A Special Kind of Friendship

Happy Monday everyone.  I trust that despite being taxes due day everyone will be able to find some kind of enjoyment out of the day - especially since we're celebrating friendships at Pause Dream Enjoy today.  The challenge is very simple.  Just create a card, layout or project celebrating friendship.

 

For my card I chose to showcase the special friendship between Ernie and his long time pal, Rubber Duckey.

 

To create my card I cut 1" squares using a paper trimmer for my tiles and then glued them to the card to simulate a tiled wall. The bathtub was cut at 4" from New Arrival.

The "bubbles" were cut by merging circles from George together and then sized to be proportionate with the bathtub. They were then cut from vellum and embossed in the Cuttlebug and ran through the Xyron for adhering.

Ernie was cut at 3" with only the top half of the cut being used. In order to have his body rather than the sweater show I cut one of the solid base cuts and then cut out the section that I needed for the body.

The inside sentiment on my card are lyrics from the Sesame Street song D-U-C-K-I-E:

D means you're delightful and delicious and so dear

U says I'm undone by what you do

C is for the cute way that you squeak into my ear

K is for the kick I get from you

I, I'll be there if you're in hot water

E you're extra-special to the end

Put them altogether, they spell DU-UUU-CKIE

Rubber duckie, I'm so lucky you're my friend

 

And now that you've seen my project be sure to check the other wonderful designs our team put together for you this week.  Then create your own project and link up for a chance to win this week's prize.......sponsored by TSQ Royal Castle Shoppe.

 

"Royal Friends" Stamp Set
(must have a USA address)

 

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.

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.

Baby Onsie Mini Albums

I just finished these albums today after beginning on them a couple weeks ago and then setting them aside.  My poor brain just couldn't decide what it wanted to do for the embellishing and even though they are now complete I'm still not entirely sure about all the pages.  There are a couple that are my favorites though.....

For this project I cut the onsie out using the Sizzix Bigz XL Baby Onsie die.  It's a discontinued die, but I was able to find it at my local AC Moore which was great since I was able to use a 40% off coupon on the purchase price.  Each page was cut from chipboard and then back with paper from the Brenda Walton BW Small Wonders stack from K&Company.

For the picture mats I used cuts from Accent Essentials and George

Most of my other cuts are from New Arrival with the following exceptions

Baby in the Stroller is from Simply Charmed

 These pages with the stroller, feet, and crying baby are my favorites

Crying Baby is from Car Decals

The diaper pins were stickers from my stash.

For the covers I cut both "boy" and "girl" and will make those into stickers so that whoever receives the album will be able to tailor it to their baby's sex. 

The binder rings used are 1" book rings or loose leaf binder rings which can be found at an office supply store.  These size rings only allowed for a 6 page album so next time I'll need to increase the ring size.  The eyelets are 3/16" or 4.7mm which are the larger ones and allow for smooth movement of the rings as pages are flipped.

Sweet Pea Baby Gift

I saw this wonderful idea on the Cricut MB last month and finally remembered to buy the stuff to try it out for myself.  Boy was this fun to do and so very easy.  And to complete the gift giving I decided to make a card to go with the little pea pod - also easy to do.

The only cartridge used for this card was New Arrival.  I cut the pea pod and the baby face at 4" and the words Sweet Pea were cut at 1".

Baby Side Stair Step Card

Today's card is brought to you by Ayssa who asked me to create "a side step, because they are FABULOUS :) with... New Arrival (and/or A Childs Year), for a new baby card." 

There's not too much detail in this one, but I especially love the baby's menu sign. I've made a couple of other side stair step cards and thought I'd try a baby one, but it wasn't as easy for me as the others....

As requested everything with the exception of the monkey is from New Arrival. The monkey is a sticker from Sandylion Essentials.

Tall Baby Congrats

This week's Cricut Cardz DT challenge was to create a "tall" card. Tall being defined as a card that measures 8 3/4" x 3 1/2". Wow! So what to do and just how do you fill up that much narrow space anyway?

The first thing that came to my mind was to do something with blocks. Okay, great. What blocks? ........hmmmm.....How about baby blocks? And away I went.

So for this card I used the New Arrival cartridge. The cuts on the front of the card were doing using Nana's Nursery coordinating papers. My rattle was cut twice so that I could cut out the center and create a "shaker" which was filled with baby confetti.

I realize this is another of my simplistic cards but hey I don't really have much of a craft room to work in right now (long story) so I'm just excited to be able to get any cards created with my Cricut right now.

Little One

Happy Sunday everyone!

