Sending You Love

My Bella order arrived on my door step Friday and I was tickled pink to head to the craft room this weekend. I ordered lots of Valentine images so you'll be getting for the next few weeks. First up is yet another Cristy Croll image released in rubber through Stamping Bella. This is Sending you Love. I thought it would suit my nephews just fine!

The Sweet Sunday Sketch crew has new sketch that I couldn't wait to try. I missed the last one and not because I didn't like it but because I had some projects in mind that didn't fit it. Anyway, I made it happen this week. I started by stamping with Memento Tuxedo black ink onto Bella's Bestest paper and colored with copics and pencils. The heart was done with prismacolor pencils blended with gamsol as well as some shading throughout. The design paper is Love Me from My Mind's Eye. The sentiment comes with the stamp and here I used a Nestie Banner die and inserted it into hearts I also cut using Nesties. Niagra Mist VersaMark chalk ink was used for the surround shading.

Quick and easy! Don't forget that this weeks Bellariffic Friday challenge is Valentine, card about Love or uses red/white/pink colors. If you're linking up to SplitCoast Stampers use keyword BELLARIFFIC0412. Can't wait to show you mine. It's one of the new Valentine images from Bella's January release.

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by.

Cath

Jan12 SFYTT

It took me until the end of the month, but I finally tackled Jen del Muro's SFYTT (sketch for you to try). If you participate, you know that her monthly format makes it easier to play along. Paticipate every month throughout the year and you'll be eligible for a chance to win the Grand Prize which is goodies from each of the monthly stamp company sponsors. Last year, one of the frequent Stamping Bella challenge participants, Tanya Atkisson AKA Orangegymnut, won. The lucky dog! Check out this month's sketch...




I thought that Stella doing a Balancing Act would fit perfectly into the sketch and the timing was right on for building my Valentine stash. I started by stamping her onto Bella's Bestest paper, with Memento Tuxedo black ink and colored her with copics. And yes, I recently had the 12 new copic colors delivered to my house..so playing was definately in order. I loved the new R56 and used it here with R39 for the darker shaded hearts. I even love the pinky mauve hues you get when you leave it on its own.

The design paper is from the My Mind's Eye Love Me 6x6 pad. Circle Nesties, Robin's Nest Dew Drops, a seam binding ribbon bow and machine stitching complete this card. Oops, I forgot a few things...I added glitter to the bath tub as if it was filled with bubbles and Crystal Effects to some of the hearts so they would shine. I also used an EK Success border punch along the horizontal red center strip. Here's a closer look.

Hope you're having fun this weekend. Hubby and I went a great hike today with the pups and I still found time to create so it was a banner day for me! I'll have some more to show you shortly so come on back ya hear?

Thanks for stopping by,
Cath

Bee Mine Valentine

Ebru has given us another awesome sketch to work with this week. And since we are so close to the holiday of love I decided to color another Cristy Croll called image called Beemine Huggabug released through Stamping Bella.

Notice that I switched up the sketch a little by swapping out the circle image panel for a heart one. I then cut my Huggabugg out and adherred her to the heart too. Design papers are from My Minds Eye Lost and Found Madison Avenue. The image was of course stamped onto Bella's Bestest paper using Memento Tuxedo black ink and then colored with copics.

Here's a close up. Note that the sentiment was only partially stamped. The full sentiment is "Valentine Wishes" but you wouldn't see all of it so I only stamped Valentine. The swirls are cut from a Sizzix die and were adorned with pink rhinestones. Machine stitching and a purty black ribbon bow finish this off.

Next week you have some options if you want to play along with us...you can create a love card, a Valentine card, or a red/pink/white card. How easy is that? Don't forget to send a photo of your card to Emily@stampinbella.com by Thursday night. You can also link your card up to SCS using the case sensitive keyword BELLARIFFIC0412.

I received word that my new Bella images are shipped and on their way. Can't wait to see Mr. UPS man. I've got some coloring I want to do.

