17turtles Juliana Michaels: Bella Blvd

Showing posts with label Bella Blvd. Show all posts

String Art Heart Valentine's Day Digital Cut File

Welcome back to Day 3 of my Valentine's Day Digital Cut File week! I hope you've had the opportunity to check out the Hugs and Kisses Cut File and the Valentine's Day Titles Cut File that I've already shared this week.

I really enjoy creating cut files and sharing them with everyone, but that hasn't always been the case. Last year when my 17turtles Etsy shop was open, that love for creating cut files started to die and I could feel it effecting my creativity. I will admit that most of this change came after I returned to work full time. I felt like I "had to" create and share them on a set schedule and that sort of pressure just didn't work for me. Scrapbooking and crafting should be fun, and I decided the only way I would get the fun back was to close the shop and return to doing them for free. Instantly a weight was lifted and I knew I had made the right decision. It's been wonderful to be able to enjoy the process again and I sure hope you all are enjoying using them as much as I'm enjoying creating and sharing them with you!

Today, I'm sharing a new cut file design called String Art Heart. You can download it below. This design was inspired by the recent trend of string art and of course some of the awesome Jillibean Soup Mix The Media String Art that I've help create this past year.

As I started on this layout, I began with the photo of Danny and Lincoln. I knew I wanted to create a design that would focus on the love that is shared between these two. That is when the string art heart idea occurred to me.

My Dog Scrapbook Page by Juliana Michaels featuring String Art Heart Digital Cut File 17turtles and Bella Blvd

When I was first planning this layout, I was originally going to leave the die cut white and adhere it to my background paper. However, after looking at it a bit more, I decided it looked kind of plain and needed some more color. To create the solid heart image and to fill the negative space of the String Art Heart, I created a new cut file using my Silhouette software.

How to Fill The Negative Space of a Digital Cut File:

1. Open the file in your Silhouette software, select the image, right click and select Release Compound Path.

Filling The Background or Negative Space Behind A Digital Cut File using Release Compound Path and Welding Tools in Silhouette Software.

2. The image will look like this after you click Release Compound Path.

3. With the entire image still selected, right click and click on Weld.

4. This is what the image will look like after you have clicked Weld. You are now ready to cut out the large heart image to place behind the main String Art Heart design. Super easy peasy!

Another change I made, was the addition of the red floss. Originally, I didn't have the red floss on the heart. It was an after thought once the layout was nearly finished. Thank goodness for Un-du. Seriously, I couldn't scrap without the stuff!

FREE DIGITAL CUT FILE | STRING ART HEART

String Art Heart Free Valentine's Day Digital Cut File by Juliana Michaels 17turtles

Like I said above, I hope you are enjoying the free cut files and I invite you to let all your friends know about them too!

Making the Most of Your Digital Die Cuts | A Silhouette Cameo Quick Tip

I don't know about you, but I hate to waste my pretty patterned paper. When I was originally creating this Halloween layout, I started with the plan to only use one spider web and place it behind all of my photos. Once I had cut it out though, I realized it was too small for me to use this way. You just couldn't see it. What's a scrapper to do? I was not going to throw what I had already cut away!

Making the Most of Your Digital Die Cuts

The solution I came up with was to cut out another spider web. Fortunately, I had an extra sheet of the same paper, However, if I hadn't, I probably would have done the same thing but used a sheet of black cardstock. I then placed the spider webs so that they were in the corners and hanging off the edge of the layout. I then trimmed the excess and used it in another corner. I had solved my problem . I would now see the spider webs and I had not wasted my die cut.

The spider web that I used is part to create my layout is part of my new Spooky Spider, Bats & Cats Digital Cut File that you can find in my 17turtles Etsy Shop.

Spooky Spider, Bats & Cats Digital Cut Files by Juliana Michaels 17turtles

I had a great time creating with this Halloween collection from Bella Blvd and added some fun enamel dots as embellishments here and there.

Remember This Halloween Scrapbook Page by Juliana Michaels Making the Most of your Digital Die Cuts Silhouette Cameo Tutorial

I hope you enjoyed this Silhouette Quick Tip on Making the Most of Your Digital Die Cuts!

American Girl Doll Store Layout

Last year I took my sister and I took my nieces to The American Girl Store for the first time. They had been dreaming (and begging) to go to the "American Girl Doll Store" for quite some time, so when I came to town for a visit we knew it was time to make their wish come true! The girls were so excited that they could hardly hold still long enough for me to get a photo. In fact, the oldest is jumping up and down in this one!

