Baby Card #1

I couldn't believe when I logged on that it had been a month since I posted anything on my blog. I asked myself where the time went and there was only one answer...Baseball!! But now baseball is over and hopefully things can get back to normal, whatever that means! This post and the next few are going to be some baby cards that I made the last few days. I am so excited to have the opportunity to make some cards to sell at a boutique here in town. It carries mostly baby gifts which is why I made baby cards. I'm planning to add some birthday cards here pretty soon.

Anyway, I love how this first one turned out!! It's so simple and elegant. The base of my card front is dark brown Core'dinations cardstock and the pink striped is from the Cherrio paper pack from Close to my Heart. I cut a 3" strip of white cardstock which I embossed with my cuttlebug using the baby folder. I inked the edges and the embossing with a pink pigment ink pad from Martha Stewart. The square was cut in brown at 3 1/2" and in white at 3". The little girl is from a CTMH stamp set called Baby Miracles. I stamped the image using Chocolate ink, then used my blender pen to pick up color from my Heavenly Pink ink pad to add some color to her dress and bow. I love the watercolor look that gives! The crochet flowers were some I had in my stash that I had made awhile back. I used Fabri-Tac to attach them and accented them with Opaques from CTMH from the Mocha pack.

The sentiment on the inside was from the same stamp set from Close to My Heart, but the baby shoes and teddy bear were from Stampendous. I hope you have enjoyed this card. I have a few more that I will be posting in the next few days. Thanks for stopping by!!

Card for Cricut Circle Weekend Challenge

One of my goals is to start entering challenges. Every weekend on the Cricut Circle message board there is a challenge posted. It's a great way to challenge my creativity and get some great inspiration from a lot of talented ladies. This weekend's challenge was to use a font cartridge.

I chose the Songbird cardridge. I love the font on this cart because it is so pretty, but I also love all of the bird images that are on there. I layered my card front with two shades of blue cardstock from Core'dinations. The first was cut at 7 7/8" x 4 7/8" and the second layer was cut at 7 5/8" x 4 5/8 inches. I ran the lighter blue through my cuttlebug using the Stylized Flowers folder and sanded the image. The frame behind the bird was also cut from Songbird at 4". The cream and brown dotted paper is from the Mirabella stack from the Paper Studio. Finally, I cut out the flowerpot and bird image. The perch feature on Songbird has a lot of really pretty bird images. I cut it twice at 3" once in brown and once in blue. I trimmed the blue bird off the pot and layered it over the brown one. Then I cut the shadow in dark brown. I inked everything with Chestnut ink.

After assembling all the pieces I added brown grosgrain ribbon, with an accent from the Buttercup ribbon collection from Close to My Heart. Then I added Summer Flowersoft to the top of the pot. The sentiment inside was also from Close to My Heart and stamped in Outdoor Denim ink. I cut another bird and flowerpot image at 2" and added the bird inside.

I hope you've enjoyed my card today. Thanks for stopping by!

Baseball is Life Layout

Hey, everyone!! I wanted to share a layout with you today. I am so far behind on my scrapbooking I hate to think about it! I'm trying to get better about scrapping current things so I don't get farther behind, then picking up what I'm behind on. This layout is for my son's baseball team this year. This is his first year of playing little league baseball on a traveling team, which is a big deal where we live! I wanted to do a two page layout so I could display his team picture as well as some snapshots of the games.

I love the fact that I designed this whole layout on the gypsy! I used a 12x24 mat to get everything laid out the way I wanted it. Then, I copied the images to other mats so it would be easier to cut. It made this a snap to assemble once it was cut out.

For my background, I used some baseball paper from Hobby Lobby. I love the red stitching around the edges. All of the images used are from Sports Mania. I cut the "Baseball is Life" phrase at 4" in white with a shadow in red. The baseball mitt was cut 3 1/2" in brown with a lighter shade for the layer and the blackout in black. For the boarder at the bottom, I welded 3 of the boarder cuts of baseballs together which were 1 1/2". Since there is no blackout for the boarders, I used the hide contour feature to "hide the cuts for the stitches to have a blackout piece to put behind. This allowed the red "stitches" to show. I inked all of my cuts with Chestnut Cat's Eye ink. The photo mats were cut in red and blue to match his team picture.

