paper possibilities

manly birthday...

Happy Birthday Ken! 

What is this, secret number 18? Paula does not have 'man stamps'! Can you believe that, I bet you can! lol  Mary asked me to make a card for here, 'way too young to have kids that age' husband. Well, I rummaged and sorted and pulled out some that I thought might work...no, I don't have any golf or fishing stamps in my stash... ok, how about graphic?  Yeah, I love graphic and I rarely do them.

I used the new Granola from Basic Grey, and that ribbon I have had forever in my ribbon jar, it worked perfectly!  :)  I added some glitter from the huge Martha set that has like 18 colors...is that manly? haha   I ran it past Jim when I was done, he liked it! So I gave it to Mary and told her use it or toss it, the choice was hers...I need to pick up a few man stamps! Truth be told, I don't care for doing masculine cards, but sometimes you gotta do what ya gotta do...right? 

birthday bella...

It has been so long since I colored up a 'Bella', that I decided to make this card for one of the gals at Flushmate...is it a birthday card image? Well, it can be! lol 

Judy works in the office portion of Flushmate, so she gets to celebrate her birthday while most of the shop is off.  Before the whole gang left for the holidays, we had a small lunch and I made this card for her. I love pink and orange together! I love these dogs and I love watching as others get older!

So, this Stamping Bella stamp belongs to a friend, and I had recently stamped her out...I did add my own sentiment and the inside says 'celebrate with your friends!' I used my .005 pen and voila! I turned it into a birthday card. I love the coral/orange ribbon from SU, a perfect compliment, don't ya think?

Well friends, today I am heading off to the Detroit Institute of Arts with the family. I have been meaning to get down there and see it since it has been renovated, and it has taken me almost a year?  I think Jim and I have determined that we have not been there since Jordan was just starting to walk. Time to go get some culture because tonight we are gonna rock out with some friends and play Rock Band on Playstation, and Apples 2 Apples!

see ya soon!

merry elzybells christmas...

Merry Christmas!

I am sending you all the biggest hug you can imagine!  Hopefully, no matter what you are doing to spend your day today, you are doing it with a smile. :)

Today is our Elzybells challenge day and I wanna show you what I did. {have I told you all that we have snow on the ground? This image is perfect!!} 

I so did this as a little girl, but we didn't have a fireplace in Detroit! We mainly looked out the windows at all the snow and watched cars drive down the street and get stuck. Big cities didn't plow the streets way back when! 

This challenge was a sketch, and brought to you by the talented Francis, from 'down under'...now she is having a warm Christmas! Thanks Francis, the sketch was awesome! If you wanna check out the other talented Bells cards, click here. You know you gotta let some of that food settle before you dig into the dessert!  ;) 

I have to tell you that a few days ago I got my newest Elzybells stamps and you are going to love what Elizabeth has planned for Valentines! I am so happy to have so many days off to play with all my new rubber!

I had one more Elzybells card to show you, that went to Judy @ Flushmate...guess who forgot to snap a picture of it! Well, it is technically not a Christams image, so if Judy brings it back to work, I will get a pic of it. {Judy, are you reading this??}

*mwah* see ya tomorrow!

chicken trio...

This is my favorite time of the year, and I am keeping myself free of any stress, and I telling you this because those cute cupcake pops almost caused me stress last night! LOL I started making them on Monday, mixing the cake and frosting...rolling the balls...MESSY! Last night I tried to form them into the cookie cutters, and still, too mushy. Maybe I should have shoved them out in the snow? No, I dumped them all the little red balls in the trash. I can honestly say I am not the 'greenest' person around... I take out a lot of trash.

ok, blah, blah, blah, I know...Paula, show us something and be quiet! For crying out loud it's Christmas Eve and I am just on here to take a quick peek... 

Here is a Penny Black stamp, and this card is for my parents. Have I told you lately..I {heart} chickens! These girls and ready to celebrate and it just makes me smile to look at them! The patterned paper is from Cloud 9, hmmm, did you notice how the pine needles look like the chicken feet? I used Tim Holtz'z crackle glaze on the balls. The snowflake is from SU, in their holiday mini, I believe. 

Relax, laugh and sing a few Christmas carols...if you hear someone singing at the top of their lungs to, 'Do They Know It's Christmas', it's me! haha

Christmas Day is reserved for our latest Elzybells challenge. Happy Holidays!!

whiff of christmas...

Can I give you a holiday tip...don't let your little dog clean up the red velvet scraps of cake that fall on the floor.  I will just leave it at that, and tell you I was working on these cupcake pops that I found on Bakerella. FYI, I have not finished them, so I can only tell you that it was a mess rolling them into balls. If they look as pretty as the ones on the website, I will take a picture.

How about a little Whiff of Joy? ohhhhh, she is sooo pretty isn't she?  My friend Mary ordered these new beauties and I had to stamp them out! I kept the glitter just on her swirls and added flocking to her outfit and earmuffs. The patterned paper is from Anna Griffin, and it's more of her paper that I had had for a year or two...I love it's color and it works so well with the pink outfit!

The other Whiff of Joy stamps that Mary ordered were these fantasy like snowmen, uh, snowomen?  

There are several more I need to color up, this was just the first one. But I figure with all the snow on the ground here, I will be looking at it for a few more months and can get them all colored before the first spring flowers arrive! lol

Hey, I will have a very early jump on next years Christmas cards!! {thinking ahead, thinking ahead...}

Tomorrow I am going to drag Jordan off to the mall, bright and early and pick up some gourmet popcorn. hmmm, I think I still have a little baking to do for dinner with my family tomorrow... Ddidn't I already state on my blog that I would rather not be in the kitchen? See ya in the morning, love, paula :)

a bella blowout christmas...

