Bella Blvd Studio Blog

Inspiration Week: Max Collection

We hope you're ready to be inspired! We have a handful of never-before-seen projects left to share with you, all featured in our CHA Winter booth display, during our last "Inspiration Week" feature. The new collections have already begun shipping out to stores and online retailers, so you should start seeing them pop up on shelves any day now (if you haven't already!). We hope that you'll be inspired by the projects our Design Team worked so hard creating with all of the new collections and products.

“My Little Boy”, by Katie Rose.

I just had to use pictures of my Max with the Max Collection :) The B side of the Borders patterned paper is one of my favorite pieces in this collection. I hand cut several of the arrows and used them to point to my pictures. And I just love all the sweet little boy saying on the stickers.

Supplies:
Max: Text Me, Rock Star, Borders, Shark Attack, Paper Pieces, Treasure & Text

“The Joys of Boys”, by Brook Stewart.

When I saw those army guys in the Max collection, I knew the exact photo I was going to use...My oldest boy is currently obsessed with war history of any kind. We went to a local army surplus store and he walked out with several things including a helmet and camo shirt...younger brother got a shirt as well. I just love this photo and when I ran a vintage action, it totally completed the look! No doubt I could not have picked any more perfect papers to tell this story!

Supplies:
Max: Text Me, That's My Boy, Borders, Treasures & Text, Trinkets, Paper Pieces; Designer Tape: Grey Dot

“I Love This Guy So Much”, by Stephanie Buice.

When I think of scrapbooking pictures of my son the colors and patterns of Bella's Max Collection are exactly what I have in mind. I like the fact that they are boy and not baby boy colors, they could totally be used for boys of all ages. This layout is of one of my favorite pictures of my son and I, the phrase stickers on the Trinkets sticker sheet couldn't be more perfect, the "He owns my heart" sticker I mean come on...perfection! I used the coordinating Paper Pieces pack and many of the Candid cards pack as well, I love how easy they make it to add that extra little touch to your pages. I can't say enough about this awesome collection. 

Supplies:
Max: Shark Attack, Rock Star, Borders, Paper Pieces, Candid Cards, Trinkets; Ciao Chips Elements: Stars & Hearts; Sienna Chipboard Alphas: Pickle Juice, Ice; Designer Tapes: Navy Dot, Chlorine Dot

Max altered frame, by Jennifer Chapin.

This was such a fun project to make! I started with a large frame that was actually made for an advent calendar; I do keep this in my kitchen year round and change it with the seasons. I created a variety of different hang tags with the Candid Cards and Paper Pieces from the Max line. I made sure to use lots of dimensional adhesive to make everything pop.

Supplies:
Max: Sketchbook, Rock Star, Science Fair, That’s my Boy, Text Me, Borders, Treasures & Text, Trinkets, Paper Pieces, Candid Cards; High Five Alphabets: Black-White; Ciao Chip Elements: Stars & Hearts

Saturday 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 second sketch for February. 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 Becki Adams.

{Original Layout - by Becki Adams}

“Love You”, by Kay Rogers.

I loved working with the sketch from Becky's amazing layout! Sketches are my go-to creativity starter. It gives me that starting point I need when I am feeling less than creative! I modified the sketch a bit, but it is amazing how quickly this layout came together with just photo placement!

Supplies:
Lucky Starz: Punch Starz, Peep Starz, Pickle Juice Starz, Bell Pepper Starz, Treasures & Text, Trinkets, Candid Cards; Crochet Hearts: Punch

“Valentine’s Day 2013”, by Wendy Sue Anderson.

I love using a sketch as a starting point for a project – it’s so easy to get started when you have a plan laid out in front of you. Sometimes I stick close to the plan, and other times the end result deviates far from the beginning … but either way, I love having a plan to get started. For my layout I wanted to use blue, along with shades of pink to match the only photo I took of my kids last year on Valentine’s Day. I love sorting through all of the collections to find the colors and patterns to mix and match for a layout!

