Bella Boulevard

Back in May I was asked to be a guest blogger for Bella Blvd. I was excited, because I love color and Bella does it really well!

The first thing I pulled out to work with is the Lucky Starz collection. A rainbow of color and stars in 8 beautiful shades - perfect for this idea of a stitched page I had:

I chose the colors that would best complement the photo and then set on handstitching color coordinated x's in between layers of patterned paper. This adds a little whimsical touch, texture and underlines the color.

The photo is one of my favorites from our trip to Disney this Spring. The Dumbo ride has been completely redone and I was thrilled - but the look on Nico's face, yeah...not so much. I laugh every time I look at it. The journaling reflects on how I remember bringing him on this ride at 10 months old and how fascinated he was with it all. Now, Mom is the only one with her hands in the air!

My second page focused on the Bella boy-themed line, Max. The all-over shark print caught my eye and I decided to base the page on this patterned. 

I stacked the photos, layers of patterned paper, stickers, die cuts and enamel dots all on the center of the page and overlapped them to create a strong focal point. The rest of the layout is pretty straightforward and linear. This is a really simple and easy design base that I keep coming back to over and over again.

Thanks to Stephanie and Laura over at Bella Blvd for giving me the chance to create with their colorful, cool designs!

From Summer to Fall...

It seems like we went from this...

to this...

Layout copyright twopeasinabucket.com.

in the blink of an eye. 

The pictures are from last year, but the layouts are new. The summer one is my last Bella Blvd assignment using the Sunshine & Happiness line. I did decide to step down from the team last month to free up some of my summer. Loved my time at Bella, they were a fantastic company to work for - not to mention they make super cute lines!

The school layout is from the twopeasinabucket.com gallery. It almost all Basic Grey Clippings with a bit of Crate thrown in. I'm so happy that I took some of these detailed shots of Nico's preschool backpack and sneakers. He has grown up so much since then. 

I take a lot of pictures. Like really a lot and sometimes I wonder if its overkill. But then when I look back at Nico's baby pictures, I only regret the ones that I didn't take. I guess the answer is that I'll continue to be that Mom - the one who brings her camera to the bus stop the Lego store and everywhere else life happens (with no regrets). 

Believe it or not, I'm still buried under a pile of laundry and knee-deep in packing away summer clothes. Football practice is in full swing and I'm finally getting back into the swing of making something every day. More to share soon.

2Peas + Bella Love

Another class + another great giveaway.  Leave a comment (including your Pea Name)  and you'll be entered to win this class free. If you want to sign up today - go ahead!  If you win, we'll refund your class fee. Winners will be announced 3/16/12.

 Click HERE for pricing + more info!

Garden Girl Jen Gallacher will be teaching a self-paced, comprehensive course focusing on the following five stamp design styles: open, solid, alphabet, sentiment, and background stamps. Download the helpful 62 page "Scrapbook Stamper's Workbook" which includes five instructional chapters, 50 stamping tutorials, and 50 brand new page samples with complete supply lists and step-by-step instructions. Five helpful chapter videos are also included which walk you through each of the 50 stamping tutorials. The workbook and videos are designed to work hand-in-hand, helping the student become more comfortable with stamping on scrapbook layouts. Whether you're a cardmaker looking to make the transition to scrapbooking, or whether you want to learn more about stamping on your layouts, this class is for you!

and a little Bella love...

Pictures of my little guy making a Valentine for his favorite girl. This is a mix of Bella Blvd patterns from Winter Wonder and Easter Things lines. I love how Bella's color coordinate line to line. So easy to mix and match like this. The stickers are all from their Easter line, yet they are versatile enough for a Valentine's page. I used the graph sticker to add his sweet little writing. I think it adds a personal touch to the layout and ties in with the theme.

A Winner + some Bella Hearts

Pea name: JamieH 

Congrats to JamieH, she's won a spot in Shimelle's new class, The Hitchhiker's Guide to Scrapbooking over at 2Peas.  Jamie, please email me and I'll set your access into the class. Thanks everyone for your comments!

Larger photo + supply list here.

And here's the full page reveal. This is a really clean and graphic page for me. I wanted that blue focal point photo to really pop and what better way to do that than on a stark white background. I cut the hearts out with the Silhouette and I love how it handles these intricate cuts. The shape is called stitched hearts - it's a favorite!

I layered a bunch of hearts on a square sheet of vellum, added pop dots underneath so they didn't look flat and then embellished with the tiny attacher, buttons and a sticker. This page came together really quickly and I was able to finish it in about an hour - that's super marathon scrapbooking for me!

Pink Paislee Snow Days + More Bella Peeks

We haven't had a flake of snow here yet - thank goodness! But I still remember last year when we had blizzards on what seemed like a weekly basis. The only good thing that came out of that frozen year, was stacks and stacks of fun snow pictures.

