NITA NOTES

CWC Dr. Seuss Challenge

2012-03-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

Good Morning! It's Wednesday and that means it's challenge day over at Cooking With Cricut! This week we are saluting Dr. Seuss.

One of the things I love about Dr. Seuss' books is how he encourages children not only to read, but also to use their imaginations. To come up with new and wonderful ideas.

Pulling out my Bind-it-All, I created notebooks for Abi and Luke to write their "thinks" in. And with the leftover paper, I made them each a book mark.

Aren't Thing 1 and Thing 2 adorable? They're just one of several new Dr. Seuss-themed PCW files. Using them for this project seemed appropriate, since there's a little bit of Things 1 and 2 in Abi and Luke. :) I modified the digi files a little, and coloured them with Copics. I also used Simply Charmed for the pencils, and Create a Critter for Thing 1's thought bubble. The twine is from The Twinery.

I have to say that this challenge is near and dear to my heart. I have very fond memories of my Mom reading to me every night before bed, and often our books of choice were those written by Dr. Seuss. Fox in Sox, The Cat in the Hat, Wacky Wednesday, How the Grinch Stole Christmas - they were favorites of mine then, and still are today, as I enjoy them with Abi and Luke. My Mom loves books, and through that special time together, she passed that love on to me. And I've now passed it on to my own children.

My husband and I have been reading to Abi and Luke since they were infants. Literally. I firmly believe that it's never too early to start instilling a love of literature in your children. At age 9, Abi doesn't merely read books; she DEVOURS them. At last count, our Homeschool reading log indicated that Abi has read over 40 chapter books since September! And Luke? He's in the early stages of learning to read, and can hardly wait until he can do it all by himself. In the meantime, there is no hiding his pleasure when we sit down with a pile of books and read the afternoon away. :)

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you'll head on over to Cooking With Cricut and join us in paying tribute to Dr. Seuss. :)

Blog Awards x 2

2012-02-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

Happy Tuesday! I know I've been MIA over the past little while, but we've had some "happenings" at our house that have taken up the majority of my time.

My Abigail has been dealing with a fever for the past few days, and I've been dividing my time between making her comfortable, de-germing the house, and keeping Luke healthy and entertained. We've still managed to fit in some "school" (ah, the benefits of Homeschooling), which you can read about here.

Yes, in all my "free time" I've started a second blog. It's kind of a journal of our Homeschool adventures, a way to keep a record for myself, and to share our journey with friends and family. You know, a way to answer the question all stay-at-home moms love to hear: "So what exactly do you DO all day?" ;)

Anyhoo, I also wanted to share some wonderful crafty news too. My bloggy friend Heather (who is so super talented with the layouts it will blow your mind!) awarded me this:

The Liebster Blog Award is a way to bring acknowledgement and traffic to newer blogs with less than 200 Followers. I have received this award before, and you can see who I passed it on to HERE. Thank you so much Heather! I think you are amazing!

SECOND, my dear Blend Karen of Kaleidoscopic Sparkles has awarded me this:

Thank you SO MUCH Karen! I am so honoured. :)

Here are the terms under which this 'Green Blend Award" are to be given.

1.) This award is for any co-blogging friend who has helped your blog in any and all ways.

2.) This award is for any co-blogging friend who has cheered you along in your blog building, craft advancing career.

3.) This award is for any co-blogging friend who always stops by and is kind to you. you can count on them to always be one of the great comments at the end of your posts.

4.) This award is to be given to 3 to 5 Blends whom you feel meet the listed requirements.

5.) Create a post with the terms of use and publish your Blends of Choice.

6.) Blend of choice may copy the award from your blog and proudly post it on theirs.

7.) Blend of choice may continue the kindness by issuing this award to keep the circle forever growing.

I'm passing this wonderful award onto:

1. Karen - Kaleidoscopic Sparkles (right back at you my cheerleading blend!)

2. Amy - The Red-Headed Crafter

3. Sherry - Up or Down They're Beautiful

4. Dawn - Simply Dawn

These four ladies encourage me constantly. They always see the positives in my crafty projects (even the failed ones!), and I am so thankful to have had the chance to meet them through this bloggy world. Thank you ladies! :)

And now, I have more germs to defeat, and two bored children to entertain. Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a wonderful day! :)

Cooking With Cricut Challenge

2012-02-22T00:19:00.000-07:00

Good Morning! It's Wednesday and that means it's time for another challenge over at Cooking With Cricut! This week we were asked to create a project for a child's birthday using a cake, cupcakes, OR balloons. I'm of the firm belief that you can never have too many birthday cards on hand, so...

I have two outer space lovers in my house right now (without counting ME!), and they both LOVE this card. :)

Recipe:
5 x 5 Easel card
Everyday Paper Dolls: Astronaut, moon rocks
Boys Will Be Boys: alien, flying saucer
Create a Critter: balloons
Sentiment: my computer
Paper: Recollections
PKS faces: Everyday Paper Doll, Monster Mash Faces
Twine: scraps
Star stamp: I have no idea - I found it in a set that has lost its packaging
Other: white gel pen, pearl stickers

What a fun (and practical!) challenge! I hope you'll join us this week over at CWC; remember to use a Cricut cut on your project and let your imagination do the rest. ;)

Thanks for stopping by and having a wonderful day. :)

Good News and a New Card

2012-02-19T15:57:00.002-07:00

Happy Sunday everyone! It's a long weekend in Alberta; Monday is Family Day. And what am I doing for the holiday? Paining (i.e., painTing - what a fabulous typo! HA!) the final room in our house - the Master Bathroom. lol! I know, I know, not the ideal activity for a holiday weekend, but it must be done. And once we've finished we will have painted every surface in the new house. Whew!

While waiting for coats of paint to dry, I thought I'd share with you some goodness that's been happening. First, I won some blog candy from Court over at Court's Craft Corner AND from Felicia over at Scrapper in the Making! WOW! And THEN, I found out this morning that my LOVE blocks won the heart challenge at Paper Playtime! Yay! Abi and Luke loved those blocks and spent a great deal of time examining them on Valentine's Day. :)

SO, a new card. I'm a big fan of Paper Smooches stamps and their SPARKS challenge is going on right now. I took their inspiration photo, paired it with the Crazy For Challenges challenge to use stripes and polka dots, combined both with my love of puns, and voila!

I love paper-piecing when I get to use cute patterned paper like this. :)

Recipe:
Paper Smooches Hot Concoctions: coffee cups, heart steam
Paper Smooches Vegtastic: You & Me (some masking here)
K Andrew Coffee & Tea for You & Me: sentiment
Paper Smooches cardstock: blue-green cardstock
The Twinery: Honeydew twine
Recollections: Kraft card base, white card stock
DCWV Baby Girl Stack: striped paper
Imaginisce Enchanted Paper Pad: orange polka-dot paper

Challenges Entered:
Paper Smooches SPARKS
Crazy for Challenges (use stripes & polka dots)
Sentimental Sunday (focus on your sentiment)
Sundays Are Lovely (Jaihart Designs)
My Sheri Crafts (something warm)

Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful day! :)

Crafty Sale Alert!