Supplies:
Molly: Unlimited Text, Treasures & Text, Trinkets, Paper Pieces, Candid Cards; Lucky Starz: Trinkets, Treasures & Text; Love and Marriage: Wedding Day Miniatures; Kiss Me: Love Notes, True Love, Alpha & Bits; All American: United We Stand; High Five Alpha Stickers: Color Wheel; Button Market: Fruit Punch; Designer Tape: Navy Dot, Hot Pink Dot, Piggy Pink Stripe

"Twelfth Birthday", by Laura Vegas.

I love a good sketch to work with, as it gives me a great starting point when sitting down to work on a layout. It allows me to have fun picking out products, and just plug them into where everything is mapped out on the sketch. I started this layout with the one polka dot border strip from the Kiss Me collection, and then pulled all of my colors straight from there, pulling patterned papers and embellishments from several different collections.

Supplies:
Kiss Me: Borders & Cute Cuts, Bouquet Kisses; Play Date: Chasing Rainbows; Snapshots: Free Time; Birthday Boy: Chipboard Icons; Birthday Girl: Alpha+Bits; Sienna Chipboard Alphas: Punch; Ciao Chip Elements: Borders; Crochet Flowers: Dahlia; Baby Blooms A Bella: Rossini; Flags: Birthday Girl 2 

The Bella Buzz February 2014 Newsletter

Happy Valentine's Day!! If you've signed up for it already, the Bella Buzz February 2014 issue of our newsletter should have arrived in your inbox today. If you have not signed up yet, you can do so HERE, so you can be sure to get on our subscriber list. You can also find previous issues HERE, to browse and download.

You can download your copy of the Bella Buzz February 2014 Newsletter RIGHT HERE.

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: My Sister's Suitcase}

"Coffee Date", by Leanne Allinson.

I just adore the colors in this Pinterest image but I wanted to use a slightly softer palette than what is shown. I still took the gorgeous pink strip from the middle of the 'love' ombre and used it to highlight my photo and clusters of crochet hearts. I even stacked the letters from 'love' in the same manner. I also wanted the background color of my layout to imitate the worn timber background in the image and I achieved this with Bella Blvd's Love and Marriage Cute Cuts. The final element I took as inspiration, was the use of the cut-out hearts as a banner. Even though I have created a small banner from the Love and Marriage stickers, I have used cut-out hearts as extra detail on my layout.

Supplies:
Love and Marriage: Cute Cuts, May Eighteenth, Esther Flemming Floral, Alpha+Bits, Just Write Journaling Stickers, Wedding Day Miniatures; Engaged At Last: Miniatures Engaged; Freestyle Sophisticates: Freestyle Peep, Freestyle Cotton Candy; Crochet Hearts: Scallop, Cotton Candy; High Five Alpha Stickers: Brown-Cream; Sienna Chipboard Alpha: Pony 

“I Love You 2”, by Kelly Holbrook.

I was inspired by the photo in several obvious ways, such as the wood grain background, the stacked 'Love' title, and the hearts across the top. But, I also took some inspiration from the letters themselves by stacking 4 squares/rectangles with colors going from light to dark. I really liked the imperfect lines created by the threads where the colors blend, and tried to mimic that idea by off-setting the patterned papers. I also rounded the edges of the rectangles while keeping the corners on the squares, inspired by the look of the round 'O' against the other straight edged letters. I loved this inspiration photo!

Supplies:
Daily Chevies: Pink Arrows; Kiss Me: Love Notes, Flutter, Alpha+Bits, Just Write Journaling Stickers; Play Date: Catching Bugs, Alpha+Bits; Snapshots: Alpha+Bits; Love and Marriage: Smokeys in Love, Esther Fleming Floral, Alpha+Bits, Wedding Day Miniatures, Just Write Journaling Stickers; Engaged at Last: Alpha+Bits; Sienna Chipboard Alphas: Pony, Frosting, Punch; Ciao Chip Elements: Stars & Hearts; High Five Alpha Stickers: Pink-Red; Designer Tape: Navy Dot; Button Market: Merlot Flowers

“Love You” card, by Ashley Marcu.