Thanks for stopping by!! I hope everyone has a great day!!

First Gypsy Project!

I know I am waaaaay behind, but I just got my gypsy in the mail on Thursday! There are a lot of reasons why I hadn't gotten one yet, but the point is I finally have one. After getting it Thursday and getting it updated, I was finally able to play with it on Friday! A big thanks to my hubby for letting me use his Mac to update since my mac has an older operating system that wouldn't support the cricut sync software.

Anyway, I designed this card yesterday morning and I loved how quickly it came together. I wanted to do a quick shape card for my first project and the cupcakes from Sweet Treats immediately came to mind. Now, I must confess, I didn't realize until I got down into my craft room to link my cardridge and make the card, that Sweet Treats already had shaped cards for each image! Oh well!

I used the fourth cupcake from Sweet Treats and added two in blackout to my mat at 5" then welded them together. Then I added the regular image and layers to my mat. After linking my cartridge I was ready to cut!! I used brown cardstock for the card base. The sprinkle glitter paper for the cupcake is from the Sugar and Spice stack from the Paper Studio. I ran the top half through my Cuttlebug using my Divine Swirls folder (one of my go to folders!). I used a bright pink for the wrapper and a scrap of red for the cherry. I love how I could put all of the pieces on my mat and just cut once!! While assembling I decided I didn't like the sprinkle paper behind the wrapper so I cut another blackout cupcake in brown and cut off the top. After assembling I added some diamond stickles to the cherry to accent. On the inside I stamped a sentiment from Stampendous that says "Baked you up some Birthday Wishes!"

I was so excited how quick this was to make after designing!! I don't know why I waited to long to take the plunge on a gypsy. I designed a layout yesterday afternoon that I hope to get cut and assembled today. Thanks for looking!!!

Patriotic Centerpiece

I love to decorate for the holidays! In the summer, I usually put out my patriotic decorations at Memorial Day, and leave them all summer long. I hadn't used my cricut to make any decorations for summer before, so I decided to make a centerpiece for my table.

I started with a blue ceramic flower pot from the garden section at Walmart. Using the Stand and Salute cartridge, I cut the stars from white vinyl at 1 1/2" to go around the rim. Then, I used the boarder feature to cut the firecracker pieces at 4 1/2". I put a half styrofoam ball in the pot and covered it with red gift basket filler. Then, I began making the pieces for my "flowers". I wanted this to go in the center of my table so I made it where both sides could be the "front".

I started with the flowers. They were cut at 2 1/2" from Plantin Schoolbook with a shadow in dark blue, and the flower in the red patterned paper. The paper was from the Blue Ribbon paper pack from Close to My Heart. The yellow center flower was cut at 1 1/2". I really wanted red glitter brads for the centers, but all I had was plain ones. So, I put a mini glue dot on the top of each brad and dipped it in garnet Martha Stewart glitter.

Next were the accents. The Uncle Sam hats and firecrackers were both cut from Stand and Salute at 2 1/2". I used Diamond stickles on the "flame" of the firecrackers. For the hats, I ran the white blackout piece through my Xyron, attached the red layer, then covered them with white Doodlebug glitter so that the white parts would sparkle. God Bless America was cut at three inches from Stand and Salute and the I Love USA was from Independence Day at three inches. I used Xmas Red stickles to glitter the heart and stars.

All of these pieces I attached to bamboo sticks from the kitchen section at walmart that I had covered in floral tape. I used large glue dots to attach them. The ribbons that I tied on to the stems were from walmart as well. Then, I just arranged it!

I hope you enjoyed this project. It was a lot of fun to make and I hope it inspired you to make your own!

