WELCOME TO BLOGABELLA

just wanted to let you know that JAVABELLAS is UP!  They are PHENOM!!  You will love them (me thinks-*wink*)

more to come.. I will try to put on  a couple more tonite.. if not, it will definitely be in the next coupla days

addictabella extraordinaire

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 no more “fab 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1”.. we have MOVED ON.. We are now considered (and please spread the word), the addictabella sistahood…n’k?  I AM LOVING that term and actually one of my readers, Angela, will be signing her blog that way.. and so will I.. this way I really don’t have to tell you how many people read my blog (*giggles*).

Before I tell you what the above picture is about, I first want to thank ALL OF YOU for the support on SCS, on your proper blogs, on your sweet words about me etc.  I have had great success over the last few days and my family has not really seen me as I have been hiding under rubbAH and papAH.. but I am loving every minute of it.. so DON”T STOP!! I am gonna say it again.. thank you thank you thank you thank you… Thank you for devoting blog entries to me, thank you for saying nice words, but most of all, thank you for loving the bellas…!

Ok, now that that is said (phew!), here goes..

My DH decided that we should change our floors on our main floor.. not much of a job, just get someone to SLEDGEHAMMER and CRACK white tiles and simply place a new set of beautiful chocolate brown tiles..  Doesn’t that sound easy with 2 kids in the house?  I think so (NOT).  Anyway, my friend Shari is a decorator and I decided to use her services (for free of course.. I woulda given her RUBBAH, but that is the furthest thing down her list.. CAN YOU BELIEVEEEEEE?? There is nothing I would want more!).. Ok, so we go to the tile place.. this huge empire where I musta walked 5 miles.  My DH kept on giving his opinion (since when did HE have one in the decorating process?).. We ended up deciding on a beautiful color.. ok.. boring for you no?  This is the clincher and what makes my non-stamping friends think that I am absolutely nuts..

We get to the customer service desk as Shari asks for samples so we can lay it out on our floor and see if the colours are good (I have no patience for this.. brought it home… left it in the bag and Shari called me to see how it looked and I said “PHENOMENAL”.. shhhh don’t tell her that I didn’t have the patience to let it leave the bag..).. she says to me “place it on your floor in the hallway, make sure it matches the carpet and the wall.. see if you are ‘comfortable’ with it”.. then she says “place it on the kitchen wall with the new backsplash tile and see if you like it and can live with it”… does she realize that all I wanna do is STAMP and COLOR????? people just don’t understand.. SHEESH..

Ok, so you are probably saying “get to the point, woman”.. I am getting there right now.

We get to the customer service desk and I spot something.  Something colorful.  Something in a case.. you tell me colourful and in a case and I absolutely NEED IT.  I say to shari.. “I want that (pointing to this case of colourful sticks)”.. she says “what do you need it for?” ” I say I JUST WANT IT AND NEED IT so please get it for me”.  She says “do you know what it is for?”.. I say “STOP ASKING QUESTIONS, just get it for me pronto”.. so she gets it for me (IT WAS FREEE!).. I had it in my lovely hands.. had no idea what to do with it and she tells me that they are grout colours.  Can you believe I got excited over GROUT COLOURS??? What is wrong with me??? WHAT???????  She thinks I am nuts, my D D D D H thinks I have lost my marbles.. but you know what?  I have a little box, with sticks of colours and I am happy.

 Have a marvelous, phenomenal, spectacular Tuesday and I love you all

Chief Sista Addictabella

Em

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hello ‘all ‘ (I got a little embarassed of counting the people who read my ‘shtick’ (a jewish term meaning idiosyncrasies (I confirmed the spelling at www.dictionary.com   lol) or individual mannerisms of a specific person))

Before I started this adventure I was an avid ‘collector’ (fancy term for spendthrift, shopaholic or pure addict) of rubber stamps, tools, organizational  apparatuses (or is it “apparati” (I confirmed the spelling  ‘apparatuses’ again via www.dictionary.com– weird spelling, no?).  Oh I forgot about the paper and the ‘bellies’ (new fave word as per previous blog post).  Ok, so with all of the stamps I have purchased, I cannot even begin to explain how much money was spent and yet I still felt there was a missing ‘link’ in the stamping world today.. backgrounds, frames, oh ya and DA BELLAS.. ladies with personality.. ladies with pizazz… ladies with a CAREER.. ya all get where I am going?  So that’s how they were born. 