The inspiration photo is so pretty and I was really drawn to the ombre letters and the clean, natural elements of the picture. I created and cut the LOVE sentiment on my silhouette and layered Peep, Punch and McIntosh Starz papers from Lucky Starz behind them. The hashtag paper was the perfect neutral to finish the card making it elegant and fun.

Supplies:
Lucky Starz: Pickle Juice Starz, Punch Starz, Peep Starz, McIntosh Starz

“I Love Us” card, by Ashley Marcu.

The I Love Us journaling card was the perfect star for this card. I trimmed it down a bit and added pink papers from Lucky Starz underneath it. The stars add some fun while tying all the colors together.

Supplies:
Lucky Starz: Pickle Juice Starz, Punch Starz, Peep Starz; Family Forever: Paper Pieces; Molly: Treasures & Text

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

Exciting news! Our brand new collections began shipping to stores and online retailers this week! Keep your eye out for them to start appearing on the shelves of your favorite local and online stores very, very soon!

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!

“I Adore You” card, by Shellye McDaniel.

The Candid Cards are perfect backdrops for your cards! I used two of the 3X4 cards and cut them in half so that the other halves can be used later. Next, I attached the heart card with foam adhesive and kept the embellishments simple by using a flower sticker and a couple of layered buttons. 

Supplies:
Freestyle Sophisticates: Freestyle Peep; Molly: Candid Cards; Family Forever: Treasures & Text; Button Market: Neutral Mix, Fruit Punch

“You Are Pretty Sweet” card, by Shellye McDaniel.

The script on this Candid Card is so cute! I didn't want to distract the "pretty" wording with too much embellishing, so I chose two 'white' areas and filled in with some die-cuts that I cut in half. Change up the wording to reflect exactly what you'd like to say to the recipient ... with the High Five Alpha stickers, you can pick from large to small fonts, as shown here! 

Supplies:
Freestyle Sophisticates: Freestyle Peep; Family Forever: Language of Love, Paper Pieces; High Five Alpha Stickers: Piggy Punch; Molly: Candid Cards; Button Market: Hot Pink Flowers

“Love You”, by Jamie Harder.

I am totally addicted to hearts so I was super excited to scrap these photos of my daughter with her heart balloon! I had so much fun mixing several collections on this page to have a perfect combination of pink and red for my valentine’s theme!  

Supplies:
Love and Marriage: Smokeys in Love; Snapshots: Daily Details, Paper Pieces; Christmas Countdown: Captions; Kiss Me: Love Notes; Ciao Chip Elements: Stars & Hearts; Crochet Hearts: White; Button Market: Fruit Punch; Designer Tape: Cotton Candy

“Love, Family, Life”, by Jodi Wilton.

I love how all the Bella Blvd Collections can mix together to give you the exact look you are going for! For this layout, I mainly used the Daily Chevies Collection to create the base of my layout in a grid like fashion. I then starting adding coordinating embellishments to each square. I also added six of my favorite smaller photos of my kids from the month of January (hoping to continue to create a new layout each month of my kids).

Supplies:
Daily Chevies: Chevy Gulf, Chevy Peep, Chevy Oreo, Chevy Bell Pepper, Chevy Carrot, Chevy Pickle Juice, Arrows Gulf; Snapshots: Daily Details, Borders, Alpha+Bits; Trick or Treat: Captions; Sand & Surf: Miniatures; Crochet Hearts: Pickle Juice, Cotton Candy, Gulf; Designer Tape: Yellow Chevron, Chevron Combo, Hot Pink Dot Tape, Polk Dot Combo

“I Love Us” card, by Morgan Bandkowski.

I recently cleaned up my scrapbook table and came across some older Bella Blvd chipboard and that cute kraft envelope. I added some designer tape to the envelope & then popped up a punched heart. The flags work great by sticking them into the foam pop dots. I then glue the envelope to the feather and then attached it to black cardstock which I think makes it pop. In the detail shot you can see the little tag I made to go inside the envelope. I just punched a heart into the white cardstock and then put the red dot designer tape behind it. 

