Bella Blvd Studio Blog

Fabric Style: Prairie Point Flour Sack Towel Tutorial

Today we are switching things up, and instead of featuring projects using our paper collections, we are sharing projects created with our fabric collections!

Prairie Point Flour Sack Towel Tutorial, by Nichol Magouirk.

One of my favorite parts of holiday decorating is changing out our dishes to display and use our Christmas themed dishware for the season. I always love having holiday-themed placemats, napkins, towels, etc. for the season as well. Today I’m going to share a quick and easy idea to dress up flour sack towels (tea towels). With just a few scraps of fabric and inexpensive flour sack towels, you can embellish towels for yourself or whip up several like I did to share as gifts throughout the holiday season!

What you need:

• 3” x width of fabric strip for the border
• 2 1/2” wide strips from scraps (or longer if you want a more uniform design)
• tea towel

Sew two, 2 1/2” wide strips together to make a 4 1/2 wide strip. Trim each long strip into 4 1/2” squares. I made mine scrappy from leftover 2 1/2” strips but you could make a more uniform design with longer strips.

Fold 4 1/2” square into triangle and press.

Fold triangle in half again and press. Repeat for the rest of the squares. I used 8-9 prairie points per flour sack towel, depending on the length.

Repeat for the rest of the squares. I used 8-9 prairie points per flour sack towel, depending on the length. Admire all the pretty fabric triangles!

Take a new flour sack towel, fold in half lengthwise and trim hemmed edge off one end of the towel. (This will lessen the bulk once we sew on the prairie points and fabric border.)

Pin prairie points to the towel, matching wrong sides of praire points and towel together. Slightly overlap the prairie points as shown.

Measure the width of your flour sack towel. This is really important because out of all the towels I embellished, I got three different widths! Trim your 3” wide strip to 1” longer than the width of your flour sack towel. For example, my towel was 29 1/2” wide so I trimmed my fabric strip to 3” x 30 1/2”.

Fold strip right side together and sew 1/2” from each end.

Trim 1/4” from stitching and trim corners to make for easier turning. Flip right sides out and press.

Pin fabric strip to towel, matching raw edges. Sew 1/4” along edge to attach prairie points and fabric strip to flour sack towel.

Flip fabric strip up and press. Your prairie points should now hang from the edge of the towel and all raw edges will be incased once we top stitch.

Top stitch along both edges of the fabric strip, close to the edge to finish the towel. Make a whole bunch for every season!

Supplies:
Bella Blvd Military Max fabrics by Riley Blake (Plaid Gray, Plaid Green), Bella Blvd Puppy Park fabrics by Riley Blake (Black Crosshatch), Bella Blvd Sunny Happy Skies fabrics by Riley Blake (Green Floral), red fabric scraps from Riley Blake collections

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Riley Blake Designs markets our fabrics under Stephanie Hunt as the designer. When purchasing or searching the Riley Blake website it's actually easier & more efficient to find the Bella Blvd fabrics under "Stephanie Hunt" as the artist.

Fabric Style

Today we are switching things up, and instead of featuring projects using our paper collections, we are sharing projects created with our fabric collections!

Puppy Park Quilt, by Christine Ousley.

Throughout my years as a fabric designer for Bella Blvd, a quilt has been on my to-do list. Well, I finally just decided to tackle it. I didn’t make anything too fancy but looking back at it now, I think that the simple square blocks, really showcase this adorable “Puppy Park” fabric the best!

I cut each block 6” square. I used 6 different fabrics and arranged them in diagonal rows. My last picture really shows how they all look together. Then I added a border and the binding.  

As you can see, someone is very excited to have this quilt.  It’s finally starting to get a little chilly here and he was more than happy to wrap up in it for the photos.

Along with the simple design, I also used a simple quilting pattern. I stitched in the ditch along the rows and then stitched a 1/4” inside each of the blocks. I used favorite batting, Warm & Natural, for the inside. 

