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.