2012-02-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

Good Morning all! Just a quick post today to share with you a place to find some crafty supplies. Who doesn't like shopping for crafty supplies? :)

Fellow CWC Design Team member Jen is selling off many of her old supplies, and I thought I'd point you all in the direction of her "crafty garage sale". There's a variety of crafting goodies just waiting for you to scoop them up (I've already put in my order for some fabulous rubber stamps!). So head on over and check it out HERE!

AND, if a crafty garage sale isn't enough, our fearlous leader Melin has an amazing deal for you today at Paper Crafting World. In honour of her brother's birthday, Melin is offering 50% off your purchase of $16! This sale will only be through February 23, so get over there while you can, and use the code David50. Melin has the cutest cut files and digi stamps available for purchase, so this is the perfect day to stock up!

Have a super day! :)

Blog Candy Winner

2012-02-14T19:33:00.001-07:00

Hi all! And Happy Valentine's Day! I have seriously been trying to get this post up ALL AFTERNOON, but the Valetines activities I had planned for the kiddos took on a life of their own, and I just never made it back to click "publish". Sorry about that!

A couple of things today. FIRST, let's find out who won the $20 gift certificate from My Craft Spot.

Using random.org the winning number is....

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max:

15
#15 is Karen!!! Congratulations Karen! I'll be contacting you! :) :) :)Second on the agenda today is the card I made for my very own Valentine, my sweet husband. Normally we don't "do" Valentine's Day (he firmly believes that he doesn't need a "DAY" to show me he loves me - he does it every day of the year. *sigh* I am so blessed), but I really like to make him a card now and then, and V-Day was a good excuse. :)

Recipe:

Digi stamp: Bugaboo Stamps, coloured with Copics and paper-pieced

Paper: Recollections (brown & blue), DCWV Baby Girl Stack (orange pattern)

"I Love You": Paper Smooches Alphadot

Twine: Scraps from my twine box mess (probably I should clean that up)

Challenges Entered:

CAS-ual Fridays (use paper piecing)

Chocolate, Coffee, & Cards Challenges (use brown, orange, & teal)

My husband loved the card. He said the sweet little lady on the front reminds him of me when we first met. Tee hee! :)

Thank so much for stopping by today! Don't forget there is a brand new challenge at Cooking With Cricut tomorrow, and it's one that will definately get your creative juices flowing. :)

CWC Love Song Blog Hop Day 2

2012-02-12T00:36:00.000-07:00

Good Morning! And welcome to Day 2 of the PaperCraftingWorld.com and CookingWithCricut.com Love Song Blog Hop! Did you see yesterday's line-up? Wasn't it fabulous? I work with such a talented group of ladies, don't I? *gush* :)

If you've arrived here from Evelyn's blog, you are in the right place. If you're joining us mid-hop, click here to go back to the beginning and see everything this amazing design team has to offer.

If you joined us yesterday, then you know that the Design Team was tasked with creating a project inspired by our favorite love songs (if you missed it yesterday, go back and check it out!). I gave this a LOT of thought.

I love music - all kinds of music. I grew up in the 80's & 90's when hair bands and soft pop like NKOTB and Tiffany (remember Tiffany?) were all the rage, and yet I also spent a good portion of my childhood listening to my mom's favorite music - The Beatles, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Ricky Nelson, etc. I also love country music, and classical music, and since I had children, I've been known to rock out to The Wiggles too. :)

So how did I choose? Well, since we're so close to Valentine's Day, I thought I'd pay tribute to MY Valentine - my husband of nearly 15 years (in July!). He introduced me to the likes of Frank Sinatra, Luther Vandros, and Nat King Cole, and I think that may be one of the reasons I fell in love with him. Hee hee!

SO, here is the song that inspired me, one of my favorite songs EVER:

Gosh, I love that song! It just makes me happy. :) Here's what it inspired me to make (warning: LOADS of photos follow! Bear with me!):

A little gift for my Abigail and my Luke - treat boxes that show what else L-O-V-E stand for. :) I wanted them to look like those wooden letter blocks you can buy.

Here is L:

And O:

And V:

And E:

Wanna see what's inside?

Hugs and Kisses of course! :)

Can I just say that these were SUPER hard to photograph? I swear, I took about 4 dozen photos trying capture all the little details. Enlarging them helps, but I wish I could show you them in 3D! :)

Cartridges used:
Wrap it Up, Birthday Bash, Create a Critter, From my Kitchen, Mini Monsters, Doodlecharms, Simply Charmed, Sweet Shop, Plantin Schoolbook, Quarter Note

Stamps used:
PKS: Monster Mash Faces, Wide-eyed Kids Face, Basic Paper Doll Face
My Craft Spot: Sweet Sentiments #1
Pink Cat Studio: Elf With Gifts

Other Stuff:
Print-out clip art on my computer: Oscar & Eeyore
Candi stick-ons

Whew! Enough information for you? HA! Now what would a Blog Hop be without Blog Candy? Today I'm offering up...drum roll please...

*a $20 gift certificate from My Craft Spot!*

Yay! There is a great selection of stamps, twine, and the prettiest crinkle ribbon you've ever seen. :) All you have to do is leave me a comment on this post. That's it! As with all my giveaways, you do NOT have to be a Follower, although I would love it if you'd join me on my crafting journey. :) I'll pick a winner on Tuesday for Valentine's Day.

We hope you’ll join us and link up a project inspired by YOUR favorite love song at Cooking With Cricut. One lucky entry will be chosen by random.org to win a $10.00 gift certificate provided by PaperCraftingWorld.com!

Thanks so much for hopping with us today! There is still more to come, so head on over to Jenny and see what fabulous things she has created for you. :)

Challenges Entered:
FCCB: Use a heart
My Craft Spot: Valentines
Paper Playtime: Use hearts
Sisterhood of Crafters: Valentines
Frosted Designs: Use the word "love"
Sundays Are Lovely (Jaihart Designs)

CWC Love Song Blog Hop

2012-02-11T16:20:00.001-07:00

Have you seen it yet? It's Day 1 of the Cooking With Cricut & Paper Crafting World Love Song Inspired Blog Hop, and the projects are spectacular! Be sure to head on over and check it out!

I'll be back bright and early tomorrow morning with my project for Day 2. Hope to see you then! :)

Funny Conversations With My Children: Episode 6

2012-02-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

A conversation I overheard between my sister and my nephew, Logan, aged 4.

K (my sister): Logan, you'd better finish that popsicle.
Logan: What?
K: That popsicle you were eating. You'd better finish it before it melts.
Logan: Oh, it won't melt.
K: It won't melt?
Logan: No, that colour doesn't melt actually.
K: *pause* Purple popsicles don't melt?
Logan: Nope. That colour doesn't melt. So it's fine.

Ha ha ha ha ha! He is SO funny! I love my nieces and nephews like they're my own, and they really do provide some great comedy. :)

And to top it off? I told my Abigail about Logan's popsicle-melting theory, and her response was: "Oh. Well, purple IS a cool colour. So Logan kind of makes a good point." WHAT??!!! The children are rising against us! lol! I am so thankful for my silly family. :)

Have a great day!

