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Bella Nella Altered Art & Paper Crafts Blog

More Wins!
More of OWOH giveaway winnings came in the last few days!  Barbara of  Vintage Bunty sent me her exceptional ATCs and beautiful ephemera and ATC supplies:

 
  
Isn't her work exquisite!!!  I love all her 3D elements and lace.

 

And this prize from yet another extremely talented artist, Heather from BluhmStudios:

  She created this beautiful fabric cuff just for me.  The colors, the trims, the fabric all my favorites!!!!!! Truly, exquisitely unique.  And do you see that sweet card.  Her's also.
How beautiful is this!

Thank you both, Ladies.  What an honor to receive your beautiful creations!  What a bright moment, in some dark days for me, it was to receive your art.  You're so kind and generous! 



Giveaway, Crackle and Bracelets
(I apologize if you've gotten 2 almost identical posts.  Something has taken over either my blogger or my computer and its just not acting right.  I hadn't finished my original and I couldn't revise it so I had to start over and its still acting weird, so I'm sorry if it turns out to be gobly gook!)
 
Tristan at Enchanted Rivalry is having a giveaway in honor of his 500th follower (wow!).  His art pieces are exceptional, and his posts are beautiful, funny, inspirational, creative and extremely enteraining, so you'll want to follow him too.  Go there now and enter his giveaway too.  His offering is truly beautiful.
Here's my prize from Theresa at Faire Moon Creations. Aren't they fabulous!! Her packaging is so sweet, she's included a piece of candy too. She's not only fabulously talented, but extremely generous as she had 3 gifts and they were all doubles. In the spirit of the OWOH event, she made it possible to give one of her creations to a friend as well as the winner. You got to check her blog for more beautiful pieces. Thanks again, Theresa!!
 

Here is a sample of glue crackle I just tried after viewing the video below from an artist I follow, Monique of Artist Nouveau.  Very easy and quick and I got bigger cracks than when using other mediums.



 


I'm a Winner and Easy Peasy Coloring
image credit: lisaswifka
Thanks to Lisa for permission to use her beautiful art piece image above
 
As I said in an earlier post, I visited a ton of blogs via the Whimsical Bohemian's One Heart One World event and I entered many of the giveaways.  I was extremely lucky in winning beautiful prizes from 3 separate blogs:
   I will post photos of the treasures when I get them, in the meantime, visit these wonderful blogs.  Even though the giveaways are now done, you can still visit the blogs.  I've become a follower to many of the blogs in the OWOH event, and if you also are looking to visit the world, expand your horizons, learn and get inspiration, visit OWOH for an amazing trip around the blog world.  I love to see the creations from artist bloggers outside the US, so Lisa's Whimsical Bohemian's OWOH Blog is a great way to find international artists.  She even has them organized now in alpha order and lists the country they are from.
  And along the international line................................................

Just found an awesome video with a terrific way to color your stamped images very easily.  I'm all for no fuss creating, so this impressed me.  The author, Blanche, who is owner of a craft company that recently appeared with Tim Holtz on QVC Germany, is from Germany so for those of us that don't understand German, can't understand what she "tells", but can sure understand what she "shows".  So, enjoy! 



Giveaway Galore!
I have to admit I've been commenting my heart out on a bunch of blogs at the 3rd annual  One World One Heart Event.  Go there and start visiting all the amazing and inspiring blogs to enter the giveaways.  And you better hurry, because there's only 1 week left and over 1000 blogs by now.  Boy, I thought I was following a lot of blogs before!!

Here's one that I just found out about through another blog.  Go here to enter this giveaway of exquisite vintage jewelry.

Good luck everyone!  I'm hoping to win something to help me forget all about the snow we've been getting.





Collage and Clipboards
I haven't been much in the mood or had the energy to create, so finally I forced myself and thought, I at least need to work on a small scale and just paste stuff like mad and try different things and practice, practice, practice.  I think this will increase my confidence in arting overall.  Anyhow, here are some collages I'm doing on rolodex cards.  