For the back of the quilt, I picked this cute little scene.

Here you can see the quilting a little more. Excuse the legs and hands. Thank you to my older son for helping to hold it up while I took pictures. I think that this quilt is going to make a wonderful keepsake and now I can’t wait to get started on my next one.  

Supplies:
Bella Blvd Puppy Park fabrics by Riley Blake, Warm & Natural cotton batting

Camo Wallets, by Kathy Frye.

The Military Max fabric line by Bella Blvd was perfect for these wallets. All Boy! I choose two of the camo cotton fabrics, one blue and the other black to make these wallets.  Camo is timeless for boys, besides it is camo season here (deer hunting time). I modified a pattern by Atkinson Designs, so that there is a clear ID pocket on one side and the other side is a pocket. I even used a real orange camo hunting vest as a backdrop when photographing these fun wallets.

Supplies: 
Bella Blvd Military Max fabrics by Riley Blake, thread, key ring, ribbon, clear vinyl, fusible pellon, zipper

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Riley Blake Designs markets our fabrics under Stephanie Hunt as the designer. When purchasing or searching the Riley Blake website it's actually easier & more efficient to find the Bella Blvd fabrics under "Stephanie Hunt" as the artist.

Happy Thanksgiving

{card created by Laurie Schmidlin}

From all of us at Bella Blvd, we want to wish you and your families a very happy Thanksgiving! We all have so much to be thankful for in our lives, and today is all about focusing in on those things and taking the time to really appreciate all that we have.

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!

“The Cutest Little Pumpkins”, by Stephanie Buice.

Since Thanksgiving is tomorrow I wanted to make sure I kept my layout fall themed, so I picked out a picture that my sister in law took of the kiddos last year at the pumpkin patch. I mixed in papers from almost all of the newest collections to get my color combo and really tried to play up the orange, although I didn’t add in any reds I still like the look I got. It just goes to show that you can take almost any collection themes and with a little imagination, make them fit your need perfectly.

Supplies:
Family Frenzy: Donut Day, Here We Grow; Fresh Market: Freshly Squeezed, Sweet To Eat, Tutti Fruiti, Borders, Treasures & Text; Whatever Is Lovely: Praiseworthy, Lovely, 3x4s; Bella Bows: Bell Pepper; Enamel Dots: Guacamole; Enamel Doodads: Ice; Tiny Text Alpha Stickers: Bold & Beautiful, Fruit Punch, Pretty Boy, Faithful, Pumpkin Spice; Simply Simona Chipboard Alphas: Orange; Ciao Chip Elements: Symbols

"Our Santa", by Lisa Dickinson.

I love to get into the holiday spirit by scrapping festive photos and the new Make It Merry collection is perfect for doing just that! Holiday pages are also a great place to incorporate special techniques like the layered scallop borders I’ve created for this layout:

It’s a simple process that adds a lot of punch - literally! I selected seven different patterned papers and used a 1.5” circle punch, punching 8 circles for each row. Then, starting at the bottom edge of the page, I layered the circles row by row, adhering them with a line of double sided tape. I left the bottom portion of the circle un-adhered so they could be bent upward to add more dimension.

For a bit of added detail, I applied lots of the Little Bits and Treasures & Text stickers amongst the scallops, as well as embellishing the top edge of the page. And a whimsical title of Amorie Alpha chipboard and Tiny Text stickers finishes it off! So put on some Christmas tunes and grab the Make It Merry collection - and let the holidays begin!

Supplies:
Make It Merry: Borders & Bits, Santa Selfie, Fa La La, Treat Exchange, Treasures & Text, Little Bits; Christmas Cheer: Christmas Crew, Jingle All The Way; Color Chaos: Guacamole Strandz; Tiny Text Alpha Stickers: Festive; Amorie Chipboard Alphas: McIntosh; Enamel Dots: Guacamole, McIntosh; Enamel DooDads: Milk White

“Ho, Ho, Ho” card, by Corri Garza.

