May flowers....

So this week's Bellariffic Friday challenge was flowers, as in April showers bring lots of them. Well, has anyone noticed that April is over and we are still getting a ton of showers? My lord our ground is wet. I guess it'll mean less watering but hello, the dogs paws continually have to be wiped before they can come in the house. It's driving me nuts!

I'm trying to think beyond May flowers and chose to color Lacie with Ice Cream, a Mo Manning image released in rubber through Stamping Bella.


I just love the jovial features of this image - the flip flops balancing on the toes, the big sunglasses with the flower adornments and that lovely smile. See May turns to June and then it's summer. Sun and fun and ice cream - I love ice cream. So I figured I could add flower design paper, both of these are from the Cosmo Cricket DeLovely 6x6 mini deck, some prima flowers and of course we already noticed the cute little flower on her sunglasses. Did I make it? Is that enough flowers for ya?

If you've followed me long enough, you know my paper of choice is Bella's Bestest. I love the way both pencils and copics glide easily over it and how beautifully they blend. Since I like to stamp and immediately start to color, I always choose Memento Tuxedo black ink. Stamping Bella sells the reinkers and that makes me feel good about reducing the amount of trash I leave behind. Today, I used mostly copics to color Lacie. I did add prismacolor pencils blended with gamsol for the grass and sky shading. A clear Sakura Glaze pen colored over the sunglasses gives it a more realistic glass appearance.

Believe it or not, I'm on the go again this weekend so I had limited supplies and no sewing machine. Ack, can't believe how much I rely on that tool now. I tried adding some ribbon but girls, I have to tell ya that I really liked the simple look so much better. So that's it. What do you think?

My niece, Mini-Bella Madison has a card to share with us this week as well. We put this together when she came to visit me a few weeks ago. Funny thing, she had it all colored and asked me to help her come up with a layout. I looked at the image and said, well it's nicely colored Madison but it's not a Bella image. Her heart sank and she started to freak. She told me Paula had sent it to her so it MUST be a Bella. My sister quickly looked on the Bella website and found the stamp, Bella's Garden. Phew....see folks, don't forget to take some time to peruse the Bella site, I'm sure that like me, you'll find lots of goodies that you've missed.


Next week's challenge should be an easy one...Kraft paper. Incorporate it into a card or project using a Stamping Bella image and send a photo of your creation to Emily@stampingbella.com by Thursday night to be included in the sistah lineup on the Bella blog. And don't forget to check in to see all the inspiration. Leave a comment too and you could be in the running for some Bella Bucks. And did ya notice that Madison and McKenzie's friend Ashley won some Bella bucks last week for participating? Congratulations Ashley and thanks for playing along with us each week.

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for stopping by.

Cath