Bonnie Bower Dennis' love of art and nature date from her childhood in upstate New York. As an adult, she had indulged both passions earning her degrees in biology and in art at Bates College in Maine and becoming a freelance artist and the wife of a marine biologist. Her work has been commissioned by such prestigious organizatiions as the Smithsonian Institute, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state of Texas, and National Estuary Program. Bonnie is the co-owner of BBD Creations, a company that produces limited editon prints, greeting cards, calendars and other hand crafted items.

Bonnie's original paper collages begin with her collecting hundreds of papers, from handmade cotton rag to paper bags - nothing is sacred. The idea for the composition starts with rough thumbnail sketches. These are refined to a detailed pencil line drawing, which is the exact size for the finished collage. She makes several Xeroxes of this drawing to use as the actual template for cutting, writing down paper choices for the final collage, and placing the cut pieces properly before the entire piece is glued down. Once the final design is cut, using the Xerox template and an X-Acto knife, the pieces fit together like a puzzle. She may also use a background of woven paper or add details, which are glued on top. From this point it becomes an exercise in engineering as to what gets glued down first. An original poem and/or "framing lines" are inked on acid-free bristol board and the collage is glued on to this to form the finished piece. Depending on how many metallic papers she's used, it can be up to a six color process run for the limited edition print. These are printed on acid-free, archival quality, 100 lb. white strobe silk cover. All proofs and final prints are examined, approved and signed by the artist.


BBD Creations consists of co-owners, Bonnie Bower-Dennis and Lynne Wells Niece. BBD Creations comes from a simple beginning. It began with Bonnie making color copies of her meticulously designed images, spray gluing them onto blank note cards, and packaging her home made products in household plastic wrap. While sharing an art gallery, her studio mate, Lynne encouraged Bonnie to sell her products on a larger scale. In mid 1999, the two artists took a risk and produced the first large scale printing of quilt cards, reassuring each other if they didn’t sell, the two could use the leftovers as Christmas cards until they were both ninety-nine years old! But upon designing, packaging and marketing the first quilt card packs, Bonnie and Lynne found BBD creations to be very popular, and also very marketable. Bonnie continued designing, with her artistic talents in both color and design prevalent with every product and card created. Lynne began to deviate from her own 3-dimensional works of art in clay and expand her repertoire into the business arena, running and managing the business side of BBD. Lynne designed the BBD website with a simple but vibrant presentation to enhance the beauty of Bonnie’s artwork. By 2004, BBD had multiple requests for quilt patterns based on Bonnie’s designs. Lynne and Bonnie asked Terri Kirchner to create a couple of quilts and patterns from BBD quilt designs. She has been the sole quilt designer for BBD ever since and has designed over 15 patterns for BBD Creations. BBD Creations has grown from an art studio based pursuit with a handful of vendors to a booming business with products in well over 500 individual stores, museums, and distributors all over the world, ranging from all fifty states in the United States, to Canada, Europe, and reaching as far as Australia.