I am so excited about the new Tiny Text Alphabet stickers. Their small size makes them perfect for creating sentiments on cards. I used the Santa card from the Make it Merry Borders & Bits sheet as the focal point for my card. The sentiment was created by spelling out “Ho, Ho Ho” with the black Tiny Text and trimming the Merry Christmas from a border. 

Supplies:
Make It Merry: Treat Exchange, Borders & Bits; Tiny Text Alpha Stickers: Black; Enamel Dots: Ice

Thanksgiving 2015 Free Printable

Well hello there, from my office to yours! Hope you’re having a great week! As we head into Thanksgiving I’m delighted to share with you a yearly project I love putting together for my family get together: a Thanksgiving printables series that will create a mini album.

The idea is to document this year’s Thanksgiving, what you are thankful for and how this year has made you more grateful in your daily life!

All the work is done for you, and has been designed exclusively just for you!

Here’s how simple it is:

1. Download the three printables and print on 8.5x11 cardstock. Best part?! They are made to match with the Family Frenzy Collection---so if you want to put together an adorable mini album just pick up some of the Family Frenzy collection today!
2. Trim the 3x4 cards, enough for each person attending your gathering and some extras if you’d like.
3. Display these elements along with a pen for your family to complete. Encourage everyone to spend just a few minutes writing and filling in the prompts.
4. Be sure to take plenty of photographs this Thanksgiving!
5. Print your photos and combine with the 3x4 journaling cards to create an adorable 3x4 size album, or slip into your favorite pocket page albums!

Click here to begin downloading Printable No. 1

Click here to begin downloading Printable No. 2

Click here to begin downloading Printable No. 3

From all of us here at Bella Blvd we wish you happy Thanksgiving! Remember, when sharing your 2015 Thanksgiving album be sure to use the hashtag #bellablvd on Instagram!! We cannot wait to see how it turns out! 

November Guest Designer: Natalie Elphinstone

We are so excited to introduce you to our talented November Guest Designer, Natalie Elphinstone. Let's get to know a little more about Natalie and check out the projects she created to share with us!

Hi, I’m Natalie Elphinstone (also known as One Scrappy Doctor, or wife of The Trophy Husband, or mum to the Elphie Kids!) and I live in Melbourne Australia. I’m so blessed to be enjoying a whole year of maternity leave right now and I’m making the most of my time with my family, and of course the ability to fit in a bit more scrapbooking! As you’re about to see I really enjoy the whole gamut of papercraft – I love making the layouts, and the pocket-pages, and the cards and the art-journaling and the Bible-journaling and…. well anything to do with paper really! My signature style is definitely about mixing in the whole rainbow of bright colours and that’s why Bella Blvd is such a great match for me. I just loved working with these collections. Let me show you what I made.

"Family", by Natalie Elphinstone.

Normally I would think about converting a family photo like this to black and white because of all the jumble of colours in it, but it just so happened that the colours in the Family Frenzy collection matched it perfectly so I knew it was just meant to be. I couldn’t resist adding in all those donuts either, and the little sentiment “we’re better together” ties it in nicely.

"Fruit Loops", by Natalie Elphinstone.

To be honest I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to scrap these photos of my girls playing together because when I turned the camera on them they got a little crazy! But when I saw the strip that read “Home is wherever my bunch of crazies are” in the Family Frenzy collection I figured they would be perfect!

"Beach Day", by Natalie Elphinstone. 

I’m totally of the opinion that you can make pocket page spreads with your scrapbook supplies without the need for anything else specific apart from the page protectors themselves. When I saw the paper with all the journaling cards on it from the Fresh Market collection and it had that row of 3x3” cards I knew I had the basis of a page already done! I simply added a row of photos along the top which allowed space for my title and journaling on the bottom row. It meant I could use lots of the bright papers all in the one spread and that makes my rainbow-loving heart happy.

