Good Luck Shamrock

Happy Friday everyone and welcome to the second of our card challenges over at Cardz TV. This week we were tasked with creating cards for St. Patrick's Day.

For my card I used:

Doodlecharms for the jar.  I cut two layers.  The base/shadow from a gray shade of paper and then the top of the jar I cut from the protective film of an old cutting mat.

A Child's Year for the shamrock, which I covered in Martha Stewart Peridot glitter.

Sentiment from the Cardz TV Stamps set titled Simply Said.

I then adhered the shamrock to the base layer of the jar and stamped my good luck sentiment below that. I then covered that with the clear layer, and stitched the cuts together.  Add in a little baker's twine tied around the top of the jar and viola - I have a focal piece for my St. Patrick's Day card.

And now that you've seen my card you should check out the other fabulous designs our team came up with for this week's challenge.  Then create your up, link up and play along with us.

I can't wait to see what you create.

Recipes Scrapped With Love

I love being able to create gifts for people.  It's so much more personal than going out and buying a gift that anyone could buy.  Not to mention that it's an expression of how much I love/care about the person I'm making it for. 

Today's post is all about a recipe book that I made for one of my daughters, featuring recipes that I used to make for them when they were growing up.  Now before I share the pages I will admit that I personally do not eat this way anymore just because I've gone to a more plant based, as "close to nature" diet as I can.  (You can read more about that on my other blog - A Journey Into Fitness )

This recipe book was made over a period of weeks due to my crazy, chaotic schedule.  There's just never enough time in the day, but we've been cutting back on our weekend running around so I've been able to scrap a bit more here lately.  I picked up the album from Michaels and it's one of those 8x8 page sizes.  I love that it has the window on the cover because that allowed me to make "cover page".

But here are my other pages, along with the cuts I used and the recipes included.  I'm also going to enter this in the Hiding in My Craft Challenge this week where the challenge was to use 3 different designer papers. Mine are all from the DCWV mat stack Nana's Kitchen.  After all what better mat stack to use for a scrap booked recipe album?

Cartridges: From My Kitchen

Cartridges: From My Kitchen

Cartridge: From My Kitchen

Cartridges: From My Kitchen, A Child's Year

Cartidges:  Animal Kingdom, Graphically Speaking and From My Kitchen

Cartidges:  Animal Kingdom, Graphically Speaking and From My Kitchen

Cartridge:   From My Kitchen

Cartridge:   From My Kitchen

Cartridge:   From My Kitchen

Child Friendly Thanksgiving Place Setting

I originally created this project back in 2010 but wanted to share this with you as we draw near to Thanksgiving this week.  Plus I noticed that my original post referenced the instructions being in a newsletter that is no longer available.......

 

Of course I can't take credit for this idea as it was based on inspiration I received from Scrapbooks, etc magazine.  In the article it showed great ideas for setting the table for the holiday and one of those ideas was a paper pieced turkey as a crayon holder.  Immediately the lights went on and I thought what a great idea - now let's expand it and that's just what I did.  So without further delay here are the instructions......

 

Child Friendly Thanksgiving Table Setting

Supplies Needed:

8 count box of crayons

Rubber band & piece of string/ribbon

1 ½ sheets Fall themed paper    

8 ½ x 11” sheet of white or off-white paper

Cricut ink pen

Design Studio or Gypsy

 

Cricut cartridges:  I used Thanksgiving, Create a Critter, A Child’s Year, PPDU and Animal Kingdom, TBBM

To Create Placemat:

1.       Using the guidelines provided in Design Studio or Gypsy place a variety of Thanksgiving related cuts on the mat staying within an 8” x 11” area. 

2.       Replace the Cricut blade with one of the ink pens and print the images.  Ink edges.

3.       Cut a 12” square paper to 9 ½” x 12”.  Adhere the white page to printed page.  Ink edges.

 

To Create Personalized Silverware Pocket:

1.     From TBBM cut one of the tag pockets in blackout (and no hole) at 11 ½”.  See pages 112& 113 of the handbook.

2.     If your paper is not a double print place your paper print down on the mat before cutting.  This will keep your print on the outside of the pocket when folding and putting together.

