Bella Blvd Studio Blog

Christmas Countdown with Santa Squad

Who doesn't love a Christmas Countdown decoration?  I've wanted to create one for awhile and just knew that Santa Squad would be perfect for it.  Christine joining you today with a simple DIY Christmas Countdown Calendar.

 

I found a set of wood blocks at a local store that I used to decorate - but I also think it could work perfectly from cardboard boxes or even folded cardstock!

One of my favorite parts of creating this was getting to use so many patterned papers. I need each side to be different - so that let me go wild with my choices! The 6 x 6 paper pad kept the scale of the patterns smaller, perfect for a small scale project like this!  I added them using a glittery mod podge to up the sparkle factor and secure them tightly!

The tricky part with each block was determining how to keep them flat.  I kept thinking about using Bella Pops or Wonky Alphabet letters only to realize, I couldn't.  It had to be flat so that the blocks would sit flat no matter what side they were on! 

I spent the most time deciding what to use to add "Christmas Countdown." In the end the Acrylic Christmas accompanied by Florence Alphabet Letters worked great!

By allowing the word Christmas to hang over just a bit, it opened up possibility of extending my ephemera too.  I could not resist the soldiers and was so excited to get to use them in such a prominent way on my project. 

Let's take a look at how this whole project came together in my process video:

 

 

Thanks so much for joining me today!

Santa Squad 6 x 6 Paper Pad, Santa Squad Ephemera, Florence Alphabet Letter Stickers, Acrylic Words

 

 

Happy, Thankful, Blessed Thanksgiving Mini Album

Hi everyone.  Heather Leopard here and I'm getting ready to host Thanksgiving here in the US. I thought it would be neat to create a mini album that has space to feature everyone we celebrated with. Let's take a look at what I put together and how I plan to complete it, or rather let the guests complete it while they're here for a few days.

 

I created the background leaf template using the Bella Blvd 'leaves' cut file.  I just supersized it to a size that would work for what I needed then cut. I cut 10 of these leaves out of coordinating patterned paper from the Bella Besties collection.

I plan to feature one side with a photo and then ask each guest to write a note or a collection of words/sentiments that tell us what they are thankful for this year. I went ahead and added a photo frame to each leaf. This measures 2.25" x 3.5". I'll snap a photo and print them out either using my Sprocket or my mini Epson printer. Quick and instant!

This is where I will relinquish my control and let each guest decorate around their photo however they'd like.  I thought this little twist on things would be something fun for them to do, and would show their individual personalities. 

They can also choose to decorate the leaf opposite their photo or leave it blank but I will ask them to note something about them...anything they want as long as it's in their handwriting.

Once everyone has had a chance to complete their pages, we'll have a fun mini album to commemorate this special year together. I think it would be fun to pull this out again every Thanksgiving (and any others we make in the coming years).

Bella Besties Freehand Graph & Dot collection; Squeeze the Day Chipboard Icons, Matte Enamels, Doohickey Stickers, Ephemera Words, Ephemera Icons, Florence Alphabet - McIntosh, Orange, Bell Pepper, Pickle Juice, Ice, Blueberry, Pony, White; Acrylic Words - Happy; Heart Hugs - Sunshine

 

Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Life!

The theme of this week is “we are grateful for”, in my case the Thanksgiving Day of last year was a very special one. Since I moved to the USA, I had not been able to interact with my family from Puerto Rico. Last year I was able to see and spend a wonderful time with my mother in law, my sister in law, my nephews and my lovely sister. The opportunity to have them in my house was one of great, joy and happiness. That is why I wanted to share it with you in today's project.

To create this layout, I cut the THANKSGIVING word from a Jillibean Soup digital cut file using white cardstock. I backed it with the beautiful Let’s Go on an Adventure Collection.  For the background, I added some splatters with pink and green ink to give the background a little color.

I am in love with all the Acrylic Words from Bella Blvd and for this layout, I use the “Happy” word to complement the title of the layout; Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Life! The title was placed on the left side of the paper, this balances the page and gave me space to place my photos.

The photos of my family were backed with splatters and then located on the right side of the huge title. To highlight the photos, I used a combination of stickers and die cut pieces to create embellishments clusters.

To give a final touch to the project, I added some strips of patterned papers and place them with foam tape to add layers and dimension to the project. I love the result! 

All the embellishments of the Let’s Go on an Adventure collection are magnificent, so it is very easy to use not only to document adventure photos, but you can also incorporate them for any other theme. They are fantastic to beautify any project!

Thanks for stopping by and Get Inspired!!!