Supplies:
Freestyle Sophisticates: Freestyle McIntosh; Feathers: McIntosh; Flags: Love; Designer Tape: Chevron Combo, Pink Stripe, Red Dot; Ciao Chip Essentials: Peep

“Be My Valentine” card, by Morgan Bandkowski.  

I just recently got the Bella Blvd Hampton Art Kiss Me stamps and couldn't wait to use them. Since I am not married, I thought it would be perfect to use the stamp - I must ask you to be my valentine. It fun, young & flirty! The background of the card is actually from the new Family Forever line, but I thought it worked perfect with the other pieces. 

Supplies: 
Family Forever: Happy Home, Candid Cards; Freestyle Sophisticates: Freestyle McIntosh; Designer Tape: Jailbird; Hampton Art Stamps: Kiss Me Stamp

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.

"1^st Easter”, by Jen Chesnick.

Bella's Candid cards make Project Life so easy! I even used the packaging as my 4x6 inserts. Sometimes when I print my smaller photos they don't always fit. To solve this I made a 3x4 card out of cardstock then lined the edges with the Designer Tape in Piggy Pink stripe then attached my photos. It fills out the spot and keeps them in place!

Supplies:
Molly: Borders, Candid Cards, Paper Pieces, Treasures & Text, Trinkets; Crochet Hearts: Punch, Pickle Juice; Designer Tape: Piggy Pink Stripe

Project Life 2014: Cover Page, by Katie Rose.

I thought the new Bella Blvd collections would be perfect for my 2014 Project Life cover page. I love the "adventures" card for the Max Candid Cards and wanted to highlight it on my cover page because I feel like every day really is an adventure! I used some designer tape paired with word stickers to go with pictures of the kids and then used larger photos of the whole family and my husband and I. 

Supplies:
Lucky Starz: McIntosh Starz, Peep Starz, Gulf Starz, Candid Cards, Treasures & Text, Trinkets; Max: Candid Cards, Treasures & Text, Trinkets, Borders; Molly: Treasures & Text; Snapshots: Tabs, Captions, Daily Details; All American: Alpha+Bits; Designer Tape: Ice Stripe, Navy Dot, Chevron Combo, Polka Dot Combo

Project Life 2014: Week 4, by Katie Rose.

I use a mixture of Project Life size A and size D page protectors so I love the mixture of vertical and horizontal cards in the new Bella Blvd collections. I also used a mixture of some of the border stickers, designer tape and strips of patterned paper to embellish my own cards. And of course added several fun stickers!

Supplies:
Lucky Starz: Scallop Starz, Gulf Starz, Candid Cards, Color Wheel High Five Alpha; Max: Candid Cards, Paper Pieces, Treasures & Text, Trinkets; Family Forever: Borders, Family Photo, Treasures & Text, Trinkets; Molly: Borders, Treasures & Text; Snapshots: Daily Details; Designer Tape: Navy Dot, Red Chevron

“You Are My Everything”, by Nicole Nowosad.

This year at CHA, I noticed a lot of pocket style scrapbooking was moving to a 2x2” format option, so I thought I would use that as my starting point for this page. I used a lot of the papers in the new Family Forever line to great the grid like pattern and then went ahead and added my photos and some hidden journaling tags behind the photos. I love how this new collection still co-ordinates with some of Bella’s previous releases!

Supplies:
All American: United We Stand; Family Forever: Family Photo, Happy Home, Sunday Brunch, Borders, Language of Love, Family Game Night, Mom & Dad; Daily Chevies: We Are Family Bookplates, Arrows Pink; Christmas Countdown: Captions; Sand & Surf: Miniatures; Kiss Me: Alpha+Bits, Just Write Journaling Stickers; Love and Marriage: Just Write Journaling Stickers, Wedding Day Miniatures; Engaged at Last: Alpha+Bits, Chipboard Icons; Shapshots: Paper Pieces; High Five Alpha Stickers: Pink-Red; Ciao Chip Elements: Stars & Hearts; Designer Tape: Chevron Combo; Button Market: Red Flowers, Aqua Flowers; Flags: Love, Sunshine & Happiness

Monday Morning Challenge: Use Valentine's Day Colors For An Everyday Project

Welcome to Monday Morning Challenge, where we offer up a challenge, and share with you our designers take on that challenge. Today we asked our designers to use typical Valentine's Day colors to create an everyday themed project.

