Catching up

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

Take me out to the ball game....

Alright, I'll be the first to admit I know NOTHING about sports. I made this card yesterday and even paper pieced the bat by staming it on a piece of real wood veneer paper. After I finished it, I thought something looked wrong and I showed the hubs, he immediately said the woodgrain on the bat is going in the wrong direction...should I redo it, he says only if you want it to look authentic...then he quickly walked away.

Oh well, it is what it is and this is Stamping Bella's baseball PEEP. Of course I stamped him on Bella's BESTEST paper and to keep with our NAVY, GREEN and KRAFT challenge I paired him up with a piece of Basic Grey Pyrus paper. 'Genuine Boy' was cut with a quickutz die, but I'm not sure of the name. They are tiny letters and the entire alphabet is on a 4x4 die. Let me just say, Emily made me buy it and now I know why I needed it.

Well, I have a busy day lined up...stamp up a bunch of images to colour over the next couple weeks, do laundry, buy flowers for the yard, tidy up the house and most importantly...stalk Emily's blog to see what everyone else came up with for this week's challenge.

Now next week might be a real challenge for some of you, but really guys like getting cards too. That's right, get geared up for Father's Day and make a MASCULINE CARD! Send it to Emily by next Thursday at 5pm and you just may get lucky and win yourself some bella bucks!

Art Journaling 101

Before I get on to art journaling I will say that I just got home from Vegas with NO BROKEN BONES! My wallet seemed to take the brunt of the injuries this time, now don't go thinking I'm a crazy gambler or anything but when I go to Vegas I do allow myself to indulge in a little black jack or video poker and set myself a daily 'loss limit'....let's just say I hit that limit everyday!

Moving on to art journaling...I am currently taking Christy Tomlinson's She Had Three Hearts Workshop. I'll admit, art journaling and writing down all my thoughts on paper is not my bag. I've never kept a diary, this blog is the closest I have ever come to that. I'm not that deep. BUT...I have always loved art supplies, they make me happy and Christy inspires me to try other things.

Yesterday I was watching the video where she described her process of doodling and it was like a lightbulb went off! I get it now! So I decided to expand on that idea with a stamp. I created the background on this page with various different inks and stencils (products listed below) and then stamped the houses on white tissue paper. Cut them out and adhered with Mod Podge. It was nice, but then I decided to expand on them by adding paint and doodles and drawing in the hearts and flowers by hand. I started slow, and then just kept adding to it...more paint, more doodles, doodles with paint, more scribbles, etc. Finally I took the definition blocks and also stamped them onto tissue, trimmed close and glued them down with mod podge.

You might wonder, does this page mean something to me? Well yes it does, but do I have a need to write it out? Not at all.

List of products:
julie's building a SCALLOPY house
FAMILY definition block
TRADITION definition block

HAPPINESS definition block

Golden Gesso

Crafters Workshop Stencils

Ranger Adirondak Acrylic paint

Liquitex heavy body paint

Liquitex fluid acrylics

Faber-Castell PITT pen brush

Golden fluid acrylics

Claudine Hellmuth studio acrylics

Pilot Permaball Pen

Mod Podge

That's it! I'm inspired and ready to roll onto the next project...finish up some cards for my Mom and EEEK, our Bellarific Friday Navy Green and Kraft challenge....only 4 hours to get that one done! If I can do it, you can too!

It's that time of the week again!

Our Bellarific Friday! I gotta tell you all that among ALL the other reasons why Friday is so wonderful for this day job babe, my fav part is the anticipation of hopping over to Emily's blog waiting for her to post all the weekly cards...and I'm not just talking about the babes, I'm really talking about the fans out there who play along...you ladies really do some AMAZING work and it always makes my Friday brighter!

On that note, let's get to my card this week....it has been a CA-RA-ZZZZY week for me so I decided to lay off the time consuming Mo's and tackle something quick and easy, but C-U-T-E.....I picked up all my new rubber when I was at Bellaland this past weekend and Umbrella Peep was calling my name. It has been a while since I coloured one and they are so darn cute, and this one with it's accompanying verse fit just dandy into this week's sketch. I'll tell ya now that it is glitter on that umbrella, but doesn't it look JUST LIKE RAIN! This was a total photographic accident! I did NOT plan it!

