Lavender Bittybloom

How is everybody on this Canada Day! I'm pretty happy because it is a holiday and I have a couple extra days off to make for a nice extra long weekend!


Little miss Lavender Bittybloom was part of the haul of rubber that came home with me on my trip to Stamping Bella. I pulled out the copics and colored her up to match this Basic Grey wisteria paper. I used pencils and gamsol to create some nice soft shading and then sponged Versamagic Vanilla ink on the edges. While I had the pencils out I used the white pencil to add some lighter highlights to her skirt and hat. And of course, no bittybloom is complete until you add some glitter. The ribbon is something I got at Archivers a while back and I picked up the ribbon slide in the clearance bin at Pickle. I think it might be Maya Road.

For inquiring minds, these are the copic colors used on the image:
G20, 40, 21, T1
BV02, 04, 08, B60
E0000, 000, 00, 11, 13, 15
E30, 33, 35, 39
R20

Thanks for stopping in! I'm off to enjoy my extra super long weekend.

Chick it out!

If you are a Stamping Bella and Emily fan like me you KNOW that she just had a birthday on Thursday and she is one hot chick! WELL....Nicky, Shannan, and Christy Croll (aka Tiddlyinks) came up with this fun b'day surprise for Emily. Cristy created an image just for Emily and Shannan emailed the babes and a few friends to see if they wanted to play along and create a b'day card for Em using this 'personalized' image! How could I say NO...just thinking of Em's wonder as these cards came rolling in was enough to make me wanna play!


If you are interested in reading her post you can do that here. Nothing better than a good Emily story to make me smile! This one was worthy of reading to the hubs. I have a handful of memorable Emily posts that have given me a good LOL chuckle and this one goes into that area of my eternal memory. The two others that are top of my list are when Nicky pulled out her personal fan in a meeting and when the baubles arrived! Priceless blog post memories! (yes Em, I've been reading your blog for a VERY long time!)

So here you have it...my impression of Emily...classy and fabulous! I colored her with copics, added just a bit of shading with pencils, and of course some jewelzzzzzzzzzzz. We all know how Emily likes her bling and I certainly didn't want to disappoint her!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of making the trip up to the BOO-tique with Paula (yup...that would be the uber-talented Paula), Mary, Dana, Pauline and Shannan. We had a total blast, Paula and I gave pencil and copic tips and we met a ton of Bella fans. I even got to meet Christine Dol. I'll be she doesn't know it, but I anticipate reading her comment as much as she anticipates seeing my post! Funny the way it is, isn't it! Here is a pic of Paula doing her thing with Emily, Nicky and Carolyn looking on.

After all the colorin' was over I did some shopping...like a LOT of shopping...I may have come home with a pound of rubbah. I also have a new love...that would be the Bella paper. OMG! If you are a copic fan like myself you MUST try this paper. It is amazing! I stamped an image in memento and got right down to coloring. No smearing, no bleeding and it is a lighter weight paper than papertrey so you don't need as much ink to get the paper wet enough to blend the colors. I couldn't find it on the website, but I'm sure it will be coming soon!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend, what's left of it!

Out of this world!

It's Bellarific Friday folks and this week I chose something totally different for me, you might say Cakey WATT is out of this world different! I'm really a girly girl at heart...you know...shoes, bags...that kind of thing. I'm somewhat high maintenance. But I do have a couple young nephews on hubs side who will be in need of birthday cards this summer and I thought these little robots would be perfect and they are so STINKIN' cute. If you were with me last year you might recall I gave them Tyler the jock and high tops.


I colored this guy up in copics in the following colors, but shading was done with pencils and the sponging around the edge with Versamagic Aspen Mist:
BG10, 72, 75 and blender
R24, E08
E44, 47
Y000, 11, 13, 17
E50, 51, 53, 42, 43

I even managed to follow the sketch pretty closely this week using Basic Grey offbeat paper for my color scheme and the Special Boy sentiment that was split into two lines to fit into my nestie oval. And since he is a robot I used lots of eyelets to mimic rivets. I will fess up, I was so anxious to get the picture taken I forgot the finishing touches which I added after and that would be glitter on the candles and a dot of gell pen on his rivets. It added just that little bit of texture to make it special!

Have a fantastic weekend everyone and don't forget to check out Emily's blog today to catch a glimpse of all the submissions....they are getting better and better each week...you go girls...can't wait to see them! As of now, I have NO plans this weekend except to color up a storm!