Let’s Go on an Adventure, Happy Acrylic Word, Doohickey 12x12 Stickers,

Ephemera Icons, Icon Chipboard Stickers,

 

 

 

Two Page Thankful Layout and Video Tutorial

Don't you just love this time of year? A time to reflect on all our blessings, gatherings with friends and family, and of course yummy food!  Christine joining you today with a layout that showcases my biggest earthly blessing, my family!  I decided to go with a two-page layout and share a lot of my favorite pictures from a recent fall adventure.  Let's take a look:

Not only are two page layouts great for getting lots of pictures on but also there's so much room to embellish and add some fun journaling.  

One of my favorite things about Bella Blvd is how seamlessly you can marry all the products - even mixing and matching collections.  This layout includes pieces from all of these collections Squeeze the Day, Bella Besties, Home Sweet Home, and Let's Go on An Adventure. 

By mixing and matching papers from several collections I was able to achieve that fall color scheme I was going for.

I punched out several big leaves and then folded them to add dimension. Puffy hearts in coordinating colors also made great accents.

Mixing and matching products to create a unique title is so much fun!  To make this one I combined a Florence Alphabet with two different Acrylic Words.  To give you a better idea of how this layout came together, I created a process video.  Here it is:

 

Thanks so much for joining me today!  Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving week next week!

Patterned Papers from Bella Besties and Squeeze the Day, Puffy Heart Stickers, Acrylic Words, Florence Alphabet, Ephemera from Squeeze the Day, Let's Go on an Adventure, and Home Sweet Home

 

 

My Heart Layout | Kat Bemjamin

Good morning everyone!  Kat here to share my layout for Thanksgiving week.  I decided to make a layout that focuses on what I'm grateful for...and one of the things I'm most grateful for is my daughter - she's my heart!

The Home Sweet Home collection was absolutely perfect for this layout, including the coordinating "My Heart" acrylic title.

I love all the fun patterns in the collection, so I used as many of them as possible.  I cut up a bunch of triangles and arranged them into a vertical element that ran the height of my page.  I then sprinkled around some word salad stickers, enamel hearts, ephemera and some mist.  The layout actually came together really quickly once I had all my triangles cut out!  Here's the whole thing:

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope you have a wonderful week!

Patterned Papers: Home Sweet Home: All My Love, Always Welcome, Home Sweet Home, Welcome Home; Acrylic Title: My Heart; Ephemera Icons: Home Sweet Home; Doohickey Stickers: Home Sweet Home; Word Salad Stickers; Illustrated Faith Enamel Hearts: Bless Her Heart Mix

Santa Squad Cards with Kelly

Hello everyone! It's Kelly here today sharing some cards made with the brand new Santa Squad collection:

I love using 6x6 paper pads for card backgrounds, the miniature patterns are perfect for getting more of the designs on such a small area.

The layered stickers make great focal points...

...and I was even able to find matching sentiments for the inside of a couple of the cards.

I like to mix it up, and fold my cards in unique ways. Embellishments like tags make enclosures for card flaps.

On this one, the tag makes a great flap for the card opening...and also doubles as the sentiment background. 

This little penguin tag was the perfect sentiment to match the acrylic word 'Joy' on the front of this card.

....And this little dog was so sweet, I just had to put him on the front of a card :)

Seriously, this is probably my all time favorite card!

Well, I had so much fun putting these together. All of the fun embellishments in the new Santa Squad collection are just way too cute! Have you started your Christmas cards yet?

Thanks for stopping by today!

Santa Squad: 6x6 Pad, Ephemera Words, Ephemera Icons; Bella-Pops: Hedge Hugs, Dachsund Through the Snow; Acrylic Words: Joy; Matte Enamels: Fruity Mix; Epoxy Stickers: Hearts Christmas Mix

Friends Layout with a Fun Hidden Journal

Hi everyone, It’s Dorymar, I’m very excited to show my Layout, this week I played with the super colorful “Squeeze the Day” collection. The colors in this collection are so bright and vibrant they are totally perfect to create a very fun project. I love to incorporate a lot of colors on my page and many layers too. For this project I used a picture of my friends enjoying our trip to She Loves Color in 2018.

I started my layout by selecting the “Bananas for You” paper for my outside borders and the beautiful “Fruity Hearts” paper as a base. To create my focal point, I decided to mix some fun patterned papers to make my layers. 

I wanted to incorporate as many embellishments as I could because all elements in this collection are fantastic and very diverse. I mixed up stickers, tags, borders, sentiments, die cuts, epoxy hearts, etc., to create a very colorful look for my page, all are attached to the page with foam tape to continue adding the layers that I like so much.

When I design my projects, I love to incorporate all the elements that I can, but sometimes I have no space to incorporate my journal. I confess that almost all my journals are in the back of my layouts because I don't like my handwriting. That’s why one of my favorite creative ways that I like to incorporate in my journal is by hiding it inside the page, so it is very private. Here you can see how my journaling is hidden in a very practical way under my photos.

