Belle Papier {pretty paper}

I’ve been having some fun with the Shabby Princess digital kits. If you’ve ever wanted to have a little digital fun…they have some very cool free downloads there for you to play around with and enjoy! They even have a great tutorial link! I decided to give it a little whirl by designing this little blog treat picture as, you guessed it, I want to share another little blog treat with you. I decided to call them…Belle Bonbons…to tie in with my blog title. Bonbons means…I’m sure you know…candy in French. So instead of Blog Candy, Belle Bonbons. I’ll be using this little “banner” again in the future or maybe a variation of it so you’ll know what to look for.

I just wanted to share with you a couple of my fave new goodies! Don’t worry! I ordered two of each because there would be NO way I’m giving these babies up otherwise! I’ve been having the most fabulous time with Basic Grey chipboard over the past few months. When I saw these chipboard elements…I “made” Lindsey order me some in. Some days, I’m not quite sure who is the worse enabler! The new release we’ve all been waiting for is finally here as well! The Basic Grey Round Precision File Set is perfect for reaching into those tight corners of chipboard. If you use chipboard…I know you want it! Check it out in Jacksonbelle’s store here.

Sooooooooooooo…………… how can you enter? Comment on this thread and let me know what your favorite papercrafting tool is.  My favorite is the Crop-a-dile with quite a few others coming in a close second. My fave embellishment has got to be those Prima flowers! SO pretty! You have until 8pm EST on Saturday April 7th to comment. One lucky person will be chosen by an on-line random number generator and I will post the results on my blog shortly after.

I just love poppies! Those huge bright blossoms…who can resist? My aunt has the most gorgeous clump of them that come up every spring in her front yard. While the most of you are having gorgeous spring weather…the temperature here is dropping fast. By Easter weekend, actually by Thursday, we are talking about temperatures below zero and not just at night! So much for nice spring outfits and hats for church this weekend! Make sure you check back in later today or tomorrow… I’m having a special day on Saturday and want to share it with you!

Since the only sign of spring seems to be in my stamp room….LOADS of new flower stamps!:) …I’m pulling out my poppies to brighten things up. I bought my Poppie Stems stamp from my local stamp store. They are made by Stampendous who came  out with a fabulous new spring line of stamps. The color combo for this design came from yestereday’s anniversary color challenge. It was a double challenge and I decided to give the second combo a whirl last night when it worked so well with my new stamp! The challenge was Real Red, Black and Kraft and I thought I’d see if I could take the bold combo and create a more shabby styled spring card with it. To try and keep the look fresh…I used a large white piece of cardstock to stamp my image. It can be a great design feature to offset the image to one side and use the sentiment or another feature to fill in the rest. There is no written law that says, every image must be stamped dead-center.:) I also stamped the poppies along the kraft cardstock piece in close to cocoa ink. As there is no “kraft” colored ink…I thought I’d sneak in the Close to Cocoa as a substitute. After laying out my design…I freestyle stitched around the red cardstock to add some interest and to carry the white through my design a little for balance. The top of the image is also stitched in a zig zig and tied with a red gingham ribbon. I wanted to add a little more pizazz to the red poppies so I outlined them with my Sakura gelly roll glitter pen. It is so perfect for adding a little touch of sparkle with precision.

Spring Time Poppies click on pic to see detail

Supply List:

Cardstock: Real Red, Basic Black, Kraft - SU

Stamps: Poppy Stems - Stampendous, Everyday Flexible Phrases - SU

Ink: black, real red, always artichoke - SU

Other: Red gingham ribbon - unknown, Word Charm - K & Company, sewing machine