A New Friend / Bella Blvd

Happy Friday, and Happy New Year!  I can't believe it's almost 2017.  Crazy!  Today I wanted to share my newest layout for Bella Blvd.  Our theme this week was New Beginnings and using lots of black & white products, so I decided to document some photos of my daughter making a new friend.  Because of her autism, she has always been a loner and very standoffish.  She is ten now, and she is finally warming up to her classmates.  She made a new friend earlier this year, and it is the sweetest thing to watch.  They hold hands and try and tickle each other....so precious!  Her teacher snapped these photos one day and texted them to me.  It just melted my heart!

I used lots of black and white Bella goodies and mixed in some color pops along the way.  I used papers from the Addison and Oh My Stars collection, and those beautiful paint strokes on the right are from an Illustrated Faith Bright & Brave Clear Cuts pad, which is a booklet of clear acetate transparency pieces.  I also used black and white die cuts, chipboard pieces, Designer Clips, Tabbies and Washi Stickers.

On this gingham paper, I used some white gesso so fade out some of the pattern.  I used some watercolors to add some color and then added black splatters.  I used a big Ciao Chip piece for my big title, and I just left it white.  Here you can see some of the Washi Sticker hearts.  That white circle with the black star is from the Ciao Chip sheet, and the "love" circle is from the Bright & Brave Paper Pieces.  I also did some black stitching up the side here.

Lots of black & white going on here with pops of yellow and pink.  I added a few of the black & white Tabbies here and a cute cloud Designer Clip in the background.  I dug through some of my older stash and found the black & white Little Bits stickers.

Here you can see some of the dimension from the foam adhesive under the photos.  I added in some tangled thread for more pops of color.  The XO circle is from Bright and Brave.

Here's a look at the other side of the page.  That red "You Amaze Me" circle piece is another piece that I fussy cut from the Clear Cuts pad.  Those make such great embellishments!

I love these soft muted colors.  I tried to match the same colors in the brush strokes from the Clear Cuts pad.  I love these Ciao Chip words.  They are awesome to add color to, but they also look great plain white.

I added a smaller title using black Tiny Text alphas and then stitched through them.  I added a few strips of the Washi Stickers down below and then my journaling.  I was easy to add all that in against the edge of the vertical paper.

I hope this gives you some inspiration for documenting a new beginning in your life!  I had a great time making this.

Thank you so much for stopping by, and have a wonderful weekend.  And Happy New Year, friends!