Pauline's Card Cupboard

Valentine Challenge

2012-02-03T00:01:00.008-05:00

Hello, and welcome back to another Bellariffic Friday challenge. I hope you had a chance to play along with us. Our theme this week was Valentine - or red, pink, and white card. I think I captured both options in my card. I had a chance to colour up one of Stamping Bella's newest release from two weeks ago called Romona Fishing.

I am just 'smitten' with how my card turned out! Is she not adorable or what?

I pulled out my 6x6 paper pack from MME called Love Me - the perfect colour combo for this weeks theme. Once I pulled my papers out that I wanted to use, I got busy colouring. I first stamped Romona on bella's bestest white using black memento, and then used primsmacolour pencils and blended with gamsol. I used a square s/binder die to cut her out, cutting off the heart. I then coloured the heart using copic markers R37 & R56, then cut it out. The border strip in soft pink was done using a Martha Stewart heart border punch. I saved a couple of the punched hearts and glued them to the front of the card. The red heart was popped up and then I applied some glossy accents to it. Finishing touches - stitching and glitter. Card measures 5 1/2 square.

Need some more inspiration - well then hop over to Bloggabella and check out what the other babes and sistah's did for this week. Leave a comment and you will have a chance to win some bella bucks.

For all you sketch lovers - next week's challenge is another sketch. Yep, we will be doing sketch challenges every other week! So here is your sketch. Email your card by thursday night to Emily or you can upload it on SCS and use the keyword BELLARIFFIC0512.

Enjoy your weekend! I think we are in for a nice sunny one here in SW Ontario. Until next time...

Meet the new Uptown girls

2012-02-01T00:01:00.001-05:00

Hey, how is your week going? Well I can say I am feeling much better today. Still have a bit of sinus issues but the worst is over!

As promised I said I would post one of the new Uptown images. So today I have to share with you
Uptown Girls Pattie & Dottie. I just love colouring up these gals. Can't wait to colour the rest of them.

Here you have them, Pattie & Dottie, stamped on bella's bestest paper and coloured with prismacolour pencils. I based my colouring on the colours from papers by Basic Grey called Out of Print. Soft greens and soft pinks - so girly! I also used an EK Success scallop border punch - I know it's hard to see where, but it's on the top piece of dp, on the bottom edge. Finished off with some stitching and a soft pink satin ribbon/bow, and of course lots of glitter.

If you are able to participate in our challenge this week - which I hope you do- our theme is Valentines- love card or pink/red/ white card. With Valentines fast approaching, I'm sure you need to make some cards to give out. You can email your card to Emily by thursday night or post it on SCS and make sure you use the keyword BELLARIFFIC0412. Either way, you have a chance to win some bella bucks!

Enjoy your day, and thanks for coming by. See you on Friday!

A little birdie

2012-01-29T20:41:00.000-05:00

Hi all. This will be a fast post. My weekend turned into not being so good. I've been fighting sinus headache since Friday, congestion, sneezing, cough... well you know how it is. So needless to say, I'm heading to bed after sleeping almost 15 hours last night. Just can't get rid of the bad sinus headache, which make your eyes feel sore and tired, and watery.

Okay enough about me, I received my huge Stamping Bella order on Thursday, so I was so eager to colour up something new. I pulled out Little Birdie Jane by one of Stamping Bella's newest artist
Jane Davenport.

I stamped her on Bella's bestest paper using black memento ink. She was coloured using prismacolour pencils, after putting a base coat down with copics first. I made the frame around her but using a couple of punches from Martha Stewart -around the page Vintage Floral. I saw a tutorial over on Kittie's blog- she has some fantastic tutorials on frame making, flowers, wreaths, etc, you should check it out! It took me a few tries to get the exact paper measurements to get the frame I wanted. I started with a piece measuring 3 1/2 x 5 5/8. After punched around, it gave me just enough room to place my image.
Paper is from Memory Box called Aerial. I thought this would be perfect paper because of the little birds on it (which most of it is covered up, but you can still see a bit of the birds).

Finished off with some stitching, glitter and some baubles. I was really pleased on how this turned out.

Okay, I'm off to bed, hopefully I'll feel somewhat better tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by.
I have a new Uptown Girl image to share with you on Wed... see you then.

Sketch 0212

2012-01-27T00:01:00.003-05:00

Woohoo it's Friday again! Weekend weather is not so great, which is okay with me because I received my Stamping Bella order yesterday, so I have lots of rubber that needs to see ink! So I hope to get some cards made this weekend.

For all you sketch lovers out there, our challenge this week was just that - a sketch. This one is #2 of the year. Did you get a chance to play along with us this week? Regardless of whether you did or not, be sure to hop over to Bloggabella to check out all the entries for this week or you can check them out over on SCS - just do a search for BELLARIFFIC0312 (case sensitive).

Okay, lets get on with my version of the sketch. I followed it quite closely except my image is in the shape of square rather than a circle. What can I say, it just wouldn't fit into a circle!

I'm using one of images in a set of four designed by our very own Paulabella! This set is called
Framed Florals. As usual, I stamped the image on bella's bestest paper and coloured with Copics, and the shading is done with pencils. I used the Fleur de Lis s/binder die behind my image as well as the Fleur de Lis accents for the corners. The strip of paper behind the image was run through the cuttlebug using a sizzix embossing folder and then I sponged some scattered straw distress ink over the embossed leaves.
DP is from Memory Box. Finished off with some stitching, yellow silk ribbon and some tiny white pearls.

Next weeks challenge is VALENTINE. Now that shouldn't be too hard, we all have loved ones that we can make a card for. You can email Emily your card by thursday night for your card to be included in the showcase on Bloggabella or you can upload to SCS and use the keyword BELLARIFFIC0412.

Have a great weekend, see you back here soon.

I'm sorry....

2012-01-25T00:01:00.008-05:00

Happy Wednesday! I'm actually ahead of the game this week, which doesn't happen to often.
I have all my cards done for this week's post even my sketch challenge card for friday! Now I just need to work ahead and start next weeks cards.

I coloured another Mo image in rubber by Stamping Bella. This cutie is called Sorry Shanna.

Doesn't she make your heart melt? Look at those freckled cheeks! I stamped her on bella's bestest white using black memento ink. I used both prismacolour and Caron d'ache pencils and blended with gamsol. Designer paper is from Basic Grey called Lilykate. Finished off with some glitter and silk ribbon. Finished size is 6 1/4 x 4 1/2.

Don't forget about our sketch challenge this week. You still have time to get it done and email Emily by thursday night. You can also upload it on SCS using the keyword BELLARIFFIC0212. Bella bucks up for grabs!

Thanks for stopping by, see you on Friday.

Let's Hang Out!

2012-01-22T22:02:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone had a good weekend. Mine was good, and a very busy day today. Went to church as normal this morning, then had to be back at church for 4:30 to practice for our Massed Choir which was at 7:00. This is the finale for Week of Prayer. We have choir members from different church denominations across the city participate in the choir. It's a lot of fun, and lots of singing, which gets crammed into about an hour. In total the choir sang two Anthems, plus with the congregation we sang another 8 songs. My throat was just a tad dry by the end!

So for my card today, I coloured up this cute design called 'Hanging Sign'. I've wanted this stamp for quite some time, but always forget to order it, so I finally remembered.

I stamped the image on bella's bestest paper using black memento ink. I then coloured the image using prismacolour pencils and blended with gamsol. Used a rectangle s/binder die to cut it out and then sponged some distress stormy sky around the image while the die was still in place. This stamp comes with 3 sentiments - let's hang out, happy birthday, and thinking of you. I thought the 'let's hang out' suited this image to a 't'. I stamped the sign portion again onto a scrap piece of white, sponged some stormy sky on it and then stamped the sentiment. I used some pop dots to layer it over the main image.

Designer paper is from Memory Box. White scallop border is a Martha Stewart punch, and the kraft colour flourish is a MFT die. I then punched 3 hydrangea flowers using a Martha Stewart punch, pressed each center of the flower into a rubber foam mat using a stylus to give it some shape, glued these to the flourish and finished them off with tiny white pearls.

That's it for me for tonight. This Babe is exhausted, I'm heading to bed! See you soon,

A favourite image

2012-01-20T00:01:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone! Welcome to another Bellariffic friday challenge. This weeks challenge was to ink up one of your favourite images. Well, I had a very hard time deciding which image was my favourite.
There are so many from the Uptown Girls, stella's, bella's, green bean babies, and my list goes on.
So to make my decision on what to do I tried to narrow it down - since I love flowers and love the pixie images, I pulled out an image that has never seen ink yet! (and I have lots of those!).
This is Patsy Pixie. Isn't she adorable peeking through the bouquet of flowers?

As always, I stamped her on Bella's bestest white paper using black memento ink and then coloured her using prismacolour pencils and blended with gamsol. I based my colours on a piece of Basic Grey - Kissing Booth. So pretty, love the little flowers on it. I then trimmed around the image and used a corner rounder for my top 2 corners. Did the same with the pink and yellow card stock. I sponged versamagic thatched straw, and then with some distress ink - scattered straw around the image.

The white strip behind the image is cut using a Cheery Lynn die. All of these dies are so detailed and intricate, I think by far one of my fav companies for this type of die.

Finished off with some stitching, glossy accents on the center of the daisy's and on the little stamens, and glitter on the some of the pink flowers.

Next week's challenge is another sketch. Our multi-talented Ebruabella has designed 25 great sketches for us for the upcoming year - whoohoo Ebru!! For all you sketch lovers, looks like we will be doing a sketch every other week. So here is next weeks sketch. Be sure to email Emily your card by thursday night. If you would like to post it on SCS be sure to use the keyword BELLARIFFIC0212.

Have a good weekend, see you soon. Thanks for peeking in today!

Happy Neighborhood

2012-01-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

So, what did you think of Emily's release yesterday? Pretty awesome eh! It didn't take me long to fill my cart, it was overflowing with all the new and some older images! Can't wait to get them.

I was asked to make a card for a house warming. I don't have much in the line of houses, but I did have this funky house stamp from Stamping Bella called Happy Neighborhood!

I came across this paper once I decided on the stamp I was going to use. The designer paper is by Imaginisce - Happy Camper. The trees are all glossed - so pretty. I just love the colours in it as well- brown, green and teal tones - perfect. So I began by stamping the houses on bella's bestest paper then proceeded to colour using copics and pencils. I cut the houses out using labels 14, and then the teal layer was cut with labels 20. I ran the brown c/s through the cuttlebug using a sizzix embossing folder. Tied a piece of twill around the card to finish it off. Card measures 5x 7. I rented a stamp from Paper Pickle for the inside sentiment - it say's : Wishing you Warmth and Happiness in your new home.

Hope you get a chance to play in our challenge this week. Do you have a favourite Stamping Bella image? well that's all it takes. Colour it up and email Emily by Thursday night for a chance to win some bella bucks.

I'll see you back here on Friday. See you then,

Sneak Peak

2012-01-16T06:00:00.004-05:00

Hi - hope everyone had a good weekend. Have you had a chance to hop over to SCS to the bella forum? If you did you would of seen some sneak peak images that Emily is teasing us with. The release day is tomorrow, Tuesday Jan 17, and all I can say is that I'm excited. Looks like some new Uptown Girls, and a couple of new designers! woohoo!!

The image that I coloured up to show you is so cute! Who wouldn't love to receive a card with this adorable image? Okay, enough said here she is - Matilda Swinging!

Isn't she just darling? I coloured miss Matilda using prismacolour pencils and gamsol. I needed to do something with the big white open space, so I pulled out some of my cloud dies, and traced lightly around some of the cloud formation, then added a bit of a darker blue and blended out. After I finished colouring her, the image was still lacking something. So I pulled out my chalks (haven't used these in ages) and sponged some blue chalk in the cloud area. What I did notice though is that it kind of removed my outline markings of my clouds, and left it with a white outline - does look kind of cool!

Designer paper is by MME - Happier collection. This cute image also comes with her own sentiment - thinking of you. I trimmed it up and layered it onto a piece of pink c/s to make a tag. Finished off with some stitching, glitter, and a couple of pink pearls.

Well that's it for me, but be sure to check out all of the other bellababes for some awesome sneak peaks! You can also see them over at SCS - do search in the gallery using the keyword SBJANRELEASE. Be sure to check out the store over at Stamping Bella tomorrow for the release - have fun shopping!

Have a wonderful day!

First bellariffic challenge of 2012

2012-01-13T00:01:00.001-05:00

Hey, happy Friday everyone! Today marks our first bellariffic friday challenge for 2012! And we start this years off with an awesome sketch, done by Ebruabella!!

As soon as we were shown the sketch I knew I wanted to put a Huggabugg image in that circle. Question was what image was I going to use. So with Valentine's Day creeping up on us fast I pulled out
Lovey Huggabugg. These little guys are just so adorable!

I first stamped her on bella's bestest paper and then coloured her up in the yummy pinky/red colours using prismacolour pencils. The DP is by MME called Love Me. I just love all the paper in this pack! For the sentiment part of the sketch, I used a s/binder heart. I wasn't going to put anything else on the heart, but as I was putting the card together, I noticed a small piece of paper that had the words 'love' across it - it was off of the back side of the striped piece. So guess where I put that! Yep you got it - glue it onto the heart - a perfect little sentiment!. I also used a couple of circle dies along with the lacy circle die. Finished off with some stitching, and I applied some glitter ritz to the wings.

Be sure to hop over to Bloggabella today, and leave a comment on all of the wonderful submissions. You have a chance to win some bella bucks if you do.

Do you have a favourite Bella image? Well, if so, get it coloured up because next weeks challenge is "ink up your favourite image'. Email your card to Emily by thursday night for it to appear on Bloggabella.

If you haven't been following Bloggabella lately, there is another release coming out on Tuesday!
Emily says it's bestest and biggest yet!! You can follow her on Twitter for some sneak peaks.

Well, that's it for today, have a great weekend!

Walkabella

2012-01-11T06:04:00.001-05:00

Hi all! Can you believe it's Wednesday already? The last few weeks have been flying by for me, with

working lots of overtime- not complaining, just saying! It's a quick post today, for some reason, Blogger was not saving last night, so writing this up this morning before work.

For my card today, I coloured another Bella image. Here we have Walkabella.

Doesn't she look cute and sassy in her strapless dress walking her pooch? So for the details, as you know she was stamped on bella's bestest paper with black memento, and then coloured her up using prismacolour pencils. Again, I used some papers from my scrap basket by Heidi Grace. I drew some lines on her purse to spruce it up a bit! Finished up with some black bella dots. Card measures 5 1/4 square.

