Love Bug

Happy Monday!  This week is going to be a packed week for me.  Lots going on at work and at home.  It's a short workweek for me, though.  On Friday Miss E is off from school and we will spend the day getting ready for her Girl's Night Out birthday party on Friday night.  She and 3 of her friends are 'hitting the town' for dinner out a la Chik Fil A (she's 10 that's fancy enough for her and affordable for me!).  Then we are going for some black light indoor putt putt.  For the cherry on top, we're going to Sweet Bee for a sweet treat.  Fingers crossed that all girls are in good moods and ready for a fun evening out!

For this project, I'm following My Craft Spot challenge (valentine card) and Fantabulous Cricut (use hearts).  The heart paper is from a K&Company Valentine's pack I got last year and other paper from my stash.  I think the bottom layer is from a collection called Old World but I don't remember the maker.  The 'love bug' is from Create a Critter.  I blinged his antenna and the word love with some red crystals.  Easy peasy!

Have a great week.  I'm thinking it's time to start breaking out some green for St. Paddy's (but first I need to do the Miss E wrapup of the Valentine's tree and party invites...)

Cindy

Piece of Cake

Don't you love it when a plan comes together without a hitch?  That's how today's card for My Craft Spot Monday Challenge and Fantabulous Cricut Challenge came together! 

It was a PaperTrey Ink kind of day today for this card:

• Base card is 3" square from PTI Vintage Cream
• Background gingham stamp is PTI stamped with Raspberry Fizz (don't you just love the names of some of their inks?)
• Heart paper is PTI and cut from Elegant Edges
• Fancy scallop circle is from Elegant Edges and cut from some cardstock from my stash
• Sentiment (stamped in Raspberry Fizz) and cupcake is from PTI Tiny Treats Valentine, cut on PTI Stamper's Select Paper and colored with Copics.  There are a lot of cute stamps and sentiments on this set!
• Bling in the corner is PTI too (I think...it all starts to get fuzzy after a while!)
• Bakers Twine is from The Twinery

This weekend Miss E and I worked on Valentines for her classmates (more on that later) and settled 'creative differences' on the design for her birthday invitation.  (I think I'm raising a daughter who is a little too much like her Mommy when it comes to being stubborn...)

Hope you have a great week!
Cindy

So Glad My Heart Found You

So without getting too gushy, can I just tell you that I {love} my hubby?  I won't go into all the boring details but he constantly amazes me with him just being him!

When it came time for this weeks My Craft Spot Challenge Let's Hear It For the Boys and Fantabulous Cricut's Label Shape, I knew I wanted to make a Valentine's Card for my hubby. 

The cardstock for the base layers is from MME.  The treasure map is from Life's A Party.  I cut it on white cardstock and then used TH Distress Stain (Wild Honey & Vintage Photo) to age it.  The heart and X on the map are colored R59 Cardinal Copic.

For the sentiment, I used the Jane Austen font from DaFont (if you haven't tried the site yet - it rocks!)  Tons of free downloadable fonts and if you're a lover of fonts like I am... Well, let's just say I have downloaded a 'few' to use!  I printed the font on cardstock and then cut the words out separately and glued them to the tag.  I used PTI Tiny Treats-Valentine for the heart on the tag and colored it with the R59 again.

The ribbon and twine are from Jillibean Soup.  And the key is from MME Stella and Rose Bits & Pieces. 

Wow.  It's only January 23rd and my Valentine's card is finished!  Miss E's birthday is on Valentine's Day too so that's why I have to work ahead.  This weekend

Miss E and I will be in conference to map out all the details for her big day.  Think indoor mini golf with lots of squealy 10 year olds!

Have a great week!

Cindy

Snowflake Kisses

Snow finally found us last night in the Shenandoah Valley.  We got enough to cover the ground and make everything look sparkling clean.  By afternoon, though, it's all gone (and that's fine with me!).  Snow is so much more enjoyable when you can simply enjoy it and not have to trudge around in it, don't you think? 

This week has been a busy one here.  Miss E had an orthodonist and dentist appointment on the same day.  She took it all in stride, though.  Mom needs to coordinate a little better...  And Mom needs to brush better - I have to go back Monday for a filling! 

How about a happier topic?  This card was designed for two challenges:  My Craft Spot and Fantabulous Cricut.  Both challenges are all about snow:  snowflakes, snowmen - if it's cold and wintry, it works for the challenge!

I decided to go with a turquoise and purple color palette for this  4 1/4 X 4 1/4 card. The background chevron paper is from MME Fine and Dandy Tickled Pink.  The paper on the hat is made by combining TH Distress Stains:  Picket Fence, Dusty Concord and Faded Jeans.  Just blob some on your craft mat, spritz with water, lay the paper on top and work it around.  The nice part is that after you dry it with the heat gun, you can add another lay until you get the effect you want!  It's really easy and it gives your projects a little something extra! 