3.     Create name tag by cutting a pumpkin from Create a Critter at 1 ¾”.  Hide the facial contours to allow for writing the child’s name on the tag.

4.       Adhere tag to pocket.

To Create Crayon Holder:

 

1.       Using Create a Critter cut the turkey and needed layers at 2 ½”.  Ink edges.

2.       Build the layers for your turkey EXCEPT for the very back tail piece.

3.       Prick two small holes in the center of the very back tail piece.  Tie rubber band to the tail.

4.       Adhere tail piece to the turkey to complete build.

5.       Add crayons by wrapping rubber band around them to hold them in place.

 Note: Crayon holder was scraplifted from the December 2010 issue of Scrapbooks, etc.

He's Got the Whole World II

I had a friend ask me to make a rendition of this card I made three years ago.  Only this time she wanted one hand peach and the other in a shade of brown. 

 

So using the same cuts I did then (thank goodness for saved Cricut files and Design Studio) I recreated the card to her specifications......

 

Child's Year for the hands.  Cut twice at 3", inked and pop-dotted.

Going Places for the globe.  I cut one base at 3" in a solid blue.  Then I cut three globes at 3".  One in a water print and two in green, inked and pop-dotted the land formations.

Live a Little

Before the dreary rain sets in tonight and while it's still warm and beautiful outside I thought I'd share a happy, warm and fuzzy card with everyone.  For most of us Spring has sprung and before we know it Summer will be here.  Well, this card depicts just that......

 

This is one of the S-Fold style cards and even though I don't make them very often I really enjoy doing so.  For me it's always fun to see what kind of 'scene' I can create in that small area.  To create this one I used:

Stretch Your Imagination for the bike - cut at 1 1/4"

Graphically Speaking for the frame - cut at 3 1/4" (but I reduced the width to make it more square)

Graphically Speaking for the inside sentiment - cut at 2 1/4"

A Child's Year for the dog - cut at 1/2"

 

Graphically Speaking for the sun and clouds - cut at 1" and 3/4" respectively

 

 

And now that I've shared my card with  you I'm going to link it up and play along in Maymay's Spring2Summer linky party.  Come check it out and play along with us.

 

 

Erin Go Braugh - St. Patty's Challenge

Happy Wednesday everyone.  I know things have been quiet on my blog lately but that's only because they've been so chaotic behind the scenes.  We've had a lot going on in my little part of the world and that means not as much crafting time.  But I still haven't forgotten about it and can't wait to get back to a little routine.  In the meantime, I do have a design team challenge to share today......

 

Cricut Cardz Ch#127 "Erin Go Braugh" - where this week we're making cards for St. Patrick's Day using Green, Black, and White ONLY and using any cartridge(s).  I have to admit that I struggled with this one because I personally found it challenging to create a card while staying within the alloted color scheme.  But eventually I got it and this is what I came up with.

 

For my card I used:

 

A Child's Year for the shamrock

 

Create a Critter for the horseshoe (embossed for a little texture)

 

Cricut Craft Room Basics for the font (welded together)

 

On the inside of my card it says "To have you as a friend"

 

And now that you've seen my take on this week's challenge check out the other great designs our team put together for you this week.  I gotta tell you the ladies really rocked this challenge.  Don't believe me?  Check it out here and then when you're done being inspired, create your own card, link up and play along for your chance to win 1 set of Cardz TV Stamps 

Come play with us!

...

Dessert Recipe Page

Happy Monday everyone.  After a bit of a hiatus it's time for another Pause Dream Enjoy challenge.  This will be the second challenge, but the first one for team two.  We changed things up a bit this year.  Challenges will begin on Monday and run for two weeks - giving you extra time to find your creativity so you can play along with us.

This week's challenge is all about desserts.  Create a project with desserts as the theme and your good to go.  For my challenge I chose to create a recipe page featuring one of my mom's homemade candies.  Every year she made these to gift to our teachers, bus drivers and to use for various church functions.  Of course when my children were young I carried on the tradition but now that they are to old to gift their teachers I just make them for parties.

And speaking of recipes, for this project I used the From My Kitchen cartridge to cut the recipe cards and A Child's Year for the silhouette of the mom and child baking together.