Cooking With Cricut Challenge Day!

2012-02-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

Good Morning!!! I don't know about everyone else, but here in Calgary we have been having some fabulous weather lately. The snow is melting like crazy, the walking paths around our house are all clear, and we have been taking advantage of it as often as we can. I have to say, though, that as much as Abi and Luke are enjoying it, no one is quite as happy as my Perri puppy. She does a happy dance everytime someone even says the word "outside". :)

Anyhoo, it's Wednesday again and that means it's time for another challenge over at Cooking With Cricut! This week we were asked to make a child's Valentine's Day card using red, pink, and white. Naturally, I took this opportunity to make cards for my sweet Abigail and my marvelous Luke. :)

Recipe:
Card Base: Birthday Bash, Recollections card stock
Turtles: PCW digital stamp, paper-pieced using scraps
Blue hat: Everyday Paper dolls
"Hugs" sentiment & small hearts: My Pink Stamper
All other paper: scraps
Ribbon: I won this lovely ribbon (along with a few other things) from One Stop Card Crafts through a Frosted Designs challenge a while back, and I've been saving it (ie, hoarding it) for a special occasion. :)

So much fun! I hope you'll join us this week in creating a Valentine's Day card for that special little person (or people) in your life. :)

Challenges entered:
My Craft Spot - Anything Goes
Use it Tuesday - All about Love
Die Cuttin' Divas - Anything Goes
Ribbon Carousel - Use Paper Piecing
Anything Goes - To the One I Love

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful day! :)

Just Because Birthday

2012-01-28T12:24:00.001-07:00

Happy Saturday!

Today I have a card to share with you that I'm pretty excited about. Why am I so excited about it? Because I made it for absolutely NO REASON! That's right, for the first time, in a loooong time, I made a card just for fun! Not that I don't enjoy making projects for actual events, or for DTs, but there is something super satisfying about making something just for the heck of it. :)

Taa daa! Isn't she so cute? :)

Recipe:
Smiling Flower: My *brand new* Paper Smooches Perky Plants, paper pieced using scraps
Sentiment: My *brand new* Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler
Grass: DCWV textured card stock, Martha Stewart punch
Twine: The Twinery 'Blossom'
Green paper: DCWV textured cardstock
White paper and Kraft Paper: Recollections
Other: White and black gel pens for touch-ups and accents

I'm entering this into the Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge, the CAS-ual Fridays Sketch challenge, the Birthday Sundaes Anything Goes challenge, and the My Sheri Cafts Use Something New challenge. :)

In other news, Cooking With Cricut is having a Design Team call! If you're interested in joining this fabulous and super-talented group of designers, you can find all the needed info here.

Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful weekend! :)

CWC Challenge Day!

2012-01-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

Good Morning! It's Wednesday and time for another challenge over at Cooking With Cricut. This week I teamed up with fellow DT members Court and Holly, and the three of us cooked up a super fun challenge for you: make something other than a card, using polka dots and the colour yellow.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do for this challenge. My limited Copic collection needed a storage space, and I had a few of these Tazo Tea tins lying around:

So, I covered them with some fun polka-dot paper, and used my new Mickey & Friends cartridge (because I needed a little Disney to spruce up my craft cabinet) and created these:

My Copics are now accessible and tidy. :) I'm entering these in the Wacky Wednesday 'Use an Animated Character' challenge as well.

And now it's your turn! Head on over to Cooking With Cricut and join in the fun. :)

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day!

I Feel the Love

2012-01-20T12:43:00.003-07:00

Happy Friday everyone!

I have a very special card to share with you today. Madison, over at Funky Cards, is one of the most amazing young ladies I have ever come across. Her kindness and selflessness are beyond words, and her 'I Feel the Love' project is just one example of what her big heart is capable of. Every month, Madison selects a family or individual who needs a little love thrown their way, and asks the crafty blog world to help out by making and sending cards.

This month the recipients are the Cappelluti family from Chili, who lost their beautiful baby girl, Olivia, at just 4.5 months old. Olivia was born with heart and lung defects, and was expected to live just 2 weeks. Instead, she endured a heart surgery, and fought for over 4 months before Jesus took her home. You can find more information here at Madison's blog.

Every time I read this family's story, I weep. I knew I had to make a card, but I was stumped. How does one pour not just sympathy, but love and hugs and comfort into a single card? I decided to use a stamp I'd been saving for just the right project.

I wanted to keep things soft and comforting, so rather than use Copics to colour the image, I used pencil (one of my favorite colouring mediums). The cardstock all came from scraps, and I inked it all using black and grey inks from CTMH. The image and sentiment are both Pure Innocence from My Favorite Things; I found the set on the clearance rack at my local craft store. Fate, I'm sure. :)

A small gesture, but I hope it will bring some comfort to the Cappelluti family in their time of loss. I hope they know that they now have friends throughout the entire world, friends who are weeping with them and praying for them.

Now it's your turn. Please consider making a card for this wonderful family. You can find all the needed information over at Funky Cards.

Challenges Entered:
Whimsical Designs: Anything Goes
Anything Goes: Anything Goes

A Winner!

2012-01-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

Happy Wednesday!

I first want to thank you all for your compliments on my Espresso Yourself card (which made The Paper Variety Top 4!!! Woo hoo!!), and for sharing your favorite mugs with me. :) I used random.org, and the winning comment is:

Melissa (Sunshine Honeybee)!!

Melissa said: Like your mug card. My fav mug is a Pappa Smurf mug. I like the blue Smurfs. I enjoyed the Muppets movie and am fond of the 2 guys in the balcony. Thanks for giveaway chance.

Congratulations Melissa! You have won a $15 gift certificate from Paper Smooches!!! I LOVE these stamps, and I know you will too. Please email me and we'll get your prize off to you. :)

And don't forget about the new Cooking With Cricut challenge this week: Winter Warmies. It's all about how we keep warm in the winters. :)

Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful day! :)

CWC Cartridge Showcase

2012-01-16T01:06:00.000-07:00

-Enter my 'Favorite Coffee Mug' giveaway HERE-

Good morning! Today is my day to provide the Cartridge Showcase over at Cooking with Cricut. OF COURSE, I chose to share Love You a Latte with everyone! :) :) :)

This is one of my favorite cartridges. Those of you who have been following me for awhile know that I'm a wee bit of a coffee fan (or addict, whichever term you prefer). When Love You a Latte was first released, I HAD to have it. I called my husband over to the computer, pointed at the screen, and he said: "You HAVE to have that. You should order it. Now." He's a keeper, I know. :)

Here are few of the projects I'm sharing today:

Details HERE

And here's something brand new. I created a couple of pages for a mini recipe book I'm in the process of creating.

Head on over to Cooking With Cricut for all the details.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a wonderful day! :)

CWC Blog Hop: Day 2

2012-01-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Day 2 of Paper Crafting World's and Cooking With Cricut's first Blog Hop of 2012! Our theme is: “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue!”

