Special Doggie Request

I've had a couple ladies request this image and I promised both of them I'd get to it this week....one request is from Toronto this past weekend and another from one of my local gals! This is confused Christmas dog....and after seeing him all colored up, I really think I gotta get my Bessie-girl some antlers this Christmas.

Gonna digress for a moment...

...hubs said when I started blogging I was NOT allowed to blog ANYTHING about HIM unless he approved....and he really didn't officially approve of this pic (maybe cause I didn't ask him!), but I'm gonna sneak it in anyhow! The girl LOVES her daddy! Look at how she looks at him! hehehehe!....Now, he does read my blog from time to time (to find out what's going on!), but hopefully by the time he gets to this post, it will be too late to make a fuss over it! LOL!


Alright...enough about my girl and the hubby and I'll get on to the CARD! He's a cutie! And I must be in a bit of a distressed vintage mood these days cause I paired him up with a blend of last year's cosmo cricket and basic grey papers, both which have a vitage feel. Don't they look great together! The season's greetings sentiment is also Stamping Bella and the little fluff of leaves was created with a couple Martha Stewart punches.

He is stamped on Bella's bestest paper, cut with a deckle edge nestie and he is for sure a vintage confused doggie! Did you know that bella's bestest paper now is available in CREAM....I prefer copics on white paper, but if you are a pencil fan, this is A GREAT PAPER FOR YOU with the same great qualities of the white paper!

Now, if you want to color him yourself, copics used are:
E41, 42, 43, 33, 35, 39
E07. 09, G12, 82, 94
W0, 3, BLACK, colorless blender

Finally this weeks challenge is 'ANYTHING BELLA'...How easy is that, especially for all the bella fans out there! I have my card all ready and done and I've turned a non-holiday bella into a holiday card with a sentiment and a little imagination! Hope to see you participating on Friday!

You're SO cool!

Hi everyone! I'm back from Bella land and had THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME!!!!!!!! With a few copic classes under my belt I am getting a better sense of what you need to know. SO I have an entirely new handout brewing in my head for next class in addition to the pics of the finished works and color guide! I'm NOT gonna give anything away, but it is based on my most frequently asked questions and things that I have observed during class. I think you are REALLY gonna like it! I am also going to work on some 'hybrid' coloring using copics and pencils....who says everything has to be done entirely in copics! Remember we are making a CARD and not entering a copic contest! But, with holidays coming up I MOST DEFINITELY won't be back until the new year!!!!!! Hope to see you then!


Now for today's card! It is a little scrappy isn't it! Not my typical style but I really like it! I used a few new things that I picked up at Stamping Bella this weekend....Dylan who comes with the you're so cool sentiment, a quickutz notebook sheet die (LOVE IT!), a spellbinders tag trio and that uber cool very masculine Bella Blvd plaid paper. This one is appropriately called Couch Potato! BWAAAHAHA! Do you know I met someone this weekend who owns EVERY quickutz die ever made...honest...she admitted to ALMOST EVERY ONE....OMG! I think I instantly LOVED her! I PRAY to win the lotto!!!!!!!!!!

This is an A6 size card and Dylan was coloured with copic markers on bella's bestest paper and shaded with Prismacolor pencils and gamsol. I am ALWAYS in need of boy cards and this one is gonna be a good addition to my stash! If you want to color him yourself, copics used are:
E50, 51, 53 R20 (my preferred color combo for boys/men faces)
E40, 42, 44, 47, T1, 5
YG01, 03, 25 17

I'm so happy I took today off...guess what i'm gonna do???? See you all very soon....thanks for dropping by!

Linda!

got flu?

It is Bellarific Friday today and I've been bizzy bizzy bizzy getting ready for the classes this weekend. Hope you like what I have in store for ya! It's gonna be a blend of someting old, something new, something glittery, something blue! Geeze, was that corny or what! I don't think I got enough sleep and I'm a little giddy this morning.


The other morning I woke up REAL early, like at 3:30. By the time 4:30 rolled around and I still wasn't sleeping I just decided to get up and color my image for the challenge. It was early and I wanted something simple so I pulled out Fluey Huggabug. With everyone around me sneezing and hacking I thought it was a good choice for this weeks wild card. Then I had this idea to make it like a milk add so I pulled out my quickuts studio skinny minni alphabet and created got flu? How cute is that! Even the hubs got a chuckle out of it when he came home from the gym. If you want to create something similiar but don't have quickutz, go check out Paula's card today because she used her computer for her got love sentiment....and if you are wondering, we knew each other was doing this....our brains aren't quite that connected!