See those squirts of rain under the umbrella, well that is glitter too, and she is standing in a pool of a  'copic created' puddle which is embellished with Ranger glossy accents. I paired her up with Basic Grey sugar rush paper and stamped the umbrella on one of the subtle patterns from the 6x6 pad. Of course, I couldn't leave it just as is and added some shading with pencils, then cut it out and popped it up with some scrap dots. However, I curved the umbrella a bit so the top and sides are flush with the background paper and the only part that is popped up is the lower center area so it has the same contours as an actual umbralla! BRILLIANT, if I do say so myself!

NOW...for all you colour challenged gals who have trouble deciding what colour to use...well, we have got it all figured out for you....NAVY KRAFT and GREEN....now that that sound yummy or what! LOVIN' those colours. And if you don't get to play in the challenge, I hope you are inspired by those who do, as I always am!

Till next time, Linda (and if you are like me, you'll be checking Emily's blog frequently throughout the day waiting with baited breath for that Friday post!)

I'm back with afternoon class cards

....and an apology

This is for my afternoon gals...I was having such a good time, sitting down with you, chatting, colouring...I just felt like I was with a bunch of friends...which you are, by the way. Anyhow, I tend to watch the clock in class to make sure we are on track and I can cover all I want to tell you. I glance at my watch and it is 10 minutes to the hour....HOWEVER...I had the wrong hour! So I rush you along because I REALLY want to teach you pixie hair and it's now 10 minutes past the hour...so I saunter off to see Helen and Ebru and I later find out that Ebru is silently thinking 'why is she here, when her class is in there'...and I'm silently thinking 'boy, these ladies are in no rush to get home'...WELL ....I come back to the 'class' and at that point I realize that I had my hour WRONG and make up some goofy excuse that I got side tracked...truth is, I was too embarrassed to tell you the truth! So the 5 of you have my blessing to smack me upside the head the next time you see me! OMG...I deserve it....I AM SOOOOO SORRRY and I feel so stupid!

Now for the second reason I am here today and that is to show you the finished pics of the class cards...I'll start with a little smooch, a Mo Manning image available in rubber at Stamping Bella! I coloured this one along with you ladies and ended up giving it to Ebru...have I ever mentioned that she is one of the sweetest people I have ever met, not to mention talented! Her art journalling and drawings blow me out of the water! Back to the image...I LOVE this one and she is suprisingly fast and easy to colour...and now that I realize she is wearing a skirt and top my wheels are spinning all over again! You ladies in Chatham AND Toronto just rock the Mo's so I've decided all future classes will start off with a Mo!!!!

Second up, we have another pixie....and I was sooooo proud of everyone because your hair turned out BEAUTIFUL! Just remember, repeat those steps for best results! I was asked about what kind of glitter I use and I have three fav's...1) hero arts, 2) glamour dust, and 3) stickles. No matter which one I use, I always use the same method which you can find in this post. This card happened to use Icicle Stickles but Crystal is another fav of mine.

Finally we have Peony Bittybloom. I think this was the tip off that I had my hours mixed up because we NEVER get to the third card in class and when I came back you were all working on this one! (OMG...still hanging my head in shame!)

So that's it! Don't forget about our sketch challenge this Friday. I don't have my done yet, but my image and sentiment is all picked out just waiting to get smathered with ink. And if you have time to spare, hop on over to the forum because Jess is all over it and stirring up some major fun on there!

'till next time, Linda.

Bella Class Cards Morning

I'm gonna make this short and sweet because it is like10 minutes to my bedtime and it usually takes me 30 minutes to write a post so that is gonna put me at least 20 mins past my drop dead hour. Yes..you guessed it, I am a mathematician at heart!

I had a WONDERFUL time in Bellaland this past weekend and I have another post about that to come, but for now, I just want to post the cards we 'almost' completed in the morning class because i didn't include pics of the finished cards in my kit and I promised I would post them here. And for future, all all class cards will be 'tagged' with 'class cards' so if you ever want to find them just check my side bar...now the challenge for me will be to go and tag all the old ones! Let's just say going forward this will be the rule and if any old ones get tagged it will be a bonus! I'm gonna go with that!

So, these are the morining class cards all finished up!

Kissy, a Mo Manning image availailable in rubber, and I just wanna shout out to everyone who coloured this image in Chatham and Toronto...you ROCKED IT!

Next up, a Pixie.....I wanted to cover this one in class to demo that pixie hair that I have had many questions about....{hint}....step by step tutorial coming up REAL soon!

