Linda Heavens

Another Friday, and another card class update

2012-01-27T05:00:00.000-05:00

I have a couple bits of news today...okay...maybe more than two bits of news. First is that my class is full at Pickle and we have secured Saturday March 3rd date for a second class. Call the store to sign up. Second I want to show you our second class card, which I sneakily worked into this weeks Bellarific Friday sketch because I'm a busy babe and had to multi-task last weekend so you guessed it, another Bella! This card we will do a Mo because my observations from last class is that you all can ROCK those Mo's so this time up we are gonna colour Sorry Shanna. All class supplies can be found at the end of this post!

Again, we will start with copics and add some depth with pencils. If you are missing any colours be sure to call or drop in at Pickle to top up your stash and if you want to learn to create some soft shading around the image be sure to have B0000, B00 and a colourless blender! I really think you are gonna like this!

Next week our challenge is Vanentine's...now you don't have to make a traditional valentine's day card, anything with pink/red/white, or a love card of any sort will do. The ONLY rule is to use a stamping bella image. To answer some questions...the 'winner' of bella bucks will be drawn from SCS...so upload your card to your gallery using the keyword BELLARIFFIC0412. Head on over to the forum to find this weeks challenge thread to tell us you entered. AND if you want your card to be featured on Emily's blog, email it to her by Thursday night at 5pm the night before the challenge airs! Although this is not necessary to win, It's like a double whammy to get your card featured.

Hmmmm....now that I have typed this, in between talking to my mom, emailing with Paula and Pauline, and chatting with my hubby, I can't remember what those other two tidbits of info were! There is a name for that because I know someone has sent me an email on that subject. It has something to do with aging, multitasking, and not being able to remember what you started out to do. There is an acronym for it...but sadly, i can't remember what it is!

Welcome to the senior years! I think I have arrived!

Linda

Pickle Classes are BACK!

2012-01-23T20:37:00.000-05:00

Yes, for all the locals here I will be teaching a copic class at Pickle...no certification or anything 'formal' like that (I'm, not certified!)...more of a 'this is how Linda does it' type of class. My classic style of starting with markers and finishing with pencils. It gets me the best of the two things I love, colour saturation and texture! Of course I had to throw in some bella goodness into the class and this week I'll be posting both of the cards I'll be doing with a total list of class supplies at the end of this post so you can start getting those supplies in order. Remember, you must come with your own supplies to this class.

First up is Birdie Jane.

There were a couple different ways I could have approached the folds in her skirt, but I decided to go simple to give you all a chance to create long strokes of colour without paying attention to detail.. Another thing I am going to show you is how to create some soft shading around your image using copics. The biggest problem I hear in class is that you all have trouble doing that with pencil so I thought we would give copics a try this time. DON'T FORGET TO BRING THAT BLENDER because you will need it!

Class details:
Where: The Paper Pickle
When: Saturday February 18th
Supplies: listed below (this is a complete class list that will cover both images)

copics:
colorless blender
E0000, 000, 00, 11, 35, 37, 51, 53, 55
BG10, 11, 32, B0000, 00, YG0000
G82, 85, R20, 30, RV32, 34, C4

prismacolor pencils:
904 Light Cerrulean Blue
905 Aquamarine
1004 Yellow Chartreuse
1081 Chestnut
1029 Mahogany Red
930 Magenta
French Grey 50% and 90%
White

Sharpen those pencils and juice up those markers and I'll see you soon!

Linda.

What's your fav?

2012-01-20T06:00:00.009-05:00

Our challenge this week over at Blogabella was to use one of our fav Stamping Bella images. really? I have to pic a fav? So I decided to go with my current fav line which are the uptown girls and chose an image that hasn't seen ink yet...this is uptown girl CLAUDIA has a candy. Do you like how I just used a portion of the sentiment so it would fit in my tag? But don't look too close, because I did get just a smidge of overflow ink, however, not enough for me to trash it and try again.

As with all my uptown girls, she is on a large 5x7 card, stamped with memento ink on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with copic markers. I added some shading with prismacolor pencils and gamsol and they really did come in handy on the candy. After I coloured it with markers, it was too pink to match my paper...No worries!....a bit of some deeper orange on there with pencil blended out with gamsol altered the colour perfectly.

What did ya think of the release and Emily's new artists? It was a great release with a little something to please everyone I thought. Now me, I am a little smitten with little matilda and romana, but LOVE tHE cool sophistication of the Jane Davenport line. Can't wait to get my hands on them and hopefully you can't wait to see them all coloured up soon.

Next week we are taking the pressure off and going back to a sketch. I really think we need a shout out to our fantastic Ebru for making these for us so go give her some love this week. Remember to upload your image to the Stamping Bella SCS forum using the keyword BELLARIFFIC0312. And to make our gallery the BEST on SCS, add the keyword StampingBella.

Now for a puppy update, Bessie had her CCL (equivalent to a human ACL) surgery yesterday and is resting comfortably at home. Her spirit is totally broken because she is an active ole' gal and I'm sure doesn't quite understand why she can't run and jump and play and bark at all the dog walkers in 'her' field nextdoor. On a good note, when I came home from work today she perked right up to see me and managed to eat something. Two weeks of restricted movement, then we can start trying to get her to use the leg again. I love my sassy little dog and can't wait till she has her old personality back. (i say that now, but I may regret that in a few weeks when I'm trying to get something done and she shoves a toy in my leg).

Sneak Peek Monday

2012-01-16T06:00:00.033-05:00

Did ya hear? Did ya hear?

Stamping Bella is having a release tomorrow and from the little tid bits I have seen on her blog it is gonna be a doozer! One thing about Emily is that she is VERY sneaky and doesn't even reveal to her DT everything she is releasing. We have to wait with baited breath just like everyone else. But she did give us some bits and pieces on her bloggy, and if you follow her on twitter, she may have even spilled something there too. Now me and twitter, I'm not a tweeter. I do have an account, and have the app on my phone, and follow two people MAYBE, but I have not embrassed twitter and have no plans to do so in the near future. For those who do though....and want to follow Emily....check out her post here.

Back to the release...and one thing I DO know is that there are gonna be some uptown gals in there. If you have been on SCS lately and taken a close look at the Stamping Bella banner you may have guessed this already....there are new Uptown Gals in da house and I'd like to introduce you to Felicity and Blair.

Can you guess which one is me? I'll give you a hint...I don't eat cupcakes! I prefer to enjoy my sweets in a liquid form. And I think my gal may have been holding a bottle of champagne, but I don't drink that, so I 'altered' it into a bottle of Merlot! It's all about perspective! And all about ME when it comes to these Uptown Girls because I see just a little bit of me in every one of them.

They were stamped on bella's BESTEST paper with memento ink and coloured with copic markers and prismacolor pencils. Be sure to check out all the other babe's blogs today becaues there are many more sneak peeks to be seen! You can find a link to all of them on my sidebar. And we will be posting these up on SCS and if you want a 'quick glance' you can see them all by searching on the keyword SBJANRELEASE in the gallery.

AJ Monday is BACK!

2012-01-15T19:30:00.000-05:00

YAY!!!! I don't think I have messed around in my art journal since the beginning of December and this was a much needed change of pace.

Emily's theme for this week was "RESOLUTION" and I don't make resolutions, I am much more a 'go with the flow' type of person but that didn't stop me. I put all my 'carding' stuff away, cleared off my space, and pulled out my mixed media products. On this page I mainly stuck with sprays, stencils and gesso. Specifically, S.E.I. tumble dye sprays (LOVE THEM!) and crafters workshop stencils.

One tip I learned from Roben-Marie is to work on plain newsprint paper. Use it to catch the 'over spray' or to blot off your stencils. In the end you are left with some lush 'inky paper' which can be put to use in so many ways. Lately I have been using it to die cut out a word for my page and this time I used a Quickutz alphabet for the word resolve. I love how the 'inky' paper ties in the colours of the page and lets me add a focal word that doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.

I was also pretty excited that I got to use my new Stamping Bella grungy sets that are OH SO PERFECT for art journalling....journal your art out moody fingers and journal your art out grungy set #1. LOVE both of these and hope to put them to use in a card soon.

Now if you click on the pic, it should blow up large enough to read my resolution, which is NO resolution at all! But just to take life one day at a time and enjoy the things that make me happy day by day. Once they don't make me happy anymore, I'm gonna move on to something that does.

I'm an easy rider!

Linda.

It a Sunday morning coffee post

2012-01-15T09:36:00.000-05:00

I haven't done one of these in a while. Sitting here with my coffee, watching the news, looking at the snow (ugh) in my backyard. It feels kinda comfortable.

Still nursing the princess here, she is scheduled for surgery on Tuesday. It's gonna be a long 6 weeks but by summer she will be good as new. If you missed my last post, the princess is Bessie our West Highland Terrier and she blew out the ACL in her right hind leg. The vet said with feisty little dogs like her, if they blow one (which she did back in 2009) they are very likely to blow the other.

On to other things, I have been anxious to colour up Stamping Bella's SHOPPERS united since I got it but with Christmas cards in full force it kept being pushed aside. But now that I've done it, I can't wait to colour up FRIENDS united because it was really fun to do. And I think I might even use the same layout because it works really well with this image. Whenever I have a busy image it can be daunting to decide what colours to use. That is when I look for a striped paper to pull my colour scheme from and this one is from Basic Grey hello luscious. A subtle background paper, a little peek of the stripes pulls everything together without being too busy. I love the look.

I used copics on this one with some added prismacolor pencils for shading. I also tried to keep my colouring and shading a little sketchy looking to compliment the image. It is okay for me to say I really LOVE this card!

Our first bellarific friday of the year was awesome, and last night I went and read some of the chatter in the forum. So fun to see everyone coming back there.

Now I've got soup to make for this week's lunches and hope to get a little messy with some Art Journalling this afternoon. It's been a while so it should be a nice break, I'm feeling something with a floral theme coming on. And Emily's AJ Monday theme this week is 'resolution'. I don't actually make resolutions so we'll see how that goes. But I do have an idea floating around and may pull out my quote books to look for something to go along with it.

That it for today, but i'll be back tomorrow with something exciting!

Oh, it's been a long day....

2012-01-13T17:24:00.000-05:00

....of technical difficulties, both at work and at home. I called in three tickets to our support desk today, and I probably don't ever call one in a month! Then I couldn't upload to splitcoast because a) my password was messed up, and b) my picture was too large. I tried THREE TIMES to shrink it and finally got it there. So now I know what I need to do.

Then to top it off, I just got home from the Vet and my girl, Bessie, blew her knee out and needs surgery on Tuesday. Those darn squirrels! She took off after a squirrel, took a quick turn and that's the end of the story. She blew out her other knee back in 2009 and the Vet said that with feisty dogs like her, if they blow one, it is only a matter of time before they blow the other. So I've been carrying her around for the last two days because she is really having trouble walking. We've had a lot of couch-time bonding! But that's okay, that what mom's are for! hahahaaa! I know, only a pet owner can really relate to that.

With all of my trauma behind me, I can move on to business, the REAL reason why I am here, BELLARIFIC Friday and this week we had fab sketch from our bella-babe-a-sister Ebru. She is so multi talented and her sketches are right up there along with the best of them. I decided to take Stamping Bella's Uptown Girl Posh has a Present and crop her off with a spellbinders oval die so I could use her in the sketch.

Then I paired her up with some Basic Grey Out of print so I could put her in a hot pink dress created with a variety of copic RV's. I'll admit, I used a lot of pencils on her, especially for the prezzies, so I didn't keep track of the copics.

Next week, is all about fav's....pull out your FAVOURITE bella image and ink it up. And if you haven't heard our challenges have moved over to the Stamping Bella Forum on Splitcoast Stampers.

Here are the deets:

this is the link in the forum to our Jan 20th challenge
be sure to use the keyword BELLARIFFIC0212 as a keyword because Em will search by THAT keyword to pick a winner
AND to make our gallery the bestest on SCS also add the keyword of StampingBella (one word) and when we want bella inspiration we can all just search on that keyword.

Whew! I think that's it for today. I do have another image coloured, something a little different! Hoping I have a chance to get it together tonight if I get a break from nursing my puppy girl!

we're baaaaaack!

2012-01-06T06:02:00.001-05:00

on SCS that is! Yup, after a bit of a hiatus, Stamping Bella is back on Splitcoast Stampers.... So what do ya think? Are you all happy about this. I know I need to get my gallery up to date, because I have also been on a bit of a SCS hiatus and haven't uploaded anything there in quite a while but you can find some of my early works by looking for the link on my sidebar. BUT, if you are gonna look, be kind because some of them might be a bit cheezy and I didn't take pics in my early days, I scanned, so they are pretty washed out.

For now, I have another Mo....and for some odd reason I like to do things in pairs (maybe it has something to do with raising twins! LOL!) So after doing big CHAIR girl, I decided to do big CHAIR boy and I'll fess up, this little guy is my fav of the two. Maybe it is the red chair that I love, or the combo of denim blue and red which is one of my secret fav colour combo's. I don't use it much, but when I do, I'm always happy.

He was stamped on bella's BESTEST paper with black memento ink and coloured with the following copic markers.

E000, 00, 02, 11, 31, 33, 35, 13, 37
R22, 24, 29, 59, BG000
B0000, 00, 41, 32, 34, 06, 91, 97, 02
C00, 1, 3, 6, 8, BLACK

And for you copic fans...did you happen to see that copic is coming out with 12 new colours again for winter CHA! Ya...I'll be getting them....(Emily...did you hear that...that means you have to get them in and save a set for me!) you can find the deets here on Debbie Olson's blog. I {heart} Debbie Olson!

that's it for today...'till next time...
Linda

Holidays are done, are you back in the swing yet?

2012-01-03T23:15:00.000-05:00

I'll say I am NOT.

After almost 2 weeks vacation I did manage to hit the pillow by 10 last night but was up at 4, 4:30, 5, and 5:30 and when the alarm went off at 5:45 I was in no mood to get out of bed. In the last two weeks I've come to learn that my 52yr old self likes to sleep till 7am! Unless of course it is New Years Day when I have been out till 1am the night before and I'll sleep till 9! O-M-G...sleeping till 9 makes me wake up and think I have lost half my morning! With working full time, I really don't like to spend my non-working hours sleeping because there are so many other things I would rather do. And I'm a morning person so I'm most productive in the pre-noon hours and sleeping till 9 totally messes up my day.

Now that you know my sleep habits I'll change topics to cards and I do have one to show ya...I pulled out some Stamping Bella's Mo images this week and during what little down time I had I managed to colour up a couple. First up is big CHAIR girl and I decided to colour the chair in a non-conventional turquoise colour. I picture her bedroom is all turquoise and pink and that was my inspiration for the colours. Some glitter on her pink panties and socks with some liquid applique dots on her dress makes her a total girly-girl.

She was stamped with memento ink on bella's bestest paper and coloured with the following copic markers:

e000, 00, 11, 21, 31, 33, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44
e47, 37, 17, 27, 53, 55, CO, 2, 4, W4
R000, 12, 00, 20, 21, 22, 24, 32, E08
BG000, 01, 02, 11, 07, 09, 45, BV00

That's it for tonight, but don't forget about our sketch for Jan 19th....our Ebruabella came to the plate and created us PHENOM sketches for 2012 so if you are a sketch gal....just stick around because it's gonna be a good year. Well, that's it for today, hitting the pillow to get up early for another day at the 'gas'

Small Valise Gift card holder

2012-01-01T19:55:00.000-05:00

In other non card related works of art I came across a blog called The Gentleman Crafter via Tim Holtz. He makes some pretty amazing projects out of paper and had a tutorial for this small Valise gift card holder. Unfortunately he took down the post with the tutorial so I'm wondering if he is tweeking it up. No matter, I got lucky enough to view it while it was still there and created these little pieces of 'luggage' for the hubs young nephews. They got gift cards for Chapters and EB games which is fun, but not as much fun as finding them in here burried under chocolates.

The outside was adorned with a chain that had a little snowflake and their initial

the inside has a holder on the right for the gift card and on the left a spot where I
slipped in a tag.

Pretty darn cute aren't they!!!! I will say, they were very time consuming but in such a good way I made one for Kim at Pickle too! OooooH....I'm seeing emails pop up from Paula and Pauline...better go check out what was going on....I saw the word shopping in there which has really perked my interest!

Framed Florals

2011-12-30T09:47:00.000-05:00

I did say I wasn't busy making cards, but I still was busy. A while back Emily was selling these little crewel embroidery kits and I thought I'd give it a try. I realized I can do a lot of crafty things but embroidery is not one of them and this little dismal looking piece of work in an adorable frame was sitting on my desk at work. Everyday I would look at it and think I really gotta repurpose that cute frame.

So out came one of Paula's framed florals which fit perfect in the opening. YES, that would be our Paula and Emily transformed some of her beautiful drawings into rubber for all of us to enjoy. I coloured these pansies in a variety of purple and coral's and used primarily pencils here. I quickly picked a paper to used for the background and now I don't like this one so I'll probably change it up. There is a glass over this, but I took it off to get a better picture.

Now THIS is gonna make me happy at work.

Smashing Good Fun

2011-12-29T14:34:00.000-05:00

Ya, I caved....I bought a smashbook. Emily has been carrying this line for a while now and told me I needed it. Well, I hedged, like I normally do but I ventured into Pickle a couple weeks ago and now Kim has them and I had a weak moment and caved. And I'm so glad I did. It is like scrapbooking for dummies. I have scrapbooked in the past but when I look at that blank page my mind goes as blank as the paper. This is different, it almost prompts you and that is what I think I needed. And of course, if I was gonna smash, I needed the little Fuji instax camera that Emily and Ebru went crazy for so I had a bit of Christmas day fun and created this page.