If you have arrived here from my amazingly creative friend Madison you’re in the right place! If you’re joining us mid-hop, head on over to see Melin at Cooking With Cricut and start at the beginning so you don’t miss any of the wonderful projects the Designers have created!

Our Designers had to use something old from their craft stash, something new (a recent purchase or new technique), something borrowed (an element from a Cricut cut or from a Paper Crafting World file or digi stamp) and of course, something blue.

Here is what I came up with:

My husband's cousin had a baby boy not long ago, so I thought I'd create a little card to go along with the gift we bought to welcome little Alexander to the family (gosh I LOVE new babies!!!).

Something old: -ALL the paper - I used ony scraps! I love when that happens!
-Boys Will Be Boys cartridge for the images

Something new: Nate's ABC cartridge for the sentiment

Something borrowed: I "borrowed" the letter "A" from Nate's ABC to replace the numbers that were originally on the hat. "A" is for Alexander. :)

Something blue: The hat & the circles

I don't have any Blog candy for the hop today, but there's still time to enter into my "Favorite Coffee Mug" giveaway. You can find all the details here.

Your next stop is the super-talented Angie, and she has created something fabulous for you, so head on over!

Here's a complete list of today's hop, in case you get lost along the way:

Melin – http://www.cookingwithcricut.com
Court – http://www.courtscraftcorner.blogspot.com
Evelyn – http://www.mylittlecraftblog.wordpress.com
Michelle – http://www.michelles-crafty-creations.blogspot.com/
Mindy – http://www.scrappyandpiggy.blogspot.com
Felicia – http://www.scrapperinthemaking.blogspot.com
Madison – http://www.funkycards.blogspot.com
Nita – http://www.niftynitanotes.blogspot.com/
Angie – http://www.angie-scrappinmemories.blogspot.com
Jen – http://www.gator-4-life.blogspot.com

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Cooking With Cricut Challenge Day

2012-01-11T00:18:00.000-07:00

Good Morning! For those of you who are wondering where I've been, check out yesterday's post here. It'll fill you in. :)

Today is a brand new challenge day over at Cooking With Cricut. This week our projects are inspired by this beautiful photo:

There were a number of things about this photo that struck me, and I ended up creating something that has a whole story behind it, so bear with me. :)

Recipe:

Card shape: Birthday Bash

Coffee cup stamps: Paper Smooches Hot Concotions

Sentiment: K Andrew Coffee & Tea Treats Tag-a-Long

One of the most beautiful things about the inspiration photo (I think) is the colour scheme: black and white with a splash of blue. I knew I wanted to include those colours in my project. As for the rest...

Those of you who've been following me for awhile know how I feel about Winter. I'm not a fan of snow and shovelling and ice and COLD. I spend a good portion of Winter curled up in front of the fireplace with a hot drink. And most of the time, when I'm not drinking a Starbucks, I'm drinking out of this:

My beautiful sister-in-law bought this for me years ago, knowing (and completely understanding) about my love of Kermit. And it's still my favorite.

Those rows of plain cups on my card? Those are all my other coffee and tea cups. And that blue one with the smile? That's my Kermit cup - it makes me smile every time I use it.

Now that you all think I'm a complete nut (which isn't far from the truth), let's have a little fun. :)

Do you have a favorite mug? One that you use for tea and honey when you're sick, or hot chocolate when you've come in from shovelling the driveway yet again, or a delightful coffee in the morning when the dog (or children) have awakened you at 5am? A mug that just makes you feel better, that makes you smile?

Leave a comment telling me what it is. Next Wednesday I'll randomly select one commenter who will receive a little something. :)

Now, it's your turn. Head on over to CWC and show us what you see when you look at this gorgeous photo. :)

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day!

Challenges entered: The Paper Variety (use black & white + one other colour)

Where I've been

2012-01-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

Hello Blogland! I know I've been MIA for quite some time, but rest assured I am fine. I had some "thinking time" over the Christmas break and realized I needed to do some re-prioritizing in my life. Having spent so much of the last 5 months working on these blasted home renos, I decided I need to spend more time with my children, focusing on homeschooling, play, and just snuggle time. So crafting has been, and will continue to be, taking a back seat to family time. :)

I thought today I'd share with you a little bit of what we've been doing to our house over the past 5 months.

Remember the scary bathroom?

Here it is now:

Much better!

Here is our old dining room. Yes, that IS orange on the walls.

Here it is now.

And our kitchen - yup, another shade of orange.

Here it is with new paint and WORKING appliances:

And our living room. That fieldstone fireplace facing practically fell off on its own!

Cleaner and safer now.

And that's only a portion of the main floor! We also painted and re-organized a den and a laundry room, AND we re-carpeted, repaired, painted, and re-lighted the entire second story as well, which inludes 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, and a bonus room above the garage.

Time well-spent, but I'm so sick of home repairs I could scream! We are SO close to being finished - just a few picky things left, most involving baseboards and door casings. The previous owner layed hardwood and laminate tile OVER top of the existing lino, which made his floor-line too high, so he CUT all the door casings up about 1/4 - 1/2 inch. When we ripped everything out and layed the new hardwood properly, we were left with 1/4 - 1/2 inch gaps on EVERY door casing on the main floor. Yeesh! We're trying to figure out the easiest way to repair that - a way that does NOT involve replacing door casings!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the before and after photos. You can see why I've been MIA so much over the past few months! :) Be sure to stop back tomorrow for a new Cooking With Cricut Challenge, and remember our Bloghop this weekend - I have some fun stuff to show you!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day! :)

CWC Year in Review

2011-12-28T05:00:00.009-07:00

Good Morning! So sorry I'm late on this one! I had it scheduled to post this morning and Blogger reverted it to Draft. *sigh* How frustrating.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year. I know I've been MIA lately - cleaning and baking, and now spending time with family. Crafting has taken a backseat to everything lately, but hopefully I'll find my groove again in the new year. :)

This week the Cooking With Cricut DT was asked to share our favorite project from the past year. This was a tough one for me - I have so many projects that I'm really proud of. But in the end I chose to share this sliding pop-up card I made for Easter.

It starts out like this:

And then you pull the tab and it opens to this:

I actually made two of these - one for Abi and one for Luke - the cards were waiting for them at the end of our Easter treasure hunt. :) You can see the original post here.

Of course, I didn't write down ANYTHING regarding cuts used or dimensions (oops!), but you can find the tutorial for the pop-up card here. I'm fairly certain I used Simply Charmed for the bunny and the tree, and I think I used Doodlecharms for the basket. But don't quote me on any of that. :) I DO know that the Easter sentiment is from an old Close to My Heart stamp set I have.

I'm also sharing this card with the Whimsical Wednesday "Favorite Project" Challenge this week.

And now it's your turn. Create a NEW post showcasing your "Project of the Year", and share it with us over at CWC.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a wonderful and safe New Year!