More Baby Onesies

I posted in an earlier post some baby onesies I made after being inspired by the April/May issue of the Cricut magazine. Shortly before the end of school we had a baby shower for two of the teachers who are having babies. I decided to make onesies as gifts. One of the teachers knew she was having a girl. I gave her the cupcake onesie from my earlier post and this ladybug onesie. The ladybug was cut at 4" from Doodlecharms. I used my I-rock to add the red jewels at the neck.

The other teacher is choosing to be surprised so I had to make them work for either a boy or girl. I have to tell you that it was a challenge to find something that would work!! Both images were from New Arrival. The duck was cut at 4" and the Man in the Moon was cut at 3 1/2". I started to add some buttons for embellishment, but I know that if I was having a boy my husband would want them as plain as possible!!

I hope you have enjoyed these. These are so much fun to make and are so appreciated by those that received them.

Mother's Day cards for any day!

Belive it or not, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth! Just been crazy with the last couple of weeks of school. But now school's out!!! I have been in my craft room a few times over the last weeks, but it has usually been a frantic project that I didn't have time to post!!

These are the two cards that I quickly made for my mother for Mother's Day. The first one was from me. The solid cardstock is from the Core'dinations vintage stack and the patterned paper is from the Laundry Line stack from My Minds Eye. The medallion is from French Manor and cut at 4" layered with the burgandy and cream cardstock. The pearls are Opaques adhesive gems in Mocha from Close to My Heart. The ribbon is from walmart.

The second card was from my boys to my mom. All of the cardstock and paper is from Close to my Heart. The pattern paper is from the Cherrio paper pack which I am so sad that it is retired!! The pitcher and flowers were from Country Life and cut at 5" I hope you have enjoyed these cards! They would be great for birthdays or for any occasion! Thanks for stopping by!

Blogger Award!

I was very honored and excited to receive this from Maria at www.stampcutcreate.blogspot.com . If you've never checked out her blog, you should! She has some wonderful creations. Thanks, Maria!!

Eat Cake and Be Merry!

As usual, my week has been crazy!! I haven't had a whole lot of time in my craftroom, although, it certainly looks like a tornado has been through there!! It is tornado season here in Oklahoma! ;) Today I have another birthday card. I really need to get some layouts done, but that may have to wait till summer vacation. So far, I have kept up with my New Years Resolution to make cards for all of the birthdays and anniversaries in our church and this is one of them!

The card stock is Chocolate and Baby Pink from Close to My Heart. The printed cardstock is from the Sugar and Spice stack from The Paper Studio at Hobby Lobby. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the dots are raised and glittered!! That stack really has some yummy papers!! The slice of cake is from the Sweet Treats cartridge and cut at 4 1/2" in Chocolate cardstock. The pink layers and cherry are from Core'dinations. For the icing layer I used the sprinkle print cardstock (also glittered!) from the same Sugar and Spice stack. Of course, everything including the slice of cake was inked with Cat's Eye inks in Chestnut. The ribbon is just grosgrain ribbon from Walmart. I used the Pink Stamper cheater method for the ribbon, then tied pink and brown ribbon layered for the bow.

On the inside, I used the Chocolate and Baby Pink cardstock again. The sentiment was stamped in Chocolate ink and is from a clear set from Penny Black called "Eat Cake". The extra cake that I also stamped on the envelope was from a clear Changito set from Stampendous.

I hope you have enjoyed this yummy looking piece of cake!! It kind of makes me hungry for the real thing!! Have a great day!

New Baby Card

I made this card for one of the teachers I work with. She is expecting a baby in June. They have chosen not to find out if it is a boy or girl, so I went for neutral colors. The patterned paper is from the DCWV Nursery Boy Stack. The solid cardstock is from Hobby Lobby. I cut the cow jumping over the moon at 4" from the Nursery Rhymes cart. Ribbon and buttons are from Walmart. Inside of the card the sentiment is from Stampendous and stamped in Petal ink from Close to My Heart. Edges were inked with Cocoa ink from Cat's Eye Inks.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Baby Onesies

This post is something completely new for me! Every since I got my cricut I have wanted to get into using it to applique fabric. I have cut fabric with my cricut to use on paper projects but never did much more. I was inspired by the latest Cricut magazine to try it along with the fact that I am possibly doing a craft show in June and I want to have more available than just cards. I've been sewing since I was was a little girl, so I love combining two things I love!!