To explain "this is now", the opposite page says "that was then" so I'm gonna dig out some early xmas photo's to smash on that side. And what better way to compliment my mini instant pictures than to use Stamping Bella's grunge filmstrip die from the Journal your Art out set. I notice that she has called it set #1 and I'm hoping that means there will be more sets like it in the future.

As for the other things on the page, the trees are Tim Holtz, "this is now" are quickutz and christmas was stamped from a VERY old River City alphabet set that I've had for years. Like so long that alphabet dies were still just a dream in someone's mind.

While I haven't made any cards for the last couple weeks, I have kept crafty in other ways like decorating my house for the holidays

little Baby Jesus in his manger that was always one of my fav things as a kid and
a few years ago my mom gave it to me. He used to go under our tree, but this year
I've got him on display on an end table

When I moved to Chatham, my mom thought I should have a little tree so she
bought me this one to put on a tabletop. I've had it for over 25 years and it has not
missed a Christmas yet. I do however have to get more ornaments for it though because
mice got to it this year. The quilt hanging on the wall was made by ME! Yup in my
quilting days I made this skinny santa quilted wall hanging. It hasn't surfaced for years
but I thought it was time to bring it back out. I love skinny santa's.

I even decorated the light fixture hanging in our dining room. The glass
egg shaped ornaments I made a few years ago and this year I made the
round ones. They are decorated with a product called LuminArte which
is a thin glue like liquid you pour into the ornament and then add mica
like powders that stick to the glue. It is pretty cool and no matter what
you do, no two ornaments look the same.

This little tree is in my living room. Our other big tree is in the family room
and I don't really have room in here for a tree that large. And if you look to the
left, you'll see my little collection of Westie poo's! Love my puppy!

That's it for my decorating. I'm sure for some people, this is pretty slim but I don't like clutter so this is just enough to make it a little more festive around here.

Our regular Bellarific Friday's will start up again on Jan 13th and by popular demand we will be featuring a lot more sketches....like LOTS more. I hope Dana, our commander in chief, doesn't slap my wrist but I'm gonna give you a little Chrismas surprise and release our FIRST SKETCH OF THE YEAR! So no excuses, I'm sure you all got some new crafty stuff that you are dying to break into and I'm giving you two weeks to email your card to Emily! Go get inky!

I'll be back tomorrow with a little NON Christmas NON Winter project I completed over the holidays.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T10:47:00.000-05:00

Seems like I have been away forever, but it has been a busy week here in the Heavens household. I worked Monday and Tuesday then spent the last three days getting in last minute decorating and shopping and cleaning for our family gathering here this afternoon.

Stuffing is made and the turkey is staring me in the face waiting to get dressed to go in the oven. Oh and my new Scentsy is burning bright with the scent of honey pear cider. Kim from Pickle gave it to me and can you say LOVE! I LOVE this thing!!!! It is the best gift I have ever received EVER! Seriously, I think I want one for every room in my house all with different scents in them. I was browsing the catalogue online this morning and I've got my next one already picked out!!!! OH I can't wait!

Now for my last Christmas card of the year (maybe!) I have another Stamping Bella's Mo's door with wreath. And I couldn't help but make another one of Kitty's wreath's either. The white one went to my mom and this one goes to my inlaw's. It has a more rustic look to it with a red door and wood background created with a Sizzix Tim Holtz embossing folder. I like the Sizzix folders so much better than the cuttlebug because they are just a bit larger and work better for my usual 5 1/2" square cards and they seem to have a deeper emboss as well. Gotta love everything Tim.

Well gals (and maybe even some guy's?) that's all I have time for now. Hope you all have a wonderful holiday and I'm off to wrestle my turkey.

Fyi...we are on Bellarific Friday hiatus until the new year and poor Emily has been knocked out with the flu for two weeks so go leave her some love and tell her we've missed her!

Uptown girls are allowed to be late, aren't they?

2011-12-16T22:54:00.000-05:00

I have only 3 more days at the 'gas' before I am off for two weeks (less one day) of holidays! I lost that one day because I took a day off a couple weeks ago to get some Christmas cards done. Since I had to work Monday anyway, working Monday and Tuesday was not so much of a big deal.

I'm certainly looking forward to some time off though. It has been a crazy hectic year because my hubby has been travelling a LOT, which thankfully is ending, and this babe needs a break from everything. I'd like to say I plan to spend my days watching movies, cuddling with my pooch, drinking tea (or cappuccino) and just relaxing my days away. However, if you know me, you know that wouldn't last and I might do that for a day then get busy into some reorganizing project. Or maybe vaccuum every square inch of my house with my new Dyson Animal! I know when I go back to work the first three months are gonna be hectic so I need some time to recharge however I decide to do that.

Work and life aside, we had an awesome sketch this week. One of my fav sketches by the way and I have used variations of it numerous times in the past but never with Stamping Bella's Quinn.

Isn't she just the cutest thing EVAH!!!!! I know this is a repeat, but I can't help myself. I have to join in with Paula's Uptown Girl support group. And I have a special person who will get this card from us along with her new black Uggs. Since purple is her fav colour, black uggs with a purple coat was the colour scheme I had to go with.

I stamped her on bella's BESTEST paper and used the following copics, along with some shading with prismacolor pencils and gamsol.

E000, 00, 34, 44, 49
RV00, 10, 23, R21, 83, 85, 89
V01, 12, 15, 17, N1, 3, 5, C4, 6, 8, 9

Bellarific Friday will be on hiatus for the next couple weeks but we will be back in the new year with new challenges incorporating many of your suggestions. And just because there is no challenge, I will still be here so pop in and take a peek.

till next time, Linda

White door with wreath

2011-12-14T18:40:00.000-05:00

I've been obsessed with KittieKraft lately. I used to follow her blog years ago and she kinda dropped off my radar but something brought me back to her in the past week and I think the stars were with me when that happened. I had just coloured up Stamping Bella's Mo's door with Wreath and was pondering over the wreath when I came across this INCREDIBLE wreath that Kitty made with a Martha Stewart punch and the stars aligned! I got busy punching and glueing following her instructions and I ended up with a BE-U-TI-FUL wreath to adorn my door!

I wanted this door to be white with just a hint of green to pick up the colour of the trim so after stamping on bella's BESTEST paper these are the copics I used, but I will say, I did do quite a bit of tweaking and shading with pencils!

C00, 0, 1, 7, 9, N0, 1, 2, 3, 5
YG91, 93, 61, E81, 87

I'd better scoot cause hubs isn't home and the princess (that would be the DOG, Bessie) is needing some attention. But she will have to wait JUST A MINUTE MORE because did you know that Emily is having a TRIPLE BUCKS EVENT this week! I think it might be because of all the love she got last week that has made her weak! So if you play this week you have a chance at $30 bella bucks and if you leave a comment on this post you will be entered for another $30 bella bucks. LIKE SHUT THE FRONT DOOR! so comment on this post, and play this week and you could possibly win $60 bella bucks!

See ya Friday for the challenge! Off to make more xmas cards...WHEW....ALMOST DONE!

2011 - the year I found my muse

2011-12-12T17:00:00.001-05:00

muse: verb, noun

Definition: (v.) to think about or ponder something deeply; (n.) the source of inspiration for an artist

Emily's AJ Monday this week was to use letters or numbers (or both) on your page. I pondered (mused!) over it for a few days and yesterday I settled on the 2011....the year I found my muse.

It might not be one of my most fav pages I have done, but I think it means the most to me. I spent an entire year pondering over this art journal thing, reading lots of blogs, experimenting and trying to find my comfort zone. This year I took a few online classes from some of my fav mixed media artists and I think I'm starting to find my groove. I've realized that I will never be a Kelly Kilmer, as much as I love her work, it is not my style. I don't know if I have a style yet, I'm still experimenting...and enjoying the journey.

Don't stray toooo far because I'll be back Wednesday with Mo's door with wreath and you are not gonna wanna miss this one because I did something a little different this year.

hehehehee! ....Later, Linda.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

2011-12-09T06:47:00.000-05:00

NOT!

For my family, Christmas together means 1 hour commutes for most of us, except for the one who is hosting. So I don't dream of a white Christmas, I dream of clear dry roads for everyone who has to drive an hour or more on the highway to spend the day with their families.

That is my wish, and this is my card, Stamping Bells's snowman and a cardinal by Mo Manning.

As always, I stamped this chilly guy on Bella's BESTEST paper in black memento ink and in addition to a combo of warm and cool grey's for the snowman these are the other copic colours I used:

G40, 82, YG67, 63, 99

All shading was done with prismacolor pencils and gamsol and I am pretty sure I used my cerulean blue around the snowman to celebrate prisma bringing back that colour. It is one of my fav's!

Our challenge next week is a sketch which will come in handy for those last minute holiday cards you need to get finished. I know I still have about 10 to make so I'll be sure to whip up a couple using this classic and timeless sketch! I LOVE a sketch challenge!

On a final note, today is Friday here in Southwestern Ontario and a Friday night in the Heavens household means that I am gonna get a break from cooking and we will either go out for pizza or get Thai take out and I'll spend the evening with my art supplies and my journal coming up with something creative for Emily's AJ Monday.

till next time, Linda

Bizmark

2011-12-07T23:04:00.000-05:00

Hiya! I planned on posting this a couple days ago but life got in the way. Christmas party, leakly roof blistering the paint on my kitchen ceiling, pizza at Mom's (Windsor pizza to boot!!!!), and a retirement party has kept me busy over the last few days. And if you are wondering why I am boasting about Windsor pizza it is because it THE BEST PIZZA this side of Old Forge, PA where I had the best pizza of my life on one of our Dave Matthews tour dates.

Gosh I missed Dave this year and I can only hope that the band will be announcing tour dates for next year real soon. He brings us to places we would never dream of going and I have great food experiences at 'almost' every place we have visited. Ya...I'm a big time foodie! And I have to throw the 'almost' in there because as we sat in one place having THE WORST hotdog of my life, our son texted me asking where the Thai take out menu was! YA....I was NOT happy, and to top it off hubs rubbed it in that I left them too much money for food! No worries...hubby has paid big time for that because now when we travel I use my trusty Urbanspoon iPone app to find us a great restaurant that does not serve hot dogs!

Alright...with that out of my system I can move on to Stamping Bella's Bismarck by Mo Manning. Isn't he just the cutest thing EVER!

I tried to get him to be a more 'blonde' colour but my copics got the best of me and he ended up a little more brown than I had hoped for. Then I had a tradegy and after he was all coloured up I was reinking my R22 copic and i dropped it getting a nice big blotch of red in the upper right corner. I was not going to let my time go to waste so I thought it was a good opportunity to add the metallic frame with the Verve sentiment. The hardest part was finding a sentiment in my stash that would fit into the frame because it had to be tiny! Thank goodness I have a LARGE stash of Christmas sentiments.

Mistakes aside, I stamped him with memento Rich Cocoa on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured him with the following copic markers:

R14, 22, 24, 29, 59, YR30, 20
YG45, 67, 99, W00, 0, 1, 2, 4
E30, 41, 42, 50, 51, 53, 23, 44, 47
C00, 1, 2, 5

That's it for today, I'll be back on Friday with my white challenge card.

AJ Monday - Create

2011-12-05T09:02:00.000-05:00

It is AJ Monday, and it's raining here in Chatham, and I have the day off! YAY!!!! And I am totally okay with the gloomy rainy day because I plan on just hanging out here and putting a big dent in my Christmas card to do list.

While I have things that must get done, I did take a time out last night to just create for no particular reason. Well, maybe one reason and that is to play in Emily's AJ Monday.

I used my typical sprays, dies, gesso and molding paste. But what I really like about this page is that I made use of my 'inky paper'. That is a Roben-Marie term for the newsprint she puts under her page as she works on it. Sometimes she uses printed paper, like dictionary paper, or sometimes just plain newsprint like I did. It is great for absorbing excess spray, or blotting off and it gets all inky and messy and was great for cutting out my word. Speaking of that word, I pulled out one of my most fav alphabet dies of all time, Quickutz Washington Grand.

That's about it for today, lots to do here (#1 is to clean up my mess from last night) so I'd better get busy. Be sure to check out Emily's AJ post sometime today because there are always great ideas to be found.

Lulu's snowman 2011

2011-12-02T12:50:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone is well today, we had torrential rainfall this past week and we have a wicked leak in our roof, over my kitchen table. Thankfully the ceiling has not come down but it is not pretty...we need a roofing guy here ASAP! What I am most mad about is that we will have to have the ceiling repaired and then I'm gonna have to paint. Me no wanna paint!

Enough whining...how 'bout a card. And surprise surprise! It's another Holiday card, but I have a good excuse because that was our challenge and I still need 20 more cards so this comes in handy. This week I used Stamping Bella's LULU'S SNOWMAN, and what a cutie she is.

Last year I 'dressed' her up in a pale green coat, this year I decided to keep her all white and pair it up with one of my new Cheery Lynn Design doily dies. These are THE MOST intricate dies I have ever seen and they cut like a dream in my Vagabond. I'm even thinking that I could cut one out of acetate and use it with sprays in my journal! LOVIN' THAT IDEA!!!!

I stamped LULU on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured her up with the following copic markers using the cool greys on the snowman and the warm greys on lulu:

E000, 00, 11, 40, 41, 42, 44, 07, 09

C00, 0, 2, 3, W00, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9

C7, 9, B60, YR15, 18, R22, BG96

Next week our challenge is to keep it WHITE! I know that may scare some, but OMG, I LOVE a white card so I'm looking forward to this one. You might recall that we did this challenge last year and if you are looking for some ideas check out this post.

till next time, Linda

Polly Packages 2011

2011-11-30T18:42:00.000-05:00

I have coloured up Stamping Bella's Polly Packages every year for the past three years (I think) and each card I make I like better than the one before it. Hmmmm....could be with all the cards I have been colouring over the years I think I may be getting better at it. I've said it before, but it never hurts to repeat it....PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE!!!! It really does make a difference. You'll find your groove, settle into your style and when that light bulb goes off it will become much easier when you find YOUR comfort zone.

This year I gave her a rustic feel and paired her up with Basic Grey's 6x6 Wassail paper and coloured her with the following copic markers:

E000, 00, 11, 41, 42, 43, 44, 49
E04, 07, 09, 30, 33, 37, 55, 57
E51, 53, Y11, 26, 28, R22, 35, 39
G40, 8, YG61, 67, BG93, 96

WHEW! That seemed like a lot of colours for a tiny chichiboulie. I added some sparkle around her with Hero Arts glitter and going with that rustic feel I pulled out my JudiKins Straw speckles to sprinkle at her feet. One thing you should know...it is best to use some Ranger Glossy Accents, or something similar, to glue down these heavier texture sprinkles. AND, in case you are wondering, the holly vine is a Memory Box die.

I'll be back on Friday with my Bellarific challenge card and hmmmmm....did I use texture on that? I can't remember. You'll just have to wait and see.

Later, Linda

Guilded Trees

2011-11-29T06:00:00.001-05:00

I coloured up Stamping Bella's birds decorating TREES with no particular paper in mind. Pretty scary thought isn't it, but I knew I was going to colour them all green with blue shades and blue birds so how tough would it be to find paper to match.

After stamping my trees with memento ink on bella's BESTEST paper I coloured them up with the following copic markers:

YG41, 45, G12, B12, 16, BG07 (trees, birds and ornaments)
E42, 44 (tree trunk)
YR30, E50, 51 (shading around trees)

I decided on an elegant background and used a piece of a solid Basic Grey paper that had subtle shading in it. Ran it thru my vagabond with a sizzix embossing folder and then sponged on some evergreen bough distress ink and tsukineko all purpose ink in Vegas gold. For my local fans, I got this at pickle...which by the way, is where I got the idea ;). The gold glitter at the base of the trees is a JudiKins product called ROXS. I have several of these very textural accents which I have been hoarding for years and I've decided to start putting them to use. It's all about the details and the more little accents you add, the more the WOW factor will be....but remember, LITTLE is the key to my style! I never want to be so over the top with accents that my image gets lost in the clutter...but that's just me.

Now it's only Tuesday so you still have lots of time to get in on our Friday Challenge over at Bloggabella....our theme is keeping with the season and HOLIDAY is your inspiration. And if you are ready to take the plunge....WORDS is the AJ Monday challenge and you can read about it here.

I've still got one more card to show you before Bellarific Friday, so don't wander off too far! K!

till next time, Linda

AJ Monday

2011-11-28T16:19:00.001-05:00

For Emily's AJ Monday I have journalled another thing to document to my list of ever growing passions...gardens. However, this is not a new passion, more likely something inherited from my dad's side of the family. I cannot imagine looking out my kitchen doors and seeing nothing but grass surrounded by a fence. I want interest, and I want flowering shrubs, and hosta's, and interesting trees and in the summer I want to sprinkle all that with some annual flowers. The problem is, our yard is clay and as dry as the sahara. I start out every May with good intentions and then the heat of our southern Ontarion summer sets in and if I'm not home to water several times a day all my good intentions just dry out by July. But one day, when I retire my yard will be the picture perfect overgrown lush victorian garden that I dream of.

