Mommy Layout

I discovered a new blog this week that I absolutely love.  They have such great inspiration going on at http://acraftylittleplace.blogspot.com/ so be sure to check them out.  I created this layout for their scrapbook challenge.  I started with some teal cardstock from my stash, some patterened paper from DCWV Stack 6, my fave Martha stewart punch around the page set(Loops).  I used my Gypsy to weld the title.  "Mommy" is from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and the swirls came from Heritage.   added my first ever lollipop flower that I made with my scraps, some color box chalk ink and a brad from my stash and there it is.  A cute simple yet elegant layout from Mother's Day 2010. 

Edited to add the sketch from the challenge

Graduation

My baby girl is all grown up and graduating...tear, tear...Well okay she is not all grown up yet and she is only graduating preschool, but I can remember so clearly when her older brother started preschool and she wasn't even walking yet.  So the school took pictures of the kids in a cap and gown even though they will not wear these for the actual ceremony.  I spent the day making invitations/announcements to send to family members.  I designed this on my gypsy(my very own that I received just a few days ago...I had so much fun with the demo one that I had to get one to put my own cartridges on) while we were in the car headed to see the San Francisco Giants play in Oakland versus the A's.  Sadly our team was swept in the series, but my design was all ready to cut this morning. 

I used cardstock from stampin Up for the entire thing except for the white which is just my trusted white cheap stuff from Walmart.  The purple portion is designed with a ticket from Mickey Font and a cap from Locker Talk.  Then I just cut the rectangles with my trimmer.  The purple was glued down just around the edges and not at the top which created a pocket to slip in the ceremony details.

The green piece comes all the way out and she handwrote a note on the back of these.  I used Cat's eye chalk inks for the edges, added some ribbon from my stash and called it beautiful.  She loves them and I am sure the family will to.  I even sent them to some I knew could not make it so they would have a photo of her. 

My Deer Kids

Here is the project that I finished up today for the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog Crawl.  The challenge was to use as many of the featured cricut elements as possible in a single project.  As I cruised through the blog i thought that it should be fairly simple to use all the elements in a layout.  That was until I got to # 9 and glass etching.  I pondered on this for a few days until I remembered that I have been wanting to make a layout of the kids to display in my scrapbook room.  I had alrady completed most of the project at this point.  Off to Michael's I went in search of a 12x12 frame.  They no longer carry the wood frame I wanted to purchase.  i finally found a frame that would work and they only had one left in the white.  I grabbed it and went ahead with it, so you just need to imagine that the other half is framed as well.  I have already cut out the vinyl to etch it as soon as Michaels gets more in stock.

1. Angie at http://www.cokiepopaper.blogspot.com/ challenged us to use die cut flowers.  This was easy enough, I have loads of cartridges with flowers and I love to use them.  The flowers on the grass were all cut with the Give a Hoot cartridge
2.  Brenda's (http://brendasscrappyblog.blogspot.com/) challenge was to create a journaling box out if a die cut shape.  I chose this shape from the Tie the Knot cartridge that I thought also looked like clouds.  I then used my CutterBee bug paper piercer with a ruler to get the lines to write on.  I added some stickles, gems and my heartfelt thoughts to complete these boxes. 
3.  Candace at http://www.scrapadoodledee.blogspot.com/ challenged us to emboss on a die cut.  This is one of my favorite things to do, so I went to work embossing the tree trunk with the distressed stripes folder and my deers with the swiss dots folder.  The tree is from the Just Because cards cartridge and the animals are from Give a Hoot.

4.  Lori at http://livingorganizedchaos.blogspot.com/ wanted us to use the negative of a die cut.  this was the most challenging thing for me.  I am so not good at this.  The irony is that before my mom got her cricut I was always saving my negative cuts for her because I thought they would look great on pages.  So I forced myself to use one and I decided on adding it to my title.  the word "DEER" is the negative space from Storybook. 
5. Nana over at http://www.youniquereflections.blogspot.com/ asked for us to use our Gypsy.  Good thing I still have the one on loan from Provocraft that I am using to demo at the Costco Roadshow.  I completely designed my layout on the Gypsy as well as did most of my cutting from it as well. 

