A Winter Celebration Challenge!

Happy Monday Everyone!

This week our challenge over at Exploring Cricut is "Winter Wonderland" - A celebration of winter and snow.  I happened to have the PERFECT cause for this project:

 

My sister got engaged last week!  During a beautiful, heavy snow, her boyfriend took her to an awesome place around here called Longwood Gardens.  As they were walking around looking at the beautifully decorated Christmas trees, he dropped down on one knee and proposed... How romantic!  I used the Winter Woodland Cricut cartridge for the tree cut.  I added Polar White Flower Soft to all of the white cuts, to give them a "real snow" look.  I'll be sending this card out to them tomorrow :)

Please join our challenge this week by sharing your own creation celebrating winter and snow, and share it with us on our challenge page over at Exploring Cricut - We'd love for you to inspire us as well!  Happy Winter!

About this card:

Card Base - Enchanted Evening cardstock by Papertrey Ink

White Mat - Luxury White cardstock by Gina K

Tree - Cricut cut from Winter Woodland cartridge cut out of Bazzill Bling cardstock

Swiss Dots embossing folder

Congratulations stamp - Fiskars

Pom pom ribbon, stickles, Polar White Flowersoft

Blog Candy Winner!

Ugh - The weekend is over.  Sunday nights are so depressing for me!  Thinking about the long week ahead always brings me down... Hopefully this news will 'brighten' someone else's Sunday night.

We have a winner for the blog candy from my previous post!

I had 5 comments on my last post, and random.org chose the following comment:

Comment #5 was...

Congrats to Donna and Sara - Please email your mailing address to:

jclawser518 at gmail dot com

And I'll get your candy out to you.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and/or left a comment.

Have a great week!

Happy New Year! Blog Candy!

Happy New Year to my fellow crafters and friends!  May 2014 be your best year yet!

Over at Exploring Cricut, we're celebrating the New Year with a fun challenge - please go check it out!

Along with the New Year, comes the new list of resolutions, right? {{sigh...}}

I think we can all relate to the following list of resolutions:
- I will not buy new paper this year - I'll use the huge stash I already have (Mmm Hmm...)
- I will organize my craft space and de-stash unused items (absolutely!)
- I will use all of the Cricut Cartridges I already own, and won't buy new ones (yeah, right...)
- I will use new techniques (if they're not too hard...)
- I will use all of the scraps I've been hoarding (...)

Wait... Those last 2 are resolutions I can actually see myself working on!  And I present to you, today's featured project over on Exploring Cricut, a card made almost completely from scraps, using a new-to-me technique:

  

I have been so anxious to use the 'starburst' technique on a card.  It is embarrassing to look at some of the attempts I've made at this before.  I finally found a bunch of tutorials that made it much easier for me to conquer - Thank you Pinterest!  The only element of this card that was not a scrap is the base - I can live with that!

Now I Need Your Help With Another Resolution!

I'm going to start my 2014 destashing effort by giving the following goodies away to a good, crafty home:

 

 Everything pictured above is brand new, never used and in perfect condition - I just haven't used it and so now it needs to go somewhere where it will be used!  You will also receive the card that I made for my inspiration project this week :)  To enter for the give away, please make sure that you're a follower, and leave me a comment about your New Year's resolutions - Leave me tips on how to conquer mine, or tell me about yours :)  Please leave your email address in your comment (to avoid spam, spell it out like - address at domain dot com) so I can reach you if you are the winner.  (I can only ship to US and Canada - Sorry for any inconvenience)

I will use random.org to draw a winner on Sunday night (1/5/14), so please make sure to comment/follow before then.

Again, Happy New Year everyone!  I'm looking forward to a year full of inspiration from all of you!

About this card:

Base - Summer Sunrise cardstock from Papertrey Ink

Scraps - Echo Park's Playground line of paper

Sun - Cut from Cricut's "Small Talk Frames & Tags" cartridge

Sentiment - Pink by Design

Memento Babmoo Leaves

Stickles, Purple Mat

Happy 2014!

Hello Fellow Crafters!

Hoping this post finds you recovering from the Christmas rush, and that you were blessed with friends and family abound!  This week's challenge over at Exploring Cricut is to create something celebrating the New year.  Next on my holiday agenda is New Year's Eve - we'll be spending it with my Sister-In-Law and her family,  To show my appreciation for her hospitality, I'll be taking along a bottle of wine and this card:

I just got the "Small Talk Frames & Tags" Cricut cartridge for Christmas, so I just had to play with it here.  I used it to make the 'Polaroid' frame, and I used "Cricut Classic Font" for the 2014.

