Christmas in July

I loved this challenge because I MUST get a grip on my Christmas cards soon so I don't find myself in the crunch I was in last year! I DID NOT ENJOY THAT! I find myself stressed enough during the holidays that I need to do everything I can to help ease it off.

So...what did you think about Stamping Bella's release this week? OMG....I was whirling!!!!! The bella all gussied up with her dog....sooooo me! And the new addition of the little peeps! Killer cute! The Lulu's, the Mo's...OMG!!!!! SOOOOOOO glad I can color again. Although, I have to say, since I have been back to work my wrist has taken a bit of a setback and has become very sore. Even in places where it didn't break! The last two nights even the sheets touching my skin has been very painful. The physiotherapist says that is good because it means the nerves are starting to regenerate, but OMG....can't they do it without letting me know!!!! The last couple days has been the first time in WEEKS that I have taken anything for pain. I hope this does NOT last long because it could put another crimp in my livlihood!

Enough gushing (and whining), here is my card for this weeks Christmas in July challenge. I decided to take Izzie has a prezzie and colour her up in a red velvet dress holding some xmas prezzies? what do ya think? her dress does look like velvet even though NO VELVET WAS USED IN THIS CARD!



For the inquiring minds, I stamped her on Bella's bestest paper and coloured her with the following copic markers: (but as always, I used prismacolor pencils and gamsol to add the shading)

E0000, 000, 00, 11, R20
E30, 31, 33, 35, 40, 41, 43
R14, 24, 27, 29, 59
Y0000, 00, 23, YG0000, G20, 40, 82
W00, 0, 1, B60

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm gonna say it again...THE BABES ARE LOOKING FOR A NEW BABE!

The Babe's are looking high and low for a new friend to join the rank of Bella Babe-ness. If you think you are Babe worthy and want to strut your talent every week...then here's what ya gotta do!

Submit your bestest cards (email to Emily) and play along with our challenges for all 4 weeks in August. Since a Babe requirement is submitting for BellaRIFFIC friday's, you'll be getting your feet wet and showing of your creativity

Next week's challenge is....drum roll please.....

Paper Piecing!

That's right...use some paper piecing on your card, submit it to Emily by next Thursday at 5pm with BELLARIFIC FRIDAY AUG 6TH in the subject line and play along in ALL challenges for Aug and you, yes YOU, just may be the next babe!

Lots of EXCITING Bella news today!!!!

First and MOST importantly, the babes are looking for an addition to our happy team...you DO know we are the BESTEST team out there!!! and did you know that Emily is the bestest bosslady EVAH? Do you want to be part of it? Well here is your chance.

The Babe's are looking high and low for a new friend to join the rank of Bella Babe-ness. If you think you are Babe worthy and want to strut your talent every week...then here's what ya gotta do!

Submit your bestest cards (email to Emily) and play along with our challenges for all 4 weeks in August. Since a Babe requirement is submitting for BellaRIFFIC friday's, you'll be getting your feet wet and showing of your creativity.

Next up is Tantalizing TOOSDAY'S. For you online shoppers, Emily will have a special Tuesday sale that will run until the following Monday. Better be quick though, because once they are gone, they ARE GONE! Check her blog every Tuesday for the new sale of the week.

Now since I am already a babe, (LOL!), the MOST exciting news I have to share is a little peek at one of the stamps from the new release which will be available today. Meet Bossy!

Gotta luv her...personally, I am not a bossy sort (i don't think so anyways), I prefer to follow orders rather than give them. But I came up with what I think is the PERFECT saying to go along with this image. "I told you" was cut out with a sizzix alphabet die and inside I'm gonna write..."those birthdays just keep coming year after year"...LOL! When you get to be my age, all cheezy birthday cards about our age always bring giggles.

For you inquiring minds, the image was stamped on Bella's bestest paper and coloured with the following copic markers. As always I added some extra shading with prismacolor pencils and gamsol.

