Case of a Case!

I've been soooo bizzzzy my head is spinning. Do you know that tonight I just finished up close to my 95th Christmas card! YUP! I do 45 for myself, about 30 for my mom and 20 for Mark to give out at work! I'm freaking exhausted! Mine are ALMOST done (just a couple more to do), Mom's are done and I think she has got them in the mail already and this past Sunday I needed to get going on Mark's. Needless to say I wanted them to be simple, yet striking. So I decided a CASE was in order and sifted through all my past received handmade xmas cards (yes, I've kept all hand made cards that I've received...one day eventually I will start to purge them because I don't hoard things, but for now, I still have them all).

I came across a card that I have ALWAYS loved that Paulineabella sent me a couple years ago which I think may have been inspired by a Michelle Zindorf card. So I took Pauline's card and simplified it just a bit to make construction easier and came up with this. I LOVE IT! And by golly, I whipped up 20 of them in no time!

The trees come from a Stamping up retired set called Trees Three (one of my alltime fav SU sets), the sentiment is Verve and those little cardinals, well, I borrowed them from Pauline! I think they are also SU. I used my pan pastels to shade below the trees and that embossed border on the left is a cuttlebug embossing border edge. Like Paula, I also have a Sizzix Vagabond and whipping these thru that electric machine was a snap! And oh so much easier on the old wrist of mine!

Thanks Michelle and Pauline for the inspiration!

Tomorrow, more trees, Bella style!

Later...Linda.

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!

Addy's Birthday Sparkle

It's Bellarific Friday folks and our theme for today was Birthday. How easy peasy was that! I hope lots of you had time to play.


For this birthday card I chose ADDY 'tude loves to Sparkle. See that Swarovski crystal on her finger? Well, one of the girls I work with loves LARGE chunky outrageous jewellery so for Christmas her hubby bought her a gargantuous Swarovski crystal ring! This card will be safely tucked away in my stash until her birthday rolls around in June.

I even got somewhat creative and finished the inside of the card! One thing you may not know is that I NEVER finish the inside of the card until I absolutely have to. It's kinda like I love to sew, but hate to hem! LOL!

As always she was coloured up with copic markers and shading done with prismacolor pencils and gamsol. I wanted to use the sentiment that comes with ADDY on the front of the card but had to cut it up to make it fit....it's a Paula thing!

I'd best be off here and get ready for work but before I go I want to give you a heads up on next weeks challenge. It's a sketch! Do I hear a big YAY from all you sketch lovers out there? Here it is so get that rubber inked, pencils sharpened, markers juiced up and get busy!

Happy Birthday Mom and Dad!

Yesterday was my Dad's birthday and tomorrow is my Mom's. This is the card i made for Dad and is reminiscent of his early days of hunting and fishing. I grew up eating all kinds of wild game but I drew the line when he went to the Sportsman club and brought home leftover muskrat! Eating something with the word rat in it just doesn't seem right. I made my Mom's card a while back and have been keeping it hidden from her. I did post it and you can see it here, but I know she doesn't read my blog so no fear of her seeing it.

This is an SU set called Wildfowl and I bought it a while ago specifically with Dad in mind. I coloured it up with my pencils and a bit of gamsol, cut it out with my nesties and the background hounds tooth is a Cornish Heritage Farms scrapblock.

My brother and his family drove down from London for the day and we headed to our fav Italian restaurant in Windsor for dinner. With my parents in Windsor, us in Chatham, and my brother in London we don't get together as a family all that often so it was a wonderful day!

Ooops!

Remember those Thinking of You cards in the last post. Well, I initially screwed up and made her Thank You cards instead! Oops!

Not a problem though, one can always use thank you cards in the stash. These were done with SU Spring Solitude set which I just HAD to have when I saw all these fab cards on blogs and galleries. So I picked up this set on Ebay. When you gotta have it, you can always find it on Ebay. It sat uninked for the longest time until I had this request for the presumed Thank You notes. I stamped the bird and branch in versamagic chalk ink and added some detail with my pencils. The open flowers also got some additional glitter in the centers. Paper is SU and ribbon is something I pulled from my stash.

Enjoy!