Belle Papier {pretty paper}

Wow! Thanks so much everyone for entering my Spreading a Little Christmas Cheer Card Kit giveaway! I had so much fun reading all the entries! What great Christmas ideas and traditions, recipes and and tips! I am SO in the Christmas spirit now. I just need to go back through with a notebook and write down all my favorite ideas. I’ve had Christmases where I was ultra-organized but sadly, the past few have been less than that! LOL With all these tips, I’m hoping to get started now. If you haven’t taken the time to read through the list of comments…you just may want to find a notebook and a coffee and sit down and enjoy all the fabulous ideas. I wish I could send you ALL a Christmas Card kit!

My first winner, the winner of the Basic Grey 6s6 Figgy Pudding pad and the Lizzie Anne Designs Joy to the World stamp set and a few other goodies, is number 135. Congratulations Lastel!

My second winner, of the Flourishes Peace stamp set, Figgy Pudding pad etc, is number 33 - Suzanne!

Please e-mail me ladies with your addresses and I’ll get these out to you ASAP! My e-mail link is at the top of the sidebar, right under my pic.

Thanks again to everyone who shared so many wonderful ideas! I love to hear from you! Have a wonderful day!

Today I just wanted to spread a little Christmas cheer. I have some goodies to share with you to help you get a head start on your Christmas cards! My little early Christmas gift to you! I love making Christmas cards and nothing is better than some new stamps and paper. I have two prizes to give away to two of my readers. How to enter? Christmas is such a fabulous time of the year but also a very busy one as well. I’d love to hear some of your tips for organizing for Christmas, any ways you make special memories, a great Christmas recipe…anything at all you wish to share. I can’t wait to read all your ideas! Please, one entry per person! You have until Tuesday November 13th at 10 am EST to enter. I’ll be announcing my winners shortly after. Winning entries will be chosen by a random number generator. Thanks so much for stopping by my blog! Good luck! Have a wonderful weekend!

Christmas Card Kit #1

Joy to the World stamp set by Lizzie Anne Designs

6×6 paper pad of Figgy Pudding by Basic Grey

red velvet May Arts ribbon

snowflake brads

Christmas Card Kit #2

Peace stamp set from Flourishes

6×6 Figgy Pudding Paper Pad by Basic Grey

Red Velvet May Arts Ribbon

snowflake brads

Thanks so much to all of you who took part in my Gina K Make a Wish blog prize entries. WOW! I was so inspired reading all the wonderful things you all were doing! So many people going through hard times too. Sometimes it is so easy to feel so alone in it…I’m sure all the wonderful things that everyone was doing to help out, make someone’s day or just showing you cared really made a difference. I wish I could give you all the stamp set. You are ALL winners. Unfortunately…I only have one. And so, I used the www.random.org number generator to pick a winner. The winning number was number 46… Catherine. Congratulations Catherine! Please e-mail me with your address and I’ll get this in the mail for you as soon as I can! Catherine wrote…

Catherine

HAPPY 18 ANNIVERSARY :D! The nice thing that I did today, was make a meal that would last my parents a few meals and so my mom could focus on getting some rest and getting my father back up on his feet. Thanksgiving weekend my dad had a heart attack, one of his arteries on the back of his heart was clogged 99% and so he had a balloon thing done and also a stint put in. He is at home recovering, but felt they needed help in terms of meals :)!
Thanks for this chance at a great stamp set :), have a super day :)!

I wish you all a great evening! It has been another one of those days! A car had to be dropped off at the garage this morning, some major details sorted out pertaining to the renovation. I’m so excited that my stamping room is back on plan for this addition. It had been relegated to addition phase two but now what was going to be storage is now big enough to hold a small 8×8 foot space. It will be in the new basement but….it will be ALL MINE! So I’m pretty excited!

I know I just had a giveaway last week but…..I was so blessed to get two of this great Make a Wish stamp set, I’ve decided to share the wealth. It is such a darling set, so flexible! Perfect for so many occasions. Gina K released this set a couple months ago as her latest Stamps for a Cause set. $7.00 from each purchase of this set is being donated to the Make a Wish Foundation for children with life-threatening medical conditions.

