paper possibilities

Happy BIRTHDAY to me!!!!

...and a little something for you too!!  I have had the best ever year{plus} and to show how appreciative I am for all I have and for all you peeps who come back and say "Hi" and look in on my little blog... I wanna give away $43.00 Bella Bucks & 20 sheets of Bella's Bestest paper! {10 white/10 soft ivory}

Now, I have been cooking this up in my mind for a while and most times you gotta answer a question or guess something for blog candy..then it hit me one day this past week. I was home from work and I sat down on the couch with a bowl of pistachios {not RED} and for a second, a thought came to mind, like WHY am I eating these... my Christmas tree isn't up? {I know, probably sounds kooky!} I don't know if I have ever really had pistachios and it not be Christmas time, or at least way closer to Christmas time than now. {in my mind, it is Christmas time, after Thanksgiving} So, here is what I want to know... Is there something or someplace that says to you...ahhhhh... the holidays are HERE!

...OMG, sitting on the couch eating those nuts reminded me of visiting friends over the holidays...when I was a kid, and having pistachios. When I was younger, I never saw a natural, NON colored ones either...we ALL had red fingers when we were done! lol

You all have until MY birthday 11/13, to put your answer in...Yes, it a scary BellaRIFFIC friday the 13th! I will be in Niagra Falls/Toronto and pick a winner on saturday. Hubby's birthday is thursday and he is a year & a day older...so we are celebrating at the Falls! Good luck!!!

wishing you...creativi-tea

Happy Sunday evening!! I spent the better part of my day being creative and I spent the last hour or so putting this little card together. I have had this Cuppa Tea colored for some time and it's been sitting here staring at me very LOUDLY! lol  It has been wanting to be a card when it grew up and tonight it got it's wish! Dreams do come true!! I kinda colored this on the fly, no paper in mind, but when I saw the flip side of a plaid I am using for next weekends class...I knew this was the perfect paper. {{...and I really been in a brown mood lately}}

Cuppa Tea is from Stamping Bella and comes with all sorts of little sayings beside the one I picked, 'creativi-tea', and you get a mini image too.  I stamped this out on Bella's Bestest paper and used my nesties. No glitter on here, just some clear and black glaze pens. The patterned paper is from October Afternoon, called Farm Fresh and I grabbed it at Bella the last time I was there...I also grabbed lots of the Bo-Bunny double dotted paper...LOVE it in alllll the colors! My wish is they never stop making this! I also used a Martha punch and a bow.

Well, I am nearing the end of class prep and I am going to go and cut and fold some more card bases, and watch my favoritest show ever..Dexter.

*** This weeks theme for BellaRIFFIC friday is ANYTHING!!!  it's a wild card week, so no excuses, ok?  :)  thanks for dropping by!!

frosty bella friday...

...when last we parted, I was finishing up coloring my images for class and getting the color list to Emily. I am now happy to report that I have since cut and stamped out all my class images! woohoo!! I saved a ton of paper by cutting my paper into the size I want it, then, stamped it out...duh, I was stamping on so many pieces of paper then letting you guys do the trimming. {You can all thank Lindabella for that idea!} I have been pretty busy all week and it's FRIDAY already...do I hear applause or is that in my head? Friday is great isn't it? It signals the start of the weekend, co-workers are generally in a better mood, new movies are coming out AND it's always a BellaRIFFIC friday around here!!

This weeks theme was Holiday/Christmas...it's that time of the year already, can you believe that?? I pulled out a Bella image that I have not yet colored and was not in any of my classes. Frosty is something I don't want to see until it's closer to Christmas, unless he's on a card, lol

This just happens to be something I did color{on Bella's bestest paper} with a piece of  patterned paper in mind...but it didn't work out in the end. I eneded up using a 6 x 6 pad of DaisyD paper and sadly they went out of business...I really liked them too. Lucky for me it had blues, red & green and I made a country inspired patchwork outta it. To keep the country look going I added a gingham ribbon and a bright green button. I used glitter, clear glaze pen and liquid pearls on frosty's trim. Ask me if I am totally happy with the pearly look...no, but I didn't want to mess with it. I much prefer my Marvy liquid applique, not a contest there friends.

Well, this concludes my BellaRIFFIC post and I will be working like a crazy person this weekend to get all my patterned paper cut for class. Sunday I will announce my birthday-blogcandy in honor of myself getting older. Don't forget to check out the sistahood on Emily's blog later on...I love the holidays!!!!!

printing digi...

This is just a little digi info that I found out, and thought I would pass on. I own Epson printers, and it is the only printer I have owned for years...BEST quality photos when I was still scrapbooked. When I print out my digi images I have NO smear at all, with pencils/gamsol or copic. My images look amazing and if I didn't tell you it was printed off from my printer, you'd never know it...I like that, nice deep black images.

I was gathered with my stampin' peeps a month ago and some of the girls were saying they had smearing...they also had HP printers! The images that I have from CC Designs were a few, that were printed off from a large copy machine at work...again, no smearing.