 

I made this layout for the Pink Paislee blog a while back using their new Snow Days line. I love how they used non-traditional winter colors and a little bit of kraft. I started the page by sewing rows of punched circles and photos to the background page. 

By alternating the color and sizes of the circle, it added dimension to the page instead of being a static row of the same sized circles - just something different. I placed the title right on a blank spot on the photo and embellishments on the bottom. This frames out the focal point photo and adds a bright splash of red.

 I'm not expecting (heck no), but Bella Blvd. is! Check out their latest line at the Bella Blvd blog  and leave a comment to win the collection. There are also detailed shots and sample pages.

 

Love that little sonogram!

New Bella Blvd Buttons

And the sneaks continue. For full images and page ideas, visit the Bella Blvd blog.

Video and New Bella Blvd Lines

It's up! My first Memory Keeping Monday video is up at 2Peas. So excited to share it with everyone...

To view video, click here.

And bear with me. This video thing is not easy at all.  There are already so many things that I would love to go back and change on this one. But it's a learning process and I'll get there. And don't be shy about sending any constructive criticism my way. I'd love to hear your opinion and it's the only way I'll improve and get a feeling for what you want to see and not see.

The page that I put together is about Nico and what he wants to be when he grows up. He's been saying the exact same three things for about 2 years now, so I thought it was time to get it down in the scrapbook. I think it will be interesting to see how his choices change over the years. A good friend of mine (Miss Regina) mentioned making a page like this for her own book - about what she wanted to be as a kid/teen and what she turned out to be. I think this sounds like such a fun spin on the page, I just might make another one about me.

 

This is Bella Blvd's brand new Baby Boy line that will be debuting at the CHA Winter show very soon.

I love the bright colors and cute little animals in this collection. I've been working on some layouts for the Bella newsletter using this collection and I love it!

For a better look at each individual pattern, you can see the full images at the Bella Blvd blog. They are doing great giveaways all week, so be sure to leave a comment for them.

More sneak peeks and pages tomorrow!

Back to Life

It's over. All the holidays are done now. I'm going to miss it - the tree, the presents, having all of the family over. Yet somehow it's always nice to go back to the routine. I've been scrapping and blogging a lot less and I'm looking forward to getting back to it.

I was just putting all of my Christmas layouts away and I realized that I hadn't shared them here. First up is a sketch layout I did for the Bella Blvd blog this weekend. These pictures are from one of my attempts at a Christmas card picture years ago. No easy feat with a wiggly, 15 month old who wanted nothing more than to eat the stuffed animal in his pocket. This was back when Nico was (almost) bald and had just 4 little teeth. And as much as I love having a 6 year-old, sometimes I miss those baby days.

The sketch called for four photos and lots of borders - just my kind of page!  I added the huge circles across the top to break up all of the solid red. By using the larger "presents" patterned paper for the circles on top of the smaller gingham pattern, it give the design a magnifying glass effect. The title was embellished with a few jewels from Doodlebug and a line of text.

I made a bunch of these little gift card bags for all of the teacher, coaches, and friend gifts we gave out this year. I cut the bags and snowflakes out with the Silhouette Cameo and embellished them with Doodlebug paper and stickers. The mini clothespins are from Maya Road. Nico and I sat down one night and cranked out 8 of these in an hour!

This is a layout that I made for the twopeasinabucket.com gallery. I deleted the large photo of the layout, but you can still view it in my gallery here. It's about Nico and his love of all Christmas carols. What he doesn't understand is that we are not a musical/singing type of family. And somehow we ended up with this boy who is constantly singing. I remember taking these photos years ago and when I saw that October Afternoon record, I knew exactly what I was going to do with it!

And now I'm off to find a great pocket page to put all of these photo Christmas cards away! It's the very last thing I need to put away this holiday season. I hope you had yourself a Merry Little Christmas (or any other holiday you may celebrate)!

SUPPLY LIST (Click on the photo for availability):

InLinkz.com

New Bella Blvd

So happy to share that the new Bella Blvd collections are ready to ship. Look for them at your LSS or favorite place to shop on the web towards the end of the week.

And here's a sneak peek of something I did with Spring Flings and Easter Things.

This page will be up on the Bella Blog on Thursday along with other projects and layouts from the design team.

New Bella Blvd Releases

I am so excited about Bella Blvd's two brand new lines. First up is a beautiful winter line with great colors and patterns. Here are a few sneak peeks of a couple of my favorites...

And then a little something for Spring....

 

 

For a look at the complete lines, please visit the Bella Blvd blog. These should be arriving to a scrapbook store near you very soon. I can't wait to get my hands on these!