You still have a couple days to get your card done for this weeks challenge. You can email Emily by thursday night to have it show up on bloggabella or you can upload your card on SCS, link your card using BELLARIFFIC0112.

Gotta go, see you back here on friday. Have a great day!!

Forgotten Birthday

2012-01-09T00:01:00.001-05:00

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you had a great weekend.

Have you ever forgotten someone's birthday, and never have the right kind of card to send? Well I can tell you that I will be prepared for the next time I forget, because the card I have today to share with you is one of those. This great image is another Christy Croll image released in rubber by Stamping Bella called No Fair Girl!

Now doesn't she look a bit peeved that she forgot a birthday? I stamped her on bella's bestest paper and then coloured her with prismacolour pencils and blended with gamsol. I used my Wonky s/binder die to cut her out as well as the pink layer. I then ran the pink through my cuttlebug using the swiss dot embossing folder.
This stamp also comes with 3 different sentiments. I punched the sentiment out using an oval punch.The DP is by Fancy Pants - Crush, I used the front and back side. Finished off with some glitter, stitching, a mft flourish and a prima flower.

This Friday, marks our first bellariffic challenge for 2012 (see sketch). If you do get a chance to play along you have 2 ways to win some bella bucks. First of all you need to use only Stamping Bella stamps. You can email Emily by thursday night, for your card to show up on Bloggabella, and also now that Stamping Bella is back on SCS, you can upload your card there. Simply link your card using the keyword BELLARIFFIC0112 (case sensitive) and one person will win a $20.00 gift voucher to shop at Stamping Bella! Pretty cool!! We are leaving this challenge open until Jan 19th. Good luck everyone!

That's it for me today, thanks for stopping by.

Baby Kirby

2012-01-07T22:09:00.000-05:00

Hey, sorry guys, I thought this had posted today, while I was out, but obviously it didn't. That's a couple of times this has happened. Oh well here it is now!

It seems that I never have enough baby cards - so another one for my stash.

Today I have Take a stand Kirby, an adorable image by Christy Croll, which can be found at Stamping Bella.

I started by stamping Kirby on bella's bestest white with black memento ink. This time around I used Copics and a bit of shading with prismacolour pencils. I pulled some papers from my scrap bin - these are by MME - Alphabet Soup. Finished off with some buttons. Card measures 5.25 x 5.25.

Also, I hope to have some more pictures of the Great Gray Owl this coming week.

In case you haven't heard Stamping Bella is back over on SCS as a Member Company. You can visit Emily and the Bella Babes here. Emily has a few sneak peaks of some new Uptown Girls soon to be released, so hop over and take a look.

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the rest of you weekend.

Hello Dear Friend

2012-01-06T00:01:00.006-05:00

It's Friday and that means the weekend is upon us once again! Woohoo!! And the weather is suppose to be fairly nice - which is always a bonus for the weekends.

For my card today, I decided it was time to colour up a Bella image for a change. I have Gossipabella to share with you.

She was stamped on Bella's bestest paper and then I coloured her using prismacolour and Caran d'ache
pencils and blended with gamsol. I used a square s/binder die to cut her out and then sponged some versamagic key lime then toned it down with some sea breeze. I used a Cheery Lynn doily die to lay behind gossipabella. Love the intricacy of this die. DP is a scrap piece from my scrap bucket - I believe it is October Afternoon. this stamp comes with her own sentiment which I chose not to use only because it was a bit too long, so instead I used this sentiment which I thought went well with the image. On my Christmas card from Paula, she put a sentiment on the front and did a little stitch at the end with her sewing machine and I loved the look of it, so I cased her idea here on my sentiment tag.

No glitter on this card just some stitching to finish it off.

So don't forget about our first challenge of 2012 next friday, have your card to Emily by thursday night.
It's a sketch challenge, to see the sketch just scroll down a post.

Also some more great news - Stamping Bella is now back on SCS. We have our forum up and running and have lots of fun and exciting ideas for the up coming year. You can read about it here.

Thanks for coming by today, have a wonderful weekend.

Eclectric Butterfly

2012-01-03T19:52:00.000-05:00

What you say, no more Gray Owl pictures??? Bill went down again today and got some more amazing pictures, so stay tuned over the next week and I'll be sure to share some more of her with you.

I do have a card to share with you today as promised. Although I probably should be still working on Christmas cards for next year I need a break from all that. So leafing through my bella binders I came across this butterfly which I have not inked up yet. I am a big nature fanatic - whether it is flowers, birds, butterflies, trees, I have to have it!

As I was saying - I decided to use the Eclectric Butterfly in print by Isabella Norris which you can find at Stamping Bella.

I had no idea what I was going to do with this stamp. So I played around a bit and this is what I came up with. I stamped the image on bella's white c/s using burnt umber palette ink. I then cut out the center portion of the image using a circle s/binder die, then sponged some soft pink while the die was in place. I then stamped another image off on white cs using aqua mist ink, then cut out the butterfly. I used a glue pen and colouring in the wings, then added crystal glitter ritz, rubbed it in good then tapped off the excess. I used one of the s/binder dies from the Fancy Tags Two set to cut out the brown swirly piece underneath the butterfly. Designer paper is by Memory Box - Valise.

Finished the card off with some tiny white pearls. Card measures 5 1/4 x 5 1/4.

So remember no bellariffic challenge this week, but we will start up again next week Jan 13h. Here is the sketch for you gals that would like to play along. Just remember to email your card to Emily before Jan 12.

That's it for day, I'll be back in a couple of days with another card. Thanks for stopping by.

More Pics of the Great Gray Owl

2012-01-02T19:55:00.003-05:00

Hi there. Well since today was a holiday for most I had to work. Bill had the day off so again he headed down to Kingsville to take some more pictures of her. Once in a lifetime chance, so might as well take advantage of it while you can! I won't bore you with chit chat - you can read my story on yesterdays post, so here are some more gorgeous pictures.

I'll be back tomorrow with a card - promise!!

Great Gray Owl

2012-01-01T20:54:00.004-05:00

Happy New Year to everyone! This post today is all about how I spent the last couple of days, so if you were hoping for a card post I'm sorry to disappoint you but I have something exciting to share with you.

If you live in the surrounding area of SW Ontario, I'm sure you would of heard about this rare visit from the Great Gray Owl, so now I will tell you our experience seeing her.

So yesterday morning Bill and I headed down to Kingsville ON to see the Great Gray Owl. Now this owl is not common to our area, her (I was told it was a female, so I'm sticking with that for now!) home is north of Lake Superior. How she arrived here is unknown. Whether she got off the path or caught up in heavy winds and blown down this way I guess we will never know.

So we pulled up on Road 2(country road) in Kingsville around 7:40 am and there were about 1/2 dozen cars or so. Got out of the car, Bill grabbed is camera and walked down to where everyone was standing taking pictures. I looked over at the tree and OMG I was in awe! There she sat, the most beautiful, stunning bird I have seen. I just starred at her, I could of cried I was so overwhelmed. After about 10 min or so, she flew over about 20ft or so and landed on a post in the ditch, so we all moved across the road, so those taking pictures could get a better view. A few more people arrived, and and she just sat there as if she was posing for us. She then decide to move again, and this time she flew straight at me!! I literally had to duck as she flew over my head, behind some houses and down the road. All I could see was these 2 eyes coming for me. Holy cow!

So the rest of the day until about 4ish we followed her along the road with everyone else as she moved from perch to perch. She did not seem bothered with people, vehicles, noise etc, she didn't spook easy like some birds and animals. We saw her dive to the ground a couple of times as she pounced on a mouse and devoured it right in front of us - that's basically what they live on - mice and moles.

Today Jan 1 - Bill and I went back and we were the 2nd car to come upon her. She was stunning as she sat on a lower branch on the edge of forest along McCain Road. It wasn't long before a crowd of spectators joined us. The rain had stopped just before we arrived, the sun tried to peak out a bit and about an hour later she flew away back towards where she was yesterday. It started to rain at that point so Bill and I called it a day and headed home.

We met some great people over these two days from as far away as New Hampshire, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, as well as Southern and SW Ontario.

The first 3 pictures are from today, the last 3 are from yesterday. So many to pick from, these were some of my favourites.

On the way home we took the scenic route through Wheatley and came across this duck:

So there you have it, my story of the Great Gray Owl.

Girls just wanna have fun

2011-12-30T00:01:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday! Normally this would be a Bellariffic challenge day, but we are taking a break over the holidays, and will resume on Jan 13th. But... I still have a card to share with you.

With New Years Eve just around the corner, I thought this image would fit it perfectly. Two young gals out celebrating the new year. This is Victoria and Juliette's Night Out - from the Uptown Girl series.

I started by stamping the girls on bella's bestest paper. Skin tones were coloured using Copics and all the rest was coloured using prismacolour pencils and blended with gamsol. I then trimmed the image down to 5 x 3 1/4, then layered this onto a piece of eggplant c/s. The designer paper is from MME - 6x6, A Beautiful Life. Nice thing about the Uptown Girl stamps is that they come with their own sentiment. I stamped the sentiment on some white c/s then cut it out using a s/binder tag die, left the die in place, sponged some versamagic aloe vera inside the die area.

Finishing touches - stitching, lots of glitter, glossy accents on the wine glasses, and a tiny chiffon bow.
Card measures 5 x 7.

If you would like a head start on our first 2012 challenge I have attached the sketch for you to get a head start on. Same rules apply, just email Emily your card by Jan 12/12.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year. May 2012 bring you lots of love, happiness and good health.
See you next year!!

Happy "Bee" Day

2011-12-28T00:01:00.003-05:00

I'm sure many of you are still off work for your Christmas Holidays, but this gal is back to work.
While I was off for a few days, I did manage to get a couple of cards made - which I"m happy about.

One of the images I coloured up was a Huggabugg. This cutie is called BEEday Huggabugg, which happens to be a Christy Croll image by Stamping Bella.

I stamped her on bella's bestest paper and coloured her using Copics and pencils for shading.
Designer paper is by We R Memory Keepers, and I used Kraft c/s for my card base. After cutting her out with a circle spellbinder die I sponged some versamagic persimmon around the image while the die was in place. I then cut out a lacey circle to layer the image on. I also used this sentiment and used a spellbinder tag to cut it out.
Finished off with some stitching, glitter (glitter ritz), seam binding ribbon and twine.

I'll be back on Friday with an Uptown Girl card to share with you. See you then!

Special Day

2011-12-26T14:01:00.003-05:00

Happy Boxing Day! Did everyone have a good Christmas? Did Santa bring you what you wanted?
Well today marks a special day in my calendar - it's my Birthday!!! Yep, I'm 52 yrs young!

So in celebration of that, I made myself a card to post for you today. I've had this image for quite a while now and never got the chance to colour her up. Here we have Sneaky Sneaky birthday bella.

Sneaky bella was stamped on bella's bestest paper and then I coloured her using pencils and copics.
Designer papers are by Basic Grey - Lemonade. I used a border punch by Martha Steward and a MFT die to cut out a frame for happy birthday. Finished off with some stitching, glitter, pink pearls and ribbon.

So what are my plans for the rest of the day??? Absolutely nothing!! Although since Santa was very good to me this year and brought me a MAC (OMG I'm in love with it!)- I need to learn how to navigate this new system - so think I will play around with that today.

Well thanks for stopping by today, and enjoy the rest of the day.

Christmas Eve with Charlotte

2011-12-24T21:38:00.000-05:00

First of all I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, and may 2012 bring you much peace, joy and love.

I was a busy gal today, getting some last minute gifts (gift cards - gotta love them!) came home cleaned the house,had a glass of wine, made dinner, and then worked on this card I'm about to show you.

I thought it was time to colour up some of my neglected Ketto's. Charlotte is one of my favourite Ketto's, right up there with Anise and Ivy.

I stamped Charlotte on bella's bestest paper and used my prismacolour pencils to colour her up. Used a skinny oval die to cut her out, left the die in place and sponged some versamagic sea breeze around her. The layer underneath her was cut from a spellbinder die called twisted metal tags and accents. DP is from Basic Grey called Indie Bloom. I wanted to keep this fairly simple, so I added a small pink prima flower and punched a couple of leaves using a Martha Stewart leaf punch.

Finished off with some stitching, pearls and glitter.

Well that's it for me for tonight. I'll be back at the beginning of the week.

Merry Christmas to all!

On the pot...

2011-12-21T22:28:00.000-05:00

Hi! I can't believe that it is Wednesday night already. I'm working overtime this week again, which is making the week fly. I have one more day of work this week and then off for 5 days - can't wait! I hope to get some colouring done while I'm off, and just do some relaxing.

Tonight I coloured up a darling image from Stamping Bella. This is a Mo image called On the Pot girl - she is so cute!

I stamped her on bella's bestest white and then coloured her using Copics, and then did my shading with prismacolour pencils. I think I'm getting the hang of doing hair! DP is by October Afternoon - Sidewalks. You know me and my dies and border punches, well I saw this one a month or so ago and just had to have it. It's from Cheery Lynn Dies. So pretty isn't it?
Finished off with some stitching and buttons.

Sorry I couldn't link up anything from my post to Stamping Bella, but her site must be down for a bit.

Well, best be heading to bed, 5:30 comes early! Thanks for stopping in.

Peeptini

2011-12-19T21:08:00.000-05:00

Hi! Last night I watched the season finale of Dexter! OMG do any of you watch this series? It was quite the cliffhanger, sad part is not sure if Micheal C Hall (Dexter) has renewed his contract. I sure hope he does!

I thought I would share something other than Christmas cards with you today.
I still might do up a few more cards over the next couple of weeks, just to get a jump start on next years. I figured if I did one card a week next year, I would have more than enough.

My card today is using a Peep image called Peeptini! Aren't these Peeps adorable?

I used bella's bestest paper for my image and coloured using prismacolour pencils. Designer paper is from MME - Stella Rose - Hazel papers. The doily was cut using a Cheery Lynn Die. This stamp also comes with a sentiment -"here's to you" which I used. I stamped it using black versafine then cut it out with a tag from s/binders. Finishing touches: glitter, stitching and a bow.

Thanks for stopping by.

Last challenge of the year

2011-12-16T00:01:00.011-05:00

Hi everyone! So glad it's friday, it's been a busy week, working lots of overtime at work because of year end. I still have a couple more Christmas cards to get out in the mail as well.

Yes this is our last Bellariffic friday challenge for 2011. We have lots of great ideas for 2012 challenges as well. This weeks challenge was a sketch done by Robinbella! Love this layout. I pulled out another new image I have yet to colour up, and this one is called - cupcake with a holly on top.