I do have a point to all of this rambling and although I have several 'unpublished' pages in my journal that have hearts on them, I was in the mood to create yesterday. So I looked out at my yard that is losing all its greenery and starting to show signs of winter hibernation and that made me think PINK! I needed some pink in my day so pink along with our theme of hearts, I have this page to share.

I sketched the flowers lightly in pencil then gave a watercolor wash in pink over the entire page. I wasn't too concerned about covering up the flowers because I could still see the pencil marks and painted the flowers with acrylics. I hope I've inspired you today, and if you want/need more....just check out Emily's blog later to see the other 'heart' inspired projects.

For you card lovers out there, I'll be back tomorrow with one of those.

till then...Linda

CPS Sketch sponsored by Stamping Bella!

2011-11-27T19:45:00.001-05:00

I hope you aren't getting sick of them yet cause I have lots more to make. This one is rather special though because Stamping Bella is the sponsor over at CPS this week and I'm a lucky babe to get to showcase my card! You may have gotten a glimpse of it last week because we babe's had our dates mixed up. I think CPS may be one of the first card sketch blogs to hit the net and has always been one of my go-to sites when I'm feeling a little sketch challenged.

For this card I decided to make a cozy little A2 size and pull out Stamping Bella's SNOWY house.

Like I do every time, I stamped it on bella's BESTEST paper and used the following copic markers:

R22, 24, 29, G40, 82, 94, 20
YG93, 95, 97, 99, E42, 43, 44
R59, B0000, BG000, 10, 11
C00, 1, W1

For some extra glitz, I cut the Tim Holtz snowflakes out and completely covered them in glitter. Some Icicle Stickles on the roof top, flowersoft snow on the ground and gel glaze pen on the christmas lights finished it off.

Now don't forget, tomorrow's AJ Monday over at Bloggabella is to make Jayden smile and use a heart on your page, or like I did, use A LOT of hearts...come on there is still time....give it a try!

Happy Black Friday to my American friends

2011-11-25T09:08:00.000-05:00

...and a belated Happy Thanksgiving to you all too! We have our own recent American Thanksgiving tradition as well and that is to head to Windsor on Wednesday night with friends, dine at the Keg, lose money at the Casino and then head to the Lion's football game on Thursday. Truth be told, I just 'tag along' to the game and I'm only interested in the dinner and Casino part.

I also updated my profile pic with my new 'do'....I will say that it didn't look anything like that this morning. I almost scared myself when I got out of bed. Yesterday for the game I just showered and blew my hair dry without any real concern for style. (really, with people wearing turkey's or blocks of chess on their heads, who is gonna look at my hair) Well my natural waves took over and by the end of the day it was getting a bit 'large', and by this morning it was out of control and i woke up looking like Kramer. EEEK! So I guess it is not quite as blow and go as I thought.

Enough about my adventures...I do have a card, and it's another quickie. This past week I have been focused on getting Mom's Xmas cards done and when I get on a roll like that it is hard for me to switch gears. This is Stamping Bella's reindeer circle and I kept the card very clean and simple turning the circle into a hanging ornament.

I'm lucky to have the day off today so I'm gonna put another card together which is all ready and coloured up. Then head to pickle to get more paper to finish Mom's cards, oh before that I will shower and deal with my hair! And this afternoon, just pull out some images and my copics and relax the afternoon away.

I'm also feeling the urge to get a little creative with product so I may just throw in another no-colouring-required card again. We'll see. Our challenge next week at Bloggabella is appropriate for the first Friday in December and it will be another HOLIDAY card! I don't know about you, but Christmas is most fav season to make cards.

AJ Monday

2011-11-21T19:08:00.000-05:00

Our AJ challenge this week over at Stamping Bella was to draw a face. Now I am no portrait artist but I have been practicing a lot this month and I am getting better at it. I also must say that taking a couple of Suzi Blu's online classes have helped to build my confidence.

I drew her roughly, VERY roughly with pencils first. One thing I have learned is that I am more of a sketchy drawer and cannot get that line correct the first time so I sort of sketch with lots of lines. Then I erased some of the extra lines and watercoloured her face and the background lightly. Now the best part...adding some pencil crayon....AHH the control of the pencil crayon after the uneasy looseness of the pencil and watercolour. I started to gain confidence at this point. Then I used a foam stamp with acrylic paint for the flowers building some layers and softness. And of course I used bright happy colours to represent my mood at the time....a new 'do' will do that to me (don't worry...I'll update my profile pic shortly)

That's it....I couldn't even bring myself to journal anything on it! And speaking of journalling, I have had a couple questions on how I do my journalling. It's no big deal really, NO it is not a stencil, not computer generated, no die cuts....here is how I do it...and it turns out different every time depending on where I thicken my lines.

Step 1: just write (or print) what you want to say

Step 2: I use a black Pitt Big Brush pen to start thickening the lines on the left side

Step 3: Start filling in those thicker lines and wherever else you want! Again, I am using my Pitt Big brush but you can also use a Sharpie, pen and ink caligraphy set, whatever. Just be careful that what you use is not going to react with water if you want to seal your work with mod podge or PPA.

Step 4: this is my fun part and I add some shading. Lately I have been addicted to one of my Golden Fluid Acrylic paints. It is such a beautiful rich gold and really opaque. If I have time and/or desire I might even make those words pop more by adding another 'strip' of shading along the gold lines with a browinsh shade of pitt pen and while it is still wet, just soften it off with my finger.

So that's it, my attempt at drawing a face and my journal style. Hope you enjoyed it. Next week our Bellarific AJ challenge comes directly from Emily's daughter Jayden....YAY Jayden...I miss you sweetie....she wants to see hearts on your page. I think I can do that! Stay tooned!

And other stuff....

if you got a 'sneak peek' at my CPS challenge all I can say is OOPS! It wasn't supposed to be posted until NEXT Sunday.

our theme this Friday at Blogabella is FREE FORM! Strutt your stuff and show us what you got.

Emily snuck in a new 'mini' release not even telling us babes about it! How is that for secrecy! My order is going in tonight....go check it out here

I'm signing off because I'm going shopping! (then sleeping...the time change is KILLING ME!)

later, Linda.

I cut my hair today!

2011-11-18T00:01:00.001-05:00

Well..."I" personally didn't cut it...my hairdresser Liz cut it. For several years now I have been wearing it in a smooth straight bob and I went in today and said...CHOP IT OFF!...I'm done with the straight iron, I want something simple, longish layers, blow and go that will work with my natural waves, but something I can still straighten to make look sleek and sophisticated if I want...and I brought pictures! I trust my dear Liz to tell me NO your hair won't do that but to my delight she said 'we can do that'. I was excited! I was ready!

When all was said and done and my hair was lying on the floor I asked her if I thought she cut off a half pound! It certainly feels like a half pound lifted from my head and that might make a good weigh in at WW next week! LOL!!!! OMG...I can't even believe that thought entered my head! But I have been a little 'cheaty' this week, so if a half pound of hair makes up for the sodium laden chinese food I had...I'll take it! I don't know about you, but ONE meal of chinese food, even the slightest bit will tip the scale for me by about 3lbs...so I avoid it as much as I can, but sometimes you just gotta live and enjoy a thai or chinese meal.

Okay...enough about my hair and salt issues...I have a FAB CARD to share today to go with our FAB SKETCH provided by our sketch queen Ebru. I don't know if I've said this, but she is really among one of the most thoughtful and generous people I have ever met and her sketches ALWAYS WOW me. We are so lucky to have her as part of our team. With that out of the way, I bring you Stamping Bella's Pia Puddingtop, one of my FAV holiday images.

I kept with my vintage theme that I've got going on lately and pulled out some non-traditonal paper...Basic Grey curio....as my inspiration. She was stamped on bella's BESTEST paper with memento ink and coloured with copic markers, and shaded with prismacolor pencils and gamsol.

These are the copics I used:
EOOO, OO, 11, 51, 53, 55, 23, 25, 27
G12, YG41, 45, 67, 99, Y15, YR 14
B32, 34, 37, CO, 3, RV 23, 34, 17, R85, 89

I finished off by sponging all my pieces with distress ink tea dye and vintage photo and adding glitter around the image. Now...I have had a couple questions about applying glitter, shading, etc and I do have some links on my sidebar to some pseudo-tutorials that I have done. I'm not in the tutorial business because I do have a day job but from time to time I may add something there so be sure to check it out because it may answer some of your questions. On the topic of tutorials, I've had a couple questions about how I journal on my AJ pages. If time permits this weekend I'll put together some pics (sorry no video!) on my processs and post them with my AJ Monday page.

Next week our challenge will be FREE FORM!!!!!!!!!! Let your creative juices flow, personally, I KNOW mine will be anothe xmas card! My stash is low sisters! VERY low!

'till next time, Linda

The tree at Rockefeller Plaza has nothing on this one...

2011-11-16T19:28:00.000-05:00

These are Stamping Bella's Christmas PEEP's and LOOK at the size of that tree!

When I did this one last year I paper pieced it but this time I decided to colour it and pulled out some Cosmo Cricket paper as my inspiration. I started by stamping on bella's BESTEST paper with black memento ink and used the following copic markers:

E000, 21, 11, 42, 44, 23, 25, 27

G12, YG41, 45, 67, 99, Y15, YR14, B32, 34, 37

RV23, 34, 17, R85, 89, C0, 3

I then added some turquoise pencil crayon to my tree and blended it out with Gamsol because I wanted to alter the colour slightly to better match my paper. I shaded around the tree with yellow pencils, then sponged some yellow around the edges while keeping my die in place and the two just blend together making it look like I coloured on yellow paper! Once I had the card all put together I added a nice thick glob of Ranger glossy accents to the ornaments to give them dimension. It is crazy, but I love doing that!

Now for some exciting news...Paula is having a birthday giveaway...so you have two things to do...first send her some love because she is getting older! (okay...that is NOT a requirement!!!!) And TWO....play along in her challenge to win yourself some of her fav images in bella rubber.

Here is what you gotta do:

play in this weeks challenge over at Stamping Bella and your name will be entered into the draw
play again in next week's challenge and your name will get entered again!

How cool is that...leave it up to Paula to do something so fun and creative. If you want all the details you can read it on this post.

And if you wanna get working on this weeks challenge immediately, here is the sketch...a WINNER!

Now go get crafty, that's an order!

AJ Monday

2011-11-14T17:39:00.000-05:00

Emily has not posted her AJ Monday yet, that must mean she had a good time with Paula on the weekend and is recouperating from all the fun! Speaking of Emily (Stamping Bella, in particular) I've been doing a little shopping for new mixed media products and created the page below primarily with the following:

Oh did I have fun creating this one and it put me in a happy place, hence the quote which I got out of one of the MANY quote books I own. I'm a gal of few words but do enjoy finding a good quote to express how I feel at the time. I think that is what my journal is going to be all about. Create a page, and find a quote to define the moment. The thought of doing that excites me! I have 5 blank pages left in this journal and then I can bind it all up and starting January my new book is just going to be full of quotes, and techniques, and happiness.

I actually started this one Friday night and then didn't like the page so I cut it up in squares to use on my 'new' page. There are layers here gals.....MANY MANY layers. I think even at one point I gesso'd over 75% of it and started again. Did it bother me to do that , no way...I know what is under it, and I enjoyed the journey.

Not sure yet what our theme will be next week so be sure to stalk Emily's blog and she will announce it when she posts.

'till next time, Linda

And the winner is.....

2011-11-11T12:01:00.000-05:00

*** Lana ***

I want to thank you all for your wonderful challenge ideas and I will say that some were a REAL challenge but I'm up for it! Send me an email Lana (under my picture there is a like to contact me) and I'll email your bella bucks gift certificate! Since we had so many great ideas, I DO expect a lot of participation...so keep checking the babe's and Emily's blog because you NEVER know when you may see your challenge idea crop up. I'll give you a hint though....the sisters seem to be lovin' a sketch so I am pretty sure you will be seeing a lot more of those in 2012 so stay with us!

Movin' on to Bellarific Friday....I'm sticking with my 'no colouring required' theme and again paired up Stamping Bella stamps with Tim Holtz dies....a match made in 'Heavens'. LOL...pun intended! This time I used Tim's pine tree and Prancing Deer pairing it up with Isabelle's Eclectic music notes, and Isabella's script. Since there were two deer on the die, I made two cards! YAY, more for my xmas stash!

Both cards are pretty much identical except for the deer. I used a piece of Basic Grey paper, (fruitcake I think) from a few years ago and just like I did on my snowman I created the focal background by pressing some distress inks (broken china and faded jeans) onto my teflon pad and this time spritzing it with gold glimmer mist. That gave the background a nice overall glimmer of gold, plus some heavier areas where the glimmer mist pooled. Then I sponged the edges with some brushed corduroy and adding more of the blues. I pretty much 'worked it ' with those colours until it matched nicely with my patterned paper. Once it was dry, I stamped the script with faded jeans.

The music notes on the deer was stamped with walnut stain and then the deer was sponged with antique linen and brushed corduroy...I think a bit of vintage photo too.

The tree was cut once on dark brown, then again on green. I sponged the green piece with some peeled paint, forest moss and vintage photo. I cut the stem off the green piece and glued it to the top of the brown piece. Then I applied some distress rock candy crackle paint to just the green area. Thin in some areas and thicker in others to give a variety of 'crackle' ....NOTE...the thicker you apply it, the deeper and more pronounced your crackles will be. This card actually came together quite easily for me.

Hope you liked my no colouring week because I may be throwing in a few more of these here and there over the next weeks before the xmas mailing deadline. Next week our challenge is A SKETCH!!! YAY! Many shout outs for Ebruabella for coming up with this one because it is FAB....and so not me who always has everything all squared up and equal on every side. I LOVE when these come along. And considering the number of comments I had on the sisters who love them a sketch....I'm expecting great things from you!

Till next time, Linda.

Hanging Ornaments

2011-11-10T17:15:00.000-05:00

Keeping with my "no colouring - no problem" theme I have another quick and easy card that requires NO colouring, but still has that WOW factor. I pulled out three different stamps for this card and used an easy technique I'll describe below.

cutesy ornaments (even though there is nothing cutesy about this card)
ornament with holly on top
patterned holly

Now, how'd she do that? I started with a piece of bella's BESTEST cream paper and stamped the holly leaves with versamark, embossing with a gold pearl embossing powder. After the embossing was good and dry I sponged on some Distress ink in antique linen, tea dye, then vintage photo keeping it darker on the left side.

Then I stamped the ornaments, again in versafine and embossing in the gold pearl. I cut them out and for the green one I sponged on shabby shutters, peeled paint and forest moss. The red one has fired brick followed by aged mahogany and finally for the bronze one I went back to antique linen, tea dye and vintage photo.

I played around with a lot of different ornaments and a lot of different colours before settling on this layout...I'm sure I spent a couple hours, but now that I've done it...it will be pretty easy to crank out a few more in limited time. This is also a small card, A2 size, which I rarely do but I like the coziness of this one....and heck....it will probably get a front row on someones mantle so it doesn't get hidden behind the tall cards.

There is still time to leave your comment with challenge ideas on THIS POST for your chance to win $25 bella bucks. I'll be posting the winner tomorrow at 12pm EST.

Now I'd better get to cooking myself some grub here and clean up the kitchen/studio...hubs has been gone all week and I'll spill a little secret....my kitchen table is ENTIRELY COVERED IN STAMPING SUPPLIES and has been all week since he left...heheheeee!!!! I'm pretty darn sure even if he read this it would come as no surprise to him, but it sure was nice to 'pretend' I had my own space and could leave my works in progress on the table for a day or two until I got to finishing it.

see ya tomorrow!!!!!

No time to colour? No problem!

2011-11-07T21:36:00.000-05:00

I've got ya covered! This week I am going to show you THREE NO COLOURING REQUIRED holiday cards that hopefully will get your wheels going.

What do you get when you put two brilliant minds together! Pure GENIOUS! And that is what happened when I paired up Tim Holtz dies with Isabelle's Eclectic Stamps from Stamping Bella.

Not only was NO colouring involved, NO PATTERNED PAPER was used either! NOPE! NO WAY! I started with some inexpensive smooth white coated cardstock. I don't think an uncoated paper, like Papertrey white would work as well here. I pressed two Distress ink pads onto my teflon sheet, a piece of acetate would also work, I think I used Tumbled Glass and Broken China. Making sure I had enough to account for the size of my paper I spritzed the ink with water, then layed down my paper pressing it into the wet inky watery mix. I did this for both the main background piece, and focal background piece. You CAN do two sheets one after the other, but keep in mind, your second layering of paper will be lighter than the first.

Once dry (hint: use a heatgun!) I stamped Eclectic #8 ticket with Pumice Stone on the larger background piece and Mini Checker with one of the blues (can't remember but I think it was the lighter one!) on the smaller background. Then I sponged with the same blue inks to give more depth of colour and finally sponged some Distress Pumice Stone around the edges.

The snowman is a pure rip off (or should I say CASE) from one of Tim Holtz's 2010 12 Tags of Christmas. Okay, not a total ripoff, I did cut out WISH in snowman's belly and added an eye and some buttons which Tim didn't do. So I guess it is a legitimate case. The snowman was cut out of grungeboard, painted with white Claudine Helmuth Blank Canvas and when dry I sanded it and sponged on some Pumice Stone. Ya, Tim did that. The hat, arms and nose were also cut out of grunge board scraps and rubbed with some distress ink for colour. They were also sanded and glued on to the main snowman with glossy accents....again, that is what Tim used for glue! So in the end, I took some of his ideas, blended them with mine and came up with something that I really love in the end! That is what inspiration is all about and I hope I have inspired you!

