does it seem llke i have been MIA?

I hope not...but let me just say it has been ca-ra-zy around here for the last few days! Without going into details I'll just jump into my card, okay!

This is Stamping Bella's Flower Garden and sadly I had to use this image for a sympathy card after the loss of a close family friend to cancer. But on the up side, I also used the same image to create a card to celebrate the retirement of a long time member of my work community. It is kinda weird how you can use the same image for such a sad and joyous occasion in the same week! Having said all that, I'll show you one of Stamping Bella's latest release called Flower Garden, and as you might have guessed, I'll be using it frequently because it is perfect for so many occasions.

This is a LARGE card...5x7 to be exact and that embossed background paper I have had for YEARS...yes YEARS...and funny that Paulineabella has had the same paper for as long as I have and she hasn't cut into it yet either! Maybe this will inspire her to do so.

As always, I stamped it on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with copic markers and finished off with prisma pencils and gamsol. I really want to colour these poppies again in red!

Now for a couple questions to answer:

For Aida - I use my beloved Bernina sewing machine to stitch on my cards.

For smd46 - hmmm fav pencil colours...no not really, I use whatever works best with the copic colour i started with. But for shading around the image I often use sand, a soft yellow, or ginger root, a pinky beige. And for grass, definitely limepeel and kelp green but for just a solid colour grounding the french greys are nice. Check out this link for a sample of how I use pencils, and if you want to see me in action, this link contains a video.

That's it for today...Criminal Minds in exactly 18 minutes!