I think this creative way of incorporating your hidden journal allows you to keep those special moments with your family and friends more private. For those (like me) who don't like their handwriting, they can keep it hidden, without taking away the true purpose of the scrapbook that is keeping memories alive every time you decide to watch your albums.

I used one of the 6x4 cards that the collection includes as a base for my journaling, then I added a beautiful rainbow die cut and used it as a tab to pull out my journal. It looks so pretty!

This beautiful collection includes a few beautiful acrylic embellishments, but there was one that I loved the most, and it was the fantastic “Friends” word in red. When I saw it, I quickly knew that I should use it on my page as a title.

I hope you enjoyed this project as much as I did, and it inspires you to use the beautiful “Squeeze the Day” collection to create something beautiful.

Squeeze the Day Collection:  Doohikey Stickers, Ephemera Icons, Friends Acrilyc Word, Hearts Epoxy

 

Fall-ing for Bella Blvd Cut Files

Over the last year, Bella Blvd has started offering cut files and they sure do add some flexibility and options to your projects. Today I am using the most detailed of all those cut files - the Tile Background Cut File from the Home Sweet Home Collection! Christine joining you with a layout packed with details and time featuring this gorgeous cut file!

Cut files like this take a long time to cut. You have to set them at a slow speed and then just be patient. In this case, it took about 35 minutes to cut! Planning for that, I set it to cut and then did other things!

Once it was all cut, I pulled out my Bella Besties and my circle punch and started backing it! I knew I wanted lots of fall colors! A fine tip glue pen made this job a little bit easier!!!

Because the layout already has lots of detail and color I knew I wasn't going to have to do a lot for embellishing! I created my title using a combination of an Acrylic World and Florence Alphabets.  Then I added some Heart Hugs and punched out vellum leaves to my design. I opted for vellum here because it would still let the colors and cut file show thru while adding a little bit of texture!  

Head on over to my YouTube channel to check out the full process video for this layout today!  Thanks for stopping by!

Bella Besties Freehand Graph & Dot, Acrylic Words, Cut Files, Heart Hugs

Falling Leaves | Family Scrapbooking Layout

Hi everyone! Heather Leopard is here with a photo tutorial for a really fun fall layout featuring lots of leaves. Come take a look at what I created...

My idea for this originally started by thinking I'd layer leaves from the top down as if they were falling but as I was playing around with this Bella Blvd "leaves" cut file, I started thinking the concept would pair well with a round photo. That got me thinking of this alternate design. It cut the same leave in 3 different sizes - small, medium and large and in multiple different colors and patterns.

Starting with the largest leaves, I adhered them to the page in a sort of circle.

Next, I added the medium leaves and then the smaller leaves on top, moving in with each "row" I glued down until I had enough to create a border for my photo.

I printed a 3.75" round photo and placed it in the center of the wreath of leaves. As you can see from the photo, I only glued the bottom part of the leaves to the paper so that the ends of the leaves could have some dimension.

I tucked a few pieces of chipboard and ephemera under the photo and also added some embellishments to the top right.  

Lastly, and to create a diagonal type design, I added the title and a few more embellishments to the bottom left of the page. I'm still deciding where to put my journaling but I'm thinking maybe I'll add journaling strips on the bottom right.

Let's Go On An Adventure Border & Wildflowers 12x12 patterned paper, Ciao Chip, Ephemera Words, Ephemera Icons; Squeeze the Day Borders, Zesty, Fruit Salad 12x12 patterned paper, Bella Besties Graph & Dotty Pony, McIntosh, Orange 12x12 patterned paper, Wish Big Borders 12x12 patterned paper, Heart Hugs Earth, Heart Hugs Sunshine, Acrylic Word Family, Wonky Alphas Orange, Bella Blvd cut file "leaves" in Silhouette America store

World Cardmaking Day - Heart Hugs Background

Happy World Cardmaking Day Bella Blvd Fans! What is your favorite Bella Blvd embellishment? If I had to narrow it down to just one, it would definitely be Heart Hugs. I find myself using them on EVERYTHING! Christine joining you today to show you a quick idea on how to use your Heart Hugs to create a background for a card!

Heart Hugs Background Card

As I was sitting and looking at my packages of Heart Hugs, it occurred to me that they would make a really neat background. I opted to create a monochromatic one - but I definitely think they would look amazing in ombre or rainbow colors!

Although it looks like there's a lot going on, there really isn't a lot to this card! In fact just four products: Heart Hugs, Squeeze the Day Patterned Paper, an Acrylic Word, and some Nuvo Drops!

Let's check out how I created it in this process video:

What do you think? Can you see yourself making a background with these hearts on one of your crafty projects? Thanks for joining me today!