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

Cool Thank You

Christmas has come and gone for another year.  Yesterday was a whirlwind of presents, family and food!  Now it's time for the thank you notes.

I designed these for Miss E to give to her special friends who are so kind to her. 

I have a hard time making multiples - there is always a tweak or change to something!  The penguins are from Create a Critter.  (This cut also makes a great wall vinyl - we made some for Miss E and her friends last Spring.  They loved it!)  The card is a small one - just 3 3/4 X 3 3/4.  This size is too small for US mail when placed in a 4X4 envelopes but we plan on handing them out so it's not a problem.  The flower on the penguin's head is one I made from the Cricut project cartridge Flower Shoppe.  The flowers are so easy to make.  I watched a tutorial on Creations with Christina's blog and was creating as I watched! (Thanks Christina for making it so easy!)

 I put a dot of Liquid Pearls in the middle of this flower. 

The stamp is PTI Fillable Frames #5 stamped with Fresh Snow (PTI). 

Patterned paper is Echo Park Be Mine and the ribbon is from Michaels. 

Thanks for looking and have a great week!

Cindy

Old School Meets New School

A recent challenge was to use old scrappy products to make a project. 

So out came the old stencils, fancy scissors and brads to make this card!  The base is stamped with PTI Stitches and Swirls in Aqua mist.  I love the subtle pattern it makes.  The lace is colored using the aqua mist stamp pad and some water to mix in the color. 

The tag... let's just say I am so thankful for my Cricut because cutting out a handtraced stencil tag isn't as fun as it sounds!  The tag is stamped with the same Stitches and Swirls stamp from PTI in Fresh Snow (don't you just love the name Fresh Snow?).  The brads in the corners are dotted with Pearls.  It gives the brads a little touch of class.  The letters are silver stick ons - easy peasy. 

Lessons learned from this card:

• Using the fancy scissors on PTI's heavyweight paper is a disaster waiting to happen.  The ends of my tag were chewed up right away because the scissors couldn't cut through the paper.  The tag ended up being smaller than I wanted because I had to trim off all the chewed up mess.  Still got some fancy cuts in by cutting the bottom edge of the card...
• Pearl dots take time to dry.  If you're impatient like me, you'll end up bumping the dot while trying to finish up without leaving time for the pearl to dry, getting it all over your hand and you'll have to redot.  Ugh.

Overall a simple, sweet card using old school products.  If it's all the same to you, though, I think I'll stick with my Cricut... :)

Smiles,
Cindy

Tis the Season

Happy Holidays!

The past few weeks have been crazy around here:  Christmas parties, getting Miss E ready with teacher gifts, exhibiting at a craft show with my sister.  You name it and it was probably on my to do list! 

One of the fun crafty projects for the holidays was making these nugget tins.  I sold a bunch at the Craft Show and then made some more for a special order and for teacher gifts.  These are such fun to make and each one was a little different.  It makes me smile to see how each one takes on its own personality (Pumpkin Spice & Denine - I hope it makes you smile too!)

This Snowman cutie  & sentiment is from Unity Stamps.  I colored with Copics and let his personality shine through!  Tucked inside the tin are 12 individually wrapped Hershey Nuggets.  A perfect gift for a teacher, friend or bus driver!

Sorry for the glare on this one.  I {LOVE} the 12 Days of Christmas paper line from MME that I used on this tin!  I used a PTI stamp set for the sentiment and added some Stickles to make the bulbs glow.

And this one used PTI stamp sets for a fun retro feel with the big bulb lights. 

Thanks for taking a look today and hope your weekend is great!

Cindy

World Card Making Day - Part 2!

Two posts in two days - a new record! 

These are two of my projects from yesterday. 

This little owl just screams Lily Pulitzer to me.  Don't you think?  The paper is from MME Ooh La La and I lo-lo-love it!  

This is more MME  - So Sophie - Graceful.  I like the fall colors - used some MM Halloween trim on the card and a few gold blings on the side.   I had to add something to the side for balance because I didn't center my stamp - as my friend Carmen says, "usted esta distraido."  I think being told you're absentminded sounds much better in Spanish!