“Always Reach For The Stars”, by Stephanie Buice.

This is one of my favorite pictures of my niece Kimberly, she's a cutie pie! The dress she is wearing in this picture was perfect for using Valentines colors on a everyday layout. Pink and red are two of my favorite colors to mix together anyways but add aqua to that and it's even better. I had fun mixing up different embellishments from all over Bella's collections. With the exception of a few items, I think almost each one had pink in it. I pulled Chips and stickers together by sewing them around in a circle to keep the picture as the focal point on my layout. This really is a color combo that adds the perfect girly touch.

Supply:
Daily Chevies: Peep; Sand & Surf: Borders; Designer Tapes: Red Chevron, Piggy Pink stripe, Hot Pink Dot; Christmas Countdown: Daily Details; Family Forever: Treasures & Text, Paper Pieces; All American: Chipboard Icons; Snapshots: Alpha+Bits, Tabs; Birthday Boy: Alpha+Bits; Ciao Chip Elements: Trees, Stars & Hearts; Sienna Chipboard Alphas: Ice, Frosting, Punch; Button Market: Red Flowers

“Foxy Ladies”, by Wendy Antenucci.

As I waited for my box of new goodies, I pulled these pictures of my daughter and her girlfriend having a pedicure (of sorts). I knew that I wanted my design to flow down the page with circular type elements as bubbles running down. When I finally ripped open my box and saw the candid card that said Happy Girls are the Prettiest, I knew I would build my layout around this sentiment. As I built my design you can see the "bubbles" running down the page and I used the flowers to give the impression of the airy bubbles. I used pops of red to give the layout energy. I couldn't resist using the cute little fox and hence my title just had to be! I am definitely going to need more of the fox candid cards and the flower paper as I can see those being staples in my designing with these new collections!

Supplies:
Kiss Me: Just Write Journaling Stickers; Love and Marriage: Esther Fleming Floral, Alpha+Bits; Family Forever: Treasures & Text, Paper Pieces, Sunday Brunch, Borders, Trinkets; Molly: Paper Pieces, Candid Cards, Borders; Hampton Arts Stamps: Kiss Me

“I Love You” card, by Shellye McDaniel.

Because Bella Blvd papers are full of fun chevron patterns, this card can be recreated with any theme in mind! I highlighted the lighter area with strips of Designer Tape and then embellished the front simply with layers of Crochet Hearts and a couple of chipboard stickers. I hesitated adding the green leaves, but I really love the extra color that it brings to an all-ready colorful card!

Supplies:
Play Date: Tabs; Daily Chevies: Chevy Peep; Ciao Chip Elements: Stars & Hearts, Trees; Crochet Hearts: McIntosh, White; Designer Tape: Red Dot

“Love You More” card, by Shellye McDaniel.

I love combining different elements from different collections and watch the design evolve! From the heart die-cut, I cut the sentiment "love you more" from it and then covered the area with a strip of the Borders paper. I then layered on the sentiment and added a couple of hand-cut flowers and leaves from the Molly paper. I gave the leaves some color with a brush marker before attaching. I wanted to give the die-cut heart a little extra 'frill', so I used one of the scalloped heart dies (by Spellbinders) and mounted the heart onto it.

Supplies:
Play Date: Catching Bugs; Family Forever: Borders; Molly: Sketch With Style; Snapshots: Paper Pieces; Christmas Countdown: Captions, Tabs 

Show & Tell Saturday: Scraproom Tour

I think everyone enjoys getting to peek into other designer's 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 Diana Fisher.  

