Simple Pleasures

If anyone owns a pet you will have to agree with me that snuggling up with your little fur baby is one of lifes simple pleasures. Of course, I have a West Highland White terrier and she would rather kill a bunny or a squirrel than snuggle up with me but we do have our quiet time once a day and I cherish it.

For this card I used Stamping Bella's Kittycattabella and started coloring her up with my pencils, something felt odd though and then I realized that I always use copics for my bella's...don't ask me why, I just always do! So after coloring her pants and shirt with pencils, I switched to copics for the rest of her and her fur babies. I had my girlfriend in mind when making this card and she has two Ragdoll cats so I tried to color these little cats to match hers. Then I finished up the shading with my pencils. Order was established! I added the Simple Pleasures sentiment and finished it off with a bit of ribbon and a Basic Grey Glazed Brad.

Don't forget you still have time to play along in this week's Bellarific Friday challenge. This week is a sketch challenge hosted by Jen-a-bella, and if you are sketch 'challenged' like me, you'll appreciate this one. You can find all the details http://stampingbella.com/blog/?p=1742.

And fnally...if you aren't enabled enough...Stamping Bella is celebrating the new release, Ryan's birthday and World Scrapbooking Day by offering free shipping for orders over $50.00 so hop on over to her blog to get the deets on that.

Rose Bouquet

A while back I told you I had a flower melt down and ordered myself a whack of flower images from Stamping Bella. Rose Bouquet was part of this little bit of retail therapy. It never ceases to amaze me how you can take a simple black outlined image, add a bit of color and bring something to life! I enjoy it so much and if I could just sit and color all day I would. Of course my family would starve and we would go bankrupt but I might be in such a euphoric state I might not even notice..LOL! Okay, enough dreaming...I've got a day job and a family to feed, a reno to pay for, and children to put thru school so I'll just be content colouring in my spare time for now.

I used pencils and gamsol to color this image and mounted in on three layers of Nesties. I really like to add all these nestie layers if my main image is cut small enough to do it. A bit of glitter in the flower centers (which sadly you can't see) and a nice bow finished it off. The paper is from the Basic Grey Porcelain 6x6 pad which I seem to be using a lot of lately. I also used one of my favourite layouts with a 51/2 x 51/2 card and that is to cut the front of the card 1" shorter and add paper to the inside of the card to create a border. It balances the front of the card, and adds some interest to the inside! Besides that, it's easy and uses up that scrap of paper that would have otherwise hit the trash.

Don't forget to check Emily's blog tomorrow to see who is the winner of the Bella Bucks and to get our next challenge! I KNOW I'll be ready for a bit of colouring after our little whirlwind vacation.

Cupcakes with Chocolate Bon Bon's

By the time you read this I will have my first Dave Matthews concert under my belt and will be enroute to number two! Don't worry...I WILL be boring you with pictures.


This week's Bellarific Friday challenge was to use pink and brown. I'm not going to post the inspiration picture because I used some creative license on the pink and went for something a bit more subtle, that exact shade of pink in the challenge pic would REALLY have been a challenge for me.

With pink and brown in mind I flipped through the bindah's (yes...i have more than one!) and I didn't have to flip too long because as soon as I saw Stella with her cupcake I jumped on it. Chocolate cupcake with pink icing and a chocolate Bon Bon to top it off! I think I could eat this card. And during my colorin' frenzy sistah Paula was emailing me trying her darndest to break my mojo! Sorry sistah...you just couldn't do it! So I knew the colors, I knew the image then I sifted through my papers and Basic Grey porcelain was perfect...I even had the matching brad. It really came together quite easily for me...I finished it in less than 60 hours...LOL!!!

I coloured her with my copics and my current trend continues with using pencils for shading. I find it quicker and if you like to use gamsol, it won't bleed your copics. I cut her out with my Spellbinders Labels die, glittered up the cupcake, wand and tierra, added some Ranger Matte accents to the chocolate bon bon sponged the edge with Versamagic scattered straw. I have several sentiments that could have worked with her but I thought this one was fun and funky and suited the giant cupcake. I did split it up and stamped it twice so I could fit it into my tag. You really should spend some time going thru the Stamping Bella sentiments because they are fun and clever and when you mix and match them with your images the possibilites are endless!

Have a wonderful day!

Happy Forest

Isn't this just the happiest forest you have ever seen! It is Stamping Bella's Happy Forest stamp. The Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday paper was the inspiration for the colors on this card. I've said it before, but I'll say it again...TOTALLY LOVIN' the cosmo cricket paper. When I saw it I knew without a doubt which stamp I would use with it because I love the colors, and the images on the paper just made me think of a happy forest! Good thing I got to it quickly because the entire inspiration would have dripped out of my head had I not started on it right away! It's an age thing!

