Bo Bunny Frame

I'm back from the Circle Meet Up in Dallas and had a wonderful time. When I download all of my photos, I'll post them with more details!

We spent Saturday at a LSS called PS Scrapbook in Allen, TX. We met up with Val, from the Cricut Demo Army. This was the first time I've met Val and she is one very talented, sweet lady! We had a blast. I also met several other really fun women, as we spent the day cropping!

While at the store, this kit from Bo Bunny caught my eye. Of course I had to buy and begin working on it immediately. This is the finished project:



This is all laid out on a 12" x 12" very thick piece of wood (about 3/4"). Naturally I wanted (or should I say needed) to ink it up. Val suggested I use glimmer mist and threw over her bottle of Brick Red Glimmer Mist. WOW what an idea! I finished up inking the sides with my Fired Brick Distressed Ink and I love the way it came out!

The only thing left to do is to add photos which I haven't done because I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it or give it to my niece who's getting married next month. I want to give it to her, but not sure it's her taste. We'll see.........

Lori's Garden Birthday Card

Here is another Lori's Garden birthday card. I just love this cartridge so much! It has such lovely images! The background paper as well as the bird was all done with the cartridge. I chose two different papers, the birdcages and the pink waves. I used a Happy Birthday stamp on the pink paper, along with some white frilly ribbon to hid the seam of the two different papers. I cut the bird on the branch out, then just the bird so I could pop it up to give it some dimension.

Wonderful Blog Candy

Sylvias Stamping Place is celebrating 300 followers with some wonderful blog candy! Go check out her blog - it's fabulous!


http://sylviastamps.blogspot.com/2011/02/blog-candy.html

Lori's Garden and the Imagine

I've had my Imagine since the launch in 2010 (well actually I had to send the first one back because it didn't work at all). I haven't used it all that much, but when I do I'm really pleased with the images. I love how it makes the creative process easy!

I have to admit that Lori's Garden is my favorite Imagine cartridge! I know why people are paying over $200.00 for it on E-bay, although a little voice deep down is yelling SELL! LOL

Here's a birthday card I made with the cartridge. I printed and cut the frame, then did the same for the bird. The bird is pop dotted on the page because the wings go through the bird giving it great dimension! I happened to have the pink polka dotted cardstock on my desk. I used the Imagine on the cut only mode and cut one of the shapes that are preloaded onto the Imagine. I then used my trusty Happy Birthday stamp and tucked into the corner of the frame.



All of this was put on green cardstock which was part of The Paper Studio Affinity stack. Oh, and I did stickle the birds tail and wings, as well as some of the flower and the Happy Birthday tag!

Paper Blossoms

On a recent visit to Archiver's I fell in love with the new McGill Paper Blossoms punches. The oriental lily was my favorite! I realized that I didn't need all of the punches, as I could do the underneath "holder" and the stamen with my Cricut (using Joys of the Season and Potpourri Basket), so I just got the petal punch and the tool set, which helps give them a wonderful shape!

I played with it as soon as I got home! I decided to try some black and white flowers, as my niece is getting married in May and her colors are black and white. I made three flowers that just sat on my desk.

I decided to see how they would look on a card, so I pulled out my Black and White paper stack from The Paper Studio and the mat stack of solid colors, also from TPS. This is what I came up with. Another easy birthday card. I rounded the edges (something I usually forget about), used my favorite happy birthday stamp, added some Recollections pearls and a sheer ribbon.

Another easy peasy card!

Easy Colorful Birthday Cards

While thumbing through my stacks of paper, I ran across the Birthday Extravaganza stack from The Paper Studio. I decided to do a couple of birthday cards, letting the paper do most of the design work. I did cut out balloons in different colors using my Expression and the Celebrate With A Flourish cartridge. I chose four different colors of solid cardstock from The Paper Studio mat stack that coordinated with the Birthday Extravaganza paper.

On the first one I cut out the words "Happy Birthday" from one of the sheets, layered it onto the striped paper, then put on the balloons (pop dotting the 2nd and 4th ones). I then added a prima flower and within 5 minutes had a quick and easy birthday card!



For the second one, I used three different coordinating papers, the candles, the stripes, and the words. I then added the balloons, pop dotting them the same. Easy peasy!

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentine's Day! This was a quick and easy card to make - my favorite kind! I had just bought the large Hero's Art heart stamp at Michael's and I had the small SU heart stamp in my stash. I used a sheet of craft cardstock, stamped both hearts with black VersaMark ink and then inked the edges with Distressed Ink - Pumice Stone, while distressing the edges a bit. I found the red paper in a K&Company stack I had - it's actually double sided paper, but I really liked the plain dark red with the very faint swirls. Used a "Bee Mine" stamp which I believe is Hero's Arts (I got that at Michael's as well) for the sentiment and some Prima Flowers.