CWC 25 Days of Christmas: Day 23

2011-12-23T05:00:00.001-07:00

Good Morning! And Happy Day Before the Day Before Christmas! :) Can you believe we're here already? Abigail and Luke are so excited, although I'm not sure if it's due to Christmas coming OR to the upcoming Grandma invasion. :)

Today is Day 23 of Cooking With Cricut's 25 Days of Christmas, and our theme is gifts, stockings, and/or nutcrackers. I decided to make a project for my nieces and nephews.

Normally, I spend Christmas with my sister's family, so I present my nieces and nephews with large gifts wrapped in sparkly paper. This year, however, will be the first year our families will spend Christmas apart. :( SO, rather than send large gifts through the mail (and risk them never arriving), I decided to send out boring old cheques instead. BUT, I did it with hand-made cards, so at least the packaging is pretty. :)

I used Winter Frolic for the stockings, and all the paper is from my scrap pile. The sentiment is from Scrappy Moms 'Winter Wishes', and it suits the recipients perfectly! I love my nieces and nephews, but they can be pretty mischeivous sometimes (it's part of their charm). :)

Be sure to head over to Cooking With Cricut and check out the other DT projects. And remember there are free downloads and prizes to be won!

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

CWC's 25 Days of Christmas!

2011-12-17T05:00:00.001-07:00

Good Morning! I can't believe it's December 17th already! WOW! We have family coming next week (I'm hosting BOTH Grandma's this year!), and I've been cleaning and baking like crazy.

We had a bit of a set-back when my stove/oven quit working - my husband jiggled the bake element and it's working...for now. We knew we'd need to replace the appliances when we bought the house (none of them are in great shape), but we had hoped to do it during Boxing Day sales. However, rather than take the chance that my oven won't live through baking gingerbread, pies, various cookies and squares, AND a turkey, we decided to see what we could find right now. And YAY for us! We found ALL our appliances in one great sale at Lowes, and came in WAY under budget! Merry Christmas to me!

Anyhoo, I digress. A friend of mine calls it "chasing rabbits", and it happens to me a lot. lol! Today is Day 17 of Cooking With Cricut's 25 Days of Christmas, and the theme is Angels & Messengers of God. Have you seen the projects so far? WOW! I am so honoured to work with such a talented and creative group of ladies. They set the bar super high really early, and I wasn't sure I could come up with something that would even compare. So I didn't. I put Abigail and Luke to work instead! Hee! Hee!

I love Advent calendars. The countdown to Christmas is just so much more fun when you get to eat a chocolate every day, isn'it?

Using Winter Frolic, I cut out the trees on cereal box cardboard and then again on regular cardstock and glued the pieces together. I used Plantin Schoolbook to cut 24 ornaments for each tree, and then let Abi and Luke write their own numbers from 1 - 24. We then stuck 24 Hershey's kisses to each tree using pop-dots. Every day, they get to take one kiss off and put the "ornament" for that date in it's place. The tree toppers are my favorite part. We used one of the many beautiful digis from PCW. Abi and Luke each coloured their own, cut them out, and voila! The angel at the top of the tree (who is holding the chocolate treat for Christmas Day - the kids' idea). And can I say, the fact that the angel is a bear was a HUGE hit with my kiddos! :)

These turned out so wonderfully, and Abi and Luke are so proud of them. They especially love that they can keep track of "how many more days til Christmas" by counting the remaining Kisses. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Be sure to head on over to CWC and check out what my fellow DT members have created for you! You won't be disappointed! And of course, grab your free files and check out all the great prizes up for grabs. Just a note: you MUST be a Follower of CWC in order to be eligible for a prize.

Have a wonderful day! :)

Cooking With Cricut Challenge Day!

2011-12-07T05:00:00.001-07:00

I'm BACK! We returned late last night from 10 glorious, fun-filled days in DisneyWorld! What a fantastic holiday - ALL family time too, so everyone came home smiling. :)

It's challenge day over at Cooking With Cricut. This week we're celebrating the songs of the season. I will admit, this one was a tough one for me. I had a really hard time choosing just ONE song to feature. I love ALL the Christmas songs, and I had a million card ideas in my head all at once. To narrow it down, I asked Abigail and Luke to pick their favorite (I thought I was being so clever). Can you guess what happened? They listed about a dozen songs before I stopped them. :) I had no choice but to work with the song I hear them singing the most (because it's just so darn catchy).

Can you guess? "Oh, I wanna hippopotamus for Christmas. Only a hippopotamus will do." Ha ha ha! I love that song! It's just so silly (and did I mention catchy?).

I made an over-sized easel card, and used Create a Critter for the hippo (who actually slides out of that gift box), and Winter Frolic for the tree and the Santa hat. I cut the gift boxes by hand. The sentiment is from Scrappy Moms, and the little peppermints are from K Andrew Designs.

Now it's your turn! Head on over to CWC and join us. :)

Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful day!

Cooking With Cricut Challenge Day!

2011-11-23T05:00:00.001-07:00

Good morning and Happy Wednesday! We are on a count-down in our house. We're heading off on a vacation to DisneyWorld VERY soon! Woo hoo! I do my best to leave all distractions behind when we take family vacations, so I will not have a computer or iphone (I don't have one of those anyway), or any other device that allows internet access. SO when I fail to visit my Bloggy friends for a couple of weeks, you all know why. It's ALL family time, and I can not wait! :)

It's time for another challenge over at Cooking With Cricut. This week we were asked to create a project using a Bible verse. I chose (of course!) to make a Christmas card. I kept it clean and simple - I really wanted the Scripture to be the focus.

Recipe:
Star: Winter Frolic, cut twice, coated with Gold Stickles, and layered with a pop dot
Tag for Bible Verse: Once Upon A Princess, stretched on my Gypsy
Baby Jesus: DigiStamp Boutique, coloured with my Copics
White starry paper: Recollections Jingle Bells
Grey Striped paper: Recollections Jingle Bells
Blue Paper: Recollections

I hope you'll head on over to CWC and join us in our challenge this week. Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful day! :)

More Birthday Blessings

2011-11-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

Happy Saturday! Do you like the new Blog look? I decided I wanted a more festive look, in honour of my favorite holiday. :)

I had some great news the other day. My Mario card (found here) was honoured as a Super Sundae at Birthday Sundaes! I was so excited, but not as excited as my Luke, who was the card's recipient. :)

And speaking of Birthdays, my Abigail will celebrate her 9th Birhday on Thursday. NINE! When did that happen? It seems like only yesterday I brought her home from the hospital. I remember looking at this beautiful little miracle, and wondering what in the world I was supposed to do with her. It was one of the happiest, scariest, most wonderful moments of my life - becoming a mommy for the first time. There really is nothing better. :)

So, in honour of my Abigail's big day, I created a card that celebrates some of the wonderful things I love about her.