This card was coloured with pencils and gamsol and I added glitter to the flowers (because i HAVE to) for some bling. The button is one I've had for a while and is Basic Grey.

Tomorrow we will be off to Charlottle, NC for our first Dave Matthews concert of the season!!!! Can you tell I'm just a little excited!

Anise Ketto

If you were lucky enough to be at Scrapfest in Kitchener yesterday you may have gotten a glimpse of Anise because she was on the 'wall' of Stamping Bella cards at the Paper Pickle booth. I teach classes there and when I heard they were featuring Bella stamps this year I said...OMG...I've got a LOT of them in my stash if you need some for display.

So if you are a regular reader, (or even a new reader) check out the previous post and see if you can spot my cards, and if you have a really keen eye, you might just see a couple that haven't been featured on the blog yet! Now don't get fooled though, because along with me, there were other talented card artists on there including Paper Pickle owners Kim and Kell and fellow teacher Pauline!


The Cosmo Cricket paper was the inspiration for colors on this gal...I LOVE LOVE LOVE cosmo cricket paper. I must say, Cosmo Cricket along with Basic Grey and October Afternoon, are my current fav's. She was coloured with copics and shaded with pencils. The image and layers were cut out with my Spellbinders Labels 1 set...LOVE those labels dies!

Tonight I'm gettin' some laundry done (drag!)...but for a good cause!...I'm counting down the days till the start of our annual Dave Matthews Band summer tour. Sadly, LeRoi won't be with us this year...but he is in our hearts. Next week at this time I'll have two concerts under my belt and will be wallowing in the bask of Elvis in Memphis.

Don't worry though...I'll be here in spirit and have posts ready to go!

Scrapfest

Well...what a day we had today! Paula and Mary made the trip to Chatham and with Pauline in tow we headed to Scrapfest in Kitchner. Of course the VERY first stop I had to make was the Paper Pickle booth where Bella's were EVERYWHERE! Of course I had a selfish reason for scooting there first and that was to see my cards on display....Yup...all the cards on this display were made by Kell, Kim, Pauline and yours truely! It made me smile!



While Emily helped out with make and takes,


Ryan manned the blackberry and tended to emails. (or maybe he was playing on a Game Boy, I couldn't really tell!)


Then while Em sat trying to conduct the make and take...bella sistah Paula dropped her cards on Emily's lap and we held them up to the make and take crowd and all ooohhhh'd and awwwe'd.

We ran into lots of Paper Pickle friends and even one of the newest members of the SCS Dirty Dozen Design Team...Chatham Kent's very own Bonnie...aka...The Lucky Clucker! Way to go Bonnie!!!!

Emily and I got a few good hugs in and I can't wait to see her again soon!

As Emily would say, MWAH!

Just bursting with color!

Well, I must say Emily outdid herself with the challenge this week. At first glance I was overwhelmed, then I read the post and we just needed to use any combination of the colors, then I looked at the colors again and was decision impaired and just had to use them ALL!







What does one use when presented with a large range of color? Well, flowers of course! I figured if I used the Jar of Wildflowers I had a pretty good chance of incorporating all the colors in the challenge...and I think I came pretty darn close to pulling it off! What do ya think? I coloured with pencils and gamsol, then used chalk to 'pink' up the paper. Of course I added glitter and some glossy accents to the centers of the flowers and the jar. If it is a jar, it need to be glazed, right? (that's my rule!)

Then we had to use a flower...and I got stumped. I first tried to layer a couple different red/orange/yellow combos of flowers but they overwhelmed my pretty jar of wildflowers that I just spent a gazillion hours colouring so I ripped those off in place of some very neutral ones. In the end, I'm happy because although my flower is large, my image remains front and center!

I hope you were happy with the outcome of your challenge card! Have a wonderful weekend! I'm off to Scrapfest tomorrow!

I actually entered a contest!

Now I rarely enter contests...like practically never...once a year would be stretching it! But every once in a while I like to pop in on Stamping Bella's designers blogs. So today I came upon a contest on Christy Croll's blog...you know...those cutie patootie huggabugs and tiddly inks that are on my pile that have YET to see ink. Well, if anything is gonna get me on that quicker it would be winning a custom stamp designed by Christy herself!

Go check it out, but be quick cause the contest ends today.