Lastly is what I call the 'bonus card'. You should have all the skills required to colour it, but I have given you my hints, tips and step by step instructions. This is hollyhock bittybloom.

There you go! Morning class cards finished images all posted up!

If you are still with me....I have some forum news....

We thought we'd have some fun not only every Friday for our beloved Bella-riffic challenges, but also to throw out a little extra fun for those valued members of our Forumabella, so beginning today, and every month on the 15th thereafter, there is MORE fun to be had in Bella-land!

Our kick-off challenge is a Bella "BABE" challenge: to use Bellas And Bring on the Embellishments!

Any embellishments will do, as long as you use more than one! We want to see you guys have FUN with this- pull out your favorites from your stash...or perhaps something fabulous you just got? There are no rules other than that, and you MUST use Stamping Bella Stamps! The PRIZE is a $20 gift voucher that will be awarded to ONE lucky participant and will be randomly drawn at the end of the challenge!

You have until June 14th at NOON CST to link up your creations on the new thread in our Forumabella...so good luck and can't WAIT to see your "BABE" projects!

OKAY..that's it for today....and i'm hitting my water pillow!

A late Bellarific Friday

Well you all bloggers and blog readers must know that Blogger went down yesterday sometime and even when I checked this morning it was STILL down! I will admit that without this post to write last night, I did get to bed a little earlier!

But we are back now, and back with ANOTHER Mo Manning in Rubber from the latest releast over at Stamping Bella. This one is called Potter's Bench and what I wouldn't give to have a nice bench like this in my yard to plant my flowers. It is soooo yummy vintage!

When Emily posted this on her release page she said she visioned popping up all those elements, and I admit, the thought DID cross my mind, but not until I had them all coloured up and I didn't want to colour them again. Next time, because I am 100% sure, this won't be the last version you see of this image. I paired it up with Kraft paper for our challenge, and basic grey pyrus. Of course, I coloured with copic markers and here they are:

E95, 97, 99, 04, 07, 08, 09
BG70, 72, 75, B60
E40, 42, 43, 33, 35, 37, 29, 44
C0, 1, 2, W00, 1, T3, N5

Our challenge next week is a sketch...YAY! We all know you love sketches, come on, 3/4 of the work is done for ya...so go get started and have a wonderful weekend.

For my copic bud's...I'll see you in Toronto tomorrow...be easy on me because I will be getting up early and driving down tomorrow. Then Paula, Emily, Ebru and myself are gonna get elbow deep in mixed media! OMG, I can't wait. I haven't been able to play with my canvases for at least three weeks now and I'm getting a little anxious I tell ya! I expect to be coming home all relaxed and feeling energized at the same time.

Off to make dinner, and take pics of class cards....ya, call me last minute Linda!

Are ya ready for another one!

It's release day today but before I get to my card I just wanna say I had the BESTEST mother's day EVER yesterday! Alex was in charge of potatoes, Derek was in charge of bbq'ing the steaks and Mark did not overcook the asparagus and it came to the table still crispy just as I like it! Everything was perfect!

Now I have another Mo to show you today, this is Jack and Ginger available in rubber today over at Stamping Bella. I decided to give this card a real vintage feel and even threw in one of my doilies that I plucked from my She Art stash.

I paired them up with Basic Grey curio paper and sponged everything up with Tea Dye and Vintage Photo distress inks. Lots and lots of E's used here and this is the line up....

E000, 00, 11, 15, 17, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44
E50, 51, 53, 55, 33, 34, 35, 93, 95
C0, 2, 4, 6, W2, 4, 6, N0, 1
R01, 20, 30, 32, 14, 35, RV11, 32
YG25, 67

WHEW! Don't forget about our Krafty challenge over at Bloggabella this week, use Kraft paper and a Stamping Bella image and you just may win yourself some Bella Bucks! For those who have signed up for class, I'll see you all on Saturday!!!!!!

Linda.

How 'bout a sneak peek?

Are ya ready, huh, huh! Wait, I've got to go brew myself another cup of coffee, a Sunday morning post is just not the same without my cuppa joe.

Okay...I'm back....I don't know EVERYTHING in tomorrow's release but I do know that this soooooo pretty Rustic Windowbox is part of it! It is a Mo Manning image available in rubber tomorrow over at Stamping Bella.