Have a great weekend! Thanks for stopping by.
Cath

What's Cookin'?

One of the things I love most about weekends is that I actually have the time to cook a real nice meal. I love to cook - way more than I like to bake - and weekends provide me the luxury of having time to shop for ingredients and prepare the dish. Yesterday, I found time to make this card in the morning and then cook a chicken pesto dish for dinner. Woo Hoo! Glad I made more than we needed so I can have lunch for tomorrow. I LOVE leftovers how about you?

Now back to the card. I used Mo Manning's What's Cookin' image released in rubber through Stamping Bella. I stamped her onto Bella's Bestest paper using Memento Tuxedo black ink and colored her with copics - lots of copics. In fact I was asked by a follower to take a picture of the copics I use. I told her that I use a ton...she watched me color this and believe me I had about 30 copcis on the table when all was said and done. So I don't mean to keep secret the colors I use, it's just that there are so many that it would take me forever to keep track of them all for ya.

The design paper is October Afternoon Modern Homemaker. I matted it with Bazzil deep teal cardstock. The sentiment comes with the stamp as a straight line...I used the Stamp-a-ma-jig to stamp each word and place them vertically on the panel cut using Nesties Labels 19. I then cut the rolling pin out from a piece of scrap design paper and layered it on the image panel. Along the edges of the image panel, I used Tattered Roses Tim Holtz Distress Ink on Bubble mesh background stamp. I like the way it gives you a frilly edging. Ground and surround shading was added using prismacolor pencils blended with gamsol.

You still have time to take advantage of free shipping on the newest Stamping Bella release for orders over $65. Simply add jan2012 for the discount code through Monday. I can't wait to get my order. Hope you found time to check out all the new characters like Ramona, Matilda, Millie and Milo as well as some new Uptown Girls and Mo's. Sistahs, there are so many to choose from. I'm in love..I know I always say that but seriously this release was fantastic!

Enjoy the rest of your day!
Cath

Bye Bye Boy

You're probably here because today is Bellariffic Friday....AAAANNNDDD you probably want to find out what my favorite Bella is...well I might have stretched that a little. See, it would have been too hard to pick just one Bella. I mean, I have so many favorites. So I picked my favorite Boy Bella. Yup, I'm on a boy kick and decided it would be way easier to pick that. And that would be Bye Bye Boy an image designed by Mo Manning and released in rubber by Stamping Bella.

By now you probably know that I stamped this cutie on Bella's Bestest paper using Memento Tuxedo black ink and colored him with copics. Lots and lots of layers of copics. Of course the surround and ground shading were done with prismacolor pencils blended with gamsol. I once again just colored the image without having paper in mind but decided I couldn't go wrong with primary colors. I easily found Basic Grey's Life of the Party plaid design paper in primary colors - woo hoo. I spruced it up some though by cutting a circle out to frame the image and then added stars cut from primary colored cardstock using Nestibilities. The sentiment which comes with the image was applied with Versamark and then heat embossed with Black Embossing powder. Haven't used that in forever! A few red brads and machine stitching finish this off.

Next week we have another awesome sketch so I hope you can play along with us. The code for SCS is BELLARIFFIC0312.

Have a great weekend.
Cath

Birthday Boy...

The Dear Husband has requested a birthday card for his brother. I typically find it hard to design a card for adult males since so many images in my collection are for girls and kids. But I think this one fits the bill. This is Beer Peep. He was released last January at Stamping Bella.

I colored him over the weekend while the family was skiing. I decided to stay in the lodge and color while they all had fun in the 6 degree F weather. And that was at the base lodge. It was -10 at the top and the snow machines were working non-stop. Nope, me and my Bellas had alot more fun in the lodge sitting by the fire place. I had stamped Beer Peep onto Bella's Bestest paper using Memento tuxedo black ink and colored him with copics. Shading was added with prismacolor pencils blended with gamsol.

