Bellas Are Back

I am so glad that Friday's here. Sometimes these 4 day weeks seem like the longest ones, don't they? I have big plans to work on swaps for the upcoming SU! convention along with doing some cleaning up in my house (and my stamping area) over the weekend. We'll see how much of that actually gets done by Sunday night . . . I'm also taking Cosmo the crazy dog to have a much-needed bath tomorrow. That's always a painful experience for both of us. He hates the sliding doors at Petsmart--they totally freak him out-- and he is always flopping all over the place, trying to escape, both when I leave him and when I pick him up. They must dread when we come in . . .

I've collected a big basket full of Stamping Bella card kits from some card kit swaps I've participated in recently, so I decided to put some to use tonight. The rules for the swap were to include a stamped Bella image, two coordinating pieces of patterned paper, coordinating ribbon, and at least one embellishment--pretty much everything you need to complete a card, except the paper for the card base. I used Lauren's last two Saturday sketch challenges to create these cards using pretty much only the materials that came in the kits.

For this first card, I colored the summery Bella image that came in the kit to coordinate with the patterned paper. I think the image was stamped on SU!'s white cardstock--I had a hard time coloring it with my Copic markers and I'm not thrilled with how the image turned out.

I decided on Aqua Mist cardstock for the cardfront. I think it has a sea-foamy kind of feel to it. I used both of the patterned papers that came in the kit. I even punched out a circle from one of the patterned papers to use behind the clear button embellishment.

The "life's a beach" sentiment also came in the swap kit. I used a corner rounder to round the bottom two corners, then slipped it under the patterned paper panel to finish the card. Since I didn't create the kit, I can't provide any details about the contents--sorry!

The second card totally grew on me as I was making it. When I first arranged the patterned papers, I really didn't like how they looked together. Now that it's completed, I kind of like the finished product! This is actually one of the kits I created for the swap--how sad is it that I didn't like my own choices for the swap when I went to use them?? They ended up being a pretty good match for two of Papertrey Ink's new colors, Sweet Blush and Lavender Moon, so I used those colors as the cardfront and layers.

I colored the Bella image with Copic markers and added some glitter to her hair and to her guitar to complete the rocker look. The round tag wasn't included with the kit--I added it to follow the sketch. I used a sentiment from a big set of My Favorite Things sentiments, stamped in Lavender Moon ink to match the cardfront. I added a matching star brad to complete it.

Materials Used:

Rockabella image (Stamping Bella); sentiment (My Favorite Things Stamps); patterned paper (stars-DCWV's RockStar line, swirls-Scrapbook Wizard); Lavender Moon Palette ink, Lavender Moon and Sweet Blush cardstock, Lavender Moon dotted satin ribbon (Papertrey Ink); white cardstock (Georgia Pacific); Graphite Black ink (Brilliance); markers and black glitter pen (Copic); Cotton Candy Stickles (Ranger); silver cord (Stampin' Up!); star brad (Making Memories); tag, foam tape