Anyway, I did both of these onesies using the Gerber onesies that you can buy at walmart. I ironed on Wonder Under and cut the fabric to 12x12. The cupcake is from Sweet Treats and cut at 4". The fabric was all scraps I have on hand. The "Cowgirl Up" was from Old West and cut at 3 1/2". I ironed on the images after they were cut following the directions on the Wonder Under. Then I appliqued them with my sewing machine. On the Cowgirl Up I cut the layer for the U out of denim and straight stitched it with yellow jean thread. I embellished them with buttons and with jewels using my I-rock.

A couple things I learned. First, when you cut the fabric, make sure you use a new blade. Paper dulls your blade just like it dulls scissors. I have blades that I use only for fabric. Using my label maker I labled the little container they come in to know that those blades are only for fabric. When cutting your fabric, use the slowest speed and use images that are not intricate. Finallly, if you are going to use the satin stitch on your machine to applique the images, you need to iron on pellon interfacing on the back of whatever you are stiching. Otherwise, it will cause your knit fabric to bunch up.

I hope you have enjoyed these. I will post more as I make them. Try this on a project. I promise it becomes addicting!!

Kitty Birthday Card

I wanted to share a card I made a couple of weeks ago and hadn't had time to post. This is part of my continuing effort to make cards for all of the people that we have on our birthday/anniversary list at our church. So far, I'm doing pretty good. April is a pretty full month so hopfully I can continue to keep up! This card was for a little girl's 2nd birthday. They were doing a Hello Kitty birthday party and unfortunately I don't have either of those carts. I just haven't been able to justify it having two boys! I actually considered trying to order one for this card, but I wouldn't have been able to get it in time. Since I didn't have the cart, I tried to incorporate some of the Hello Kitty style in my card.

The base of the front was cut from black cardstock and embossed with my wonderful Swiss Dots cuttlebug folder. The top layer was red and white dotted paper from the paper studio. The cat was from the Create a Critter cartridge and cut at four inches. I trimmed the base to remove where the bow would go on it's neck so I could put it by it's ear. The cupcake was cut from the Sweet Treats cartridge at 2 1/2 inches. I made it from brown cardstock, layered the pink wrapper over it, then cut the top from white glitter cardstock and the heart "cherry" from red glitter cardstock. Polka dot ribbon was from Hobby Lobby. The "Purr-fect" stamp is from My Pink Stamper. The sentiment inside is from Stampendous and the small cupcake is from Autumn Leaves. I love matching envelopes! I stamped a cupcake with a 2 on top using a clear set from Stampendous.

Thanks for stopping by!! I have several projects in the works right now that I hope to be posting soon! Have a great weekend, and get crafty!

Anniversary Card - Circle Weekend challenge

The weekend challenge on the Cricut Circle Messageboard was to use a cart that you had but had never used. Now, I can honestly say I don't have any carts unopened in plastic. Now never used, that's another story! This card was for another goal I have which is to make birthday and anniversary cards for all of the people in the church that we pastor.

The card was done on a 5x7 card base. The mauve and brown cardstock is from the Core'dinations vintage stack. I ran the brown through my cuttlebug using the textile folder and sanded it. The patterned paper is from the DCWV Old World stack. The stamp is by Penny Black and stamped with Chocolate ink from Close to my Heart. All of the edges are inked with Cats Eye Chestnut ink. The corner was cut from the Straight from the Nest cartridge at 1 1/2" in pink with the back in cream. The branch with blossoms was cut from the Straight from the nest Cartridge as well at 2" in brown with the layers in mauve. The pearl accents are from Close to my Heart. I hope you enjoyed my card and thanks for stopping by!

House Mouse Baby Boy Card

Wow! I knew it had been awhile since I had posted, but I didn't realize how long until I saw the date of my last post! My goal of posting regularly went great the first of the year, but flu, birthdays, and teaching has been crazy!! Hopefully, I'll get back to this more regularly.