Now that you've seen my project, hop on over to Pause Dream Enjoy to check out the other wonderful designs our team created for you this week.  Then create your own, link up and play along with us. 

Our sponsor this week is TSQ Royal Castle Shoppe and they are giving away the Royal Pain stamp set (must have a USA address).

Rocket Ride - Published July 2012

Happy Friday everyone.  This morning I wanted to re-share with you a card that was originally made last year for one of the Cricut Cardz Challenges but was also just published in the July edition of Cricut Magazine.

For this card I used:

A Child's Year for the silhouette of the boy on the rocket cut at 2".

Stand and Salute for the flags cut at 3" - one of which was 'flipped'.  For the stars on my flags I used a metallic paint.

For my background paper I chose the Tim Holtz seasonal mat stack as this particular paper just made the cuts pop thus giving a great overall look to the card.

Sunsets

Happy Friday everyone.  I am excited to announce that I have been chose to participate with yet another great Design Team.  This one is the Pause Dream Enjoy Team, and just as with the other two teams that I am a part of you won't want to miss any of the upcoming challenges.

This week our challenge over at PDE was to create a project with Sunset as the theme using either the colors of a sunset or a sunset itself as the focal point.  So when was the last time you watched the sun set (or rise for that matter)?  I used to watch it rise every morning on the drive in to work but now that I work closer to home I have not watched it rise in a while.  Watching it set though is another story and seeing the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico (or even the bay) is a breathtaking moment with all the beauty and splendor that is displayed before your eyes.

So all of that said, I wanted to try to capture at least some of that awe in my card.  So I created layers of sunset colors as my background. 

To do this I cut 1" scalloped borders from Accent Essentials.  I think inked along the scallops and laid them out in what I felt was the best color pattern for a sunset scheme.  I then used A Child's Year and Campin Critters to create my silhouette shapes.

And now that you've seen my creation hop on over to Pause Dream Enjoy and check out the other fabulous designs that our team created.  Then after you have been amply inspired, create your own sunset project and link up for your chance to win a $5 gift certificate to Ginger Snap Scraps.  You have until Thursday, July 12th to submit your project - I look forward to see what you come up with.

Happy 4th of July

I hope that today's post finds everyone of you doing well and enjoying some fun time with your friends/family.  Being in the hospitality industry (and this being one of the busiest weeks at the over three dozen communities my company manages) I will be one of the many who have to work.....but that's okay because I'll only be working for half of it. 

In the meantime, I wanted to encourage all of you to join us over at Just a Scrappin for our July 4th challenge.  The rules for this particular challenge are to create a July 4th project (card, layout, etc) using the colors red, white, blue and two others. 

For whatever reason I missed the color blue as one of the given colors and chose it as one of my 2nd colors.  Sorry about that.  Nonetheless I trust that everyone will approve of my creation. 

This was a rather easy card to create and required only two cartridges:

Accent Essentials and A Child's Year

I created a flag for my background using the scallop border from Accent Essentials and then as you can see chose a July 4th silhouette for my focal point.

Let's not forget the sentiment!  For this card I needed something special.  So I chose:

"How important it is

for us to recognize and celebrate

our heroes and she-roes!

~ Maya Angelou"

And now that you've seen my project be sure to hop over to Just A Scrappin to see all the other fabulous projects created by Team One of Design Team group.  Then after you have been amply inspired create your own project, link up, and play along with us.

Sparrow Sympathy Card

One of my friends just lost her husband to cancer this week and while trying to decide what I wanted to do for a sympathy card I came across the saying, "His eye is on the sparrow" along with a picture of a sparrow in a hand.  Of course that got me going and thus this card was born.

I used A Child's Year for the hand and Home Decor for the bird.

I love using this hand for things but I've really got to figure out how to make it look more dimensional and not so 'flat'.

God's Promise

Happy April 18th - or International Juggler's Day.  Now how's that for a bizarre 'holiday'?  Hmmmmm, I think I smell a challenge idea coming on.......

Anyhow, back to the here and now.  It's time for another installment in Cricut Cardz Challenges.  Today's challenge is brought to you by April Showers, where our directive was to make a card using an umbrella, rain boots, clouds, raindrops, puddles, etc. from any cartridge/s we choose.  As you can see I chose to use a couple of the different cuts listed. 

