Bella Blvd Studio Blog

Easter Cards with Tegan

Hello!  Tegan Skwiat here with you today! I love this time of year! I love the spring colors and everything about the Easter season. And I love that all the different Bella Blvd collections work so well together! It made putting together these super cute Easter cards a breeze!

I knew right away I wanted to use the bunnies and bees from the Sweet Sweet Spring collection. But I was also excited to work with the brand new Mom Life collection, so I just went ahead and used both collections. I love mixing and matching Bella Blvd collections!

The pink honeycomb patterned paper in the Mom Life collection was a perfect match for the ‘bee happy’ die cut from the Sweet Sweet Spring collection. I usually can not get enough of bunnies at Easter time, but I really love that this card features Easter bees! And, seriously, how cute is that bee patterned washi tape at the top of the card?!?!

I love finishing off projects with little chipboard bits and puffy stickers!

 

The diamond patterned paper from the Mom Life collection makes a great neutral background for cards. It allows that adorable bunny chipboard piece from the Sweet Sweet Spring collection to really stand out. I also think that the cactus from Mom Life is a fun and unexpected addition. Maybe I can start a new Easter cactus trend (wink, wink)!?

 

And, again, I can’t walk away from a project without adding a couple puffy hearts or stars!

Thanks for joining me today! I hope I have inspired you to get creative with your handcrafted cards!

 

Mom Life collection: My Tribe Patterned Paper, Jammies All Day Patterned Paper, Ephemera

Sweet Sweet Spring collection: Chipboard, Paper Pieces and Die Cuts, Treasures and Texts 12x12 Sticker Sheet, Bzzz Washi Tape

Bell Pepper Puffy Stars, Orange Mix Puffy Hearts, Punch Mix Puffy Hearts

 

Guest Designer | Dorymar Perez

Hello everyone! I am super excited to join the Bella Blvd blog as a Guest Designer this month!

My name is Dorymar Pérez, I am from "La Bella Isla del Encanto”, Puerto Rico! and I live in Connecticut. I have 2 beautiful young girls, Adriana and Andrea, and have been happily married to the love of my life for 15 years, Eddie.  

Since I was a child, my favorite hobbies were drawing and making crafts.  I discovered the wonderful world of scrapbooking 10 years ago and fell in love with it instantly!  Since that day, I can't stop designing and creating! I love to design very detailed projects, with many interactive elements. I always try to use all the items from a collection and I love to create 3D projects with lots of dimension, mini albums, layouts, mixed media projects, cards, etc.  Bella Blvd products are perfect for all of these projects and so much more!

Spring is such a joyful and colorful season and that is what I want to share with you this week as a guest designer: colors and fun! For my projects I used the colorful Fruit of the Spirit Collection, Seeds of Faith collection, both from Illustrated Faith from Bella BLVD.

My first project is this fun 12x12 layout.

For this layout, I used one of the collection’s papers as a base and sewed it around the edges on the pink pattern paper that I placed on top of the blue paper. 

To create the tree, I used a cut file from my Silhouette.  In each one of the leaves I combined the beautiful patterned papers from Bella BLVD’s collections.

I love fussy cutting so, to give the dimension that I love to bring to my projects, I cut several elements of the papers like butterflies, birds, flowers and combined them with puffy stickers and letters. The result was wonderful!

At the bottom of my page, I added some strips from the paper and a cute clip bella bow with some fundamentals stickers; they all look gorgeous!

The Fruit of the Spirit collection is so versatile!  I created a fun card with it!! For the background, I used several cuts with the different patterns of the papers. As a main message I used the shapes, and on the side, I placed a beautiful Bella Bow.

Easter is also a time to enjoy outdoor activities with our families and kids. For my last project, I wanted to make a bundle of a card, a treat box, and an Easter basket. For this project, I used a Silhouette cut file and a basket that I bought at a craft store.

To create the card, I used a combination of the Sweet, Sweet Spring Collection with the Seeds of Faith Collection.

To cover the basket, I used a 1.5 "circle cutter and cut several circles out of the different paper patterns.

This was so much fun!  Hope you liked all my projects and that they inspired you to create!  Thank you again to the Bella Blvd team for inviting me to play with their beautiful collections this month!  I had a blast!

If you like to see more of my work, you can find me on: 

Facebook | Instagram

 

Enjoy this Easter with your loved ones! Happy Crafting!

Dorymar Pérez

 

Illustrated Faith Round Up

Happy Friday everyone!  Today we want to check in with our friends at Illustrated Faith and share their Bible Journaling Inspirations.  

