These thoughts tend to flutter and there’s no way to stop them...I’m just waiting for the sun to come up...

Happy Monday, y'all! We're another week closer to sending the kiddos back to school around here, can I get an "amen"? My house sure gets dirty quicker, I can say that for sure! I have had a blast with my boys this summer, but I think we're all looking forward to them having a little more structure.

So after everyone went to bed, I snuck in for some stamping time last night. It has been a while since I colored up one of my Huggabugg images from Stamping Bella, so I pulled out Flutterby to play with.
I decided to start with Taylor's latest Sketch Challenge because these little bugs are so perfect for circle panels. I stamped the image in Memento Black on Bella's Bestest Paper, then colored her with Copic markers. Then I cut and embossed her with my Circle Nestabilities, and added a black mat to make the image pop. The background layer of Soft Sky was embossed with the Spots & Dots embossing folder, and matted with black. Then I added a Real Red strip across the bottom, and punched the edge with my Dotted Scallop edger punch before tying some 5/8" grosgrain around the bottom.

I popped the main circle image up on dimensionals, then added the Fantabulous Day sentiment to the right side. For the circles on the left, I decided to use some Prima flowers accented with a button and a Diamond Ice Bauble. Then I added some more Diamond Baubles to the top right to balance out the card a little. Then the whole shebang was popped up on dimensionals onto my 5 1/4" card base. As a finishing touch, I painted Flutterby's wings with Candlelight Shimmerz to make them sparkle. Cause if you have wings, they must be sparkly, right?

Well, peeps, I gotta run, but thanks for coming by to visit me today! Don't forget to check out Emily's blog later today for this week's Bellariffic Friday Sketch, k? And have a fantabulous day!

Every little swallow, every chickadee...Every little bird in the tall oak tree...

Happy Tuesday, yall! It's time for another Jacksonbelle Tuesday Challenge, and this week is a fun one! Kisa did a fun tutorial for the Jbelle Blog, so we are all casing her! It was tough, but I finially decided on this card to case. Here's my version:

I pulled out my Birds Galore set from Inkadinkado (love that set!) and inked it up with various Versamagic Dew Drops. After stamping it onto Neenah Classic Crest Solar White cardstock, I cut it out with my nestabilities and added a Rose Red mat. Using my mat pack and paper piercer, I pierced a border around the white panel, then adhered it to my 5 1/4" card base. The finishing touch was 2 prima flowers. I painted the white one with Pixie Dust Shimmerz Blingz, and accented the pink one with Hottie Pink Shimmerz Blingz.

{Sidenote...Shimmerz are on sale in the Jacksonbelle store!! There are 4 new Shimmerz colors and 2 new Blingz, and they're all 15% off until Friday at midnight! You can see them all HERE.}

Anywho, after the flowers dried, I added a clear dew drop to the center and adhered it to the card. Super easy!

Well, I gotta get back to working on some projects, so I'll have to say bye for now. Don't forget to check out what the rest of the team did for this challenge.

• AJ Otto
• Beth Thomas
• Heather Lee-Reppen
• Jennifer Buck
• Jill Dunn
• Kimberly O’Rosky
• Kisa Peters
• Maren Benedict
• Melissa Bove
• Michelle Woerner
• Shannan Teubner
• *Lindsey Botkin*
• Lynda Benden
• Taylor Usry

Have a wonderful day!

I wandered around, and finally found the somebody who...Could make me be true...

Hey yall! It's time for another Jacksonbelle Tuesday challenge...this week is a sketch and a PRIZE! If you play along with us, you might win some goodies! Check out THIS POST for all the deets.

So, since I have been so good and following sketches and all...you had to know it was time for me to "creatively interpret" (aka totally rework) the sketch. *grin* I wanted to use this stamp from the Beautiful Fairies set from Inkadinkado, so I had to (ahem) adjust a few things. You can still see the basic sketch though, right?

I used my new Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday paper (both sides shown here), and did lots of stitching to my card base. After I stamped the fairy, I colored her with Copics and cut her out with my Rectangle Nestabilities. Then I cut some scalloped rectangles and embossed them with my Floral Screen Cuttlebug folder. To finish it off, I added some lace, Primas, and Pixie Dust Shimmerz to the image and the center dots. The dots and sentiment are from Stamping Bella.


