Breakfast Bowl Scramble

One Sunday morning many years ago I was trying to figure out what to cook for breakfast.  Not having the usual bacon, ham or sausage patties I was frustrated.  But then I remembered that I had these cocktail sausages that I was going to use for a different dish.  Instead I decided that they would be used for breakfast that morning.  I cut every last one of the little things in half, cooked them up and threw them together with whatever else I could find that morning. 

 

And so the breakfast bowl scramble was 'born'.  Even though the kids are all grown they still love it when I cook this up during their visits.  And after being asked for the 'recipe' I decided it would be one that I'd include in every scrapbook cookbook I create.

 

So now I give you my latest page.  This time I changed out the pig face from Animal Kingdom for the face of Hamm from Toy Story.  The pig silhouette is from the Cricut Cartridge Animal Kingdom and the arrow is from Graphically Speaking. 

One of the great things about creating some of these recipe pages is that it has enabled me to whittle down some of my scrap stash.  I'm pretty bad about holding on to every piece of paper regardless of size so I love it when I can finally put those pieces to use.

 

And now I'm off to enter this recipe page into the following challenges:

 

Jo's Scrap Shack - Anything Goes - Ends August 14th

 

DoubleClick Skittles - Food Challenge - Ends August 18th

 

DL Art - August Linky Challenge - Ends August 31st

Hiding in My Craft Room - Super Scraps Saturday - Ends August 15th

Brr - It's Cold Out There

Happy Wednesday everyone and welcome to another DoubleClick Skittles Challenge.  This week we're going to the birds.  That's right create a card or project using any kind of bird.

 

For my card I used the Cricut cartridge Graphically Speaking for the tree and Baby Steps for my bird in the nest.  I found this great paper with the foiled flourishes and thought it would create the perfect background for a cold, blistery look.

 

Once I got the card laid out I added some snow effects to the tree branches using my DecoArt Snow Writer.  My stamped sentiments are from the Winter Wonderland stamp set by My Craft Spot.

 

The skittles at the bottom of my card are the colors Stream and Frosty Kisses.  Be sure you check out all of the exciting colors available here.  I don't know about you but I am addicted to these little gems!

 

Now that you've see my take on this week's challenge be sure to create your own, link up and play along with us.  Happy crafting.

Elf File - Gift Card Holder

Today I have a final gift card holder that I'd like to share with you.  It's actually a card, but it's doubling as a gift card holder since I added glue dots to the gift card, stuck it on the inside of the card and then stamped my sentiments around it.

 

I made this for my dad - the man who has everything.  Every year I ask my mom what I should get for my dad and every year it's the same thing.  Just get him a gift card to Bass Pro because he's always finding something new he wants for his fishing.  And so that's what I do.  I get him a gift card.....

 

Rather than just giving him the gift card in an envelope though I wanted to make a card or something for it to go in.  So I thought it would be cute to use all the different elf stamps I had and set to work creating this themed card.  I used the Buddy the Elf file from the recent Christmas movie blog hop sponsored by SVG Cutting Files and the file folder from the Cricut cartridge Graphically Speaking. 

 

All of the different stamped sentiments you see on my file folder, pages and inside of the card are from the Jaded Blossom stamp sets Elf Workshop and Elf Report Card.  Sadly though I do not have any markers or colored pencils with which to color in my elf, but that's okay I think it's fine the way that it is.

Now of course I'm entering this card in to a challenge or two.  Want to come play along as well?  I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Anything Christmas - SVG Cutting Files - Ends January 14th

Elf (Holiday Inspired Project) - Red Carpet Studios - Ends December 31st

December Linky Party - DL Art - Ends December 31st

Anything Christmas - Bitten by the Bug 2 - Ends December 28th

 

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

Love Letters

Today I'd like to share with you the project that I made for my husband's Valentine's Day gift.  I found these wonderful little 3 in x 4 in paper bags at Michael's and just knew I had to have them.  Especially since they were on sale 50% off.  I loved the idea that they had the space for journaling on the bag and thought they were the perfect size for making tags and hoped they wouldn't be too big to fit in one of the mailbox tins I had.  After discovering that they weren't too big off to work I went.