"An Apple A Day" card, by Natalie Elphinstone.

Once again it was one of the sentiment strips that inspired my last project, and I cut it up into pieces to include on this card. I’ve never heard this saying before but I really like it! I added a miniature shaker element to my card and I know more than one of my doctor friends who would appreciate something like this.

Thank you so much Bella Blvd for letting me play with your fun collections. Believe me, I’m not going to stop just yet! 

Spread It Out: Two Page Layouts

Today is all about the two page layouts! While there are plenty of you out there that shy away from two page layouts and like to focus on single pagers, we like to believe that there are also plenty of you out there that embrace the two page layouts and could use a little inspiration featuring Bella collections and products. So that's just what we're aiming to bring you with this new feature!

“Legoland”, by Jennifer Chapin.

For today's 2 page layout post, I decided to go with a pocket page. For the left side of the layout, I printed a large photo at 8.5x11 and embellished it simply with chipboard letters. For the right side of the layout, I printed my photos at 2.75x3.75 with a white border and added them to the pockets along with cards and an embellished Clear Cut. I wanted this layout to be very bright and colorful with pops of black!

Supplies:
Clear Cuts: Stars Black; Whatever is Lovely: Treasures & Text; Lucky Starz: Candid Cards; Tiny Tots: Treasures & Text; Amorie Chipboard Alpha: White

"In My Heart Forever", by Laura Vegas.

I've been a home daycare provider for a little over 14 years now, and have had close to 36 kids (the 36th was actually born yesterday and will be coming here soon!) that I've taken care of throughout those years. Lately, for different reasons, I've had a lot of these kids on my mind and I felt this need to do a layout focusing on all of the little ones that I've been lucky enough to spend my days with, and to have a small part in helping to raise them during their first few years of life. The amount of photos I needed worked out perfectly, since I love to line things up and collage photos together. I printed them all as 2x2" photos and they fit across the page in three rows of 12 (minus the one new baby, who I will add in when he gets here). I kept the rest of the spread pretty simple, since I wanted the focus to stay on the photos, with strips of patterned papers, a few border stickers, and some simple embellishments. 

Supplies:

Fresh Market: Whole Lotta Seeds, Fruitful, Treasures & Text; Lucky Starz: Pickle Juice Starz, Oreo Starz; Daily Chevies: Chevy Pickle Juice; Molly: Candid Cards; Color Choas: Treasures & Text; Whatever Is Lovely: Praiseworthy; Sienna Chipboard Alphas: Blueberry; Enamel Dots: Blueberry, Guacamole, Oreo Black

Mix & Match

Today's feature is all about mixing & matching Bella's collections. One of the great things about our collections is that you'll find the same colors throughout, whether you're using an older collection from a year or two years ago (or more!) or a newer collection that you just got your hands on. While it's so convenient to pull out a single collection and work from just that assortment of products, it can also be a lot of fun to mix and match between two, three, or even more collections.

"Count Your Blessings", by Heather Leopard.

I count my blessings every day for multiple reasons but when it comes to my family not only do I feel incredibly blessed but there's reasons to celebrate. It wasn't the easiest road traveled for me, but in the end, I was given the gift of two beautiful girls. We recently baptized the littlest and the Illustrated Faith collection was right on point with the sentiments I wanted to extract.  Since this was a baptism, I chose to use a mostly white theme with a little pop of color. I loved the "You are..." phrases in the praiseworthy paper so I cut them out and scattered them around the page, choosing some that had the perfect words and others that were fill in the blanks.  The rest was all about layering some coordinating elements from various collections. I love to mix and match whenever possible.  It adds more variety to the pages and guarantees that no two pages from any collection will look alike.  The title was a mix of alphas, including the new Tiny Text alphas. How great are those???  Finally I added some white butterflies and a few more embellishments to complete the page.  I documented the church and baptism date and then journaled on the back.  