6.  Penny (http://lightwhimsy.blogspot.com/) asked us to use a shadow cut.  I used the shadow feature on the Gypsy wanderings Cartridge for the words "my" and "kids".
7. Robin at http://robinscreativecottage.blogspot.com/ challenged us to draw with our cricuts.  I have a set of the cricut markers and don't use them near as much as I should.  I had been curious how it would work to draw and cut on the bug from the Gypsy, so i used my markers to cut out the same words from challenge #6.

8.  The next challenge was to ink, draw or otherwise embellish a die cut and it was issued by SammyeJoe at  http://62cards.blogspot.com/.  This is another technique that I love.  this was shown in almost all of my cuts.  I added stickles and gems and chalk ink to my journal boxes, I inked the embossing and drew stitching on my tree trunk as well as stickles on the swing, I added smooch paint and liquid glass to my apples, my deer are inked up and their flowers and butterflies are addeed to, I used my Creative inspirations paints on some of the flowers.  I think that's it

9. The glass etching challenge from Sharon  http://ladybug820.blogspot.com/ was my biggest challenge.  I used my Gypsy and the heritage cartridge to create this swirl.  I can't wait until I get a second frame so this is complete. Here is a close-up of the etching
10. Tammy (http://momofthreeaddictedtopaper.blogspot.com/) wanted us to use paper piecing in the layout.  I wasn't quite sure what this was until she explained that it was basically just using layers.  Well I do this all the time.  The flowers on this page, the tree, the apples and the deer all have multiple layers.  On the larger deer I also used a hole punch near where his hooves are supposed to be to make a semi circle shape so that more of the pink would show through. 
11.  Valerie at  http://www.craftygolucky.blogspot.com/ wanted us to use a food item.  I really wanted to make an apple tree.  I do realize that the seasons may look a little mixed up (apples=fall and flowers=spring), but I really love this look.  The apple was cut from Give a Hoot in green and again in red and then I used my smooch paint in Chocolate to add the stem.

I had so much fun challenging myself.  The blogs did say that you could use these elements in different projects, but to put them all into one was the ultimate challenge for me.

Fantabulous Cricut Crawl

Good morning all.  Well I did not win the Expressions machine, but I did discover a great new blog last week.  The Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog is hosting the Fantabulous Cricut Crawl.  Sounds fun, right?  Basically it is a blog hop with tons of prizes and challenges along the way.  I plan to play along and I hope you do too.  One of the DT members is giving away a Cricut Robotz cartridge on her blog.  Check it out
http://cokiepopaper.blogspot.com/2010/05/fantaboulous-cricut-crawl-blog-hop.html

Teacher Appreciation Day

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week.  The actual day was on Tuesday, but since Braden was home sick and Kamrie does not go to school that day I decided to wait until Friday for the kids to take their gifts.  The buckets were made on NSD and then I added some flowers cut with the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge on my cricut.  I then used some pipe cleaners between the flower layers and twisted these around the pencils.  this was Braden's idea and I have to admit that it was a great one.  I put a styrofoam ball in the buckets(I made 2 of these) and glued another pipe cleaner around it for the grass.  Then I stuck the pencils in.  I also made some cards to go with these.

The Cuttleblog Blog Expressions giveaway

I posted about this giveaway awhile ago.  As a matter of fact it was this contest that was the push I needed to finally start a blog.  The contest was to create a coordinating set of projects and use the cuttlebug.  The Design Team was to choose their favorites and then the sponsor would choose a winner to win a brand new Expressions machine!!!  As I have been using my baby cricut for just about forever now I need to win this thing.  Buying one is far from being in the budget.  I chose to make a set of mini notecards and a matching tote bag.  You can see it on my April 17th post.  I just stopped by their blog and foud out that I was chosen as one of the Top 5!!!!  Winner will be notified sometime Mother's day weekend...What a fantastic Mother's day it would be if I win!!!!  So wish me luck and say a little prayer for me.  Did I mention that I NEED this machine??

