Bella Blvd Studio Blog: Saturday Sketches

Twice 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 second sketch for September, courtesy of Becky Fleck.

"Life Is Good", by Melissa Stinson.

I've already scrapped one layout with Bella's Birthday Girl collection this month, but I couldn't resist making another while all the supplies were still out on my desk! I changed the sketch up just a bit by "squishing" everything toward the middle from the top and bottom so that the larger and smaller photos were more in line. I also shrunk the size of the larger photo while I was at it, since it's a lot bigger than any of the sizes I normally use.

Supplies:
Birthday Girl: Cute Cuts, Celebrate, Miles of Smiles, Sugar Rush, Alpha+Bits Stickers, Icons; Button Market: Purple Flowers, Hot Pink Flowers; Designer Tape: Piggy Pink Stripe; High Five Alpha Stickers: Red

“Sing”, by Vivian Masket.

I love all of the different blocks of paper in this sketch! Since I only had two really good photos of my daughter with her microphone (a singing 6-year-old doesn't stay still for very long!), I adapted the sketch to work with two, instead of three, photos. Given that my daughter was looking to the right in the smaller photo, I decided to flip the sketch horizontally to accommodate the orientation of the smaller photo. From there, the layout came together quickly with the fun Birthday Girl pink and purple papers and embellishments. I added musical notes - die cut from black cardstock - to add contrast. Strips of Designer Tape, placed both vertically and horizontally, help to create flow and move the viewer's eye through the page.

Supplies:
Birthday Girl: Dancing Queen, Sugar Rush, Celebrate, Alpha+Bits Stickers; Sienna Chipboard Alphas: Punch; Button Market: Hot Pink Flower Buttons; Designer Tape: Punch Chevron, Pink Flowers

“Reptile Party”, by Julie Johnson.

I love sketches because it takes the guesswork out of designing a layout for me. But, I also love to add to the basic design like I did with this sketch. For this layout I wanted to add more color and some more detail so I enlarged the background piece and then added a large scallop border over the top. To add even more detail I backed my photos so they would stand out more and added the scallop sticker to the edge of the photos. Since this was my son's reptile birthday party the frog cut out from the Cute Cuts paper was the perfect accent to finish off the layout.

Supplies:
Birthday Boy: Toadilly Cool, Eat Cake, Streamers, Cute Cuts, Alpha+Bits Stickers, Just Write Journaling Stickers; Flags: Birthday Boy Flags 2; Designer Tapes: Pickle Juice Chevron

“I Got You Baby”, by Sue Mylde.

I love the cool colors of the most recent collections from Bella Blvd. Stephanie really has a great eye and I'm going to miss creating for the team next year! Having said that, this has been SUCH a blast! Thank you for the opportunity to create yet another layout for Bella Blvd! Here's "I Got You Baby". Combined the colors in Birthday Boy, Birthday Girl and Thankful to get a contrasting layout which - ta-da - matches the colors in my photos! Love the cool blues and greens, don't you? The buttons add dimension and the hearts are a lovely touch to a 'love' layout without saying it too loud. I wrapped the two photos on the right side with Designer Tape - love those - and the subtlety of them just makes this layout easy and fun to create, but bright and interesting to look at! Thanks for looking!

Supplies:
Birthday Boy: Borders, Cute Cuts, Alpha+Bits Stickers, Just Write Journaling Stickers; Birthday Girl: Party Dress; Thankful: Turkey Tracks; Designer Tape: Orange Stripe, Pickle Juice, Green Gulf Polka Dot; Buttons: Masculine Mix; High-Five Alpha Stickers: Green

"Bath", by Wendy Wagner.

This was a super fun layout to do of my little girl from when she was 5 months old. I combined the Baby Girl & Baby Boy fun zebra print paper to follow this sketch. I inked everything with chalk ink, and did some machine stitching in black. Journaling about how she loved her bath and water. I kept the title simple, but used the fun Ciao Chip alphas. Again, following sketches helps take half the work out of doing a layout! I love them!

Supplies:
Baby Girl: Snuggly Safari, Baby Cakes, Alpha+Bits Stickers, Just Write Journaling Stickers, Miniatures Stickers;Baby Boy: Borders; Ciao Chip Elements: Starts & Hearts; Simply Simona Chipboard Alphas: Oreo

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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.