If you want to color fluey in the same colors, here they are:
E0000, 000, 00, 11, R20
V0000, 000, 91, 93, 95, 17
E40, 42, 43, 44
C00, 0, 2, W00, 0, 1, N3
E31, 33, colorless blender

Have a wild and crazy Friday everyone, don't get sick and make sure to check out Em's blog later today to see all the other wild card ideas. For those in my class tomorrow....ONE MORE SLEEP! See you soon! And I'll get to those c-box questions today too!

One confused kitty

I don't know if you all get confused or not, I don't get easily confused, but the older I get the more forgetful I am getting! Like you don't know the half of it! If I don't leave myself a note, it's gone!


Gonna be short and sweet today, I just got home from Windsor to celebrate my girlfriends 50th birthday. We went to this FAB Lebanese place called Mazaar's...OMG...sooooo good! Happy Birthday Cathy! So now I'm full and tired so I'm just gonna get on with the card. This is little confused kitty and I coloured him with pencils for a change. Why? Because he is a variation of a card we will be doing in the upcoming classes at Pickle so I stuck with pencils. I'm not sure if the post went up on the Pickle blog yet, if it hasn't, you got a bit of a sneak peek!

The merry holidays sentiment is stamped on a piece of cardstock that I cut out with one of the spellbinders labels trio. They are a perfect size for many of Stamping Bella's sentiments.

Before I head to bed, I just want to remind you of this week's challenge over at Stamping Bella. The theme is Wild Card! How FUN is that, any card, any size, any layout, just use your imagination and a Stamping Bella stamp!

Nighty Night Sistah's!

Gifty Tree

Gosh...I feel like I've been MIA on the blog cause I have so many things going on. I'm still working on getting those Toronto class cards done....I gotta say, I'm a little angst cause I usually like to have that done and out of the way at least a week in advance! Images are done, and colors are finalized so contact Emily to see what colors you will be needing.

This morning I made my VERY FIRST batch of cabbage rolls! Can you believe I am of PURE polish decent and this is my FIRST batch of cabbage rolls! I guess I've always relied on my mother or grandmother to do it, but the time has come that I need to take over the tradition! All I am gonna say about the whole ordeal is that I need to clean my oven! Note to self....use a larger roaster and/or less liquid! (AND thank God for self cleaning ovens!)

After that live and learn on the cabbage rolls I headed on over to Paper Pickle for their Holiday Open house! Kell manned the make and take table, Kim was busy at the cash, Deb answered any and all questions and yours truly did a copic demo! I got to catch up with some old friends (Bonnie and Brenda!) and met some new ones....Hi Kate!...plus I had my BFF Pauline hanging out most of the afternoon. I had soooo much fun!


That leads me to my card of the day! After getting home from the open house I whipped up this card with Gifty Tree...okay...I'll fess up, I didn't exactly WHIP IT UP cause I'm NOT a fast card maker. But I did color it and get it all put together all in one day so that has got to get me some points! LOL!

I stamped it on Bellas bestest paper, coloured it entirely in copics and added some 'stuff' for snow. I have no idea where I bought this stuff but it is like little tiny squares of shiney white confetti. The paper I used is some Scenic Route from last year and I love it's retro look with this funky tree. The tag was created with a spellbinders die, stamped with the merry holidays sentiment and tied to the lamp with some fine white and gold ribbon that I picked up at pickle.

To finish it off, of course I added lots of glitter around the star and ornaments, and popped those ornaments with a nice thick glob of ranger glossy accents. It is a very tactile card!

Oh ya....there is still time....GO SEE THE MICHAEL JACKSON MOVIE! you won't be sorry!
RIP MJ!

A Christmas Bellarific Friday

I think we should just do Holiday cards for the next four to six weeks to help me grow my stash! I STILL have not made a firm decision on my Chrismas card this year, or my mom's for that matter and I'm getting just a little bit angst! At least all the prototypes I have posted in the last few weeks can go into the stash and get put to good use so that will reduce the number that I have to mass produce.

I really don't mind mass producing and sometimes my Holiday cards are just one design reproduced 40 times, or maybe I do 2 or 3 different designs, or sometimes I even make about 10 really special ones and mass produce the rest. It all depends on how much time and energy I have! And let me tell ya, right now, my energy level is at a low so I'm leaning toward something that can quickly be mass produced and still have my stamp of approval.