I had great plans to get more of my October birthday cards ready but the day slipped away as Sundays do.  I did get my blog layout and look updated and put a plug for Tastefully Simple on it too!

Hope you have a great week - and who knows - maybe there is another post tomorrow!

Cindy

World Card Making Day

Today is World Card Making Day and I'm spending the afternoon in my office/craft room creating! 

It's been a while since the last post so here are some of the cards I've been working on.

A challenge entry for Crop Chocolate...

Happy Birthday to my Mom...

A fun card for my son, Jordan...

Another challenge entry for Crop Chocolate...

Happy Birthday to my Sister...

And a get well card for a dear friend who is battling cancer...

 

Hope you enjoy looking!

 

Cindy

Spooktacular Project!

I've been seeing so many cool subway art projects on Pinterest, and I thought, "How hard can this be?"  So I pulled out Cricut Design Studio and Happy Hauntings and came up with this spooktacular project!

I used a 12X12 canvas and painted it a pumpkiny orange color.  At first I wanted it to look very brush strokey (is that a word?) on the edges but then the paint started going on too heavy on one side so I decided to cover to the edges and just let some white shine through in the middle to give a little more depth.

Then I used Design Studio to place the predesigned phrases in place.  It's kind of like putting a puzzle together when you try to figure out what fits where.  Filled in some blank spots with the spider and raven.

I used black indoor vinyl from Expressions Vinyl for the cut.  Weeding (getting all the unwanted pieces off the mat) takes quite a while so be sure to allow time (and patience!) to get it done.  I also used transfer tape since I designed it in Design Studio exactly how I wanted it to lay out on the page.  (Yes, I may have wasted some vinyl by not smooshing it all together but I have a hard time keeping things in a straight line so it was worth it...) 

Wouldn't it be cool to do a canvas like this painted black with a silver spider web?  Hmmm....

Have a great week!

Cindy

Weekend Projects

We planned to visit Monticello today but threats of rain changed our minds.  Instead we stayed at home and I had a chance to work on a few more cards (I very effectively ignored all the other weekend chores that were calling to me...). 

Plus I started some rock candy (does that count as cooking?) Saw it on a blog and had to give it a try for Miss E.  Made cinnamon, orange, wintergreen, cotton candy and plain.  I think I went a little overboard on the cinnamon - might need a fire extinguisher for that one!  I discovered that we truly only have ONE (yes ONE!) clothes pin in our whole house.  How does that happen?  So we had to get creative on how to suspend the sticks in the sugar solution (the sticks can't touch the bottom, sides or each other - bad things happen if they touch).  Hubby found stryofoamy stuff that I could push the sticks into (he's so resourceful!).

Back to the cards...

The stamps are from PTI.  I picked this up on E-bay and got it for about half of what it costs new (whoo hoo - love a bargain)!  The flower petals are stamped individually to make the flower and then colored with Copics.  The frames are cut on the Elegant Edges cart (it's a major go-to cart for me).  Bada bing bada bang and it's a card!

 I did go back and put black stitching on the pink frame to add a little more definition to it. 


My second card was made from paper from Bo-Bunny that just happened to show up in the mail today!

 Sentiment is from Verve Stamps. Bird and branch are PTI. The card needed a little more color so I put 'berries' on the branches. 

Isn't this quote so true?

So now I'm trying to figure out what I want to do next.  I need to make a get well soon card and I would like to try out my Toy Story cart.  (Those aliens are speaking to me...)

Stay tuned!
Cindy

Mojo Monday #202

Had fun playing with this one! 

Have a great weekend,

Cindy

Mojo Monday #191

Happy Tuesday!

Sunny Spring seems to have taken a slight detour to allow rainy Spring to visit this week.  I'm hopeful that the weather will clear up enough before the weekend so that we can pick strawberries this weekend.  It's time for fresh strawberries and to fill the freezer with fresh strawberry jam - yum!