Now for my little give away! OMG...you ladies have come up with some FANTASTIC challenge ideas! Sketches seem to be a common theme so I promise we will have more of those next year but we will also include some new ideas based on what you have said! This is so exciting and I'm looking forward to a new, challenging and inspirational year of challenges in the year 2012! Keep those comments coming, because it ain't over yet! You have until Friday!

Does this mean Winter is coming? AND a GIVEAWAY!

2011-11-04T06:00:00.001-04:00

Our challenge this week has to do with snow...and we wanna know if there is snow at your house, or at the very least...incorporate some snow on your card. Personally the ONLY snow I hope to see this winter is on my cards. I'm getting older, and the older I get, the more I hate snow. I hate shovelling it and/or tromping thru salt melted mush that ruins my collection of designer boots! I don't care what they say about UGGS, I NEVER want mine to trudge thru salt melted slush because I prefer to keep them in a pristine state and wear them as a fashion statement.

BUT....uptown gal Quinn wears her UGGS is not only fashionable but does not appear to be afraid to stand in snow with them. She is braver than I am that's for sure!

I think this is my FAV uptown girl. Now I love them ALL, but this one really speaks to me and I think it is because of what she is wearing....I would dress like that. heck I do dress like that! Since my UGGS are dark brown, I had to colour hers dark brown too, and her coat had to match...because Quinn would not have it any other way. Now for the other colours....hmmmm.....what to wear with brown? In my opinion anything goes....for me, brown is like black, anything goes. So that is when I went to my paper stash and decided on green to go with this basic grey ambrosia paper. Good choice I thought...after all, I would wear that. In the end she turned out exactly as I had envisioned her. Classy, sassy, and sophisticated! I LOVE those uptown girls!

Next week our challenge is HOLIDAY WISHES. With the holiday season just around the corner THIS is the time to get those juices going and get busy on those holiday cards. I know you need them! I need them! You've GOT to do them, so pull out some of those bella stamps and knock one card off the list, plus play in the challenge for a chance to earn some xmas bucks.

FINALLY ...THE GIVEAWAY! .....we are calling all creative minds! We know you are out there and we want you to join us! Do you have a great challenge idea? Do you like sketch challenges or do you have something in your head that you would like to see in a challenge next year. Leave me a comment with your idea and I will pick a random comment to be announced on my blog post next FRIDAY. The lucky person will win $25 in BELLA BUCKS!!!!!!!!!!! As Reganabella would say...SHUT THE FRONT DOOR! We wanna hear from you!

I'm late! but I have a bonus

2011-11-03T20:51:00.001-04:00

Yes, I had full intentions of posting this last night but I taught a class at our local Paper Pickle and when I got home at 9pm I HAD to devote my full attention to Criminal Minds because it is right up there with Dexter as one of my fav shows. Yup, no reality shows for this babe, I'm all about sick criminal offenders. So as an added bonus I'm gonna show you the canvas I taught at class last night. But NOT before show you Irma and Vieno. This is a Mo Manning image available in rubber at Stamping Bella. Do you know there are a LOT of Mo's images available in rubber over there, check them out here.

I poured my heart into colouring this image and I am not kidding when I say I spent much longer than normal on it. This is another one where pencils overtook the copics. I started with my typical E000, 00, 11 on the face, then used some BG's on the blue coat and YG's on the green coat. Again I shaded the reds with some E7 and 9 and a combo of warm and cool grey's for the fur on the hat's. I couldn't even bring myself to cover anything with glitter because this turned out so pretty IRL. The camera never does this stuff justice!

Now for my Paper Pickle canvas class. Over the last several months I have taken a variety of mixed media online classes and this class does not define any one style. It is an eclectic mix of some of my personal fav techniques that I have learned along the way. I do want to say that I was SO PROUD of everyone and they should feel personally satisfied that they went home with something that they should feel proud to hang on their wall somewhere. I love when I come out of a class feeling that way! I think the lesson here is to NOT let the term MIXED MEDIA scare you! The beauty of it is that there is no right, no wrong...just DO IT! You will be happy you did! And did you notice Lulu's hearts on there! I stamped the cluster on some red paper and let them choose which hearts to cut out for the chimney smoke. Then Jenn got creative and cut out a tiny heart for the door knob and the gals went crazy! I think most everyone left with a heart door knob! I LOVE my pickle gals!

Well, although it's not late, I'm tired because I had to drive my hubby to London to pick up his car from service after work today so that was almost 3 hours of driving to and from the dealer after a LONG day at work. I'm tired, and deserve to go to bed early....but hey, that means maybe I can stay up late tomorrow and get in some quality mixed media time!!!!! There is a bright side to everything!

I got to thinking the other day....

2011-11-01T20:32:00.001-04:00

...that I only have about 5-6 weeks to get my Christmas cards done and mailed! YIKES! So you know what that means? The Christmas card blitz IS ON and you may not see anything other than Christmas cards for the next several weeks. Are you ready for that?

I spend Sunday colouring like a mad woman...well, maybe not a mad woman...but I did colour three images pouring my heart and soul into every one of them and I hope you enjoy them this week.

How 'bout we start with a Mo to get things rolling. This is a Mo Manning image named Noelle bearing gifts available in rubber at Stamping Bella. You may already know that I love my Mo's, but the Christmas Mo's are by far my fav's of hers. I will also say that if I had a little girl she would SO have had a melton wool coat hand made by yours truly with felt appliqued trees and a snowman! Just like this one.

After stamping the image on bella's BESTEST paper, I started colouring the image with copics, but then used so much pencil that the copic colours kind of became irrelevant. I will say that main body of the coat was started with warm greys, and the trim and appliqued snow hills was done with cool greys. That gave just a bit of contrast, although it is not obvious in the picture....but believe me, it is there! And of course she has her red velvet dress on underneath which was done with R22, shaded with E07 and E09. Love those shade's of E's to give a nice rich red.

Because this card will be mailed, I held back on adding anything bulky but couldn't resist creating some falling snow with glitter.

Well, that's it for today! I'll be back tomorrow with another Mo!

I don't know about you....

2011-10-28T00:01:00.001-04:00

...but I'm doin' the happy Friday dance! Tonight we are gonna have a little celebration with friends to bring on hubby's 50th b'day (which isn't until Tuesday). Then Saturday I think I just might sleep until 10am because I have not quite recovered from the West coast time change yet.

On a crazy note while I write this post Thursday night I have reduced myself to watching Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin because our cable adapter is on the fritz in the kitchen and I can't get anything over channel 18 and I'm not comfortable on the sofa typing with my laptop on my lap. I'm missing my art journal too because I have not even opened it in almost two weeks. This weekend I'm gonna get messy with paints I think...I'm needing it.

For Bellarific Friday this week it was all about stripes. Let me say, this babe is NOT lacking any striped paper...I cannot resist striped, polka dot or plaid paper. I'm weak, and there is something really homey and rustic about them that I like. However, I don't go overboard, especially with stripes and usually go with the less is more rule when I use them. Just like I did with Anastasia here! This one is for Bren who always leaves me the nicest comments and she wanted to see what I did with her hair.

I just LOVE those blue frames on her glasses and wish I had the confidence to wear something really funky like that. I matched up with some Basic Grey Pyrus and after stamping her on bella's BESTEST paper I used the following copic markers on her. (and of course some pencils for the shading!)

E0000, 000, 00, 11, 15, R20, B95, 97
E51, 53, 41, 43, 44, 33, 35, 37, 95, 97, 99

In case you are wondering, the doily was cut from a Cheery Lynn Designs die that I picked up at the Stamp Show in Novi. Those dies are SO intricate and I wish I had bought more.

Next week our challenge is a scary one...and not in the halloween way! IS THERE SNOW AT YOUR HOUSE? Yup, that is the challenge...use some snow on your card. I certainly hope there will be no snow here and I hope this doesn't put a jinx on it.

Where's Linda?

2011-10-25T20:45:00.001-04:00

I've been MIA for the past few days because I went on a weekend Vegas getaway with 5 of my work BFF's. I'd love to say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but the truth is, we didn't really come home with any memories that I want to leave behind. Not like when I broke my wrist zip lining last year! I've given up on doing ANYTHING that requires me to sign a waiver.

I will say that we had a MOST FABULOUS day trip to Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon and I'll show you a couple pics after my card. Let me just say that the Grand Canyon has to be one of the most breathtaking places on earth. Scary, but breathtaking. I don't think I would let myself get within 20 feet of the edge, and I wanted every single person to stand at least 20 feet away from me for fear that someone might lose their footing and grab on to me for balance just to end up taking me down the canyon with them.

The highlight the next day was the Elton John concert. I've seen quite a few concerts in my day, and Elton is FAR from my beloved Dave Matthews but I must say he is one of the best performers I have ever seen. He is so cute,so funny, so humble, and so genuinely appreciative of the audience. And unlike other aging artists, his voice still holds the same magic that it did 30+ years ago. I'd go back and see him tomorrow if I could.

Now for a card! Remember back in September we had a back to school challenge and I coloured up Betty the Bookworm. When I was doing her up, I also did Stamping Bella's Spencer but never got a chance to post him until now, so here he is!

I actually think I like him better than my first card, but it might be the Basic Grey oxford paper that is making me happy. LOVE the colours in that pack. After stamping spencer on bella's BESTEST paper, these are the copics I used on him:

E0000, 000, 00, 11, 51, 53, 13, 15, 17
E31, 34, 35, 37, 07, 09
G40, 12, 82, BG70, 72, 75
RV91, 93, 95, 55, 66, R20
C1, Y23, W9

If you are still with me, and still interested, here are a couple pics from our road trip.

On our way to the canyon I was really taken with the field of cacti. It made me want one for my yard, and if it wasn't for the cold winters here, I could probably grow one because our ground is hard and dry!

This is called Guano Point and you see those little specks on that pointed pile of rock. Those are people! You could hike up there and see a spectacular view of the Colorado River but I didn't take the chance. No waiver had to be signed, but I know a risk when I see one.

Pictures of this place will never capture the beauty or the vastness. Again, look at the far left, about half way down and you will see a little white speck. Those are people!

That's it for tonight. I'm off to watch Dexter that hubby pvr'd for me and I've been waiting for this all week! See ya Friday.

Ah the memories...

2011-10-21T01:00:00.055-04:00

This one is a little nostalgic, and dearly close to my heart. I grew up in a family of sewers from my Grandmother, to my Mom, to me. My grandmother had a treadle Singer sewing machine which she used all her life and when I was little, she would make clothes for my Barbie on it. I think (I hope) I still have the teeny tiny white pleated kilt she made. She really was an amazing seamstress.

Now I don't have anyone to pass on my sewing passion to, my boys never really took to it! HOWEVER, Alex's girlfriend is an AVID sewer and just recently made herself this incredibly amazing fully lined pleather jacket. I was gushing when she showed me because it was a work of art. She even took the pattern and altered it from a hoodie to a collar, and a button front to a zipper. If there was ANY hope at all that I could have fit into it, I would have most definitely tried it on! So you guessed it, this card will be going into my stash to eventually make it into her hands.

I started by stamping Stamping Bella's sewing PEEP on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured her with the following markers, following up with some pencil and distress ink. Sadly, the pic looks more on the grey side, than the warmer sepia shades that the real life version sports:

G000, 00, 12, BV00, Y13, YR15, 02, 23
R12, 14, 39, E07, YG97, 99
E00, 11, 13, 17, 21, 42, 43, 44, 47
W0, 2, C1, 3

When it came to putting the card together and adding embellishments it was a snap with our awesome sketch this week. I added some lush vintage looking ribbon and a button on the lower right, with a Tim Holtz hanger clip on the upper left. Just a little shout out to Kim at Pickle for pointing those little hangers out to me! Next week our challenge will put you in stripes! YUP...use STRIPES ON YOUR CARD...on paper, in ribbon, on your image, anywhere. Just make sure it is a Stamping Bella image and send your submission to Emily by Thursday at 5. Remember, Christmas is just around the corner and if you should win those bella bucks did you know you can gift them!!!! Now how awesome would that be for one of your BFF's...a gift of some Stamping Bella Bucks!

Paula's Poppies

2011-10-19T16:24:00.000-04:00

Hiya everyone! I've been a busy busy sister this week working on a deadline at the day job, preparing for a girlfriend weekend and a 50th b'day celebration next week for the hubster. I am not quite a cougar, but I am a couple years older than him although you would never know that from looking at us! LOLOL!!!! Now I'll leave it up to you to decide whether I think I look younger, or he looks older! Haaahaa!

All kidding aside, I do have something be-uuuu-ti-ful to share today and that is another Paula image, this is the poppy from Paula's Framed Florals. I am so smitten with the simplicity and beauty of these little stamps.

I decided to let the poppies take center stage here and matched my patterned paper to the background colours I used on the image. I used a lot of pencil here so didn't keep track of my copics but I will say that I did start my background with copics. Feathering some BOOO from the flowers out, and some YG00 (or YG0000?) from the corners in. Then I added some BVO1 from the flowers out. After that was done, I did add some pencil to deepen the background shading. I really wish you could see this one up close and personal because the picture makes the poppies look a bit drab, but take my word...they just pop out off that card! This is also just a bit smaller than my normal 5.5" cards and I made this one 5 1/4" square.

I'll be back on Friday with the Bellarific challenge and remember, it's a sketch so NO EXCUSES, all the hard part is done for ya! Finally, for you AJ lovers, I don't think I'll be here Monday with that challenge because I have a busy weekend ahead of me, but the love is still there, and I'll still be stalking Emily's blog to see what everyone came up with.

See ya soon!

AJ Monday

2011-10-17T06:55:00.000-04:00

Hiya all! Are ya ready for the start of another work week! I tell ya, once my age counter rolled over the 50 mark all I can think about Monday mornings is how I will spend the day, and week, once I'm retired. I have it all planned out in my head, and it a beautiful dream for now!

Emily wanted us to use stencils and sprays this week and that was NO problem for me, however I couldn't resist getting my fingers a little messy too.

My fav part of this page is the upper right corner. I spread some molding paste over the stencil and while it was still in place I sprayed on a couple colours of adirondak color wash. I love molding paste to give just that little bit of dimension to the page.

The quote comes from a book by Autumn Leaves called Quote Unquote. I think there are 4 or 5 volumes and I have 3 of them which I purchased back in my scrapbooking days.

That is it for today....I'll leave you with another little reminder of our Bellarific sketch for Friday...LOTS of time to play, and with Christmas just around the corner and that AWESOME mini release that just came out how can you resist an opportunity to win some Bella Bucks!

Boo!

2011-10-14T18:06:00.000-04:00

Sorry I'm late gals, I COMPLETELY forgot about this last night and quickly uploaded the pic to a draft post hoping I would be able to get to it today, but no such luck. So now I have 20 minutes waiting for my cabbage rolls to heat up and I thought...GEEEEZE....I have NOT posted my card yet!

I totally blame it on the age thing...I think there might even be a name for it! It is called OLD! LOL!...actually I don't think of myself as old at all, but my memory and aches and pains remind me otherwise.

Before I start ANYTHING, I want to give a HUGE welcome back to Shannan Teubner. She was one of our original babes and I for one am more than thrilled to have her back. Check out her blog, if you haven't seen it already, and show her some love. WELCOME BACK SHANNAN we have missed you!!!!

AND, if you haven't already seen on Emily's blog, or in email, Stamping Bella is having a FREE shipping event with the coupon code freeshippingoctober on orders over $55. A perfect time to grab that Uptown Girl collection, come on...I KNOW you love them.

This week was our halloween challenge and although I don't really make halloween cards I did find something that was appropriate....monstah BASH. I even got a bit creative and added the Boo! with some quickutz alphabet dies and the Tim Holtz branch tree. Pretty clever I thought.

You just know that I stamed it on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with copic markers. I did 'cheat' and add some shading to the beasts with some pencils though. Here is a list of those markers

BG70, 72, 75, 78, YG11, 23, 25, 67

R24, 37, 89, 39, W1, 2, 4, 6

Next week we have a sketch challenge!!!! YAY, my FAV!!!! This one is a beauty with all those little details that I never think of adding so while it is fresh in my head I think I'll get on it as soon as I eat my cabbage rolls. I just took them out of the oven and they smell so yummy and delish, especially since it is cold and windy outside here in Chatham tonight. I actually had to turn the heat on for a bit just to get the chill out of the air.

not the colour purple

2011-10-11T14:39:00.000-04:00

Before I say anything....did you hop on over to Emily's blog and check out the mini release? TWO new Uptown Girls...they are so urban chic how can you NOT resist them, and their funky Uptown Christmas tree!!! To temp you even further she is offering free shipping on orders over $55 with the code freeshippingoctober! Seriously, what is stopping you!!!! GO LOOK!

Moving on to my journal and this weeks theme. I am not fond of the colour purple, my fav colour is green, not pure green like that Christmas green....I REALLY don't like that colour, but greens with yellow or blue undertones. Limes, turquoise, olives....those kind of greens. And when you mix them up together it is even yummier. Emily's AJ challenge this week was to create a page using your fav colour and here it is....all pretty in green!

Prior to making this page I was watching a video workshop with Beryl Taylor that I downloaded from Cloth Paper Scissors. She does these amazing things with paper, fabric, stitching, and beading. That inspired me to dive into my fabric stash and make these little quilted squares.

Then I tore the page from a dictionary that had the definition of green and everything else just sort of fell into place. And I must say it really felt good to sew on fabric instead of paper for a change and I'm sure it made the Bernina happy too! This page really makes me smile when I look at it.