This one has a flower I made out of a sewing pattern, colored in with stamp ink and glittered.  
I sprayed a mix of stamp ink and water onto this one and glued a game piece.
 
  

 This mini clipboard I altered with a collage of music pages, old photos, tissue paper, a touch of white gesso and embellished with lace and paper flowers at top.  This is available for purchase, $15.  If you're interested, let me know.  Will soon post on Etsy.
 
This is the back
 
Hope you enjoy the bit of art.





And the winner is................


Thanks to everyone that stopped by and entered with lovely comments.  A great big welcome to all my new (wow!) followers.


And the giveaway stash goes to:
Linda Martinelli said...
Hi Nelly I'm part of your Alterd-stART Yaboo Group. Great Blog. The photography is beautiful. I'll be visting again. Check out my blog www.lindamartinelli.typepad.com
I need to post more - lol  
Have a great week, everyone!


Giveaways, giveaways!
Soon, I'll draw a name for my giveaway (tomorrow).  There are a couple of people who entered it, but I don't have a blog and didn't give me their email, so, if you are one of them, please email me or leave another comment right away and let me know how to contact you if you win. 



Want to enter to win even more goodies and totally different things for artists and crafters?  Go here now for this terrific giveaway at another one of my favorite blogs. Tristan of Enchanted Rivalry shares packed-full posts with inspiration, unique things and photos around the world, and of course his beautiful works of art.


Good luck and enjoy the rest of your weekend!


New Year's Giveaway
In celebration of the New Year, here's my giveaway.  I've been fortunate to have collected a large amount of stuff, especially lace so there'll be lots of that in the giveaway.  Printed pages from vintage books, and silk flowers yet to be added.  The photos shows some more of the stash.

Leave a comment for an entry, an additional entry given to those that comment and are following this blog.  Added: You have until January 16.

This is a piece I created with a frame back which has a black velvety backing.



Thanks for stopping by.  I can't believe I'm up to 32 followers; you're sure good for my ego.  Good luck everyone.

Nelly



Feliz Ano Nuevo and a 2010 Giveaway!
Happy New Year, Felice Nuovo Anno, Feliz Ano Nuevo!!!  May you enjoy much happiness, health and prosperity in 2010. 

I'm starting this new year with a giveaway!  There'll be plenty of goodies, among them one of my paper creations, lace, ribbon, buttons and many other mixed media goodness.  

So, stay tuned.  I'll post all the details and photos about the giveaway soon.


Thanks again for stopping by,
Nelly


Giveaways all the way around
Here are some images for you to use on your personal projects.  Enjoy!


Source: Greenpaper typepad blog

  
 
 Here is our Christmas tree in our family room and the other one in our porch with real snow all over it.
We're getting quite a storm in PA today



This is an homage to my late father in law and parents.  They're always missed especially at the holiday times.

And for more possible freebies

Sassafrass Stuff is celebrating 100 posts with an awesome set of goodies for a giveaway.  Go and enter now.

'till next time,
Nelly


Awesome Giveaway
I am a follower of several blogs which I thoroughly enjoy.   One of the first ones I started to follow, Dawn's - The Feathered Nest, is absolutely one of my favorite ones.  She's always inspiring, sharing her knowledge and full of information and encouragement.   She's now having a giveaway with some of her lovely creations.  You must check it out and enter and I'm sure you'll want to follow her too, if you don't already.

http://the-feathered-nest.blogspot.com/2009/12/blog-post.html
   
Here are some free images for you below.  I'm sorry that I didn't keep the source handy. Thanks for all those generous souls out there that share so many amazing images!!


 
Nelly


Etsy Shop -- Special to all my Art and Craft Friends
Any order from a craft or art friend will get a free bagfull of awesome collage, mixed media goodies from my craft room.  Please check it out! Many good gift ideas. Click here or on the right hand side for:  Etsy Items


Kindness Kounts
Needing some kindnesses lately?  I have, and have found this blog  quite a wonderful spoonful of sugar.  
 
 Thanks to Kind Over Matter 


More free images, these from another blog I follow, Clearly Vintage 


Click on the images for a larger size.