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday to you...
Happy Birthday to Emily...
Happy Birthday to you...


Be thankful I'm only typing and not singing...eeeeks! I sing worse than I draw! LOL! This is the card I made for Emily's Birthday blog hop. AND....this is my first hop! Shocking, I know. I would love to play more but my schedule just doesn't permit it.

If you just happened to pop in here, you might want to start at Emily's blog because she got to be first since it is HER birthday afterall! And if you hopping along you can go to the uber talented Julie Masse's blog next.

For those of you who are still with me and haven't hopped off yet you are lucky enough to get the nitty gritty! I used presentahbella, stamped her up in Brilliance Graphite black and colored her up in these copic inks:
Y000, 00, 11, 13, 15
YG13, 25, 17
RV00, 10, 02, 32, 25, 29
E000, 00, 11, 30
E33, 35, 37, 59
C0 and blender

The polkadot paper is Scenic Route that I've had it in my stash for a while and I thought the tiny polkadots were too perfect to pass up. The paper was also my inspiration for the copic colors used. The sentiment is appropriately called Wish Big and I shaded it with a bit of yellow pencil. The final touch is one of my kajinker felt flowers that I have had for so long but never had a perfect place for it until now! You might also notice that there is no glitter on this card...YIKES...but I did add a few layers of clear glaze pen on the dots on her dress just to give it some texture.

Now that I'm done blabbering...go off to the next post and Emily, if you are reading this...I WISH YOU A WONDERFUL DAY!

Sunshiney days

That is what we are having this week here in Chatham. I think summer has finally arrived and we expect a high of about 90 tomorrow! While I had Anise's Flowers out for the last challenge I decided to make this card that I have had in my head for ages. A while back I even bought a sizzix fence die in hopes of doing it but the die was nasty to use and didn't cut all the way through. So when I spied this picket fence Martha punch at Michaels I was all over it. A nice picket fence with bright sunny flowers behind it.


Anise's flowers and the sunshiney day sentiment were perfect for my vision. I stamped the flowers and drew in the stems and leaves. I can't draw to save my life, but I thought this was within my reach. They are colored up with Lyra pencils and blended with gamsol. I then sponged on the chalk ink. I even masked off a straight line on my picket fence paper and sponged more green ink below the fence so I would have continuity of color.

I'm so glad that I finally got this card out of my head and on to paper so I can move on to other things!

Those other things could possibly be a card for Emily's birthday blog hop on SU..hmmmm...yup I'm playing along in that...and did you know she is gonna release some goodies for her birthday! Or it might be the Friday challenge card with Nicky's faboo sketch! You are gonna be suprised folks, my challenge card is all done up and it's not a bella, stella, ketto, chichi or flower...hmmmm what could it possibly be???? I'm super excited about it and can't wait to show you. If you want to play along, check out Emily's post here for all the deets and mail your entry in by Thursday at 5pm.

See ya at the hop!

Simple Sunday

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there! Hope your kids are doing something extra special for you today...I'll be making a delish dinner tonight, Saltimbocca chicken breasts with sage wine sauce and creamy arugula pasta! YUM!


But, before that can happen I absolutely HAD to finish the thank you cards that I want to send to everyone who helped me ring in the big 5-0 b'day party. I had about 25 to make so I wanted to keep it simple but fun and funky so I used Tripletree Ketto with the just wanted to say sentiment. To keep those trees REALLY bold, I stamped them in black pigment ink and embossed with black detail embossing powder. Then I filled in the empty spots with my copics using the The Sunshine Crate paper to guide the color choices. Just a tip when using black embossing powder...you MUST use a static bag on your paper first, otherwise those little tiny bits of black powder will stick to everything you don't want them stuck on!

It looks like it might rain, so I'm off to get a bit more gardening done before I get busy in the kitchen.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Bellarific Friday Andy Warhol style

It time for another Bellarific Friday challenge and this sketch was brought to us by the uber talented Paula. Leave it to her to give us something to really made us think! Now, I'll admit that I really didn't think about it too long because if it has four squares it screams Andy Warhol. So keeping with that theme I got to work and stamped Anise Ketto's flowers onto four scraps of white paper with memento black ink. Then I punched them out into circles. Each 'background' was colored solid (yes...NO shading!!!) with copic markers and the flowers were all colored the same. Next, I punched out four squares and mounted a flower on each one. If you are familiar with Andy Warhol's work, it is typically very vibrant so I thought the life is too short for beige sentiment was very appropriate. Because the sentiment was so long I did have to improvise a bit on the sketch and move it down. Now hop on over to the Bella Blog later today because I'm sure you will find some inspiring work over there!