On to the 'recipe'.  For my card I used the following cartridges and cuts:

A Child's Year for the girl silhouette cut at 4 1/4".  I cut away the umbrella from the silhouette so I could replace it with another one in color.

Graphically Speaking for the puddles cut at 1" and 1 1/2" hiding the contour for the flowers.

Everyday Pop-up Cards was used for several cuts including:

• The clouds.  To do this I cut the pop up mechanism at 5 3/4"and 4".  I hid the contours for all the pop up pieces and the slider holes in the clouds.  After cutting and printing the verbiage on the clouds I embossed and lightly inked over them.
• The umbrella on the outside of the card cut at 2 3/4"
• The pop up on the inside of the card cut at 6 1/4"

April Showers for the worm cut at 1" and the butterfly cut at 3/4".

And now that you have seen my card, why don't you hop on over and check the other awesome designs our team came up with for this week's challenge.  Then after you've soaked in all that inspiration create your own card and play along with us.

UPDATE:  I'm excited to have found out that this card made the April 27, 2012 edition of the Cricut Chirp.

Wearing of the Green

It's time for another installment of Cricut Cardz Challenge.  Today's challenge (#104) is brought to you by St. Patrick's Day where our directive was to make a St. Patrick's Day card using any cartridge we desired but using green as the main color.

Now I admit that since my craft room has been torn apart for about a week now I made a card that was simplistic.  However, I still love the overall look and feel to the card.  For this challenge I used only one cartridge:

A Child's Year

The card feature was cut at 6"
The girl holding the shamrock was cut at 2 3/4".  Because green is the primary color I wanted my shamrock to stand out from the brown and black so I cut a couple of other shamrocks at just under 1" and glued them in place of the one that was originally with this cut.  (hope that made sense.  lol)

On the inside of my card I used a couple of the shamrocks from the card feature and a couple of the smaller ones to help dress it up.

Now that you've seen my card hop on over to Cardz TV to take a look at the other wonderful cards our design team created this week.  Then make your own, link up and play along with us.

Give Thanks - First Published Work

It has long since been a dream of mine to have one of my "works" published.  For a couple years now I have sent items in to a couple of magazines (like so many of you I'm sure) hoping upon hope that they would pick me to be published.  But month after month it was not meant to be........until one happy day last year when I received word that Cricut Magazine wanted to publish my submission in the November 2011 edition.

And now that the issue is over a month old I am able to share my submission with all of you.  For this projects I used:

A Child's Year for the fonts, cut at 1 1/2"
Accent Essentials for the scalloped shapes cut at 4 1/2", 5" and 6" all layered using pop dots
George for the circle cut at 8"
Thanksgiving for the corn cut at 3 1/2"

Oh, and guess what.  I just received word yesterday that another of my projects has been accepted for publication in the upcoming July issue...............

Spooks, Monsters, Ghouls and Goblins Challenge

Happy Wednesday everyone and welcome to another Cricut Cardz Challenge where this week the challenge  is "Spooks, Monsters, Ghouls and Goblins!"   Our directive?  Make a card for Halloween using any Halloween image, from any cartridge(s) and using any colors.


Now, I'm going to admit that I have been super busy preparing for a craft show this Saturday so I chose a 2009 redo that I fell in love with thanks to Papercrafts Magazine.  That was the time that using glitter on cards became all the rage and a particular project had caught my eye.


This card though I did more in a post card fashion so it doesn't open, but flips over for the sentiment.  I used Stretch Your Imagination, A Child's Year, and Paper Dolls Dress Up, and I embossed my trees to add some texture.  My background night sky is made of nothing but glitter.  I used two different colors beginning from the top and the bottom for each and then fading the one into the other.

So now that you've seen my card take a look at the other Design Team entries for this week for more inspiration then create your own and link up to share your design with us.  C'mon it'll be fun.

Last of the Onsies

Finally, finally, finally I have finished the last of all the onsie albums I needed to get made.  For the longest time I had an inspirational block but then I found the Cricut Lite cartridge 9 months and it was game on.  Not all of the pages for these albums used the new cartridge but it at least got me out of my funk.