My studio is the third biggest of four bedrooms in our home. It is upstairs and the windows look out onto the front yard and gets great light in the mornings. I had been in the smallest bedroom, but quickly outgrew that space a couple of years ago. I now have the space for two tables, two chairs and a bigger closet.

I usually sit at the desk facing the windows when I work from home for my job or use my Cameo, and I sit at the desk with the green chair when I scrapbook.

One of my favorite things about this space is all of the wall space. I have two Pier One frames with wire and clothespins that I hang many of my favorite pieces on before I put them out of sight.

Since I obviously like to keep my projects around for a little while, I also hang my layouts on hooks in the closet before I put them into albums. There aren’t too many hanging right now because I just went through a purge and filled up the albums. As you can see, the top of the closet is full and I’m going to need a plan B — I didn’t anticipate filling up the top shelf as fast as I did.

This is also where I keep my Canon, magazines, more supplies and lots of storage is in this closet. Papers and materials from past design teams, mixed media projects, felt, fabric … you name it, it’s in here.

The items I use most are kept on the desk first, then the two-tier wire basket on the shelving unit or in the little basket by the printer. I shuffle things around often so that what I am using most is always at my fingertips and I don’t need to sift through drawers or bins.

Plus it keeps my supplies fresh and I don’t use the same things over and over again.

Here on my desk I only keep a few mists and inks and supplies that I’m in the mood to use now, or are color-coordinated with projects I am currently working on. Then, with the change of seasons or holidays, they will swap out with others.

Here is my storage for the Bella Blvd goodies. I have them right near my desk facing the window in a 6-drawer roll cart.

It can be really easy to mix these drawers up, so one thing I like to do is use clear or glassine bags and binder rings to organize the items by type. Here you can see how I use the binder rings to connect all of the crochet flowers. I just grab the ring and then I flip though the colors. Easy peasy!

Stamps, chipboard and the tall sheets of stickers go in this drawer.

This one holds all of the cards, stickers, washi, buttons and flags.

And as a card maker for Bella, I wanted to show you how I store my cards. I use this small basket. It keeps them neat and ready to go for when I need them. When the basket gets too full, I go on a binge and send out a bunch of smiles to my friends and family, or I take them to work and hold a discounted trunk show and my co-workers by them for half the cost I would normally sell them at.

So, there’s my studio… Thanks for taking the tour and I hope you got some new and fun ideas for your space!

Friday Sketch: Cards

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 February, just for card makers. I asked one of our own talented designers, Diana Fisher, to create a sketch for us based off of a previously shared card by card designer Ashley Marcu. 

Original card - by card designer Ashley Marcu.

“I Love You” card, by Diana Fisher.

I love Valentine's Day cards! You can't help but smile when creating with hearts and mushy love sentiments. Bella Blvd has a few collections that are perfect for love cards, and I gravitated to Love & Marriage and the Kiss Me collections for this card.

Supplies:
Kiss Me: Just Write Journaling Stickers, Alpha+Bits, Border & Cute Cuts; Love and Marriage: Esther Fleming Floral; Ciao Chip Elements: Stars & Hearts

“So Handsome” card, by Ashley Marcu.

I thought it would be fun to create a card for a guy with this sketch. To do this, I kept the card in masculine colors and tilted certain elements to keep it playful. I also added a pop of orange with the decorative tape for some fun contrast.

Supplies:
Snapshots: Free Time, Hurry Up; Daily Chevies: Chevy Bell Pepper, Arrows Gulf; Play Date: Alpha+Bits; Christmas Countdown: Tabs; Designer Tape: Gray Chevron, Orange Stripe

“Forever Young” card, by Laurie Schmidlin.

I love this sketch! I thought it was perfect to create a card for my son! I chose a couple of coordinating Max papers, added on a Candid Card, and embellished with some stickers.

Supplies:
Max: Science Fair, Trinkets, Borders, Treasures & Text, Candid Cards

“Love Ya” card, by Shellye McDaniel.