To create this layout, I used a combination of papers and products from Bella Blvd. I also used my most recent FREE digital cut file called Entwined Hearts, which you can download and use for your own personal use. (Click on the words Entwined Hearts.) I also used this cut file on a recent layout entitled "Love This Moment".

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Die cut heart background from Bella Blvd Snapshots / Rise & Shine Patterned Paper. Adhere to layout.

2. Cut hearts from Bella Blvd / Daily Chevies & Everyday Bits Chevy Bell Pepper Patterned Paper, All American – American Pride and Birthday Girl – Sugar Rush. Adhere to layout.

3. Cut 4 5/8” x 9” piece from Bella Blvd Snapshots Borders paper. Adhere to layout.

4. Cut Hello Happiness from Snapshots Daily Details paper. Adhere to layout.

5. Mount 4 x 6” photo to white cardstock with 1/8” border. Adhere to layout.

6. Embellish with stickers, die cuts, jewels.

7. Add chipboard and letter stickers for title.

8. Add journaling with pen.

SUPPLIES | AMERICAN GIRL DOLL STORE LAYOUT

Patterned Paper: Bella Blvd / Daily Chevies & Everyday Bits – Chevy Peep, Chevy Bell Pepper; Snapshots – Daily Details, Rise & Shine, Borders; All American – American Pride; Birthday Girl – Sugar Rush

Stickers: Bella Blvd / Daily Chevies & Everyday Bits Cardstock Stickers – Arrows Black & White, Everyday Bookplates; Snapshots Cardstock Stickers – Tabs; Engaged At Last Cardstock Stickers – Alpha+Bits

Letter Stickers: Bella Blvd / Engaged At Last Cardstock Stickers – Alpha+Bits

Die cuts: Bella Blvd / Snapshots – Paper Pieces

Chipboard Letters: Bella Blvd – Ciao Chip Simply Simona Pickle Juice

Digital Cut File: Entwined Hearts / Juliana Michaels - 17turtles

Electronic Cutting Machine: Silhouette Cameo

Adhesive: Scotch 3M Foam Mounting Tape, Scotch Quick Dry Liquid Adhesive, EK Success Hermafix Tabs

Jewels: Bo Bunny

Cardstock: American Crafts – White

Pen: Le Pen – Marvy in Dark Grey

Too Cute Halloween and Sisters Forever Layouts | Bella Blvd

Today is my final day up on the Bella Blvd blog. I have had the wonderful opportunity to be one of their Ongoing Guest Designers this past year and it has been such a great experience. I am so thankful to have had this opportunity. I really love playing and creating with the Bella Blvd products and their new collections from CHA this summer has been no exception!!!

I have two layouts to share today. This first layout was created using the new Trick or Treat collection, which is one of my new favorite collections! I layered several of the different patterns to create a fun base for my photo and journaling. This photo is of my best friend's daughter. The last time I went to visit was during the weekend that she had her Girl Scout Halloween party and lucky me was there to get some photo of her in her costume!

Too Cute Layout by Juliana Michaels using Bella Blvd Trick or Treat

Too Cute Layout by Juliana Michaels using Bella Blvd Trick or Treat detail

SUPPLIES | Bella Blvd

Patterned Paper: Trick or Treat/ Happy Owlween, No Brainer, Leaf Storm, Borders Trick or Treat, Pick A Punkin', Daily Details; Birthday Girl/ Sugar Rush

Stickers: Trick or Treat/ Alpha+Bits Cardstock Stickers, Captions Cardstock Stickers, Tabs Cardstock Stickers, Paper Pieces

My second layout here uses a mix of collections ranging from Summer 2013 CHA to Summer 2014 CHA and everything in between. I didn't realize how it drew from every release since I have been a part of their team until I was writing this post. I think it is kind of cool how I was able to do that, but it also shows how well ALL of her collections coordinate with each other! A fun tip about this layout is that the die cut heart pieces behind my photo are "scraps" from another layout. I had saved the large scraps for some crazy reason, but I'm glad I did, because they worked perfectly to layer and place behind my photo. The photo is of my two darling nieces and I just loved how they are being sweet with each other in this photo. It is near impossible to get a photo of the two of them hugging!