This is just a little info in case you are wondering what is going on and you happen to own HP printers. I can't tell you anything about other brands either, just a little talk among us girls led to this info. Lemme know what ya think! Have a great day!

**** added to original post****

It's funny how there is a lot of different HP users who have NO problem, other than a little drying time. My printer is an inkjet and I have a Photo R220 & a Workforce 600 all-in-one. I don't really recall if I leave drying time...I guess it depends on how fast I am in the mood to color. lol  I am happy to hear feedback from all you gals because it may just help someone out there from pulling their hair out!

to digi or not digi...

ahhh, the source of debate, but to me...it doesn't matter, long as I like it! I said I would come back to show off what I did at Linda's house on Halloween. I was a little nervous performing in front of the pro's...Linda & Pauline, and here is what I did... She is a little digi image from

CC Designs, and she took me forever to color! My heart pounded and I felt like I never colored before...I was the scared I would mess up. Slowly I got a little more loose tried to just enjoy the playing part. After all, it isn't like I have not tossed something and started over.

Technically this is a hybrid...because the grass, cheeks and blue surround are prismacolor pencil. I added some clear & black glaze pen to my little girl and found some paper that matched. {for some reason, my teal colored paper is looking way greener than IRL.} I also added the lines in her cone to make it waffle looking, then removed the color with a colorless blender pen. haha, I do pay attention to some tips!

The patterned paper is from American Crafts, the apron punch is from Fiskars, and the pretty ribbon is from the lss I go to for ribbon, called Paper Tales. *** Just a little note for fans of vintage embellishments. I went to see what time Paper Tales was open on Sunday and I ran across something on their site that I had not seen before. They now have an Etsy store full of vintage stuff...beads, flowers, ribbon, bells, pearls. I know my cards are kinda plain jane, and I don't add lots of things like that on them...but it was fun looking at all this stuff! Anyways, at the store we talked one of the owners and she told us the story behind how they came upon all this true vintage stuff that was packed away in storage...heated/cooled and still wrapped in tissue. What a find! I'll pass on their info in case you wanna browse...Paper Tale Vintage, and enjoy going back to the 40's!

See ya soon, I have class paper to cut! Don't forget you holiday/Christmas card to Emily by tomorrow/thursday night!  :)

purple paper piecing...oh my

Surprise....guess who just emerged from her room and got all her stuff colored for the Bellaland classes in less than TWO weeks!!  What gave me away?.. was it all the glitter on my body and the huge callous on my finger from holding those stumps! lol {maybe it was a sigh of relief because last night I felt like all my color matching talent flew out the window.} But, never fear, things are finished and all glittered up..***hint*** on the glitter, I used a LOT!

Tonight I'm running late with my post and a few more chores to get to still. Emily would like my color list so all the peeps signed up for class know what to bring. So I wanna put that together for her, so she'll invite me back to Toronto.

Tonights card is born from a challenge in the Bella forum on Splitcoast Stampers. I wanted to join along seeing as it was a paper piecing challenge and ya had to use purple. I don't paper piece much at all and I know you are wondering if I will ever put my beary best friend away already. I loooove him/her!! lol  I used a small scrap of a purple dotted paper, that looks like fabric and paper pieced with it. The whole bear was stamped, shaded and cut apart. When I reassembled it I did so in layers. Being one smart cookie, I also made sure he is not stamped on a piece of Bella's bestest paper because that is for coloring only! I added a bow, and a little tag with a silver charm. I used my newly aquired 'need a hug' sentiment and....why did it take me like 4 days to assemble??  It's a pretty small card, only 4 x 4 inches so I let the bear kinda go off the side...there is plenty of room in an envelope for him.

Well, I should add this to the forum challenge thread. Do any of you hang out in the forum on Splitcoast Stampers? Linda, Joanne & I have added some little tutorials on coloring, bow making and grass technique. I am going to add a few more, but I need to get this class stuff moving along first.

Our next BellaRIFFIC friday challenge is Christmas/Holiday...I just emailed my card to Emily...more glittered madness I tell ya! Sent yours to Emily by thursday night. Well, catch you tomorrow...I need to show off what I colored with my copics while I was at Linda's house... I amazed myself! woohoo! {no, I still don't love them more than my pencils!}

YEAH!!! Today we are celebrating the sweet Chiciboulie's from Stamping Bella, with their very own Chi-Chi Hop! Now if you just stopped by today and have the urge to Hop, you can start at the very beginning with Emily!