 

Mixed Media Hybrid Bible Journaling | Insta-Love

Illustrated Faith - Tiny Colorful Alphas Clear Sticker Booklet,Illustrated Faith - Words Cardstock Sticker Booklet

 

Mixed Media Hybrid Bible Journaling | Print and Pray Holy Ground | Bloom

Illustrated Faith - Fruit of the Spirit - Shapes. Bella Blvd - Puffy Stickers - Hearts - Punch Mix, Blueberry Mix, Puffy Stickers-Wonky Alphabet - Blueberry

 

Mixed Media Hybrid Bible Journaling | But He is Still Good

Illustrated Faith - Brushed Words - Clear Sticker Booklet, Words Cardstock Sticker Booklet, Date-It Stamp, Tape Runner.  Bella Blvd Island Escape Collection- Chipboard Icons and  Ephemera

Tips & How To's for Digital Designing with Sabrina

Hi everyone! This is Sabrina for the Bella Blvd Digital Creative Team. I wanted to show you how to put together a quick and simple, yet awesome layout. With Bella Blvd's versatile collections it won't be hard at all! Let's get started.

The collection I'm using is Alex Collection Bundle for the layout. I grabbed two photos of my hilarious son and cropped one to 4x6 to be the focal photo and the
second one at 3x4. The focal photo went in the lower right and the 3x4 in the upper left. Now, you want to anchor the photos to the page with your papers and elements. I took 2 large papers with the more subtle patterns and cropped them to 4.5x6.5 to put behind the focal photo. I then wanted to add in a fun, bold and graphic journaling card so I looked at the papers. I found one with 'hey dude' and used that one. It worked perfect!

Next you add in the fun little details. Several borders to give some movement to the layout underneath the focal photo. The little embellishments that go a long way- some puffy stars, 'x's and arrows to create more interest and movement. Adding in all these fun extras not only adds in movement and color, but gives a visually appealing layout. Finally add in some paint splatters. I showed you how to do this in Photoshop Elements in this tutorial. All the little details of really bring all the pieces together.

And that's it! A quick, but awesome and colorful layout! Thank you for reading. Here's the final layout! 

 

Bella Blvd: Alex Collection Bundle, Puffy Stars

Avery: Digital Scrapbook Layout by Marla Thrall

Hi everyone! It's Marla here and I'm excited to share you a digital scrapbooking page. Is it feeling Spring-like where you are? We have been having beautiful 70 degree weather and I've found it both inspiring my photography and my scrapping! I took these cute pictures of my little niece a couple of weeks ago and decided I need to make a bright, happy scrapbook page with them! 

First, I layered a bunch of papers and one of the pictures in a corner of the picture. As always, I tend to apply my shadows as I go- to help me get the realistic look I'm aiming for. 

Next, I added a sweet picture of Avery in the background. I really love pages with big background pictures. I feel like it adds a lot of dramatic interest to your scrapbook and keeps the focus on the pictures! 

Next, I start adding some elements around my papers for a little more interest. 

Finally, I added a little title under the cluster and called it done! 

Happy Scrapping! 

Pandas & Popsicles a digital collection by Bella Blvd 

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To see all of our Digital Products and to purchase, head over to our retail Digital Shop, located on the Bella Blvd website. To learn how to use the Digital Shop, check out our how-to video here.

 

Awesome kid

Good morning everyone!! I'm sharing my first layout made with the new Bug Explorer collection!! I love this collection, and yeah I know I say it about all of them, but oh man are they all so beautiful and fun to play with!

I went through the collection and pulled papers I thought would look good with my photo and decided to go with a less busy background, but a patterned one. Once I decided on that, I pulled the daily details paper and cut a bunch of the cards apart and started layering them behind my photo.

Once I got the layers the way I wanted them, I started to play with a few of the papers I had pulled from the collection. I love all the patterns and wanted to add some more color to the right side, so I decided to add a few strips and distress the edges and went back and distressed the edges of my layers too. Once I had my papers down the side I knew right where I wanted my picture. 

Ok, so have y'all seen the new acrylic words?  And pennants?? Well I love them ALL!! So I pulled the word Awesome, then dug through all my pennants and  chose to use Kids, but I decided to pull of the "s" and just make it kid. So I used the combo of those two for my title. I pulled a mixture of leaves from the ephemera pack and the chipboard pieces and added them around my photo and tucked my pennant under some of those and added the cute little sun and cloud piece next to my title.

Finishing off my layout, I decided to grab a few stickers from the sticker sheet and then go into my Bella goodies and grab some of the Illustrated Faith hexie epoxy stickers and added them around the layout.  They add a little dimension and I love the pop of color it adds!

Thanks so much for stopping by to check out the layout I made today and make sure to come back!!