I paired it up with a piece of 6x6 echo park paper from the For the Record line and coloured with the following copic markers:

W00, 2, 3, 4, N1, 2, 3, C2, 3
E40, 41 B60, 91, 21, 41, 45
YG61, 41, 45, 25, 17, 97, G07, 29

Now for some life updates, class yesterday at Pickle was AMAZING....and not just because Kim treated us all to a cappuccino from the new coffee house that is opening up next door....thanks Kim! Everyone should be pretty darn proud of themselves because you took on Mo's Kissy and coloured it up to PERFECTION! You gals were amazing, and you wanted another class so and Kim and I chatted and are going to bring you something a little different next time! SO EXCITED about that too.

I'll leave you all with a Happy Mother's Day wish and a little peek at the card that hubby gave me....after 20+ years of marriage he has finally figured it out! hahhhaaa....oh just kidding, he had this figured out a LONG time ago! And Alex just wished me a Happy Mother's Day and asked if I was going to be 'carding' all day! See, they all know how to please me....they are even going to put their culinary skills to the test and make dinner, I guess they have been learning more at University than I thought!

Back tomorrow with another peek at the new release.

Happy Mother's Day

This is the card I sent to my Mother this year and again I decided not to colour but rather do something clean, classy and contemporary, AND it fit right in with our flower challenge. I'm tellin' ya, these Isabelle Norris stamps are giving me a whole new boost and taking me back to my stamping roots when there were no fancy punches, no dies and patterened paper was only used in scrapbooks.

I started by inking up CURLY silhouette with Memento rhubarb stalk and rich cocoa and stamped it on a piece of cream cardstock...hint...start with the rhubarb stalk so you don't contaminate your red ink pad with the brown dye. Then I stamped mother definition block with black stazon on a piece of tone on tone vellum and eclectic BUTTERFLY on PRINT with rich cocoa on a piece of cream cardstock. I used ECLECTIC mesh on my background piece and stamped it in versamagic wheat and sponged the background piece and flower piece with antique linen distress ink.

To attach the vellum I first mounted the flower piece onto my background and then cut the vellum piece wider than the background and folded the edges to the back and glued it there so you wouldn't see any tape or glue marks through the vellum....pretty clever eh! I cut out the butterfly and glittered it all up with a dark brown opaque glitter for the body and some translucent brown glitter on the wings. I only glued down the body of the butterfly and folded the wings up slightly and held them up with a couple dabs of Helmar Liquid ScrapDots (LOVE THAT STUFF!). Although this card looks so simple, I'll tell ya, I spent an entire morning fussing around with it to get it looking exactly like I wanted...for me, clean doesn't always mean fast! I'm going to create a new category for this card called Simply Stamped Cards because I plan on throwing in more like this in the coming weeks. Hope you like them!

Next week our challenge is just a little krafty...yup...another easy peasy challenge so NO EXCUSE not to play...just use a Stamping Bella stamp and some kraft paper, email your card to Emily by Thursday at 5pm and see your creation up in lights on Bloggabella.

Later!

Cute overload continues today

Today it is with Stamping Bella's Patsy Pixie....I don't know who is cuter, her or Sprout....no contest in my mind, both of them should be featured on cute overload dot com!

She was paired up with basic grey's hello luscious paper, stamped on bella's BESTEST paper and colored with copic markers......I used very little pencil on this image and even the blue background was done with copics. SHOCKING, I rarely do that. But this time because the image was so airy I decided to start with the background and then work on the forground. I did decide not to add ribbon so it would be a mail friendly card...but OMG...I see that I totally forgot to add glitter! THAT will definitely be added before this card goes out.

These are the copics I used:
E0000, 000, 00, 11
B0000, 000, BG53, 45, 49
YR15, 30, 20 Y00, 35, 38, RV34
R00, 01, 02, 20, 14, 32, 24, 39
E21, 23, 25, 27
YG23, 25, 17, 67

I finished it off with sponging the edges with VersaMagic thatched straw and then some VersaMagic wheat to calm down the yellow.

I'll be back tomorrow with another card featuring flowers for our May flower challenge but I'm not going to give you any hints....you'll just have to come check it out!

- partially posted using BlogPress from my iPad...{hugs}...Linda

My little sprout

Is she not the CUTEST thing EVAH!