Well, I woke up yesterday to a new honor... I was picked to be the 'Featured Stamper' over at SCS! I had gotten an email a couple months ago, and kinda put it out of my mind and then there was a couple emails with congrats. I was chosen and now all the other talented stampers are 'casing' my cards!

I am also getting some new subscibers, so welcome!! Just a quick note, I don't get really wordy here and I usually don't say this in every post, but I do use only colored pencils and gamsol. If I ever do use something else, I will note that...but I have not strayed from my pencils.

Now, I know so many other bloggers are moving away from Christmas, I still have more to show you. I hope you don't mind ;)  Here is Polly Packages from Stamping Bella.

I was frozen in horror when I realized I colored up all these Christmas images and didn't stamp out my newest Bellas...

Minty Wreath from Stamping Bella is next. I didn't like any dp I had to go with this image. I did layers of pinks, reds and dark purples and I couldn't let this beauty be out done by loud paper! Can I confide in you that I never make a well tri-fold card. I need to get onto a site and see how they are done for real. I added a Basic Grey snap to hold mine together. 

Bella's birdhouse is pretty fantastic!...remember I told you I {heart} houses! I could not resist this when I was at Bella's house back in August. Sadly, another card that looks better in person! lol

Last but not least..here is Stella. She is tangled in her Christmas lights and spreading some cheer!

So, there is my Stamping Bella blowout.

Hope you enjoyed the ride and I still have some Whiff of Joy's to show ya and Elzybells! Stay tuned, thanks for stopping by! 

paula....

spread a little sunshine...

I'm having a white Christmas...and because it is so white outside, look what I did the past two days...  

I have been getting cards done for my work friends...this one goes to a gal who tossed my 'store bought' card across her kitchen! The nerve, I spent a good amount of time in Hallmark, choosing the perfect cards! {No, my card list does not get homemade cards, I did that once...} But I didn't have time to get all my work cards made until this weekend. I even personalized this one for Kelly and her girls...Kayla graduates this year, so she is the varsity snowman, and Kari, gets her name on her mittens...Kelly's name is on her scarf. I used my .005 pen for this.  

I love houses, and since I still have not bought the PaperTrey Boards & Beams set, I had fun decorating this house. I am so sad, it looks so much more vibrant in real life!

What do you think? Do you enjoy the non-traditional colors? I do, and probably more cards than not, are non-tradional colors.

Now, are you lovin' these two images? They are from Sunshine Designs, out of Canada. I borrowed them from my friend Pauline, on one of our get togethers. There are several more, I just didn't get to them...{head hanging low :(  }

I enjoy a variety of looks for Christmas and I have all my cards marked for certain people, to match their personality or how I think about them. I added a ton of glitter and sewing, and I am gonna tell you right now, if one of them makes a comment about them, they better duck! a 'store bought' card is gonna be flying at their heads! LOL  How's that for Christmas cheer!!  haha

mouse in the house...

This could possibly just be my favorite House Mouse stamp yet! My mom wanted a 'cute' card to send a friend for Christmas. I told her hold on, I got the perfect one... just let me color it up! Here is the second one I colored because the first one didn't work for me...lol  I almost trashed this one too, but I cut it down and changed the color around the book. I made it too bright, and had to adjust that. 

As usual, I colored this with my colored pencils and gamsol. The patterned paper is from Cosmo Cricket, 'wonderland'. I grabbed this 8x8 pad, not really needing it, but for $4.00, I am glad I did.

That's about all I have for tonight. I am getting tired... I have been coloring and trying to clean my desk off in anticipation of making my last few Christmas cards this weekend. We are also expecting snow overnight and that means up early and outta the house before I would like. Santa is going to have plenty of fluff to land on when he gets to my house next week! yeah! 

see ya soon! 

day dreaming...

Question...why wouldn't someone who has had a card made for over a week, not get added to the blog hop?

Answer...because I'm a ding bat! All I had to do was ask to be added and I would have been ready! When I thought about it yesterday, it was too late and I didn't want to mess with the line-up. But, Good News is that you can check out the blog hop from the begining, here...

This is my card with the newest Day Dreamer set from BC Dzyns. I was flipping through my paper, looking for something 'young and fresh', but I had this cartoon Mickey Mouse paper in my stash and I grabbed it out. How perfect does it work with the conversation bubble in the stamp set!! LOL   I decided to keep the colors soft, except for my gal.

As we are all well aware, the holidays are closing in on us and last night I did get my birdhouses finished. There are 23 paper houses sitting on my desk and I have to get them moved outta the way so I can do some more creating tonight! Have a great evening!!

christmas lantern...

Well, I got a little mixed up in my dates for the latest Elzybell challenge! ahhh! First you realize I can't spell, now you see that I can't keep things straight in my head! {FYI, I just picked up a small desktop calender from Target...tonight} Take a look @ my card and then check out the other samples here. The challenge was to use tradional colors...red, green and gold. 

I colored my holly lamp with my Lyra colored pencils  & gamsol. I knew when I first saw this lantern, that I would work some acrylic onto the glass panels. I was able to put a smalldab of Zip-Dry under the glittered snow in the bottom corners, and two small dabs in the upper corners. The patterned paper is from Cosmo Cricket {green} & the gold swirl paper is from Anna Griffin. The red 'ribbon' looks and feels like suede.  The 'peace' stamp is from Memory Box.

Today I have some Buckeye's {peanut butter balls} chilling in the fridge and need to get them covered in chocolate. This is my first attempt making them, even thought I have loved them sice I was a kid. Something about the parafin wax has always made me shy away from making them, but not any more! I am getting a little more daring in my older age! LOL  Thanks for stopping in today, hope you have your shopping done!!   ;)  

my, my, I had this post scheduled to go on Dec 21st!!!  I guess late on saturday night took it's toll on my thinking...lol