Abi loves animals (she has plans to become a vet one day), especially dogs. She is fascinated by all the different jobs dogs can do, and when we're out for a walk, she has to stop and say hello to EVERY dog we pass. :) Abigail is also my little gardener. Every spring we head to the greenhouse and she selects a variety of flowers to plan in her little plot in the backyard. It's always very colourful, because Abi loves bright colours. She really is my little ray of sunshine, and she can always make me smile. :)

Card Recipe
6 X 6 Easel Card
Image: Your Next Stamp: Ellie Loves Walking her Dog, coloured with Copics
Spellbinders Nestibilities: Labels Twenty-Three
Sentiment: MPS Sweetest Cupcakes
Flowered Paper: Me & My Big Ideas
Pink Paper: Recollections
Green Paper: DCWV
Flowers with faces: PKS Cottage Cutz Potted Flower
Ribbon: Michaels
Grass: Martha Stewart Punch

I'm sharing this card with four challenges: My Craft Spot (make an easel card), Cardz TV (do what you do best), Frosted Designs (use die cuts), and Delightful Challenges (BINGO - I used patterned paper, die cuts, & flowers).

Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful weekend! :)

More Christmas Love

2011-11-16T13:15:00.000-07:00

Happy Wednesday!

Guess what? I bought a new camera!Woo hoo! I finally gave up on my old digital Rebel XT. After sending it to Canon, spending money to have it "fixed", it has been returned to me in worse shape than it was when I sent it away. There is now what appears to be a scratch on the mirror. SO, it needs to be sent away AGAIN, and I'm not sure it's worth it. Regardless, I simply can NOT be without a camera for weeks. How could I capture those wonderful Christmas moments with my children with no camera? Not to mention our upcoming Disney trip! So, I finally bought the camera I've been salivating over for quite some time (but could never justify): the Canon SX40 HS. Oh my, I'm kind of in love with this one. Merry Christmas to me! :)

I managed to spend a wee bit of time crafting yesterday evening while my husband worked on the last of the hardwood flooring (almost done -hooray!). I really, really wanted to play along with the Scraptastic Monday challenge this week (using my favorite colour - blue), so I used the PKS Sketch #65 and a cute digi from Whimsie Doodles, and came up with this:

Digi: Whimsy Doodles Christmas Greetings
Snowman: paper-pieced using scraps
Colourful background paper: DCWV Glitter Stack
Solid Blue & Pink Cardstock: DCWV, embossed with Spots & Dots (blue), & Swiss Dots (pink)
Twine: The Twinery "Pink Sorbet"

And speaking of Christmas cards, Madison over at Funky Cards is still collecting Christmas cards for her I Feel The Love project. All the Christmas cards she receives are going to children in the Pediatric Oncology Unit at Kaiser Hospital. So if you haven't made a card for this wonderful cause yet, I encourage you to do so. :)

Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful day!

I Feel the Love

2011-11-13T16:51:00.001-07:00

Happy Sunday! I feel like I've been completely MIA over the past couple of weeks. We've been laying new hardwood flooring in our house (which is taking forever), and Abigail, Luke, and I have ALL been sick with a horrible flu. It's still lingering, but I feel like we're finally on the mend. AND to top it all off, we had company over the past couple of days. Whew! Yesterday afternoon was the first chance I had to break out the craft supplies and CREATE.

Many of you are aware of Madison's I Feel the Love Project. For those of you who don't know about it, every month Madison over at Funky Cards selects a person or group of people who need a little encouragment, and asks her followers to create cards to send. For this month, Madison is asking for Christmas cards that will be given to the children at the Pediatric Oncology Unit at Kaiser Hospital. What a great opportunity to GIVE! :)

I enlisted the help of both Abigail and Luke, and we've been creating up a storm. Here are a few of the Christmas cards we've made so far.

Abi made this one ALL by herself, using the Winter Frolic Cartridge and MPS stamps. :)

Luke required some assistance with this one (all those LITTLE robot pieces), but the IDEA was all his (who esle would think up a Christmas card with a robot on it?). We used the Robotz cartridge and MPS stamps.

And this one is mine. I used my Copics to colour in 3 of these adorable Hero Arts penguin stamps I found on the dollar wall at my local craft store. Honestly? I think the children outdid me on this one! :)

Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful day! :)

Birthday Boy!

2011-11-06T00:29:00.000-06:00

Good Morning! This is a special weekend in our household. We're celebrating my Luke's 6th Birthday! I can hardly believe my little man is already 6 years old! Where does the time go?

Unfortunately, we're still undergoing some disruptive home renovations (our new hardwood is being installed as I type this), so I was unable to throw Luke the usual HUGE Birthday bash. But that didn't stop us from having some Birthday fun. We had cards and presents, a special make-your-own-pizza night (as per the Birthday Boy's request), AND my sweet Abigail learned to play Happy Birthday on the piano (while singing along!) and she treated us to a performance of that AND It's a Small World. Luke was a happy boy. :)

For his card, I wanted to make something that was specifically for HIM. He's really into Mario Brothers lately (he even dressed as Mario for Halloween), so I went with it.

I made him an over-sized easel card. It's 8" x 5 1/2" - I needed to fit all those Mario characters in there! Unfortunately, Cricut does not have a cartridge with Mario and friends, and I was unable to find any digis either. SO, I found some clipart pictures here, printed them on my computer, and hand-cut them out. I tried to create a "Mario-like" scene like you would find on the video game. Apparently I succeeded because Luke LOVED it! :)

I'm entering this into the Birthday Sundaes Challenge (Anything Goes) and the Whimsical Wednesday Challenge (Anything Goes).

Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful day!

CWC Challenge Day: Cookie Challenge

2011-11-02T05:00:00.003-06:00

Happy Wednesday! It's time for a new challenge at Cooking With Cricut. This week we were asked to create project using cookies (did you know it's National Cookie Monster Day on Nov. 2?) and/or clocks (Daylight Savings Time!).

COOKIES! Oh, I love cookies! For this challenge I did some BAKING! :)

These are my Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies, and they are the BEST cookies I have EVER eaten. Not just the best chocolate chip cookies, but the best COOKIES EVER. Every time someone new tries these, they ask for the recipe. I actually had someone once say to me: "I made your cookies a couple of days ago. Everytime I eat one, I bless you." HA! They are THAT good. :)

Every Christmas, I bake and bake and bake, and then I share the fruits of my labour. Now that I have my Cricut, and my Sweet Tooth Boxes cartridge, I have much prettier packaging for my sweet gifts. :)

Recipe:
-Box: Sweet Tooth Boxes, Recollections Jingle Bells PP
-Window in box: Once Upon a Princess
-Gingerbread men digi: Pink Cat Studio
-"Gingerbread Hugs" digi: Digital Delights

I'm also sharing this project with the Frosted Designs challenge (use food or candy) and the Paper Playtime challenge (anything goes).

And you are in for a treat today - I'm sharing my Mom's fabulous recipe with you! When you have the secret to something this good, you MUST share it.

Grandma Lee's Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 cup margarine, room temperature
1 package instant vanilla pudding mix
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
2 1/4 cups flour
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment attached, cream together the brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla pudding mix, and margarine until light and creamy, about 3 - 4 minutes. Beat in eggs until well-combined; add vanilla and mix well. In a separate bowl combine flour and baking soda; add to the creamed mixture and beat until well-combined. The batter will seem really stiff. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonful onto ungreased, nonstick baking sheets. Bake for 8 - 9 minutes. The cookies will seem soft in the middle - this is GOOD. DO NOT OVERBAKE. Remove from oven; cool for 5 minutes on the baking pan, then remove to cookie racks to cool completely.

