Almost

Yup, we are almost empty nesters again. One gone, and one halfway gone....well he's gone, but will be home again on the weekend. So I sort of dedicate this card to ME...I can handle one more weekend...put the big girl panties on and get through it!

Okay....really I'm just kidding (kinda kidding). Some things I will REALLY miss, like having a live in pool boy who LIKED to clean the pool, and built in errand boys who would run to the grocery store for me at the drop of a hat, and a kitchen clean up crew who would empty the dishwasher everyday...but on the other hand, with cooler weather coming soon the pool will not get as much use, i won't need as many groceries for just hubs and I, and with just the two of us here, I only run the dishwasher every 3 or 4 days so it isn't as much of a chore to keep up. Now the truth is, they are looking forward to going back as much as we are, so that's good...we are all ready.

So I'm gonna put my big girl panties on, smoke a couple more racks of ribs and enjoy this long weekend.

So now I'm gonna gush over my card. ISN'T SHE THE CUTEST THING EVER! This is BIG GIRL PANTS in rubber by Mo Manning. And that sentiment is SO APPROPRIATE for SO MANY occasions. A total girl-to-girl card if I've ever seen one. She was stamped on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with the following copic markers:

E0000, 000, 00, 11, R20
E30, 31, 33, 35, 37, 40, 42, 50, 51, 55
BV000, G0000, 000, BG0000, 72

I shaded around the image with prismacolor pencil in ginger root and used Antique Linen distress ink on everything to give it the 'vintage' look. This is gonna be another one to part with because I kinda want to hang it at my desk at work with my other canvases! BUT...if you wanna see it LIVE, it will be hanging at the bella booth at Archivers Scrapfest in a couple weeks.
Now you still have LOTS of time to play along in our challenges next week. AJ Monday is to use a tag and Bellarific Friday is appropriately BACK TO SCHOOL!

see ya soon! Linda.

AJ Monday with Emily

This week our challenge was to use a stamp on our journal page and ever since taking this picture in Virginia last fall I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it....EXCEPT...I couldn't find my capture the moments stamp. You might think it is because I have too much stuff, while that may be true it was because I put this one away in a place where it didn't belong and didn't come across it until last week when I decided to reorganize my art and stamping supplies!

The stamp comes from Stamping Bella's Scrappy Words line and they are nice and large and PERFECT for art journaling.

I knew from the start that I wanted this page to be very clean and simple but still capture the colours in the photo. We were on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Charlottesville Virginia to see Dave Matthews Band last concert before taking a hiatus this year. We were told that we missed the fall colours by about a week but it didn't matter because it was ABSOLUTELY GORJUS up there! And heck, we were in Dave country and I was happy!

I started this page with Caran D'Ache water soluble pastels then softened everything off with gesso and finally added some stencilling with adirondak sprays. The next time I try to do this I WILL most definitely wear a glove because like an idiot I didn't want to overspray, so masked part of the background with my hand and sprayed denim blue color wash ALL OVER my hand. Don't try that at home, just saying...I had a blue hand for DAYS! It wasn't attractive.

Emily's challenge for next Monday is to use a tag on your page...hmmmmm, I do have a page in there already with a tag on it, should I use it, or should I create another one? Time will tell! Maybe I'll have TWO pages for next week.

Stick around because I have a couple new releases coloured up on a card and all ready to show you this week.

How do I decide?

You might wonder with SO many stamps in my arsenal how I decide on which one to colour. Well I'll tell you how I decided on this one....and it is no rocket science!
If you are new here, you may not know that I stamp, and colour, and paint, and do anything else crafty in my kitchen. YUP, no studio here! I have a limited amount of storage space and I don't like clutter so every so often I get in a clean and purge mood and that is where I was last week. There is a desk in our kitchen and two drawers are 'mine' and while I was cleaning them out I came across Mo's Rustic Windowbox and thought...hey, I can use this for the sketch challenge! That's how it happened!

I make a swift decision either by coming across a pre-stamped image, or a scrap of paper that is lying around and I DON'T waver from it. So yes, I have coloured this one before, but it was there, it was stamped and the inspiration just hit me so I went with it! But, I didn't want it to look EXACTLY like my last one so I did change up the colours of the flowers, window frame and box. And I think I like this one even better than my first one!

