I am the queen of putzing

The last couple weeks I have been very busy taking on a bedroom makeover and painting hallway trims and baseboards that were in a very sorry state. Nothing is coming together YET...but progress is being made.

The bedroom is going to be ZEN BABY! Cool mushroom coloured walls, matching grass cloth behind the bed (yes, the real deal grass cloth!) and a new window covering. This is what I have picked out. The walls are done, some patching needs to get finished before I put up the grass cloth and I'm going to wait till the wallpaper is up before calling my blind guy to bring in some samples.

The swatch on the right is the grasscloth and the one on the left is a first pick at a window covering. I just want a very sleek simple roller shade...no fuss, no frills....ZEN! and that is my paint sample thrown in there. I am a paint sample junkie....I actually own and buy paint sample swatch books. I don't like to make a kazillion trips to the paint store, I want every option at my fingertips. And my current paint of choice is Aura by Benjamin Moore....LOVE that paint. This may sound totally crazy to some, but I actually enjoy painting. Once all the prep work is done I sort of find it relaxing and love watching the transformation happen.

When I haven't been painting I've been putzing. (defn: to behave in an idle manner; putter) It is one of my absolute fav ways to wind down and relax. I'll just look at something and decide to reorganize it. Or maybe open up a kitchen cupboard and decide to empty it, wash it and reorganize it. Are you sensing that I LOVE to reorganize! However there is no organized madness to my putzing. It is totally random and spontaneous. And during my randomness today I popped in on Emily's blog to see what was going on and her theme for this weeks AJ Tuesday was time. While I was in the midst of doing nothing really productive, but somehow managing to keep busy, I thought I'd play along.

I did a quick search on the internet for quotes using the word time and when I found this one it just came together for me and I knew I had drop whatever it was I was doing to sit down and capture it.

Linda.







Time to pass the torch

If you read on Emily's blog today that I am taking a hiatus, you read it right. After 3+ years of devoting my weekends to the 'craft' I've decided to devote some time to other things that need doing around here. I've got some redecorating fairies dancing around in my head and some unfinished projects that are screaming to be done.

I'm sure many of you must know that balancing a full time job and family against an abundance of creative energy is a difficult task and eventually we hit the wall where something has got to give. As much as I would like to retire from the full time job that is not the thing that can give yet so I have decided to step down from Emily's Stamping Bella design team.

Am I going to give up the craft entirely? NO WAY...I still love it. Remember Christmas is just around the corner and making Christmas cards for me and my mom is still something I am looking forward to doing. So I'll be around, but maybe just not as often.

I'll leave you with my last 'official' bellarific Friday card....another self portrait...me sitting at the window trying to decide what project to tackle next!

'till next time, Linda

Polly Packages Returns

Last weeks theme of Christmas in July (which I entirely forgot to post) made me think of all those Christmas cards I want to make so I decided to keep the theme going. A theme and a sketch! It doesn't get much easier than that.

Polly Packages is one of my all time fav little Holiday images, those little boots, the tights, her cute little hat, plus it is pretty easy and quick to colour!

Of course I coloured her with copics and finished her up with pencils, some glitter, lace from our local fabric store and trim. The sentiment also comes from Stamping Bella.

And since I didn't post my card last week, I think I'll do it now, while I'm here. I used Lulu's ornaments on this one but only a portion of the stamp so I could fit it on an A2 card. It might look like ribbon at the top, but it is a spellbinders border which I distressed. A little bit of colour on the ornaments and a good heavy coating of Ranger glossy accents make these ornaments pop.

 

Next week we are back to a theme with our challenge....

SUM SUM SUMMERTIME

With the heat we have had here it is not all that hard to remember it is Summertime....but I'm NOT at all complaining. ANYTHING is better than snow!

Finally, I'd like to give a BIG WARM welcome to our newest Babe....Carla Murphy....she has been a long time bella fan and even made a trip from her home in Ottawa to take one of my classes in Toronto. Go check her out and send some love!

Self Portrait

Lots to cram in here today and we will start with my self portrait, compliments of Stamping Bella's Uptown Girl Pippa loves to Plant.



I coloured her up for this weeks sketch challenge over at Bloggabella and to be honest, the only self portrait thing about this is the gardening gloves and potted plants! I'm sort of lacking the long lean legs! LOL!

Quickly moving on to other news, you probably know that I am headed to Toronto this weekend for a day of classes with Paula at the Bella HQ. I meant to do this earlier in the week, but no excuses, I just didn't get around to it.

Paula will be doing her usual 4 cards in pencil and I will be doing three in a copic/pencil combo. And this time 'round we are devoting the classes to the ever popular Uptown Girls. How cool is that! You may have read on Paula's blog that we do have one overlapping image, and if you happen to be in both classes this will give you a good taste of both sides of the fence.

I won't keep you in suspense any longer, here we go....



Ava loves to celebrate

Claudia has a candy

Lolly and her Brolly

That's it!
Hope to see you tomorrow.