Wasn't quite sure what colour I was suppose to colour the balls on the cupcake, so I just went for it. Eveything was coloured with prismacolour pencils on bella's bestest paper. For the small gold balls I used my gold krylon pen. DP is by Echo Park - Season's Greetings.

Finished it off with some glossy accents on the red berries, and added glitter to the green balls. You can see along the bottom of the cupcake all that sparkle (well I hope you can see it, don't know how well the camera picked it up) anyway it is diamond dust- it's finely ground glass - love this stuff, need to use it more.
I also added a die cut holly branch under the image.

Don't forget if you didn't get a chance to participate in this weeks challenge, you can still hop over to bloggabella and leave a comment. Emily is giving away bonus bella bucks this week.

Our next friday challenge begins on Jan13/2012 and for those who would like to get a head start over the holidays I have posted below the sketch for you.

Thanks for coming by today, have a great weekend!

Harriet

2011-12-14T19:24:00.000-05:00

Hey, how are you all doing? I'm back tonight with a quick post, still have Christmas cards to get done and out in the mail.

I'm using one of Stamping Bella's images, which I don't think I have every coloured one of these before. I have several, but for some reason just don't know why I haven't gotten around to colouring them. So here we have Harriet!

Harriet was stamped on Bella's bestest paper and then coloured with Copics. The shading around her was done with pencils.
Urban Prairie by Basic Grey was my inspiration for the colours I used.
After she was all cut out and layered onto the card, she looked to plain. I tried ribbon, na didn't do anything for it, tried baubles, nope couldn't even see them in the pattern paper, so next I reached for my Prima flowers. I hope this one isn't too big and overpowering her. Then I punched out some leaves using a Martha Stewart leaf punch. Finished off with some stitching and glitter, oh and a little bling in the center of the flower in her hair!

In case you haven't heard Emily is giving you a chance to win triple bella bucks this week- that's $60 SMACKEROOS, as Emily put it!! All you have to do is follow this weeks challenge guide - which is a sketch layout- and submit to Emily by thursday night. Your name will go into a draw, and who knows you could be the lucky winner - don't have a chance unless you play, so what are you waiting for!!

See you on friday... I better get movin' I don't have my card done yet- yikes!!

Spit Happens

2011-12-12T00:01:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone! Hope you had a good weekend! Can you believe that it is only 2 weeks till Christmas? And I'm still making Christmas cards to mail out.

I thought I would change things up a bit and share something other than a Christmas card with you. A good friend of mine, her daughter had a baby boy a couple of weeks ago, so needed a baby card to send off to her. I'm using a new image - well new to me - it was released back in August by Stamping Bella.
Today's image is called Spit Happens by Mo Manning in rubber.

As the routine goes, I started by stamping the image on bella's bestest paper and then coloured using Copics and did the shading with pencils. Designer paper is by My Minds Eye - Alphabet Soup. What I also like about the Mo images is that most come with a sentiment. Now not always do I use them, but this time around I did. The sentiment was a bit big for where I wanted it to go, so just cut the words to make it fit better. Finished the card with some stitching.

This friday is our last bellariffic challenge for this year, so hope you will play along. It is a sketch challenge. Email Emily your card by thursday night.

Thanks for visiting today, have a good one!

White card challenge

2011-12-09T00:01:00.003-05:00

How are your Christmas card making going? I still have a few to make, but I have completed my card orders, which I am very happy about. I think I will continue to work on Christmas cards until the end of the year, then whatever I don't send out I will have towards next year's orders.

I was excited about this weeks challenge - All white card - because there is just something about an all white card - the clean crisp look of it, lots of white open space that I love.

So for my card today I'm using another Christmas image (are you surprised??) lol. I pulled out Holly in jar. Although I did colour this image last year, I thought the simplicity of the image would look great on an all white background especially with the red berries. So without further ado here it is:

After stamping it on bella's bestest paper, I coloured it with Copics. Cut it out using a square s/binder die, then layered in onto another piece of white which was cut out using the fleur de lis s/binder die. This is similar to my card I posted on Tuesday. Finished off with white liquid pearls, glitter and some tiny pearls.

Be sure to hop over to Bloggabella to check out all the other gorgeous entries - lots of inspiration to be seen. While there leave a comment for a chance to win some bella bucks and Emily is doubling up on the bella bucks this week, so you have a chance to win $20 instead of $10!!

For our challenge next week, we have another great sketch designed by another talented babe - Robinbella. We love to see you join us next week, for our last challenge of 2011, so be sure to email Emily your card by thursday night. There will be some bella bucks up for grabs, and Emily is doubling up the anti - she is giving away $40 instead of $20 - pretty cool eh? Here is your sketch for next week:

Have a wonderful weekend, and thanks for stopping by.

Simple and Elegant

2011-12-06T17:22:00.000-05:00

I'm back today with another Christmas card to share with you. Now this one you can definitely mass produce. I actually did up this card before going to work this morning. Woke up with a vision of how I wanted to do it, and low and behold it actually turned out the way I visioned!! (bonus)!

I started by stamping minty wreath on some cream cardstock and embossing it with gold embossing powder. I then cut it out using a square s/binder die, layered this onto a piece of gold miri paper. I then popped this up onto a piece of cream cardstock that was cut using the fleur de lise s/binder die and the adhered this to my card base. Added some gold glitter to the dots around the wreath, and then finished off with a simple gold shiffon bow.

Pretty simple eh, see I told you it was a fast card. White/silver would be very pretty as well.

Don't forget about our challenge this friday, you still have time to submit your card to Emily. Theme is ' all white card', so everything is white except your image. You can email Emily your card by thursday night to be included in the draw for some bella bucks.

Until next time....

Another Snowman

2011-12-04T21:58:00.000-05:00

How was everyone's weekend? I did manage to get my card order completed and mailed away and then my sister asked for 5 cards, so still have those to do. Tonight I finished cutting papers for my card class on wednesday - another thing checked off my list! :).

I did manage to squeeze in a card tonight as well- and it's another snowman image. I just have a thing for snowman. I'm using a Krista Schneider image called snowman circle, from Stamping Bella.

I stamped the snowman on bella's bestest paper and colour with copics and shaded with pencils. I matched up my colouring with some papers from Echo Park. This card seems to have a masculine side to it - which is okay, I'm sure I can find a home for it.

Finished size is 5 1/4 x 5 1/4. Supplies used - bella's bestest white , echo park - winter park, grey and red c/s, s/binder dies, glitter, stitching and some grey seam binding ribbon.

Just want to mention as well that our challenge this friday is an All White Card- the only thing that should have colour is the image, everything else is white. Hope you can play along then email Emily your card by thursday night.

Okay better wrap this up, Dexter is just about to start (gosh I love that show!). See you soon with another card....

An old fashion christmas tree

2011-12-02T00:01:00.007-05:00

Hey, it's Friday and you know what that means - well 2 things, it's a bellariffic challenge day and also the weekend - woohoo!! Do you have any plans for the weekend? my plans are to finish my last Christmas card order - 8 more to go, and then I need to make my own to send out, but I don't send very many so that's good.

Today's challenge was make a Holiday card. After seeing Linda and Cath colour up this image a few weeks ago, I knew I needed to colour this image. This is one of the newest images in the Uptown Girl collections called - Uptown Girl's Christmas Tree.

This image reminds me of a very old fashioned tree, and I wanted to keep it somewhat vintage looking. After I coloured the image I sponged some antique linen around the edges then a bit of brushed corduroy to give it that antique look. It's hard to see in the picture but I did some soft shading around the tree in a pale sage then a bit of ginger root.

My card measures 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 - products used - bella's bestest white paper, prismacolour pencils and gamsol, clear glaze pen, glitter (lots of glitter), gold ribbon, Memory Box Paper - Mistletoe, confetti red and river rock card stock.

Hop over to Bloggabella to see what the other babes and sistah's have to show you this week - and while there leave a comment for a chance to win some bella bucks!

Next weeks challenge is an ALL WHITE CARD (except for your image). So please play along with us and email Emily your card by thursday night.

That wraps it up for this week. Enjoy your weekend whatever you are up to.
Thanks for stopping by!

CPS Card Challenge

2011-11-28T00:01:00.006-05:00

Hi everyone! Well today I get to showcase a card I did for this weeks CPS challenge. Being that Stamping Bella is the sponsor for this week, I pulled out another new stamp of mine to colour up. I'm using one of the Uptown Girls - Madison has a margarita!

I stamped Madison on bella's bestest paper and used my prismacolour pencils to colour her. The designer paper is Basic Grey - Origins. The sketch did not have a place for a sentiment but I wanted to use the sentiment that comes with the stamp, so I stamped it using black versafine, cut it out using a s/binder label die and then sponged some antique linen white the die was in place. Used some pop dots to adhere to the card.
Finished off with some glitter and stitching.

Thanks for dropping by, have a great day!

Free form friday

2011-11-25T00:01:00.003-05:00

Welcome back to another Bellariffic friday challenge. This weeks challenge is Free Form, which means you can use any Bella stamp, any layout, embellishments etc.

For my card today, I pulled out Hockeymomabella. Now I know many of you are hockey mom's, but I wasn't one of them. Mark never played hockey other than road hockey, he was more into soccer. I remember going to many hockey games my brother played as we were growing up. Dad would every year build a skating rink in our back yard and that's were my brother would practice. Me, I would try to do the twirls and spins the figure skaters would do - lol -what fun - oh the memories!!

Okay on with the card.

I stamped her on bella's bestest paper and coloured with prismacolour pencils.
I paired my colouring with papers from Basic Grey - Nordic Holiday. Used a MFT die for the red strip, finished off with some stitching and glitter.

Be sure to stop in over at Bloggabella, leave a comment on this weeks entries and you have a chance to win some bella bucks.

Next weeks challenge is a Holiday/Christmas card. All you have to do is use a Bella image on your card, then email Emily by thursday night.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Felines singing

2011-11-23T00:01:00.005-05:00

Sorry about not posting on Monday- actually I did post a card, but had to remove it until next week. Kind of a mix up on the dates for the Bella sponsored CPS sketch, and then I didn't have anything ready, but here I am today, with another Christmas image to share with you.

Here we have two adorable cats - Singin' so Beautiful by Mo Manning. I love cats, but they don't love me - I am highly allergic to cats!

I started by stamping on bella's bestest paper and coloured them up with prismacolour pencils. After cutting out the cats with a large square s/binder die, I left the die in place and sponged some versamagic wheat around the image.
Designer papers are from MME called Signature Christmas (from a few years ago!). I added some white flock to the brim and pompom's on the hats.
Finishing touches - glitter and some ribbon.

Just a reminder to play along in this weeks bellariffic challenge - Free Form. Email Emily your card by thursday night. Also if you would like to have a chance to win Paula's giveaway you need to submit a card and your name will go into the draw, it's that easy. You can read about her giveaway here.

See you on friday....

Under the Christmas Tree

2011-11-20T07:13:00.000-05:00

HI - Happy Sunday! Hope your enjoying your weekend so far. I have a busy day ahead of me today. First I have Church, then we (our choir) is putting on a 'poor boys" luncheon - baked beans and weiners and fresh rolls! This afternoon, I plan on working on my Christmas cards orders - just got another order for 12 on Friday, so I'll be a busy gal over the next few weeks.

Which leads me to this card I want to share with you today. Now I partially CASED this card. Once I saw it, I fell in love with it and just had to have the stamp! You will see why.....

Is this not the cutest? So I must give credit to the original card owner - and that would be Kartina - and her version of this card can be seen here.
The image is from Lilly of the Valley . I coloured it up by using copics and pencils. Papers are by Jillibean Soup - Christmas Eve Chowder. Added lots of glitter and a red/burgundy coloured bow! And there you have it... another card done!

Thanks for stopping by today, see you tomorrow with an Uptown Girl image.

A Bellariffic sketch challenge

2011-11-18T00:01:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone! Can you believe that it is friday already? Where do the days go? and the weekends seem to go just as fast! I think winter is starting to arrive :(. On my way home last night I drove through a mini blizzard - only lasted for a few minutes - but the air has really turned cold and the winds just whipping those snow flakes around. I'm so not ready for winter to arrive - I would be content with Spring and Fall weather all year round! Okay enough complaining about the weather, it is what it is!

For this week's challenge we had a sketch to follow. It was a great one at that - thanks to Ebru! I thought I would change things up a bit and give you a change of scenery so instead of a Christmas image I'm using one of the new green bean baby images called Jamie. I love these gbb images, and I bought them all so you will be seeing more of them!

As always, I stamped and coloured her on bella's bestest paper. She was coloured with Copics and I did some shading and the grass with prismacolour pencils. Don't you just love her hair???? It was my third attempt at her hair and this one turned out to be my fav! She is so adorable! My papers are from MME - Life of a party. I used a sizzix dot embossing folder on the green c/s to give it some texture. I also added some tiny polka dots to her bows in her hair - so cute! Finished her off with some brown seam binding ribbon.

Don't forget to hop over to Bloggabella to check out everyones cards this week, I'm sure they will WOW you! Leave a comment for a chance to win some bella bucks.

Also, Paulabella is giving away some of her favourite rubber in celebration of her birthday. All you have to do is play along in two challenges - today's and next weeks challenge. If you play along both weeks you get two chances to win, or if you only play along one week you get one chance. You can read all about it here.

Which brings me to next weeks challenge - it is FREE FORM - so any image (Bella that is ) , any layout, anything your heart desires - it's your choice!

Thanks for stopping by today, have a great weekend!

Quick Christmas card

2011-11-16T06:30:00.000-05:00

I completely forgot to do my post last night. I had my class at Paper Pickle, and ended up having 15 ladies. I must say it went better than I thought. Out of the 15, I had 4 regulars and all the rest 'newbies'. Needless to say I didn't get home until 9:40, had a cup of tea the hit the pillow! Totally exhausted!! Overall everyone's card's turned out fantastic.

So I'm posting a quick card for today, since I don't have much time before heading off to work.
Remember the cards I posted on Sunday (you can see them here) - they were ornament cards - well I have been playing around with one of Stamping Bella's ornaments for the last few weeks, everything I tried I garbaged, but then on the weekend, it came to me, 'case' my cards that I posted on Sunday. So that's what I did, and like the outcome!

I used Ornament with Holly for my stamp along with season's greetings for the senitment. I used an Crafty's Too embossing folder for the background layer.
I embossed the ornament in gold and well as the senitment.