I was so excited to be asked to be part of the design team for this set release. These sets are still available and will be for some time. To date over $3000 has been raised from purchases of this set. If you’d like to own this set and be part of the fundraising effort…make sure you visit the Stamps for a Cause site.

The Make a Wish set I’m giving away is the full wood block set of nine stamps…four images and nine sentiments. The set comes unmounted in a plastic case and you can mount it how you wish. For this stamp giveaway, I’m going to make you work for it! Don’t worry…not too hard. Just do something nice for someone today! Spread the love around a little. Send a card to let someone know you care, take them out for coffee, go fly a kite with a child, just pick up the phone to let someone know you care. It can be very simple…don’t stress. Leave a comment sharing what you did and you’ll be entered to win. I can’t wait to read all the comments. Just think how many people will be blessed. And you know what? Even if you don’t win, you’ll find that you will be blessed too!

Make sure you comment with what you did that was special for someone by Tuesday October 16th at 9 pm EST for a chance to win. I’ll announce the winner shortly after. Winner will be chosen by an on-line random number generator. Have a wonderful Sunday! It’s my 18th anniversary today and so, I’m taking today off! The {C’est Bon} entries will resume next Sunday. I guess {C’est Bon} that I spend today with my husband and family. LOL I just looked at this article…what a LOT of smilies! Have a happy day!

It’s Saturday and time for another simple design. You’ll have to forgive me…this card is one of my faves. It is simply beautiful…unfortunately…you’re going to have to trust me on this one because taking a picture of it was NOT so simple! I’ve tried and tried….sigh…. You’ll just have to use your imagination…or better yet…try it out for yourself!

Vellum Daisies

I’ve long been a fan of vellum cards….so soft and subtle…a little bit elegant and just that touch of uniqueness too. Try stamping on vellum with white craft or hybrid ink…gorgeous! I actually designed this card in September so I’m madly trying to think exactly which ink I did use. I think it was the cloud white Versamagic Ink by Tsukineko. It is specially designed to stamp on vellum.

For this design I used a smaller 4.25″ square format and stamped my cardstock vellum with the solid daisy stamp from the Daisy Dots set by Lizzie Anne Designs. In the center I added the circle stamp with the starburst shape.

The sentiment panel was then added by stamping the sentiment from the Au Naturale set onto a square of Soft Sky cardstock and then simply matted with white and then some more Soft Sky. Three little white brads were inserted in the top left corner for a subtle embellishment. I punched out a double flower from some vellum cardstock scraps and attached it to my card front with a simple silver eyelet.

Quick Tip: When working with subtle colors and design, make sure you keep your embellishments subtle as well so as to not overwhelm the design.

For the inside, I stamped the line daisy image onto a larger panel of whisper white cardstock and matted with Soft Sky cardstock. I stitched the panel to the inside of my card. When designing this panel…I created it just a little larger than my front panel so that when closed…the panel and stitching peeks subtlety through the vellum.

A Contest You Don’t Want to Miss!

Lizzie Anne Designs is having a card contest! You can check it out HERE. There is still time to enter and there are fabulous prizes to be won. Winner receives $50 Lizzie Anne Designs gift certificate, plus the new World Cardmaking Day set, PLUS your design featured in November’s newsletter. There are also going to be 10 runner-up prizes of the new WCD set so make sure you enter today. Hurry though…all entries must be received by Oct 28th. What are Meridith and Tricia going to do with all the cards? All entries will be donated to Cards for Cancer…what a great cause!

Wishing you a wonderful Saturday that is simply filled with beauty.

It’s here! World Cardmaking Day! And there are lots of cool things going on so many places today. Make sure you take some time out to have some fun! Check out the web-site for some great card ideas or things you can do. There is even a gallery to share your work on. So go ahead…don’t be shy!