If you check my shared items (the boxed in pink text) on the upper right hand side of my blog, there are many other free images and terrific things from my many subscribed blogs.  Hope you all have a great weekend!

Nelly



Creating with Hair Color
Hair color crafting?  Hey, its my frugalista's idea.  I had quite a bit of hair color left in my bottle after coloring my hair and I just couldn't throw it away, could I?  NOOOOO!!! And the cool comb applicator made it really simple and gave it that neat look. Here's the result after I used it on paper flowers I cut out of book pages.




 Here I used the haircolor on crepe paper.  I was using that stuff on everything I could think of. Tried it on fabric as well and stamped with it. LOL!!

There's a calendar swap I'm participating in in the Altered Art Yahoo group and I'm working on 13 August pages.  Here are some of them. 

 
 
 
 
I'm really elated by the fact that in the recent weeks, I've gotten a few more followers. How exciting!  Thanks to all my followers and guests.  I hope you're enjoying this blog as much as I enjoy some many of yours.


Have a great rest of the week and hope you are creating some beautiful things to share with the world.




Nelly


Make a 36 Cent Penny Necklace
Make a 36 Cent Penny Necklace


From ArtMind: How to prepare for a craft fair?
I hope you enjoy this post. I found it very helpful as I'm trying to learn as much as I can about selling at craft fairs. If you have other good tips, please leave me a comment. I would really appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of the week!
Nelly

ArtMind: How to prepare for a craft fair?

Shared via AddThis


Freebies and Inspiration
Hi everyone -- Unfortunately I'm still without my computer and this one is not loaded with what I need to post photos and even for Blogger to give me all the features I usually have, it seems. I'm so tired of computer problems!!!

Anyhow enjoy some of the terrific goodies from my favorite company, Stampington.

Free vintage images here from Stampington: http://www.stampington.com/artisan_avenue/september/download.html

Wonderful project tutorial from Stampington's new publication GreenCraft Magazine:
http://www.stampington.com/artisan_avenue/september/flyaway_project.html
_________________________________________________________________________
I hope to upload some photos soon of a new Halloween banner I made to decorate my work cubicle and of some paper goodies I got from Freecycle. I'm also proposing a fun project at work that makes use of that all favorite "guess who this baby is" game. I'll be using coworkers' baby pictures to integrate into a Halloween mask that I'll embellish and people can wear throughout the day. Coworkers will wear someone else's photo. guess. Anyhow, don't know yet if they'll go for it but I'm hoping they decide soon, since there'll be a bit of work for me to assemble these.

I think it'll be a fun idea and would give us some sort of Halloween celebration since most people don't really want to wear customes but do enjoy the holiday.

Have any of you ever made use of your "art" skills at your place of work in some way? I'd love to hear.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and are happily creating something.

Nelly


Altered Altoid - Marry Me
This is my first try at altering an Altoid Mints Tin. I really enjoyed it. I made it into a proposal tin. Wouldn't it be a great idea for someone to use to propose to their loved one.
One thing I didn't account for is that when painted, the lid is hard to close shut. So, I would recommend, no paint. The paint got covered anyway after I got started embellishing.

This is the front where I tied a piece of seam binding and a heart charm. Also, trim the top lid with pink rack rack.

The back has the painted surface and the flower cutout from wallpaper.

Inside cover I adhered pretty tissue, then a vintage inspired picture of a couple dancing. The other side has the pretty tissue as background. The vintage photo of the couple with flowers was spritz with a bit of water, then I scratched the words, "Marry Me".

Below you see the whole "booklet" with the marriage proposal. The awesome boutennaire was given to me by someone who had me as a swap partner. This was an extra wonderful suprise she sent me. Isn't it adorable?

Here's the front lid. After the paint, I covered with this adorable little girl, glitter and lace flowers.
Hope you're having a terrific week.

