Bella Blvd Studio Blog: Saturday Sketch's

Twice a month, we'll be bringing you a new sketch, and showing you a few takes on the sketch by our designers. And today, we have our first sketch for the month of October!

This month's first sketch, is a card sketch. I challenged some of our fantastic card designers to create a card, based off this sketch. I loved the sketch so much, that I decided to play along too. And we even got a talented layout designer to join in!

"Happy Winter" card, by Kathy Martin.

Projects from me almost always include two things...stitching and texture. A project doesn't seem complete without some stitching and I always do mine by hand because I can do detailed stitching that way and because I don't get along with the sewing machine! To create texture, I love to layer accents and attach embellishments with pop dots. I go through tons of pop dots!

Supplies:
Winter Wonder: Miniatures Stickers, Alpha & Bits, Blizzard, Toasty, Icy, Just Write Journaling Stickers

"Happy Winter" card, by Alice Carmen.

I can’t wait until the weather changes, can you? It’s been so hot and with the holidays fast approaching it doesn’t feel like holiday weather. Today’s card sketch inspired me to create my own holiday weather and of course it helps to create a little winter with Bella's NEW Winter Wonder collection.

If you’re like me and like to use lots of color and patterns, then today’s sketch is perfect for that. Here’s a hint for you to keep in mind. First, pick similar color palates and add a contrasting color to make your card pop. My blues were similar and the red and pink were the contrasting colors. The green tree tied everything together and ta da, it’s a card!

Supplies:
Winter Wonder: Toasty, Borders, Ski Slopes, Miniatures

"Just Hopping By To Say Hi" card, by Gretchen McElveen.

This is such a fun, versatile sketch! I stayed close to the sketch in the design of my card but I did make my card wider than the original sketch. In place of the flower, I cut the super cute frog out of the Cute Cuts sheet in the new Spring Flings & Easter Things line. In fact, everything on this card is from that new line with a tiny bit of pink paper from the new Winter Wonder line! I am glad this sketch gave me an excuse to play with the new lines!

Supplies:
Winter Wonder: Blizzard; Spring Flings & Easter Things: Sunny Sunday, Mom's Bouquet, Cute Cuts, Alphas + Bits; Sophisticates Simply Simona Chipboard Alphas: Peep

"You Are My Sunshine" card, by Deanna Misner.

I chose to rotate the sketch and to go sort of with a "April showers bring May flowers" kind of theme. I chose the raindrop pattern for the background then quilled the flowers using bright happy colors. Finally I added the sticker sentiment. I LOVE that each collection comes with little labels like this because it makes picking out a card sentiment quick and easy! :)

Supplies:
Spring Flings and Easter Things: Borders, Cute Cuts, Egg Hunt, Mom's Bouquet, Sunny Day, Alpha + Bits stickers

"You Are My Sunshine" card, by Laura Vegas.

I love working with sketches, and usually stay really close to the actual sketch design. I knew I would like this sketch just as it was, mainly because I was the one to sketch it ;) But also, because this is the kind of card that I love to create. A few blocks of pattern paper, a fun embellishment, and a sentiment. I used the new Spring Flings & Easter Things collection, with a touch of purple paper from the older Socialite collection.

I adhered my flower sticker to a piece of cardstock, and trimmed around it. Then I added some machine stitching around the center of the flower, and adhered it to the card with pop dots. I found this fun chunky button, and added silver metal flower mini brads to the button holes, before adhered it to the center of the flower sticker. This adds LOTS of dimension to the card.

Supplies:
Spring Flings & Easter Things: Sunny Sunday, A Tisket A Tasket, Just Write Journaling Stickers, Alphas+Bits Stickers; Socialite: Countdown

And we challenged one of our designers, to use the card sketch, to create a layout. While the card is more comparable to an 8.5x11 layout, it can also be translated into a 12x12 layout just as easily.

"You & Me", by Kim Arnold.

I love using sketches, but have never used a card sketch as the basis for a layout. I loved putting my own twist on it and I was surprised how easy it was and how quickly it all came together. I would encourage you to have a go at using a card sketch for a layout – I certainly will be doing this again!

Supplies:
Finally Fall: Ciao Chip Icons, Just Write Journaling Stickers, Quadrants, At the Patch, Apple Holler, Cute Cuts; Hello Beautiful: Alpha+Bits; Sophisticates Ciao Chip Essentials: Apricot & Banana; Baby Blooms-A-Bella: Rossini

We hope you will take some creative time for yourself, and try out our sketch! Whether it's a card, or a layout, we would love to see what you come up with. You can link them here in the comment section, or share them on our Facebook page!