Sites of the week

YAY…It’s FRIDAY!!! This is the Friday that I have been waiting for!! As you read this, I am probably 30,000 miles in the air on my way to sunny Southern California for CHA!! I will have my camera and laptop with me and will begin reporting to you from CHA on either Sunday or Monday. For today, I still have my ABC {Anything But A Card} project for you and tomorrow I will have another great {well, in my opinion} Sketch For You To Try.
About a week ago as I was fumbling through the oodles of embellishments that I have, I kept coming back to my Bella Baubles. I **knew** that I wanted to do something cute and clever with them. I came up with the idea for the BELLA BAUBLE BOO-BOO KIT. Cute, huh? So I began {without adhesive} putting them on a Johnson & Johnson travel first aid kit that I had picked up a long time ago for 99cents at Wal-Mart or Target. Truth be told, it was taking a lot of baubles to cover my Bella Bauble Boo Boo Kit. Being that I am hoarding my baubles, using almost half a package on one project was going to send me over the edge!! I remember Lauren {you, enabler you} showing that she picked up some cheapy baubles at Michael’s. These baubles are different. They are bigger and not quite as shiny, but weren’t going to send me into a straight jacket for using so many at once. {{Sidenote Question…Can anyone relate with me about hoarding stuff like this??}}. Alas, the {would be} Bella Bauble Boo Boo Kit was born. So, why doesn’t it say Boo Boo Kit on it? Answer: It didn’t fit with the means that I had. I have Cuttlebug alphas, Cricut alphas and stickers and none of them fit. I could have just stamped it, but I wanted a little more “UMPH.” I worked with what I had, and this is what I came up with. So what, there aren’t actually Bella Baubles on it, and it doesn’t say “Boo Boo Kit,” but it’s still the Bella Bauble Boo Boo Kit to me!!

I have also seen these altered to hold candy and mini cards…waaaay cuuuute!!! See y’all tomorrow for another SFYTT!!!

AND…if you didn’t see it already, check out my Online Bonus for PaperCrafts Magazine HERE.

I am leaving for CHA {yipppeeeee} on Friday morning and getting everything in my life together this week has been CRAZY! I don’t have a lot of bloggin’ time, so I am showing you A BUNCH samples from the Verve release. The stamps officially go on sale on the 10th, but they are available for pre-order NOW. In addition to that good news, Julee {Verve’s creative genius} is offering 15% off ALL stamps, including the new releases, AND free shipping on sales over $40.

The following 2 samples are from the new Serenity set.

This card shows a sentiment from the Happy Thoughts set.

I love mini cards!! This card measures 3×3 and features the Thoughtful Florals set.

Finally, these projects feature the Fancy Floral Remixed set. The Wild Wasabi and Sage Shadow card is for one of my half brothers who just lost his mother last week. Did I mention that I love mini cards?!?! This is a template that Nichole gave on her blog. I have used it already and filled it with yummies, but thought that it would be fun to make a matching card set to go with it. There are 4 cards that each have one of the four sentiments that are in the set. I also stamped the mini envies with one of the flowers.

You can see more samples on the Verve blog all this week.

I won’t be teasin’ for long, because tonight is the release of 3 sets from My Favorite Things. I hope that you will join us for the Release Party HERE between 9-11 {EST}. I usually span my sneak peeks over several days, but with this being a just plain crazy week, you get a lot of them today. I will show a few more things during the party, too. My absolute FAVORITE set from this release is Egg-stra Special Easter. As you can see, I am drawn to two of the stamps…the tulip trio and the “Hey Chick” sentiment. The other sets that are being released are Serenity Now {see yesterday’s post for sample} and Twisted Sentiments, which is shown in the last picture.

I am sad to say that I actually have to send this card. A former co-worker’s mother recently passed away suddenly. It totally broke my heart to get the news.

I’m gonna send this one, too, but more for fun {thank goodness!}. This paper from SU! is so yummy and it is the perfect compliment to this set! The sentiment is dangling on a tag that I made by rounding the corners on a strip of paper.

Here’s a tag using the dancing chick with the same sentiment. I think this will be fun to add to an Easter basket or treat of some sort.

This is a close up of what I did to the flower centers. I put some Liquid Pearls in the center of the flower and then lightly pushed a Swarovski crystal in the center.

Last, but not least, what chocolate is to most women…

Hope that made you laugh! This is a miniature version of the “pixie pouch.” Directions to make one can be found HERE. I want to thank my friend, Susan, for the punched window idea. Thanks, girl!!!

This week is proving to be quite busy…and it’s only Tuesday!! Yikes! I have been a very busy lil’ bee working on the new MFT and Verve stuff. YAY…new stamps!! I don’t have a lot of time to chit chat here, but I definitely want to show you some of the goods and give you some info that you surely want to know.

My Favorite Things is having a New Release Cocktail Party on Wednesday, February 6 from 9-11 pm{Eastern time}. Lots of fun is planned including finding out how YOU can be the next MFT Guest Designer. Head over to the MFT forum to find out all the details and join us there on Wednesday night.

Today I want to show you an MFTeaser of one of the sets that is being released, Serenity Now.

On Feb. 10 Verve Visual is also having a new release. This card features paper from Crate Paper, a sentiment from the Happy Thoughts set, and flowers from the Fancy Florals Remixed set. These sets are available for pre-order NOW. If you are interested in being the Verve Visual Honored Guest {Guest Designer}, please be sure to check out all the details HERE.

Admit it - you’re watching tonight’s game just for the commercials.

I’m not afraid to say that’s the reason I’ll be watching – and it has nothing to do with the fact that I have a homework assignment related (thank you Integrated Marketing Communications!)

In all honesty, as much as I love football I just can’t bring myself to watch the entire “big game” anymore. In fact, I don’t know that I ever watched it for the love of football. It was just what we did. All the boys in my family got together, maybe barbecued or ordered some pizza. Drank a few beers (as I got older) and complained about what a terrible game it was. By half time someone was already channel surfing or restlessly juggling the football in their hands – just waiting for someone to suggest we go out and toss it around.

Now that we’re older, someone throws a party for the game, and we usually end up going. Again, not so much for the game but to hang out with friends and BS. (why it takes a football game for us to do this is beyond me.)

So why exactly does the Super Bowl have this spellbinding effect on the American populace? The majority of the world plays an entirely different game called football, and they could give a crap about ours. But we’re shoving it down their throats with two weeks of pomp and circumstance that will culminate in New England pomping the Giants in their circumstance.

Throughout the course of this week, the Super Bowl has been mentioned roughly 32,872,081,927 times. From billboards to Coke cans, Letterman to Oprah, national broadcasts to local rabbit ears.

But what exactly has this game given us lately? Lopsided scores, geriatric half time acts (thanks Janet!) interminable pre-game shows and a “live” feed that’s actually several seconds delayed (thanks AGAIN Janet!)

Ahhh, but those commercials. Pure entertainment brought to you for the tidy price of $90,000 a second. (which is slightly better than PAYING $10.75 to see a movie and have to watch commercials - don’t get me started) Thus, we shall wait with bated breath to see what shenanigans the Bud Light crew have dreamed up. I know I have the DVR set to pick up whatever shear genius the folks at GoDaddy bust onto my screen (pun intended.)

But let’s stop with the charade. Call a spade a spade, and admit that the real show tonight happens between whistles, when advertising’s best takes the stage.

Td

Ps.

Speaking of pop-star train wrecks (weren’t you?) here is the single greatest rendition of our nation’s anthem, courtesy of Super Bowl XXV