WELCOME TO BLOGABELLA

and today’s theme was PAPER PIECING!

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

AliceWERTZabella used TINY TOWNIE PEYTON loves to pretend.  I just love that washi collage base! and of course the emotions from the little chicks staring at Peyton LOL

Angelabella used the CHICK and the BUNNY WOBBLE

Danabella used PETUNIA GETS A PIGGY BACK

and the INSIDE

FayWYNN-JONESabella (still testing names) used MARCHING CHICK

Kerribella used UPTOWN GIRL ISABELLE loves ICE CREAM

Lesliebella used UPTOWN GIRL CURLY CLARA needs your address AND the sentiment from UPTOWN GIRL SUNNY

Sandiebella used UPTOWN GIRL POSH has a PRESENT

Shelabella used TINY TOWNIE RACHEL loves the RAIN

Stephabella made a goodie bag using Uptown girl BUNNY has a DAFFODIL

Tracybella used UPTOWN GIRL BUNNY

TracyMACabella used SENIOR-ita MAGDA

All of these are JAW DROPPING (is that even a phrase? well it is now LOL) .. Amazingness…  I wanna RUN to my craft room NOW.

And now for our AMAZING sistahood!

Check out our INLINKZ contributions at the bottom of THIS POST… magnifique!

And now for our EMAILED contributions 🙂

Now for next week’s theme?

A MOJOBELLA sketchypoo!!!

If you are new to our BELLARIFIC FRIDAY challenge, you can see HERE for our rules on how to enter

Mwah to da sistahs who love Bellarific Friday ALMOST as much as I do 😉

Em

Hiya sistahs!  What a great start to the week DONTCHA THINK??

Welcome to Elaineabella’s AKA Markergeek’s blogpost today.. isn’t she awesome?

Last Monday we covered some Copic skin tone combinations and basic colouring tips, so it seemed logical to move on to hair this week! But before we get started, I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone for their lovely comments and enthusiasm following the first post! I really hope that these posts prove useful and inspire you to give those markers a good work-out. For those of you who don’t use Copic markers, do stay tuned, there will be posts using other brands and mediums that I have available.

Remember, we want to see your results too! Share your Stamping Bella colouring and cards here in the comments section of the blog, over in the Stamping Bella Sistahood chat group on Facebook or directly on the Stamping Bella Facebook page.

In the graphic below I’ve got some of my favourite Copic hair combos for you. The lovely Tiny Townie Heidi Loves Hugs was perfect for showing hair colouring as she has some really nice open areas of hair, plus she’s one of my favourites from the latest release – so cute!

Normally when I colour I tend to start with my lightest shade to lay a base down. With hair I quite often do the opposite, especially on images where the hair detail areas are quite small. With all of the combos shown above I worked DARK – MEDIUM – LIGHT, going back in with the medium and light shades as necessary. Keeping the layering and blending to a minimum in this way helps to prevent the issue of sticky ink which can result in patchiness when you try to correct it, or what is otherwise known as a hot mess (we’ll talk about ways to fix some of these issues another day).

With most of the Stamping Bella characters the hair areas aren’t very large, so sticking to two or three marker combos is generally the best approach. Keep it simple! As with colouring the skin tones, try and avoid doing too much layering and blending. With hair in particular you don’t need to blend out every line, the aim is to create some texture and to have enough variation in colour and depth to create interest.

The amount of layering you do, and the order in which you use the markers will affect the results you get. Play around, see what happens if you add an extra layer of your medium shade, or if you use a much lighter hand with the darkest shade. For example, the blonde combination shown above could be lighter if you use less E44, or if you start with E43 instead, and add in just a very small amount of fine detail with E44. It’s all in the experimentation!

Special Note: don’t be overwhelmed by images with curly hair as seen on the new EDNA stamps (and on Uptown Girls like Savannah has a Star), these can actually be the easiest and most fun to colour. Work with the lines provided by the illustrator to figure out where to put darker shading and be loose and a little messy, creating some variation and texture. Don’t try to create perfect uniform strokes, be a little squiggly and free, the overall effect will look great (remember, the recipient of your card isn’t likely to be analysing it up close with a magnifying glass ? ).