I’m hoping to work on a few designs I have in the works for upcoming projects and I’m also off to Apple Land this morning with the kids. Apples and squash to get ready for Thanksgiving on Monday. The renovation here is also in full swing and yikes! What a mess! This is a HUGE job. My hubby is the best to take this on!

In keeping with my Simply Saturday theme, I thought I’d share this Boho Blossoms design with you.

Boho Friendship

As you know, I just adore this Boho Blossoms stamp set. What a gorgeous flower! I decided to keep my design simple and monochromatic to highlight its beauty. The flower was stamped three times in versamark in and then embossed with black Stampendous embossing powder. Wow! It is gorgeous in person. I also quickly stamped the friendship script sentiment onto the panel and that was it.

After adhering my panel to the card front, I pulled out my Making Memories textured tape. I tell you, I have gotten a LOT of mileage from this one little package of tape…..absolutely love it! I applied one strip of dotted tape above the stamped panel and one strip of the white paisley tape below for a quick, fun design. I decided to echo the dotted shapes of the top to the bottom of the design and added a row of paper piercing just below the tape. You can see how the light shines through the holes a little in the pic.

For my quick finishing touch, another one of my new favorite goodies, Making Memories Sweets. They are epoxy covered chipboard and are oh so cute! I tied mine with black gingham ribbon from Michael’s and adhered it to the design with a glue dot. Simple, simple, simple. But so much fun!

And now for some more fun… a little something to help you celebrate today…

Do you like My Favorite Things Stamps? Kim has just released five great new sets this past week and I have one of them to share with you. It’s a Jungle out There is a darling new set…I can’t believe all the possibilities you can create out of it…all the Design Team samples were stunning! If you are intersted in a chance to win this set…leave a comment below. I’d love to hear your favorite technique or feature on your designs right now. Or tell me how you are celebrating World Cardmaking Day! Can’t wait to hear from you! Have fun!

Oh….the rest of the details …You have until Monday October 8th at 10 pm EST to leave a comment to be eligible to win. Tne winner will be chosen at random and will be announced Tuesday morning. Please, one comment per person! Have a great weekend!

I just love being able to do this! Announce a couple winners of some goodies I want to be able to share with my readers! It is always so much fun for me. I love getting things in the mail and I’ve been so blessed lately with fun new things coming every week…I like to spread it around!

I used the random number generator to come up with two numbers out of the 330 comments I received. Thanks so much for taking the time. I really appreciated all the comments, facts and questions. The questions, I will try to answer them in the upcoming weeks.

And so, enough babbling…the numbers chosen were for Prize #1 - comment number 247 … Gail Rachow

Gail wrote:

Hi Julia, I really liked that you have added sketches to your blog. I love using them to get me started on a card or a page. My question is What comes first, the card or the sketch?
Gail

Hi Gail…so glad you like the sketches! I’ve been having fun making them up. Actually…the card usually comes first. I design the card and if I think it would make a good sketch, I create one! I’ve been excited to see a few readers use them and add a link back to the post with the sketch. It has been so much fun to see their versions of it. It you do a sketch, check back in the comments to see other great designs as well!

The winner of Prize #2 is comment number 91 … Angel !

Angel wrote: Hi Julia! Yours is one of my favorite blogs and you’ve answered almost all of my questions already. I love your C’est Bon feature and can’t wait to see what product you feature next. I always refer folks to you to get the info on a particular product because you explain it so well!! Thanks for offering those features!

Hi Angel…hope you enjoy the paper and Primas. I have so much fun writing the {C’est Bon} entries and I’m glad you like them.

Please contact me ladies with your address. My e-mail link is at the top of my sidebar. Thanks so much to my readers who took the time to comment and share! If you didn’t win this time…I have a few great stamp sets coming my way that I’m going to share in the near future. So stay tuned…maybe next time! Have a great day and check back in later if you get a chance…I have another holiday design to share.

Yes…it is that time again! Wow! time to help me celebrate 200,000 hits on my blog! Actually, today also marks 7 months of blogging…it seems like I just started! I guess time flies when you are having fun! Not all parts of the past 7 months have been fun, there have been a lot of hard days but I’ve so enjoyed my time spent here! Thanks so much for visiting. Sharing with you is what makes it all fun!