For the ornament I coloured the leaves and berries with copics, then applied a light layer of glue using my glue pen and rubbed some glitter ritz on them to give it some sparkle. Popped the ornament up on the card, and finsihed off with some gold shiffon ribbon.

Another quick and easy card ladies - great for mass producing!!

Also, I heard that Paulabella is having a giveaway!! Yep, you can read it over here on her blog. The rules are simple - so hop over to Paula's blog and read all about it.

Have a wonderful day - see you back here on friday for our sketch challenge - do you have yours done yet? If not you still have time. Love to see you participate!

Penguin with Gift

2011-11-14T00:01:00.001-05:00

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you had a good weekend. I managed to get some colouring done - which I am happy about.

I have another Christmas card to share with you today, and a few more yet to come. Hope you don't get bored with them. I pulled out another Mo Manning imaged called Penguin with Gift.

He was stamped on Bella's bestest paper and then coloured up using primsacolour pencils. The designer paper is from Basic Grey - Jovial. As I was playing around with a layout for this image, I was undecided whether or not to sponge a colour around the penguin. Hubs, came into my room, so I asked him. He suggested a yellow/orange. By gosh he was right on - it's just what it needed!

To finish the card off I did some stitching, added some light aqua seam binding ribbon, glitter and some chunky glitter on the ground called diamond dust.

Don't forget about our challenge this week. It's a sketch (you can see it on my friday's post). Love to see you play along.

I'll be back on Wednesday with another Christmas card for you.
Til then......

White as Snow

2011-11-13T07:05:00.002-05:00

No we don't have snow yet,( and hopefully not for a while) but the winds out there today do sound pretty cold - haven't stepped out yet, too early and it's still dark.

There is something about all white cards that I love. I think it's the clean, fresh, cripsness of the white that becomes striking.

I have a couple of cards to share with you today. I used a new embossing folder I bought at Paper Pickle a couple of weeks ago. It's by Crafts Too. Very similar to the cuttlebug embossing folders.

The ornaments I used for these cards are from Justrite stamps (which you can order from Kim at Paper Pickle) and I cut them out using the Spellbinders 2011 Heirloom Ornament dies. After embossing the ornaments with the folder, I layered it onto a piece of goldleaf c/s, then onto my white card base. You might have to click on the photo to get a better view of the embossing folder detail.

The ornaments were embossed with gold embossing powder. I added a rhinestone on each of them, then finished them off with some narrow gold shiffon ribbon.
These were very fast - a great card to mass produce- which I need to make more of!

That's it for today. If you live in the Chatham area, don't forget to stop in at the Paper Pickle for their Christmas Open house. Lots of bargins, make and takes and if you have a sweet tooth (like I do!) well let me tell you, you are in for a real treat- lots of squares and goodies to sample. I will be there, hope to see you there as well. It's from 12- 4.

Back tomorrow with another Christmas card! Enjoy your day.

Holiday challenge

2011-11-11T00:01:00.003-05:00

Yep, it's another bellariffic friday challenge and I hope you had a chance to play along with us. Our theme this week is make a Holiday/Christmas card. With the season fast approaching hopefully this challenge will kick-start your Christmas card making if you haven't already done so.

For this weeks challenge I pulled out Jinglebella to colour up. She was stamped on bella's bestest paper and then coloured with prismacolour pencils. Designer paper is by Basic Grey - Jovial collection. Dies used were s/binder oval, oval scallop and an ek success scroll border punch.
Finishing touches - glitter, white flock, and some red satin ribbon.

Need some inspiration? then hop over to bloggabella and check out this weeks submissions. Be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win some bella bucks!

Next week our challenge is a sketch - woohoo! I love sketches! Ebruabella was the designer of this sketch - dontcha just love it! So be sure to play along - email your card to Emily by thursday night, then you have a chance to win some bella bucks! Here is your sketch-

Well that's it folks, have a wonderful weekend! Thanks for stopping by.

Mixed Media and a card

2011-11-08T23:50:00.000-05:00

I tried something new tonight- I attended Lindabella's Mixed Media class at Paper Pickle. I've never done this before, just don't have the imagination to pull it all together. So with some excellent direction from Linda, I managed to do a canvas piece - it wasn't as hard as I thought. Nice thing about it is if you don't like something you painted on your canvas, just cover it with some gesso and start over - easy as that.
So here is my masterpiece. I'm pretty proud of this, it will hang in my little 'studio'!

Now onto my card. It's not done in my 'comfort' colours - I very seldom use yellow - well bright yellow that is. But it's a cute card. I coloured up snowfight - a Christy Croll image from Stamping Bella.

I coloured the image with prismacolour pencils after stamping her on bella's bestest paper. Designer paper is by Cosmo Cricket - Jolly by Golly. I used some neglected s/binder dies to cut the image out. I used let it snow sentiment as well.

Finished off with lots of glitter, white flock on all fur trim, and some dark pink satin ribbon.

Just a reminder about our challenge this week. It's a Holiday/Christmas card.
We would love for you to play along with us.

Thanks for stopping by,
Pauline

Bismark

2011-11-06T20:34:00.000-05:00

Hi All! Hope you had a good weekend. Weather here was gorgeous. Temp's in the 50's and lots of sunshine. I spent most of the weekend working on Christmas card orders - making headway so that is a good feeling.

Tonight I coloured up one of my favourite images - meet Bismark by Mo Manning available at Stamping Bella.

Bismark was stamped on Bella's bestest paper and coloured with prismacolour pencils and blended with gamsol. Designer paper is from Cosmo Cricket - called Wonderland - I think it is about 3-4 years old!!

Finishing touches: glitter, flock (for hat) and a bow. Spellbinder die - large square. Finished card size 5 1/2 x 5 1/2.

Have you heard about the giveaway???? If not, you can read all about here over on Lindabella's blog. Be sure to participate, you then have a chance to win $25 in Bella Bucks! You have until Friday, so what are you waiting for - hop on over!

Well, I'm out of here, need to colour up another image!

Lulu's Snowman

2011-11-04T00:01:00.000-04:00

Happy Friday! I can't believe that it is Friday already again. With working full time again, the days are so jammed full of lots of work to do, the days just fly by.

I was happy to see that this weeks theme was 'snow on your card' because I'm still working on Christmas card orders, and this theme fits right in. I'm using an image I bought last year called Lulu's Snowman. I didn't have time to colour her up in time for Christmas last year.

Well you already know that I stamped her on Bella's bestest paper, but this time I coloured with Copics - I wanted to use the Mauve Copics #RV91,95,99.
So I rummaged through some pretty papers from Memory Box and found this piece. It's not really Christmas paper, but it has some red and green in the background along with the mauve - perfect. So I coloured up Lulu usng the copics and then did some shading with some pencils. I did colour the snowman's hat with pencils - I don't know why I did, but I just did.

For my snow I added some white liquid pearls to the snow flakes falling and some glitter on the ground. Trim on the hat, and scarf were done with white flocking.

I know you probably think the flower just doesn't fit for a Christmas card, but I could not find any ribbon I liked, and secondly the ribbon just didn't look right. So I thought maybe a flower - hmmm pulled out some Prima flowers and this one I used was just the right mauve tones on the tips of the petals. Then punched some leaves using MS leaf punches. I added some glitter to the flower using a quickie glue pen.

I know there are some gorjuss cards being posted over on Bloggabella, so be sure to stop over there and leave a comment - then you have a chance to win some bella bucks.

Next week our theme will be HOLIDAY WISHES. So dust off some of those Bella chrismtas images and get the coloured up! Email Emily by thursday night your submission.

Also, us Bellababes would like some feed back from you gals! We would like some suggestions on challenges you would like us to do on fridays? Whether it be a layout, colour theme, a shape card, image theme etc, we would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave us a comment as to what you would like to see in the future. Thanks!

Have a great weekend, see you on Monday!

Snowbunny

2011-11-01T22:30:00.000-04:00

Just home from teaching tonight at Paper Pickle, and thought I best get my post written up to share with you another Christmas card. I am on a roll now!

Today's card I'm using an older Bella image. This one is called Snowbunnybella. I love her coat, with all that fur around the hood and cuffs, just looks so cozy and check out her boots- I think I use to have a pair like that in my younger years!

Image was stamped on bella's bestest white paper and coloured with prismacolour pencils. I wanted to use these papers from Echo Park - Season's greetings, so to make it all work, I coloured her coat in red.

After cutting my papers, and laid out how I wanted it to look, it still lacked something. So instead of using a border punch, I used some class-a-peel gold stickers (which I have tons of and never think to use it!) on each side of the strip paper. It's not a lot, but just enough.

Finished off with some white flock on all her fur trim, glitter and a snowflake.

Well that's it for me for tonight. Hope you can join us on Friday with the "snow on your card" challenge. If you can, make sure you email Emily by thursday night.

See you on friday.

Joyful Village

2011-10-31T00:01:00.001-04:00

Hey it's Monday again, which means a new start to another week. Can you believe that this is the last day of October? I hope the weather holds up for those trick or treaters tonight, they are calling for isolated showers, so maybe we will get lucky.

I'm was in full steam ahead with working on my Christmas cards this weekend.
I coloured up Joyful Village to share with you today.

Yep, you guessed it, I coloured this on bella's bestest white using prismacolour pencils. Designer paper is from Basic Grey called Eskimo Kisses. This was a simple card to put together, although I just realized as I'm typing this that I forgot to add glitter to the snow on the ground! Must go do that before I forget, so just visulize that I do have snow on the ground- lol! For the roof tops I applied some liquid appliqué then sprinkled some glitter on it while it was still wet, then took my heat gun and heated the appliqué until it puffed up a bit.

Just a reminder for this weeks challenge - bring on the snow, not real snow, but snow on your card. Email Emily your card by Thursday night. Can you believe I already have my card done - I can't wait to show you!

See you on Wednesday!

Class Supplies

2011-10-29T07:25:00.000-04:00

Hi - This is just a post for all you gals that are taking my Paper Pickle class on
Nov 1 & 15th. Here are the list of Tombow markers and Prismacolour Pencils you will need.

Tombows: 098, 228, 990

Prismacolour pencils - caribbean sea, light cerulean blue, peacock blue , slate grey, light aqua, cool grey 30% & 50%, limepeel, kelly green, olive green, canary yellow, yellow oranged, orange, light umber, dahila purple.

Also please bring a pair of small, sharp scissors

Thanks!

Almost forgotten post

2011-10-28T00:15:00.000-04:00

OMG I almost forgot to write up my post. It is Friday morning at 12:01 as I'm typing this. I'm burning the midnight oil - trying to get liners in my cards to take out to Dresden tomorrow night to sell at my hairdressers.

So I will keep this post short as I need to get to bed! This weeks challenge was 'bring on the stripes" - so I coloured up Bunny with gift, by Mo Manning. I just love her designs.

Well you know the routine, stamped on bella's bestest paper and coloured it up using prismacolour pencils. Designer paper is from Basic Grey - Jovial. Now for my stripe paper I used some coordinating papers - it looks a bit like plaid, but hey it has lines (stripes) so I went for it!

Finished off with lots of glitter, and some white flock on his hat. Dontcha just love that bow, I love the colour!

Be sure to hop over to Bloggabella and be inspired by all the talent over there, you won't be disappointed.

Next weeks challenge is SNOW- Add snow to your card. Lets see what you come up with. You can email Emily by thursday night to be included in the showcase on friday.

Well this chick is out of here, I hear my pillow calling me! LOL - Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Confused??

2011-10-26T00:01:00.005-04:00

Today, I did up another Christmas card - I have about a dozen or so done, but many more to go - I best be getting into high gear!

I have a cute card to share with you today. It's called Confused Christmas Dog!
I don't think he looks all that confused, what do you think?

I stamped him on Bella's bestest paper and coloured using prismacolour pencils.
I used spellbinders labels 22 to cut out the image, then sponged some sea breeze versamagic around the image. I matched him up with some Christmas papers by MME called Twelve days of Christmas.

Added some Diamond Dust on the ground to represent the snow and a bit of prisma glitter on the holly berries. I used happy holidays for my sentiment, which was cut out using spellbinders grommet tag. I ran some red bakers twine through the holes on the tag and finished it off with a bow.

Just a reminder for our challenge this week - bring on the stripes! Easy peeps, so hope you can play along.

thanks for stopping in today, enjoy the rest of your day!

You are so sweet

2011-10-24T00:01:00.002-04:00

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a good weekend.

I finally got around to colouring up one of the new Uptown Girls. The one I'm showing today is called Claudia has some Candy. She was so fun to colour. Can't wait to colour up the rest of them.

I picked my paper first which ended up being one of my favourite Basic Grey collections - Sweet Threads. After stamping her on bella's bestest paper, I coloured her using Copics this time and did some shading with pencils. I stamped out an extra candy so I could pop it up. I tried colouring the candy using copics, but first time I made a mess, so this being the reason for the extra layer, but this time I coloured it using pencils- was happy with the outcome. This stamp set also comes with it's own sentiment - 'you are so sweet', which I stamped using black versafine ink and then cut it out using one of the spellbinders tag die.

Finished off with some stitching, lots of glitter and a taupe bow. I tried pink but I think I had too much pink on the card, so the taupe kind of picks up the candy stick colour.

Well that's it for today - don't forget about our 'bring on the stripe' challenge this friday. Email your card to Emily by thursday night.

Have a wonderful day, and thanks for stopping by.

Christmas Ornament

2011-10-23T08:31:00.000-04:00

Hi there. I hope your enjoying your weekend. A sure sign of fall, when you are woken at 6 am with the sound of crows cawing - I mean hundreds of them, they swarm over the fields behind us looking for food. They are a nuisance, we have a big issue here in Chatham with the crows, as I'm sure many of you do. It's been a gorgeous weekend here in SW Ontario, sunny and upper 50's, a typical fall day, and the same for today. Yesterday we managed to get all our outside chores done - lawn furniture put away, flower pots all emptied and put away, gazebo put away, grass cut (hopefully for the last time), bird feeders all topped up, so bring on the fall.

Well as you know the Christmas season is fast approaching and I need to get working on my Christmas card orders- yes already have requests. So I wanted to come up with some simple yet elegant and something that I can mass produce - do you hear me on that one! So this is what I came up with.

The ornament stamp is from Our Daily Bread and I used the Spellbinder 2010 Heirloom ornament die to cut it out. It is embossed with gold embossing powder on cream cardstock. The layer behind the ornament is a sizzix embossing folder. I did up several of these doing all different colours of chiffon ribbon - dark hunter green, burgundy, deep fushia, deep turquoise, and brown. I also added a coordinating gem in the center of the ornament to match. The ornament is popped up to give it some dimension. This was very quick to make.

