Spoiled by my Sistah

Today is the last day of January (thank goodness) and that means the crazy stress at work should be done. It's been a busy, hard month. Today when I came home after working a 13 hour day I found a wonderful surprise in my mailbox from my Bella Sistah Patsy.

When I first got Patsy's sistah questions I noticed she was a CTMH consultant so in one of my first emails I sent her a "wish list" of things I liked so she would have so she would have some ideas. I asked her to do the same since I work at Archivers and she doesn't have a scrapbook store nearby.

Well today when I opened the box from my sistah I realzed that my wish list had been fulfilled and then some. She had sent me EVERYTHING I had mentioned plus a few extra things!! She sent me three stamp sets, a tube of flowers, a tube of leaves, 6 colors of brads, a stack of ribbons, 2 acrylic blocks, a paper pack, an edge distresser, a bag tag and an adorable card. I never expected to get ALL of it so it was such an amazing surprize and the perfect ending to my tough month. Hopefully February will bring me some more time to play with my new goodies.

I have really enjoyed being a Bella Sistah and Patsy has been the best. We have another month to go so I am gonna have to find something special for her now. I highly recommend participating in the Bella Sistah match ups..I can't wait to get to know and spoil another new Sistah in the next round.

Maria's Color Challenge

Maria posted this color challenge on her blog. The challenge was to create a card using colors from a yummy drink she had recently tried. The drink contained oranges, limes, evaporated milk and vanilla so her challenge was to create a card using orange, lime green, brown and white. This was tough at first and I had to play around with it a while to get something I was happy with but in the end I like this card. The scan does not do the colors or the DP justice but it's the best I could get at this hour (I should be in bed).

Thanks Maria for the inspiration.

Happy Happy Mail Day

Today was a particularly hard day at work for me. I run the tech support department of a software company. This is our busiest time of year because the software we support processes 1099s and W2's. This causes the volume of calls to triple during January. Because I am the manager all of the unhappy clients get esacalated to me. Today I spent 3 hours on the phone with 5 different clients screaming at me. To make it worse all but one of them were totally unfounded in their attitudes because they had made dumb mistakes (wouldn't you think you would make sure the correct year was showing before printing W2's for 650 employees...I guess that is too much to ask). Anyway I came home feeling exausted and like I had been hit by a truck. My plan was to spend the evening on the couch trying to unwind. I decided to check the mail on my way in...and what wonderful surprises were waiting for me.

My Bellas have arrived!!!!! I just got the email that said they had shipped on the 18th so I was expecting to have to wait at least another week! Balloonabella, Bookwormabella, Sistahoodabellas, Cosmobella, Ipodabella, Cardbackabella, Curly Ewe and Bella's Dream House and a couple of sentiments have joined my Bella family!!!

As if that wasn't enough my Bella calendar from Tangii arrived today too!!! Wow girl, you did an amazing job putting these together and everyone's pages are amazing too! I can't wait to hang it in my craft room. And the icing on the cake is that I also got the cutest card full of "yummy" chocolate themed images from my Bella Sistah Patsy.

What an amazing way to turn around a rotten day! No couch for me tonight. I am off to play with my new Bellas!

Rock On!!!!!

Another Bella card using papers from my stash and a swapped image. Thanks to all the sistahs wo participated in the All Image swap, I have had so much fun making cards with the bellas I do not own. I do think it is adding to my wish list though. Thanks for stopping by to take a peek.

Bella Valentine Swap

It's been a Bella Day. This is my card for the Valentine card swap.
I used Curiseabella from StampingBella.com
The CS is Bazzill Bling in High Heels, Petty Cash and Pretty in Pink. (Don't you love those names). DP is from Cloud 9 Design's valentine collection.

This is SOOO cool, Happy Valentines 2008

New Bella Cards

Ok, so my house is clean and my Christmas tree is down (finally) and I finally had some time to play. Gotta love three day weekends. I did a couple of cards from image swap images I have not used before. The top one is a thank you card for a dear friend. I used SU purely pomegranate cs and embossed in black with the brocade basics stamp for the background. Bella's dress is colored with a Sakura glitter gel pen. The next one I just did because I had never done PMSabella before, but I lovey her. I used Bazzill Bling yellow CS (sorry I can't remember the actual color name). The DP is from the DCWV glitter stack. I used grey fun flock on the chair to make it feel cozy. Now off to finish up my cards for the Valentine swap.

Bellas...the beanie babies of the stamping world

I just found bellas a few months back. I ordered a few and started playing and immediately I knew I wanted more, I need them all. I wait online impatiently refreshing each time Em posts that there will be new ones. Then one evening I suddenly realized that I have not had this feeling since the early nineties when I was swept up by the beanie baby craze. My daughter (who is now 20) and I would stand in line for the stores to open in hopes of the elusive new release. We even drove from McDonald's to McDonald's purchasing happy meals for the teeny beanies (now there's a thought, bellas in happy meals...that would make me REAL happy). We fed many a homeless person happy meals that summer. The thing is that once you got the beanies there was nothing really to do with them. We dressed some of them and displayed them in baskets, on shelves and in clear acrylic boxes (we had a Glory bear from the All Star game) but what else could you do with them? Bellas are better because once you get them there are so many things you can do. And I never had beaniebabiesanonymous. Now I have the bellaholics group, a group of wonderful Sistahs who share my addiction. They are willing to trade (that never happened with beanies) and inspire me to do more and more with my bellas. So where are my beanies now (I think we had nearly 300...sick huh)? Many of them have been donated to toy drives and children I know, still more are boxed up in storage. Where are my bellas? They proudly sit on my craft table, or ride along in my tote to crops. They have become my friends and and have introduced me to a whole new sistahood. So now I am off to my happy place to create more friends. I'll post pics soon.

In the beginning...

This is the beginning of my blog. I have been looking at the blogs of some of my wonderfully creative new friends on bellahollics and was inspired to create one for myself in 2008. Ok, so it's half way through January and I am just getting started but, hey my Christmas tree is still up (tackling that this weekend) so maybe I am not doing too bad considering that January is traditionally my busiest month. What will this blog become, only time will tell but you can bet it will be full of Bella creations, scrapbooking stuff, and life moments. Stay tuned.