In a totally unCath creative move - I just plain colored. No paper to inspire me just go with the flow and hope to find design paper later. Didn't take long, Out of the Blue design paper by My Mind's Eye Lime Twist collection came to the rescue. I paired it with Kraft cardstock and a Dark Teal Bazzil cardstock. Distressing was added to the image and sentiment panel using Tim Holtz Antique Linen Distress Ink. Machine stitching finishes this off. Done!

Now for some business...some of you might have noticed that your computers freeze up when you click the comment button when visiting my Blog. I have been dealing with this all week. Apparently Blogger rewrote code and rolled it out at the end of last week. Some Blogs are experiencing problems with the new Threaded Comments code - mine happens to be one of them. For some, there is no problem at all...for others the blog page freezes up. I'm trying to get it fixed so I appreciate your patience in the meantime.

I'll see ya back here for another Bellariffic Friday challenge - which isn't a challenge at all...simply ink up your favorite Bella image. I can't wait to see what's your favorite. Wanna know mine?

Come back Friday....
Cath

Meet Catherine...

Katherine is one of Stamping Bella's newest Uptown Girls. You want her? Well starting tomorrow she will be available in the Stamping Bella store. She's part of Emily's newest release! And she's got some new sistahs that will be introduced too. There's Dottie and Patty too. And we have some new designers and characters joining the Stamping Bella family. Em has been showing us little pieces of them on her blog and on Twitter and I can't wait to see ALL of them tomorrow! Yeah, she keeps us in suspense too. Ya know she warns us every time that this is gonna be the best release evah and she nevah seems to dissapoint us. From what I've seen so far she just might live up to her promise!

Now onto Catherine; whom I love cuz she's my namesake. Catherine was inked onto Bella's Bestest paper and colored with copics. But I added lots of shading with prismacolor pencils blended with gamsol. Since she's so dang girly, I added lots of glitter to her dress. My daughter saw this and said she wished I could buy her that dress! Wow, that made my day!

For me, the chocolates would have been all dark but that wouldn't be very appealling for you so she's got a heart box full of color. And that would be a box of awesomeness, hence the perfect sentiment that comes with the image. Love that Bella now includes one with just about every new image!

The design paper is from the Basic Grey Bittersweet 6x6 pack. The cardstock is Bazzil. Finished card is 5x6 inches. Want to see some more sneak peaks? Head on over to the Bella blog or Splitcoast Stampers. All the sistahs should have something to share for you. And then check out the store on Tuesday for the release. Just make sure you save a little something for me ok?

See ya soon.

Cath

A BIG Heart for Valentine's Day

It's the first Bellariffic Friday of 2012 and we were given a fabulous sketch from Ebrubella. In fact she's made sure that we have lots of gorgeous sketches this year so I hope you can play along! I've chosen to get into the Valentine spirit...and have pulled out Little Peep's Heart from Stamping Bella.

As you can see I paper pieced the great big heart and had very little coloring to do but I still started with Bella's Bestest paper. I stamped the image with Memento Tuxedo black ink on both the cardstock and the design paper. I then colored with copics and shaded with Tattered Rose Distress Ink by Tim Holtz.

I've taken the liberty of some creative freedom and have placed the sentiment on a banner stretching across the heart instead of along the bottom of the image panel. I felt like I had to put something where Ebru sketched the sentiment so I added pink and white twine by My Mind's Eye and topped it with a button. Kaiser half pearls were placed in the upper right corner and machine stitching finished it all off. Wooo Wee I love this image.

Design paper is a combination of Basic Grey Bittersweet and Bo Bunny Crazy Love collection.

Next week our challenge is to Ink up your favorite Stamping Bella image. You can do that right? You now have two ways to play, send a photo of your creation to Emily@stampingbella.com by Thursday night and she'll include it in the Friday Blog lineup. You can also link it up in SCS to the Stamping Bella thread using keyword BELLARIFFIC0212. Emily is giving away $20 in Bella bucks in both locations. Which could come in handy with the hints of a new release coming soon. And I've heard that there may be some new Uptown Girls coming to the neighborhood. So stay tuned.