If you try out the marker combos in this post with your Stamping Bella stamps, be sure to share! We would love to see the results and hear how you feel about them. Show off your creations in the comments below and even better, share your own favourite hair colour combos with us. Let’s talk colour!

If you are posting your images using these combos, we would love to see them on Instagram and all the platforms mentioned above!  To make it easier for us to find you , just use #markergeekmonday as a hashtag!  If you have other favorite combos, we would love to learn from you!  Leave a comment below 🙂

MWAH!

And not only is it the best day of the week.. but I am also back home for a bit :).. My father has a lot of rehabilitation to go through.. he is out of the danger zone and hopefully will strengthen in the next few weeks.  I wanted to thank ALL of my sistahs for your support.. for your emails and comments and for the love.  You helped us get through this and for that I am FOREVAH grateful 🙂

Today’s Bellarific Friday theme was a MOJOBELLA Sketchypoo

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

AliceWERTZabella used CHERRY CHICK

Angelabella used SLICK CHICK

Kerribella used PARKER the PIG

Lesliebella used PEEKABOO BUNNY STUFFIE

Tracybella used TINY TOWNIE PENELOPE has a PENCIL

FayeWYNNjonesABELLA (still trying to find her perfect name lol) used UPTOWN GIRL BENTLEY gets BLOWN AWAY

Sandiebella used UPTOWN GIRL AVA loves to CELEBRATE

Shelabella used EDNA BLOWS A KISS

Stephabella used HARRY LOVES HAPPY MAIL stuffie

TracyMACabella used THE BUNNY WOBBLE and the PEONY

Is that a DROOLWORTHY roundup or what?

I LOVE THESE CARDS 🙂 SO. MUCH

Now for our SISTAHOOD!

you can find our INLINKZ contributors HERE at the bottom of THIS POST

and now for our EMAIL sistahood contributahs!

PAPER PIECING!  Use any current Stamping Bella image.. and  PAPER PIECE!  I love paper piecing..its fun and meditative!  MWAH!

Hiya sistahs,

We all know how instrumental my Design team is to me and to my company.. OUR company.  They educate da sistahood, inspire da sistahood, and have fun WITHIN da sistahood.  I am SO grateful for them all.

While Elaineabella (aka MARKERGEEK) may not contribute weekly to our Bellarific Friday line up, she is also an integral part to our group.  She colours all of our images that you see online.. she designs and provides our FREE COLORMAPS for da sistahood.. and now she is contributing to our blog every Monday with different colouring techniques that we always wondered about but never quite knew how to do.  She’s sharing her SECRET SAUCE… mmhmmm.  Are we lucky or what?

In this Tutorial, Elaineabella used TINY TOWNIE SALLY and her SNAIL

So without further ADOOOO

Let’s see what she has planned for us today!

“With so many fun character images in the Stamping Bella range, I thought a post about skin tones would be a good start to the Marker Geek Monday post series! You can apply the skin tone combinations below to any of your character stamps.

I tend to lay down colour as follows: Light – Dark/shadow colour – Medium – Light. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, and sometimes it isn’t the best approach for a particular combination (with some darker blends it can help to work from Dark to Light). The best way to find out what works for you and any particular combination of markers is simply to practice and experiment!

Skin Combos:

Colouring Tips:?

