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Saturday, May 26, 2012

A Beautiful Baby Girl

Good morning everyone! I love making baby cards. I love the colors, the images, the themes. I hardly ever need baby cards, but I love making them regardless. Which is why I ended up getting this adorable baby onesie die from Taylored Expressions. It's just so adorable. I knew I could pair it with some adorable baby stamps from LOTV and it would make me happy. 


This adorable 'Baby with Teddy' was colored with my Copics and I made a pretty little baby girl card with it. 



I die cut the onesie from some Cosmo Cricket paper and put a sentiment inside from the new clear sentiment stamps, 'Vintage Sentiments- Occasions'. I applied some repositionable adhesive to the inside of the onesie flap to keep it closed, but it easily opens too. The little felt flowers were cut using some dies from Papertrey Ink. 


Now, someone better start making some babies so I can send them this card! lol


Thanks for visiting!



Friday, May 25, 2012

Bellariffic Friday: Blue, Yellow & Black Challenge

Hello everyone! The weekend is coming, the weekend is coming! Mine happens to be a three day weekend thankyouverymuch! So happy...

So how about a Ketto card this week? Remember these little pixies? I went crazy for them and bought up a ton when they came out, and they've been sitting in a binder getting dusty for a long time. Tsk, tsk...
I don't like to do that to my stamps. I believe they need to be used over and over, and over. Get my maximum cuteness from each one.


This is Maisy Ketto, and she's Pixie royalty! She's got her crown, and her gold flower scepter to prove it. She's colored with Copics.



I didn't have any patterned paper in blue, yellow and black- so I stamped my own. I stamped the  dotty circles on vellum, then matted the vellum on some sky blue cardstock. Stamping on the vellum instead of directly onto the cardstock keeps the ink colors pure. The blue and black would look fine on sky blue cardstock, but the yellow would turn green-ish. 


So in addition to the color scheme for this card, I have a polka dot profusion going on, lol! It's blue, yellow, black and polka dotty all over! 


Pardon me, I'm anxious for the weekend to be here, so I'll be on my merry way. Thanks for stopping by and don't forget next week's Bellariffic Friday is a sketch!


Stamps: Stamping Bella 'Maisy Ketto', PTI
Ink: Memento, Perfect Match, Versafine
Paper: PTI
Tools & Accessories: PTI ribbon, EK Success tiny scallop edge punch, Copics, Souffle pen, Stickles, Nestabilities

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Little Monster

Good morning folks! I was almost ready to panic for a while early this morning when our internet suddenly went out. Whenever our power goes out (last night), doesn't matter if it's for a few seconds, or a few hours, the internet goes mental for a while. I had a heck of a time trying to get it back up and running. If I could devote the time and energy into cleaning my house the way I do to get my internet up and running, I'd be living in a showplace haha!
So here's today's card using a classic Stamping Bella image, 'King of the Wild Things'. This is one of my favorite images for a little boy's birthday card. Such a cutie pie!


I paper pieced his costume with a polka dot pattern from the 'Tiny Woods' Kaisercraft paper pad. Added some shading with my Copics, then colored the rest of the image too. I went back with a white Souffle pen to add the dinosaur talons


Fish tail banners are so popular right now, I see them everywhere! Instead of trying to get them perfectly even and square with a ruler and blade, I quickly did a search in the Silhouette Store and found a digital set. For .99 (actually less, I bought a subscription for a year), I now have an unlimited number of fish tail banners in any size I could dream of! Woo hoo, I didn't have to fork over $27 for metal dies!! Love me my Cameo...


Hope this little monster makes you smile, have a great day! 


Stamps: Stamping Bella 'King of the Wild Things', PTI sentiment tag
Ink: Memento, Perfect Match
Paper: Kaisercraft, PTI
Tools & Accessories: Silhouette Cameo, PTI Limitless Layers dies, Pinking rotary cutter, Perfect Layers Rulers, PTI ribbon/button, baker's twine, Souffle pen, Copics, sewing machine


P.S.- Don't forget this week's Bellarific Friday challenge is Blue, Yellow and Black!





Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Rainbow Bouquet

I can't tell you how many cards I've made using this Rosie Posie stamp set that I just was NOT happy with! I love the images in this set so much, but I just was not having any luck putting together a card I actually liked using it. I'm not used to stamping solid images I guess, I'm always coloring them instead, maybe that has something to do with it. 