And a little Bessie update! The little pooch is doing well, however, she is having difficulty adjusting to the lifestyle changes that she must endure for the next 4-6 weeks. She DOES NOT like being confined in the kitchen...NOT AT ALL...and it's not like I'm leaving her in there all alone, I'm with her...but she stands there and whines and cries and desperately wants to perch herself on the back of the couch like she is used to. I won't let her do that, but I will let her on the couch if she is supervised so she won't jump off. I tell ya, it's more work than a baby! But it is forcing me to relax a bit myself so that is probably a good thing.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone...It is the Cancer Relay for Life here in Chatham tonight so I'll be getting up extra early to volunteer in the food tent! Hopefully it won't rain too bad on the those who are walking tonight.

Puppy Love

Hi everyone...yesterday my baby girl had surgery to repair a torn ligament in her knee. Poor thing, I get to pick her up after work today and I just cannot wait to see her and snuggle her up. It is going to be a rought next couple of weeks though because I have to keep her from running and jumping. That means she must stay confined to the kitchen while I'm at work and won't get to lay in her fav spot on the front sofa watching the world go by. I'll put her little bed in front of the garden doors and with any luck a squirrel will run by to amuse her! But then again, chasing squirrels is what put her in this condition so maybe it is best that they stay away until she is 100% again. This is a pic of her doing what she does best, chasing one of little fur devils up the tree and standing guard.


Dogwalkabella is dedicated to my little fur baby Bessie and the simple pleasures sentiment is so appropriate because going for a little walk is one of the small things that can give a pup so much joy. I used the Marrakech paper to guide my color scheme and colored it up with copics, but used pencils for shading and grass. No glitter on this card...shocking...instead I layered some buttons and tucked in some ribbon, the border punch you see peeking out is Martha Stewart.

For inquiring minds, these are the copic colors used on this card.
E0000, 00, 11, 13, 15, 35
E40, 42, 43, 44, 50, 51, 53
BG72, 75, 93, 96, 99
R21, 22, 24, C0, C1, blender

Now for some Bella fun. Did you know that this week's sketch is brought to us by my BFF, fellow babe and stamper extrodinaire Paula! This is her VERY first sketch so how 'bout showing her some love and playing along. Not only will she be thrilled but if you submit a card you also get a chance at $20 Bella Bucks! Check out Emily's blog for all the details.

Maisy Sunshine

It is such a BEEEEUUUUTIFUL day here in Chatham I decided I needed to color something that was filled with sunshine just like the weather and Maisy Sunshine was perfect! I stamped her off a while ago and started coloring her, but hadn't finished it until this morning. I used pencils and gamsol this time and sponged the edges with VersaMagic thatched straw. I wanted to keep all the colors soft and subtle so pulled out some Memory Box paper, one of my go-to papers when I want subtle.


Dotted that glue pen of mine, added a bit of glitter and some glossy accents. you can' tel from the pic but I did use my gel pens to gloss up the flowers as well. The addition of the buttons was not pre-planned! I got a smudge on the left side of the image and i needed to hide it so I pulled buttons from my stash. I have a LOT of buttons and even some vintage that belonged to my grandmother. She pulled buttons off of EVERYTHING and I do that myself. Did you know that Emily carries some fantastic buttons...check them out here...very vintage, and such soft pretty colors...next time I make a trip up there, I'll be certain to bee line straight for them.

Finally did you know that Emily has a birthday coming up and Shannan has organized a blog hop over on the SU Bella Forum to celebrate. It's gonna be one heck of a party so if you want to play along you can sign up here! Hope to see you there!

I'm off to soak in some sun and do some gardening!

Thinking outside of the box!

Today is another Bellarific Friday and it was another sketch challenge. Now, I'm gonna admit a deep dark secret about me....SKETCH CHALLENGES USED TO SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF ME!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sure you are wondering why...but I think it has a lot to do with my 'day job' ... Being a programmer I'm very accustomed to gathering specific and complete requirements...we are talking VERY SPECIFIC. So when it came to sketch challenges I would struggle trying to fit 'exactly' inside that box. I didn't let my creative soul get in the way. WELL...things have changed! I've finally been able to take a sketch and use it for inspiration rather than a hard fast set of rules.


