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!!