Kenya Ketto

Hi Everyone! Today I'm showing you one of the cards I am doing in class at Pickle this month using Kenya Ketto. Both class cards are from Stamping Bella's Ketto line and when I brought the cards in to show the Pickle girls Kell screamed...'oh, these have to be the next class!'...that was easy! Usually I am busy last minute trying to come up with something. The other card I am doing this month is Felix which you can see in this post. The Ketto's have been a real hit at Pickle and that is so nice to see. Emily should feel like a proud mamma right about now!

Speaking of Em, have you read her blog? She's is having a release buffet on April 28 "including Jessica Rose images, 2 bellas, tiddly’s new innovations, chichis.. you name it"...and that is a direct quote! How exciting. I'm hoping there are some really cute shoooze on the buffet!

It has been a busy few weeks in the Heavens household lately and I am really looking forward to some down time. Now that the boys's b'day and Easter is behind me and our reno is coming to a close I have the Dave Matthews tour to look forward to and then hopefully some down time in May to get my house back in order! I don't do well when things get too busy for me. I'm a gal who really needs her quite time.

Now don't forget...you have one more day to submit your card for Bellarific Friday. If you have forgotten the challenge....you can read about it on the Stamping Bella blog here. Good luck to all the participants and I always look forward to Fridays when all the cards are posted!

Happy Easter!!!!

I hope you all are having a nice Easter weekend....and if you are lucky enough to also have Monday off...I'm 'J'...(just learned that one from my nephew yesterday). We had our family get together yesterday and I was less enthusiastic than usual mainly due to seriously hurting calfs and thighs due to painting the bathroom on Friday. Thankfully, my mom and brother brought all the food and all I had to do was make salad (which my Mom did for me when she got here!). After they left I took an Aleve and got my thermophore heating pad on those legs and thankfully I'm much more mobile today!


Todays card features Chirpie Ketto. I love funky bird images and this one is no exception. I used Chirpie and his mini on here and it reminds me of a mamma bird poking her little one to get moving! Hehehe! I know I've been there done that when my boys were little. I colored these guys with my copics, used pencils for the grass and sky, cut with nesties and finished it off with some glitter and a little glossy accents on their eyes. See that big giant button on the boy, well it's not a button, it is one of Stamping Bella's magnets. If you have been thinking about getting some, just do it...they are REALLY nice!

Now for some business. Have you seen the challenge on Bloggabella yet! OMG! GORJUS! The challenge is to use any combo of the colors but you MUST use a flower on the card. Easy Peasy! I simply couldn't pick just a few colors so I challenged myself to use as many of them as I could. I think I may have pulled it off. Go get colorin' and email your card to Emily by 5pm Thursday April 16th for a chance to win some Bella Bucks!

Finally...if you live in Southwestern Ontario within driving distance to Kitchener you really should consider attending Scrapfest. Paper Pickle will have a booth and almost all of the Stamping Bella cards that I have posted on my blog will be on display. I've never attended this event before, but I hear it is worth the drive so I'll be there. If you are going, let me know...and if you recognize me...say hi 'cause I'd love to meet you.

Tyler makes another appearance!

This past weekend my mom needed a card for my cousin's little guy. So without hesitation I pulled out Tyler the Jock. Now I've done him up a couple times before but I gotta say, every time I color him, he just gets better and better. This time I chose to use pencils and gamsol and pair him up with some paper from the latest Cosmo Cricket line. I actually picked my paper first and coloured second! SHOCKING! I gotta say though, I think it makes the process go a bit faster and I may be doing this more often! Have you seen the latest Cosmo Cricket papers.....they are YUMMY I tell ya...totally YUMMY!

The sentiment is also from Stamping Bella and I've said it before, but I'll say it again....CHECK THEM OUT BECAUSE THEY ARE PHENOM!!!!!!!!!! I have a ton of them and I use them all the time. I didn't get a pic before I handed it off to Mom but inside I used "A BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY" which just so happens to be in the matching font! BONUS...because I'm kind of a stickler for matching fonts on the inside and outside of my cards!

Reno Update

Sorry, no card today, just a little update for some of my personal friends and family who have to listen to me day after day. With the reno phase II (....yes Mark...there WILL be a phase III) coming to an end we thought we would leave a little time capsule in our house. We all signed our names on the post that is going to be covered with the decorative column! Derek...who NEVER likes me to take his picture even said we should get a family shot in front of the post to leave inside it. WOW! My boy is a little nostalgic...whoda thought? I may just have to do that when Alex gets home from work!

