If you have any questions or feedback, please contact us!

contact@bellagypsydesigns.com

Well helllo there! You’ve stumbled upon the “About Us” portion of Bella Gypsy Land.

Do you want the Cliff’s Notes version?

Tabatha & Lena are sisters who live in central Kentucky and have been designing as Bella Gypsy Designs since February 2006. Bella Gypsy was born when they both discovered a love for digital scrapbooking and it blossomed from there! Tabatha lives in the country with her fella and four beautiful children. Her hobbies outside of scrapbooking include reading, watching TV, and spraying under the bed for monsters. Lena lives in the city with her husband and three kids. She enjoys all kinds of crafts, reading, knitting, and anything related to digiscrapping.

Do you want to know MORE about Bella Gypsy?

Tabatha (left) and Lena (right) are sisters…the very closest of sisters and the very best friends. In 2005, Lena was living in Ohio and Tabatha was living in Kentucky. Lena was a retired paper scrapper (Read: She wasn’t very good at it.) and Tabatha discovered digiscrapping. Tab quickly transitioned into designing and began to design as ScrapsyGypsy after teaching herself how to tinker in Paint Shop Pro.

Now, there are two things you need to understand in order to “get” the evolution of the Bella Gypsy name. Tabatha loves The Lost Boys, and the character in the movie called Gypsy. Lena loves Jason Mraz and at the time that Bella Gypsy was formed, she was listening to his music nonstop.

When Tabatha visited Lena that year for Thanksgiving, she admired the doodles that Lena had drawn all over her dining room wall (which was painted with chalkboard paint).At the top of the wall, Lena drew a sign that said, “Bella Lena Cafe”. Jason Mraz has a song called Bella Luna and Lena truly believed he meant to sing Bella Lena. (Okay, admit it…it sounds a *little* bit like he’s singing Lena…) Every girl wants to believe a fella is singing to her 😉

Tabatha asked Lena if she’d be interested in learning about digital scrapbook designing and Bella Gypsy was born. They took the Bella from Lena’s world and the Gypsy from Tabatha’s world, and let them blossom together into the Bella Gypsy you know today. The day that Bella Gypsy was born, Lena sketched out their logo using a Sharpie and a piece of computer paper. She drew a moon, like in the song Bella Luna…and she drew stars, pulling from Tabatha’s username across the Internet, gypsystar. Tabatha scanned and extracted the logo, and they were in business.

A few years later, the sisters decided to drop the moon and stick with just the stars and logo for aesthetic reasons. There are hundreds of crisp, clean star designs that they could use for their logo but they choose to still use the imperfect little hand-drawn stars that Lena created in her tiny apartment all those years ago, to remind them of their very humble beginnings.

A lot has changed in 6 years. Paint Shop Pro has been replaced by Photoshop. Computer paper and Sharpies have been replaced by a Bamboo tablet at Adobe Illustrator. Hourlong tutorials have been replaced with styles and shortcuts. Some things remain the same, though. Namely that amazing feeling when inspiration strikes!

In 2008, Lena moved closer to Tabatha and now they both live in central Kentucky,  an hour apart. They get together all the time and secretly plot to take over the world.  Over the years, Lena has had to take breaks from Bella Gypsy, and Tabatha has had to take breaks from Bella Gypsy, but it has always been there for them, being a creative outlet and springboard for inspiration.  When Bella Gypsy began, Tabatha and Lena had 3 children between the two of them. Now Lena has 3 and Tabatha has 4…their hands {and hearts} are full.  It’s hard to find the time to get all the designing done, but together, they manage. It’s more fun when you get to work with your best friend!