Simple Pleasures

If anyone owns a pet you will have to agree with me that snuggling up with your little fur baby is one of lifes simple pleasures. Of course, I have a West Highland White terrier and she would rather kill a bunny or a squirrel than snuggle up with me but we do have our quiet time once a day and I cherish it.

For this card I used Stamping Bella's Kittycattabella and started coloring her up with my pencils, something felt odd though and then I realized that I always use copics for my bella's...don't ask me why, I just always do! So after coloring her pants and shirt with pencils, I switched to copics for the rest of her and her fur babies. I had my girlfriend in mind when making this card and she has two Ragdoll cats so I tried to color these little cats to match hers. Then I finished up the shading with my pencils. Order was established! I added the Simple Pleasures sentiment and finished it off with a bit of ribbon and a Basic Grey Glazed Brad.

Don't forget you still have time to play along in this week's Bellarific Friday challenge. This week is a sketch challenge hosted by Jen-a-bella, and if you are sketch 'challenged' like me, you'll appreciate this one. You can find all the details http://stampingbella.com/blog/?p=1742.

And fnally...if you aren't enabled enough...Stamping Bella is celebrating the new release, Ryan's birthday and World Scrapbooking Day by offering free shipping for orders over $50.00 so hop on over to her blog to get the deets on that.

Rose Bouquet

A while back I told you I had a flower melt down and ordered myself a whack of flower images from Stamping Bella. Rose Bouquet was part of this little bit of retail therapy. It never ceases to amaze me how you can take a simple black outlined image, add a bit of color and bring something to life! I enjoy it so much and if I could just sit and color all day I would. Of course my family would starve and we would go bankrupt but I might be in such a euphoric state I might not even notice..LOL! Okay, enough dreaming...I've got a day job and a family to feed, a reno to pay for, and children to put thru school so I'll just be content colouring in my spare time for now.

I used pencils and gamsol to color this image and mounted in on three layers of Nesties. I really like to add all these nestie layers if my main image is cut small enough to do it. A bit of glitter in the flower centers (which sadly you can't see) and a nice bow finished it off. The paper is from the Basic Grey Porcelain 6x6 pad which I seem to be using a lot of lately. I also used one of my favourite layouts with a 51/2 x 51/2 card and that is to cut the front of the card 1" shorter and add paper to the inside of the card to create a border. It balances the front of the card, and adds some interest to the inside! Besides that, it's easy and uses up that scrap of paper that would have otherwise hit the trash.

Don't forget to check Emily's blog tomorrow to see who is the winner of the Bella Bucks and to get our next challenge! I KNOW I'll be ready for a bit of colouring after our little whirlwind vacation.

Cupcakes with Chocolate Bon Bon's

By the time you read this I will have my first Dave Matthews concert under my belt and will be enroute to number two! Don't worry...I WILL be boring you with pictures.


This week's Bellarific Friday challenge was to use pink and brown. I'm not going to post the inspiration picture because I used some creative license on the pink and went for something a bit more subtle, that exact shade of pink in the challenge pic would REALLY have been a challenge for me.

With pink and brown in mind I flipped through the bindah's (yes...i have more than one!) and I didn't have to flip too long because as soon as I saw Stella with her cupcake I jumped on it. Chocolate cupcake with pink icing and a chocolate Bon Bon to top it off! I think I could eat this card. And during my colorin' frenzy sistah Paula was emailing me trying her darndest to break my mojo! Sorry sistah...you just couldn't do it! So I knew the colors, I knew the image then I sifted through my papers and Basic Grey porcelain was perfect...I even had the matching brad. It really came together quite easily for me...I finished it in less than 60 hours...LOL!!!

I coloured her with my copics and my current trend continues with using pencils for shading. I find it quicker and if you like to use gamsol, it won't bleed your copics. I cut her out with my Spellbinders Labels die, glittered up the cupcake, wand and tierra, added some Ranger Matte accents to the chocolate bon bon sponged the edge with Versamagic scattered straw. I have several sentiments that could have worked with her but I thought this one was fun and funky and suited the giant cupcake. I did split it up and stamped it twice so I could fit it into my tag. You really should spend some time going thru the Stamping Bella sentiments because they are fun and clever and when you mix and match them with your images the possibilites are endless!

Have a wonderful day!

