Spartan Finisher Layout

There's nothing quite like being able to bring two of your favorite hobbies together and I am excited that I can now do that.  After searching all over to find cutting files that were 'perfect' for scrapbooking my various obstacle course races and mud runs I had all but given up.  That's when I got the idea to approach a couple of the people I buy most of my SVGs from and say hey have you thought about....

I am very happy to announce that Little Scraps of Heaven rose to the challenge and created a mud run file in no time.  I was amazed at how quickly she was able to pull it all together.  Not to mention how cute it all turned out.  The file was just released for sale yesterday and of course I snatched that puppy up and started playing.

This layout features a picture of my oldest daughter and I after we completed our first Spartan Sprint.  We ran this in March and we had a blast.  I was so proud of my daughter.  She'd never done anything like this and for the Spartan to be her introduction to the OCR world was a little intense.  But she hung in there and did a terrific job!  Best of all we did it together!!

Other than the cut from LSHD I also used a Cricut cut.  That medal up in the top corner of the picture - that's from the All Sports cartridge.

And with that I think I'll go do some more playing.  With all this rain we've been getting everything is flooded and that means roads and bridges all over the area are closed which in turn means I can't go to work today......

Be Yourself

I am proud to announce that I have been accepted to rejoin the Pause Dream Enjoy creative design team.  Needless to say I am very excited to be back with the family.  And just in time for a new linky party!  

The challenge for this party is all about flowers.  That's it - create a project that uses flowers, link up and play along.  You have two weeks to create your project and join in on the fun.

As for my project, I used the VW Luv Bug file from Little Scraps of Heaven Designs and swapped out the hearts for some daisies that I found on the Sweet Treats Cricut cartridge.  My sentiment is from the Cardz TV stamp set Simply Said.

Now before you go off and create your project be sure to hop on over to Pause, Dream, Enjoy and check out the rest of the great projects our team has created this week.  You're sure to find a lot more inspiration to really get those creative juices flowing........


Dates to remember :


Link up begins today, April 29th
Link-up Ends: May 10 @ midnight EST
Voting Begins: May 11 @ 12:01 am EST
Voting Ends: May 11 @ Noon EST

Selfie Time

A couple of weeks ago my son asked if I would help him make a scrapbook to surprise his girlfriend for her upcoming birthday.  Needless to say I was more than eager to help - especially since it was such a heartfelt gesture on my son's part.  Who knew one of my boys could be so "romantic"?  LOL

Anyhow, I told him to gather up some pics and get them to me and I'd go from there.  Well since her birthday was this weekend I figured it was now safe to begin sharing some of those layouts I put together.  I'm not sure how well it was received as they are at Disney right now, but I have a feeling that it went over pretty well.

The first layout I'd like to share is a 2 pager (as you can tell) that I created using the Selfie cut file from Little Scraps of Heaven Designs.  I'm still having a slight problem in judging the sizes in which to cut my files and this one had the girl much larger than I intended.  However, I think it worked out perfectly for this layout.

Sweet As Honey

Happy Sunday everyone and welcome to Day 2 of the Cardz TV Anything Goes blog hop.  This weekend's blog hop is all about making projects and cards for any occasion to showcase the wonderful new stamp sets that have been released at Cardz TV.  There are several sets to chose from including:

• "Birds and Bees", 
• "Girl Talk",
• "That's My Boy" 
• "Congratulations" 

I have chosen to showcase the Birds and Bees set using this cute cut from Kadoodle Bug Designs.  This wonderful set is full of fun sentiments that you won't want to miss using in your projects.   The sentiments are perfect for wide variety of occasions, and with spring in the air you're sure to find plenty of opportunities to create adorable projects screaming for one of these sentiments to finish it off.

Who knows you might even be the lucky winner of 2 sets of Cardz TV Stamps.  All you have to do is be a follower of Cardz TV and be sure to leave a comment on the blog posts for both days of the hop.  Mary will chose one lucky winner after the hop so stay tuned.....

In the meantime, be sure to hop around and check out all of the wonderful cards our team has put together for today's hop.  And while you're hoping around remember to leave them some comment love and let them know who they're inspiring you.

Here is our Blog Hop line up - just in case you haven't started from the beginning:

1. Mary - http://www.cardztv.blogspot.com/

2. Georgia- http://www.geritolgal2.blogspot.com

3. Cindy - http://www.cindyvernon.blogspot.com

4. Brenda- http://www.friendscraftinwithfriends.blogspot.com/

5. Shelly~http://www.cardsbyshelly.blogspot.com/

6. Melissa-http://melissa-moecreations.blogspot.com/

7. Lynn~ http://bootsandblingtime.blogspot.com

8. Sharon ~ http://meemeescreations.blogspot.com

9. Jeri - http://bugnme.blogspot.com

10. Debbie- http://www.craftinchaos.com

11. Gloria - http://www.girliascards.com

12. Barbara - http://www.spotofsanity.blogspot.com

13. Elaine - http://ExpressionsByElaine.blogspot.com

Spring is in the Air

...and that means the birds are out singing their songs, the flowers are blooming, and we at Cardz TV are celebrating by creating Spring themed cards for our challenge this week.