I think that little Reindeer Circle might just be one of those that get's the approval! He is stinking cute, yet small enough to do several of them without a huge investment in time, and everyone can still get a hand coloured card which I know they all want! A total crowd pleaser! I think next weekend while at Bella Land I may also pick up a couple more circle holiday images!

As usual, he was stamped on bella's bestest paper in brilliance ink and coloured with copic markers, the blue shading was done with prismacolor pencils and gamsol. The greetings of the season sentiment was stamped in Imperial Purple versafine ink, then embossed with detail clear embossing powder. Embossing a sentiment on the front of your card is always admired by non-stampers! They always say....how'd you do that? Hehehehe! If they only knew how SIMPLE it was! In case you want to give him a try and maybe mass produce him yourself, here are the colors I used:
E40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 33
W00, 1, 2, 3
Y21, 23, 26
R20, 24, 59, G94

Hope you all have a good weekend, me and the hubs are going to Windsor to see the Michael Jackson movie then out for dinner on Saturday. Sunday I'll be at Pickle for their Christmas open house doing demos with copic markers! If you are in the area stop by and say hi....I'll be there between 1 and 3pm! Let me just say Kell has been baking all week and she is a baking GODESS! And they make the BESTEST hot apple cider EVAH!

Do you ever mess up?

I do! And I messed up on this card so I've been holding onto it for a while not really wanting to share it. But I thought, what the heck, we all make mistakes and I'm not immune to them so I'll tell you where I messed up and what I did to recover it.


I don't know about you, but me, I'm short on time! I work full time and enjoy spending time with my hubs, friends and my dog so that leaves very little time for me to create. And I don't color FAST, and I struggle with layouts! Because I generally use copics for the main image and pencils for shading I start with the main image first. You can ALWAYS add pencils after copics, but NEVER try to add copics over pencils!

SO...I coloured Stamping Bella's Ketto dolly in copics then tried to add a yellow 'glow' with pencils. I took some of my sistah Paula's advice and used a dirty stump. Well, I think it was a bit tooooo dirty and I ended up with a red streak over her head. ACK! So I picked up some oranges and worked that red streak into the orange to create that orange/red glow around her head! I think I need some more lessons on how 'dirty' a stump you should use!

I should also mention, that I was experimenting a bit with my markers and ended up with a dress that I think looks a bit muddy. At this point you are probably wondering why I continued! Well, it was because I spent a lot of time on it and I didn't want that time to go to waste so I tried my best to sacrifice it.

In the end, it is not my most fav card, but totally acceptable! So learn from your mistakes, recover from them and move on! But NEVER stop trying new things and experimenting because you can only learn from it!

Have a nice day! Linda!

My first Digi Image

I'm busy here cutting paper for class at Pickle on Thursday and putting together cards for the upcoming Bella class and felt the need for a break! What better way to take a break than to sit down with a glass of merlot and post a card!

This is my first digi image card, not the first I've coloured, but the first I've put into a card and this is Hockey Boy from from Mo's digital pencil. I love her images! But I'm still fence sitting on the whole digi thing. I'm old (remember I'm 50!), but I am computer savy (I AM a programmer afterall!), so I'm not 'afraid' of them....but I'm also a very touch and feel kinda girl. I own CD's, but I've also downloaded music from iTunes. The CD's I really want to OWN, I buy, and a single song that might give me joy for a short period of time I download. And I would consider myself a collector. As a collector I don't want to collect on my laptop because it is too immaterial for me, I want to hold it, smell it, fondle it...so I continue to buy rubbah! And I probably will because when someone wants to see my collection I don't want them to sit down and browse my laptop!

Now digital does have it's advantages....primarily it's FAST, especially for those in remote areas. But it is still NOT rubbah and I can't hold it. Case in point....when Dave Matthews Band came out with their new CD earlier this year we pre-ordered it (cause we are groupies!) but we didn't get it the day it came out....SO I downloaded it from iTunes the day it was released because I wanted to hear it THAT DAY! So I spent 9.99 to get the CD online, but I have no regrets that I also own the 'hardcopy'.

I realize I am a different generation, but in years to come, your computer images will likely be gone unless you are careful with them. And they will never show the signs of age and love that rubber does. And in generations to come, no one will probably ever know you enjoyed rubber stamping because you will have nothing material to show for it. I want to leave a bit of me behind and I want my kids and grandkids, and maybe even great-grandkids to see that rubber, touch it, and feel it and know what made me happy!

WOW! That was pretty deep wasn't it! Must have been the wine! Better go finish cutting my paper now.