Sisters Friends Forever Layout by Juliana Michaels using Bella Blvd

Sisters Friends Forever Layout by Juliana Michaels using Bella Blvd detail

SUPPLIES | Bella Blvd

Patterned Paper: Engaged At Last/ Bachelorette Extras; Daily Chevies & Everday Bits/ Chevy Bell Pepper; Birthday Girl/ Sugar Rush; Snapshots/ Rise & Shine; All American/ American Pride
Stickers: Birthday Girl/ Alpha+Bits Cardstock Stickers; Love and Marriage/ Wedding Day Miniatures Cardstock Stickers, Alpha+Bits Cardstock Stickers; Kiss Me/ Just Write Journaling Stickers

Designer Tapes: Teal Stripe

Everyday Elements: Stars & Hearts

Thanks so much for stopping by and make sure you head over to the Bella Blvd blog for more details and inspiration from the other guest designers!

Here Comes the Bride

I recently attended my niece's wedding and of course I took a ton of photos. I have finally gotten most of the wedding photos scrapped, but this does not include the photos I took after the wedding and at the reception. Those will come later! For now, I thought I would share another layout I created using a mix of scrappy goodness from SRM Stickers and Bella Blvd.

INSPIRATION | Large background shapes

As I was putting this layout together, the idea of having a large heart in the background filled with some patterns or other shapes came to mind. Amazingly, I did not use my Silhouette to create the heart! I did it the old fashioned way and traced it on a scrap of paper and cut it out by hand. I saved the inside negative and offset it to the side and then filled the inside with cardstock doilies, chipboard shapes, enamel dots, jewels and stickers!

Here Comes the Bride Layout by Juliana Michaels

Here Comes the Bride Layout by Juliana Michaels detail

TIPS | Chipboard Treatments and Sticker Borders

To color the chipboard pink, I simply painted them with pink acrylic paint. The white lacy heart shape was painted with a paint pen. Nothing fancy, but I think the dark pink adds a nice pop of color to the design.

The lace looking border was created by using two sheets of SRM Stickers Fancy Sticker Sentiments - Love. I took the border stickers from them and placed them around the outside edge of the layout. I had to do some trimming here and there, but it fit just perfectly because of the two small stickers I had overlapping the edges.

SUPPLIES | Bella Blvd, SRM Stickers, My Mind's Eye, BoBunny

Patterned Paper: Bella Blvd/ Love & Marriage, Freestyle Sophisticates

Stickers: SRM Stickers/ Fancy Sticker Sentiments - Love; Bella Blvd/ Love & Marriage

Enamel Dots: My Mind's Eye

Jewels: BoBunny

Other:

Chipboard hearts and cardstock doilies: Unknown

Acrylic Paint: Folk Art by Plaid in Pink Melon

Paint Marker: Elmer's Painters in White

Sewing Machine: Kenmore

Do you like to scrap wedding photos? I do because they bring me back to my wedding day nearly 8 years ago this coming September. Makes me want to scrap some of them again! ;)

P.S. Did you see that Bella Blvd is having a Design Team Call?! You can stop by the Bella Blvd blog for all of the details! I have loved being an Ongoing Guest Designer with them this past year! They are a wonderful company to design for and I want to thank them for having me as part of their "team" this past year!

Love and Marriage | Bella Blvd

I recently attended my nieces wedding and it was a wonderfully joyous occasion! It also brought back so many happy and wonderful memories of my wedding day nearly 8 years ago this coming September. Today I have two layouts to share with you using the latest Bella Blvd collections and they are up on the Bella Blvd blog today along with a couple of the other Ongoing Guest Designers, so make sure you stop by and check out what they created!!!

These photos were taken at my niece's recent wedding just as they were being pronounced husband and wife! I love how I was able to capture the joy on their faces with my photos and I really wanted to relay this joy on my layout. The green was not initially planned, but I really wanted to use the green "bride & groom" sticker. I knew though, that I needed to add more green somewhere else on the layout to give it a more cohesive look. That is when I started searching through my Bella Blvd products for more green. The Pickle Juice Chevron Designer Tape and the Sand & Surf Beach Balls (green) patterned paper did the trick. I added the tape first and still felt like it needed more movement so that is when I pulled out my circle punches and went to work on the green patterned paper. I then added the pink sequins for a little bit of bling.

Mr&Mrs Wedding Layout by Juliana Michaels for Bella Blvd

Supplies:

Engaged: Bachelor Party, Bridal Shower

Love and Marriage: Vows, Borders, Alpha+Bits Cardstock Stickers, Wedding Chipboard Icons

Sand & Surf: Beach Balls

Freestyle Sophisticates: Freestyle Cotton Candy

Designer Tapes: Pickle Juice Chevron

I took a lot of photos the day of my niece's wedding and these two photos of them from their first dance again captured the happiness and joy of their new life together. This layout again started with a sticker...the "first dance" sticker inspired the use of the bits of blue on this layout. I then added strips of color from the Love and Marriage Borders paper to further embellish around the photos.