For my card, I used the Spring Bluebird file from Kadoodle Bug Designs.  My sentiment is from the recently released Cardz TV stamp set Count Your Blessings.

So now that you've seen my take on this week's Spring challenge create your own card, link up and play along with us at Cardz TV.  But first if you haven't already checked out the other designs our team beautifully put together be sure you do.  I promise you won't want to miss out on any of them.  In the meantime, I can't wait to see what you create.

Wizarding World of Harry Potter Layouts

Have I told you lately how much I love the fact that I can now cut SVG files?  I started trying to scrapbook our trip to Universal Studios last year and was beside myself not knowing what to do because of the lack of die cuts out there to fit my themes.  So I put it all aside.  But now that I have the new Cricut Explore and can cut SVG's I'm getting those pictures scrapped.

This weekend I worked on our pictures from the Harry Potter ride.  For these layouts I used files from My Little Scraps of Heaven, Miss Kate Cuttables and Cricut.

On these pages the train is from Miss Kate and the other cuts are from Little Scraps of Heaven  For the sign post and the legs on my table I ran them through my Cuttlebug so as to give them a little bit of a wooden type texture.

The cuts on these pages are part of the Spellbound Wizards collection from Little Scraps of Heaven.

On these pages I used cuts from Little Scraps of Heaven and the castle from one of the Disney Princess cartridges.  I wanted to keep with the black/gray look so I didn't cut the various pieces to complete the castle.

And these cute little dragons are from Miss Kate Cuttables.  And thus completes the Harry Potter portion of our trip to Universal.  Now I can't wait to go back and explore the new sections that they have opened and are getting ready to open this Summer.

McD's Hamburgler Layout

So my son is a manager at McDonald's and while he and his girlfriend were visiting a store elsewhere they had a couple of the characters there for some promotion gimmick they were doing.  Well I guess she talked him in to having his picture taken - after all it's only fitting right?

I just happened to come across the picture - gotta love social media sometimes - and downloaded it right away.  The timing was perfect too because I had been eyeing this cut file titled "I'm Loving It" over at Treasure Box Designs but could never justify purchasing it because I don't really eat at McDonald's.  Not that there's anything wrong with it but I strive to eat a healthier diet than that, LOL.

But I digress.  Seeing this picture was the perfect incentive I needed to buy the cut file and put it to use.  As a surprise I created this layout and put it in a 12 x 12 frame for him.  Of course, being a guy it's not that big a deal and I'm willing to bet his girlfriend loved it more than he did.  Oh well, it's the thought that counts and while he's probably thinking that's nice, one day he'll really appreciate it.

I also used my Cricut for the arrow, but can't remember which cartridge and that M that's the perfect McDonald's logo M - well that I found on Dafont.com.  It's called Mclawsuit.

He Is Risen

Happy Friday everyone.  Today is another card challenge day over at Cardz TV and today's challenge is to create a card for Easter.  

For my card I chose to use this beautiful cut file from Kadoodle Bug Designs called He Is Risen.  Before putting the pieces together though I decided to "rough" up the edges of my cross a little bit using my Tim Holtz paper distresser.  For my sentiment, I cut a second cloud out of my paper, stamped it using the Happy Days stamp set from Cardz TV Stamps and then adhered it up  in the top corner of the card.

And now that you've seen my take on this week's challenge be sure to create your own card, link up at Cardz TV and play along with us for your chance to win a set of Cardz TV Stamps.  But first be sure to check out the other beautiful projects our design team created for your this week.

I can't wait to see what you create........

Mini Easter Basket Buddies

We have a group of ladies at work that are participating in a secret pal swap and for the holidays I like to craft and since I can't make surprises for my secret pal without giving away my identity I make surprises for the entire group.  For Easter I found this adorable set of basket buddies over at Treasure Box Designs.  The file actually has 8 different designs but I chose to use only 3 of them for this purpose.

Being new to the SVG world and realizing how tricky it can be to gauge how big to cut some of these files I decided to try cutting these with the box size at a width of 10" and it provided a perfect size box.  The heads I cut (with the pieces all still grouped together) around 8" x 6".

The Happy Easter sentiment you see stamped on my tags (also included with the files) is from the Cardz TV Stamps set Going in Circles.