So, on to the card! Another one of my goal is to use up the stamped images that I have stockpiled. I stamped a ton of images to take on vacation last year to color and I need to use them up. I cut the card from Birthday Bash in baby blue cardstock from Hobby Lobby. That cart has amazing shaped cards for every button. The card was cut at Fit to Page which cut it at 5 1/2". The coordinating piece of blue plaid was cut at 5 1/2" using some baby boy paper I had in my stash. I cut the baby carriage from Heritage at 4". The stamped image was from House Mouse stamps, which I colored with my prisma pencils and cut out. I used pop dots behind it to give dimension. Everything was inked with brown cats eye chalk inks. The flowers were some that I crocheted last year and had in my embellishments. I added adhesive pearls from Hobby Lobby to the center.

I hope you have enjoyed this. Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday BashOctopus Birthday Card

Today I wanted to share a birthday card that I made for a little boy in our church. One of my goals this year is to make and send birthday and anniversary cards for all of the people in our church. This was the first one of the year.

As usual, I put my card on a white card base. All of the paper was from the Boys and their Toys stack from Hobby Lobby. I cut 2 pieces of blue cardstock at 7 3/4" x 4 3/4". One piece was used on the front and topped with orange star patterned paper cut at 7 1/2" x 4 1/2". The blue contrast was cut at 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" and ebossed using the star cuttlebug folder. Using the green paper from the same stack, I cut the Octopus from the Birthday Bash cartridge at 4" and again at 1 1/2". The presents were cut using yellow and red cardstock. The sentiment on the front is from Close to My Heart and stamped in Cocoa ink.

On the inside I layered blue cardstock, and orange paper from the Boys stack. I added the smaller octopus and stamped the sentiment which is from Stampendous in cocoa. Sorry the pictures are so bad! That's something I'm needing to work on.

Thanks for stopping by today. Do you have lots of crafting planned for the weekend? I do!!

DT Submission for My Pink Stamper - You're Elephantastic!

One of my all-time favorite bloggers, My Pink Stamper, has issued a design team call. I love Robyn's blog and have been following her since back when her blog was still on blogspot! In fact, I think her blog was the first one I ever followed after getting my cricut. I got to know her work on the old Cricut messageboard. I love her designs and am proud to say she is from Oklahoma! She has issued a Design Team challenge, and I was excited to participate. I've never been on a Design Team, and if I was selected by Robyn I would be thrilled!

The challenge she posted was to make a project with the cricut that incorporated her three favorite colors:
Pink
Green
Brown
And we can add an optional color of our choice.

The recipe for my card is as follows:
White card base
The following pieces of cardstock and paper from Close to My Heart
2 pieces of Chocolate cut at 6 7/8" x 4 7/8"
2 pieces of Sweet Leaf green cut at 6 1/2" x 4 1/2"
1 piece of pink spotted paper from the Cherry-O paper pack cut at 2" x 4 1/2"
2 Elephants from Create a Critter cut at 3" and 1 1/2"
The Elephants were cut with background in Chocolate, body and ears in Heavenly
blue with the inside of the ears in Baby pink

I layered the chocolate, sweet leaf cardtock for the front. The boarder on the sweet leaf was punched using the Swiss Cheese border punch. I added the pink spotted paper and used the Pink Stamper method to add brown ribbon and a bow. Last I added the Elephant and stamped the sentiment that says "You're Elephantastic" which is by Close to My Heart. I love decorating the inside of my cards as well. For this one I simply used the other chocolate and sweet leaf layers, and added the 1" elephant.

I hope you enjoyed my card. I realized when I was finished that I didn't use much pink! (Sorry, Robyn!) Anyway, I want to wish everyone that entered good luck!