Better Late Than Never

I didn't post at all on my blog during December, so I'm trying to make up for it now. I did two different Christmas cards this year, one from Celebrate With A Flourish and one from Reminisce Accents.

The first one is the poinsettia card. The poinsettia was from Celebrate With A Flourish. The flowers and leaves were colored by hand using my Le Plume pens, which gave it a velvety look. I used glitter cardstock for the base (shadow feature). The then used glossy accents on the green swirly layer. I used Bazzil white cardstock for the base and the flowers and added pearls to the centers of the flowers.



The next one was the snowflake from Reminisce Accents. This one I didn't color, but instead used 4 different layers, 3 different shades of blue and one white and added some pearls and stickles to give it a little glimmer.



I ran the background of both cards through the Cuttlebug with the Divine Swirls folder. The tag idea came from watching Tim Holtz 12 Tags of Christmas. I used his method of daubber inking the edges, distressed color inking the tag, and stamping the sentiment. I used the Tim Holtz "Merry Christmas" stamp.

Guest Designer

Today I have a guest designer! It's my beautiful niece Bridget. She got an expression for Christmas and just like a kid, tore into it and made these three things right off the bat! How cool is she? I'm so proud of her and the wonderful job that she did that I wanted to share it with everyone. I definitely see a designer in the making! Way to go Bridget!

It's been a while

I haven't posted in quite some time because I was busy crafting and creating. I made a lot of Christmas presents and taught some classes, but now it's time to do some things for me again. I did spend a lot of time browsing the blogs and got a lot of really good ideas. I will be posting some of my projects soon, but I wanted to start with this one, which was a late Christmas present for my Mom. I try to take my ideas (or others that I scraplift) and make something for friends or family before I put it on the market.

Here is a grocery list frame. It's a very pretty way to list your grocery needs. Sure beats a pad of paper attached to a magnet on the fridge!

I used MS Elegant Cake for the font and flourish. The paper was DCWV for the old, antique looking lined paper, and C'ordinations for the rest. I used some Christmas ribbon from Michaels to hide where the two different papers met. Although it is Christmas looking I don't think it looks very Christmasy, plus it was the perfect color.



It's a perfect fit for the perfect spot - between the pantry and the fridge. A velcroed expo pen at the bottom and your ready to go!

Giveaway!

Head on over to Alma's Pink Life for a chance to win the Martha Stewart All Occasions Cake Cartridge!

http://almabrooksblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/giiiiiveaway.html

Craft Room Makeover!

Happy anniversay to me! For our 30th anniversay, which is today, my wonderful husband gave my craft room a makeover. He painted the walls, rearranged everything, told me to go buy a new dining room table, so I could take the old one upstairs to use! It came out so great. I have so much room and now it's so much easier to stay organized.



I got some inexpensive fabric from Hobby Lobby and made some valances for the windows. I wanted the natural light so I didn't want to cover them up! I also took one of my bookcases and turned it on it's side. We then placed in under the window. I can store my paper in there - it stands up perfectly. It also allowed me to put things on top!



While we were hanging the valances, I noticed that the rods would make perfect ribbon holders, so I went back to Anna's and bought more rods to hang on the wall. I also got some picture ledges from Ikea for my stickles, distress ink, glitter, etc. I love having everything out in the open!

I'm back and have a new project!

After being sick for about two weeks, then having my craft room painted, then my DH going into the hospital, I haven't been able to do much the past several weeks, but everything has calmed down and I finally got a chance to go into my new craft room for the first time last night! When we had our Houston Circlet meet up, someone, and I apologize because I don't know who, gave Debbie a really neat desk mat. Well, while I was at Ikea, I saw these huge desk mats and scooped some up. Debbie's was designed with her name and her standard crown and it was adorable! I decided to do them for the kids I know - kind of like a place mat/play mat.



I used the Cricut pink vinyl and Storybook for the font and the flowers. The name is cut at 3" and the flowers at 2". I then added a little flourish from the French Manor cart, cut at 2". I flipped the image on my Gypsy so I could adhere it to the back of the mat.

The mat is actually about 25" x 18", so it's really a great size. I picked up a bunch and I'm actually using a few as a work mat. They help keep the table clean. Now all of the glue residue, glitter, etc. will get on the mat instead of the table!