I used a variety of cartridges on this project including:

Going Places for the globe

Create a Critter 2 for the owl, phrases and bee

Handyman for the hammer and nails

Paper Dolls for the moon and stars, and the weights

Graphically Speaking for the smiley face

Suburbia for the fan

Indie Art for the dice

Wild Cards 2 for the boat

Mini Monsters for the monster

TBBM2 for the tags

This is a picture of the front of the tags

And this is the back of the tags.  As you can see I printed different sentiments to coincide with the graphic on the front of the tag.

Once they were all put together I matched them up with the paper bag that also had the sentiment written on it.

Then in to the mailbox all but 4 went.  Throughout this week I've left one tag in different hiding spots (truck, lunch bag, bowling shoes, shaker cup) for my husband to find at some point during his day.

For my mailbox - I cut a strip of 4 x 12 paper, wrapped it around the box (cutting out a spot for the flag).  I then traced and cut out the pieces for the front and back.  The stamped sentiment is from Cardz TV Stamps snail mail.

Tomorrow I will place the mailbox - along with a Mine Craft Creeper plush (he's a huge Mine Craft fan) I picked up - in the front seat of his truck.......

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.

 

 

Man's Best Friend

Happy Wednesday everyone.  It's the middle of the week and that means we're just that much closer to the weekend and for me that means I'll actually be able to do some more crafting this weekend.  WooHoo!!  But before that happens I'd like to share a fun project with you that is perfect for showcasing pictures of your furry friends, or whatever you'd like to showcase.  Just pick a theme and have fun.

This project was inspired by one I saw in Flip, Spin & Play from the Editors of Memory Makers books. Using a bit of foam core board, a slinky and regular paper crafting items it was project in the making and I love the end results.

For the cuts on my frame I used the Paper Pups cartridge cutting the pups on the outside at 2 1/2" and the ones on the inside at 1 3/4". I also used the Graphically Speaking cartridge for the man's best friend phrase.

Here you can get a peek and how things are put together.  Each end of the slinky is poked into the foam core board and twisted in just enough to ensure it's stable and stays put.  The the pictures are "fastened" in place by using a scrap piece and a glue dot with a ring of slinky between the two.

Oh and to make it stand I took one of the picture frame 'stands' that I didn't need off one of the pictures that hang on the wall.

Food & Beverage Challenge Recipe Page

Happy Friday everyone and welcome to our food and beverage challenge, brought to you by Pause, Dream Enjoy! Our directive for this challenge was to create any type of project featuring food and/or beverages.  As you can tell I chose to feature food in the form of a recipe page spotlighting one of my family's favorite cold weather soups.  (I admit we make this year round though.)

 

For this recipe page (which I have created a couple variations of because I LOVE this little pig face) I used:

 

Animal Kingdom for the pig

Graphically Speaking for the arrow

From My Kitchen for the recipe card

 

And now that you've seen my project for this week's challenge, pop on over to PDE and check out all the other exciting projects our team created for you this week.  Then after  you've oohed and aahed, create one of your own and link up for your chances to win 3 digis of your choice from this week's sponsor

 

Fresh Brewed Designs

http://freshbreweddesigns.com/

Prize: 3 digis of the winner's choice

Enter your project below!
...

Cancer Stinks

Happy Wednesday everyone.  Today I have a special card to share with you.  This was made for this week's “Let's Hear it for the Girls!” Cricut Cardz Challenge where our directive was  to make a card for Breast Cancer Awareness using any cartridge(s) and colors you’d like.

Now I admit I have not lost any friends/relatives to breast cancer but I have lost loved ones to other types and still have others who are currently battling this ugly disease, including my own father who is battling three different types of cancer.  All I can say is that he is one heck of a fighter and with the loving support of my mom he's kicking tail. 

So back to my card - for this one I used:

Create a Critter for the skunk
Graphically Speaking for the comic "callout"
Stand and Salute for the ribbon in the skunk's hand

And now that you've seen my card be sure to hop on over to Cardz TV and check out all of the other great cards our DT has created for this week's challenge.  This was a tough one but every one of the ladies did an awesome job. 

When you're doing being inspired be sure to create your own, link up and play along with us.  And speaking of playing along I'm also including this card in the die cuts challenge going on over at Hiding in My Craft Room.

Christmas Card Holder - Altered Project

I've been working on this project for the past week and half and am now ready to share this fun project with you.  These card holders were inspired from a Holiday Cards & More magazine published by Papercrafts a couple years ago.  I've been searching for the holder so I could make my own and as luck would have it Hobby Lobby delivered a sale email to my inbox that just happened to have them featured!!!  You might be able to find them in the store but since the closest one to me is an hour away ordering them online was well worth the shipping costs.