Not sure yet what our challenge will be next week yet, but Emily said she would be posting it on the blog later today so for sure I'll be stalking.

Ready for another peek?

2011-10-10T11:58:00.000-04:00

Keeping with the vintage look I coloured up another image from Stamping Bella's mini release tomorrow. Not sure the name of this one, but I will tell you that it comes with a good size Merry Christmas sentiment.

Again, I paired it up with some older Basic grey paper. Figgy Pudding, Wassail, and Fruitcake remain my all time Christmas papers EVER!!!!! I'll be sad when I run out of them.

bella's BESTEST paper, copic markers, LOTS AND LOTS of glitter, gold gelly roll pen on the ribbon, paper pen on the lights, sponged background, ribbon, stitching and I even popped it TWICE all make this card a joy to hold with all of the understated glitz and detail.

These are the markers I used:
G20, 21, 12, YG61, 63, 93
BV01, 02, 04 (used these to deepen the green)
Y11, 23, E42, 44, R24, 29, 39, Y26, 28, E87

I do have an AJ Monday page, but for you journal fans, I am gonna make you wait till tomorrow. BUT, if you stalk Emily's blog today you just may get a peek at it. And don't forget, TOMORROW is the mini release day over at Staming Bella and, I have a sneaky suspicion that Paula has posted another peek today.

So lots of sneakiness going on here with the bella gang! And don't forget, get those ghost and goblins out of you Stamping Bella stamp stash and play in our Halloween Friday challenge, if you win, you could use the bucks to buy the new release!!!!

My girl wears mink!

2011-10-09T15:30:00.000-04:00

I was going to just show you just a teenie bit of her and make you come back for more, but Emily said I could post the entire thing and that made me just as happy! Quite frankly, I HATE just getting a little corner of something, give me all of it, or just go away. And that applies to cheese cake too! If I'm gonna eat it, I'm gonna eat a big piece.

Let me show you Uptown Girl Eva and her mistletoe, just one of Stamping Bella's suprise 'mini' release lineups...I LOVE when she sneaks in little things like this...it makes me giddy! I 'dressed' her up in velvet trimmed in mink, not cheapie velvet and fake fur, no way, my Uptown Girl is all about high end fashion. Then I gave her a smokey vintage look pairing her up with some basic grey and cosmo cricket. I think I may send this card to myself this year! HAHAHAA!

I probably don't have to say it, but I will. She was stamped with Memento ink on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with copic markers. Didn't use any pencil on the dress, just to shade around her. Then I sponged on some versafine thatched straw and finished up with a bit of Tea Dye Distress ink.

These are the copic markers I used:
E000, 00, 11, 15, 17, 18, 29
E40, 42, 43, T5, W7, C8, 9
R20, 24, 46, 39, 89, G24, 29

Now don't go away for too long, because I'll be back tomorrow with another one....can you say Christmas?

Delicious Apples

2011-10-07T00:01:00.001-04:00

With crisp cool mornings and warm, but not HOT afternoons, it is definitely starting to feel like fall here in Southern Ontario. Spring and Fall are definitely my most fav seasons of all and as much as I don't like the humidity of summer, not to mention the snow of winter, I don't think I would be happy living somewhere that did not have seasons. With that said, it is fitting that our challenge this week is FALL COLOURS and I chose a most appropriate fall image....Lulu's apples from Lulu's set of Fruits.

Now seriously, do those apples look 'delicious' or not...and i'm not just talking about my colouring, but I'm talking about the variety of apple. I actually googled images of apples in a basket and searched them out to gain some inspiration. Low and behold, I came across a basket of delicious apples and got to colouring to somewhat match the picture. As much as blogs and galleries can be a great source, so are google images, especially when it comes to capturing 'still life' objects...fruits, veggies, trees, flowers, etc.

I stamped Lulu's apples on bella's BESTEST paper with memento ink and used the copic markers listed below, of course I added a bit of shading with some pencils. And just in case you are wondering, I used a couple shades of yellow pencil to shade around the apples and basket, then sponged some versafine thatched straw ink in from the edge, meeting my pencil shading. So it looks like I may have sponged right up to the image....but i'm not THAT good!!!!! LOL!

here are the copics I used:

R22, 35, 37, 39, Y23, 26, YG13, 21
E50, 51, 31, 43, 44
YG61, 63, 97, RV13, 14, 17, Y38

Next week our challenge is creepy in a good way...all about Halloween!!!!! get thinking about orange and black...or maybe try out some non-traditional halloween colours....by golly, I think I just got an idea! But you'll have to wait till next week to see it!

Tonight, I'll be eating Windsor pizza for supper (Windsor pizza is THE BEST) and then messin' up my kitchen table creating something wonderful for AJ Monday.

Hope to see you at BOTH challenges next week...but if you only play once, that's okay too!

'till next time,
Linda

A little Ketto today

2011-10-05T06:41:00.000-04:00

This was another card I did up for the Stamping Bella booth at Scrapfest. Isn't little MISSMATCH ketto a cutie, and really quick and easy to colour up too...gotta love that when I am short on time.

And speaking of time, I'm short on that right now because I'm writing this up before work. I was gonna do it last night but Paulinabella came over and we had big plans on colouring but we ended up just chatting and drinking latte's and cappuccino's! YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gotta luv girl time.

Little MISSMATCH was stamped with memento ink on bella's BESTEST paper and paired up with Basic Grey out of print from a 6x6 pad. I coloured her with copic markers, and added just a wee bit of pencil for shading.

You still have lots of time to play in our FALL COLOUR challenge this Friday over at Bloggabella and I'm starting to see the leaves change a bit so it's time to get in the mood!!!! And if you are ready to take the AJ plunge yet, you can play along on Monday ....here is what Emily has to say about the next challenge:

"USE YOUR FAVORITE COLOR on your page.. Do all versions of that color.. add white, make it lighter.. add black , make it darker.. find pieces of collage with that color… fabric… anything that doesn’t MOVE in that color, stick it down.. use pencils, paint, watercolor, crayons, oils.. let’s see your creations!"

I'm ready to take it all on, are you?

AJ Monday

2011-10-03T06:33:00.000-04:00

Hi All...I had a very busy and productive weekend and it all started with my AJ Monday journal page. The challenge this week was to use an actual picture on your page. I already did that a couple weeks ago so this time I took a different route to use some pictures.

A couple years ago hubs and I took a trip to Nashville and Memphis on our quest to follow the Dave Matthews Band around North America. We didn't see much of Nashville, but did get to spend a couple days in Memphis. We LOVED it there...the music, the food, the atmosphere, the history, all of it was amazing. We took in as much as we could and took a lot of pictures of our favourite spots, some of which I collaged in this page.

I selected a few of my fav's and inserted them into a word document mirror imaging the pictures. I printed them on my Epson ink jet printer on regular printer paper, nothing special. Then using any of the image transfer techniques you may find on the web I transferred them to my page. It was necessary to print mirror images of the pics because you glue them 'image side down' and this way they end up right side facing when you are done.

The technique I used was with gel medium, mod podge or PPA. I used PPA here, but I think mod podge or gel medium works better for this technique. Cut your pictures down to size, or even tearing the edges gives a nice effect. Apply some gel medium and stick it down onto your page. Now you do not want to paste over that piece of paper because you don't want the paper completely sealed. Just use your fingers and press it down good.

Wait for it to dry, or if you are like me take a heat gun to it. Speaking from experience, it does work a lot better if you can wait and let it dry naturally....but I wasn't seeking out perfection here! Then spritz your paper with water and start rubbing it off. The paper will roll off and your image will be revealed! It's like MAGIC! I dried it again with my heat gun and gently sanded it to remove any 'hairs' and soften off the edges. Then I sealed it with PPA because when I overlapped my next image I didn't want to chance any of my first one coming off.

The hardest part was that I five pictures so I had to repeat the above process 5 times so there was a lot of drying involved. Then I added some ink, some paint, some gesso...more ink and paint and I was almost done.

I stamped the word 'Memphis' and the date with a VERY OLD acrylic River City alphabet set, and because Memphis is all about the music I couldn't help but stamp some of Stamping Bella's eclectic music on there.

I hope this has inspired you, and be sure to check Emily's blog for her AJ Monday post sometime today. The gals who have been playing along in this have been wowing me week after week and I can't wait to see what they do this week.

Linda.

Say goodbye to Summer

2011-09-30T06:51:00.000-04:00

Our challenge this was was to add some dimension to your card, pop it up, add some dimensional embellishment, just make it POP!
I don't often pop anything on my cards, I just don't think about it. But I did pop up my Adirondak chair, look, you see a shadow at the bottom so you know it's popped up there. Do you recognize that chair, it is another Summer Days image from Paula's Artist@Heart line available at Stamping Bella and what better way to say goodbye to summer. I'm not quite ready to see it go yet and I'm DEFINITELY NOT READY to face snow.

I paired it up with a piece of Basic Grey sweet threads and some random yellow gingham.....nothing says summer better than gingham! Of course I used copics and finished it off with some pencil.

BG000, 01, 02, 05, 07, 78

Y11, YR12, Y15, YG67, E49

Now that I have said goodbye to summer, it is time to welcome fall and our challenge is easy peasy....use some FALL COLOURS on your card and email your card to Emily by Thursday.

And don't forget, our AJ Monday theme is to include an actual PICTURE in your page and talk about it.. so it can be a picture of your daily routine, something you can’t live without and why.. a pet, a child.. your desk.. anything! and journal about it! Not sure how much I'll actually 'talk' about it, but I do hope to find time to play.

peace out, Linda

Doin' my friend proud!

2011-09-28T19:42:00.000-04:00

I spent Sunday morning colouring up some of Paula's images that are NOW AVAILABLE IN RUBBER AT NONE OTHER THAN STAMPING BELLA!!!!

Do you have any idea how much love I poured into these images...I SO wanted them to be special and beautiful. And as much as I love flowers, I am kinda drawn to this SUMMER DAYS set because it reminds me of my family, my house and the simple pleasures in life. Who would not want to spend a lazy afternoon, or sipping a coffee after dinner sitting on the porch swing.

I actually have a porch swing that my brother made me. He also has one of his own but his is on his front porch, while mine was hanging off the pergola on my back deck. I grew up in a house with a large front porch and as much as it nice to have the privacy of a big backyard, nothing compares to sitting on the front porch and watching the world go by.

I paired this one up with Basic Grey's Pyrus paper and coloured with the following copic markers, using some pencil for shading and highlights.

E40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47
BG70, 72, B41, 95, 97, 99, YG25
Y17, YR24, W0, 1, 3, 6

Our challenge this week is to add some POP to your card, with dimensional foam, scrap dots, liquid applique...anything...JUST MAKE IT POP! I did pop this card with some foam squares but I'll be back on Friday with another Paula popped image!

Can't wait to show you the next one!

Another Sunday

2011-09-25T10:31:00.000-04:00

I've spent the last couple hours cleaning up the mixed media mess in my kitchen. Man can I make a mess! Last night I finished Emily's AJ Monday page....I went VERY clean and simple this week because I think I exhausted myself painting the front and back covers of my coptic journal. If you are wondering what that is, it is a hand stitched journal and mine is assembled with Arches watercolor paper. It is the journal I will be using for my Suzi Blu A Lovely dream art journal class. She is ONE amazing artist.

Moving on....I do have a card today and it's one I created for our display at Scrapfest. Meet POSH has a present. A while back I asked if there was anything from the latest release you would like me to colour and I haven't forgotten about you, I just don't have those images yet and when I do get them, they will be the first I go to.

In the meantime, Margo wanted the shopping uptown girls in GREEN and since I don't have the 'girls' yet, I thought I'd tackle Posh in greens. Of course EVERYTHING couldn't be green so I threw in some pink.

When I want soft greens like this, I tend to use the lightest copics and do the rest of the shading and highlighting with pencil. And I couldn't do this all up in green without actually telling you what I used so here goes:

E000, 00, 11 (face)
G20, 40, 12 (dress)
G000, 00, BG11, G21 (green bags)
R00, RV11, R21, 22 (pink bags, shaded with E31)
E11, 13, 25, 27 (hair)
YG11, 21, 25, 67, G34 (bows and shoes)

for the pencils:
To shade the dress, I used some Kelp green and highlighted with white
I added some peacock green to the polkadot bag
I shaded around the image with pale sage first, then added some kelly green

Hope you like her! Now I'm ready to colour something up for our POP IT UP Friday challenge. hmmmmmmm, what to do, what to do.

Mixed Media is pouring onto my cards

2011-09-22T23:59:00.008-04:00

If anyone inspires me, it's Emily, if anyone enables me, that would also be Emily. But only in the BEST of BESTEST of ways! I think it has been a year that she has tried to introduce me to Art Journaling and Mixed Media and I resisted at first and now I'm TOTALLY ADDICTED....LIKE TOTALLY!

So for this card I thought I'd AGAIN let mixed media (MM as we call it) show it's face and I think that MM backgrounds make the perfect backdrop for Stamping Bella's new Three Sister stamps. What do ya think?

When I made the last Vintage Hi Wheel card hubby commented that he liked it so I'm keeping this one under wraps for his 50th birthday in a few weeks. Will he find out, not likely! I don't think he reads my blog unless I tell him to.....so shhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! And if you happened to come by the Stamping Bella booth on Day 1 of Scrapfest you may have seen it...however, I did keep it under plastic so it would be in pristine condition when I brought it home and then I forgot it in my hotel room the next two days.

I used a blend of adirondak sprays, gesso and Crafter's Workshop tiny tiles stencil to create the background. Then I stamped the bike in black stazon and used some Faber Castel Pitt Big Brush pens for some subtle shading as well as the red on the seat and handles. I'm pretty pleased with this one...okay, I'll fess up, I'm REALLY pleased with this one! Hope the hubster likes it!

Next week our challenge will be popping all over the place. That means you have to POP IT UP and use dimension on your card. Hmmmm....willl I play it safe and use a foam dimensional dot, or MAYBE do something more adventurous!!!!!

Time will tell!

Is this a Burberry Babe or what!

2011-09-13T23:17:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'll admit to my shallow side in that I have wanted something Burberry for like FOREVER! But since even that 'statement' scarf is like HUNDREDS of dollars the chances of me owning one is pretty much slim to none. think of the art suppies I could buy!) Besides, I could spend a weekend in NYC, take a trip to Canal Street and buy a knock off, and the price of my weekend plus the knock off scarf would be less than the cost of the original. hmmmm....maybe another trip to NYC should be in my immediate future!

Burberry obsession aside, and although I didn't recreate that well known plaid anywhere, I still think that that the colours I used in RAIN-NEVER-STOPPED-ME-abella just scream burberry!

I stamped her on bella's BESTEST paper and if you wanna create those 'burberry like' colours, these are the copics I used:

E000, 00, 11, 13, 15, 17, 30, 31, 34, 37
E09, Y21, 26, 28, BOOOO. R20

I'm signing off now for a few days, but if you live in the Minneapolis area I'll be at the Mall of America Archiver's Scrapfest on Sept 16-18th spending most of my day at the Stamping Bella booth.

If you are in the area, stop by and say HI!!!!!! Emily, da Stamping Bella herself and Paula will be there too! It's gonna be CA-RA-ZY fun!!!!!!!!

See ya soon!

AJ Monday with Emily

2011-09-12T21:44:00.000-04:00

Okay...this page is a LITTLE crazy...still trying to perfect Roben-Marie's style and techniques. So that is where the background came from but the quote, oh that quote is ALL ME! Actually it was the quote next to my grad pic in my graduating high school year book of 1978. Yes, I have had a love of 'food' and 'drink' for some 33 years...maybe more! Hubby says that means I am solid! Haven't changed in that many years and not likely to change any time soon.

If you look hard, you MIGHT even see that I peeled off the crescent from the wine that I was sipping when I worked on this page, a California Pinot Noir that has become one of my current fav's.

I was even sipping on a glass of the grape when I wtoe this post. I think in a past life I lived in either France or Italy where they drink wine at every meal. They don't drink to excess, just a couple glasses with every meal. Now DON'T GET ME WRONG! I DO NOT drink at lunch! But if I lived in France or Italy, that might easily change! LOL!

So, Eat Well, Drink Well, do both responsibly and enjoy the good things in life!

CA-RA-ZY for ANIMALS!

2011-09-09T05:00:00.024-04:00

Well you heard all about 'MY' animal yesterday so I won't go into any more details about HER, scroll down if you didn't see that post. When I knew we were having an animal challenge my FIRST thought was CHRISTMAS! Stamping Bella has SO MANY holiday animal images I almost had trouble deciding but settled on Mo's PENGUIN WITH GIFT.

Part of the reason I chose this image was because I had just picked up some of My Mind's Eye Lost Christmas paper at Pickle and really wanted to use it. It is SO vintage, and SO glittery and there isn't one piece that I didn't love. I KNOW I have WAY too much paper....but you know what, sometimes you just gotta purge the old stuff, unless you love it and plan to use it, and get just a FEW sheets of some new stuff to inspire you. That is what this paper has done for me! A few new sheets of paper is priceless compared to the inspiration you might gain from it.

Enough gushing about my paper purchase...this guy was stamped on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with copic markers. I didn't write them down this time, but I will say that I primarily used warm grey's for the majority of the penguin. The outer edges were sponged with chalk inks and I just kept blending different inks until I got the colour I was looking for. I also sponged the edges of the patterned paper in Antique Linen distress ink.