That leads me to today's card. I looked thru my REALLY LARGE bella stash (oh you'd be envious) for something that would fit into an oval and twinkle fairie looked like she would fit perfectly. Then I decided to tuck have a magical day under those little twinkles. Next I picked my paper (something I don't always do, but it does make the process go faster) and decided on Basic Grey Porcelain.

Now it was time to pick my copics and these are the colors I used:
R000, 00, 11, 12, 22,
E40, 41, 0000, 000, 11, 13, 15,
Y000, 11,
R20,
Y21,
G40, 82, 94
pencil crayons for shading under the foot

Now that I had her colored I had to mount her following the sketch. I thought it would look better if I flipped the sketch 180 degrees to move the image to the top portion of the card, also based on the size of my image I had to go to a 5 1/2" square.

In the past I would have looked at the sketch and assumed that thin strip had to be paper, not this time...I replaced it with ribbon and still remained within the elements of the sketch! I think I've finally figured out how to relax with the sketches!

Have some fun today, think outside of the box and hop on over to Emily's blog to see what others did with this week's sketch!

Classy and Fabulous

That is exactly what this Diva is! AND, this Diva clearly uses a lot of hair dye! How do I know? Because when I was colorin' up miss ADDY'tude on the deck Sunday night it was just starting to get dark and I kinda messed up her hair...Since it was the last thing left to color I REALLY didn't want to file it under 'G' so I attempted to repair my mistake. That ended up with a LOT of color on that head of hers. I think she ended up with a decent dye job though and it isn't nearly as dark IRL as it is in the pic!


I picked my copic colors to match the Basic Grey Wisteria paper...I'm not a purple person, except when it is a nice deep regal looking purple like this! I cut her with my rectangle nestie and added some glitter after 'dotting' her dress with my quickie glue pen. Finally added some Making Memories gems and adhered them with Micro Dots...my hands down fav adhesive for teeny tiny things! I think when I finish the inside of the card, I'll definitely be using the Classy and Fabulous quote!

Now for those who NEED to know, these are the copics I used for my little Diva:
BV000,00, V12, 15
B91, 93
E000,00,11, 31, 33, 35, 37
C1, 2, 3, 6, 7
Black and colorless blender
(pencils were used for the shading below her feet)

For all you Bella fans, you still have one more day to play along in this weeks sketch challenge. You can read all about it on da Bella's blog here.

I'll leave you with a pic of Mark and I taken at the Dave Matthews concert last night in Toronto...We had FANTASTIC seats and I got a ton of really good pics. WhooHooo! Last time I was in Michigan visiting sistah Paula I picked up some Karen Foster mini license plates from all the states and provinces we have seen him in and I plan on making a little scrapbook for Mark with the the location, the concert date, the setlist and my fav pic from the concert! How cool is that! Don't hold your breath though, it might end up being a retirement project!



If you are still with me, and if you care, here is a pic i took last night...Dave! I'm pretty darn sure this one will be featured in the scrapbook!

Thanks a Bunch!

WOW...what a weekend!

The festivities started Thursday when my 'girls night out' gang from work surprised me by bringing over dinner! I have my dear friend and pod mate Kathy to thank for that one! I was completely surprised!

Then Friday morning hubs gave me a GORJUS pair of inside-out diamond hoop earrings. OMG...i thought for sure he was gonna get me an iPhone...but I'm not complaining. Friday night I was surprised yet again when some friends dropped by. That party lasted until the wee hours of the morning and that is when I really started to feel my age!

THEN...yet ANOTHER surprise party was planned at my in-laws on Saturday. That one included my entire family including aunts, uncles and cousins that I don't see often enough. My high school girlfriends that I caught up with at the high school reunion a couple weeks ago, a bunch of our Windsor friends, Mark's family, and my father in law's extended family. Mark dropped a hint to his family that they should all make me a hand made card....OMG....what a riot. Our little nephews helped out to to make an over the hill card out of construction paper, my MIL was very creative and cut out pieces of old cards...she said she wanted to use ones that I have given her but couldn't bring herself to cut them up! LOL! And I also got a VERY creative and VERY large Hawaii Five-0 card.