My gift to you. :) Enjoy, and head on over to Cooking With Cricut to join in the fun!

Birthday Sundaes Guest Designer

2011-10-30T00:00:00.001-06:00

Good Morning and Happy Sunday!

It's a new challenge over at Birthday Sundaes today and I am so honoured to have been asked to be one of the guest designers for this week! I love this challenge blog - you can never have too many Birthday cards on hand, right?

This week's challenge is an "Anything Goes" challenge - just make a Birthday card and be sure have Birthday wording on the front.

I made this card for my sweet niece who will be turning 15 this year (I can't believe she's already 15!). She's a dancer, so I wanted to make her a card that celebrates that beautiful part of her. I used her favorite colours, and a tutorial for a stage pop-up card I found at Paper Punch Addiction. I was inspired by those musical jewelry boxes with the little spinning ballerinas inside.

It starts out like this:

Then you slide off the band:

And it opens to this:

Recipe:
-Dancer: Twinkle Toes, 3", PKS 'Wide-Eyed Kids' face, dress embossed with Swiss Dots folder
-Shoes: Twinkle Toes, 1 3/4"
-Banner: Twinkle Toes, 1"
-Cream Paper: DCWV Shimmer Stack, embossed with a floral folder (no idea what the name is)
-Other paper: scraps
-Embellished with pearls and Stickles
-Sheer ribbon from Michaels

Your turn! Head on over to Birthday Sundaes and join the fun. :)

Thanks for looking and have a great day! :)

Birthday Sundaes Spotlight and a Christmas Mouse

2011-10-28T16:03:00.001-06:00

Happy Friday!

Just a quick post to let you know that I am one of the spotlighted crafters over at Birthday Sundaes today! Be sure to hop over there and check it out.

AND, I have a Christmas card to share.

The cute little Christmas mouse is from Pink Cat Studio, and all the paper is from my scraps (I love when that happens). The punch is Martha Stewart and the sentiment is MPS.

I'm entering this into the CAS-ual Fridays (use the sketch) challenge and the Jingle Belles (use a creature) challenge. Only about 100 more Christmas cards to go! lol! :)

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day!

Blog Candy Winner

2011-10-27T08:00:00.001-06:00

Thanks so much to all who stopped by and left comments on my CWC Pet Hop project! This was my very first blog hop and I count it as a huge success! :)

The winner of the surprise package of goodies is:

#28 Sarah from Sarah's Crafts and Stuff

Congratulations Sarah! Please email me your snail mail address so I can get your prize out to you ASAP. :)

Have a great day!

CWC Challenge Day!

2011-10-26T06:00:00.001-06:00

Happy Wednesday! It's time for another Cooking With Cricut Challenge! This week's challenge is to use a scarecrow, crow, or hay AND/OR use one of the wonderful provided sketches.

I will be honest here - this one stumped me (that's why they call it a challenge, right?). Then I saw the Frosted Designs Photo Inspiration Challenge this week, and I remembered I have these fabulous Paper Smooches stamps that have been just SITTING in my craft cupboards collecting dust. Would you believe I have never used them?! Everything just kind of came together after that. :)

My kids and I love puns. There is just something about a play on words that just cracks us up. My husband, not so much, but even he had a (small) chuckle at this one.

I used Simply Charmed for the Scarecrow, embossed his overalls and his hat with a Tim Holtz wood grain folder (isn't it cool how versatile embossing folders are?), and gave him a PKS face. The paper is from K & Company, and my pumpkins are from Paper Smooches. I stamped them onto patterned and solid cardstock and cut them out. I masked out the face of the poor guy in the middle and replaced it with a PKS face instead. The bandage is from Everyday Paper Dolls. The sentiment (inside and out) was printed out on my computer. :)

I'm also sharing this card with the Use It Tuesday Challenge (use all or one of orange, black, and purple).

Now it's your turn! Head on over to Cooking With Cricut and link up your project! I can't wait to see what you all create!

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day! :)

Prize Thanks and a Candian Christmas Card

2011-10-25T12:27:00.000-06:00

Good Morning! Did you all get a chance to check out the CWC Pet Hop this weekend? Wasn't that such fun? Gosh there's a lot of talent on that Design Team! I am so blessed to be a part of it. :)

Guess what I got in the mail yesterday? Last month I won a Pink By Design stamp set from Madison over at Funky Cards. I had no idea what set it was (actually, I had no idea I was even entered to win a prize!), so I was super excited when I opened the package and found this:

Canadian Stamps!!! Woo Hoo! I LOVE these! Thanks so much Madison!

So, I had a big plan for a card to play along with Jingle Belles and their "soft" theme this week, but when these fabulous stamps arrived, I changed the whole thing so I could use them (because I really, REALLY love them). This card is for all my Canadian friends who live outside of Canada, and who miss our white Christmases.

Now, you all know how I feel about winter and snow (I'm not a fan), but this IS Canada, and like it or not, it SNOWS. A LOT. And, if I'm to be completely honest, there is something cozy and comforting about those soft snowfalls, where the world turns sparkly and clean. Those are the days I like to curl up by the fireplace with some tea, or hot cocoa, or (most likely) coffee. It's nice...for the first few days. :) I think I may be the kind of person who would like to just "visit" winter once in awhile, maybe over Christmas holidays. And then, after New Years I could go back to whatever tropical paradise I'm living in. Ah, that's the dream. :)

Recipe:
-Snowy Scene: Campin' Critters, 3.25"
-Christmas Tree: Winter Frolic, 2"
-Sentiment on front of card: Pink By Design
-Sentiment on insde of card: my computer
-Maple Leaf: Pink by Design, stamped, then hand-cut
-Background paper: Recollections
-Coloured cardstock: my scrap pile
-Other: lots and lots of Stickles

Thanks for looking, and have a wonderful day! :)

Cooking With Cricut Pet Hop!

2011-10-22T05:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the Cooking With Cricut “Adopt A Shelter Pet” Hop! This is my FIRST Blog Hop, and I am so excited to be a part of it! October is National Adopt a Shelter Dog Month, and we wanted to honour and celebrate ALL (cats, dogs, birds, hamsters, etc) of our furry friends! If you've come from visiting my sweet and talented friend Madison at Funky Cards you're in the right place! If you've just happened across my blog and would like to hop along with us, you can go to Cooking With Cricut and start at the beginning.

I have the opportunity today to share with you one of my favourite furry creatures in all the world – my Perri. Perri is a 16 month old Bichon ShihTzu, and she is named after Perry the Platypus (as seen on Disney’s Phineas and Ferb). My children picked the name, and I attempted to make it more girly by spelling it with an “i”. :) She is full of energy, super friendly, always a sweetheart, and sometimes naughty. I love her to pieces! :)

I have TWO Perri projects to showcase for you. The first is a layout. Let me begin by saying that I don’t “do” layouts, so this was a challenge for me. A big challenge - my head hurt afterwards. lol! As part of our Homeschooling, the children and I are creating a puppy Scrapbook - following Perri as she developed from a newborn puppy to a mischeivous teenager, complete with descriptions of what happens at each stage. I have been dying to get to this part!