Read Me A Story

Happy Wednesday everyone.  Today I have a quick and simple one page layout to share with you.  This is yet another layout created using SVG files from Kadoodle Bug Designs. Are you beginning to get a sense for how much I love her designs?

Dr. Seuss holds a lot of memories for me.  Not only from my childhood but that of my children as well.  So any files I have found have made their way in to my collection.  One of these days I need to start going back through our old photo albums and pull out pictures to scrapbook now that I have all of these fun toys. Who knows what gems I might find that I forgot.....

Blog Candy Winner

Many thanks to everyone who was kind enough to stop by my blog this weekend and bless me with your words of encouragement and kindness regarding my card.  And big thanks to those of you who liked my work enough to want to stay and follow along with me!

And now I would like to announce the winner of the Life's Little Blessings blog hop candy.

Congratulations to CA Scrapper who said:

Love your card, so cute! I am thankful every day that God brought my wonderful husband to me. I can't imagine my life without him.

Leslie

I'll be getting in touch with you so that I can get your mailing address for sending out your prize.  

Life's Little Blessings

WooHoo!  Not only is it the start of the weekend but it's also time for a blog hop full of blessings. Today our Cardz TV Stamps design team will be sharing cards with you that feature the newly released County Your Blessings stamp set.  I gotta tell you this is one of my favorites.

My card was created using an SVG file that I purchased from Kadoodle Bug Designs.  As soon as I saw this adorable cut file I had to have it for this challenge.  

(EDIT:  I should have mentioned that this is the Maternity Gift Set file.  When you purchase this file from Kadoodle Bug Designs it has a cut specifically for this card.  I just used that file and cut it to the size I wanted in order to create this adorable card. The set also includes a gift tag and a photo frame.)

Before you hop along to our next stop on the blessings blog hop I do have some blog candy that I would like to give away.  I have a set of alpha snaps with the numbers 1 through 9 that I would like to share with one lucky winner. 

I've used these on some of my cards and other projects in place of brads and they're very easy to use.  All you have to do to be eligible to win is leave a comment telling me about a blessing for which you are thankful. That's it. You don't have to be a follower - but if you like what you see I'd love to have you follow me.  

On Monday morning, I will announce the winner on my blog so be sure to come back to see if it's you.

As for me, I feel very blessed because I have a loving Savior who loved me enough to lay His life down for me, a wonderful family who supports me in all I do and I have my health.  And I have my blog hopping pals like you to stop by and encourage me in my crafting.  It couldn't get much better than that.

Now then, if you came to my blog via Sharon you're on the right path.  If not be sure to start from the beginning with Mary and hop your way from beginning to end.  Mary will also be giving away two sets of stamps to one lucky commenter and blog follower.  I hear that some of our other ladies will have candy as well so be sure you read their blogs and follow directions they might post so that you can be eligible.

Thanks for stopping by and after you leave a comment hop on over to the next stop of our blessings hop and pay Jeri a visit.  

As for the rest of our team and line up.....it goes like this:

1. Mary http://www.cardztv.blogspot.com/

2. Brenda http://www.friendscraftinwithfriends.blogspot.com/

3. Lynn http://bootsandblingtime.blogspot.com/ 

4. Georgia http://www.geritolgal2.blogspot.com/  

5. Elaine http://www.expressionsbyelaine.blogspot.com/

6. Cindy http://www.cindyvernon.blogspot.com/

7. Debbie http://bugjuiced.blogspot.com/

8. Sharon http://meemeescreations.blogspot.com/

9. Barbara http://www.spotofsanity.blogspot.com/

10. Jeri http://www.bugnme.blogspot.com/

11. Melissa http://www.melissa-moecreations.blogspot.com/

12. Gloria http://www.girliascards.blogspot.com/

13. Shelly http://cardsbyshelly.blogspot.com/

My Everyday Hero

The other day I shared a Thor layout that I had created using a picture from our trip to Universal Studios.  When sharing that layout I mentioned that I loved the cut so much I made a card as well.  And here it is.  He kinda looks like he's hovering over the city....

I'm telling you, if you haven't yet purchased an Explore or other die cutting machine that allows you to cut SVG's you are really missing out.  Now don't get me wrong.  I still love my Cricut cartridges, but oh my the SVG files that are out there.  Like this one.  Little Scraps of Heaven is just one of several people I've been buying my files from and I have yet to be disappointed.

But I digress, I created this card to use as a birthday card.  However, it's versatile enough that it could be used for a thank you card, friendship, encouragement, congratulations, etc.  Oh and have I mentioned yet that the sentiment is from the Cardz TV stamps set titled You're the Man? 

You can order this set - and any others I've used - here