So I started my project with this........

And after a couple coats of white acyrlic paint, I had this.....

After the inside and sides were dried, I turned the caddy upside down and painted the underneath.  Once that was dry I took them outside and sprayed them down with a sealant to help protect the paint.

The next step was finding the right papers for each of my caddies.  Once selected I measured the rectangular sides, cut the needed sizes and then traced the two ends onto the left over paper.  In all one 12" x 12" sheet of paper was all that was needed.  After inking the edges of the paper I used Scotch quick dry adhesive, I glued my papers in place, carefully trimmed any excess and then lightly sanded all edges.

Now for the fun.  Deciding what cuts I want to use to embellish my caddies!  I wanted to use cuts that would enhance the papers used.  While some were easy choices, others were not as easy as I anticipated.

All caddies of course have the same folder.  I cut these from Grapically Speaking and repurposed an actual manilla folder for the job.  After cutting the folders I ran each one through the printer and used the Christmas card font from dafont.com.

I then used the following cuts between the four caddies:

Teddy Bear Parade - Elf Teddy Bear (pictured above)

Christmas Solutions - Santa (after several attempts to cut his glasses I gave up)

Create a Critter 2 - Snowman

Christmas Cheer - Candies and Stocking

Oh, and that card you see in my caddy - here it is in full view.

I originally cut this little bear out for one of my caddies but with the antlers he was too tall.  So I combined him with this tree cut from one of my Sizzix dies.



I hope you enjoyed seeing my project and if you make some I'd love to see what you did so come back and tell me about it.....

Just A Scrappin Summer Fun Blog Hop

Welcome to the first ever Just A Scrappin Blog Hop! If you just hopped over from Scrapbooking and Card Making by Sherry, you're in the right place. If you're just stopping by for a visit and would like to hop along, go to Just A Scrappin so you can start at the beginning.

Our wonderful Design Team has pulled out all the stops and created some fabulous summer fun projects that I am sure will have you oohing and aahing along the way.  Of course with so many fun things to do this time of year it was hard to settle on just one thing to use as the focal point on my project.  However, I've been making quite a few summer projects lately so I decided to use one that I had not yet featured. 

My husband and I have taken back up our new found love of cycling this summer.  We just started this 'hobby' last season so we haven't been doing it long.  But we are fortunate in that there are a few spots in our area where we can go and safely enjoy our currently 17 mile long rides and still have an adventure or two along the way.  Why a couple weeks ago as we were finishing our ride we had the pleasure of a Black Bear crossing our path.....Oh the fun of it all!

For this card I wanted a different fold than the usual straight down the middle, open it up and there it is  fold.  So I opted for the S-Fold.  To create the 'scene' on my card I used:

Graphically Speaking for the frame and the sun

Camping Critters for the squirrel on his bike

My background paper, which I just love is from My Little Shoebox and is called Playtime - Catch Me if You Can.  How fitting is that?
 
And the quote?  Well, let's just say I thought it was perfect as well.
 
Oh and let's not forget that I have a little blog candy to give away as well.  If you would like a chance to win the items pictured below leave me a comment telling me your favorite thing to do over the summer OR what kind of projects you like to create in the summer.  That's it.  You don't have to be a follower (even though followers are great I prefer to have them because people want to be) but you will have to remember to come back here on Wednesday, July 25th to see if you are the winner.

Blog Candy - Winner to be Announced 7/25/2012


And now be sure to hop over to Creating with the Heart to see the fabulous Summer Fun project Cindy has created to share with you.  And just in case you need it, here's the entire line-up for our Blog Hop.....
 

Bridget

Nicole M

Melitta

Keia

Liz

Bree

Joann

Belinda

Annmarie

Michelle

Sherry

Me - You're already here ;o)

Cindy

Marye

Kim D

Carol

Nicole D.

Patti B

Father's Day Pocket Card

With Father's Day only 12 days away I figured I best get a move on and start making my cards.  So far I have two of the three I need done and this is the first one I'd like to share with you. 

My inspiration for this card was found in the pages of the May/June edition of Paper Crafts Magazine. (Check out their blog.)  The original version used dies from papertrey  ink and quickutz but I used my trusty 'ol Cricut:

Old West was used for the pocket.  I hid the little design on the pocket and I also cut a small rectangle to adhere to the top edge of the pocket as my 'flap'.