This particular one is for a lady in my office building. She liked the idea so much she bought one for her daughter. Now hopefully I'll get orders for more! They are very easy and quick to do.

Blog Hop Apology

I signed up to do the Thanksgiving Blog Hop, but unfortunately I have been ill for the past week or so and consequently I have nothing to offer for the blog hop. Please accept my apology; I hope to be able to get back to crafting very soon.

Thanks for understanding.

Birthday Blog Candy Winner

The winner of my birthday blog candy is CRAFTOHOLIC!

Congratulations and thanks to all that entered!

BIRTHDAY BLOG CANDY!

Monday I will be celebrating my 49th birthday. The days of being "in my forties" are dwindling. What better way to celebrate than with a give away?

To qualify for the give away you must

1) Be a follower
2) Leave me a comment on this post

The winner will be picked at random on November 2nd!

**I have no idea why my photos are upside down. They are not that way on my originals**

October Monthly Challenge - Celebrating Creativity

Here is my entry for the Circle's October Monthly Challenge - Celebrating Creativity. I thought about this for a long time wondering what I could do to celebrate my creativity. I decided that I didn't want to limit this to myself. My youngest daughter is really the creative one in the family. She has a natural talent, which we have tried to encourage for quite some time. She never really wanted to pursue formal training, but I wanted her to continue to develop her God given talents.

My DH got some wood and built a frame around some high grade plywood. We painted the frame white and used decorative corner molding so we didn't have to miter the edges! We then painted the plywood with chalkboard paint. We then hung it in her room.

I then proceeded to make an inspirational sign for her to look at daily. Here is what I came up with:



The patterned black and white paper is from The Paper Studio, the black and white stack. The white mat was cut from the Lacy Labels cartridge at 11.3 on my Gypsy. The fonts, cut at 1 1/2 inches, are from the Storybook cartridge, as well as the borders, cut at 1". The black paper used for the shadow behind the fonts, as well as the white paper for the mat is Core'dinations paper.




I used Viva Decor liquid pearls on the border.



I used Prima Flowers with black and white brads for additional embellishments.

Circle clothing

Tomorrow I will be attending the 2nd Houston Circlet Meet Up. There will be 50 of us in attendance, 41 Circlets and 9 guests! Michael from Provo Craft will also be in attendance. In honor of the event I made this shirt to wear! I know we will have a wonderful time and will be posting photos tomorrow evening!

Creative Memories carts

I was asked to do a class this Saturday for a Creative Memories cropfest. It will be a Cricut class. In doing the demo work at JoAnns and Michaels I was so surprised to see how many people have the machines but rarely, if ever, use them! Most were intimidated and think it's too complicated. Many don't go online to look at videos or even the MB's, so the machine sits on a table or even still in the box.

So.....I met a lovely lady who is a CM consultant. From there I was asked to do a series of classes on the Cricut and the Gypsy and this Saturday is my first class. I wanted to do two simple make and takes that would incorporate several of the features of the machines so they would know what all those buttons do!

They sent me the Creative Memories carts, which I LOVE! I will definitely be purchasing both of those because they have such a variety and the fonts are lovely as well. I made two projects, one with each cart.

The first is the snowflake. I cut it out at 3" and used all of the layers, for a total of 4 cuts. I used different shades of blue cardstock and topped it off with white cardstock. This snowflake can be used as a gift tag, a LO embellishment or you can pop it on a card! This allowed me to use the multi-cut feature as the snowflake has very intricate cuts.



The second is an easy Christmas card. I cut this out at 4" and then used the fit to length feature to fit the sentiment into the frame opening. The whole sentiment read "Celebrate This Day", but I decided to just use "Celebrate". I also took the rectangle that was left over from cutting the frame and trimmed it with my paper trimmer to make it smaller. I adhered "Celebrate" to the middle, added some glitter and pop dotted it into the middle.

The frame could always be used on a LO, if they don't want to put the card together.

Both projects only took me about 20 minutes each. The thing that took the longest was having to cut each one individually since I had to do this without my Gypsy! I must confess - I can't design without my Gypsy! I played around with the carts for a couple of days before I decided to link them. Once I did that I came up with several designs in about 10 minutes! The Gypsy makes my life soooo much easier. Can't live without it!

As for the paper - the solid paper is all Core'dinations (both projects). The heart paper on the card is really old - like 6 years. No idea who the mfg is, but it's really cute!

What a giveaway!

DCVW Diary is giving away a stack of their new 12x24 paper and you will LOVE IT!

Check out her awesome blog:

http://dcwvinc.blogspot.com/2010/10/say-what-giveaway-today.html