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.

Don’tcha wish it was spring already!?!? Yesterday we had cool wind gust up to 60+ mph. Not exactly what I would call a nice spring day, but it’s January, so I guess I can’t be too surprised. I made this card following the MFT sketch for this week. Each week Cindy Haffner posts a new great sketch. I can say that I am a little behind on doing all of these, but am glad that I got to do this one. I found this sketch to be a little challenging, but that’s a good thing sometimes. I got a chance to break out of my normal cardmaking routine and try something a little different. I *think* I like how it came out.
The flowers are from Prima and the clear baubles are from Bella {don’t forget about the PJ party tonight}. The cute lil’ image and sentiment are from last year’s Hoppy Easter set from MFT. I’m still waiting {ever so patiently for the mailman to deliver this year’s set}. If you like this one, you will LOVE what’s in store for you next week with MFT.

Dimensions: Standard
Stamps: MFT
Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black; Copic Markers
Paper: Pretty In Pink, So Saffron, Bashful Blue, Whisper White
Other: May Arts Ribbon, Cuttlebug, Bellas Baubles, Primas, Making Memories Brads, Ticket Corner Punch

The other day I got my Verve Visual Design Team package in the mail and it is fantabulous!! I can’t show you all the good stuff yet, but Julee has just released FOUR brand spankin’ new sentiment sets that ROCK!! This is one of the sentiments from the Uplifting Phrases set.
I made this card for a fabulous friend that has a birthday coming up. She loves Bellas and Verve, so I thought they would be a perfect combo. I just think that Parisbella pairs perfectly with “you’re fabulous.” I colored her in with Copics and highlighted areas with my clear Spica pen. The background on the top green layer is from Cornish Heritage Farms. They just came out with a slew of cool new background stamps. This one is called Geometric Flowers II. The bottom panel is Cuttlebugged. For my finishing touches, I added May Arts ribbon, some bling bling to her hair bows and the the dog’s bow, and some paper ric-rac from Doodlebug Designs Paper Frills.

I’ll be back tomorrow with my card that combines this month’s Dirty Dozen (past and present) challenge with Celebrate MFT.

I came across this little Wordsworth sentiment awhile back at Recollections and thought it was just so cute. Nothing fancy about it, just a cute little stamp for sending a card to a friend. I pull it out from time to time, but haven’t used it as much as I thought I might would. Truth is, a lot of my stamps fall into that category. I love all of them, but just don’t get a chance to use them as much as I thought I would originally. I don’t like them any less, but think that I might have too much to choose from {gotta say, not a bad problem} and some just sit there a bit underloved.
Well, this one got a little lovin’ on Saturday. Shannan and Susan came over and we sipped wine and stamped until about midnight. We had a blast! I got a couple of cards done and worked a tiny bit on Ellie’s teacher’s gifts. I paired this “hi there” sentiment up with this cuuutie patoootie Bella. I love the simplicity of this layout. It was easy to make more dynamic with layers, stitching and the sentiment panel. The Bella is colored in with Copic markers. Her skates and jacket a highlighted with a clear Spica Pen {gotta say again, THIS PEN ROCKS!!}

I created “fur” on her jacket and the ball on her hat by using liquid applique. Here is a detail shot in which you can see the applique, coloring and highlighting a bit better.

We are off to see Santa today. I have a good feeling that it is not going to be an all smiles shot. I’ll share tomorrow…given that it’s not too bad

I have been working on a lot of Julee’s {aka Verve Visual Creative Genius} Mojo Monday sketches and I am taking this opportunity to post them all at once. Rarely do I ever get the sketch done on Monday…or Tuesday or Wednesday for that matter, so I have a little time to think about what I want to do with the sketch. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes getting right down to business is better. I actually did the this week’s Mojo Monday sketch the day that she posted it…thank goodness for a long naptime!! Coincidentally, I like this card the best. I think flying by the seat of my pants works best for me {as you might be able to tell from yesterday’s post, as well}. Anywhooooo, I will quit my rambling and get to the pictures. Hope everyone is having a good week so far!!

Mojo Monday #13

Mojo Monday #14 {flipped}

Mojo Monday #15 {this week’s and the card I like the best of these 3}