It turned out just as I had hoped for and I now have Christmas card #2 to add to my stash! EEEEEEK! 48 MORE TO GO!

Next Friday we won't have a challenge because Emily, Paula and me will be at the Scrapfest at MALL OF AMERICA! So at the risk of getting kicked off the team I'm gonna give you a HEADS UP for our SEPT 23 CHALLENGE. Shhhhhhh!!!!!! It's a sketch from one of my fav babe's Paulineabella.

Isn't it a beauty! And you have TWO WEEKS TO PLAY! So NOOOOO excuses! Get out that rubber, those markers, those pencils, whatever you choose to use and you will be surprised that when you start, you'll feel relaxed and rejuvinated and pumped to do more! That's how it happens! Really! JUST DO IT!

you would think i would have all this free time...

2011-09-08T18:39:00.000-04:00

...with the kids at school and hubby not home for supper, but the truth is my DOG is high maintenance! But ONLY in a good way. She is not accustomed to spending her evenings by herself because there is usually ALWAYS someone in the house for her to throw her demands on. If you are wondering, she is a West Highland White Terrier and that equates to "it's all about me"...where ME is the dog! LOL! So when it is just her and me...that means it is just HER and me! Mostly HER. No colouring, NO mixed media, NO art journaling. No NOTHING, except if it is something I can do on the sofa so she can snuggle up next to me. It would be different if it wasn't cold and rainy because then she'd spend her evening in the yard chasing away squirrels and laying under the bird feeder to protect it from the furry creatures. But sadly, it HAS been COLD and rainy here for the last couple days. So no play time for Linda!
Alright, that has NOTHING to do with my card, just a reason for my lack of posting this week. Today I have ANOTHER, yes ANOTHER new release image to show you. Except for the Uptown Girls, I think this is my FAV OF THE BUNCH...vintage HI WHEEL.

I used some of my mixed media 'talents' (hahaaahahaa) on the background, starting with a blank piece of paper and adding paints, gesso, more paints, distress rub ons, whatever. Then used the memory, laughter and love definition blocks stamping them with timber brown stazon. Finally the bike was stamped with black stazon.

Oh, then I took the my minds eye 'newsprint' paper and added some distress inks and some of Isabelle's crackle on both the image and the background pieces. A metal accent, hammered with my Tim Holtz distress hammer and a ribbon finished it off.

Gals...I think this is a perfect 'guy' card cause it got the thumbs up from hubby! DARN ...he saw it, I could have used it for his upcoming b'day!

I'll be back tomorrow with my animal challenge so don't go to far....BY THE WAY, i LOVE this card so give it some love okay!

AJ Monday - Tag it!

2011-09-05T07:38:00.000-04:00

Our challenge this week was to use a tag on our page...one tage, several tags, make a tag, use a ready made tag.....just tag it!

I once again was inspired by Roben-Marie and decorated my tag using LOTS of layers of paint, gesso and sprays. And shock of shocks I even wrote a little bit about my day on the back of that tag. Now there is a first!

Again LOTS of layers of paint, sprays and gesso on the page which I overstamped with "I AM" script, now don't look close, I accidentally stamped it upside down. BUT if you do look closely you might even see some ECLECTIC music notes on there to the left of the script.

I was just going to glue my tag in place, but after writing on the back of it I needed somewhere to keep it so I could pull it out and read it later so I created a library pocket and stamped it with YOUR BOOK IS DUE. I was pretty impressed with that moment of genious! And it also helps when you have a TON of stamps in your stash to choose from.

Not sure what her challenge will be next week so I better be stalking the bella blog to see what everyone else came up with and start thinking about next weeks challenge.

Did you notice that my page is removed from my book? YUP, I took them all out because it is easier to work on a loose page and because I've wanted to do this for quite some time so I could cover the front and back with some pretty japanese papers. I really should have gesso'd it and painted it but I wasn't in the mood and now I don't have to look at the ugly blue Canson mixed media cover.

There are just a few blank pages left in there and once I have finished them I'll either slip them back into the original coil which I kept, I just bind it up with new one using my Zutter. Ya, I have all the toys!

Do you ever feel like doing nothing?

2011-09-04T11:09:00.001-04:00

Like NOTHING...NADA, not a single thing. That is how I feel today, and how I felt yesterday. I don't feel like making art, colouring, cooking, nothing. I kinda feel like my zing is gone. Maybe I just need a hug....like this little angel is hugging her bear in Mo's Love YA, one of Stamping Bella's newest images.

Of course I stamped her on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured her with copic markers.

E0000, 000, 00, 01, 11, 50, 51, 53
E31, 34, 35, 37, R20, 30, 32, 24, 43
RV34, BV0000, YR30, BG0000, 000, 53, 72

And I won't lie...I did add some shading with my prismacolor pencils. YES you can add pencil over marker, and YES you can blend that with gamsol, or any other odorless mineral spirit without harming your copic layer. I'm kinda like a mixed media card maker!

And you have LOTS of time to play in our animal challenge this Friday so NO excuses, unless of course you have lost your zing. And you still have all afternoon to pull out that journal of yours and stick a tag on it to play along in Emily's AJ Monday....mine is done, and I kinda like the way it turned out, despite the fact that I gesso'd over it about 3 times!

Right now, a LONG hot shower is calling my name!

Back to School!

2011-09-02T08:14:00.000-04:00

For us here in Ontario this weekend marks the unofficial end to summer and the start of the school year. If you are a stay at home mom that probably means you have a bit more crafty time on your hands, and if you are like me, I have less people to cook for!

I pulled out one of my fav green bean babies, BETTY the bookworm for this challenge and paired her up with Basic Grey Oxford paper.

These are the copics I used:

E0000, 000, 00, 11, 51, 53, 13, 15, 17
E31, 34, 45, 37, 07, 09, C1, W9
G40, 12, 82, BG70, 72, 75
RV91, 93, 95, 55, 60, R20, Y23

I have the day off today and that makes it a NICE LONG WEEKEND for me! Gonna do a bit of shopping and errands this morning then make my tag journal page for Emily's AJ Monday. I just finished watching this altered tag video by Roben-Marie which gave me an inspirational boost! I'm really loving her style lately.

Next week our Bellarific Friday challenge is all about ANIMALS. USE it in your image, on your paper or an embellishment, just get a litty crazy with animals!

Off to enjoy my day.

Almost

2011-08-31T06:00:00.003-04:00

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

2011-08-29T20:59:00.000-04:00

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?

2011-08-26T06:00:00.007-04:00

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!

2011-08-25T19:15:00.000-04:00

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...

2011-08-22T17:26:00.000-04:00

...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

2011-08-21T17:32:00.000-04:00

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

2011-08-19T00:01:00.007-04:00

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!)

coffee girls from Beth
shopping Uptown girls in GREEN from Margo
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

2011-08-17T12:58:00.000-04:00

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

2011-08-16T06:42:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-08-15T10:19:00.000-04:00

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!

2011-08-12T16:12:00.001-04:00

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

2011-08-10T13:00:00.001-04:00

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!

2011-08-07T20:10:00.002-04:00

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

2011-08-05T06:31:00.000-04:00

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

2011-08-02T06:00:00.018-04:00

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?

2011-08-01T14:42:00.000-04:00

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!)

Christmas in July

2011-07-29T01:00:00.002-04:00

And how 'bout I get a good start on my xmas cards this year and start posting a xmas card a week to get our creative juices flowing! What do ya think? Are you ready yet? I know I'm not, I'm still hoping for SEVERAL more weekends of pina colada float time in the pool! But that holiday season will be on us before you know it so why not at least just start thinking about it now.

It is usually the first weekend in September when I begin thinking about my cards but this year I know I don't have a lot of extra time on my hands so I really gotta get going earlier. With that in mind I thought if I start posting a card a week starting now I JUST MIGHT know by September what I'm gonna make. I need about 50 of them and all the ones I post between now and the beginning of December get mailed and the ones that are easier I might make several of. Not to mention I make about 35 for my mom. So I'm a busy girl come September! I need to mentally prepare myself now for less journaling and canvas time! {sniff}!

Now I give you my first xmas card of the season, a 'new to me' stamp that I just got last weekend named King of the Candy Canes and I KNOW exactly who this one is going to. One down, 49 to go!

You might think the colours are a little 'off' and that is because they ARE 'off'!. I started with a selection of paper and knew I wanted a soft blue and red with a hint of green. Everything was going well for me until I pulled out my Versamagic inks to shade around the edge. DO YOU BELIEVE I DO NOT HAVE A SOFT BLUE! Well, I can believe it because I'm not really fond of blue. So I used an aqua colour and softened it off with wheat hoping it would turn blue. Well, it did lighten it, but it still remained an aqua tone! So I had to then start rummaging thru my paper stash to find something to match and this was the closest I could get. Not bad, but NOT what I envisioned! I'm just glad I salvaged my hour of colouring because I was NOT prepared to start over.

Our challenge next week is all about heavy metal...not in the musical way, thank goodness! I'm NOT into heavy metal...just in the embellie type of way, use something metal on your card...do you know brads are made of metal? It's as simple as that so get going! And while you are at it, why not get out that journal that you have been thinking about and play along in Em's Monday journal post or if that isn't enough, head on over to the forum if that is your thing and see what is going on there...SO MUCH TO DO there is no excuse for boredom.

Little Moments

2011-07-26T22:14:00.000-04:00

I'm home from my bella visit and OMG, my head is JUST SWIMMING with creative ideas. Emily's love of art and product is totally infectious and her knowledge on how to use those products is amazing. It's not enough that I came home with some good laughs, I also came home with a head that is overflowing with things I'd never known and dreams of how to put those things to use.

Saturday night was a free for all in Em's studio (aka basement) with Em, myself, Isabelle (ya, THAT Isabelle who designs those Eclectic wonders), Paula, Laura Evans, Lori 'Pinky' Brown, 2 kidlets (Tyler and Jayden), 2 cats and a dog (that is IF you can call Frankie a dog...that thing is SO adorable I could have stuffed it in my pocket on more than one occassion). While some worked on canvas, others painted in their journal (that would be me), others got lessons on pan pastels from Paula while Paula was getting lessons on how to use bleeding art tissue from Jayden. Creativity was just OOZING out of that room!

Before I get to showing you any of my art journal creations I thought I'd throw out a canvas I started when Paula was here a couple weeks ago.

I began with a blank 6x6 canvas and glued on a piece of patterned paper for no other reason except that I would be no longer looking at a blank canvas. I slapped some blue and green paint on there and added some leaves with a stencil. The sun, flower petals, leaves, stems and flower centers were all cut free hand out of patterned paper and glued on. Then I added some texture with a stencil and heavy body acrylic paint for the flowers in the upper left corner and when dry, added MORE texture with some light weight molding paste and another stencil.

Now for some detail! I stamped one of Isabelle's birds on the wrong side of a small piece of patterened paper and cut it out, then stamped a smaller bird on the right side of another piece of paper and after cutting it out I got two birds facing in different directions. The little moments quote was stamped onto a piece of tissue with stazon ink and I cut out just the 'little moments' portion and glued it down with PPA. The tissue dissapears and the sentiment remains!

Another canvas to hang at my desk at work! And another something that makes me happy!

I hope you create something that makes you happy today!

Linda.

circle? or square?...maybe a little tutorial!

2011-07-22T06:31:00.002-04:00

What did you do? I played it safe and went for the square card, and I did the sketch from memory and that is why my sentiment is hanging off the wrong side. Clearly, my memory is not so good anymore.

I pulled out one of Stamping Bella's pixies because I've had some questions on how I do that hair so I thought I'd show you! Grab a coffee, pull out those copics and give it a try.

Step 1:

Start with E21 on the left side and add loosedots as pictured in the right side all over the hair. Then go back againstarting at the left side and add a second layer of dots. You want to createsome texture and it is okay, even desireable to leave some white.

Step 2:

Now take your E33 and add more dots. You don’twant your dots too big, actually as you add darker colours to the hair you wantto decrease the size of your dots. Keep some open space to let the E21 showthrough

Step 3:

Still with your E33, and still using dots,darken up some of the areas to begin creating shadows and darken around the outside edges. Use thesquiggles in the stamped image that come ‘into’ the hair as a guide and darkenabove those lines. If her hair is just an outline with no obvious shaded areas,then just darken around the edges, keeping it lighter in the middle

Step 4:

Now Take your E35 and darken up those shadows abit as well as the outside edges

Step 5:

Add some E37 in small amounts and using VERYTINY DOTS deepen up those shadows and edges again.

Step 6:

Now soften off the dark E37 dots with the E21and/or E33. You can repeat steps 3 thru 6 again to get a softer look.

As a final step take your dark umber pencil and add a SMALL amount in those shaded areas and blend it out with your stump and gamsol. It will soften the dots and add more depth. And don't be stingy with those dots! The more layers you add the better it will look.

Our challenge for the final Friday in July will be that old tradition (or maybe new?)...CHRISTMAS IN JULY! Pull out those holiday stamps that have been collecting dust and get a head start on the busiest holiday season of the year!

I'm off to Toronto this weekend to bond with my sistah's....chic time! Inky chic time! Ya, I'm excited!

Linda.

Art Journal Hearts

2011-07-20T16:37:00.001-04:00

Did you all read Emily's intro to Art Journaling post? Well, after a year, I am finally getting my feet wet. Last summer I was in Toronto and made a stop at the boo-tique and only Dena was there with her art journal. If you think it looked yummy on Em's blog, you should see the inside! Like OMG! On the way home I said to Mark, I wanna do this. So I went out and bought some stuff (NOT like I needed anything) and pulled out some magazines and tried to get started. I loved Dena's, it was very collagey (if that's a word) and she used a lot of magazine clippings and wrote a lot of words.

I plopped myself on the floor with my stuff and got looking thru magazines, but you know what, I am NOT good at collage. I really need a paintbrush or marker or stamps in hand so I put the stuff away UNTIL recently when I took Christy Tomlinson's 3 Hearts Workshop. She uses the STUFF I love, fun stuff....paints, markers, inks, stencils, stamps....the kind of stuff that makes me happy and so I began this journey. A friend of mine mentioned the other day that she wants to journal because all the cards, or scrapbook pages she does are given away to someone, and this would be for her. And you know what...I think THAT is what I love about it the most, I never have to give it away. It's MINE!

So after reading Emily's post the other day I thought I'd show a couple pages I did last weekend. This page is how I thought (maybe still think!) about the whole process. I spend too much time thinking, planning and wondering and then I decide to jump right in fearing the unknown outcome and start to play! I've learned that it's REALLY all about playing. These words are all stamped from Julie's words to live by.

The background was done with pan pastels and stencils. The hearts were cut free form out of an old book. Shading on the hearts was done with PITT pens.

This second page was a double experiment. I applied gesso to the page, painted loosely with fluid acrylics then attempted image transfer with Mod Podge. Apply Mod Podge to the printed side of a piece of patterned paper and glue it down. When it's good and dry spritz it with water and rub off the paper and you are magically left with the image! AMAZING....there are several ways to do this and just google 'image transfer' to find a wealth of info on it. Then I stenciled some scrolls, stamped some of Isabelle's crackle in the corners (GORJUS!) and applied a few hearts that were all glossed up with clear UTEE.

Done and DONE! I don't have any words on this page yet, but I will as soon as I come across something that inspires me.

Back to Emily...her journal challenge is for us to use crayons! OMG....my boys are 21 years old so there was not a single crayon to be found in the house so I went out and bought a small pack. Now I'm off to get waxy!

For those who came to see a card, not to worry....I'll have one of those on Friday!

Something masculine today

2011-07-18T19:06:00.002-04:00

I taught a class at Pickle on Saturday and we used Stamping Bella's Isa's Eclectic Stamps and oh what fun we had! Now I will say that our second card did give us some grief, and I still do not know what went wrong but I will remind you to NOT tap off UTEE or you'll tap it all off. Let the excess just roll off your paper, then heat from underneath and you should have success. I was also pretty excited because I had Paulabella and Paulineabella in my class so you can imagine my horrified state in front of these two talents when no one could get their UTEE to stick. Oh well...get over it and move on!

After class we came back to my place and all took to something different, Paula messing in her journal, Pauline colouring some Bella's and me on canvas. Still feeling creative on Sunday I pulled out those Isa stamps again and created this.

No patterned paper here. Starting with a piece of bella's bestest cardstock in cream I sponged various distress inks for the background piece using some stencils to get more interest. Then I stamped eclectic #8 ticket and some mesh. Then I stamped the ticket background again on a separate piece and rubbed distress inks over it. MAKING SURE IT WAS GOOD AND DRY I stamped the eclectic elements grid with burlap distress ink and embossed it with black distress embossing powder. LOVE the texture of that stuff.

Then I inked up sections of the grid again with distress ink and pressed an inchie into it. I did it that way so I knew where I was placing the inchie. Embossed with the distress powder, and rubbed some distress inks over it. I think I even stamped a bit of crackle on there too.

Finally, I melted some gold UTEE in my melting pot and dipped the edges of the inchies into it to give it a soldered look. We did this YEARS ago at Pickle and I had completely forgotten about it until I saw it again on one of the 3 Hearts videos. Very cool! Must do this more often. Here is a side shot...I glued the inchie squares down with Helmar Scrap dots to accomodate the uneven surface on the back.

Whew! That's it! Seems like a lot of typing for a card that really didn't take me all that long to make! Now off to read Emily's blog...a little birdie told me she has posted something about art journaling on there that has got my curiosity heightened.

Don't forget about our sketch challenge this week, it's a winner and mine is already done! YAY!!!!