Supplies:
Whatever is Lovely: Praiseworthy, Admirable; Fresh Market: Whole Lotta Seeds, Treasures & Text; Color Chaos: Peep Strandz, Treasures & Text; Tiny Text Alpha Stickers: Bold & Beautiful; Crochet Hearts: Gulf; Enamel Dots: Milk White, Punch; Enamel DooDads: Punch; Bella Bows: Milk White

“At The River”, by Becki Adams.

To create this fun layout about my son fishing on the river I combined the Campout collection and the Max collection. I wanted the layout to be primarily blue and green with a splash of orange. These collections gave me the perfect color palette and patterns. 

Supplies:
Max: Shark Attack, Candid Cards, Treasures & Text; Campout: Let's Go Camping, Gone Fishing, Chipboard Icons, Treasures & Text; Amorie Chipboard Alphas: Blueberry; Sienna Chipboard Alphas: Pickle Juice; Ciao Chip Elements: WhatNots

“Family” card, by Julia Akinina.

My today's card is very simple and pretty nice. I have choose one beautiful card with a good sentiment from the Daily Details sheet from the Family Frenzy Collection. I cut some flowers from the same collection to add to my card. They are very nice, and you can cut them all from the Border sheet. The rest papers on my card are from Just Add Color collection. They perfectly match to all of the Bella Blvd collections because they are neutral and also stylish. I love how the enamel dots are common with little berries on these flowers. Finally I added some machine stitching to make my card more layered.

Supplies:
Just Add Color: Passcode, Dotty; Family Frenzy: Daily Details, Borders; Ciao Chip Elements: Symbols; Enamel Dots: Guacamole, Bell Pepper

Bella Blvd & Illustrated Faith

Today we are excited to introduce three new Bella Creative Team members to you! With the recent partnership between Bella Blvd and Illustrated Faith, we felt the need to bring on a few new designers that will be focusing solely on creating projects for our Illustrated Faith posts on Tuesdays. We hope you'll take a few minutes to get to know each of our designers a little better, check out their blogs, and give them a warm welcome to the Bella team. Keep your eye out for more of their work every Tuesday, here on the blog!

Hi everyone, it's Carol Chastain here. Things you should know about me: I am a Christ Follower, Wife to Joe, Mama to Brandon, Simon, and Selah, and a Southern girl living in the far North. Some things I love are coffee, photography, paper, words, adventure, nail polish, black and white stripes, hot tea, handwritten snail mail, and authentic Mexican food. Growing up I loved stationary and Lisa Frank Stickers, and when I was in High School I made my first "official" scrapbook - lots of computer paper and magazine cut outs. Fast forward to now - I dabble in all sorts of memory keeping like layouts and pocket pages, and I have this thing for mini albums. I love to look back through my documented stories to see God's faithfulness in my life, knowing that He is working it all out for His good and glory.

You can visit Carol's blog and see more of her work HERE.

“Noble Minded”, by Carol Chastain.

The scripted "Noble" word was the inspiration for this layout. It made me think of Acts 17:11 and sparked the story of how I strive to daily spend time in the Word, and wanting to document what that looks like. Sometimes (and very rare times) it is full of complete stillness and soaking in every bit of alone time. Other times it is full of distractions, whether that be checking my phone after hearing the "ping", or deciding to look up something I am reading and getting sucked into the rabbit hole we call the internet (which I love and fully appreciate). And still other times it looks like kiddos climbing all over me, asking to fix a broken toy or get them a snack. Yes, I want to be a Noble Minded woman, seeking His Word and studying it faithfully and I also want to evaluate how I can accomplish that. So while most layouts for me start with photos I already have, this one started with a particular Scripture and I took photos to represent the right now. The word stickers were the perfect fit for my photos and I loved fussy cutting out those hearts to further emphasize the title.