• Use a light hand and lay colour down gradually.  It is easier to add more colour than it is to take colour away, and you don’t want to over saturate the paper.
• Colour in light feathered strokes/flicks rather than in a circular motion.  This will help you to avoid over saturating the paper and will make blending easier.  Practice your strokes on a piece of scrap paper and try to find a grip you are most comfortable with for holding the marker while doing this.
• Choose a smooth uncoated paper.
• Don’t give up too quickly! An image will go through stages of looking messy or a little weird.  Persevere and keep colouring, the image will start to take shape and come together.  Most mistakes can be fixed – this will be easiest if you use a light hand as mentioned above. In particular, don’t judge your skin tones until you have coloured the hair – your skin colouring may look too dark at first, but add dark hair colouring and it will look very different.
• When assessing your colouring and evaluating areas that need more work, hold your colouring at arms length.  Don’t judge your image from very close up.

• In small detail areas don’t be tempted to over-blend. Less layering will give a better result. e.g. when colouring the skinny arms and legs of Uptown Girls.
• Varying the amount of layers or the order in which you use the colours will give different looks.

I hope this post inspires you to try out some new skin combos with your Stamping Bella images. We would love to hear from you, so join in and show off your own Stamping Bella colouring using these colours or your own favourite combos in the comments below. If you would like to share your own favourite skin combinations with Copics or other markers, go right ahead!

Join me next week for a look at some of my favourite Copic marker combinations for hair.”

MWAH!

Elaineabella

hiya sistahs

Hope you had a great week 🙂

I am STILL in Montreal with my Dad..He’s supposed to be moving to a rehabilitation center today.. and that means I can settle him in there and see my squooshy littles and hubby again for a bit.. only to return again LOL.

Anyway ENUFF about MOI.  Let’s discuss Bellarific Friday today!   This week’s challenge is to use FLOWERS on your projects.. whether it be within the stamp or a flower embellishment.. we allow creative licence 🙂

Our MARCH stamp of the month is FLOWER GARDEN which is 20% off all month long!

Now because it is the FIRST Friday of the month, our Baberoonis use our STAMP OF THE MONTH to inspire you!

Speaking of BABEROONIS…. I have an announcement.  We have a new Babe  to add to our “ROONI”.. LOL.. Introducing FAYEabella aka Faye Wynn  Jones.  If you don’t know who she is , you NEED TO LOL.. she is INFECTIOUS.. CONTAGIOUS.. UBER TALENTED.. AMAZING and hysterically funny LOL.. She fits RIGHT into our amazing Baberooni Team.  Sigh.  Have  I mentioned that I Love our team?  LOVE.

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

Here’s AliceWERTZabella’s card

Danabella’s card

FAYE-abella’s card

Sandiebella’s card

Shelabella’s card

stephabella’s card

and TracyMACabella’s card

The great thing about this image is how versatile it is.. it can be used for ANY occasion..  It can be coloured elegantly or with a bit of whimsy.  SO MUCH FUN!

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

First take a look at our INLINKZ section of contributions at the bottom of THIS POST.  GORGEOUS!

Now for our emailed contributions!

Now for NEXT WEEKS CHALLENGE?  A MOJOBELLA SKETCH!  We love those don’t we?

Can’t wait to see your creations!

MWAH!

Hiya sistahs,

Just a public service announcement from MOI LOL.  We just got in a limited amount of a necessary tool for your toolbox.  Sigh.  I love the image of a toolbox.. with all our goodies in it.. our treasures.. things we turn to every day when we are crafting.  Our arsenal.  I have so many things I need by me when I stamp and journal and now that we are producing dies, I thought  I would add this into our toolbox (there’s that yummy word again)

We are offering our “CUT IT OUT” snips which you can find HERE 

nothing fancy but SO useful 🙂

These “SNIPPERS” are perfect for those of you who buy our “CUT IT OUT” dies or for any other die collections you may purchase where all the pieces come attached to eachother.  Instead of bending, scratching and possibly damaging the dies, you simply use these snips to clip them off and get rid of any rough edges!  BRILLIANT n’est ce pas?  I think so.

So if you are a “cut it out” type of sistah.. you need these “cut it out”  typa snippers 🙂

Just sayin’

Would love to know what you NEED to have in your Toolbox 🙂  Leave a comment below!

MWAH!

see you tomorrow for Bellarific Friday

Em