I went for a purple/pink/grey colour scheme this time finishing it up with some glitter on the flowers and Ranger Glossy Accents on the window panes. These are the copics I used:

BV0000, 000, 00, 20, YG23, 25, 67, G94
RV0000, 000, 00, 21, 13, 14, 19, 63, 09
BG000, 53, 70, Y13, B60, C0, 1, 2, 4

Next week our theme is BACK TO SCHOOL and nobody can be happier about that than ME! Although our twin boys are grown and 21 years old they are still in school and both were home for the summer. Now don't get me wrong...they are FANTASTIC kids but I am just out of practice of working all day and coming home to cook for four adults (who eat like six!), plus extra for leftovers! It was a LONG tiring summer for this babe and I am SO looking forward to throwing in a WW dinner in the microwave every so often and not having even one single dish that has to be washed, except for maybe my wine glass!

So I raise my wine glass to all the mom's out there who look forward to 'BACK TO SCHOOL'!

Better late than never!

I know, I know I said I would be back with a card and I did plan on having this posted yesterday, I REALLY DID...but life got in the way, and I got obsessed with drawing Suzi Blu faces....okay maybe the latter is what really was consuming my time! When I get on a roll, there ain't no stopping me and there was a look, a face, an age and an expression that I was trying to master and I just couldn't stop until I did it. Well I did it, and then I tried to do it again and I can't!!! It is amazing how such a slight move of the pencil can change the look of a face so completely.  And I find it difficult to sketch these faces without adding some shading or smudge with my pencil...I just can't draw that outline with one swoop, it takes me SEVERAL lines (and several erases) to get me where I want to be. But I'm okay with that because as long as I get to where I want to be in the end, it doesn't matter much how many lines and erases it took me to get there.

Let's move on to the card I promised you. When we had our heavy metal challenge the other week I made two cards, arivedercibella who I posted here and these cutie little peace HIGHTOPS.

I found them in my desk drawer and coloured them so long ago I never marked down the copics I used, but I highly suspect it was in the BG72, 75, 78 range along with some warm grey's. I paired them up with some Karen Foster brads THAT I HAVE HAD FOREVER and really liked the way it turned out. I do recall I was torn on which one to post for the challenge but I guess I was in a girly kinda mood and chose to go with a bella.

I WILL be back tomorrow with my sketch challenge card, but don't check TOO early because I have pre-housekeeper cleaning to do tonight so might not get to posting until later tomorrow morning! Sorry to make you wait! he he he!!!

'till tomorrow!

Linda



It's Art Journal Monday...

...and the theme that Emily gave us this week is circles! Come on! who doesn't love circles....really the only thing better than circles alone is matching them up with stripes or plaids. But I didn't do that...I just opened my little box of mixed media treasures and pulled out everything or anything that had a circle on it.

Then I got this Billy Preston song in my head....I KNOW I'm showing my age here, actually outright giving it away...and couldn't help myself but to write it all over my page! Silly, but you know what, that is what this is all about, having fun, getting creative, being silly, writing down the thought of the day, or a memory that would have otherwise been long forgotten. Thanks Emily for pulling this memory out of my head.

Now I must head on over to Emily's blog to see if she has her art journal Monday post up yet. OMG... I get sooooo inspired by seeing what everyone came up with and I am in awe of the creativity that has been hiding out there!

See ya in a couple days and YES it will be a card, I promise!

A little something on canvas today

Hiya everyone! Today I write this post to the tune of Dexter...yup....season 5 is in da house and I'm sure hubby is glad for the change of theme songs because he was starting to wear thin of the Criminal Mind music.

AND WOW, thanks for all the remedies on my mosquito bites, yes i tried hydrocortisone and benedryl, but I really got the most relief from a cold compress which gave quick, but short lived, relief to the swelling. It looks like only about 3 or 4  of the 15 bites will scar so I am pretty thankful for that.

Let's see, what else is new? I still don't have my new rubber so you gals with special requests will have to wait a bit longer. Today I thought while I was waiting I'd do something a little different with the rubber I already own and decided to tackle a canvas.

I painted and stenciled the background and had it all nice and pretty but when I pasted down the image which was stamped on white tissue it covered much of my pretty background. i wanted to start over, but I stuck it out and carried on painting all the flowers. This probably wasn't the best image to use on tissue because it was too hard to cut close so in trying to cover my tissue, I lost much of my stencilling in the background. The overall effect is quite drab and the picture actually looks much brighter than it really is.

Oh well, live and learn...I still enjoyed the process and learned a couple things along the way so it was not time wasted.