I even got Guy, our contractor to sign it! He has sort of become part of our family on and off for the past year and I'll kinda miss him when he is done. Not to worry Guy...I've got more secret plans for ya...I'll just let Mark get over phase II before I spring phase III on him!

Don't forget to go check Emily's blog because she has posted her next challenge for us...it's wide open so nobody with any color challenges should have difficulty with this one.

A challenge!

I've got a lot of them going on right now. Probably the biggest is the main bath and living/dining room reno that i'm in the midst of! This is a pic of the current state of my living room. I've got one word for it...YIKES!!!! Yes, it's a mess, but we are ripping down the wall between the living and dining room. The living room is at the front of the house, and the dining room at the back. The back of the house is loaded with natural light, while the front is dark and dreary. This is going to let light pour into the living room and make me happy. I'm gonna wait for the bathroom to be done before I post any pics, but all I will say is....can you say ZEN!!!

Now for the FUN challenges in my life....the Bellarific Friday challenge. I know I generally post these on Friday night, but with the b'day and the reno I'm a bit behind. The colours that Emily picked out this week made my eyes wild! In my personal life I like my surroundings to be calm and my colors subdued...but my inner soul LOVES color...LOTS of it.

These colors screamed little Missmatch Ketto to me. I adore these images and have acquired quite a few of them already, I just need to find time to work on them! Soon! I coloured her up with copics and mounted with oval nesties. When I tossed the cut pieces on the table, they landed in the 'offbeat' arrangement and I thought...HEY...go with it. The sentiment is also from stamping bella as well as the spellbinder ribbon slide tag. They came in a set of three and I've had them for quite a while....whevever I'm pulling out a sentiment I always check to see if it will fit in one of these because I love them. Little Missmatch needed some bling, so I added some hot fix crystals, they seriously are as glittery as swarovski's.

That's it for today, I'll see ya Wednesday with another oldie but goodie from Stamping Bella.

Happy Birthday Alex and Derek

Our twin boys came of 'age' yesterday and turned 19. I've had this Beerafella in my stash ever since Emily released it just waiting for this opportunity. You will notice that I did add some 'arms' to the fella's because with one in football, and the other an avid gym guy, they would have been very displeased had I colored up these guys with skinny arms! LOL!!!! One more difference between this beerafella and my boys is that neither of them would be caught DEAD with their shirts neatly tucked into their shorts like this guy. But a mom can dream can't she! The guys were colored with copics, but the shading was done with pencils. The charms were some that I also got from emily and put them on mini key chains. There is a little 6 pack and a beer bottle top and I expect they will be taking them off the cards and I'll see them dangling from their backpacks or something.


Now, another thing about their b'day cards is that every year I try to come up with something witty inside their card. I do know that Alex likes beer and Derek does not. So I searched onto my favorite quote site, Think Exist, to find something appropriate to print inside the card and this is what I came up with.

For Alex (the beer drinker...i did reword this one just slightly):
Someday you will reflect back on all the beer you drank and feel ashamed - Then you’ll look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If you didn't drink that beer, they might have been out of work and their dreams would have be shattered. Then you’ll say to yourself, 'It is better that I drank that beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.’

For Derek (the one who 'claims' he doesn't like the taste of beer):
Milk is for babies. When you grow up you have to drink beer.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

Yesterday we took them to Casino Windsor with my parents for the buffet dinner and a taste of gambling. My mother, although not a high roller, is a casino frequenter and enjoyed showing them the ropes. We all gambled responsibily (well, some gambled, and others just watched) and a fun time was had by all. Alex came out a whopping $5 ahead, Derek lost 5, I wish I could lose as much weight as I lost in money! LOL!

Bella is more than just a pretty face!

We know we all love Bella's, Stella's, Chichi's and all the other cutie faces that are part of the Stamping Bella family...but did you know there are also flowers!!! YES...flowers. Some are graceful, some are whimsical, some can be colored and others are only limited to your imagination. You may not know this, but I LOVE flower stamps. I can't get enough of them and of all the stamps I own, I'll never part with my flower stamps. So I had a bit of a flower meltdown and ordered me a few of Emily's flowers. I let my imagination take over and this is what I came up with.

First I stamped the solid flowery weeds in Adirondak Willow, then overstamped with Dandelion Bunches in Versafine black. I even used the dandelion mini to fill in the empty spaces at the bottom. I made the dandelions look more like purple onion plants by adding some pencil to them. I finished it up with glitter and mounted it quite simply to let my flowers take the stage.

I think it is my current favorite card!