Swiss dots

Our theme this week was to emboss. I had all these grandiose ideas but ended up just sitting down to colour up Stamping Bella's Talk to the Bear and the swiss dot embossing folder was speaking to me.

If you are wondering where I have been lately, I'm taking a bit of a break for the next couple months. We've got some family things and a wedding coming up over the next several weeks and as much as I would like, I can't do it all. Not to mention with this heat wave I have a chair floating in the pool that is calling my name. But you'll still see me here for Bellarific Friday and I might even see some of you next weekend at the Bella Headquarters in Toronto when Paula and I breeze in for a day of classes. It has been a while since Paula, Emily and I have had an evening to chat so I'm really looking forward to it.

We are back to a sketch next week, and I know how much we love a sketch so show Em the love, pull out a stamping Bella stamp and play along with us.

Happy Friday

And it is a wonderful Friday because I have the day off and I have Neil Diamond songs filling my head after seeing him in London, ON last night. Ya, he's old...and he walked through a couple songs but never the less seeing him live has been on my bucket list since he starred in the Jazz Singer and I'm glad I saw him.

My plans today were to wash the bedroom windows, however with the heat index sitting at around 100 I don't think I want to open those windows today. No worries, I have a huge laundry list of things that need to get done around here so I'll save that chore for Monday which is also a holiday here in Canada so I have a nice long 4 day weekend.

Before I go get out the dyson and my enjo cleaning mitts I'll get to my real reason for being here, Bellarific Friday. I decided to do something a little different with this weeks sketch and used Stamping Bella's Grandma's Gramophone by Rheea. Pauline made a BEAUTIFUL card with it last week and she ommitted the little lady and her pup and I kinda wish I had done that as well because it would make the card more versatile. None the less, I like the way it turned out.

I started with a piece of hot press watercolor paper and stamped the image with black Archival ink. Then I used my ranger distress markers and blended the colour out with a wet brush. I sponged on some distress ink around the edges and stamped just a tiny bit of Eclectic mini musical notes because I thought it was fitting.

Next week our challenge is all about EMBOSSING....and the it leaves the door wide open for possibilities. Instead of the 'go to' embossing folders, maybe try heat embossing, or maybe a brass stencil and a stylus. Have I gotten your creative juices flowing yet? I know mine are.

Till next time, Linda.

It's all about the girls...

This week our challenge was all about the girls...and there is nothing more girly than one of Stamping Bella's Uptown Girls.. This is Isabella, and she is a little over indulging on that ice scream I think.

I even have one of those cute inkadinkado kid quote stamps to put in there that says 'tomorrow we can eat broccoli, but today is for ice cream!'....how wicked cute it that!

If you are wondering why I am late with this...well I have age-activated attention deficit disorder. You know, you start something, get distracted, start something else and it seems to go on endlessly until you forgot what you started to do. It's crazy!

Anyhow...I'm gonna be short and sweet and leave it at that. Then get back to colouring, which is what I sat down here to do in the first place!
But before I go, one last distraction...and that is our Bellarific Friday for this week....a sketch gals!!!! Hope you like it.

up UP and AWAY!

Last night I decided to put my girl through the ropes...we BOTH need the exercise...and the ropes for us is a long walk. If you don't know who my girl is, that would be my beloved West Highland Terrier Bessie and her pic is on my side bar. Isn't she just like the cutest girl EVER!

This is one of our first long endurance walks since her second knee surgery back in February. We have done many short walks and lots of sprints (she LOVES to sprint and fetch...that is how she messed up her knees) but no marathons. But last night we were gonna start our marathon training and for us a marathon used to be an hour. With her short (15-20min) walks and sprint 'training' I thought I'd put her to the 1/2 hour test. She was all guns and roses for the first 20 mins and then slowed right down. When we got home after 30 mins she was pretty much 'spent' (as my kids would say). And I have to remember she IS getting older and turned 9 this spring but I'm determined to get her back in tip top shape because she is a happy healthy dog with a lot of years left in her (not to mention TWO new knees!). We are gonna take it slow and steady and hopefully by September we will be back to our hour long walks 2-3 times a week again. So up UP and AWAY we go!

I kinda think that Bessie and I are like Stamping Bella's Ramona and her Teddy taking off on an adventure to exciting new places. New neighborhoods to scout out while keeping tabs on the old familiar ones to see what has changed.

As always I started out on bella's BESTEST paper but I coloured this one primarily with prismacolor pencils and gamsol. However, I did start with a base of some very light shades of copics because I am partial to the rich base of colour I get with them.

After taking the picture I thought ...shoot! ....I forgot the glitter, so just try to imagine this one with glittered clouds okay...because that is where the glitter will go. The one thing that made this card come together so nicely was the fab sketches I had to choose from and that was all the sketch challenges that Stamping Bella has sponsored since the beginning of the year.

Next week our challenge is INK UP THE GIRLS....come on! How freaking easy is that...I can pretty much predict that an Uptown Girl will be in my future!

'till next time...later....Linda