Till next time,
Nelly aka Bella Nella












Prima's Blog
I'm a follower of the Prima Marketing blog and I get beautiful eye candy each time. Many of their creations are truly beautiful and so inspiring. They're currently running a monthly challenge of sorts and a giveaway. I don't know about you, but I can't pass it up. To read about it and enter the giveaway, click the picture above or here.

Good luck,
Nelly


Anniversary Frame and a Dozen Darlings
I'm still without my beloved PC, so it hasn't been easy to download photos. I'm quickly doing this on my daughter's PC which is not the ideal, but here goes.

This is an anniversary frame I made for a friend who needed an anniversary gift for a friend. I used a yard sale frame which I brushed with some white gesso on the edges to tone down the gold. I then made a ribbon bow to which I attached some tiny pearl trim, a silk Peony and bling from an earring. A true repurpose, recycle, upcycle project.
I'm hoping its well received.


This is a quick layout from a book page. I used a flower cutout from wallpaper which I gessoed a bit. At the top, an amazing handmade paper I got from a swap. See how it was glued in a square pattern (I know there's a better word to describe it, but it escapes me right now) leaving open squares. I love its color too. I used a smaller piece that was coming apart after I cut it at the bottom of the flower too. The sweet picture of the 12 children is from a vintage photo I picked up at an antique store. Pieces of pink vellum cut with wavy scissors. I decorated the bottom of it with rick rack and lace and stamped throughout the background. Click on the picure for a larger image and to see details.

Dozen Darlings - By Nelly aka Bella Nella

For those in the USA, I hope you're enjoying the summer everyone, I'm already stressing about how soon it'll be gone.

I have many more photos of my altered book from the internet class I've been taking and a fat book I worked on for my daughter's high school years for her graduation. I'll post those soon too.

Nelly


Google Reader Treasures
Since I still can't download photos of my creations to show; I'm once again sharing the latest stuff I discovered on other terrific blogs via Google. I'm always sharing new posts I love constantly so its always fresh. Click below to see all that I've shared for you.

Till next time,
Nelly


Girls and Dresses
I'm still struggling with computer trouble so I can't post my latest creations. These are older projects I worked on. I'm almost finished my altered book from the online class and will post that as soon as I am able to.
This cute little dress is a paper form I got at Michael's. I covered in paper first, then adhered ric- rac, fabric, buttons, velvet ribbon and fabric rose. This sweet girl wall hanging, was adhered on a backing from an old frame that came apart. Very sturdy substrate and the back is covered in a velvety black fabric. The striped background is a piece of wallpaper, then a decoupage tissue square and book page circle. Of course, some lace and bows. It hangs on a piece of lace as well. Don't you love that old key! I got that at an antique shop this past winter as part of a set of 3. I'm thinking of offering this piece for sale.


Summer, YEA!!!!!
That's me at the beach. I was a little homesick for my craft room, but of course, I enjoyed this!
I so love summer and I'm really enjoying the warm weather, sunshine and this past week the beach. WOOHOO!
Anyhow, I'm catching things up including my online altered book class. Did you ever put a real zipper in a book? I just did for the first time and although it wasn't easy and certainly isn't my best work, I am amazed that it works and looks so cool.

This is an ATC type creation on wood. Used wallpaper flowers which I washed a gold paint over them
Here's the ocean and beach for you. Our first trip to Wildwood, NJ in many years. It was the perfect week! No rain, no cold days.
Bye for now,
Nelly


A giveaway for the 4th
Glimmer Mist is the same great product with a Fabulous NEW Look! Stop by Inkyheart's blog and play along for a chance to win. Tattered Angels will randomly pick 3 winners who will win a six pack of the brand new, never released WINTER 2009 colors. They are not on the market yet, and these winners will be the first to receive them!


Have a great Independence Day, everyone!


Nelly




Down with Free Images
I still can't get my computer to work right. I have several pages of 2 altered books that I have been working on, one of my daughter's for her high school graduation and the other from the online class that I want to share with you, but I'm still not able to download them because of this issue with the computer. I hope this makes up for it. Some free images for you to use. Have a great week!
Hope to be back to normal with my computer. This temporary solution just doesn't do it.

Nelly