Now the next step was.. how should I have them manufactured? In what material?  Like I said I was a DIE HARD wood mounted fan and I had just put away about 3-4 rubbermaid boxes of them-and boy were they *HEAVY* (as if I lifted them..LOL).. you get what I mean ;).  The thought of mounting each stamp gave me heartache though.  I had no time!  I had to get the Bellas OUT THERE! I had plenty of unmounteds that were never used and thrown in a drawer (under the paper, the organizational tools, the ‘bellies’, the wood to mount them, the velcro, the ribbon.. *giggles*).  So what did I do?  I bought ‘meself’ a polymer making machine.. OMG.. I could go on and on..LOL.. my darling husband redid my ‘office’-the laundry room.. put halogen lights in, racking, pans, tape, etc.. set me up.  And there I was.. STOOPED over a table, pouring polymer, baking, taping, rinsing …you could imagine the rest.. Sure enough there was a prob with the machine and I was able to return it.  So there I was… with a huge PIT in my tummy…. lots of great designs, a backache from the stooping, blind from the halogen lights and STICKY from the polymer.  A beau-tiful sight.  I was scared.  The new trend WAS polymer , I didn’t wanna mount my stamps due to the work involved and the obvious storage issue.  I wasn’t particularly impressed with the crispness of the image of the polymer and I did love the rubber… Don’t get me wrong.. I **ADORE** polymer for alphabets.. you can’t compete with that.. they are amazing and there are great quality polymer stamps out there too..

Sooo, the thinking cap went back on.. I wanted the best of all worlds.. I wanted rubber.  I wanted the ability to place it on an acrylic block and see through it for placement and i did not want to permanently mount them to wood… Ok, I was getting somewhere here.  I did not like the fact that the unmounteds I bought I had to cut myself (little did I know that my FUTURE would be cutting rubber..LOL), so another feature I wanted was to have rubber closely trimmed, highly etched, great quality with no need for cushioning (do not like cutting ‘icky’ stuff).. that way I am GUARANTEED that people will use my stamps and NOT throw them in the same drawer I have with the bellies and the paper and the and the and the… (you get the pic).

So that was how I made the decision of unmounted, closely trimmed, highly etched RUBBAH. 

Ok, so we know about the storage.. I store mine in sports card pockets in a binder.. I have about 200-300 in a binder.. my sentiments are in slide pockets.. they are perf!

easy to clean.. no worries about using solvent inks (cannot use solvent inks with polymer/acrylic)

no need to cut as they are already done for you

now  my FAVORITE plus is that you can use the ‘puzzle method’ with unmounteds.. see the pic above (please forgive the *well loved* stamps above).  I would take any image, border, sentiment etc that I want and just place it on the cardstock!  If I feel that it doesn’t work or needs something else, I remove one stamp and add another until I like what I see! Isn’t that amazing!  I do that all the time!  And especially since the stamps are closely trimmed, there is no guesstimating… what you see is what you get!  LOOOOVE IT.  So now you see how I work.. you should try it too! it really saves a lot of grief.

 OMG.. can I talk more?  Will I have anything else to write tomorrow????