It's amazing how a rain storm can make things feel warmer and then suddenly it turns cold again. That's just what happened here in the FL Panhandle this weekend and let me tell you it's for the birds. Don't get me wrong I'm grateful not to have all the snow that's going on up North but at the same time I do live in Florida....

The card I have to share with this morning is a baby card that I created from a sketch I saw. I used New Arrival, George and Accent Essentials. As you can see it's a rather simple design and was easy to put together.

The safety pins are new brads that I found at Hobby Lobby from a company called Eyelet Outlet. They had several types of different styles and I thought these would be really fun so I had to grab them.

And now I must get back to work......I still have to finish this week's Cricut Cardz Challenge. Stay tuned you won't want to miss this one - it's sure to have some really great designs from the team this week. I'm so excited to see them all that I can hardly stand it.

Crawling Baby Blocks

I have been busy creating cards for various challenges this past week and while I wish that I could share them with you all now you'll have to wait for them to be revealed when the time comes.

But, I just finshed a "New Arrival" - Congratulations card. Unfortunately, the pictures I took with both the camera and my scanner just do not do it justice as the patterned paper is glittery with pinks and greens that don't really show up. Perhaps, I'll get that new camera purchased soon.....

In the meantime, this picture will just have to do. For this card I used:

Paper Dolls Everyday for the crawling baby and rabbit

New Arrival for the baby blocks

The patterned paper is from Nana's Nursery

When Life Hands You Lemons

I got the idea for this card during one of my awake times the other night; however, while putting it together I realized that I still have a lot to learn when trying to modify certain cuts.

There's not really anything special to this one just a lot of cutting, inking and strategic placement.

Abby Cadabbra Pop Up Card

This is another pop up that I created today. Again I used the cuttlebug for the outside of the card but added a die cut this time as well.

The inside is Abby Cadabbra from the Sesame Street Friends cartridge.

To create the pop up cut a piece of paper 8 x 5 inches and fold in half so that it measures 4 x 5 inches. Score along the center fold. Open the paper back up and with your ruler measure 1 1/2" from the top of the card down the crease and make a small mark. Then from the center fold measure 1 1/2" inches out on both sides again making a small mark. Using your ruler score from the center mark to each mark on the top. This will create a "V". Now fold along the score lines creating the V fold in and down the crease (also known as a valley fold).

Adhere this to the inside of your card while the V is folded inward. Once secure open in order to position your die cut for the pop up affect. When deciding where to position the die cut be sure that when the card is closed the die cut is completely hidden in the card. Secure your cut and finish embellishing the card.

Sweet Pea Baby Card

This was a quick card that I made this morning for part of the order that I am in process of completing. For this one I used the New Arrival cartridge and cut the baby and pod at 4" and Sweet Pea verbiage at 1".

The background paper is AnimalCrackers Ella Die Cut Flowers from Making Memories that I found at Michael's on their 8 for $1 clearance sale. Now I'm wishing that I had picked up more than just two pieces....I hate it when I do stuff like that. Oh well, live and learn right?

Baby Bathtime Card

This card was made using Design Studio and the New Arrival cart. It measures 5" x 6.5".

The tub layer was embossed using my cuttlebug and the shower head was chalked with a shade of blue.

If you would like a copy of the cut file you can download it for a nominal fee at www.spotofsanity.com/shop

Bringing Home the Tree

After being on vacation for a week and trying to get the new craft room organized enough to create a card (still not complete and probably won't be until this weekend - will post more on that when it's done) I was finally able to do so tonight. I thought I'd go crazy since it's been so long. Not to mention the fact that my wonderful husband bought me four new cartridges for my birthday. So what do I do the first night I scrap in almost two weeks??? Why use all the old cartridges of course.

For this card I cut:

Truck from New Arrival at 3 1/2"

Snowmen from Speaking of Winter at 3 1/2"

Tree created using the new Martha Stewart branch punch

Sad but busy day

Today my oldest daughter left home to go back to college in Georgia. It was a sad day for me since I'm not certain when I will see her again. College and the social life seem to keep her very busy. Which is a good thing I suppose because then she isn't getting into trouble.

So while I was trying not to cry and feel depressed about it all I decided to isolate myself and stayed in my craft room pretty much all day. I did come out long enough to do some laundry and cook dinner for the family, but other than that I made baby cards all day.

My boss, who has also recently left me (like yesterday) for a new position in Orlando, asked me to make 50 cards for her to give her sister as a gift. Since I'm still new to the card making arena they were all simple but I still love the way they turned out.

Now that the baby cards are done I can begin on some that I've been wanting to do and I can get back to scrapbooking too.