After the paper dried, I used My Craft Spot White Christmas stamp set to stamps the snowflakes in Fresh Snow from PTI.  The sentiment is from the set too.  Don't you love the font and sentiment?  I can't wait to add some more of those stamps to my collection!

The hat is cut from Winter Wonderland and I used stickles on the trim and fuzzy ball .  I used the shadow cut to give a little extra oomph to they layout and put a little bling in the middle of the snowflake for interest.  The big snowflake peeking from behind the hat is from Winter Lace and it got 'stickleized' as well!

The purple ribbon is bias tape that I dyed to match using TH Distress Stain in Dusty Concord. 

Oh and if you look closely at the card photo, you can see the storage system DH and I came up with for my growing Copic collection.  It's definitely a budget friendly solution Since I saved on it, I should be able to buy more Copics, right? ;) 

We're still working out all the design details (and I had to tell DH that we didn't have enough cans...oopsie!) but it's working well so far.  I like to be able to organize by color family AND see my choices while I'm planning a project!

Enough for now!  Hope you stay warm and happy on this winter weekend!

Cindy

Love You to the Core!

How do I get myself into these things?  Miss E is my Valentine's Day baby.  Last week when I said the Christmas tree was coming down, she and DH decided that it would be much better to leave the tree up for a while.  When I said the Christmas stuff had to be put up, Miss E had the great idea to decorate the tree for Valentine's Day! [What???]  "Mom," she says as she looks at me with her big blue eyes, "wouldn't it be great if my birthday presents were underneath the Valentine's Tree?"

What's a Mom to do?  Yup, you guessed it.  This weekend the Christmas decorations were put away and the very empty Christmas tree was repurposed as a Valentine's tree!  I used my trusty Cricut to make somewhat fast work on some decorations to get it started.  I figure Miss E will want to add her own decorations this week so there is plenty of more room for lovey dovey decorations. 

So in honor of my early start to Valentine's Day, I decided to start working on a Valentine's card and use it for a couple challenges.  My challenges this week are masculine card (Fantabulous Cricut), delicious treat (Crafty Spot) and Love/Romance (Crafty Sentiments). 

The base is PTI kraft cardstock cut 4 1/4 X 4 1/4.  The background papers and apple papers are from Echo Park and MME.  Sentiment is from PTI's Fruit Fusion Apple Stamp Set.  I roughed the edges up on the stop layer and used Jenni Bowlin Malted Milk to give more aging to the paper.  The apple and tag is cut from Preserves.  There are a lot of great tags, circles and fruit cuts on that cart!

Overall a fun easy card that came together quickly!

Have a great week,
Cindy

And So It Goes...

Two days back to school and Miss E is out with a tummy bug.  So today has been a day of small sips of Sprite, saltine crackers and toast.  (Makes me wish I hadn't tried her chicken last night...)  But she is a trooper through it all only asking for the occasional hug.  We're hopeful that she will feel well enough to go back to school tomorrow. 

In between all of the above, I've been working on a challenge card for My Favorite Stamp's Wednesday Stamp Club.  I don't have any MFT stamps {yet!} so I used a digi stamp called Spring Bringer by Sylvia Zet at WeeStamps. 

Paper is from my stash and includes PTI solid colored paper.  Sentiment is from PTI as well.

Last night I made this card for a co-worker who turns 50 tomorrow.  The original card design was focused on Peter Pan (the whole never growing up theme...) but my cut was a small one.  I couldn't even get some of the cuts to be more than a small dot on the Cricut so I gave up and went with Nifty Fifties cart and Echo Park's Happy Days.  The red on the car is from DCWV and is a metallic red.  Thought it worked well as a paint color for the car.

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend! 

Cindy

Warm Winter Wishes

The winter holiday is winding down.  It's cold and very windy here today - winter may be finally making an appearance here (but hopefully won't stick around too long!). Tomorrow the kids are back to school and I'm back to work.  We still have our tree up until the weekend.  Doesn't the house look bare after packing away the Christmas decorations?

Today's card is for the Mojo Monday Challenge #222. 

I used Verve's Sip and Savor as well as Winter Mittens for the sentiment and coffee mug.  The paper is from Echo Park Winter Park.  I decided to hold off on going full force Valentines (at least for a few more days...)  I used Ice Spruce Distress Ink to color the background of the sentiment.  Copic R22 Light Prawn is the color for the mug and the heart is stamped in Festive Berries Distress Ink.  The snowflake cut is from Winter Lace and lightly stamped with PTI snowflakes and sprayed with Tattered Angel Pearl Glimmer Mist. 

Thanks for looking and hope you have a great week!

Cindy