But, I kept trying, and after 4 or 5 attempts, here's one I'm happy with.


I chose some of my new Fresh Ink pigment inks from Impress Stamps to use, because they are DIVINE! The colors are so crisp, the coverage is fabulous and they dry fairly quickly for pigment inks. I have quite a collection of colors already, and plan on acquiring more.


I was even able to add some 'shading' with Copic markers over the ink once dry, with no smudging or ruining the marker tips. Definitely my new favorite inks.


Thanks for taking a look, have a great day!


Stamps: Papertrey Ink
Ink: Fresh Inks
Paper: PTI
Tools & Accessories: Spellbinders Labels, PTI ribbon/flower dies/impression plate, Stickles, Martha Stewart edge punch, Copics

Friday, May 18, 2012

Bellariffic Friday Sketch 10

It's FRIDAY! And I have the weekend off again, sigh..... I love saying that, lol. 

I'm actually considering doing some container gardening again. This warm weather, and everyone posting pictures of their pretty flowers in their gardens has given me the itch to get my hands dirty. Not to mention I got one of those long wall hanging flower thingy-s for Mother's Day. It's almost like holding a baby after yours are all grown up, you get that tiny little warm spot in your belly...maybe one more?
NOT! Joking, but it's been a while since I planted outdoors and I feel like I may do it this year. Unfortunately, here in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania, the deer rule (and trying to dig out a patch of earth is near impossible in our rocky yard), and this is why I have to stick to container gardening on my front and back decks. Which isn't too bad, I had tomatoes and tons of herbs growing wonderfully on our very sunny front deck, I just have to water them a LOT more. 

Anyway, here's our sketch for this week:


And here's my take on it. I had to square it up, I just couldn't help it. I love my 6" squares, LOTS of space to add pretty things, and these Uptown Girls are pretty large to begin with. I used 'Posh has a Present' in her pretty, ruffly strapless dress and colored her with Copics. This is the first time I've colored black hair with Copics, and although I need to practice it a bit more, I'm OK with my first attempt. 


Fun, colorful papers are from an older Basic Grey paper pad, 'Sugar Rush'. 



Next week we have a color challenge. We're using the colors Yellow, Blue and Black. We'd love to have you join us in our weekly challenges, just head on over to Stamping Bella's blog for all the details on how you could join in and win some Bella Bucks. 


Thanks for popping by, have a great weekend!


Stamps: Stamping Bella
Ink: Adirondack
Paper: Basic Grey, Core'dinations, BBB (Bella's Bestest Paper)
Tools/Accessories: PTI Flower die, wool felt, button, baker's twine, stitched ribbon, Spellbinders Label & Nestabilities petite ovals, Copics, Stickles, Spica pens, Perfect Layers rulers


Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Sophisticated Duo

Good morning blog friends, hope everyone is well! I was busy coloring and piecing over the weekend, this card featuring Uptown Girls Felicity and Blair. I had this vision before I even started coloring them, I knew I wanted to use Basic Grey's Little Black Dress papers to piece their clothing. It involved careful fussy cutting as the image is very detailed, but no as bad as I thought it would be.


I was having a very difficult time seeing the black ink on the darkest lace paper, so I couldn't cut it out right. I decided what the heck I'm going to emboss it in white. With a little bit of Copic shading, I was very happy with the way it looks.


There's even a bit of a charm embellishment hanging from the bow, a little pewter heart, Swarovski crystal and beads. Classy stuff for classy gals! This card took forever to put together, but oh-so worth it, I adore it.


Thanks for looking, have a great day.


Stamps: Stamping Bella, PTI sentiment
Ink: Memento, Versamark
Paper: Basic Grey, PTI
Tools & Accessories: Tonic corner rounder, PTI ribbon, Silhouette Studio Store lace border and Label, Copics, Spica pens, white EP, Liquid Pearls, pewter charm, beads, embroidery floss

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Bowl of Strawberries

Good evening friends! I have a summery little card up on the Lili of the Valley Ideas to Inspire blog, go check it out if you want to see more!


Have a berry great day!

Friday, May 11, 2012

I have NEWS!