And of course, I have to say thanks to all my blog friends who left b'day wishes for me. I think this is the best b'day I've had in a long while!

Because I have so much to be thankful for today, it is only appropriate that I make a card to express it. I pulled out Flowahbella, colored her up with copics and sponged a bit of Thathed Straw chalk ink on the edges while leaving the nestability die in place. The thanks a bunch sentiment was stamped onto a piece of paper cut out with one of the Ribbon Tag trios. If you have a bunch of sentiments, these dies are a perfect addition because soooo many of them fit perfectly into the space.

Copics used in this card are: G000, 00, 02, 07, E11, 13, 15, 37, E000, 00, Y23, YR23, E35, R22, 24, Y15, 17, C0, C1 and blender.

I think I'm gonna spend the rest of the day just chillin' out on the deck here...maybe even have a nap. I deserve it!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Yup, it is not only Bellarific Friday, but it is also my birthday. Not just any old birthday, a BIG ONE....think of that half century mark...yes sirreee...i hit the big 5-0 today! Mentally I only feel about 22....must be all those Dave Matthews concerts that we go to!

On a Dave note, if you are a Sirius subscriber, did you know it was all Dave, 24 hours a day, all week, this week on the Jam channel to celebrate the release of the bands new CD! AND today the band is playing live on the plaza in New York and will be on the the Today show...I am a Today show JUNKIE! I've already warned my pod mates that I WILL be late for work this morning so I can watch it. Heck, it's my b'day...I think I deserve it!



In honor of this landmark day I just HAD to color up one of my fav images OF ALL TIME and that would be Stella with an olive on top. It was funny when I was colorin' her because hubs asked what I was doing and I said I was making myself a b'day card! LOL!. Actually I love her so much, I think I'll keep her, heck I should have mailed it to myself! Now I don't drink your traditional James Bond 007 martinis that are shaken, not stirred...I'm more of a cosmo, appeltini kinda girl. The fun, fruity, girly kinda martinis. That's me.

I couldn't have been happier with this weeks sketch by our own Karen Motzabella because it worked perfectly with my fav Stella. I chose the colors based on the Basic Grey Wisteria paper but ended up using a different sheet than I originally thought! The beauty of Basic Grey...if your colors match one paper in the palette, it will likely match another. I wanted to fuss up the sketch a bit so I used the scallopped square nestabilities on the main image, the EK success Scallopped Scallop border punch to divide the two papers and a flat backed pearl in light olive for the center of the flower. When I had it all layed out in front of me it looked 'bottom heavy'. Now i didn't want to add to much on top, so I decided to pull out maisy's polkadots, ink them up with the Essential Glue pad and add some hero arts glitter. It gave the perfect amount of airy bling I was looking for. Now there were several sentiments I could have selected but I thought oh happy day was fitting for my special day! You can bet that I'll be celebrating with one of those girly martinis!

For your next birthday, I suggest you do like I just did...make yourself a card!

Don't forget to check out Emily's blog today and feast your eyes on all the other eye candy that will be posted! Plus leaving a comment could win you some bella bucks! And as always....have a fantastic weekend!

YIKES!

Does that ever happen to you! It happens to me often....the YIKES moment when I realize I need a card and need it FAST. Since it usually takes me a LONG time to make a card, especially if I color it, I decided to come up with something that would be quick and easy, yet fun, for those YIKE moments.

Looking through my stash I decided that the Bella Blvd Make a Wish paper had the fun factor that I was looking for then the bonus came. I realized that Stamping Bella's Celebrate 3 line border fit perfectly between the rows of candles! After I glued it all together I thought, hmph, I probably could have taken the extra minute and embossed that celebrate border! Sometimes those ideas don't come to me quick enough...next time though! Finally, to fuss it up I added Glamour dust with my Quickie Glue pen to the candles that were topped with stars. Then, on the inside I added another row of candles and the Make a Wish sentiment.

Quick, easy, fun and FAST!

Now you still have a couple days to play along in this weeks's challenge. It's another sketch and this week it is brought to you by Karen Motzabella! Email your submisson to Emily by 5pm Thursday with BELLARIFIC FRIDAY JUNE 5th in the subject line and you'll see your card up in lights on the Bella Blog! And don't forget, if you submit a card AND leave a comment in the peanut gallery you have TWO chances to win $20 in Bella Bucks!