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!!