When interpreting a sketch, I generally keep the majority of the design the same and then pick out a focal point to make my design unique. For this sketch, I chose the area where the 'sentiment' is to go and went with a cluster of embellishments, which also boasted the card's sentiment. I am a big fan of Side "B" papers, so I stepped outside of my comfort zone and went with the fun "Unlimited Text" paper as the main background, instead of a smaller pattern. By building up the cluster of embellishments with foam adhesive, it added a natural shadow and helped to bring it in focus against the busier background.

Supplies:
Molly: Paper Pieces, Trinkets, Unlimited Text, Borders; Family Forever: Borders; Button Market: Outdoors; High Five Alpha Stickers: Gulf; Ciao Chip Elements: Stars & Hearts

“Remember This” card, by Kathy Martin.

Years ago when I’d used a sketch for making a card the outcome looked quite similar to the sketch.  Today that’s changed and my projects usually look nothing like the sketch. I think over the years, with lots of practice, I’ve been able to be more creative with an inspiration piece and to make it my own.

Supplies:
Snapshots: Family Chaos, Paper Pieces: Play Date: Today is Beautiful, Little Birdie, Chasing Rainbows

Trends: Ombre

Welcome to Trending Thursday, where we pick something we are seeing trending within the scrapbooking industry and ask our designers to focus on that trend as they create their projects to share with you. This week we are focusing on ombre effects.

“Ballerina Girl”, by Katie Rose.

I went a little different route with this ombre assignment and instead of using stripes I used stars. I chose 3 shades of red and pink from the Lucky Starz collection and cut several stars from each color. I then arranged them from lightest to darkest on my page creating an ombre effect. I then chose other Bella embellishments the same shades as the stars and paired them with stars of the same color.

Supplies:
Lucky Starz: McIntosh Starz, Punch Starz, Peep Starz, Trinkets; Molly: Trinkets, Treasures & Text; Playdate: Alpha+Bits; Daily Chevies: We Are Family Bookplates; Christmas Countdown: Captions; Sienna Chipboard Alpha: Punch; Crochet Hearts: McIntosh, Cotton Candy, Punch

“Family Forever”, by Stephanie Buice.

I really like how the ombre trend lends itself to endless possibilities, plus it involves color so I'm all about that! I wanted to incorporate it into the background of my layout so I used some different patterned papers in yellow prints. I went diagonally from white adding the prints in from least yellow to most then to a piece of yellow cardstock by the time the strips reached the bottom of the page. I like the colorful base that it gave me, as it’s like a sunny canvas.

Supplies:
Freestyle Sophisticates: Freestyle Banana; Daily Chevies: Bell Pepper; Snapshots: Daily Details, Pajama Day, Tabs; Family Forever: Treasures & Text, Candid Cards, Mom & Dad, Game Night, Trinkets; Max: Borders, Trinkets, Treasures & Text; Love & Marriage: Wedding Day Minatures; Christmas Countdown: Captions, Paper Pieces; Ciao Chips: Bachelor/ette Icons; Designer Tapes: Red Chevron, Chevron Combo

“Captured” card, by Laurie Schmidlin.

I love the ombre look, especially with cute Bella papers! I chose a couple of matching papers from the Lucky Starz collection and added in a piece of solid cardstock to create my background. The focal image is a Candid Card with some stickers added in for fun! For embellishment, I tucked a Bella Feather behind the focal image and added some ribbon and a Crochet Heart.

Supplies:
Lucky Starz: Peep Starz, Punch Starz, Treasures & Text, Candid Cards; Feathers: Cotton Candy; Crochet Hearts: White

“Never Give Up” card, by Laurie Schmidlin.

To create the ombre look on this card, I started by brushing on three different hues of aqua (using watercolor pencils). I punched out stars from two of the Lucky Starz collection and scattered them on my background. The focal image is two Candid Cards that I popped up for some added dimension.

Supplies:
Lucky Starz: Gulf Starz, Ice Starz, Candid Cards, Trinkets