Organizational Journal

Today I want to share a great New Years project with you. Like many of you, the new year always gets me thinking of ways to be more organized. My life is insane with teaching full time, two children, and being very involved in the church we pastor. I like to keep a notebook in my purse to write down list or jot something down as I need it. I know we live in a high-tech age (my husband would be lost without his iphone!) but when it comes to things like that, I do better with a piece of paper. My goal was to make something pretty and fun that would keep this lists organized for me rather than just random scraps of paper or notebooks. It also helped me in another New Years goal which is to use the products and tools I've been collecting!

I started by cutting a test cut for dividers to see how big I wanted everything. I used the wonderful tabbed cards on From My Kitchen and cut them at 5" which ended up being just the size I was looking for. I then cut the covers out of my favorite chipboard--cereal boxes!! (Honey Nut Cherrios are some of the sturdiest.) I cut the covers at 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" I then covered them with a layer of black cut the same size, red at 5" x 8" and patterned paper cut at 4 3/4" x 7 3/4". All of the patterned paper and solid colored paper was from a Christmas pad of paper I bought at Hobby Lobby a few years ago. It has the most elegant patterns and several that had no Christmas designs at all which I used. I then cut the medallion from French Manor at 4" in red with the layer in black. The medallion got a little lost on the patterned paper, so I cut a layer of cream at 7 3/4" x 4". This layer was ran through my cuttlebug using the textile folder for texture and layered under the medallion. Before putting all the layers together, I used the Pink Stamper method to add black satin ribboon and a red and black satin bow. Once the cover was assembled, I used my irock to add the clear crystals to the medallion. The back of the cover was covered with patterned paper cut to fit. The inside of the back cover was covered with patterened paper like the front, then the outside was oovered in black with contrasting pieces of red and patterned paper .

The dividers were a lot of fun to do. I cut each one out in white cardstock at 5" using From My Kitchen so they would be sturdy. I then cut them out in cream, black and red to cover the front of each one. The back of each one was covered in patterned paper. The pattern that you see on the contrast piece on the front is what is on the back. The contrast pieces for each one were cut at 5" x 7" for the patterned paper and 3 1/2" x 5 1/2" for the solid cream piece. I decorated each divider with French Manor with Heritage for the tea set. The clock was cut at 5", the table 3" and the dress form at 4". The tea set I cut at 1 1/2" All of the stamps I used to decorate were from Close to My Heart. The cream colored piece on the one with the table was run through the cuttlebug using the textile folder. For the tabs I labled them using the font from Quarter Note cut at 1/2". I cut regular copy paper for the inside pages at 5" x 8 1/2". Then I bound it using my bind it all with 3/4" wires.

I hope you have enjoyed my project today. It was my first time making a journal type project. This was one of those that started out as one idea, then evolved as I went. But, I'm thrilled how it turned out. So what are you doing to get organized this year? Thanks for stopping by!

Happy New Year - 50th Anniversary Layout

Happy New Year!! I hope everyone has had a great start to 2011. One of my plans and goals for this year is to do more to develop my blog. More posts, entering and hosting challenges, and videos. I know that there is some amazing talent out there and I am not trying to compete with it. I am trying to challenge myself to grow and develop my talents as a crafter and I hope by adding some of these things I can do that.

Anyway, on to my first post of 2011! I have a project in the works that I will posting tomorrow. I didn't get it quite finished and really wanted to post on January 1, so here is another one. This is a layout I made for my parents and framed as a Christmas gift. This past June they celebrated their 50th anniversary which is something to really be proud of. I am working on a scrapbook of their pictures from their party, but this fall was so hectic that I've barely started. This layout was a quick and simple one that I framed in a scrapbook frame from Hobby Lobby. The background paper is from Martha Stewart that I bought in a pad last summer when Walmart was getting rid of all of their Martha Stewart stuff. I matted the photos with cream, then gold from the same stack. The title was from Winter Woodland cut at 2" in cream and shadowed in gold. I didn't feel like this needed a lot of embellishment as the paper was so pretty and I wanted the focal point to really be the pictures. All I added was some gold ribbon which I got at Walmart.

By the way, in the picture where they are facing each other my dad is singing to my mom "Always" which is the song he sang to her at their wedding! I hope you've enjoyed my first post of 2011. Keep checking back for more!!