Hug-A-Bug Friday

Alright...I'm gonna be VERY upfront at the risk of offending any bug rights activists out there, but right now I just about wanna SQUASH all bugs from the face of the earth, especially if they are of the mosquito variety. Why you ask? Well, we were at our friends place out on lake St. Clair last Saturday and I have no less than 15 mosquito bites spread equally over both feet and ankles! And they itch! And not only that, but for the past couple years I have had HORRIBLE reaction to mosquito bites and they welt so badly that the skin breaks at the bite site and they ooze! As much as I wanna scratch them to the bone I don't touch them but no matter what I put on them I still end up with deep scabs that turn into scars. My legs look like they have been thru a war! My last major attack was a couple years ago visiting one of my hubby's friends who lives on the Detroit River...I still bare those scars! Maybe it is mosquito variety that live near the water that I am sensitive to! Who knows...but right now they are on my hit list, after centipedes of course....which I wish to become extinct in my lifetime.

Alright....on to some cute bugs! Our theme this week is HUGGABUGGS and I chose to colour up one of my fav's, Stamping Bella's bffABUGGS. They look so happy to be together and most of all, they don't look like they bite!

I'm not even gonna go into the markers that I used because I coloured over it so much with pencil to get it to match my basic grey hello luscious paper that the marker colours have become irrelevant. But I will say that I stamped them with memento ink on bella's BESTEST paper!

Next week our challenge will be a sketch. OH HOW WE ALL LUV A SKETCH and what a wonderful sketch we have from our Cathabella. So pull out ANY bella stamp and get going because the tough part has been handed to you. AND if you want to get fun in your journal, there is still time for Emily's art journal Monday and our theme is circles! I have a couple ideas running thru my head and you know I'll be playing along because I am beginning to cherish my art journal (it's getting CRUNCHY!!!!)

Let's see, what else? Oh, I've had three comments on what you want me to colour next and I have (hope I didn't miss anyone!)

1. coffee girls from Beth
2. shopping Uptown girls in GREEN from Margo
3. Anastasia from Bren

You are all in luck! These were all on my order list and will be the first ones I colour up when I get my rubber. If there is anything you would like me to see me colour, and yes, like Margo, you can even pick your colours, let me know and I'll get on it! Kinda like my own personal challenge here!

Till next time...Linda.

On the pot boy

I keep wanting to call him 'get off the pot boy'....hahahaaa...i wonder if it is because I live in a house full of men but that is all I am gonna say about that!

This is another new one from Stamping Bella's latest release, a Mo image called ON THE POT BOY...I love how he has a little book beside him, such a 'boy' thing. Oh the days of potty training....I remember them well. I bought them batman underwear and told them I would sew them a cape if they peed on the potty! It actually worked too.

As you might have guessed he was stamped on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with the following copic markers:

E000, 00, 01, 02, 11, 13, 40, 42, 43, 93, 97, 99, 39
R20, 24, 39 Y13, 32, YR20, 30, 31
YG91, 93, 95, 99, BG70, 72, 75, 53, BV000, W1, 4, 6

There you have it! Don't forget to play along in our HUGGABUGG challenge on friday and if the journal bug has hit you yet why don't you join us on Monday...it's all about circles!!!

Art Journal Monday on Tuesday again

Well, what did ya think of Stamping Bella's release yesterday? OMG....it was everything Emily said it would be AND MORE!!! My order is placed and now I wait, but hopefully not too long and now I just have to decide what to colour first!!!! I ordered almost everything so if there is anything you wanna see me colour up leave me a comment and I'll do it! Kinda like making supper, I don't mind doing it, but sometimes I just want someone to make the decision on what I should cook! And....have you been over to Paula's blog....she's got a giveaway going on so you may want to go check it out.

Okay....on to Art Journalling....I've said it before, I'm not your 'traditional' art journal type in that I don't write all over my pages, for me, it is just a place to play, try new stuff and just be creative. This weeks theme was collage and I had this face that I drew so I decided to create an outfit for her and plop her head on top. Oh what fun I had doing this one! The little flowers were punched out on various papers all from the same basic grey paper pack as the stripes using old SU punch. The funny thing is that I hated this paper and was ready to toss it but once I put it on there and gave it a wash of some gold paint I fell in love.

Then I didn't think it was 'collagey' enough so I did this. Cut the flowers and the fence free hand, added some paint (of course!) then got a little crazy with my white sharpie poster paint pen.

I have to say I AM partial to the first one but that's just me...I think it is the rich gold and red colours that I adore.

I'll be stalking Emily's blog until the post comes up because I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with this week! I'm having a BLAST doing this!

Spit Happens!

DID YOU SEE THEM YET????

Emily was either late to bed or early to rise because when I got up at 5am I saw that she already had the new release up! And ladies....SHE WAS NOT KIDDING US when she said it was the best EVAH!