This week's Mojo Monday came together quickly for me.  I used Togetherness paper from Cosmo Cricket along with my new favorite cartridge, Elegant Edges, and Create A Critter.  Elegant Edges is awesome - so many cuts perfect for albums, borders, combining into unique cards... It's been fun playing with this cart (and I found it on sale at Joann - how could I say no?) 

Stamp is Verve and ribbon is MME Lush.

Thanks for looking!

Have a great week,

Cindy

Mojo Monday Entry #190

Happy Tuesday!

This week feels like it should have been Friday about eight days ago...  Ever had one of those weeks?

I decided to do another Mojo Monday design this week.  It really adds discipline to your projects when you follow the design guidelines.  I find myself wanting to wander but it's good practice to see and use good design elements...

Isn't she the cutest little thing?   Downloaded her as a digi stamp from Bugaboo Stamps.  The folks at Bugaboo have a half price deal going on this month and TONS of great images!  www.bugaboostamps.com   Of course I used my Copics to color her.  Used 7 different papers (I think that's a personal best!).  The flower is a mix of Forever Young Cricut Cart and Storybook.  Mini Monograms was used for the frames around the pretty purple girl.

I have some new paper pads on the way and can't wait to get into some summery colors (i have some more summertime bugaboo digis I can't wait to use!)

Hope you're having a great week,
Cindy 

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day Moms! 

So today I decided to celebrate National Scrapbooking Day by making cards.  It's interesting how what you plan and what you end up with sometimes aren't the same.  Guess that's really how life works too!

This card was supposed to look completely different but a case of not following the 'cut once measure twice' rule required me to be more resourceful in how to incorporate one of the papers into the card. 

Isn't she just the cutest thing?  Her name is Isabella and I purchased her at Bugaboo digi stamps along with a bunch of other adorable stamps.  She is colored with Copic markers - I love, love, love Copic markers!  The sentiment and baker's twine is from PTI.  Paper is a mixture - grab bag from Taylored Expressions, DCWV Nana's Kitchen and the yellow dot paper source is highly classified (that means I have already forgotten where I pulled it from!).

I'll be posting a Mother's Day card made for my Mom tomorrow (so she won't get a sneak peak tonight!) and some drawings Miss Emma made to use as digi stamps.

Have a great weekend!
Cindy



Mojo Monday Entry

Welcome back!  Got some creative time last night and decided to participate in the Mojo Monday Week 189 challenge.  A few hours (and interruptions) later, here's what I came up with. 

 Isn't it nice to lose track of time doing something you love? 

Here's what I used:

• PTI Stamp & Buttons
• Cricut Cartridges (Indie Art, Martha Stewart Cake Holiday and Elegant, Preserves)
• BoBunny Paper
• Sizzix Paper
• Bakers Twine

I learned some lessons from this project:

• Just because you have a lot of carts doesn't mean that you have to use more than one or two carts when cutting out design elements.  It really adds a lot of time to your project when you use a lot of different cartridges!
• Less can be more.  I put bling on the butterfly then had to carefully scrape it off because it was too fancy for that calm little butterfly!
• Think about what order the card goes together BEFORE gluing down the first layer.  The bakers twine?  It goes UNDER the bottom layer!  Guess when I figured that out?  You guessed it - AFTER I glued down all the other layers!

Now the big question:  Will I remember what I learned for my next project? :)

Have a great week,
Cindy

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!  This is a spot to share crafting projects and inspirations with others who enjoy paper crafting. 

Spent some time today enjoying the beautiful spring weather.  Our yard is full of great photo opportunities!

Our pink dogwood is in full bloom and  finally taking off after the second year...

the ferns are slowly unfurling into the warm spring air....

and the tulips look lit from within! 


This afternoon I made a couple cards using MME paper, ribbbon andPTI and Verve Stamps.  Used the Cricut Storybook cartridge too.  So many good shapes perfect for stamping on that cartridge!

Looking forward to sharing more ideas with you!

Have a great week!

Cindy