WELCOME TO BLOGABELLA

every FIRST TUESDAY of EVERY MONTH we offer 3 images at CUHRAZY prices!  This lasts 24 hours only and then it goes back to regular price.

Crazy Tuesdays are our way of thanking you for being such loyal and amazing sistahs/customers.   It’s a great way to have some retail therapy without breaking the bank!  Its’s a great way to collect our images and to share with friends!  It’s just an all around good thing 🙂

here’s our feature today!.. it will be gone by midnight

click HERE to SHOP

oh and our stamp of the month is LULU”S GARDEN OF DAISIES!  20% off all month long 🙂

Mwah to da sistahs who Love Crazy TuesdayS!

Em

Thank you for joining me again for another colourful start to the week! If you’re just joining us you may want to check out the previous Marker Geek Monday posts HERE.

Today’s post will be the last pencil related one for a little while. My markers are starting to sulk! If pencils are your thing though, don’t worry, I will be mixing things up again soon. 😉

As promised last week, today I am exploring a more budget-friendly option for colouring with pencils. Perhaps you’re just starting out (or know someone who is) and want to try out the medium before making a larger investment, or perhaps you want a cheaper option for colouring on the go when travelling etc, or like me you have a problem with collecting colouring mediums. This post is for you!

Like me, many of you probably grew up with the Crayola brand. Coloured pencils, crayons, markers, novelty stamping markers etc. If you have children, they probably have a pack or two in their art supplies. It is easy to dismiss them as “for kids” and as such “limited”. Fact is, you can achieve some great results with cheap art supplies. It is definitely nice to have the expensive professional quality stuff, and there are definite advantages, but for colouring stamped images you can get a lot of mileage out of cheaper brands. Don’t feel that because you can’t or don’t want to afford the high end supplies that you can’t have fun or create beautiful coloured images. You can.

In the first example I limited myself to using colours from the 24 pack of Crayola coloured pencils. You can pick these up for around £3 to £5 here in the UK, and from a quick look on Amazon around $5 in the US. In the second and third examples I used pencils from the 50 pack.

I used Zest-It Pencil Blend as a solvent to blend together with blending stumps. Zest-It is an alternative to odourless mineral spirits like Gamsol.

Petunia and the Cool Chicks look pretty good, right? You can see how they look in Prismacolor and Polychromos pencils in last week’s post. The stamp is called “Nice to See You Petunia” and is available along with more Petunia Pig stamps and other adorable creatures in the Woodsies range at Stamping Bella. The “Cool Chicks” have their own section in the store, although they are becoming known for popping up all over the place to make us laugh.

As much as I love my more expensive art supplies, I think it’s also great to try and work with cheaper and more readily available alternatives (it’s also a fun challenge). The fact is, people receiving your cards aren’t likely to notice the difference, and they won’t care that you spent $5 to $10 on pencils rather than $200. The pencils don’t make the magic, you do!

MWAH!

~Elaineabella

and the theme for this week is BIRTHDAY WISHES!

Let’s see what our baberoonis came up with shall we?

AliceWERTZabella used EDNA loves ICE CREAM

Angelabella used EDNA WITH A CUPCAKE ON TOP

Faye-WJ-abella used UPTOWN GIRL POSH

Kerribella used PETUNIA gets a PIGGYBACK

Lesliebella used OWLIVER loves to CELEBRATE

Sandiebella used UPTOWN GIRL PAISLEY has a PREZZIE

Shelabella used TINY TOWNIE BLOSSOM loves BALLOONS

TracyBELLA used Petunia has a PARTY

TracyMACabella used LEO the LION STUFFIE

hows DAT for inspiration???

Now let’s look at da sistahood!

For our INLINKZ contributions, check out the AMAZING cards at the bottom of THIS POST!

and now for our EMAILED contributions!

How’s DAT for inspiration?

Now for next week’s theme?

use WASHI TAPE or RIBBON on your creation!

For more information on how to enter our challenge CLICK HERE.

MWAH to da sistahs who love BELLARIFIC FRIDAY!

Hiya sistahs.. I don’t know what’s with ME and WEDNESDAYS but for some reason I can’t get my act together and post  LOL..

This is our last week with PAULABELLA and her PHENOM cards and I can’t wait to share her creations today.  Dont worry.. this isn’t the last we see of Paulabella .. LOL.. I put her hard at work!

I hope these cards inspire you to create!

Here’s Paulabella’s card using MAIL CHICK stamp and CUT IT OUT bundle

N

and here is her card using TINY TOWNIE HEIDI needs a HUG

what’s so cute about this stamp is that the chick giving the flower on the left is a separate stamp in the set 🙂  These chicks? I just CANNOT.

Seriously there are no words except I CAN’T EVEN.

I hope you “CAN’T EVEN” too.

Mwah

Em

Hiya sistahs!

today I decided to make a video which ended up a bit longer than anticipated LOL.. there were a few interruptions and I am still learning how to edit so please forgive me LOL

If you haven’t subscribed to our channel, please do!

In this video, I use our CARDSTOCK MATCHER stamp.. I have had a lot of questions on this stamp so I finally decided to show you how to use it!

I hope you enjoy the video!
MWAH!

Thank you for joining me again for another colourful start to the week! If you missed my first pencil related post last week, make sure you check it out HERE to see some tips on using your coloured pencils together with alcohol based markers.

Today I’ve got a little 2-for-1: Stamping Bella’s adorable and fun Nice to See You Petunia stamp coloured using two different popular coloured pencil brands. I chose this image so you would get some colour combo ideas for both Petunia Pig and the Cool Chicks (they honestly pop up everywhere, getting into mischief) whether you’re a Prismacolor or Polychromos lover! You can find this stamp in the Woodsies section on the Stamping Bella website, along with more Petunia Pig images and some other A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E animals.

If you’re a devoted Copic user you may want to refer to the following posts for colour combos:

• Copic Marker Combos for Petunia Pig
• Copic Marker Combos for Cool Chicks

Prismacolor Pencils Vs Polychromos Pencils

The main difference between the two brands is that Prismacolor pencils are wax based and Polychromos pencils are oil based. Polychromos pencils will not build up a wax bloom and so can be layered more than the Prismacolors. This is probably more evident if you are colouring larger detailed pieces with lots of layering.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, my first attempts in the wonderful world of colouring were made with Prismacolor pencils. I was gifted a full set around nine years ago, and I still have that same set (ditching them for markers does increase the lifespan of your pencils significantly 😉 ). They are great pencils, and I have loved them, except for one thing: breakage. I often feel like I only have to look at them the wrong way and the leads break. Sharpening them has always been an exercise in anger management, and I gather from reading various forum threads and blog posts in recent years that the problems have increased due to what appears to be poor quality control.

Faber-Castell’s Polychromos pencils do not have similarly brittle leads. They are easily sharpened to a very fine point and they hold the point well (obviously if you are very heavy handed, you will break the point on any pencil). This is one advantage that is great for stampers, as we often work in small detail areas. The glasses on the chicks in today’s image would be a good example. Overall the Polychromos are my personal preference and are the pencils I reach for most often.

To keep the images as similar as possible for comparison purposes I used Zest-It Pencil Blend as a solvent on both images, however my general preference when working with the Polychromos pencils is to colour purely with the pencils, using them to blend rather than solvent and blending stumps. This is also very achievable with the Prismacolor pencils, but because of the points mentioned above, I don’t enjoy the process nearly as much.

Join me next week for a fun look at colouring with pencils on a budget. You may be surprised at the results!

MWAH!

~Elaineabella