I have a couple giveaways to share with you this time. Simply comment on this entry by 9 pm EST Monday September 17th and you’ll be entered to win one of the two prizes. Ask a question(I’ll answer it in an upcoming post) , share something about yourself, whatever you wish…I’d love to hear from you. The winners will be chosen by a random number generator and will be posted on my blog Tuesday morning. Good luck! Please…just one comment per person so that the odds of winning are fair.

Many thanks to you, for stopping by to visit! Have a fabulous weekend! Paper and Primas from Jacksonbelle’s ebay store.

Prize #1 - Basic Grey 6×6 paper pad Periphery, Daisy D’s French Market Swatches, Prima Flowers

Prize #2 - Basic Grey 6×6 paper pad Mellow, Daisy D’s swatches, Prima Flowers package

Wishing you all a fabulous weekend!

Commenting is now finished for this prize! Winners will be announced in the morning! Thanks!

This card was designed for a Papercrafts magazine journaling blocks challenge. What are journaling blocks? Journaling cards, boxes, blocks have become very popular in the scrapbooking industry and are making their way well into card making projects as well. The boxes or cards and places to journal and may consist of cards, stickers or stamps with lines to journal on. I love the look of them…a lot of it in that office-style that is so popular right now.

Each month Paper Crafts has a gallery contest and theme. Upload a card or project to their on-line gallery in that theme and you are entered to win. The top three designs have a special place in their gallery for the next month and winners can choose from a year’s subscription to Paper Crafts Magazine or a special interest publication. You can read all about it HERE.

As I mentioned above…the following card design was one of my entries for that challenge. I also created another card that I shared with you earlier… Believe in Your Dreams. I’m so excited that I was one of the winners for the challenge with the Believe in Your Dreams design. If you missed it, you can check it out here.

We Are Family

Now you may be wondering exactly where the journaling block is on this design. Actually it is a journaling card taht is part of a 12×12 paper sheet from Cosmo Cricket. I have used the Souvenir line for my project. This particular journaling box reminded me of a manila file folder. It was quick and easy to fold it almost in half and then round the edges to resemble one. A quik-cutz tab on the top highlights who this card is for and sponging on the edges adds to the well-worn look. To the Family title on the card, I added a strip of dymo label. While we don’t see each other often, and I wish we did, I’m so glad that he is my brother. Actually it is his birthday today! Happy 35th Andrew!!!!! Where has the time gone?! Well…I’m pretty sure he doesn’t read this but anyway! LOL It’s the thought that counts! Memo to me…call my brother!

The rest of the design is pretty much self-explanatory. Layers of Cosmo Cricket Souvenir paper , some Basic Grey Chipboard Elements, and lots of distressing make up the rest of the design.

Supply List:

Cardstock: Bravo Burgundy - Stampin Up

Patterned paper: Souvenir line - Cosmo Cricket

Stamps: Everyday Flexible Phrases - Stampin Up

Ink: Black, Chocolate Chip - Stampin Up

Other: rub-on transfers - Crate Paper, sand paper, sewing machine, twill tape - Stampin Up, label maker - Dymo, brads - Making Memories, File tab die - QuicKutz, Chipboard Elements - Basic Grey

And it’s time to celebrate again! Funny how that happened last long weekend too! And so, I just wanted to take a break and thank you, my readers, for your support! 150,000 hits is so exciting for me! I have some Belles Bonbons up for grabs so keep reading for all the details!

And so…. I’ve decided to share a few of my favorite goodies with you. The fabulous new Basic Grey Infuse 6×6 paper pad, the Basic Grey Precision File Set and a Sakura glue pen. I’m making this blog candy easy to get…simply comment on this entry and you’ll be entered to win. I pick the winner by an on-line random number generator so it is all very fair! You have from now until Tuesday August 7th at noon EST to comment. Please just one comment per person so that it is fair.

Good luck to you all! Have a fabulous weekend!