I've been keeping quiet for the past two weeks and finally, I get to share my news! Right before I left for NC, Emily of Stamping Bella invited me to join their design team. I desperately wanted to say yes right off the bat, but forced myself to think about it a little bit. It's not always easy doing what you love when you have to work a FT job, uuuggh. But, I thought I could handle it so I decided to give it a shot. 
And here it is....my first official Bellariffic Friday card! We are sewing (real or faux) this week, and I added some hand stitching with embroidery floss around the edges of my card. I love the colors of DMC floss, and if I could sew with it on my sewing machine, I would. But I can't, so I have to hand sew it. Not too big a deal, really. 


I just had to color up this adorable image of 'Ramona Loves Cake'. So stinkin' cute! I used my Copics and a Souffle pen for the polka dots on the cake. The sentiment is computer generated. 



The papers are from a digital paper collection from Design House Digital called 'Strawberry Patch'. They're all printed on Hammermill color copy paper.


Soooo, how'd I do as a Bella Babe? Thanks for visiting, I'd love to hear from you!




Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Songbird Fairy


Good morning friends! I don't know what happened to this blog post, I had it in my Drafts folder forever, never hit that 'Post' button for some reason. This little fairy was colored up a while ago, after browsing through some of my older stamps. I forgot all about these beauties from Pergamano and quickly got to work on one of them. This fairy image was kind of a mystery to me as I studied it, she looked like she was sitting, but there was nothing in the clear stamp set for her to sit on. So I thought maybe she was flying in kind of a strange position....maybe....not.

I needed something for her to sit on and that's how the log was born.


So I drew it out with a permanent fine tipped pen and colored the whole thing with my Copics. Sometimes I seriously forget that I have the ability to draw and don't have to stamp absolutely every little thing!



Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a wonderful day!


Stamps: Pergamano, PTI sentiment
Ink: Memento
Paper: Memory Box, Prima
Tools & Accessories: Copics, seed beads, seam binding, Silhouette Cameo, Martha Stewart edge punch

Monday, May 7, 2012

Krafty in color

Well it's back to work this morning, always much harder to do after a nice long vacation. I had this image colored and waiting for me on my desk from before we left, so I put it together today. Went with a lot of kraft cardstock, the image was stamped and colored with colored pencils on kraft, and also created a background pattern on kraft.


If any of you have tried to stamp on kraft cardstock with light colors, you know it's not the easiest thing to do. I haven't really found inks that show up well enough for my tastes, so I dug out my Adirondack paint dabbers. Those little sponge dabbers work really well for inking stamps, so I pulled out WMS's chevron background and stamped it in Cool Peri and Willow paint. That worked much better, as long as you clean the stamp immediately after stamping! I use an old toothbrush to really get into all the nooks and crannies so that NO paint remains. It will not come off later.



I then stamped a coordinating patterned paper with PTI's Beautiful Blooms II using colors from the same family of Adirondack inks. 


How about that pretty little vintage label sentiment, like it? I LOVE it! It's coming out this week with Lili of the Valley's new release. A whole pant load of sentiments for every occasion! I love the label shape so much, but LOTV, pleasepleaseplease give us a matching die?!! Maybe if enough of us bug them, they might consider it? (fingers crossed)
OR, if there is a digital cut file expert out there.... hint, hint....lol.


Well I'm off to work, time to see what a mess is waiting for me there...groan. Have a great day!



Stamps: Lili of the Valley 'Puppy Love' and Vintage Labels Occasions (May 9th)
Ink: Memento, Distress, Adirondack
Paper: PTI
Tools & Accessories: Flower dies from Papertrey Ink, wool felt (from stash), PTI button, satin ribbon, Spellbinders Fleur de Lis squares, Lyra colored pencils, OMS, Pan Pastels, Adirondack paint dabbers, Gelly Roll pen

Sunday, May 6, 2012

We're Back!

Hello everyone! We're finally back from a wonderful vacation/reunion in Corolla, North Carolina. We had a wonderful time in a gorgeous setting but it is good to be home. I was missing my stamps and coloring tools big time, lol!
Here's what we got to wake up to every morning...

View from our back door:

Every morning on our daily beach walk, we snapped shots of the wild horses roaming the entire area. We weren't allowed any closer than 50 feet or we could get fined. 



We had a wonderful time catching up with family from all over the country, but I'm ready to get back into stamping! By the middle of last week I was longing for the smell of rubber and ink! Jimmy looked at me as if I had horns growing on my head, but you all know exactly what I'm talking about don't you!
Ha!
I'll be back soon with some news and some projects!