I colored her up on the weekend while searching for my lost mojo and I think all I really needed to do was to pick up my markers and colour. But don't get me wrong...I am REALLY enjoying doing other things lately especially with mixed media and applying those techniques into cards. I hope to have some very different style of cards to show you in the next couple weeks, but for you die hard copic addicts, don't panic...I'm never giving up my beloved markers and pencils!

On another unrelated topic I downloaded a new app for my iPad called BlogPress which is supposed to make blogging from your iPad a breeze...I'm trying it out tonight and I'll let you know how it goes.

Now for my card...Sprout, a Mo Manning image available in rubber at Stamping Bella.

She was paired up with Basic Grey Pyrus, stamped on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured with the following coipic markers

E000, 00, 11, 21, 23, 25, 27
E93, 95, 97
C1, 3, R20, 24
YR14, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24
YG61, 63, 45, G12, 21

And of course I added a bit of shading with some pencil, but just a bit. The majority of this image, except for the shading and ground, was done with markers exclusively. To finish it off I sponged the edges with Distress Tea Dye.

Now that I end this post, I'll admit that I started on my iPad but finished it on my laptop....I couldn't figure out how to add links and of course the photo was on my laptop.....So, if any of you are using the app and have tips for me, bring 'em on!

partially posted using BlogPress from my iPad...{hugs...Linda}

Happy Monday!

Okay, not really...i hate Monday's...if I could work part time, Monday would definitely be one of the days I would NOT work!

When I was looking for my mojo the other day I came across Stamping Bella's CURLY silhouette. You will find this one, and MANY other interesting stamps in the I AM stamps for journalling etc. section. Go take a peek, even if you don't journal, you might be surprised as to what you may find.

Anyhooo....I was in need of a sympathy card and I I love this stamp because of it's versatility, you can use it as a solid shadow stamp as I've done here, or emboss it like I have done in the past, or colour it with water based markers and spritz it...it's really an amazing stamp.

This was the perfect card to get me back in the swing because of it's simplicity. And the simplicity was intentional because I don't really like my sympathy cards to be over the top with colour and/or interest. I stamped it in VersaMagic aspen mist, a real soft blue grey and the sentiment is embossed in silver. I've had that sentiment for YEARS, it's a wood mount and I think it is My Sentiments Exactly. The EP I used is JudiKins and it is the next best silver embossing powder I have found since PSX went out of business...I didn't love them for their stamps, but their embossing powders couldn't be beat. I also kept the card small, an A2 size so I could use my new sizzix embossing folder. SOOOO PRETTY!

After that was done I was ON A ROLL...pulled out the markers and coloured the afternoon away so lots to share this week!

Lost MOJO!

Do you ever lose it? What do you do to find it? For me, I organize stuff and that is what I did yesterday morning. My bella binders were busting and I had a PILE of rubber that needed to be put away, they were all in a basket and it was overflowing cluttering up my kitchen counter. So to make room, I combined some of my smaller stamps and put two in one slot. I also took out all sentiments and gathered them into one place with my other sentiments and stored them on EZ mount pages. Now I just have to stamp them all onto index pages so I know what they are...I can't read mirrored images. But that will be for another day!

Now that my lost mojo is found, I'm back with my Bellarific Friday Mother's day card. You see, lost mojo also means lost desire to blog. For this card I chose to use Stamping Bella's FLUTTERBY. It was hard for me to use it because all I could think of was Paula's GORJUS one layer card she made with it and I had to try to do something different.

I stamped it on bella's BESTEST paper and coloured it up with copic markers. Then I used my pop it out technique with a spellbinder die to cut it out...speaking of techniques...did you know that Jessabella has organized ALL the babe's techniques into one handy location in the forum and you can find them HERE. It is pretty amazing to see them all linked up in one handy place. Now back to my card, I used some quickutz alphabet dies to add the 'mom'...I was stumped as to what to put there. Now that I look at it, I think I might CAREFULLY peel them off and add something else...hmmm, the wheels are turning and I'll show you a pic if/when I change it.

Now for our challenge this week over at BLOGABELLA....with April finally behind us, and HOPEFULLY the rain is behind us too, May is here and we will bring it on with a FLOWER CHALLENGE! Use a flower stamp, paper, or embellishment but just make sure you've got a flower in there somewhere.  Now that my mojo is back, it's just itching to get out so I'm off to get busy.

Later, Linda.