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for stopping by.
Cath

Posh in Blue

Let me tell you, this girl definately doesn't have the blues but I thought I would try a blue party dress for this Uptown Girl. If you haven't already met her, this is Uptown Girl Posh has a Present from Stamping Bella. She brings a smile to my face and a definate party atmosphere to these birthday sentiments.

Coloring was done with copics, so that meant I started with Bella's Bestest paper and Memento Tuxedo black ink. Shading below her feet was added with prismacolor pencil blended with gamsol. I tried to bring out some of the embellishments that have been gathering on my shelves so you'll find some Kaiser half pearls atop Prima paper flowers. Of course, this is a party so I had to bring out the glam too; you'll find some rhinestones bedecked in silver and some plain. Aaaannd I couldn't resist glitter. Yup, I actually started to photograph this and said, wait something is missing and sure enough it was the glitter sparkling on the bows and the skirt of this lovely dress. I applied this with the Quickie glue pen and lord knows how I lived in this craft before finding that wonderful tool!

The sentiment comes with the image so there's no need to hunt for one. I hand cut it into a tag and applied Tim Holtz distress ink to the edges. Design paper is a combination: the background is from Stella and Rose Hattie collection while the French Script is from a GCD pack called Ella Blue. Oh and I also added some shading along the corners of the image panel using Memento London Gray ink and Isabelle Norris' Eclectic Mini stamp called Bubble Mesh.


If you haven't heard the buzz, you now have two chances to participate in the Bellariffic Friday challenges. Now that Em is back on SCS we are linking cards in the gallery using keywords. This week it's BELLARIFFIC0112. You'll have until Thursday January 19th to link for a chance at a $20 gift voucher. But email a photo of your card to be included in Em's Bellariffic Friday post this week by 5pm Thursday January 12th and another $20 gift voucher is up for grabs. Yes, you can participate in both locations - and with the tease of a new release and some new Uptown girl images that sounds pretty cool to me. Here's Ebru's awesome sketch for this week. Hope you can play along!

Cath

Warm Wishes

Hope you all are staying warm. This weekend it was pretty warm for January and we still have yet to had a winter snowfall. But I decided it was time to color Hat and Mitts by Stamping Bella before I got bored with winter images and moved on to spring. This image was pretty easy to color which was big plus since the last few weekends away has begun to grow dust bunnies in the house. I've been a dusting fanatic.

I used Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday Sketch #149. This year you have two weeks to participate. That's exactly what I needed this time around. Design paper is from Basic Grey's 6x6 Eskimo Kisses pack. Cardstock is Bazzil and Neenah Classic Crest Solar White. I used Bella's Bestest for the image panel and stamped with Memento tuxedo black ink. Coloring was with copics and believe it or not, I also added a little prismacolor pencil blended with gamsol. The cuff was lightly colored and then I applied a layer of White Flocking so it's nice and fuzzy. The sentiment is from the Uptown Girl Quinn image but I thought it fit perfectly here too. Finished card is 5x5.

Thanks for stopping by! See ya back here again soon!

Cath

Izzie and her Birfday Cake

I'm sharing another Birthday card today. You can never have enough of these laying around. Can't tell you how many times throughout the year I could kick myself for not having a stash of these. So, done in pretty girly colors I bring you another Cristy Croll image released in rubber through Stamping Bella called Izzie has a Birfday Cake. Izzie and her curly hair have been a favorite of mine so I had to buy all of her images!