E0000, 000, 00, 11, R20

E30, 31, 33, 35, C00, 1, 3

T1, W0, 1, G0000, 000, 00

YG41, 45, BG72

Y0000, 000, 00, 11, 21, 32, 28

The blue shading was done with deco blue and true blue prismacolor pencils.

That's it for today folks....happy shopping!

I'm baaa-ack!

hold on....don't get toooooo excited! I'm only part time for now but I'm soooo excited to be colouring again! It is a challenge...somewhat painful and I HAVE to take it slow to allow plenty of time to stretch my hand before it really starts to cramp bad, but it still works!!!! and i'm colouring again and it makes me soooooooo happy! I've missed my markers and pencils more than you know!


I thought this week's challenge was the perfect time to try and jump in because the theme was a bella or a stella...nice and easy...i can do that! Like Jeannie, I LOVE Stella and I just happened to have one that had not seen ink yet....shocking...i think she is the ONLY one. This is Stella has her fix and I think she is drinking coffee...but i'll fess up, if this were me she would be holding a big fat wine glass in her left hand while icing the thumb on her right hand! I do like a coffee, but one or maybe two a day is all the coffee fix I can handle.

For you copic fans, these are the markers I used (but I did add some extra shading with prismacolor pencils):
E0000, 000, 00, 11, 13, 17, 18
E95, 97, 99, 42, 43, 44
Y00, 11, YR01, 02, 68
YG11, 06, R20, 24, 27, 29

Monday I may NEED the extra coffee fix to keep me going because I'm starting back to work on 3-4 hours a day, increasing by one hour a day until I work myself up to a full day again. I'll fess up, I'm a bit scared! I'm a programmer and work on a computer ALLLLL DAY and for the last couple months I have sent emails from time to time and the occasional blog post, but certainly not worked on a keyboard for any length of time! Quite honestly I have not done ANYTHING for any length of time since the accident except for watch the Today Show, Ellen, Rachael Ray and HGTV! Pretty sad eh! At least I did not get hooked on daytime soap opera's!

Thinking of the Today Show I did get to NYC last week because it was our last scheduled Dave Matthews concert of the season. However, once he said he would not be touring in 2011 and announced his last U.S. concert in Chicago we quickly put in our request for tickets so Chicago in September here we come!

Here is a pic from our second night of Dave at Citi Field in New York....we had VIP seats this night so we were pretty close, well as close as you get when you are at a ball diamond! grrrrrrr....I much prefer outdoor amphitheaters to sports venues....just sayin...


We spent 4 days in NYC and OMG........IT WAS HOT!!!!!!!!!!!! like DREADFULLY HOT! but since I have never been there I just sucked it up, bought a hair band (and other stuff {smiles})at J Crew, nixed any and all makeup and made the best of it! I will say that when we got back to our room the first thing I did was dunk my swollen thumb and wrist into a bucket of ice!

We walked MILES and toured our butt's off and now I have a NYC bucket list of things I still need to do:

• walk the Brooklyn bridge...weird I know, but it is truly an architectural masterpiece and I thought it was breathtaking!
• be at the plaza to see Matt, Meredeth, Ann and Al on the Today Show
• ride a bike through Central Park

The food lovers we are, Mark did some research before we left and we ate at some AMAZING restaurants including

• Lombardi's (in Little Italy, established as the first pizzaria in America)
• Gotham Bar and Grill (totally upscale but not stuffy)
• 2nd Ave Deli (recommended to us by a friendly Jewish resident who told us not to go to Katz!...I owe him!)
• Lupa (an amazing Italian Restaurant.....yummmmmmmmmmm!)

Finally, before I hit the pillow, these are some of my fav pics/places from NYC

the metropolitan museum of art, apparently Picasso was into art journalling before it was a fad!

statue of liberty...I only saw her from the ferry, and it was a hazy day but she is absolutely beautiful!

Chinatown...I LOVE cultural neighborhoods!


NYC from the top of the Empire State building at night. I'm a quiet sort of person, not much for being in crowds and noise and it was absolutely surreal up here. everyone was so quiet, concentrating on taking a still picture at night, you didn't hear the sounds of the city and I'm sure you could have heard a pin drop. I really LOVED it up here!