And with that I wanted to share the new pages I made for these particular albums.

For the covers I used 9 months for the blocks and the heaven sent.

This cute little elephant is also from 9 months.

Now I know that the tubs are nothing new, but I found these great "bubbles" with the cutesy buttons at Michael's this past weekend and just had to redo these pages.

And finally, these cute rubber duckies were perfect for this new baby print I found.  The ducks and the hands are both from A Child's Year.

New Pages for Baby Album

As I get closer to my first craft show of the season I decided to get a few onesie albums made up and I thought I'd add some new items to the pages this go round.  I changed up the way I did the covers by adding in some embellishments.  I love the way that they look and think it's more inviting than just having the words on the cover.

Other new additions include a couple of pages with the baby birds from the 3 birds on parade cartridge.  You'll see them here along with some of the other pages I've made.

I also added in some new journaling tags.

But this one is  my favorite.  I got this idea while shopping around on Scrapbook.com and decided to try my hand at creating my own journaling strips.

I used Wild Card for my pocket and A Child's Year for the crawling baby. The journal strips were created in Microsoft Word and to hold them in the pocket I added the little foot paper clip.  If you like this page and would like to make some of your own you can download the cut file as well as the strips file by clicking on the  link for the tutorials page on the right hand side.

So what do you think?  Do you have any ideas for what you'd like to see in a baby album?  Have you made one that you'd like share?  Drop a line and let me know.

God Thinks You're Wonderful

I was inspired to create this card after I received an email from DaySpring that was advertising Max Lucado's book God Thinks You're Wonderful. 

For this card I finally broke down and used my E2 just so I could use this cut from the Just a Note cartridge.  Being spoiled with Design Studio like I am I will be thrilled when Cricut is either able to get CCR up and going or updates Gypsy to be able to use the pre-loaded carts.  But I digress.....

The hand on the inside of the card was cut from A Child's Year.

Girlie Mini Onsie Album

My sister asked me to created a onsie album for her to give to a girlfriend that's due within the next couple of weeks and this is what I came up with.  Now before I get started on filling you in on all the deets I have to give credit to IslandV over at Scrap Innovations because she enabled me to create my first one and a couple of the pages I used in this one I scraplifted from her.  So if you haven't checked her blog out before you really should......

Once again I used my Sizzix onsie die for the pages.  Don't have Sizzix?  No problem....if you have the New Arrival cartridge that is.  Just use the onsie cut from New Arrival cut at 5.5 inches and you'll have the onsie base for all your pages.  Be sure to cut your pages from chipboard to give the album a sturdy base.

I also used A Child's Year, New Arrival, Baby Steps, and Accent Essentials for my other cuts.

For the first pages pictured I used Accent Essentials for the scalloped oval  -originally a circle that I skewed in Design Studio and cut at 3.5 x 2.5 inches. 

From Baby Steps I cut the bear at 2" and the baby's head (from the baby in the bathtub) at 1.5".  I cut two of the baby's head, flipping the second one and hiding all the facial features for the backside of the baby's head.  I then cut a piece of paper 3 x 2.5", used my corner rounding punch and ran it through my printer for the verbiage.  The blanket was made using a piece of double sided paper cut at 6.5 x 3" folded in half from the long side.  I then cut a slit from the top down on the front side, folded the edges back and glued along the side edges only. 

For the baby crib page I used Baby Steps and cut the crib at 2.5".  The mat I used was cut at 3 x 2.75".  I then glued the mat down and then adhered the crib on top of the mat gluing along the bottom and side edges only so that a picture could be slipped in.  (Next time I create this page I will pop dot it some for easier access though)

For the next set of pages I made the following cuts:

New Arrival - Stork, Baby, Bottles and Moon cuts all at 1.5"

Baby Steps - Little Girl cut at 1.5", words baby steps, highchair, food jars all cut at 2"

A Child's year for the mom holding a baby cut at 3"

Accent Essentials for the other mats cut at 3 x 2.5"

The Giraffe and baby bib are stickers that I found in my stash.

To put it all together I added 3/16" or 4.7mm eyelets and used 1" loose leaf binder rings.