She Art and Three Hearts

2011-07-16T01:00:00.001-04:00

I think I mentioned a while ago that I was taking the second running of the She Art Workshop by Christy Tomlinson. I think I have also mentioned how much I LOVE it. I am currently taking the 3 Hearts workshop and that is where the inspiration for my recent art journaling posts have come from.

I've ALWAYS loved mixed media art, ALWAYS, even before I knew what mixed media was! I remember when I was young kid going to my godparent's house in Toronto and they had this really funky very large abstract work of art on the wall that just mesmerized me, I was drawn to it. If I recall I think it had pieces of random gears or machinery imbedded into plaster then it was painted with an abstract wash of color and I loved it. My godmother has sadly been gone for about 20 years now and I wonder if my godfather still has that piece of art, but I doubt it. And I don't even know if I'd still like it now, but it sure caught my eye many MANY years ago.

My journal is a place where I can relax and experiment and just play in whatever type of creative mood I am in. I can share if I want, but I don't have to. However I find my she art canvases to be a way to express who I am and what I want people to know about me...I WANT to display them and I WANT to express who I am. I have completed 4 girls, two are hanging at my desk at work, one is in my kitchen and one I ended up giving one to Kim at Pickle because she gushed over it so much I just knew in my heart I HAD to give it to her, maybe it was meant for her. So, just sayin'....if you want to see one up close and personal it may still be at the store unless she has whisked it away somewhere.

Enough deepness...this is my first she art girl and I used one of the phrases that Christy gave us in the class. I thought it was 'fitting' for my inaugural girl.

This is my second 'gal', the one that found her way into Kim's arms. Another Christy supplied phrase that expresses my love of working with colour. Note the Picasso quote that is partially stamped on there: Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. (stamp is Inkadinkado) Doesn't that just say it all!

There you have it, my first she art girls. You may like them, love them, or neither...but I LOVE them...the process, the outcome, the phrase, EVERYTHING.

I still have a couple more, and if I find time, I'll blog them this week, shorter post I promise! No deep thoughts...hmmmm...I thought I've said I don't have deep thoughts but maybe I do.

Linda

Where it all began

2011-07-15T00:01:00.015-04:00

Back in January of 2008 I placed an order with Stamping Bella that got lost in the mail. I rec'd my shipping notice, but after 3 weeks still no rubber. So I emailed emily and happened to attach a pic of one of the bella's I had coloured...Cosmobella to be exact, because I was on a Cosmo kick back then.

Well, not only did I get my rubber, but I got an invite down to the bella headquarters, which weren't even 'official' headquarters yet, to show her how I colour with my markers. Maybe it was more than an invite, I think she begged a bit...LOL!!!! And I didn't even colour all that well back then, I only had my copics for a short time and was still getting my feet wet.

Finally three months later I dragged Paulineabella along with me for company on the three hour drive and we spent the day with Emily. Pauline didn't even have being a bella in her radar back then, nor did I for that matter! We spent hours just chatting, colouring, trying out ALL kinds of different papers with markers, talking about stamps we like, ones we don't, instructing classes (pauline and I both teach) and munching on food. I'm not shy, I told her before I even met her that I would eat anything as long as it was cooked...aka, no raw fish sushi for me! We talked about blogging, being on DT's, why I didn't have a blog, why she didn't have a DT. We were both happy in our skin.

Then I came home and got thinking "maybe I should start a blog"...so about a month later I did and 11 months later Emily started up a DT and I have been there since the beginning along with Paula and Dana. I've made great friends along the way, spent more money that I probably needed to, and have enjoyed EVERY minute of it.

Now that I'm done gushing and reminiscing I couldn't resist colouring up Cosmobella again and one thing I will say is that my colouring skills have GREATLY improved over the last couple years.

As always, she was stamped on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with the following markers

E000, 00, 11, YG0000, 01, Y00
YR30, E30, 33, 95, 97, 99
R30, 32, 46, BG10, 11, 72, W00

Shading was done with prismacolor pencils and gamsol.

Finally, I hope you can join us next week because we have one of your FAV challenges...A SKETCH, and an Ebruabella sketch, AND you get to choose whether you want to do a circle or a square!

Hmmmm....what to choose, what to choose? I guess you'll have to wait till next week to find out! Either way, it's a great sketch.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Later, Linda.

Going to the Chapel

2011-07-13T00:01:00.000-04:00

...but I'm not the one who is getting married.

You know that bridal shower card I made the other day, well I had a wedding card that needed making too so I thought what better time than now. For ONCE I am not making a card the night before I need it!

I have used Stamping Bella's wedding gown circle several times in the past and it remains one of my fav's. You can make it really simple, or fuss it up like I did here. I'll admit though...this layout was TOTALLY inspired by this card on Yvonne's blog. Her cards are ALWAYS so pretty....even when they are fussy they still look clean and classic.

I stamped the image twice on bella's BESTEST paper. Once in black, and again in a soft grey. That is because I wanted the little squiggles to fade into the background. On the grey piece I outlined the circle in black, and on the black piece, after colouring it, I cut it out and mounted it on the grey piece. Pretty clever eh? The patterned paper is Basic Grey, from Wisteria I think.

I used very few copic markers, some greys and BG70. The background colour over the squiggles was done with pencil. Then of course LOTS of glitter! I should have maybe used this for the shower, and a stamp with a couple in it for the wedding, but heck...we all know that weddings are all about the bride!

Don't forget about our challenge this week a Bella or a Stella and I'll be back on Friday with a Bella!

I got a little CA-RA-ZZZY with bella's

2011-07-11T00:01:00.000-04:00

No life update today, just a card!

This week being our bella or stella challenge I pulled out my Bella/Stella binder yesterday...yes, they share a binder and it's busting! WELL, I got a little crazy and coloured up 5 of them over the last two days. Only two of them made it onto a card front, but the other three are patiently waiting with their paper sitting on the counter until they get all prettied up onto a card.

Since I have a bridal shower to go to in a couple weeks, the first of the bella's for me to pull out was stamping bella's bridalpartybella's. I've coloured this one before, but heck...a) i gotta get my money's worth out of the stamp, and b) I LOVE it! It is hands down one of my fav bella stamps.

I decided to use the Basic Grey Kokeshi paper and go with a funky colour combo of orange with a splash of purple! It is kind of unconventional, but fresh and fun and I liked the way it turned out. I even think that plaid ribbon is a quirky twist combined with the densely patterned paper. It is like texture, without texture and I love the challenge of combining totally different patterns.

Don't worry, I have another Bella for friday, and a non bella to sneak in before then! See ya later.

Linda.

Exciting News!

2011-07-08T00:01:00.000-04:00

Bellarific Fridays are always exciting just because it's fun, BUT I have other news too! You may notice I changed my blog picture...YES, I'm about 3 years older, and I have a bit of a tan thanks to my new floating pool lounger. But why did I change that picture? Not because I really wanted to post an older looking me (I like the other pic MUCH better), but I needed a recent photo because I will be one of the Creative Experts at the Minneapolis Scrapfest at the Mall of America in September. I still won't believe it is real until I actually get there. Paula, Emily and I will be there and while Emily manages the Bella booth, Paula and I will be instructing classes. When we aren't in class, we will likely be at the bella booth, but only if Emily chains us there to keep us out of the stores! Just a warning Emily, I have already plotted out the stores I want to go to. And my gosh...do you know there is an Aquarium there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyhooooooo....if you live in the area, don't be shy....stop by and say hi! I'd LOVE to meet you!

Up next, my Bellarific Friday card using ribbon. I was still in a Ketto kinda mood so decided to colour up Ivy Ketto, she is one of my fav's of the Ketto bunch.

As always, I stamped her with memento black ink on bella's BESTEST paper, paired her up with Basic Grey Sweet threads and coloured her with the following copic markers. No pencil on this card! SHOCKING!

E000, 00, 21, 23, 17, 97, 99
G05, 07, 28, B0000, 000
R20, RV13, 14, 25, BV23, Y15, YR04

TIP! Because I coloured the blue background with markers, I started there first then coloured the main image.

Next week our challenge will be Bella's or Stella's! Just use one of them, maybe pick a sketch from many of the great sketch challenges out there and see your card up in lights on Emily's blog!

Later! Linda.

A quickie post today

2011-07-07T00:01:00.002-04:00

...and some news! BUT no news till tomorrow....hee hee! gotta keep suspense somewhere!

I thought before I throw my she art girls on here I'd show you another journal page I did. As I said in my last journal post, I am NOT into writing anything...NOT gonna happen...EVER...I have no need to put my thoughts on paper....heck, I don't think I have any deep thoughts.

So I mentioned I am taking Christy Tomlinson's 3 Hearts Workshop. I've only gotten thru the end of week 2 (if I even got that far) and as much as I'd like to watch a video, and make a sample of what she did and the product used, I just don't have time to do it. So I watch a few, pick out some of my fav things and get messy.

This one has no particular meaning, except that I LOVE the Donna Downey verse stamp on here. Maybe it explains why I don't actually write anything down.

This page was created using image transfer, paints, some color wash, scraps of patterned paper and rub ons. I really like how it turned out and wish I had made note of what I did so I could do it again!

That's it....told you it would be short!

Did I say I was gonna get crafty?

2011-07-06T00:01:00.001-04:00

Yup, I think I did say that on Sunday and I kept to my word and immersed myself in mixed media on canvas ALL DAY...like the ENTIRE DAY! I made two canvases, the first which I have had in my head ever since doing the Stamping Bella make and take at the Kitchener Scrapfest back in April. That was the kicker that sucked me in, I was soooooo happy that day!

This little gem was done on a 4x6 canvas using Stamping Bella's julie's SPRING BUTTERFLIES, a little bit of imagination and a tip from da Bella herself.

How'd I do it? Well I started with a blank canvas and applied a coat of gesso. Then I knew I wanted a green and yellow background so just applied some golden paint randomly (any type of folk art paint would work, come on, I know you have some stashed away!). To add some interest to the background I pulled out my crafters workshop stencils and added some subtle shades of colour, again, with the golden paints and a sponge. I thought I might add some texture so stenciled some flowers with a lightweight modelling paste (like liquitex, or Dreamweavers). But then I didn't like them so sponged on some colour to cover them up. The beauty of mixed media...don't like it....just cover it up...and the texture still remained. You can barely see it in the lower right corner.

Then came the butterflies, I stamped them with stazon black ink on tissue paper, cut them out and glued them on with mod podge...THAT IS THE BELLA TIP that I learned at Scrapfest. Once dry, I painted them up with Claudine Hellmuth paint and added some detail with a black pen and white paint. I've got to say, LOVE that paint...it is soooo yummy and creamy! Finally (well i thought it was final) I added some rub on's here and there, stamped the 'take flight' with a cheapie $1 bin alphabet that I bought somewhere and covered everything up with a coat of matte medium. After I thought I was done I had a final thought to add some liquitex glass beads that I bought at Blick's while in Chicago. I thought I really needed that stuff...but you know what...you could do the same thing with glossy accents and loose glass beads. I'll admit, a total waste of money there! Plus it took FOREVER to dry.

And that's it! I lovinly placed it in a 5x7 shadow box frame, hence the not-so-great pic because of the glare and hung it at my day job desk along with my other canvas stuff! I must say, the day job is becoming a happier place when I'm surrounded with things like this! Speaking of my other canvases, YES I have a few and will blog them here in the next week or so. They make me sooooo happy!

see ya all on Friday for our Ribbon Challenge over at Emily's blog.

Sunday Morning Post

2011-07-03T07:37:00.000-04:00

Before I immerse myself into something really crafty this morning (think mixed media!) I thought I'd sit down and say hi. We had quite the thunderstorm roll thru last night and it is still really wet and steamy outside so no sitting on the deck for me yet.

The other day I said I had a couple cards that were going to family members this weekend, well this is the second of them. My parents both celebrate their b'day in March and we usually take them out for dinner somewhere. But this year with my dad having bypass surgery late February that b'day dinner kinda got squashed so we decided to surprise them yesterday with a Tassimo and a truckload of different coffees and teas and I was in charge of the card.

This card was TOTALLY INSPIRED by THIS JOURNAL PAGE from our one and only Bella designer Isabelle Norris using Stamping Bella's FLUFFY FLOWER HEAD. When I saw that page I really almost had to pick my jaw up from the floor I was sooooo IN LOVE with it. She used distress inks on hers and I chose to use my Caran d'Ache neocolor II crayons. Now she did say she put the two page spread together quickly, but me...quick? not so much! Probably cause I putz and play, and add colour, then add more...get my drift. I don't do anything quickly. When I finished it I gave it a good spray of krylon matte finish but it still didn't have the finish I was after so gave it a couple light coats of US ARTQUEST PPA matte. LOVE THAT STUFF and who says it is just for mixed media. I kept it all simple and mounted it on a white card and with that ppa finish it almost has museum quality look to it. Very cool look if I do say so myself!

Still LOTS of time to play in our challenge this week, and it's a simple one....use some ribbon and send that card over to Emily by Thursday at 5pm. And if you are looking for inspiration, check out the gallery over at the Bella Forum...LOTS of yummy stuff to get your creative juices flowing.

till next time, Linda!

A no challenge Bellarific Friday

2011-07-01T00:01:00.001-04:00

But I'd thought I'd stop in anyhow! We just got back from a busy few days in Chicago...this was the first time in the last few years that we have been there and not had a concert to go to so we were totally adventurous. It was all about shopping, dining, and entertainment...and we did it all!

I think I'll be skipping WW again because I'm afraid to step on the scale. That means we ate WELL...and when we weren't eating we hit a really awesome blues club called Kingston Mines recommended to us by a co-worker who is a dedicated blues fan...the next night was a martini at the Signature lounge on the 96th floor lounge of the Hancock building with a gorjus view of the city and the last night was great entertainment at a place called Howl at the Moon, a dueling piano bar with 4 members who play various instruments and sing requests from the audience. I'll admit, they did not have the best voices, although the girl was good, and their musical skills were okay but not great. But they were sure good at getting the audience to dance and sing along. A GREAT people watching night and a lot of fun in a cheesy sort of way.

Other than shopping for mixed media stuff at Blicks, and a new silver bracelet from Tiffany's we also took an Architectural boat cruise and visited the Shedd Aquarium...I LOVE fish! If I had the time (and knowledge) to dedicate to it, I would SO have a salt water aquarium in my house built into an entire wall and I would sit and watch it for hours on end. Okay, so I might need a new house for that too! ...and hubby says I would need enough money for someone to keep it maintained for me. ya, whatever...so his point is that I will likely NEVER have a salt water aquarium and for that reason he always appeases me and takes me to places like this if I want to go. They even had a jellyfish exhibit which was sooooooo cool! Those things just amaze me. I LOVED the aquarium.

Now that I'm done blabbering about Chicago (did I mention I LOVE that city) I'll move on to cards. Before we left I coloured up a couple that are both going to family this weekend and I had to decide who is the LEAST likely to read the blog. Well, obviously it would be my nephew Ethan who celebrates a b'day in a couple weeks.

For this card I chose to pair up Spotty Ketto with the boneflower from Ketto's Dog accessories and I LOVED how it came together. I first stamped Spotty, then masked just below his feet and stamped the boneflower at different heights. I did add some curly lines with one of my copic multiliners to the left flower just to balance off the two sides.

I stamped him with memento on bella's BESTEST paper, shaded with copics and used the following copic markers:

E40, 41, 42, 443, 44, 11, 13, 15
W0, 1, 3, E95, 97, YR15
BG93, G94

Now remember, lots of time to still get in on next weeks USE RIBBON challenge over at bloggabella. I'll be there, and shock of SHOCKS, I already have my card done!

Before I go, I have to leave you with a couple of pics from the Shedd Aquarium....I think I was a fish in my last life because I could have watched these guys for hours.

Seahorse....when I wasn't asking for a pet monkey, I ALWAYS wanted one of these when I was a kid. They still fascinate me.

Jellyfish! This was a special exhibit and honestly, these creatures are totally fascinating.

Mark may divorce me, but this whole experience makes me want to set up an aquarium again! Oh gosh...I'd better immerse myself into some mixed media this weekend so I don't go do something crazy that will take up more time than I have to spare!

While you are reading this, I'll be sleeping and dreaming of swimming with dolphins!

Cupcake Princess

2011-06-28T00:01:00.001-04:00

Isn't she adorable, and of course I have a little story to tell....don't I always? I colored up Mo's cupcake princess using my copics and shaded with pencils as I always do. Then late one night last week, late being maybe 10pm, I decided to shade around the edges. WELL....the colours I thought would match didn't NEARLY MATCH my basic grey Marjolaine paper that I picked out.

What's a girl to do? Well, I wasn't about to trash an image I spent over an hour coloring so I decided to SAVE it and rubbed some gesso around the edges to tone down my bright green that was hurting my eyes. Then I sponged a bit of a different green...good, but not great so I then rubbed some Claudine helmuth white paint on it. Getting better, now it had a mottled look to it which I could live with, and actually liked. But you could really see the 'line' where my pencil shading ended and my gesso/paint correction started. It was like a shiny to d ullfinish. GRRRRR....so I decided to spray it with a heavy coat of matte finish....well, that evened out the two finishes but you could still see the transition.

Glitter to the rescue! And LOTS of it! I think it covered all of my mistakes and hid that transition line....plus it looks good! in the end I think I could have started the entire thing over again and saved me some time!

I didn't write down the copics I used because I only did a base coat with my markers and the majority was done with pencil and gamsol. But I STILL started by stamping with memento on bells's BESTEST paper.