Beginning today and ending Friday the 13th at 3pm EST, Jacksonbelle Embellishments is having a contest! Play along with us by using today's sketch, link your card in the contest post on the Jbelle blog and you will have a chance to win an awesome prize package! The only rules are to use the sketch, link your card by 3pm on Friday the 13th and HAVE FUN!!! A random winner will be drawn Friday night and announced on the Jbelle Blog Saturday morning!

Need a little inspiration? Be sure to check out the Design Teams's creations! You will notice that we all used Inkadinkado stamps! You will find by visiting Lindsey's store, she has put ALL the Inka stamps on sale!!

• AJ Otto
• Heather Lee-Reppen
• Jennifer Buck
• Jill Dunn
• Kim O’Rosky
• Kisa Peters
• Lindsey Botkins
• Lynda Benden
• Maren Benedict
• Melissa Bove
• Michelle Woerner
• Taylor Usry

Have a fabulous Tuesday!

Gonna quit my job and move to New York...and tattoo my body with every Broadway show...

ETA: I changed my layout and blog appearance...whaddya think? I need opinions :)

Happy Friday, sistahs! It's time for another Bellariffic Friday Challenge...and what a fun one this was! For this week, Nicky gave us this photo from Crate & Barrel for inspiration:

Hmmm...I had to sit and ponder for a few days since these weren't "my colors"...but I found this amazing pale yellow and cream lace pattern in my new Basic Grey Porcelain 6x6 pad and thought, "Hey! This would be perfect for a baby card!" And away I went. Here's the card I created:
I used this week's Mojo Monday sketch for the layout, and stamped Bella Baby Bubble Bath in Brilliance Graphite Black ink on hot press watercolor paper and watercolored with reinkers and a waterbrush. The flowers on the rug were colored with a white gel pen, and I added some shimmerz to the bubbles for a little extra sparkle. The embellishments on the side are the large (7mm) glass pearls in Light Cocoa.

Once I had my card assembled, I took photos and began editing them. As I did that, I realized something was missing, and the card needed a little OOMPH. Hmmm....so back to the room I went. There wasn't really a place for a sentiment, but I thought some chipboard would look cool. So I cut the word "baby" out of chipboard using my Cuttlebug Red Tag Alpha. Once the word was done, I painted the letters in Antique White acrylic paint and sponged the edges with Close to Cocoa ink. Then I covered them with Ranger Crackle Accents and let that dry, and then sponged with ink again into the cracks to age it even more. The final step was a little circle tag from the Tiny Tags dies, and after I wrote the word "sweet" on it, I tied it to the B with cream crochet thread. By this point, I had been working on this card for almost an entire day, but I am super happy with how it turned out. Now to find someone to give it to! *grin*

Well, that's about all she wrote for me today. Don't forget to check out all the other cards for this challenge on Emily's blog post HERE. We're off to a local amusement place to celebrate Caleb's birthday, so be good and have a wonderful weekend!

If I were a boy...I think I could understand...

Hey yall, I'm baaaaack! I finally found my desk *grin* so I took a break to make a card for this week's Jacksonbelle Challenge. I knew I wanted to use this paper from the Fancy Pants About a Boy collection (love that stuff!), but I also wanted to use my new Chandelier set from Inkadinkado. And after some playing, I found a way to make it work (a la Tim Gunn...when is PR coming back on, Carole?)!

So I stamped one of the chandeliers in Versafine Onyx Black on a lighter part of the Chillin paper, then I sponged around the image in Close to Cocoa and Chocolate Chip ink and distressed the edges. Then I created a base layer with the Expression paper (love this one!!!) and sponged the edges of it also. The strip across the middle is the Vivid paper, and before sponging, I punched the edge with my Martha Stewart Lace border punch. The ribbon is from May Arts, and it's nice and shimmery (of course), and I added some Spiced Cider Shimmerz to the chandelier image, which made it look even more antiqued and glam. I mounted the whole thing on my Cream card base, and then added the sentiment from A Muse to finish it off.

Check out the eye candy from the rest of the rockin' JBelle girls!

• AJ Otto
• Beth Thomas
• Heather Lee-Reppen
• Jennifer Buck
• Jill Dunn
• Kimberly O’Rosky
• Kisa Peters
• Maren Benedict
• Melissa Bove
• Michelle Woerner

• Lindsey Botkin
• Lynda Benden
• Rachel Baird
• Taylor Usry

Have a fabulous day, and I'll be back tomorrow with some Bella fun!

