Frightfully Adorable & Wickedly Cute", by Kelly Noel.

I had so much fun with the new Too Cute To Spook line. The colors and patterns were perfect for this photo from our Halloween last year. My boys are still into “cute” costumes (I’m not holding my breath thinking they’ll be like that forever though … I’m sure the creepy costumes are somewhere on the horizon ;), but right now they are still super cute little trick or treaters.

 

I love how so many of the patterns in the Too Cute To Spook papers can be cut to create embellishments … the clouds, for example, that I cut here were the perfect addition to the moon I cut from cardstock. I popped them up with foam adhesive to give some great dimension to the page. I also layered (with more foam adhesive…love that stuff!) two of the title stickers from the sticker sheet for my title.

 

"At The Patch", by Kelly Noel.

Finally Fall is full of such adorable papers and stickers … I loved the colors in this line so much! I chose to scrapbook a photo of my two boys at the pumpkin patch. The fall colors in the photo really went well with the colors in this line. I cut out the two trees, added some detailing with a brown pen and then layered them underneath the title sticker.

 

 

"Good Luck" card, by Kelly Noel.

I created two cards with the super cute and sweet Sunny Happy Skies line. This line makes me wish I had a little girl to scrapbook…the colors are so pretty and girly! :) I love using more “girly” lines for making cards, because it gives me a chance to use the pinks, etc. which I don’t normally get to use much.

 

"Be Happy" card, by Kelly Noel.

Thank you Bella Blvd so much for asking me to be Guest Designer. I had a great time playing with all these fun products!

 

Guest Designer Sarah Klemish: Part 1

We have some amazing Guest Designer's lined up for you, over the next few months. It's always so exciting when they start sending their projects to my inbox, and I get to see what amazing things they have done with the Bella collections. And this talented designer went above and beyond. Meet Sarah Klemish!

 

In the scrapbook world I am known as “Sarahak”, in the real world I am Sarah Klemish (wife, mother, daughter, sister). I still remember the first Creative Memories class I took 10 years ago – cardstock and pictures cut in funky shapes! I still treasure those layouts but since then my style has changed. I am typically what is known as a “simple” scrapper.  Straight lines, white space and sewing, that sums it up. I am currently designing for Creative Memories (talk about coming full circle)! I have been published in Scrapbook Trends and was on the Better Homes and Gardens Scrapbook Etc. team for a year. I still do work for Scrapbooks Etc. and get published with them regularly. Love the hobby, love the people and love being asked to participate on fun projects! Thanks Bella Blvd! 

Congratulations Bella Blvd!!

I have wanted to say that ever since I read this on your blog:
The winner of the Best Booth at CHA Summer 2011, voted on by Scrap Time viewers, is BELLA BLVD!!!

Sounds (and looks) like you guys had a great show – and of course I am not surprised! I have been in Bella heaven every since my friendly UPS man dropped the big brown box on my front porch! I might have even gone a little over board. What can I say, I was inspired!  It was easy for me to create so many layouts - the papers and embellishments really fit my “style”. I am a little intimidated by the incredible Bella Artistas and the wonderful work they have showcased here! I do know that Bella’s product really helped me showcase some of my favorite photos in just the right way! Thanks for this opportunity Stephanie and Laura, and thanks to YOU for looking at my layouts.

Can I just say I think my favorite thing to play with on my layouts were the “Cute Cuts”! I had fun adding embellishments to the cut out pieces and love that some pieces are BIG and helped me, who is not a big embellisher, fill up a page in a good way! Below are a few layouts I created using the “Cute Cuts” from a few different collections: Sunny Happy Skies, Midterm and Making The Team.

 

For this layout I used the Sunny Happy Skies Cute Cuts. I used pop dots to give dimension to the flowers and clouds. I added small embellishments to the cut out pieces for some texture. I also mixed up some of the product by adding cardstock number stickers (Simona #’s Oreo) from the Making The Team collection. The pictures are family and friends on the Fourth of July!

 

This layout is very special to me. My oldest brother John passed away in January 2008 and I miss him every day . . . and so do his wife and little girl, Shannen. These pictures were actually taken in the spring of 2006 and are two of my favorites. It is hard to believe my niece Shannen will be starting 1^st grade this fall! Her daddy would be very proud of her! I pop dotted the clouds and added pop dotted hearts to the house die cut and the letters. I love these chipboard letters – Simply Simona (Oyster).

I had fun with this layout! My son turned 13 this year and I thought the Midterm Cute cuts were perfect for showing what he is into these days – I mean really, what is there outside of pizza, texting and FaceBook? I love the Sophisticates Quattrofino Alphabets! I used the Milk and Oreo letters and the Peep and Saffron letters on this layout!

 

For this layout I used the Making the Team Cute Cuts. Again, I used pop dots on the “Team Roster” sticker and also on the football Cute Cut! This is my son Max last year at the beginning of football season.

I really had fun with the Cute Cuts and can’t wait until I get my hands on the Finally Fall and Too Cute Too Spook lines so I can play with them more! And just for fun, how about a challenge? I would like to challenge you to create a layout using at least one “Cute Cuts” paper piece! If you take the challenge, please link us to it in the comment section. I would love to see what you've done, and I bet other's would too!

I hope you'll come back and join me tomorrow, when I share the rest of my layouts with you. I have FIVE more layouts to show you!