Supplies:
Whatever Is Lovely: Admirable, Noble, Praiseworthy, 3X4s, Treasures & Text, Books Of The Bible Little Bits; Illustrated Faith: Point It, Love It, Label It, Say It Colorful, Say It Black And White, Wordfetti Black, Big & Bold Black Eyed Pea, Word Art Washi Tape, Precision Pen .35; Tiny Text Alpha Stickers: Pumpkin Spice

Hi! My name is Kelly Holbrook, and I'm from Homer, MI. I have been married for 15 years, and am a homeschooling mom to 5 awesome kids. I have been scrapbooking for 16 years, but only became addicted after my twins were born in 2002. I would describe my style as clean layers ... although it changes from time to time. When I'm not scrapbooking (or busy with 'mom' things), I also enjoy photography, knitting, and running. I am SO excited to be back creating for Bella Blvd and this amazing team ... and cannot wait to share projects using the amazing Illustrated Faith products!

You can visit Kelly's blog and see more of her work HERE.

“10 Ways To Love”, by Kelly Holbrook.

I saw something on Facebook awhile back that listed 10 ways to love, and I thought it was perfect for a page using our new family photo. How much easier it would be living with each other, if we all just followed these 10 simple rules! I used the Little Bits: Books of the Bible to place the references by each rule, and highlighted them green to help them stand out. I also highlighted the first word of each rule blue, to help each one stand out from the verse that goes with it.

Supplies:
Whatever is Lovely: 3x4s, Art Prints, Treasures & Text; Illustrated Faith: Bless Her Heart stickers, Love It stickers; Fresh Market: Tutti Fruiti; Spring Flings & Easter Things: Just Write Journaling Stickers; Tiny Text: Fruit Punch, Bold & Beautiful, Rainy Day; Little Bits: Books of the Bible; Enamel Dots: McIntosh, Milk White, Guacamole; Designer Tape: Pickle Juice Stripe

Hey, it's Wendy Antenucci here. I am married to my wonderful hubby of 16 years and we have 6 kids, ranging from 13-2. I started scrapbooking shortly after my first child was born in 2002. I am a SAHM and homeschooler so I tend to scrap during my kids rest time; it helps clear my mind and get me through the rest of the day. I am all about family and who we are; that is why I scrapbook. I believe that scrapbooking is my Book of Remembrances as the Lord speaks of in the Bible. The world can be uncertain, the everyday can be enough to pull my hair out, but when I sit down to document a memory I am reminded again of how blessed I am. Every page I create is a canvas to tell our story, how the Lord has put us together and ordered our steps, and to take the time to really embrace the lesson the Lord is teaching us at that moment.

You can visit Wendy's blog and see more of her work HERE. 

“Be the Best ...TODAY”, by Wendy Antenucci.

I am thrilled to be creating for Bella Blvd again, especially for Illustrated Faith as to me scrapbooking is a way to remember all that the Lord has done and to speak life into my family! I chose to speak into my boy's lives in this layout. I began my layout with my favorite piece of the Whatever is Lovely collection, Admirable, leading right into my photo. The bold words from the Just Add Color collection gave my page the intensity to really get my point across. I chose black accents to add more pop to my layout and to describe some character traits I am diligently working on instilling in my children. I grabbed my favorite pen, the Illustrated Faith pen, and wrote some verses to my boys, personalizing them to speak directly into their lives. Every day I try to be the best woman, wife, mom, I can be, but I know that only comes through the power of the Holy Spirit because on my own I will only fail, BUT GOD!

Supplies:
Whatever is Lovely: Noble, Admirable, Art Prints, Treasures & Text; Just Add Color: Newsflash; llustrated Faith: Say It - Black & White; Sienna Chipboard Alphas: Pickle Juice

Bella Buzz November 2015 Newsletter

If you've signed up for it already, the Bella Buzz November 2015 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 The Bella Buzz November 2015 Newsletter RIGHT HERE.