 Of COURSE I will!! 

toodles to my ‘all’

Em

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My dearest ONE (you know who YOU are).. I am afraid I have lost my captive audience.. I have been away *way* too long and I miss you!  I hope to restore my confidence and bring my audience back to the high volume it was at before (9.5).  I am so sorry I stranded you (Natanya) but I am back with a vengeance.. I am hoping to bring this blog to new and higher places!  So this is the scoop.  I have been away for a while.. we decided to spend some time with our families in Montreal.. oh boy..it was non stop.. first 6 hours in the car and plenty of BARNEY and DORA (I now can recite every song backwards and forwards and upside down), snacks being flung to entertain, singing (you get the idea).  Once we got there it was a tug of war between two families of who gets who for how long and what percentage of time spent.. we had to work on our calculus skills (*giggles*) to figure this out.. there was lots of inspiration there, no sleep and lots of shopping!  I got to ‘escape’ several times with Tema  (my Montreal crafty friend) and she took me to scrapbooking shops where I loaded up on funky ribbon (nothing i love more) and of course the new AMM storage tins (I needed at least 14 of them–ARGH) cuz they were cute and they hold things and they are neat (unlike my office-hmph).. I bought some paper and some ‘bellies’ (LOOOOVE that term I read on SCS for embelishments.. whoever coined this term should win an award –*LOVE* it)

I will go into more detail during the week regarding the embelishments and other goodies but enough about me.. let’s talk about this card.. I JUST LOVE IT!

 I am busy working on designs for some mags and I feel like I am accomplishing SO much and then at the end of this production I take a look and what do I see??? satin, bows, ribbons, knots, green, pink on EVERY CARD… LOL.. I just get fixated and can’t stop?  DO any of you ever feel like that?   I just love green and pink.. I just love ribbons, knots and bows… should I really get out of it or should I just continue.. since it makes me happy.. I think I will continue (*wink*).. but it is annoying, I must say.. SOOOO nicky and I created a challenge where we have to use other colours and boy is it working.. I am reinspired but I have to tell you that somewhere just somewhere teeny tiny.. you will always see a hint of me.. no matter what colour chosen.. so rest assured there will always be a bow, or a hint of lime, or a little baby pink!

Ok, so I LOVE this card–back to the card– (I always seem to get distracted, don’t i?)  I made a pink back to rest the white cardstock on (I love this look–NIcky taught it to me-of course). made the white card 1/4 ” smaller than usual and glued onto the pink back.. I stamped my stitches on the Bazzill parakeet (one of my fave colours) lengthwise and crosswise to create a type of plaid.  I stamped small flowahbella and colored her in with my Copic markers (LLLLLOOOOOOOVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEE them-you get the picture?)  they color in without streaks and have a pallette of colours not to be believed.. oh ya, and they are so easy to color with.  then I GLITTAH’ed the edges around the flowahbella card (I always glittah the sides and edges–it adds such SPARKLE and is very discreet).. then I took my pink and green stitched ribbon and made ‘v’s and layered under the image, then I added my sentiment “thanks a bunch” and voila!.. YOU LIKEY??

 I hope you like the card and I hope you have a phenom day

love to the 1

Em

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Hello fab 10

 I just wanted to let you know that I will be away for the next few days.. going home to be with family in Montreal!  Wish me luck on a 6 hour trip with 2 little ones!  We will be well prepared though.. games, snacks, blankies, milk, books, coloring books.. oh did I mention snacks?

I also wanted to let you know that a lot of my Valentines images are up!  I hope you enjoy them!  Also wanted to let you know that a few new bellas are up too!  There is causabella, sellabella, and loveybella.

 and there will be a new surprise one put on tonight.. hope you find and *love* her cuz I DO!

 Hope you have a great few days and I promise I will write back as SOON as I return!

Toodles

Em

Joann!  Ryan (my hubby) took the plunge and decided to be the judge.. he wanted to see how women think and what kind of nonsense (as he says it) they can come up with and he liked them all but chose Joann’s.. I think the part of her little girl sitting on her lap ‘got him’.. so Joann… send me an email and let me know which bella you would like!  On the house!

Congrats and I will host yet another contest very soon!

Merry holidays everyone

Emily