I'm going to try doing some in silver embossing powder on a white card.

I'll be back tomorrow with an Uptown Girl card - can't wait to show you. See you then.

Have a wonderful day!
Pauline

A new car

2011-10-21T00:01:00.007-04:00

Hey, here we are again, for another bellariffic friday challenge. Where did this week go? So glad it's the weekend and hope the weather co-operates. It's been raining the last couple of days, it would be nice to see the sun.

The inspiration for my card today, came to me from my daughter Karen. She bought herself her first car. It's a 2012 Honda Civic. Remember the day when you got your first car? She is so excited. So in honor of that I wanted to give her a card to congratulate her, and remembered I have Cruisabella! A perfect image for such an occasion.

Now her car is not red, it is a brown/taupe - very nice colour. But I thought it would be too much brown, so I coloured it red!

I stamped it on bella's bestest paper and coloured using prismacolour pencils and blended with gamsol. Paper I used was from MME - Gertie Papers. The 'congrats' is taken from this stamp.

Finished off with some glossy accents on the headlights.

We also have a couple of new babes - I like to welcome back Shannon Teubner,
she was one of the original Babes, and we also have Regan Vanbiesbrouck joining us. Give a big welcome to these two talented ladies! woohoo!!

Our next weeks challenge is 'bring on the stripes'! Another easy challenge ladies! Just email Emily your card before thursday night for a chance to win some bella bucks!

Thanks for stopping by, have a wonderful weekend.

Pauline

Make a Wish

2011-10-19T19:26:00.000-04:00

Hi! It's Wednesday, which means we are half way through the work week. It's been a busy week and I almost forgot to post my card for today! So here it is -
Make a Wish.

I started by stamping the cupcake on bella's bestest paper and coloured it up using prismacolour pencils. After I cut the image out I sponged some Key Lime Versamagic ink around the image. I then layered it onto brown cardstock which was cut using spellbinders picot edge circle. I came across this cute cupcake paper from MME callled Life of a Party - perfect paper for my cupcake!
This stamp set also comes with a mini cupcake as well as a sentiment - make a wish - but I wanted to use this sentiment -it's a cupcake thing.

Finished off with some glitter and stitching.

Just a reminder about our challenge this week - it's a sketch - so easy, so if you don’t' have your card done you still have time. Here is the sketch for you.

Well that's it for tonight peeps. See you on friday!

Pauline

A BIG fish

2011-10-17T00:01:00.001-04:00

Hi Peeps! Hope everyone had a great weekend. It was pretty cool weekend here in SW Ontario, I even had to turn the heat on just to get the chill out of the house. I'm not ready for this kind of weather, but then again it is fall.

I have a really cute card to share with you today. Well you know I love the PEEP images and this one is no exception. They are so cute and fun to colour.
The image I'm using today is called Fishing PEEP.

As always I stamped the image on bella's bestest white paper with black memento ink and coloured with my prismcolour pencils. I'm no expert on the colour of fish, so I just started with some yellow, golds, oranges, greens and then added some french grey for some shading. The plaid paper is from We R Memory Keeper - Autumn Splendor. I cut out the image using the wonky rectangles, and since this was the largest die and I wanted to layer my image on the rust paper, I traced the largest die around the outside edge onto the rust paper and then cut it out - there you have it another layer!

This stamp also came with it's own sentiment, which I used. I stamped the image then cut each line and then layered it onto some orange/yellow c/s.
Added some copper brads in the corners. I used the clear glaze pen and traced the fishing line a couple of times to make it kind of shiny to represent fishing line. I also added some glossy accents to the fish's eye.

Just a reminder this weeks challenge is a sketch. You can see it here or on Bloggabella. If you get a chance to play along, email your card to Emily by thursday night.

Thanks for stopping by today,
Pauline

Halloween

2011-10-14T00:01:00.002-04:00

First of all, I just want to mention that Stamping Bella is offering free shipping on all orders over $55.00 as a thank you to all supporters and to celebrate going back to mini releases. The free shipping is until Monday Oct 17 @ 11:59 PM EST.
So if you haven't been shopping lately, what are you waiting for... hop on over to Stamping Bella and start shopping. Tons of new images to pick from including the latest craze - the Uptown Girls! (dontcha just love them!)

Now onto this weeks challenge card. Our theme this week was Halloween. One of my favourite lines from Stamping Bella is the Stella's. So I coloured up
Stella and her broomstick.

I don't have very many halloween papers so I pulled out my trusty 6x6 pack of Basic Grey - Eerie. Started by stamping Stella on bella's bestest paper and coloured with prismacolour pencils and gamsol.
Used skinny oval dies as well as an EK Success scallop border punch.

Ribbon is some seam binding by Martha Stewart (found some on sale - woohoo!)
and then added some glitter to her dress and star.

I'm sure there will be losts of 'spookiness' over on Bloggabella, so be sure to check them out and leave some love as there is bella bucks up for grabs.

Next weeks challenge is a sketch by Ebruabella! Love sketches, makes card making so easy. If you would like to play along this week, you can email your card to Emily by thursday night.

I wish all of you a wonderful weekend. Have fun whatever you are doing!
Thanks for coming by today.

Pauline

Another Christmas card

2011-10-12T00:01:00.002-04:00

So what did you think of Emily's mini release yesterday? Don't you just love those Uptown Girls? If you haven't had a chance to check them out, hop over to Bloggabella and you can view the sneak peaks there.

To keep on target with my Christmas cards, I'm trying to do at least one Christmas card a week. I coloured this one while I was off on Monday. It's a Mo image called A snowman and a Cardinal.

I did colour up this image last year, but I had a vision of doing it in purples. So.. went through my odds and ends of christmas paper and found this piece from Bo Bunny. Perfect - just the colour I had in mind. As usual I stamped it on bella's bestest paper and coloured with prisma colour pencils and blended with gamsol.

I also used last years release snowflake from spellbinders. I cut it out of a piece of shimmer purple bazzill - kind of hard to see the shimmer though. For the snow on the ground I applied a thin layer of glossy accents the poured on some Diamond Dust. I've had this for a couple of years and think I only used it once! It looks like shaved pieced of glass, really sparkly too. Also added some diamond dust to the stems of the snowflake. For the pompom on his hat I applied some white flock.

Don't forget about our challenge this friday - Halloween. You still have time to send your card off to Emily.

Thanks for stopping by,
Pauline

Summer Days

2011-10-09T15:17:00.000-04:00

I know it's fall but it sure feels like a summer day today. Sunny skies, not a cloud in the sky and temp is 81! What a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend we are having and tomorrow some of the same weather. Yesterday we went to my sister's house in London to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. Good times, lots of laughs, and way too much food. It's always nice to get together since we don't see each other as often as we should.

For my card today I'm using one of the 4 stamps that come in the set called Summer Days and the artist is our very own talented Paulabella - how cool is that. I have both of her sets and love them. Can't wait to see what else to comes out with. Myself, I'm hoping for Santa's!

This was stamped on Bella's bestest paper and coloured with primsacolour pencils. The paper is from Memory Box. I wanted to keep this card fairly simple - didn't want to take away from the image. Instead of layering the image onto some papers, I made kind of a shadow box. I first cut a square out of a piece of white cardstock using a square nestie then cut a frame using 2 of the square postage stamp dies. I glued the frame onto of the square frame I cut out and made sure the square frame piece did not extend outside of the postage frame.
Then I pop dotted the frame over my image.

The white border around the dp is a corner and border punch from SU. It took a few tries to get the right size square so that when I punched it would come out evenly. The white measured 4 3/4 x 4 3/4 before punching.

Finished off with some tiny white pearls around the inside edge of the frame. I didn't add any glitter to the flowers, I think the pearls were enough. I was very happy with the outcome of this card.

If you haven't heard, make sure you check out bloggabella on Toosday, sounds like Emily has another surprise for us - hmm maybe another release????

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, thanks for stopping by.

The Colours of Fall

2011-10-07T00:01:00.003-04:00

Hey TGIF!!!! and a long weekend for us Canadians as we celebrate Thanksgiving.
So looking forward to having 3 days off and to spend time with family. The weather forecast is even going to co-operate - mid 70's and lots of sun - can't get any better than that!

Our challenge this week is to use Fall Colours on your card. Since it is Thanksgiving this weekend, I have the perfect image for such an occasion. I introduce to you Chefabella!

As always, I stamped the image on bella's bestest paper using black memento ink.
I pulled my papers first - Basic Grey Indian Summer, then coloured using prisma colour pencils and blended with gamsol. I gotta tell you, it took me almost 2 hours just to figure out a layout for this image - can you believe that? I was getting a bit ticked with myself, so this is what I ended up with after all that. Pretty simple layout - I think sometimes I try too hard.

Dies used were some skinny ovals and skinny scallop oval, and the wonky square.
Also used a flourish die from MFT. Finished off with some glitter on the pie, and a small bow on the flourish.

Make sure you stop over a Bloggabella for some more creativity! Leave a comment and you could win some bella bucks!

Oh, also our next weeks challenge is HALLOWEEN. We hope you get a chance to play along. If you do, email your card to Emily by thursday night.

That's it for today. I wish all my Canadian friends a Happy Thanksgiving. We all have so much to be thankful for. Enjoy your weekend. Hugs!

Pauline

Daisy Lion

2011-10-05T22:57:00.000-04:00

Well, I feel like I accomplished something tonight. I actually made two cards! The one I'm posting now and my friday challenge card!

Tonigh'ts card is a cute image called Daisy Lion - another adorable Christy Croll image by Stamping Bella.

I stamped Daisy on bella's bestest paper and coloured with primsacolour pencils.
Now I am no expert on the colours of a lion, other than kind of goldy yellow!
I think it turned out okay.
The papers I used are from the 6x6 pk from Bo Bunny called the Zoology Collection. I sponged some versamagic wheat around Daisy, then added some bella dots in the corners. A real simple card!

Don't forget about our challenge for friday - use FALL COLOURS on your card. You still have until tomorrow night (thursday) to email it off to Emily.

It's getting late, and 5:45 comes to quickly, so I'm heading to bed!

Thanks for stopping in,
Pauline

Sweet Sunday Sketch on a Monday!

2011-10-03T16:57:00.000-04:00

Hi - hope your weekend was good. I had a busy weekend, but I did manage to get a couple of cards made.

I don't usually do sketch challenges too often, but when I saw this weeks Sweet Sunday Sketch I gave it a whirl.

I used one of the 3 baby mermaids under the sea. With the images being small, it fit perfectly inside the circle of the sketch.

I stamped the mermaid on bella's bestest paper with black memento ink. Then I coloured with prismacolour pencils and blended with gamsol. Paired it up with some pretty papers from Basic Grey Sweet Threads. Dies used were circles, corner rounder punch and a Marianne's doily border die.
Finished off with some glitter ritz which was applied to her mermaid body and then used regular glitter for the star. I applied some glossy accents to the center of the flowers. Card measures 6 1/4 x 3.5.

Thanks for stopping by today.
Pauline

Brrrrr...

2011-10-02T15:24:00.001-04:00

It sure feels like Winter is on it's way. Yesterday and today have been cold with cold winds as well. As I'm writing up my post it's only 59, but it feels colder than that. I think it comes with age - I never felt the cold before until the last 2-3 yrs! The long Thanksgiving weekend is suppose to be nice and sunny and around 70- now that's my kind of day.

So with the cooler weather we have been having, I coloured up another Christmas image for my basket. Today I share with you Glideabella.

Doesn't she look pretty cool all decked out in her skating outfit? I tell you it's been a long time since I've been in skates - but like they say it's like riding a bike it comes back to you!
I started by stamping her on bella's bestest white paper and paired up my colours with some papers from last year's Cosmo Cricket - Mitten Weather (see perfect papers for a chilly day - you probably could wear mitts today!). I added some white flock on the trim of her coat as well as her pompom. The mauve snowflake was make with my new s/binder snowflake die called Create-a-flake Three and held it on the card with a brad.
Added some stitching and some glitter to finish it off. Card measures 5x5.

Think I will go make a pot of chicken noodle soup for lunches this week.
Enjoy the rest of you day, and thanks for stopping by,

Pauline

Pop it Up!

2011-09-30T00:01:00.000-04:00

I hope you had a chance to play along with us bellababes in this weeks challenge.
Our challenge was to 'pop' up something on your card, whether it be the image, embellishments, whatever your heart desired.

For my card this week I coloured up Execubella. I love how she turned out!

Matched my colours with some papers from my scrap bin- you never know what one might find! The paper is from MME - Penny Lane. As always, I stamped her on bella's bestest paper and coloured with prismacolour pencils and blended with gamsol.

After cutting her out with the square die I layered it onto a piece of lime green, then popped this part of the image onto a dark purple square. I used an EK Success scallop border punch for the blue piece. I added a piece of blue seam binding ribbon on the top right corner, snipped off the metal posts from the brad and popped the brad on top of the ribbon. Added some glitter around the light to finish it off.

Be sure to hop over to Bloggabella to see all of this weeks submissions, leave a comment for a chance to win some bella bucks.

Next weeks challenge is use FALL COLOURS - another simple challenge ladies, so hope to see lots of submissions next week. Just email your card to Emily by thursday night.

Enjoy your weekend- I hope we see a bit of sun and some warmer weather - we have had rain all week.

Thanks for dropping by,
Pauline

Congrats!

2011-09-28T20:49:00.000-04:00

Hi - hope your week is going well. I had a request for an engagement card, so thought what better image than Blingabella to use.

I stamped her on bella's bestest paper and coloured with copics and pencils. Designer paper is from Basic Grey - Sweet Threads.Dies used were the long rectangle,rectangle scallop, skinny oval and the scallop oval from one of the new dies sets I got a couple of weeks ago called Blossom Tags and Accents.
I didn't have a congrats stamp from Stamping Bella so I used this sentiment and just used the word congrats from it. Just masked off the rest of the sentiment the inked and stamped.

Finished off with some stitching, and lots of sparkly glitter for the 'bling'!

Don't forget about our challenge this friday. It's all about ' deminsionals' so pop up something on your card whether it be the image, layers, buttons etc, just pop it up!

Thanks for stopping by,

Wish Big!

2011-09-25T22:28:00.000-04:00

I'm running behind the eight ball these last few weeks, finding it hard to even get stamping done. So this afternoon and evening I dedicated my time to me - to do some stamping. I'm hoping I get my new stamps from Stamping Bella this week, but in the meantime I've been going thru my bella binders and pulling images that I've had for a long time but never coloured.

I always need birthday cards, so for my card today I'm using Cuppacakeabella!