I'm really liking all the pink and teal blue colors here and you'll never guess that the paper is actually from the Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses 6x6 paper pad. Yup, I had it on my desk and said hey, that would be perfect. Now the layout is borrowed. I was cruising through blogland after the holidays trying to find some inspiration and landed on Sarah Gough's blog. She did a fun spring feeling card using this layout so I've borrowed it. I didn't have the tools she used but I think mine is pretty close and goes to show that if you hunt in your own supplies, you'll find more than you thought you had.

For starters, I used the Spellbinders Parisian Motifs die for the image panel. The black scallop border was cut using another Nestie die made for Heartfelt Creations. I actually bought it not knowing that it was a double sided die - I really bought it for the other end. The flowers were made of paper and were cut using a Nestie Petite Scallop die that I just rolled tight. I don't own any of the flower making dies out there but thought hey, I might be able to give it a try. Since this will be hand delivered it's ok. But the flowers are pretty high if this was to be mailed. I added some leaves cut form an EK Success punch. The grossgrain ribbon was from my stash and it actually came from a gift which I hoarded knowing I could put it to use again. See, I was right! I also added Black Glaze pen to the polka dots and shoes because I love the way it makes them pop off the page. This is girly, so I also couldn't resist adding glitter to the rose buds on the cake.

Details: finished card size 5 1/2 x 5 1/4, Bella's Bestest paper for image, Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses dp, also pink polka dot from October Afternoon Sidewalks, Memento tuxedo black ink, copics, prismacolor pencils blended with gamsol. Spellbinders dies, EK Success leaf punch, Black Glaze pen, glitter, dimensionals, machine stitching, grossgrain ribbon.

Want some more inspiration? Well Emily and Stamping Bella are back on Splitcoast Stampers as a Member Company again. Splitcoast is an awesome place to view galleries, learn from tuitorials, participate in challenges and hang with your favorite companies. When I started cardmaking some 15 years ago, I was always looking for ideas here. Ha, but although I looked alot, I hardly evah put my stuff there. And now that I have a blog, I find that I hardly have the time to link to another gallery, but for you I'll do it. It might take me some time to update it though so hang tight k? Here's the link to the Bella threads. And look close at the Uptown girls in the banner, Emily is already dropping hints that a new release is in the near future and these Uptown Girls will in it. Yeah - love me some Uptown Girls!

Phew, I didn't mean for this to be that long...
If you're still with me, thanks for stopping by. See ya on SplitCoast Stampers and back here again soon.

Cath

Buzzy is sending Birthday Wishes

Happy New Year folks! So sorry for the sporatic posting over the holidays...I travel alot so we can be with family and friends and I just couldn't get everything done. I'm looking forward to a travel free January and lots of weekend time creating. Did you get lots of toys to play with too? Ha - doesn't matter how much I have, I always want more.

My first task is some Birthday cards so I can get in front of the eight ball. It might actually be my first New Year's resolution...get ahead. Yeah, sounds good now let's see how long I can keep it! I pulled Buzzy Huggabugg, a Cristy Croll image released in rubber through Stamping Bella for my nephew's birthday card...it's in February so I'm staying on target for the resolution! I wanted to pair the winged character with the planet theme of the October Afternoon Rocket Age design paper. I stamped Buzzy onto Bella's Bestest paper using Memento Tuxedo black ink and then colored him with copics. His wings were colored and then topped with Quickie Glue and glitter. I then cut him out and mounted him with Dimensionals. The sentiment actually comes with the Bye Bye Boy image but I thought it would fit here as well. It was cut out with Nestie, Petite Ovals large and shaded with Tim Holtz distress ink in Weathered Wood. You'll also find some soft blue ric rac from my Grandma's ribbon stash, brads and machine stitching.


Ahh, it feels great to create again! You know you want to join me. Why not give a whirl on Stamping Bella's first Bellariffic Friday Challenge of 2012? It's a sketch to help you get back into the groove. Just send a photo of your creation to Emily@stampingbella.com by Thursday the 12th. Emily will include your creation on her blog along with all the sistahs. Can't wait to see it!

Enjoy all your new treasures.

Cath