And stop by The cuttlebug Blog and check out my competition, what do you think, do I stand a chance?

http://cuttlebugblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/top-5-picks.html

Ijust stumbled across this super fab blog today while hopping.  They are giving away some super awesome blog candy so check them out.  http://poshscrapbookstore.blogspot.com/2010/04/pdss-csc12-winner-candy-alert.html  

National Scrapbook Day

Well I know I am a few days late in posting this, but I had so much fun on my favorite holiday of the year, that I just didn't have the time to post.  Saturday was National Scrapbook Day and I spent friday night with a group of scrappers and card makers at a crop at a local church.  I got a couple of layouts done and was lucky enough to use a cricut cartridge that someone else had brought to share.  Then Saturday morning I got up bright and early while the kids were still asleep and my husband was gone on a Men's ministries excursion.  I stay in my jammies and scrapped the day away.  I participated in some challenges over at mypinkstamper.com.  So first up are the layouts I got done on Friday.

When i first got up and ready to scrap on Saturday, the challenges had not yet been posted at the My Pink Stamper site so I got started on this layout of my son's field trip to go on a hike for inspiration to write his own Haiku.  The name of my town is the word "haiku" spelled backwards so every year there is a huge festival here where children and adults are invited to submit their haikus.  Braden's class participated in this and Kamrie and I joined them on their hike.  While there Kamrie was inspired to "write" her own haiku(with help from Mom since she doesn't really know how to write yet).  She ended up winning Honorable mention and got her haiku published in a book they had made up for the festival.  The font is Plantin Schoolbook welded on the Gypsy and the Nature Lovers is done with Give a Hoot.  I welded the trees to the words.  This was also done for the LID challenge over on the Cricut messageboard.

Next up are the challenges that I completed.  First up is challenge #5 "Teacher Appreciation Days".  Well I needed some teacher gifts so I pulled out some black vinyl and these cute little buckets that I picked up at Target in the $1 spot.  I cut out the teachers initials from the Monogram feature on Tie the Knot and a swirl from Give a Hoot.  I am going to fill these with pencils. 

Next up was challenge #6 "Kids Craft Too" which was to make something for or with a child.  I did both.  I cut out this crown from the Once Upon a Princess cartridge.  kamrie chose the paper and embellishments.  I personally would not have chosen blue bling but I have to admit that it looks very regal.  The "K' is again from that monogram feature on Tie the Knot. 

Challenge #7 was "Hey Dad" and involved making anything masculine.  I am usually good at making masculine themed stuff.  I feel like this is a little plain, but since it is for a guy I didn't want it to be too frou-frou.  The font here is from Old West on the flourish feture and the shadow of the same.

Now to challenge #8 "Love my color".  This was to make a monochromatic project.  I had some blue scraps out and this border was leftover from the one of the layouts on friday, so I added soem ribbon and some flowers for a super simple, yet classy card.  I think I can add a sentiment later when I decide what I want to use the card for. 

Challenge # 9 "Take Shape" was to create a shaped project.  I pulled out my Gypsy and made another of the butterfly cards that I had posted before.  I was wanting to try some different stuff with that one anyway, so this was the perfect opportunity.  This time I used the coredinations paper underneath and I used the bloomdots embossing folder along with that same blue paper from the previous card.  i added some stickles and crackle paint to the word and some liquid pearls gave the final touches.

Challenge #12 was "Critter-licious".  I had some pictures from a few months ago when the family had gone on a hike and took some snapshots by a beautiful waterfall.  I knew Give a Hoot would be perfect for the page title and then when I saw this challenge I was sure I could incorporate some of the cute critters from that cartridge as well.  The border is from this cartridge as well although I did manipulate it a bit on my Gypsy.  This was also done for the LID weekly sketch challenge over on the Cricut Message board. 

I also have one more project in the works for challenge #11 "Colors of the Rainbow" but I wanted to get these posted in case I d not have time to get that one finished.  Although I do need to get it done as it is the cards to go with the teacher gifts and tomorrow is Teacher appreciation day.