I used bella's bestest paper and prismacolour pencils. I based my colours on papers from MME - Stella Rose - Gertie Papers. I shaded some green pencil around her and the after I cut the image I sponged some versamagic aloe vera.
Also used this fun sentiment stamp - wish Big - love the quirky font.

I glittered the cupcake icing and the lace on her dress. Glossy accents were used on the cherry and the dots on her dress. Finished off with some stitching and a chiffon white bow.

That's it for me tonight. Have a great week!
Pauline

Sketch Challenge

2011-09-23T00:01:00.006-04:00

TGIF!! Welcome to another Bellariffic challenge. This weeks challenge was a
'sketch challenge'. I hope you had a chance to play along.

For my image this week, I'm using an image from Stamping Bella's latest release.
It's called Lulu's set of fruits - which contains 4 individual images, the one I'm using today is the basket of apples.

Image was coloured with prismacolour pencils and blended with gamsol. Designer paper is from Jullibean - Old world cabbage stew papers! and the plaid piece is from Basic Grey. I sponged brushed corduroy distress inks around the edges of the dp paper. Sponged versamagic wheat around the image. Finished off with stitching, glitter, twine and a button.

Want a chance to win some bella bucks? Then hop over to Bloggabella and leave a comment on this weeks submissions.

Next week's challenge is so easy you will love it! POP IT UP - yup it's that easy, just use dimensionals to pop up your image or layers on your card and your all set to play in our challenge. Submit you entry to Emily by thursday night, and again bella bucks up for grabs!

Enjoy your weekend, thanks for stopping by.

Pauline

ps - Job is going well - thanks for asking! :)

My first Bella

2011-09-19T21:29:00.000-04:00

Way back when, when the Bella stamps were first released our local store - Paper Pickle brought them in. We were all so giddy and excited about them. Sooooo, one of the first stamps I bought was Emmybella! and this is the first time I ever coloured her up!!

Emmy was stamped on bella's bestest paper and coloured using prisma colour pencils and gamsol. I used some designer paper from Cosmo Cricket called Upcycle. Love the pink, yellow and grey colours. Finished off with some versamagic wheat ink sponged around the image, added some glitter ritz and some dark pink satin ribbon. Finished size is 5 1/4 x 5 1/4.

Thanks for stopping by.
Pauline

Another chapter...a new beginning

2011-09-18T14:12:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone. I'm sorry if you have missed me this past week, but I am back.
It has been a very exciting then again stressful week. Over the past 6 months I have been job hunting for a full time position. I currently only work part time.
After several interviews and find out that I always seem to be runner up, I landed a full time position in accounts payable with a huge company in town and I start Monday!! ( yep tomorrow) How exciting is that!!! So this past week, I was putting in between 8-9.5 hours days (I normally work 5 hour days) to get all my work caught up at my old place, so I could leave knowing everything was where it should be. Needless to say, I was not only physically exhausted but also mentally, hence the reason for no posts. But from here on in you will see me on a regular basis again!

Which brings me to todays card. I thought in celebration of my news I would colour up something to reflect that. Here we have "Fabby" ! I'm sure I looked like this when I got the phone call! hehe. Well not really, don't think for one I could jump that high, nor could I extend my legs that far, but you get the picture!

I began by stamping her on bella's bestest paper using black memento ink. I coloured her up using copics. The designer paper is from MME - Life of the Party. I used a layout that I saw on Karen Motz's blog, but now I can't find it to link it up!

Finished off with some stitching, and some brown seam binding ribbon.

Don't forget about our challenge this week, it's another sketch, this time by me!
Here it is in case you haven't had a chance to work on it.

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the rest of your day.

Pauline

Kittycattabella

2011-09-12T00:01:00.004-04:00

Hope everyone had a good weekend. Mine was busy, could sure stand to have today off!

Do you ever get giddy when you finish a card and you think to yourself, "I love it"? well this is what I said to myself last night when I finished it up. It just came together so quickly for me this time around, and normally it takes a long time to come up with the layout.

So let me introduce to you Kittycattabella!

Okay, now isn't this just the cutest card? I love cats but they don't like me. I am highly allergic to cats - my eyes will swell shut, and I can hardly breath. It happened to me once a few years back, it was pretty scary, so I avoid them like the plague!!

Details of my card: stamped her on bella's bestest white with black memento.
I took the leap again and coloured her with copics and did some shading with primsacolour pencils and blended out with some gamsol. I had this piece of paper on my desk from last week, so immediately I just grabbed it and based my colouring on that. I think that is why it came together so quickly, I didn't have to take 1/2 hour rummaging through all my papers trying to decided which would look the best!

Dies used: the white leaves are from Marianne dies, the blue kind of leaf runner is from papertrey, and I used an EK success border punch on the green dp.

Finished off with a prima flower and some pearls. I really like adding the pearls to my cards of late, and you probably will see more in the future.

Well that's it for today. I have my class at Paper Pickle on Wednesday night so will be spending tonight cutting and preparing for that.

Have a good day!

Animal Challenge

2011-09-09T00:01:00.002-04:00

Hi! Can you believe that it is Friday already? I'm not complaining, I guess I had a busy week and the time just flew by. Hope everyone who has school age children made it through week one okay. It's great getting back into a routine. For us, well this is my son's final semester at Fanshaw College - then he will be out in the work force like the rest of us (well most of us!)

Well lets get on with the reason you are here - today's challenge theme was animal, so you could use an image, embellishment or paper. I bought this cute stamp quite a while ago and never got around to colouring her up, so I did this week.
Here we have Ellie-phant!

The cool thing about this stamp is that it comes with it's own sentiment. I love when then happens, although I don't always use them, but it's nice to knowI have that option.

Ellie was colouring with prismacolour pencils. Now I must confess that this is not the original layout I had planned. I'm sure it has happen to you as well, you have this vision on how you want the card to turn out, well mine didn't turn out the way I had envisioned!! But hey, I managed to salvage it somewhat.

Designer paper used is by MME - 6x6 Happier. Supplies used: Verve die, s/binder dies, sizzix embossing dot folder, clear glaze, glitter, su border bunch.

Next week we do not have a challenge - this is because Emily, Paula and Linda with be at Scrapfest (Mall of America - Archivers shin-dig as Paula's calls it!), so our next challenge date is Sept 23, and it will be another sketch challenge. This time the sketch is done by ME! Yep I even figured out how to do such a sketch on my computer - pretty easy really once you start! So with saying that, there is no reason not to play along, you have 2 weeks to get it done! Email your card to Emily by Sept 22, to be included in a chance to win some bella bucks.

Well, I'm out of here. Have a great weekend - I just hope it quits raining and we see some sun! It's been doom and gloom here all week.

Pauline

Jasmine

2011-09-07T00:01:00.002-04:00

Can you believe that it is Wednesday already. Love having long weekends, sure makes the week go by faster!
I'm so excited, I have a new Green Bean Baby image to share with you today. I was so happy when I saw that Emily had a few more of these in her latest release.
This pretty little girl is called Jasmine. I just love these GBB's how about you?

I had purchased some new 6x6 paper packs when I was a way a couple of weeks ago, so just had to dive into it. I started by stamping her on bella's bestest paper and coloured her with copics and pencils. The DP is by MME called six by six - Happier. Lots of pretty colours and patterns in this pack.
Dies used were rectangle s/binder as well as rectangle scallop, EK success border punch, butterfly die by Cheery Lyn.
Finishing touches - stitching, glitter, ribbon and button.

I'll be back on friday with our challenge card. You still have time to get yours done and email it off to Emily by thursday night.

Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by.

Who Me?

2011-09-05T10:21:00.000-04:00

Hope you are all enjoying the last day of our long weekend. The weather has turned much cooler today - which I am not complaining about, just wish the sun would shine - but does look good for the rest of the week.

As I promised myself, I would try to do at least one Christmas card a week, to stock pile my stash, so I'll be all set when the time comes to mail them out.

For today's card I'm using Who Me, a Mo image in rubber by Stamping Bella.

Isn't he the cutest? He looks so innocent! I started by stamping him on bella's bestest paper then coloured him with both copics and pencils. I started by using a copics then did the shading with prismacolour pencils and blended with gamsol.
I paired him up with some Christmas paper from MME- Frost - I believe it is a few years old - date on tab is 2007! Yikes! I hang onto papers - but at least I am starting to use them! lol. Dies I used are s/binder rectangle large and a bracket tab from MFT. Sentiment was stamped in back versafine.

Finished up with some stitching, glitter, versamagic wheat sponged around the image and a couple of nailhead antique gold brads.

That's it for today. Now I think I better work on my challenge card since I have time today. If you get a chance to play along this week our theme is Animals!

Enjoy the rest of your day, and thanks for stopping by.

Pauline

Back to school!

2011-09-02T00:01:00.001-04:00

Can you believe that is it that time of year already? I don't know where the summer went. I'm sure a lot of parents are happy that school is just around the corner, then again, depending on where you live some have already returned for another school year. Which brings us to this weeks bellariffic challenge:
BACK TO SCHOOL!

I don't have a lot of bella stamps to use for this weeks theme (but do have some coming shortly in my order), but I do have Bookwormabella!

To give me some inspiration on the colours I rummaged through some of my 6x6 paper packs and came across this pad from Basic Grey - Hopscotch. I used prismacolour pencils to colour. Used a rectangle s/binder die to cut her out and sponged some distress ink tumbled glass around her with the die in place.
No glitter on this card, but I did use some clear glaze for the glasses.
Finished off with some stitching and ribbon.

I can just imagine all the gorgeous cards the bellas and sistah's have sent in for this weeks challenge, so be sure to check them out on bloggbella! And while your there be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win some bella bucks.

Next weeks challenge is ANIMALS! So anything animals - paper, image (bella),
embellishment - let your imagination go WILD!

Hope everyone has a wonderful long weekend. Thanks for stopping by.

Have you been naughty or nice?

2011-08-31T13:00:00.002-04:00

That's the question this Santa bear is asking! Yes, I'm working on my Christmas cards - like I said I'm trying for one a week and so far this has been 3 weeks in a row! Woohoo!

Here we have Theo thinks he is Santa.

Theo was stamped on bella's bestest white with black memento. I used prismacolour pencils and blended with gamsol (OMS).
Designer paper is from MME - 12 days of Christmas. Dies used are MFT open scallop edge and square nestie. I found some funky Christmas ribbon in my stash and it matches so well with the paper! I added some white flocking to all the white trim on santa's outfit and glittered the ground.

That's it for today. I'll be back on friday with my challenge card. Do you have yours done yet? Well you still have time. Our theme is Back to School. Hope you can play along, then email Emily your card by thursday night.

See you back here on friday and thanks for stopping by.

Jar of wildflowers

2011-08-30T00:01:00.003-04:00

I'm back today with another card to share with you. I love anything flower or nature related, and it's been a while since I coloured any flowers, so I pulled out Jar of Wildflowers.

I started by stamping the flowers on bella's bestest white paper and coloured using prismacolour pencils. After cutting it out with a square nestie, I sponged some versamagic aloe vera ink around the image with die in place. Layered this onto some green bazzill paper and then onto a piece of slate blue bazzill cut from a fleur de lis die. Designer paper is from Memory Box.
Finished off with some glitter, glossy accents and some small white pearls.

Short and sweet today peeps, back tomorrow with another Christmas card!

See ya!

Lulu's Birthday Cake

2011-08-29T00:01:00.002-04:00

Hi! My gosh I can't believe it is Monday, which means back to work for me after being off on vacation for a week. I'm so not ready to go back, but that's the way it goes, right? Last week Bill and I took off for a 4 days - we spent a couple of days in Kincardine and a couple of days in Owen Sound area. What a beautiful country we live in. While in Owen Sound we took a day and went up to Tobermory, took a boat ride over to Flowerpot Island. Here are a couple of pictures, simply breath taking!

We also visited Inglis Falls which is in Owen Sound.

And a lighthouse at South Hampton which is on Lake Huron. This was taken about the time that the Tornado ripped through the town of Goderich roughly 80 miles south of where we were. We had no idea until that evening that a tornado had touched down. Such devastation, my heart goes out to those affected.

And now on with my card. I actually had coloured this one in the car during our trip. It's Lulu's Birthday Cake.

Image was stamped using black memento ink on bella's bestest paper. And yes you guessed it, I used prismacolour pencils to colour it up.
I picked up this new die while I was away as well, so just had to try it out. It's by Cheery Lynn Die. Designer paper is Authentique - Splendid collection. I have a couple of 6x6 pads from this company and love them all. Anyhoo as you can see I used an EK success scallop border punch along with my new doily border die.
Finished with glitter on the candles and I added some white liquid pearls on the scallop portion of the plate (you will have to click on the image to see it, they are small!).

Don't forget about our challenge this friday. The theme is BACK TO SCHOOL - as long as it's a Stamping Bella image your all set. Email Emily your card by thursday night. By doing this your are automatically included in the draw for some bella bucks.

Well that's it for today, have a good one!

Call Me..

2011-08-26T00:01:00.001-04:00

Well not literally, but that is what this PEEP is saying. For todays challenge I'm using another one of my other favourite bella images - Call me PEEP, Love these Peep images!!

I started with some Basic Grey paper called Two Scoops for my inspiration colours. I also felt lazy and didn't want to colour the phone, so I paper pieced it with some of the coordinating solid colours in the back of the 6x6 pad. The image was stamped on bella's bestest paper, coloured the Peep using prismacolour pencils. For the cradle of the phone, I used a silver pencil. I then cut out the image using a s/binder rectangle die.
I also used the sentiment included with the stamp - (love it when this happens), although I don't always use it on the front of the card, but will stamp it inside. I stamped the verse using black versafine on bella's white paper and then used a die from Verve to cut it out. I added a small pearl on each end of the sentiment.
Finished this card off with some stitching, glitter and ribbon.

If you would like a chance to win some bella bucks to go shopping with, be sure to stop over at Bloggabella to check out the gorgeous inspiration cards and leave a comment. You could be the next winner!

Next weeks challenge is BACK TO SCHOOL! Can you believe that it is almost that time already, then again some of the schools have already gone back. Like where did the summer go - and also on a sad note this is the end of my vacation week - back to work on Monday! Ugh! So for the challenge, use any bella image that is school related, then send your card to Emily by thursday night - again more bella bucks up for grabs ladies!

Well, that's it for today, see you again soon,

50th birthday card

2011-08-22T00:01:00.005-04:00

Hi all - hope everyone had a good weekend.

Since I'm still waiting for the arrival of all of my new bella images (big sigh!), I pulled out one of my fav bella images to colour. They are the Stella's! I think Em needs to come out with more of these images, what do you think?

