Bella Blvd: Playground Antics

All this week, we've been introducing the new 2016-2017 Creative Team members on the Bella Blvd blog, and today's my turn to re-introduce myself. I'm coming up on my fifth year of working for Bella, as their Creative Team coordinator, so I feel like my introduction is mostly the same from year to year. I just change out how old my girls are, and how many daycare kids I'm taking care of. Not much else in my little life changes. Along with sharing a bit about ourselves, all of the designers are also sharing their first layouts as part of the team. Here's a little excerpt from my bio I shared today:

"I definitely have two different styles, depending what I'm working on. When I have free reign, with no particular guidelines to follow, you'll find my true style. Very linear and clean, lots of color, lots of patterned paper, die cut elements (especially titles), and simple embellishments. I love a good photo collage, and the layouts that I love the most have lots of photos on them and a story."

Yes. So, so, so very true. I've known for a while that I have two different styles. While I do enjoy both styles and the finished projects I come up with, the layouts that tend to mean more to me - the ones that I love more - are the ones that show my go-to style. And when it comes to that go-to style, I'm all about clean, simple, and not a lot of fuss. 

So that's exactly the style I worked into my first layout for our introduction week. I knew I wanted to start out with a photo collage, as that's a huge part of my style. I happen to think about these photos of the girls from years ago, playing at the park a few blocks from our house. I had actually scrapped some of these photos for a project sheet layout for Bella back in 2012 (seen HERE), but the accordian pinwheel flowers I had included on the layout had literally fell apart shortly after. Obviously, I did not adhere them together that well. Lol. I've had that layout in a pile to fix for years, and just never got to it. As much as I really did love that layout, I decided I would just toss that layout and create a new one. 

I collaged my photos together on my own (without using a template), and printed them out. From there, I started digging out some patterned papers to coordinate with my photos. I pulled out a few papers from the new The Zoo Crew collection, one from the Star Student collection, and my favorite grid patterned paper that I often use in place of white cardstock. Along the way, after adding in a yellow border sticker, I also pulled out the yellow confetti Clear Cut transparency to work onto the page as well. 

I mentioned I love to use die cut titles, and one way I love to use them is by mixing them with chipboard alphas or letter stickers. I've always said that I love a good cursive font, mixed with a clean, simple font. My favorite Bella chipboard alphas are the Sienna alphas, and I just love the navy blue ones. I die cut the word "playground" with my Cameo from the brown woodgrain patterned paper. It put up quite the fight as I was trying to adhere it to the page, and there's one part I can now see didn't get adhered quite right (the "g" is on top of the "r"), but it's on there and I consider that a win in my book. 

I usually do the patterned paper, photos, title, and journaling part of the page, and then see what I think needs to be added embellishment wise. It's usually not a lot. I've been big on using enamel dots, as they're pretty flat on the page and super easy to add on. I wanted a little something to add next to the title at the bottom of the page, so I ended up adding a few little chipboard words to finish it off. 

I hope that you'll stop by the Bella Blvd blog, if you haven't been by this week, and get to know the other nine Creative Team members. They're a fabulously talented group and I'm excited to work with them over the next year. 

Comments

[Dolly]

A girl after my own style!
That is why I always LOVE your layouts Laura! TFS

[Silvia Barrera Cruz]

Beautiful as always!

[Tracey]

Your clean and linear style is why I love your pages so much! Another incredible page Laura! The colours in Bella Blvd's collections are always fantastic!

[Charlene]

Omg! This makes me want to scrapbook all of Wyatt's baby pictures. Right now. ;-)