NEW Mo's, NEW Green Bean Babies, NEW Lulu's (yes those FAB UPTOWN GIRLS are created by Lulu....COULD YOU DIE!), AND TWO NEW DESIGNERS!!! Three sisters has an edgy sketchy kind of style WHICH I LOVE and OUR VERY OWN MUCH LOVED PAULABELLA debuts her Artist@heart line....so clean, so contemporary....SO PAULA!

Now for a Mo....this is Spit Happens (LOL!) and if you've ever been around a baby you KNOW how true that statement is!

This little guy (girl?) was stamped on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with the following copic markers...just a tad bit of pencil on the image but all shading and ground was done with pencil.

E0000, 000, 00, 01, 02, 11, 13, 42, 43 C00, W0, 1, T1
R000, 20, 22, BV000, 02, Y15, YR23, YG0000, 21, 23, 25
G20, 40, 12, BG70, 72, 75, 45, 53, B41, 34, 45

Now get your buns over to Stamping Bella and get your cart full, but before you go....you just MAY want to hop on over to the blog because she has some wonderful coloured samples displaying on there all compliments of our uber talented design team!

Off to get inky on a break from the day job today.

Saving the BEST for last!

Meet Stamping Bella MADISON and her MARGARITA!

When Emily showed me this one I told her that she didn't ask my permission to use my image and motto! HAHAHAAA....seriously, I should get some of the royalties from this one.

Because it was going to be used in the paper pieRcing challenge for today I decided to pierce under the sentiment (which by the way, comes with the image) but I couldn't find my handy dandy piercing tool so I laid down a metal ruler. Well, as you can see, it slipped on me and I have a wonky line...oh well, look at what this girl is wearing, I really don't think she will care about a wonky line...she is probably too tipsy to notice!

Okay...enough of that! Are you sensing I LOVE her...she was stamped on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with the following copic markers. Pencils were ONLY used for the grounding and blue shading.

E000,00, 11, 21, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 31, 33, 53, 55

R20, 21 27, 43, BG000, RV00, 10, 11, 23, 55

V15, 17, 93, 95, G20, 40, 12, 82

YG61, Y00, 11, 35, YR30, 68, C0, T3, 5

WHEW! lotsa colours there! Next week our challenge is all about da bugs...not the creepy kind that have more than 8 legs and scare the **** out of me...the cute kind...like as in HUGABUGS! See ya all soon...I have more of the new release to be coloured up in the next couple days.

Meet the Uptown Girls

If you haven't been to Bloggabella in the last couple days you had better just skip on over what I have to say and hi-tail it on over there to meet the Uptown Girls. Yesterday Emily introduced you to Claudia and today she revealed Victoria and Juliette...and YOU must read her funny story...nobody can tell a story as good as Emily and she fesses up on how she manipulated me into colouring up these gals. Without further delay, meet Victoria and Juliette...and just so ya know...they also come with a sentiment that says "Girls just wanna have fun"...is THAT NOT THE TRUTH!

Now really, HOW STINKING CUTE ARE THESE GIRLS! I seriously think they are the most yummy delish TALL SKINNY GORJUS gals I have EVER laid my eyes on! Did I say skinny, yes I think I already said that.

In case you are wondering that would be me on the left...because A) she's got her fav glass of red with her and, B) it's is one of those BIG glasses like the kind you get at the Keg and C) strapless tight waisted dresses are a thing of my past (actually, maybe a thing of past dreams!)...OMG, I just cracked myself up!

Finally, CHECK OUT THOSE STRAPPY SHOES!!!!! "I" on the left am wearing a silver glittery pair just like the Jimmy Choo's that Kate wore when she wowed Hollywood (ya, I'm a Kate stalker) while my BFF on the right has on some shiney patent leather beauties.

I'm squeezing this post in on my lunch hour, so I'll be back later to list the copics I used....alrighty...I gotta get back to the day job.

Linda.

Cheers to everyone!

I've had such a wonderful weekend! Yesterday I spent the day with my BFF'S, Paula, Pauline, Lynn and Kathy at the Novi Stamping show. The show was not so great, lots of fav vendors not there this year, but the company was wonderful! I also found out on Friday that our classes at the Archivers Scrapfest at the Mall of America are SOLD OUT! OMG...SO excited! And today I spent the morning creating a background in my journal for one of my petite dolls that I have drawn with techniques I've learned in Suzi Blu's Petit Doll Academy...don't you just love the name of that class? I'm totally in LOVE with Suzi! HOW DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG TO FIND HER?