The First Dance Wedding Layout by Juliana Michaels for Bella Blvd

Supplies:

Engaged: Bachelor Extras

Love and Marriage: Borders, Cute Cuts, Alpha+Bits Cardstock Stickers, Just Write Journaling Stickers

Designer Tapes: Teal Stripe

I appreciate your visit and you taking the time to leave a comment!!!

Bella Blvd + Free Cut File

Today I am sharing two of my latest layouts for Bella Blvd that I made using some of their new collections! This first layout is of my niece doing her own thing while her sister was playing soccer! She goes into her own little world reading or doing whatever she wants and has no interest in soccer. So, you definitely do not want to disturb her!!! For this layout, I used a combination of Bella Blvd's Love and Marriage and Sand & Surf! When I began to create this layout I decided that I wanted to step outside my comfort zone a little and try to use only scraps or small pieces of patterned paper. I tend to prefer larger pieces when creating my layouts. I cut the patterned papers into strips and then tore the tops and bottom edges off of them. I then layered them and adhered them to my background paper. I completed the layout by adding some Cardstock Stickers, Designer Tape, and a Crochet Heart.

For my second layout, I used the new All American Collection! When we bought our old house in Illinois we knew we wanted to hang a flag on the front porch because of it's location on the main street in the historic district of town. We got our flag a few days before Memorial Day and we proudly displayed it throughout the summer months and especially during the parades and holidays!

I created the star border and cut it out using my Silhouette! I used a Fiskars punch for the smaller stars. Feel free to download my FREE cut file and use it on your next project!

Stars Border

Make sure you stop by the Bella Blvd blog for more inspiration from the other on going guest designers!!! Thank you for stopping by!!!

Bella Blvd Easter Eggs and Horses

I am up on the Bella Blvd blog today with a couple projects to share. Both of my projects use their Designer Tape and I was inspired to do so after a recent Designer Tape spotlight post by the Bella DT that you can see HERE. My first project is a basket of Easter Eggs Bella Blvd style! The eggs are paper mache eggs that I found at Hobby Lobby and are about the size of real eggs.

To decorate them, I punched a strip of patterned paper using a double sided border punch and wrapped it around the egg. I then cut a strip of Designer Tape, mounted it to white computer paper and wrapped it around the egg. The white paper makes the colors more bold since the tapes are slightly transparent. I then created flowers from the same patterns using my Silhouette and various punches. Before adding the flowers, I tied a piece of colored floss around each egg and then hot glued the flowers in place. The fun thing about these egg decorations is that they would work perfectly on real dyed Easter Eggs!

My second project is a layout using a mix of Designer Tapes as well to create a fun border behind my photos. The photos are of my niece and her Grandpa riding Boots! Good old Boots is always ready and willing to turn these girls into cowgirls!!! Ava was so cute this day because when she got up that morning she announced to all of us that she had her "cowgirl jeans on" and was "ready to ride"! Gotta love that girl and the things that she says!!!

As I created this layout, I again mounted the Designer Tape on white cardstock before I added it to my layout. If you look closely you can see that I tore the edges of each strip.

I created the title using a combination of their awesome letter stickers and chipboard alphas! And the horse is part of an image I cut using my Silhouette. I trimmed off the excess from the image that I did not want to use and ran the piece through my Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots folder to emboss it. I then applied a little Ranger Walnut Stain Ink to the edges and the raised part to help it stand out more.

Well that's all for today folks! Thank you so much for stopping by and saying HI! Make sure you stop by the Bella Blvd Blog for more details and to see what the other designers have created!

Birthday Layouts with Bella Blvd

Good Monday morning all! I have a couple Bella Blvd layouts to share with you today and to direct you over to the Bella Blvd blog to check out more details and other projects being shared there.

Both of my layouts feature the Birthday Boy collection with a twist! I used them for layouts about MY birthday and I am most certainly not a boy! LOL!!! I just loved the orange, green and blue in this collection and they went perfectly with the colors in my photos.

I did very little embellishing on this layout, but I knew one thing I HAD to add to this layout. This adorable frog from the Cute Cuts paper!!! I fussy cut him, mounted him on scrap chipboard for more stability and then adhered him with double sided foam tape. I wanted him to "hop" off the page at you!!!

For my second layout I again did very little embellishing to help keep the focus on the photo. I fussy cut the cake from the Cute Cuts paper and dressed it up with some bling.

I created the flower shapes by punching the images from the patterned paper using a scallop circle and circle punch. I then layered them with double sided foam tape and added a jewel to the center of each one.