I have also been asked by a friend for a 50th birthday card, so I thought how fitting would Stella with an Olive on top be for this occasion!

As usual, I stamped her on bella's bestest paper, and coloured with primsacolour pencils and copics. See that fancy diecut piece behind Stella, well that is a new doily die I bought while at the Novi Stamping convention a few weeks back. It is gorgeous- it's very lacey, unfortunately most of it is covered up, but I still wanted to use it because I liked the airiness to it. I shaded around Stella using soft sand pencil but it just wasn't enough, so I pulled out my chalks and lightly sponged a soft yellow around her.
For the sentiment - celebrate - I stamped it onto a piece of cardstock vellum using black brilliance ink. I saw Linda do this on one of her cards a while back and liked it so I tried it myself - thanks Linda!
Designer paper is Basic Grey Lemonade. Finished off with some stitching, glitter, seam binding ribbon and a brad.

I hope you get a chance to play along in our challenge this week. It's a real easy one, it's a sketch by Cathabella! Email Emily your card by thursday night, so you will have a chance to win some bella bucks.

Thanks for stopping by, see you again soon.

Backyard pictures

2011-08-20T16:59:00.000-04:00

It's turning out to be a gloomy afternoon here, calling for severe thunderstorms tonight, so thought I would take a couple of pictures of my backyard since we didn't have any sun.

the first one is a picture through my craft room window - today we discovered we had a baby cardinal in our backyard and mom and dad aren't too far away.
I so wish I could just pick her up and hold her. Kind of blurry, probably because it was taken through the window and screen, but non the less she is cute!

the next picture is of our backyard. Our flower garden goes 3/4 of the way around the back perimeter in front of a row of cedars. I love the tall grasses, they have bloomed beautiful this year. This is our second year for the garden, can't wait to see what next year brings.

and last how about these beauties! Don't they look delicious. Just picked this morning. Can't wait to taste them.

enjoy the rest of your weekend. Thanks for stopping by

Huggabugg challenge

2011-08-19T00:01:00.002-04:00

TGIF!!! So happy today is friday, because I start me weeks holiday today! woohoo!
It looks like a nice week weather wise, not so humid and nice cool nights. You can sure tell that fall is not far off, even the mornings are darker when I get up.

This weeks challenge is use a Huggabugg image. These huggabuggs are just the cutest. I don't have too many of them, but this one I have not done yet.
She is called Twinkle toes.

I stamped her on bella's bestest paper and coloured her with prismacolour pencils. Used copics for her skin tones. I used some scrap pieces of designer paper to do this card with, so not sure on the company. On the scallop piece at the bottom I stamped some script using the script stamp from this set.
Finished off with some clear glitter ritz for her wings, and some brown seam binding ribbon. Spellbinder dies used were circle and label #9.

Check out bloggabella to see what the other babes have done for this week. While there leave a comment for a chance to win some bella bucks.

Next weeks challenge is a sketch, from another talented babe - Cathabella!
Here is the sketch, pretty simple (which I love) so hope you get a chance to play along. Email Emily your card by thursday night for a chance at some more bella bucks!

Have a wonderful weekend, and thanks again from stopping by.

Pauline

Mavis wears Holly

2011-08-16T00:01:00.002-04:00

So, what did you think of Emily's release yesterday? Pretty awesome eh? I think it was the best release evah! I just can't wait to get my new rubbah - not that I don't have anything to colour, but it's always exciting to get new stuff.

For today's card, I coloured up another Christmas image. Yep, trying to do one a week! Here we have Mavis wears Holly. Isn't she sweet?

I coloured her up using prismacolour pencils, and based my colours on this paper from Memory Box. Sponged a bit of oasis green versamagic ink around mavis with die in place.
The border punch is from EK success. Added some glitter on her ruffles, and clear glaze on the berries. Finished off with some red satin ribbon.

If you would like to play along with our challenge this friday, the theme is use a Huggabugg image. Email Emily your card by thursday night for a chance to win some bella bucks.

Enjoy your day, thanks for stopping by.
Pauline

Sneaky Peak

2011-08-14T00:01:00.006-04:00

As promised, I'm back today with a sneak peak from Emily's soon to be release.
(I think it might be tomorrow!). Have you had a chance to check out all the sneak peaks over at bloggabella? If not, you must check them out. I think this is one of Emily's bestest release - I'm so excited, can't wait to get my hands on all of those cute/adorable images.

Meet POSH- one of the Uptown Girls. OMG I just lovey her, what do you think? Is she not just the cutest?

I stamped her on bella's BESTEST paper, and coloured her up using prismacolour pencils. Used s/binder dies (oval) and PTI die for the scallop. The loopy strip through the middle is a MS border punch. Finished her off with some glitter, clear glaze on the polka dots on the bag and some lime green silk ribbon.
Designer paper is by We Are Memory Keepers - love that plaid paper.

So stay tuned to Bloggabella for more on the release.

Enjoy the rest of your day, thanks for stopping by.

Pauline

Paper Piercing challenge

2011-08-12T00:01:00.005-04:00

Have you heard the latest? Well in case you haven't been over to Bloggabella lately, Emily is at it again. Another awesome release coming your way. There will be the new 'Uptown girls" (you can view some awesome samples on the blog), green bean babies, and couple of new images from our very own Paulabella (how cool is that) and who knows what else Em has up her sleeve. So stay tuned to the blog for more info on the release.

Now, for today's challenge - our challenge was to do paper piercing. I'm using
curly suprisabella for my image.

She was coloured using prismacolour pencils and blended out using gamsol (oms). I don't know how well you can see but my paper piercing was done on the pink scallop oval - I pierced into each scallop and also pierced along both brown strips. Designer paper is by MME - called Life of the party - how appropriate is that?.
Finished off with some glitter and I used a heidi swap clear flower and placed a glitter brown button in the cente.

For more inspiration this week, stop over at bloggabella. Be sure to leave a comment for a chance to win some bella bucks.

Next weeks challenge is for us to use a Huggabug image!

I'll be back on Sunday with my sneak peak image from the Uptown girl series.

Have a great weekend everyone, thanks for peeking in!

Pauline

Ohm

2011-08-10T06:14:00.000-04:00

I was a head of myself this week, got all my cards done for my posts, I guess I was overwhelmed with joy for having that done, I forgot to write up my post last night for today, so very short on time this morning, so it will be a short one.

Now I'm not a yoga gal, tried it once, but not for me. Anyhoo, today's image is
Yogabella by Stamping Bella. Doesn't she look so relaxing?

I started by stampiing on bella's bestest paper, coloured with prismacolour pencils.
Cut out the image and dusted some wheat versamagic ink around the edges, layered onto a piece of kraft. All designer papers are from MME- Stella Rose - Gertie papers. Border punch was from SU. I was uncertain as to whether I wanted to stamp the 'ohm' directly onto the image, so I stamped it on a piece of scrap, punched it out, then layered it on the card.
Adhered some bella dots and donuts, applied clear glaze to the flower on the mat and the knobs on the radio, and finished with some stitching.

Well, that's about all the time I have for today. If you haven't had a chance to do up your card for friday's challenge, you still have time. It's Paper Piercing- so easy peasy! Be sure to email your card to Emily by thursday night, you have a chance to win some bella bucks!

Have a wonderful day, and thanks for stopping by.

Pauline

Rustic Window box

2011-08-08T00:01:00.003-04:00

Well here we are again, another Monday! I can't believe how fast this weekend went by. On Saturday I spent the day with Linda, Paula, Lynn and Kathy at the Novi Stamping show. The show was smaller this year, but I still founds lots to buy. Then we went to Olive Garden for dinner. It was a fun day!

For today's card I'm using Rustic Window Box, another Mo Manning in rubbah! image by Stamping Bella.

Like always, the image was stamped on bella's bestest paper with black memento, then I coloured it up with my much neglected Caran d'arche pencils! I then cut out the image using a large square nestie, left the die in place then sponged some wheat versamagic ink around the image, then added a bit of persimmon versamagic in the corners. DP is from K & Co. I also made an awning out of the same designer paper. The incentive came from a card that Lindabella did last winter. You can view it here. I then layered it onto some green bazzill cardstock cut using the square lacy die. Added some glitter to the flowers and there you have it, a rustic window box! I used some scrap dots under the awning to hold it up.

A reminder for this weeks challenge - Paper Piercing.

Thanks for stopping by, have a wonderful day.
Pauline

Metal challenge

2011-08-05T00:01:00.003-04:00

So glad it's friday again, which means tomorrow I get to spend the day with some of my BF's- Lynn, Lindabella, Paulabella, and Linda's friend Kathy. We are heading to Novi MI for the Heirloom Rubber Stamping Show. I always go with the intention of not needing to buy anything, but I also seem to come home with lots!

This weeks challenge was to use Metal on your card. I had this image partially coloured a few weeks ago, so decided to finish it off and use it for my card this week. The image I am using is called Bye Bye Girl by Mo Manning in rubber at Stamping Bella!

Same as always, I used bella's bestest paper, memento ink and prismacolour pencils. The DP is by MME- Fine and Dandy. For the metal part - I used some metal brad head brads and placed them between the circles on the aqua border strip.
I stamped off an extra lady bug knap sack, coloured and cut it out, then popped it up. Added some glitter ritz glitter on the black dots. For the fur on her jacket hood I added some white flock.

Need more inspiration? then hop over to Bloggabella and check out all the creativeness.

Next weeks bellariffic challenge is PAPER PIERCING.

Have a great weekend!
Pauline

Just a Note

2011-08-03T13:46:00.000-04:00

I was asked to do some note cards for a friend. She wanted something simple and not a lot of 'schtuff' on it.
So... I pulled out Dandelion bunches to use. I had a couple of ideas as to what to do with this image- emboss, chalk, but I decided just to go the simple routine, and colour on the stamp with markers and stamp!

Stamped the image on bella's bestest white paper using a couple of pink/rose tone markers and a green for the stems. Cut it out using a circle s/binder die, sponged some distress tumbled glass around the image, then layered this onto another piece of white c/s cut using the Floral doily motif. Paper I think is Basic Grey - again, another scrap piece from my scrap basket. Since she wanted these for note cards, I used the 'just a note' stamp from this set called billboardabellas words only. I like this little sayings, and love the size - nice for small areas.
For the glitter I used Glitter Ritz warm highlights. This glitter is so micro fine, and so sparkly. I applied it using a quickie pen. I also added some pearls around the doily motif. Then just some aqua ribbon to finish it off.

Back on friday for our challenge card. Which reminds me I haven't even started mine - how about you? You still have time, so I invite you to play along. Just add some Metal to your card and that will qualify you to enter the challenge. Email Emily your card by thursday night.

Pauline

Kini Girl

2011-08-01T14:44:00.000-04:00

Can you believe that it is August already? The summer is half over, where did it go?
Had a busy weekend, so glad that we have today off. Need to get caught up on some card making.
For today's card I pulled out Kinibella. I thought she was a perfect image to colour, being we are having such hot sunny beach weather. When linking kinibella up to Stamping bella's website, I noticed that the kinibella she has now is a bit different. I think mine was from the first run of kinibella's way back when, the new one has a flower on her basket as well as a design on her bikini.

I came across a card last week on someone's blog using Labels #21 for the card base. I thought this was kind of cool, so pulled mine out to do my card.
I coloured Ms. kinibella using prismacolour pencils, and copics for the skin tones.
The DP is from my scrap basket, lots of fun summer colours in it, so this is what I based my colouring on. I also used skinny oval die and one of the dies from fancy tag three. Added 3 rhinestones on her beach bag, some clear glaze on her glasses and a piece of felt flower ribbon. She is ready for the beach!

Don't forget about our challenge this friday - use something Metal on your card, then email it off to Emily by thursday night.

Enjoy the rest of your day, thanks for stopping by.
Pauline

Christmas in July

2011-07-29T00:01:00.003-04:00

Happy Friday everyone!! woohoo, so love the weekends, and this weekend is a 3 day for us Canucks! Well the heat wave is back, but not as bad as it was last week.
So with that being said, it was a joy to colour something wintery - made you kind of forget about the heat and think cool! lol!

For this weeks challenge it was Christmas in July, so for my card I'm using one of my favourite bella images - Wreathabella. I remember taking Linda's class at Paper Pickle a few years ago and we coloured this image using pencils. Well this time around I coloured her up using Copics and did some shading with pencils. I really like how this turned out. I don't colour with Copics a lot, but maybe I need to use them more.

I stamped the image on bella's bestest paper and used Copics and pencils to colour. I pulled out a bunch of different s/binder dies to see what would fit best and when I came across this hexagon shape, it seemed to fit perfectly. Used the scallop hexagon for the red border. DP is all from Fancy Pants- love the colours in this paper - green, red, yellow, white and aqua, so pretty. I used a papertrey scallop border die to cut the scallop paper.

Now I know I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I messed up. I was experimenting with some different sentiments on vellum, and I must of stuck my thumb on the ink before it was dry and didn't notice. I then picked up my image and guess what - yup I have my thumb print with black ink on my image. ACK!!! I was ticked, and I didn't feel like colouring up the image again - tried to erase it - it did remove some, so then I tried white pencil, nope that wouldn't cover it, nor would white craft ink! So my only thought was to stick something there, so that is why I have 3 bella dots on the right side by her head, then of course it looked out of balance so stuck 3 more on the bottom left side. So needless to say I didn't use the vellum, and that is why I used the dots! Hope it's not too much!
Finishing touches - ribbon and glitter, and also added some white flocking to the hat brim, pompoms and to the cuffs on her boots!

Be sure to check out all the other great inspirations over at Bloggabella.

Next weeks challenge is Heavy Metal. So add anything metal - brads, clips, buckles whatever! Once your card is done, email it to Emily by thursday night, there is some bella bucks up for grabs ladies.

Have a wonderful weekend, and thanks for stopping by.

Pauline

Turtle Tots

2011-07-27T00:01:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone. I'm back today with a cute fun card to share with you.
I'm using a Stamping Bella image called Turtle Tots - birthday wishes.

Stinkin cute eh? A fun card for a young boy - I don't have anyone in my family to give this too, so I will put it in my sale basket, I'm sure it will sell :).

So, started out by stamping him on bella's bestest paper, and colour with prismacolour pencils. The DP is from MME - Fly a Kite. I wanted something to fill the white space in the top right corner of the image, and the idea of flags came to mind. So I free hand cut these 4 out, as well as a base out of kraft. Glued them together with a string running between the layers. I just realized as I'm typing my post that the first flag says 'hi'. I probably couldn't do that again if I tried!
Finished off with some glitter.