That's about it for today folks...join us next week for our next challenge...Christmas in July....ACK!...I don't know 'bout you, but I have not even thought about Christmas yet...I still have not had a chance to enjoy summer!

bloom where you are planted

i would like to plant myself right smack dab in the middle of an art supply store so i could play with any product in there and find the one that makes me bloom.


today that product would be my new caran d'ache neocolor II water soluble wax pastels. they are a fav of donna downey and although i was not at stamping bella for her classes i got the coles notes version when paula and i visited emily this past weekend. (more on that later) lacking fine motor skills i was able to get some scribbles down on paper and loosly watercolor it to create this beautiful bloom...i think it is beautiful and that is what really matters. this is my art journal. it is what it is and well, it is making me happy. i can't say i'll ever really 'journal' in it....but the process of just playing and creating and letting go is totally liberating. now emily told me i HAD to write something in it so i practiced a zillion times and finally just took ink to paper and went for it. clearly the fine motor skills need some improvement!

as i said paula whisked me up friday night for a whirlwind toronto weekend with emily. no classes, no particular agenda, just a chick weekend to play and create. did you know that emily is more than just a pretty face...she is also one talented artistic babe! and we also learned that she does not eat lunch....gotta work on that one! LOL!

we spent saturday at the booo-tique and i played with my new crayons then more fun with the new viva decor products. again...NO FINE MOTOR SKILLS required! the paper soft is kind of like distress inks in lush colors and very blendable and the paper and pearl pens are simply AMAZING! they are hands down the BEST dimensional paints that i have ever used. i'm a tactile chic and love adding texture to my cards and these will surely be put to good use in the near future.


and to save me typing a novel...i'll give you my coles notes version of the weekend

• playing with kidlets while ryan bbq'd delish steaks, and let me tell ya....those kidlets are ADORABLE!
• making 1pt WW soup with tyler and jayden....to balance off the 5million calories i consumed in challah bread
• paula and I sitting on the porch trying to decide which house we want to move into
• downtown to boost the economy some more where i got some BE-UTIFUL paper to cover my art journal.
• dinner with dena at a korean bbq on sunday....poor paula, i don't think she knew what she was in for there! i just wanna say....the calamari was AMAZING!
• by sunday evening my hand had about all the excitement it could take! i wanted to teach them some yoga stretches and cuddle with paula but they would have nothing to do with it
• maybe next time!

that's it! it was an amazing weekend and ryan and emily were AMAZING hosts!!!!
now to go get weighed in at WW....hmph...just stepped on the scale and i'm up a couple pounds! darn challah bread!

so you found another treasure did ya?

i did!

when i opened the scanner the other day to scan that pic from the rock and roll hall of fame i found this little baby, Patience, a Mo Manning image available in rubber at Stamping Bella. i remember now that after i coloured it i wasn't to excited about it because i thought it ended up too dark so i threw it on the desk and it somehow got slipped into the scanner to be forgotten about until now. As always, it was stamped on Bella's bestest paper and coloured with copic markers.



since i have not coloured anything since early may i'll take what i can get! i managed to glue it up on a card and made it square so i could put it into today's bellarific challenge! i also discovered that sewing is not all that bad even with a broken wing!

this card will even serve two purposes because monday paulabella is gonna be a new mamma to a rescue kitty so it is gonna find a good home. and BONUS...i can give it to her in person today because she is gonna whisk me up and transport me to toronto this weekend to spend the weekend with emily. i'm sure paula will color and make me envious, and emily will create some masterpiece in her art journal and me, i'll drink a lot of coffee i guess...and shop...hey i can still spend money! we do plan on hanging out at the store all day saturday so if you are in the vicinity come by and say hello! i'm missing everyone.

and since i am still in the 'loop' with the babes i just happen to know that next weeks challenge is anything huggabugs....and if you don't have a bug....how 'bout we stretch this to anything with a 'hug'...or even easier...if you don't have anything with a hug theme, how bout using any image that you love so much you could just HUG it! bwaaahahaha!