Sleeping in the beetle bug...With a hundred pounds of air in my heart....

Happy Friday, Sistahs! Today is a fun day...Emily at Stamping Bella has a new release and a great shipping special going on. Nothing better than new stamps and free shipping! You can check out the newly released stuff and the details on Em's blog HERE.

To celebrate, I decided to ink up my new LOVEbeetle Huggabugg. How cute is she???
If I do say so mahself...it's a pretty cute card. *wink* I combined this week's Sketch Challenge and Ways to Use It Challenge, which was to layer your embellishments. Super fun! The image was stamped in Brilliance Graphite Black on Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, then colored with Copic Markers. After cutting and embossing with my Rectangle Nestabilities, I mounted the image onto my card base, which measures 5 1/4" square. The Pink Pirouette layer underneath was embossed with the D'Vine Swirls embossing folder, then sponged with Close to Cocoa and stitched to the Chocolate Chip base layer. I also added some of the striped paper from Basic Grey's Bittersweet collection.

On to the embellishments! All three Prima flowers were white to start with. I painted the largest flower with Hottie Pink Shimmerz, the medium one with Pixie Dust (my new fave), and the smallest with Pink Poinsettia. After they dried (I gave them a hefty coat), I added Diamond Ice Baubles to the centers of the 2 smaller flowers, and layered my sentiment and a button onto the large flower, tying it all together with white crochet thread.

THEN (yep, there's more!) I added some Pink crystals to the main image with my new Hot Fix tool. Love that thing!

Anywho, I hope you likey the card today! Stay tuned for a Sketch for You to Try tomorrow. Have a fabulous Friday night!

You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum Pumpy-umpy-umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop...

Hey guys! How are ya! Sorry I'm late posting this...it has been a crazy day! It's time for another Jacksonbelle Embellishments challenge, and this time we had to choose a card of Michelle's to case. Man, that was tough! I finally settled on this card. I wanted to use my new Little Cupcake set from Inkadinkado...how cute is this???

After I stamped the image on Neenah Classic Crest Solar White cardstock, I colored it with Copic Markers and cut it out with some layers with my Circle Nestabilities. My main card base measures 4 1/4" square, and I added some October Afternoon paper from the Night Light collection to the bottom. Then I popped the image up on dimensionals and pierced around the top layer. To finish it off, I added some Prima flowers painted with Shimmerz and topped them off with Pearl Dew Drops. I also used Diamond Stickles on the little cuppycake for fun.

You can check out a tutorial on Shimmerz by Michelle on the JBE Blog. Then check out the rest of the team's projects:

• AJ Otto
• Heather Lee-Reppen
• Jennifer Buck
• Jill Dunn
• Kim O’Rosky
• Kisa Peters
• Lynda Benden
• Maren Benedict
• Melissa Bove
• Michelle Woerner
• Taylor Usry

Thanks for visiting with me today! Check back in the morning (or late tonight!) for more MFT Blog Hop fun!

The heart is a bloom, shoots up through the stony ground...

Hey yall! I hope you're having a fantastic day...and if you're not, you better fix it quick! It's the last day of 2008!

The Jacksonbelle Embellishments team is having a New Year's Eve Bash, complete with challenges and a treasure hunt! All the details are on the JBE Blog HERE.

One of the challenges was to use black, white and some bling. I think I got it all covered in this one! Plus (you know, I had to break these girls in to how I do things...) I added a little blue ribbon. Just cause I wanted to. *wink*


I stamped the bird from the Birds Galore set in Versamark on watercolor paper, then embossed him with black detail embossing powder. After sketching a little trail, I pierced along the line and erased my pencil lines. Then I curved the sentiment (from October Afternoon) along the line and stamped it in Brilliance Graphite Black.

Once everything was dry, I lightly painted the entire card front with Candle Light Shimmerz. So pretty! Then to finish it off, I punched the bottom with my new Martha punch, threaded the ribbon through, and tied it in a bow. Super simple, but pretty elegant I think! I have no idea where I got the ribbon...it was in my stash. *grin*

Don't forget to use the Keyword JBENYE2 if you decide to play along to win some prizes!

We'll be chatting it up on the PCP group, so come join us if you want!!

See you with another project in a bit!