Bug Explorer Collection: Exclusive collection kit bonus pattern, Daily Details, Catchers, Wiggle Wiggle, Boarders, Ciao Chips Icons, Ephemera, Cardstock stickers

Pennants;Family, Acrylic word; Awesome

Illustrated Faith;apple of my eye mix, mini hexies

Vacay Relaxation

Good morning everyone!! I am having fun playing with the new Island escape collection!! This collection has so much to it! You can go big and floral or minimal like I did with this layout, but it still has beautiful bright colors and make everything pop!!

I wanted to have my picture to stand out, I rarely use a colored photo, but this picture of the sky was so beautiful and I enjoyed the day so much that I really wanted to keep it in color and remember the beauty of the day. I was laying on the deck of a boat, sun bathing, soaking it all in and decided I wanted to snap a picture of the beautiful sky, so I did. And this whole collection made it all come together!

I started with my photo, no mat on this one, but started pulling patterned papers and layering them behind my photo. I love the Daily details paper, you can use the pretty patterned paper on one side or you can cut all the different pieces apart on the other side and use them for titles or great layers! And that is what I did here! I did my layers and then pulled a doily from my stash and tucked it into my layers and behind my title card.

With my picture being of what its of, I knew I wanted to use the waves from the Ciao Chips, so I made sure to add those in, then moved to cutting and ripping a few layers from different papers and layering them at the bottom of my layout to pull some color down to the bottom to. I pulled a few pieces from the Ciao chips and tucked them into the layers at the bottom and added the banana at the top of my photo to add a little more yellow there. 

I found the Float Along sticker tab and popped it in at the bottom too, I thought it was appropriate, lol. I wanted more color, so I grabbed my Mini Hexies epoxy stickers and added them in here and there around the layout. I added my journaling to the bottom right of my photo to remember the day and decided to add a little more color, so I added a few teal splatters and was done.

Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out this layout! I hope you get your hands on this collection and enjoy all of it!!

 

Island Escape collection, Peace & Quiet, Tropical Bliss, Daily Details, Boarders, Sticky mix Cardstock stickers, Ciao Chips Icons

Illustrated Faith; Mini Hexies epoxy stickers, Oh my heavens, Bananas for you, Bless her heart

Island Escape Mini Album

 

The Island Escape collection has become one of my absolute favorite Bella Blvd collections ever!  It is so vivid and beautiful, and I'm so excited to use it for every summer project I have.  I wanted to create a unique mini album to document our 2016 California vacation, and this collection was the perfect companion.  I hope you guys enjoy!

 
  


  

 

 

I'm so glad you stopped by today to see some of my family's vacation memories! I can't wait to see what all of you create with the Island Escape collection! xo Lydia

Island Escape Collection, Wonky Puffy Alphas, Illustrated Faith Enamel Hearts, Illustrated Faith Homespun Alpha Stickers, Illustrated Faith Precision Pen, Illustrated Faith Acrylic Paint, Bella Blvd Enamel Dots, Seeds of Faith 12x12 Fundamental Sheet, Illustrated Faith Tiny Alpha Sticker Booklet

Island Escape with Guest Designer Suzanna Lee

Suzanna here as Guest Designer to share with you my second blog post. Today I’m sharing with you two projects created with the Island Escapes collection! Both layouts are very different and reflect the diversity of my style. They also show you how diverse Bella Blvd products really are; your style can be clean and simple or mixed media “messy” and these products are ready to shine, no matter what!

Doesn’t layout make you feel like you are someplace warm and tropical with your toes in the sand and a frozen beverage with an umbrella in your hand?! This has got to be one of my favorite projects that I have ever created! Inspired by Island Escape!

You can see the resist technique that I used here to mimic the large palm leaves that are in both the patterned paper and the die cuts. I used a digital cut file to impress VersaMark ink onto watercolor paper, sprinkled that with clear embossing powder which I heat set, then layered watercolor over the resist. The process video will be up on my YouTube channel  which is a better way of seeing the mixed media component of the layout come together

The mix of both chipboard icons and ephemera die cuts with stickers from this collection were so fun to layer and create depth on the layout! I even sprinkled in a few of the puffy stars from Bella Blvd for a little added texture and depth to the layout.

Then on the other end of the design spectrum is this cleaner, grid based layout. The clean, graphic feel of Stephanie’s designs make these types of layouts so easy, they just come together. The bright colors are perfect for those fun, happy beach memories!

There were so many endless possible color combinations and different ways you can take this collection! It was really fun layering all the different embellishment options made available to me! I really feel as though I’m on a tropical island with my toes in the sand when I look at this layout!

With the Winter release are acrylic words, one of which (adventure) I used in the title work for this layout! It is the perfect color match to the collection and finishes off the title suscinctly! What an adventure it has been to guest design for Bella Blvd! I hope you have enjoyed my projects as much as I enjoyed creating them!

Thank you Bella Blvd for inviting me to guest design and work with yet more stunning collections!

You can find me on social media in the following places;

YouTube | Blog | Instagram