Happy Forest

Isn't this just the happiest forest you have ever seen! It is Stamping Bella's Happy Forest stamp. The Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday paper was the inspiration for the colors on this card. I've said it before, but I'll say it again...TOTALLY LOVIN' the cosmo cricket paper. When I saw it I knew without a doubt which stamp I would use with it because I love the colors, and the images on the paper just made me think of a happy forest! Good thing I got to it quickly because the entire inspiration would have dripped out of my head had I not started on it right away! It's an age thing!

This card was coloured with pencils and gamsol and I added glitter to the flowers (because i HAVE to) for some bling. The button is one I've had for a while and is Basic Grey.

Tomorrow we will be off to Charlottle, NC for our first Dave Matthews concert of the season!!!! Can you tell I'm just a little excited!

Anise Ketto

If you were lucky enough to be at Scrapfest in Kitchener yesterday you may have gotten a glimpse of Anise because she was on the 'wall' of Stamping Bella cards at the Paper Pickle booth. I teach classes there and when I heard they were featuring Bella stamps this year I said...OMG...I've got a LOT of them in my stash if you need some for display.

So if you are a regular reader, (or even a new reader) check out the previous post and see if you can spot my cards, and if you have a really keen eye, you might just see a couple that haven't been featured on the blog yet! Now don't get fooled though, because along with me, there were other talented card artists on there including Paper Pickle owners Kim and Kell and fellow teacher Pauline!


The Cosmo Cricket paper was the inspiration for colors on this gal...I LOVE LOVE LOVE cosmo cricket paper. I must say, Cosmo Cricket along with Basic Grey and October Afternoon, are my current fav's. She was coloured with copics and shaded with pencils. The image and layers were cut out with my Spellbinders Labels 1 set...LOVE those labels dies!

Tonight I'm gettin' some laundry done (drag!)...but for a good cause!...I'm counting down the days till the start of our annual Dave Matthews Band summer tour. Sadly, LeRoi won't be with us this year...but he is in our hearts. Next week at this time I'll have two concerts under my belt and will be wallowing in the bask of Elvis in Memphis.

Don't worry though...I'll be here in spirit and have posts ready to go!

Scrapfest

Well...what a day we had today! Paula and Mary made the trip to Chatham and with Pauline in tow we headed to Scrapfest in Kitchner. Of course the VERY first stop I had to make was the Paper Pickle booth where Bella's were EVERYWHERE! Of course I had a selfish reason for scooting there first and that was to see my cards on display....Yup...all the cards on this display were made by Kell, Kim, Pauline and yours truely! It made me smile!



While Emily helped out with make and takes,


Ryan manned the blackberry and tended to emails. (or maybe he was playing on a Game Boy, I couldn't really tell!)


Then while Em sat trying to conduct the make and take...bella sistah Paula dropped her cards on Emily's lap and we held them up to the make and take crowd and all ooohhhh'd and awwwe'd.

We ran into lots of Paper Pickle friends and even one of the newest members of the SCS Dirty Dozen Design Team...Chatham Kent's very own Bonnie...aka...The Lucky Clucker! Way to go Bonnie!!!!

Emily and I got a few good hugs in and I can't wait to see her again soon!

As Emily would say, MWAH!

Just bursting with color!

Well, I must say Emily outdid herself with the challenge this week. At first glance I was overwhelmed, then I read the post and we just needed to use any combination of the colors, then I looked at the colors again and was decision impaired and just had to use them ALL!







What does one use when presented with a large range of color? Well, flowers of course! I figured if I used the Jar of Wildflowers I had a pretty good chance of incorporating all the colors in the challenge...and I think I came pretty darn close to pulling it off! What do ya think? I coloured with pencils and gamsol, then used chalk to 'pink' up the paper. Of course I added glitter and some glossy accents to the centers of the flowers and the jar. If it is a jar, it need to be glazed, right? (that's my rule!)

Then we had to use a flower...and I got stumped. I first tried to layer a couple different red/orange/yellow combos of flowers but they overwhelmed my pretty jar of wildflowers that I just spent a gazillion hours colouring so I ripped those off in place of some very neutral ones. In the end, I'm happy because although my flower is large, my image remains front and center!

I hope you were happy with the outcome of your challenge card! Have a wonderful weekend! I'm off to Scrapfest tomorrow!

I actually entered a contest!

Now I rarely enter contests...like practically never...once a year would be stretching it! But every once in a while I like to pop in on Stamping Bella's designers blogs. So today I came upon a contest on Christy Croll's blog...you know...those cutie patootie huggabugs and tiddly inks that are on my pile that have YET to see ink. Well, if anything is gonna get me on that quicker it would be winning a custom stamp designed by Christy herself!

Go check it out, but be quick cause the contest ends today.