All of this excitement deserves a good glass of wine and a toast to the weekend...so Babe's...Cheers to a good weekend! There is no other bella besides Winobella that could help me celebrate the end of this wonderful weekend...and of course, we need a toast of Cheers to mark such a wonderful weekend.

Now it is confession time. See those little smudge lines and dots above and below the cheers sentiment? Well, the smudge line above the cheers was a stamping faux pas so I used one of my fine copic liners and added the three dots at the end of the line and repeated the pattern below the sentiment in an opposite direction! What do ya think? A decent save if I don't say so myself! ESPECIALLY because I stamped it directly onto m coloured image and there was NO WAY I was gonna start overl.

I stamped her on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured her with the following copic markers. Of course, I added some shading with pencils, and sponged the edges with versamagic chalk ink.

E000, 00, 11, 41, 42, 43, 44
y23, 26, 28, RV21, 13, 63, 66, 55
R37, 39, YG61, 95, 97, BG0000, 11
B60, C2

I'll be back tomorrow with some doodling in my art journal! A new fav pastime! And don't forget, our Bellarific challenge this week is paper pieRcing....so get out that pointy tool and pierce some paper!

toodles...(or doodles!)...Linda.

Heavy Metal

Happy Friday Babe-a-roonies! Today's challenge was to use metal on our card and I had NO problem with this because I have metal trinkets coming out of my wazoo! I most often use them on masculine cards but this time I thought I'd pair some up with arivedercibella.

Doesn't she look like she's taking off to Paris or Italy all ready to do some shopping and dining and drinking some really good wine! Ahhhhhh.....okay, wake up Linda...dream is over.

I stamped her on bella's BESTEST paper and paired her up with some paper from an older Basic Grey 6x6 pad which I don't know the name of because I no longer have the cover. I used the following copic markers to colour her up, added some shading with pencil and the sponging around the edge was with Distress Ink in Pumice Stone.

E000, 00, 11, 31, 34, 37
G40, 12, 82, BV11, W0, 2, 4
BG70, 72, 75

Our challenge next week will be PAPER PIERCING....use a needle, a piercing tool, maybe your sewing machine with no thread but get some teeny tiny holes in there somewhere and play along!

That's it for today! Have a happy Friday and a wonderful weekend!

Art Journal Monday on Tuesday

You know that I just HAD to play along in Art Journal Monday...but actually, I didn't have to do anything for it because I had already worked on the page at Emily's last weekend. It's messy...but oh so pretty and the texture is just amazing when you run your hand over it.

I started by gluing down some Art Tissue that I bought at Curry's...don't ask me what the difference is between that and regular dollar store tissue except this does not have a shiny side like regular tissue. The colours are really vibrant but you can create new colours just by gluing another colour on top, sorta like mixing colours of the rainbow. Then I applied a light wash of paint over top to 'tone it down'. Finally I took some white tissue that was torn into strips and I got them all sticky and gluey with Mod Podge and pasted them down in circular motion for the flower heads. I sort of did the same for the leaves, but just 'pushed' them into shape with the end of my paint brush. After it was all dry I took some PITT pens to add some shading and colour to the flowers. I love the softned look of that!

And that's it! I'll be heading over to Em's blog to see the wonderful tissue creations and what she has in store for our next Art Journaling challenge! OMG...these are SOOOOOOO fun!!!! And I've got another Bella for this Friday's challenge for you Bella fans out there.

See ya later!

Have you ever felt like this?

Here is the scenario, you work all day, and so does everyone else in the house...and when they get home from work the first thing out of their mouth is what's for supper? But yet, if I get home after everyone else and I ask the same question I just get blank stares. Now even though I DO NOT serve...it's self serve around here...sometimes I feel like I-deserve-a-tip-a-bella.

Of course she was stamped on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with copic markers. The blue check is an OLD piece that i found in the stash but it had no name on it and the 'quilt' patterned paper is a piece of 12x12 from girls paperie.

These are the markers I used but you know I finished her up with pencil, and also added some sponging with versamagic chalk inks.

E000, 00, 11, 21, 31, 34, 37
RV00, 10, 11, 2, B000, 02
G20, YG21, 13, R24, C2

Oh ya...the brad is basic grey, flower is maya road, scalloped edge punch is EK Success and well, you all recognize spellbinders by now!

Don't go too far because I'll be back tomorrow with my Art Journal Monday page AND for you bella fans, I have another lovely little lady to post on Friday....AND ....i just may sneak in with something else before then.
See ya later!....and for my Canadian friends, ENJOY THE MONDAY HOLIDAY! (there is NOTHING better than a Monday holiday!)