Now don't forget...no challenge this week due to the Canadian holiday so you have extra time to play in our 'ribbon' challenge due to Emily (Emily@stampingbella.com) by Thursday July 7th.

That ends my story of the cupcake princess.

Pickle Class Cards

2011-06-25T09:10:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone!

I have an upcoming class at Pickle and decided to break away from my copics for a bit and do some really techniqie type stuff. You may know everything we are gonna do, you may not, or you may have forgotten that really cool technique and this will make you start using some of the stuff you have been stashing for years.

We will be using all kinds of cool fun stuff including

chalk inks
alcohol inks
distress inks
dies
embossing folders
ultra thick embossing powder
stamps (of course using many of my Stamping Bella fav's)
and I'll have lots of tips and tricks

It's gonna be a FUN afternoon so get ready to get inky...and I'll be heading in a bit early so I can go get myself one of Kim's recommended cafe latte's at DeKoKo's! I can't wait!

A sketchy Friday

2011-06-23T23:59:00.024-04:00

Not sketchy in that weird kinda don't come near me sorta way, but a good way, as in a card sketch! I will also say that Chicken's sketch really stumped me and I could not find ONE single image in my stash of HUNDREDS that jumped out and said PICK ME! So I flipped it, and changed the dimensions slightly....still counts, doesn't it? Oh well, make it work and ask forgiveness later is what I always say! And that philosophy comes to the rescue in the Information Technology world a LOT!

Let me introduce you to Abby, I have never coloured her before and she was looking so 'naked' having never been inked. And I also had a real desire to colour up a Green Bean Baby this week.

I matched her up with one of my current fav's, Basic Grey Sweet Threads, stamped her on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured her with copic markers. But not before paper piecing her dress which I also added some dimension with pencil shading. The grass and blue shading was also pencil but these are the copics I used:

E0000, 00, 21, 11, R20, YR000, 01, 02
E30, 31, 33, 35, 53, 55, 42, 44
G20, 40, 12, YG03, 25, R000, 00, 01
RV000, 00, 10, 11, 32, 14, 21, 23

Just a bit of sewing and some glitter on her dress finished it up!

Now I've got some updates...there will be NO bellarific friday next week due to a Canadian holiday and Emily taking some time off (although I'm sure for her it will mean sitting at home cutting rubbah!). BUT....I'm gonna give you a TWO WEEK heads up on our JULY 8TH challenge...that means YOU GET TWO WEEKS TO PREP! And OH MY, are we gonna make it easy on ya! It's all about RIBBON....use a bella image and smack some ribbon on there are you are eligible to enter. You could win yourself some bella bucks and be in the company of the BESTEST peanut gallery on the web. Nothing makes Emily and us Babes happier than seeing LOTS of gorjusness on Fridays.

BUT THERE IS MORE! If you are a weekly player, or never played before and are looking for something to do next Friday you should check out the STAMPING BELLA FORUM because they will be discussing their VERY FIRST bella book club book. Maybe you read it? Maybe you didn't and you wanna know about it. I'm not gonna chime in because I don't read...hmmmm, maybe I'll have my own little discussion out there on what did you cook? what wine did you drink with it? and what mixed media product you just can't live without? What do ya think? Should I? We'll see! Would you be interested? Let me know and if there is interest I'll make myself available one evening to chat about the things Lindabella loves and answer any of your questions to the best of my ability.

Later, Linda.

It's DAD's day!

2011-06-19T09:55:00.000-04:00

How's everyone doing on this Sunday Father's Day morning? I've had my coffee, sat on the deck and before I get down to doing nothing I thought I'd pop in and show you the other Father's day card I made yesterday. Talk about last minute...but we have a mail strike going on so I knew it didn't have to get mailed by Wednesday to get there on time. This one is for my father in law, and you might remember THIS one I made a few weeks ago for my Dad. They are similar, but different and I LOVE them both!

This one again was inspired by Isabella's Eclectic stamps and LOTS of distress ink. As a side note, you should really check out Isabella's blog, she is uber talented with a very unique style that just draws me in. I was stalking her blog yesterday and in some ways this card was inspired by her.

The deets:
card size: A6 (4 5/8 x 6 1/4)
stamps (all stamping bella): eclectic #8 ticket, eclectic mini mesh, father definition, shady leaf
distress inks: forest moss, antique linen, old paper, vintage photo, frayed burlap
other: skeleton leaf (come on admit it, i know you have some!), leaf punches

That's it for today, I know I said I was gonna post a Mo but decided to honor the Dad's out there instead. Don't forget about our sketch challenge this Friday over at emily's blog...still LOTS of time to get in on it.

we all need one of these, don't ya think?

2011-06-18T09:10:00.000-04:00

I'm talking about a cleaning fairy, and since my own cleaning fairy was under the weather yesterday I could really use one today! But...heck....it's too beautiful outside for me to be stuck in the house and there is yard work to be done. This weekend we are turning over the mulch in our front garden beds and replacing it with stone all in an effort to reduce the number of places for centipedes to nest! After the attack last year we are on a total home defense regime! I say 'we' but it really is 'me' and the fam here knows what makes mamma happy, makes everyone happy!

Back to my housekeeping woes, this is housework FAIRY by Mo Manning available in rubber over at Stamping Bella.

This is a large card....5x7 to be exact. I stamped her on bella's BESTEST paper, paired her up with Basic Grey's sweet threads and used the following copic markers:

E000, 00, 21, 11, 30, 33, 34, 35
E37, 39, 41, 42, 44, 47, 50, 51, 53
G000, 00, 12, 21, YG11, Y000, 00, 11
RV00, 11, 32, 34, R20, 29, W2

It should be a fairly easy week for me in the card creation area because I am sketch challenged and I have TWO sketches to play in this week....first and foremost, our sketch challenge over at blogabella, and Jen's SFYTT...do you know it is sponsored by stamping bella this month!!!!

That's it for this morning...and next up...me think's it might be another Mo!

It's been a LONG week!

2011-06-17T01:00:00.000-04:00

I don't know why it has dragged on, but I'm just so glad it is Friday and so far the weekend weather looks promising. Although the pool is still not warm enough for me I can still find some way to relax. I've been bugging hubs for YEARS to get a heater for the pool but he won't bite, maybe because he doesn't use it. I thought he might surprise me with a heater for my b'day earlier this month, but instead he came home with this $16.99 squirt bottle of some stuff called heat saver! AH, honey, that is NOT exactly what I wanted...gotta luv him...but I do have my reflexology gift certificates to look forward to, and the first I will be using next week! It's been a while since I had a treatment and I'm sooooooooo looking forward to it!

This week our challenge was all about bring on summer...and I AM IN THERE! BRING IT ON! Although I really HATE the humidity that we get here in southwestern Ontario it was such a long cold winter I am actually looking forward to {just} a day or two of 95 degree temps with 97% humidity. And I really hope that day comes on a weekend so I can float around the pool in my new chair with a pina colada.

Alright! Besides pool floating and girly girl alcoholic beverages the other thing about summer I LOVE is flowers! I would love to be surrounded in them, but my yard is large and so is my deck so to get that cozy feeling I group pots on my deck in one area and that is where I sit when I want to be engulfed. So in keeping with the 'engulfed' theme I thought I would colour up lulu LOVES POPPIES....it's perfect! She is totally ENGULFED in them!

I stamped her on bella's BESTEST paper, paired her up with Basic Grey's hello luscious 6x6 paper and coloured with the following copic markers.

E000, 00, 21, 11, 30, 40, 41
BG10, 11, 13, 45, YG67
R22, 24, 29, Y13, V17, 09, 99

All shading was done with prismacolor pencils. I even used some white pencil to add highlights to the poppies...try that sometimes! You will be amazed at how awesome it looks.

Next week our challenge is a sketch sponsored by our very own Chicken...Okay....she's not a real chicken but that is what I call her. It's Jeanie Witmer, The Spotted Chick. Do you know that she is one of my idols! YES, I stalk her constantly and strive to come up with not only gorjus colouring, but FAB layouts to go with it. She is like all around perfect!

So get colouring gals, the layout is already done and THAT is the hard part. Send your card to Emily by Thursday at 5pm and your card will have a permanent home on the world wide web forever! You don't need a blog to enter, just snap a pic and send her a jpg. It's as easy as that, AND you may even win yourself some bella bucks!

Be back soon, I've got a Mo to share!

Linda.

What ever happened to my Sunday morning coffee post?

2011-06-12T20:40:00.000-04:00

Well, I can only say one thing....warmer weather! One of my most fav things in the world to do in the spring and summer weekend months is to take my morning coffee outside, stroll around the yard, pick weeds here and there, check the temp of the pool and this year, watch the finches eat out of their new bird feeders hanging close to my deck. Because of my purely selfish simple pleasures, my Sunday morning coffee post will have to get put on hold until the snow flys again, or, if we have REALLY crappy weather on a Sunday morning and I'm forced to sit in the kitchen.

With that said, today I'm switching it up to a Sunday evening post while I sit at my kitchen table looking at the early evening sun shining on my yard, finches in my feeder, and Criminal Minds marathon on A&E.

Last week was a pretty busy week for me because I had the work gals over on Thursday night for dinner to celebrate one of us retiring. Of the eight of us, she is the second to go and the remaining six just sit and wait for our turn to come. Another couple should hit the good life within the next two years and for the remaing three of us, well, we've got another 4-6 years to wait. Of course I was in charge of the card for the occassion and decided on Lulu's TWO pies from Stamping Bella's Lulu Collection. Sentiment is from Amuse and I bought it at my local store, Pickle.

Isn't she the cutest! OMG! And the best part was that our retiree gal said that baking pies was one of the things she wants to enjoy when she doesn't have to get her butt out of the house for the day job! The entire evening was perfect!

Little Lulu was paired with Basic Grey curio paper, stamped on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with the following copic markers.

E000, 00, 11, 21, 11, 50, 51, 53
E30, 31, 34, 42, 43, 44, 23, 25, 27
YR15, YG25, R11, 21, 32, 35, 20

Don't forget, our challenge this week over at bloggabella is HERE COMES SUMMER....so whatever summer means to you will work as long as you use a Stamping Bella image. http://stampingbella.com/blog/

Till next time, Linda

Nostalgia

2011-06-10T00:01:00.036-04:00

The phone in this little CALL ME PEEP image by Stamping Bella's Green Bean baby line reminds me SOOOOO much of my grandmother...or Baba, as we affectionately called her. It sat on a little table in her her front foyer. It was black and really heavy, probably not that heavy, but it seemed heavy back then. At that time, some 45+ years ago, there were no cordless phones, no cell phones and only one phone in the house and hers was in the front hall. And it was a party line! YUP, that meant she shared a line with someone in the neighborhood. They each had their own phone number but they shared a line. So if you picked up the phone and heard someone talking you couldn't make a call because the other 'party' was using the line. That temptation was way too much for me to resist and could not help myself and HAD to pick up that phone when I passed thrugh the foyer JUST to see if someone was using the line. I didn't care what they were saying, I just wanted to know if someone was on the phone. Can you imagine kids today (and even some adults) living under such restrictions! O-M-G! Personally, I sometimes miss those days.

Enough reminiscing....in keeping with today's challenge, this card REALLY is paper pieced although it may not look like it.

I chose to pair her up with Basic Grey's Ambrosia and there was a piece of subtle grey patterned paper that worked perfect for my phone. I stamped it again on a piece of white for the dial and again on a piece of brushed silver for the cradle. Then of course I had to shade it with a combo of copics and pencils. Then I had this crazy idea to stitch around those tiny curves and I wish I didn't! I can sew fabric like a pro, but paper is a different animal altogether and it was not an easy task so don't look close okay.

Next week our challenge over at Blogabella is HERE COMES SUMMER and in southwestern Ontario summer is here in full force and it seemed to come overnight! Can you believe that I had our furnace on one day, and two days later I was turning on the A/C...the good thing is our pool is heating up nicely and this weekend I MAY be floating around in my new chair with a pina colada! Life is good!

Happy birthday to ME!

2011-06-05T13:36:00.000-04:00

Yuppers...today is my birthday, not a big milestone b'day or anything but once I hit 50 a couple years ago every one of them becomes a milestone from now on. Do I feel 52? Heck NO! Well maybe once in a while when little aches and pains catch up with me but other than that I'm pretty content. And I'll be REALLY content when I enjoy the reflexology gift certificates hubby gave me! Have you ever had that done? OMG...you really should because it is one of my most fav things EVAH and I consider it totally decadent, which makes it a perfect gift.

While most of this week has been spent prettying up the yard I did manage to squeeze in a card. This is from Stamping Bella's May release called LULU's morning fix. I stamped her on Bella's BESTEST paper and coloured her with copic markers.

Her dress ended up being a deeper purple than I originall intended so trashed the original paper I had in mind and paired her up with Basic Grey's Wisteria. No biggie...I've always liked that paper which is odd because I'm not a fan of purple. I didn't bother taking note of the copics I used because I ended up using lots of pencils on it in the end.

Before I go, don't forget about our PAPER PIECING challenge this Friday and I'll leave you with just one of the many things I am enjoying out in my yard on this beautiful warm and sunny day. Ahhhhhhh summertime!

Guy Cards

2011-06-03T00:01:00.002-04:00

That was our challenge this week, and I know for a LOT of you out there masculine cards can be a challenge and can make some folk actually cringe! I'm totally with ya! They are HARD TO DO, and a challenge at the best of times. If I had my dithers, I would colour flowers and whimsical little girls exclusively, but the truth is, guys like cards too! My Dad, Uncles, even my hubby, boys and nephews like getting cards that have that personal touch.

Now for the little gaffers, it is usually pretty easy...teens are the hardest but the second easiest of the bunch are those 'mature' men...dads, uncles, grandfathers. Although my Dad and Uncles love my colouring, my next fav thing to do for them is something that I call artsy fartsy with a twist of nature and this is what I created.

How'd I do it? I started on a piece of hot press watercolor paper which has a smoother texture than the more common cold press. Spritzed with some Adirondack color wash and then stamped with Isabelle's Eclectic #8 ticket background and eclectic mini mesh. Sponged the edges with distress inks and trimmed the edges with a gold Krylon Pen. To brighten up the colours I sprayed it with Krylon Matte Finish and then added some texture by spraying some Goosebumps...thanks Kim for telling me I 'needed' this product!

I used the Father Definition block on the tag. Actually I knew the entire definition would not fit into my cuttlebug cut and embossed die so I cut the tag first, then masked the right edge with a post it note and then stamped the definition so it would be 'contained' within the tag. Like who is gonna read the entire definition anyhow! Then I sponged with more distress ink to highlight those raised areas.

Since it was a 'mature' masculine card I had to pull in nature. Somehow maturity and nature seem to mesh for me! This is gonna be deep folks so don't laugh, but I think it has something to do with watching my yard mature and become more beautiful each year that I have that same appreciation of getting older and more mature...we become more beautiful as we age. So embrace those birthdays gals....I know I do!

Enough deepness...you are all probably gagging by now...so I'll get on with the final touch. I bought this SPECTACULAR set of Spellbinders leaf dies at my LSS the Paper Pickle...actually i bought ALL of the Donna Salazar line of dies....they are soooooo {ME}! LOVE these babies! And I pulled out my file folder of 'metalic' papers and came across a piece of glossy paper that I had inked up with some alcohol inks....this was so old I can't even remember the name of the technique! If I recall it, I'll let you know and give you all a tutorial link.

Well, that is pretty much all the details, and if you are are a local...this is a 'hint' of what's to come at my upcoming Pickle class! I hope I didn't give tooooo much away!

Next week our challenge will focus on PAPER PIECING! I KNOW you all love it, and if you've never tried it, now is the time. Create your masterpiece, send it to Emily by next Thursday and you just may win yourself some bella bucks. In the meantime, hop on over to Bloggabella and see what everyone else has come up with for their masculine card! I CANNOT wait to get inspired!

Later, Linda!

Catching up

2011-05-31T20:43:00.000-04:00

As much as I love going away for a few days, it has to be a really worthwhile reason to go because so much doesn't get done around here when I am away for a weekend. Making cards is one of those things that gets neglected but I am catching up. And today's card is very appropriate because I am also catching up on some much needed love in the yard. The poor thing has been so neglected with the cold and rainy spring we have had. Can you believe that last week I had the furnace on and the last couple days it has been in the 90's and terribly humid! Freaky southern Ontario weather!

Mo Mannings Sadie looks a lot like me this past weekend, except my hair is straight with wild wings sticking out all over the place from sweat, and I DEFINITELY don't wear lipstick, or any makeup for that matter because I am constantly wiping my face in my old worn out t-shirt...it ain't a pretty picture folks!

As always I stamped her on bella's BESTEST paper, paired her up with basic grey's hello luscious and coloured her with the following copic markers....except for the shading and blue tinge in her apron which I did with pencils after colouring with green copics. I LOVE how the pencils just give that hint of colour when I need it.

E000, 00, 21, 11, 81, 87, 42, 43, 44
E30, 33, 35, 37, 49
R20, 24, 81, 83, 85, 89
YG11, 41, 45, 93, 25, 67
YR30, 12, 14, Y11, 15, 21, 26, 28

WHEW! lots of markers there but she was really a joy to colour! Now you've still got time to play along in our Masculine challenge this Friday....and with Father's day just around the corner this could give you an early start on one of those cards that you may need! For ONCE, I'll be ahead of the game!

Till next time, Linda