Please join our challenge at Exploring Cricut, and share your New Year's creations with us!

Hoping everyone has a Happy & Safe New Year - I'll be back with a post on New Year's Day, so please make a point to stop back then!

About this card:
Patterned Cardstock Base - DCWV Dots, Stripes & Plaids
Cricut Cartridges - Small Talk Frames & Tags and Cricut Classic Font
Fireworks - Darice Embossing Folder, daubed in Memento Brilliance inks
Stickles, Blue/Green Mat from Stash

Creative Cards to the Rescue!

Hey All!

Need a break from Christmas crafting?  I do... And I have a good reason... Here's the story...

My Mom's birthday is December 28th.  Since we were little, my Mom has always made a big deal about how she doesn't like how close her Birthday is to Christmas - she would love to be able to fully celebrate each occasion separately without lumping everything together.  We won't talk about the year I got lazy and wrapped her birthday gift in Christmas paper... My Mom is NOT ungrateful, I was just being a stinky teenager.  ANYWAY... onto today's project! That all said, I need to have cards on hand that are somewhat universal and show no signs of Christmas.  Last weekend I went on a scrap retreat with some girls and caught up on making cards just for such occasions - Here are a few:

Thank goodness for Cricut's Creative Cards cartridge!  All 3 of these are from that cartridge - it has done all of the design and layout work for you, and you get to have TONS of fun choosing fun papers, color schemes and sentiments to go along with them.  Here are some close ups of each card:

 

I will always turn to this cartridge for quick cards to impress - they come together very easily and you can do so much with them to customize them.  Hopefully I've given you a reason today to dig out this cartridge and play with it.  Your mom will love them!!!

Check back daily over at Exploring Cricut for inspiration while you play with paper :)

About these Cards:

Cricut Cartridge "Creative Cards"

Card Bases - Papertrey Ink & Bazzill

Patterned Paper - Echo Park & DCWV Blue Citrus

Sentiments - Pink by Design & PTI
Embossing Folder - Stampin' Up
Stickles, Liquid Pearls, Memento Ink, Gems, 3D Foam Dots

Christmas Decor

Hello and Merry Christmas!

This week's challenge over at Exploring Cricut is "It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas" - That's right - it's time to get the house decorated if you haven't already done so!  In that spirit, I'm sharing a decorative piece with you, as opposed to the usual cards I always share:

 

I am really happy with how this turned out!  I took a 5" x 7" espresso colored frame and mounted some burlap fabric on the back piece (and popped it out with an extra 4.5"x  6.5" piece if cardboard.  Both of these cuts are from Anna Griffin's Winter Wonderland cartridge.  The bell is cut at 5" height and the swag is cut at 6" width.  Here is another picture with different lighting:

 

In this picture, you can see that I mounted the bell with 3D foam dots for some dimension.  I also used stickles and pearls to accentuate the cuts.

I wish I had bought more of these frames, because there are so many wonderful cuts on this cartridge, that I could see myself making a trio of these, in all coordinating colors just different cuts, to hang close to each other.  Maybe I'll venture out on this snowy day to do just that!

Please share your Christmas projects with us!  Go to Exploring Cricut and enter your creations - we all want to see what you've been up to this season!

About this Project:

5x7 Espresso Frame from AC Moore

Burlap Fabric

2 Cuts from Anna Griffin's Winter Wonderland Cartridge

Bazzill Bling Card Stock

Stickles, Pearls, Cream Pearl Pen, Ribbon, 3D Foam Dots

Wednesday Whimsy

Oh the time has come...

No, not Christmas... The time has come where my daughter is old enough to be invited to EVERY KID'S BIRTHDAY PARTY IMAGINABLE!

Not a problem!  It's an Ariel themed party?  I've got you covered!

This was my first time using the Disney "Dreams Come True" cartridge - I am impressed with how intricate the layers are, and how real the images look once assembled.  I'm sure since my daughter is around 'that age' I'll be called upon to cut more from this cartridge... maybe even for the next party... which might I add is only 2 weeks away :)

I posted this card as part of our daily inspiration over at Exploring Cricut - Come on over and join our Christmas Card challenge if you haven't already done so!

Have a great day everyone!

About this Card:

Studio G White Circle Card Base

Lt. Blue Mat - Embossed with D'vine Swirls Cuttlebug Folder

Ariel - Cut from "Dreams Come True" Disney Cricut Cartridge

     Ariel's tail is embossed with Stampin' Up's Fancy Fan Embossing Folder

Seashell - Cut from "Dreams Come True" also

Sentiment - from Tim Holtz clear Birthday collection

3D Foam dots, Stickles