Thanks for stopping by today, I'll be back on friday with my challenge card. Do you have yours done? You still have time - theme is Christmas in July- a good way to jump start your christmas cards. Let's see what you can do! Email you card to Emily by thursday evening.

Pauline

Funky Irises

2011-07-25T00:01:00.002-04:00

Hi - Hope everyone had a good weekend. I just wished they were longer!
For today's card I'm using Funky Irises from Stamping Bella.

I stamped the irises on bella's bestest paper and coloured using prismacolour pencils. Image was cut using s/binder labels #9. I usually do shading around the image with my pencils, but this time, I just took a sponge dauber and applied some soft sky ink and lightly added colour around the irises. Then I used versamagic spring pansy and lightly sponged around the outside of the image leaving the die in place.
The DP is some scraps I had in my scrap bucket, so not sure of the company that it's from. Finished up with some glitter and ribbon.

Enjoy the rest of your day, and don't forget about our challenge this week -
Christmas in July - a good way to jump start those christmas cards.

Pauline

Serenity

2011-07-24T14:13:00.000-04:00

Just thought I would pop in with a quick post with a card I did for a friend a couple of weeks ago. Then sentiment is from the Verve set called Serenity. If you have never used Verve stamps, you must give them a try. The are clear stamps, and stamp wonderfully, nice and crisp.
So here is my card it did,

Paper is from K & Co. The flourish is a die from Cherry Lynn Designs.
I bought this one along with a couple more from Stamp Art in London ON. Nancy carries a wide variety of everything from papers, die, punches, and tons of stamps from numerous stamp companies. I will warn you, you will need a couple of hours to go through her store. If you do make it there, just mention my name!
I also used MS butterfly punch, cream satin ribbon, lace, pearls and a rolled flower.

Well that's it for today, thanks for stopping by. Back tomorrow with a stamping bella card.

Pauline

Stell has her fix!

2011-07-22T00:01:00.008-04:00

Well it's Friday and I think we all survived the hottest day of the year yesterday, and I bet there were many records broken with these high temperatures. Yesterday around 2:30 it was 120F with the humidex - unbelievable! So thankful for a/c, but I hate to see my next hydro bill - yikes - but in the long run so worth having. I don't have mine set very coolish- it's usually around 77 F.

On with today's card. It was a sketch challenge this week, circle or a square, although I love circles I decided to do the square version. For my image I chose
Stella has her fix! After colouring up a Stella last week, I was still in the mood to colour up some more.

I stamped her on bella's bestest paper and coloured her up using prismacolour pencils. Cut her out using the circle s/binder die as well as the next layer. The purple layer was cut using the lacey circle die. I sponged some versamagic spring pansy around the image. Wasn't sure which sentiment to use with this Stella image, but when I came across this one, I thought perfect - it's exactly what I like to do - take time out and enjoy and nice cup of coffee!
I stamped the sentiment using black versafine, used pop dots to adhere to my card then add the flower on the end.
Finishing touches: bella dots, glitter and a brad.

Hop over to bloggabella to see what the rest of the babes and sistahs have posted for this week.

For next week our challenge is 'Christmas in July'. Great way to get a jump start on your Christmas cards. Hope you have a chance to play along, if so, email Emily your card by thursday night.

Enjoy your weekend, and thanks for coming by.

Pauline

Much needed relief...

2011-07-20T00:01:00.001-04:00

We are in much needed relief from this heat wave we are having here. It was 108 yesterday and on thursday it is suppose to reach 117 with the humidex factor!
It looks like we won't see any relief until early next week. It's just to hot to even be outside, and I'm just itching to go for a bike ride on my new bike! Yup, Bill and I got new bikes on Monday. So excited. I try to do an hour of walking every day, but thought I would alternate with the bike riding. And I must say, I look nothing like this bella.. I-wish-I-looked-so-good-on-a-bike-abella.

Isn't she cute, especially with her pooch in the basket! As usual I stamped her on bella's bestest paper and coloured with primsacolour pencils. Border punch is EK success, and DP is Basic Grey Pheobe. As I was looking for a bit of bling to put on her flower in her hair, I came across a pkg of clear flower epoxy stick-ons, which worked perfectly on the center of the wheels - so cute! Finished it off with some brown seam binding ribbon.

There is still time to participate in this fridays challenge. It's a sketch - circle or square - you decide. Email your card to Emily by thursday night - you could win some bella bucks!

Enjoy your day,
Pauline

An old technique revisited

2011-07-18T00:01:00.002-04:00

Hi - hope you had a great weekend! On Saturday, I took Lindabella's card class.
Oh what fun it was. Paulabella came over from Michigan, and Kathy - Linda's co-worker was there as well.

Remember the days when adirondak alcohol inks were the in thing? I think I bought every colour that was available.

So yesterday one step of the card was to make a piece of alcohol background paper. I forgot how much fun it was to do this. The fun thing about doing alcohol backgrounds, no two pieces are alike. We also did some collaging with stamps using various colours of inks, added dimension using stencils, and sprays.So this morning I was up at the crack of dawn and started to play around some more with the inks. I came up with some fabulous samples. One of them I made into this card.

The colour of inks I used were : lettuce, bottle and a bit of denim. The layer underneath the spokes - I started with a piece of cream c/s, and added these distress colours: bundled sage, broken china, stormy sky, and pine needles.
The stamps I used on this piece were : eclectic #8 ticket full background, eclectic mini bubblewrap mesh and french script set, I also used a crackle stamp from Stampendous. Stencils I used were : Crafters workshop - mini arabesque and mini time travel. I went to link up the mini time travel but I see the Emily is sold out of them, but you can see here some of the other stencils she has. To apply the inks using a Tim Holtz sponge applicator and craft mat (which I absolutely love). The leaves and spokes are all dies from Spellbinders. The spokes were cut out of thin chipboard and then I sponged inks on them. The leaves were cut out of the alcohol piece I made. I also distressed around the edge of the collage piece.

I have a few more alcohol pieces done, so will be making a few more cards with those.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great day!

Pauline

Stella DIGS it!

2011-07-15T00:01:00.001-04:00

Yup, here we are with another Bellariffic friday. This weeks challenge was to use a Bella or a Stella on your card.

I coloured up Stella DIGS it! with my prismacolour pencils and copics for the skin tones. Isn't she adorable in her green rubber boots, I just love her, well I love all the stella's, I guess I should colour them up more often. DP is from Memory Box - another favourite paper company. The leaf flourish is a new die I bought last weekend while in London - its from Marianne designs. There are a few more I would love to get.
Finished up Stella with some stitching, glitter, ribbon, button and a pink pearl!

Be sure to visit bloggabella to see all the other great creations done for this weeks challenge. I can't wait to see myself - always great inspiration there every week. And be sure to leave a comment - you have a chance to win some bella bucks!

Next weeks challenge is a sketch by our very talented 'videobabe' Ebru. We are in for a special treat with this sketch because you have 2 options. You can either do your card square or circle. Such fun, the choice is yours! Hey maybe do one of each!

Any plans for the weekend? For me I'm taking Lindabella's class at Paper Pickle this saturday- so excited. It's been a long time since I've taken a class. I teach them, but it's always nice to be on the end if you KWIM!

Thanks for coming by,
Pauline

Your Tea-riffic

2011-07-13T00:01:00.001-04:00

Hi! I'm back today with another image from Stamping Bella. Today's card I'm using Lattebella.

For my inspiration to colour her up - I pulled out my new 6x6 pack of Out of Print by Basic Grey. So I started by stamping her on bella's bestest paper using black memento ink and coloured using prismacolour pencils. After cutting the image I sponged some versamagic pixie pink ink around her. Since I didn't have a sentiment to go with the 'latte' I decided to use 'you're tea-riffic" instead.
Spellbinder dies I used are labels 18, square and banner (for the sentiment).
Finished up with some stitching, glitter and some pink dots - called strawberry parfait! doesn't that sound yummy?

Don't forget about our challenge this friday - using a BELLA or a STELLA, then email Emily your card by thursday night.

Thanks for peeking in.

Pauline

A Lulu card

2011-07-11T00:01:00.006-04:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. It was sunny, warm and humid, typical weather for SW Ontario. We took a drive up to Port Stanley and St. Thomas this weekend, did some site seeing (gorgeous view along the lake, and lots of sail boats), picture taking, and I even took some colouring to do in the car.

This is the image I coloured - Clara Lulu! I absolutely love how she turned out.

I started by stamping her on bella's bestest paper and coloured her using prismacolour pencils, and skin tones and hair done in copics. I paired her up with some pretty papers from MME Stella Rose - Mabel. I just love these colours together, oranges and turquoise. Tools I used were s/binder oval, oval scallop and papertrey scallop die. Orange shiffon ribbon, stitching and glitter finished her up nicely!

Well that's it for me today, short post. Thanks for stopping by.

Pauline

Ribbon challenge

2011-07-08T00:00:00.006-04:00

Yay, Friday is upon us once again, which means another Bellariffic challenge.
This weeks challenge was to use ribbon on your card - how much easier can that be.
So for my card today I'm using Funky Potted Flowers by Stamping Bella.

I gotta tell you I had this card done in record time- 45 min! Maybe that is a long time for some, but for me - not! Reason is - I came across the card base already done - it was in my scrap dp bin! I think at one time I was going to use it for something or other, but never did, sooooo - it came in handy today. With that being done all I had to do was stamp the funky potted flower on bella's bestest paper and colour up with my prismacolor pencils. I sponged around the image using versamagic pixie dust. Also used s/binder dies - skinny ovals and labels #18. MS border punch was used for the side piece. And for my ribbon - I used a piece of dyed seam binding. Added some glitter and done! I was really pleased how it turned out. I just wish all my cards would work up that fast.

Be sure to check out all the other fabulous cards over on bloggabella. Be sure to leave a comment, to have a chance to win some bella bucks.

Next weeks challenge is use a Bella or a Stella image. I know which I am going to use how about you? Email your creation to Emily by thursday night.

Have a wonderful weekend, another hot one - so keep cool!

Pauline

Chillaxin!

2011-07-06T16:29:00.001-04:00

Hi - I can't believe it is Wednesday already, I'm usually ahead of myself for my blog posts but for some reason the week is quickly flying by. So when I got home at noon today, and coloured up this image from Stamping Bella.

Here we have Parkbenchabella! - isn't she a cutie - wouldn't it be nice to be able to just have a relaxing day like this, go for a stroll, grab a cup of java and a book and sit for a while and read? I always have good intentions of doing stuff like this, but it never happens - life just gets in the way sometimes!

I stamped her on bella's bestest paper and coloured her up using prismacolour pencils. Used my square s/binder die to cut her out and then sponged some pixie dust versamagic around her while the die in place.
DP is by Basic Grey called Indian Summer. Love the colours in this collection.
Used a papertrey scallop die to make my scallops. Finished with some ribbon and some bella dots- marble garnet.

A quick reminder about our challenge this week. Just need to use ribbon on your card along with any bella image, send to Emily by thursday night. I don't have mine done yet, best do that tonight.

Back on friday, see you then,
Pauline

A Poppie of a different colour

2011-07-04T00:00:00.005-04:00

Happy Monday! Well not really, but hey it's a holiday for all of our American folk!
Happy 4th of July!
Did you know that Poppies are not always red? Well I thought that was the only colour, until I did some research. They can be white, yellow, orange/yellow, purple (yes a nice deep purple), even some are kind of blueish tones.
For my card today I coloured up Flower Garden which you can find at Stamping Bella.

As you can see I started by stamping the image on bella's bestest paper and coloured using prismacolour pencils. I choose to go with kind of an pinkish/orange flower to match this gorgeous paper from Memory Box.
I kept this card fairly simple, mainly because I didn't want to take away from the flowers, and secondly the paper was so pretty I didn't want to cover much of it up by layering different paper on top.
Finished it off with some stitching, ribbon, and lots of glitter.

Since it's only Monday, you still have time to participate in our challenge this week. Remember to use ribbon on your card along with a Stamping Bella image, then email Emily your card by thursday night.

Thanks for stopping by,
Pauline

Happy Canada Day!

2011-07-01T00:00:00.002-04:00

TGIF! and what a great way to start the weekend with a holiday - Canada Day!
No plans for my 3 day weekend, just enjoy the nice weather we have been having, and maybe make a card or two!

No challenge this week, but I still have a card to share with you. I was asked to make a birthday card for a very pregnant gal, with that being said, I knew exactly what image I was going to colour. I pulled out one of my favourite family of images from Stamping Bella called Peeps! I introduce to you PregaPEEP! How cute is she?

Since I was making this a birthday card, I used some yummy paper from MME called Life of the Party - I thought the cupcake design was perfect for a birthday.
Well you know the ritual, I stamped on Bella's bestest paper and coloured with prismacolour pencils.
Finished up with some stitching, glitter and ribbon. A perfect birthday/pregnancy card don't you think?

Just a reminder for next weeks challenge. Very simple - just use ribbon on your card! Email your card to Emily by thursday night, there is some bella bucks up for grabs.

Have a great weekend, see you next week!

Pauline

Finally, a card made

2011-06-28T19:52:00.000-04:00

Hi! It seems like I have been gone forever since I posted last. Did you miss me?
I had a very busy weekend,Bill (Hubby) and I went up to Georgetown to visit my SIL on friday, then on Saturday and Sunday Bill and I did a lot of site seeing. We went to the Cheltenham Badlands, this was amazing to see, also went to Limehouse Conservation Park, and Rattray Marsh Conservation Park.
On Sunday we wanted to check out the Niagara Escarpment in the Milton area, so we ventured up to Rattlesnake Point. The view from up on the escarpment was breathtaking to say the least. We spent a couple of hours walking the trails and such. Then off to Elora Gorge where we walked along the trails and took in the beautiful scenery. From there we headed towards home, but first stopped at
St. Jacobs and West Montrose - where we saw the last standing covered bridge in Ontario.

For my card today, I share with you Posie Pixie.

As usual I stamped her on bella's bestest paper and coloured with prismacolour pencils. Designer paper is from MME - happy go lucky. Scallop border was done by using an EK Success border punch, I also used MS Leaf punch, flower was rolled and added glitter to the tops of the flower petals. Finished with some ribbon and glitter and stitching.

Well that's it for today, back on friday with another card. Don't forget we don't have a challenge this friday, so we will be back on July 8 - if you want to get a start - our challenge is 'ribbon' - how easy is that! Email Emily by thursday night (July 7).

Thanks for stopping by,
Pauline