As a little treat for joining, you can leave comments along the way, because one of us girls is giving away $25.00 Bella Bucks! Spooky sweet, huh? The winner will be announced in the Bella forum on friday and with all the new release rubber... all the extra Bucks = more STAMPS!! lol

Let's get ya started, ok? I pulled out a Chi-Chi that I have not colored for a very long time... Georgina Glamourpuss. It's funny, because she is what I colored the first time I was in Bellaland. You

know how things happen then...your rubber collection grows and you just don't get back to those favs like you want too. {yeah, there is that day job and family that needs some attention...LOL}

A few deets on Georgina... I stamped her out on Bella's bestset paper and colored her with Prismacolor pencils, blending with gamsol. The patterned paper is the Porcelain line from Basic Grey {it looked like spa inspiring paper}, and I used some of Bella's glittery dots. Emily packaged assortments of colors for the shows that she did in downtown Toronto and I had to grab a few yummy combos. She added more color combos, so I will grab those in a few weeks... The ribbon is from a local store and I had yet to use it, til now. It went well with my card and I was so happy when I pulled it outta my drawer and it matched!! Small accents of glitter, white glaze pen {they make more than clear & black!} and Marvy liquid applique and the card is done!

Hope my Georgina inspires you to indulge in a little pampering today, or even a little shopping! {Jim doesn't know I treated myself to some Bose in-ear headphones yesterday...}

Next up I am sending you to see what my talented sistah Babe!! Karen has for us! Have a great time looking at all the Chi-Chi's!!

 

for the kids...

Well, if we needed a happy BellaRIFFIC friday...it's today! It's rainy and fridays should never be rainy, should they? hehe  Does anyone not agree with me?  Ok, since we agree on that, then hows about we agree that this is a cute kids themed card for this weeks theme. I picked new friends

ella & looloo, from Stamping Bella because I have had this image and just not colored it yet. Honestly, I don't do many kids cards, boy or girl. So this was a change of pace and I had the paper picked out and it looked like it would all go nicely in a circle. The image is stamped on none other than Bella's bestest paper, and colored with my prismacolor pencils and gamsol. The patterned paper is from October Afternoon and the border punch is from Fiskars. I love the nestie flower and how it echos the flower on the paper...so clever, eh? I made my bow outta twill, one of my all time favorite 'ribbon' materials. Twill goes with everything!!

Now that you have taken a peek at what I did for this week, you need to get on over to Bella's blog and see what the rest of the sistahood cooked up on this rainy day. Then...if you still have strength and feel like checking out the new release stuff, pop into the store and see what's been added. I promise to get back here and make some active links when it's all said and done. The Lollipops are adorable!!! A huge Hello & Welcome to Lori Boyd!!

and...if all that is not enough, we have a little blog hop simmering for tomorrow. I may be somewhere in the middle of it and it will begin with Emily {da Bella} @ 11 a.m. eastern time. It's gonna be a blast, I can feel it!...well, maybe that's arthritis...LOL

Have a nice friday and don't spend all your paycheck! I warned ya...

chickens 4 mary...

One of the Flushmate peeps is heading to greener pastures, the greener pastures of home! Now she is the kinda peep that stamps and is crafty and comes along on the trips to Canada, so for myself, it's not a tearful buh-bye. I know where she lives and I know she has fresh rubber arriving soon...LOL   So Mary, since you're a cool chick, I made this for you...

It started out as a card idea, but grew to a framed piece because the image kept getting larger as I kept adding layers. I realized I could finally pull out my Graphic 45 papers and use them perfectly with these girls. The bow is a scrap of Stampin' Up ribbon that I was able to make into a pretty little bow....I wish I had had more to actually tie. shoot! The Chicken Trio is from Whipper Snapper Designs and I hope they find a good home keeping an eye over Mary while she crafts her heart out....{while I still put in 40 hours at Flushmate!!!  do I sound bitter?} haha 

I know I am taking my chances by posting this tonight, cause Mary likes to do late night/crack of dawn surfing. Mary if you see this, go back to bed! lol

spoooky stella...

Here's Spoooky Stella! I told you I had at least one more Halloween card to share. What I really liked about how this came out is that it came out so vibrant! I tell you when I look at it, it could pass for copic.  I stamped this out on Bella's bestest paper and this time I used my Lyra colored pencils, how's that for a change! Actually, that may be a good reason why it is so bright. I used a piece of Bo Bunny Halloween paper for this card and my zig-zaggy nestie. {did you notice I also made another pretty bow?}

I was busy last night, coloring up some images that will be for my next class at Stamping Bella. I colored up my chi-chi for the blog hop and I got a paper pieced card...in purple, started for the current challenge on the bella forum. See what can get done when you are all alone at home.

The challenge this week is 'something for the kids', have you gotten your idea thought out and colored up? Just email it to Emily by thursday night and you too can be part of the sistahood.

Have a great day friends and see ya soon... {love} paula :)

jordan & daisy...

I'm back and I was supposed to put these pics into my post and then got it all linked up and hit 'publish'.  Jordan popped into my room and was holding baby Daisy...I didn't realize it at first casue she is getting big and enjoys leaving Jordan's bedroom. She used to cry like CRAZY if you took her out. Here Daisy is, safe in her momma's arms. Big Kitty, Pebbles DOES NOT LIKE DAISY! Man, I need to research this and how to get them to adjust. We have tried a few things we read about, but oy, Pebbles just growls from the pit of her stomach. Some

kitten lovin'.. What a couple of cuties!