Graphically Speaking was used for the paper which I also embossed using the argyle cuttlebug folder.

Life's a Party was used for the glasses.  After cutting out the pieces I ran the face piece through my Xyron and adhered a frosted type acrylic to the die cut.

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.

Family Secret Recipe Page

This morning I wanted to share another page from my daughter's recipe book.  Only this time you won't see the recipe because it's one that has been passed down from one generation to another after the recipient promises to never share the recipe.  Yep, it's that good.  lol

For this page I used:

Graphically Speaking for the folder and the words hush, hush (which adhered a little off kilter, but hey isn't that part of homemade things sometimes?  Letting the 'human' element show through?  ;o) )

Paper Pups for the dog

Stand & Salute for the hat

So whaddya think?  Cute way to "guard" the family secret don't 'cha think?

Breakfast Bowl Recipe Page

I absolutely love this little pig face from the Animal Kingdom cartridge.  And what better way to display him than for a recipe page featuring pork? 

The breakfast bowl recipe is one that I just kinda threw together one morning and it was an instant hit with all the children as well as my hubby.  So needless to say when I put together a scrapbooked recipe album for one of my daughter's this recipe had to be included.

To put the piggie's face together I pop dotted the snout to add a little depth to his face and as you can tell I opted for wiggle eyes to give him a more comical look.  This was a quick put together page that was both playful and cute all at the same time.

June in January CCChallenge #100

Happy Wednesday my fellow bloggers!  Today I'd like to share a card that I created for the June in January Cricut Cardz Challenge #100.  Our directive for this week was to make a card with summer as our theme using any cartridges and colors of our choosing.  Since we're talking summer I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use my Block Party cartridge for the first time.

Using Block Party I cut my grill master at 5 1/2".  To add a bit of texture to the mix I used my mosaic embossing folder for the apron.  Before running the cut through I smear some orange colored ink to the folder.

The grill was cut at 5 1/4" and while you can't really see it in the picture I added some glossy accents to the handles and wheel hubs.

The cartoon bubble (aka call out) was cut from Graphically Speaking and then pop dotted to add some dimension to the card.

So a man thinks he can cook better on an outdoor grill than what you ask?

............than his wife can on an indoor stove.

And now that you've seen my card be sure to check out the other awesome designs created by the team.  Then create your own, link up and play along with us.

Dear Santa

This is another quick and easy card that I put together last night.  I just LOVE Christmas and have all these ideas running around in my head.  Now I just need the time to start committing them to Design Studio or my Gypsy.

In the meantime I created this card by beginning with my computer to create a couple of letters to Santa.  I found this great font called Darlin BTN which I used because it looks just like a child's handwriting.  The hardest part in writing these letters was deciding which words to misspell.  Well okay, it was also difficult remembering what a 6 and 8 year old would ask Santa for - even though I wasn't sure what parts of the letter would be visible when the card was complete.

Once the letters were printed I cut them down to place on my cutting mat so that I could use Graphically Speaking to cut the paper to look like it came from a notebook of some kind.

I also used Winter Frolic for my Santa and the verbiage.  And I must say that I'm happy that I finally broke down and bought this cartridge.  I've toyed around with that decision for the last year so it was about time that I made one.  lol

Purse Album

Happy Tuesday everyone!  Today I want to share a new album with you that I made using the booklet purse and pages die from Sizzix along with a couple of Cricut cartridges - Girl's Makeup Party, Graphically Speaking, Indie Art, Rock Princess and Accent Essentials.

This is a smaller album with the pages measuring only 2 x 3 inches at their largest so my cuts were small but they all cut rather well.

Starting with Rock Princess I cut the word 'diva' for the purse cover.

The shoes and word attitude were cut from Graphically Speaking.

The blow dryer, compact, lip gloss, and sleeping mask were cut from Girl's Makeup Party.

The lips - coated with a pink glitter - are from Indie Art.

Finally all of the mats are from Accent Essentials.

Did Ya Hear? Did Ya? Huh?

Have an annoucement to make to your friends and/or family?  Here's a great way to do it if you're not able to break the news to them personally.

For the outside of this card I used the newspaper cut from Love You a Latte.

On the inside of the card I used Everyday Pop ups for the pregnant mom and the cloud from Graphically Speaking (cut at various sizes) to create the "call-out".

Hope you enoy this card as much as I did making it.