Winner of the Flaky Friends Stamp Set

And the winner picked by Random.org is...Comment #17 albrennick! Please email me your address and I will get the stamp set out to you. Thank you so much for everyone who visited during the blog hop and left comments! I'm excited about getting my blog more active again. I hope you'll come visit again!

Christmas in July Blog Hop! Ornament Canvas

Merry Christmas in July!! You should have arrived here from http://betsymcreates.blogspot.com/ and I am the last stop on the hop! If you would like to start at the beginning, please go to http://scrapalette.blogspot.com/ I would like to start by thanking Scrapalatte (Paulette) for organizing this blog hop and letting me be a part of it. As you can see, it's been awhile since I have posted on my blog-two years in fact. Life has gotten in the way but I'm ready to get back to it and thought this blog hop would be a great way to do it!! When it comes to Christmas, I love projects that are simple with a big wow factor! That's why I love making these canvases. A little paint, paper, a cricut cartridge and modpodge and you've got a great custom piece of home decor for your own home or a great gift! I'm pretty traditional when it comes to decorating my living room. Lots of red, green and gold. But I'm also one of those crazy people who like to decorate every room as well (tree included!) In the last two years I have been blessed with a beautiful baby girl and of course she has to have a tree decorated in pink in her room!! I decided to make this canvas to match to hang up in her room this year. Completely untraditional colors but it's so much fun! I started with a 12x12 art canvas that I painted pink.

Then using my Imagine, I printed my own paper using the striped pattern from the Mr. Frosty Imagine pattern cartridge. (Love being able to do that!) Then, I used the CTMH Artiste cartridge to cut out the solid ornament at fit to page. I love the CTMH cartridges!! They are packed full of images for all year round!

I cut the same ornament with the shift key on to get the filgree cut using some bright green glitter paper.

After covering the canvas with modpodge I added the ornament cuts and went over them again with another coat of modpodge. Once it was dry, I added a bow with some coordinating Christmas ribbon I had in my stash.

I used clear modpodge because I had it on hand, but you could use glitter modpodge for some additional Christmas shimmer!! Wasn't that easy! I love how something so easy is going to look great in my daughters room this Christmas! You could easily do this project in colors to match your Christmas decor or for a gift! I hope you've enjoyed my "back in the saddle" project! Don't forget the prize for this week is a Christmas Solutions cartridge! Leave a comment below for a chance to win. Also I will be drawing from the comments left on my blog to receive a "Flaky Friends" stamp set from CTMH!! Thanks for stopping by and Merry Christmas!

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!