These photos were taken last October when she was just 4 months old. We were cleaning up the front lawn for winter and Perri was leashed to our Maple Tree. She decided to help out by digging a hole in the last of the petunias. What a stinker! I used Create a Critter for the "Paper Perri" and the bones, and Birthday Bash for the letters. All the paper is from Deja Views Dog Days.

The second project is one that I created specifically for my Abigail and my Luke. We’re taking a DisneyWorld vacation soon (yipee!), and we’ll be leaving our Perri behind (she stays at a doggie hotel that is nicer than some of the people hotels I’ve stayed in). Abi and Luke will miss her terribly, so I wanted to make them a Perri-something they can take along. Since they’re both big readers, I decided on bookmarks.

Aren’t they darling? I asked Abi and Luke to choose some colours and ribbon, and I selected a photo of Perri (from the hundreds I’ve taken!). For each bookmark, I cut two tags from Sweet Treats. I used my Gypsy and an oval from Plantin Schoolbook to make a frame in one of them. I inserted the photo in between the two tags and then used Scor-Tape to stick them together. The paw prints were made using an EK Success punch, and the sentiment and stamped paw print are from MPS.

And what would my FIRST Blog Hop be without some candy? I have a surprise pack of goodies just waiting for a new home. All you have to do is leave me a comment on this post. You do NOT have to be a follower, although I'd love if it you were. I’ll randomly select a winner on Wednesday, Oct. 26 at noon-ish.

Now it's your turn! Link up your purr-fectly wonderful pet-themed project at CookingWithCricut.com. Here are a few guidelines:

* Must follow the challenge topic.

* Must be a NEW project for this challenge. No back dated posts please.

* Must have a link back to the CWC post on your blog.

* Must link your project post through Inlinkz and not just your blog.

* Must use your Cricut in some capacity.

* Must HAVE FUN!

* You may gladly combine challenges . . . we love to pile it on TOO!

The Design Team will pick their three favorites and one lucky person will be chosen randomly to win one of the prize packages being offered in this hop. There is also a prize package for just leaving a comment on the CWC blog. One catch, those leaving comments MUST be a CWC follower. Each prize winner will receive a $20 gift voucher-download from PaperCraftingWorld.com. The Design Team’s top three will each receive $5.00 gift voucher-download from PaperCraftingWorld.com.

Now head on over to the lovely Jill at Jaihart Just Lovely Designs to see what she's cooked up for you!

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful day! :)

Autumn Birthday

2011-10-14T11:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Friday! It is getting COOOOLD here in Calgary - the temperature this morning was -1C! I am SO not ready for winter!

So let's focus on Fall instead, shall we? :)

The challenge over at Birthday Sundaes this week is to make a Birthday card using Fall colours. So, using the PKS Sketch #62, I came up with this:

I found little Rosalie here (C.C. Designs) on the clearance rack at my local Scrapbooking Store, and I HAD to take her home. I used my Copics to dress her up in her best Autumn outfit, and gave her some fancy hair ribbons. The patterned paper is from K & Company.

Let me tell you about the BOW. A while back I found a tutorial here on making paper bows, and I have been DYING to try one ever since. The possibilities are endless with these! I will say that I found it much easier using paper rather than cardstock, but that may be because I'm a newbie.

I'm also entering this in the Sisterhood of Crafters Birthday Card Challenge.

Speaking of Birthdays, Madison's I Feel the Love Project is collecting Birthday cards for an adorable little boy named Ethan. Be sure to check it out, and join us in making Ethan's 2nd Birthday a memorable one!

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend! :)

Cooking With Cricut Challenge

2011-10-12T07:04:00.000-06:00

Happy Wednesday! Today is *the day*! It's my first official day as a member of the Cooking With Cricut Design Team! Woot! Woot! I am so super excited to be working with such an amazing and talented group of ladies! There has definately been some happy-dancing going on over the past couple of days!:)

So let's get to it! This week's Cooking With Cricut challenge is to make a project that includes a teddy bear and/or a cupcake. Here's what I came up with:

It's a 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" easel card. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of being awarded Top Chef over at CWC and my prize was this adorable digi stamp from Paper Crafting World. I altered it a little (ie, I removed a portion of the image) and coloured it with Copics. The cupcakes are from Sweet Treats, and the sentiment is from Scrappy Mom's 'A Pinch and a Dash'.

I hope you'll join us this week! And be sure to check out what the other DT members have cooked up for you!

Thanks for looking and have a fabulous day! :)

Pink Christmas

2011-10-11T11:16:00.000-06:00

Good Morning! I have been a busy beaver over the past week! I managed to paint my living room, dining nook, AND my kitchen! There are no longer any ORANGE walls in my house. Hooray! My husband spent his time ripping out the old flooring - the previous owners layed hardwood, ceramic tile, AND laminate floors OVER TOP of existing lino. Geesh! That's explains the SMELL! The old floors are now OUT, and the brand new hardwood should arrive this week. Just a few more weeks and we should be finished everything! Yipee!

Anyway, I managed to squeeze in a little bit of crafting time yesterday afternoon, and I have a Christmas card to share with you! The Jingle Belles challenge this week is to use pink - here's what I came up with.

I found this adorable digi (along with the sentiment) over at Pink Cat Studio, and coloured her with Copics. The pink starry paper is from the Recollections Jingle Bells paper pad, and the crinkle ribbon is from My Craft Spot (Pink Bubblegum) .

I'm also linking this card up to LUFP.

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day!

Good News All Around!

2011-10-08T20:57:00.000-06:00

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend! I have LOADS to be thankful for lately - my wonderful husband, my beautiful children, my sweet puppy who is ALWAYS happy to see me, a new house (in which the renos are nearing an end - hooray!), a surprise trip to Disney World in November to celebrate my children's birthdays (they have EARNED it after putting up with all these renos!), my camera is home from the Camera Hospital and is in tip-top shape... AND I have some SUPER bloggy news too! :)

First of all, my Kitty Birthday Card I made for my Mom-in-Law won Top Chef over at Cooking With Cricut. I won the CUTEST digi-stamp, and I can not wait to show you what I've made with it. THEN, I won a Pink by Design stamp set from Madison over at Funky Cards. THEN, I won a pack of Stampin' Up cardstock over at Whimsical Wednesday. Random Number Generator really loves me lately, right? :)

To top it all off, I received word a couple of days ago that I have been selected to serve on the Cooking With Cricut Design Team!!! Woo hoo!!! I am SO excited (and also a little nervous!), and I can't wait to get to know, and learn from, this amazing Design Team. :0) What an amazing opportunity!

And to spread the love around a little, I also want to share the card I made for Madison's I Feel the Love Project. If you've never heard of this wonderful project, let me explain. Every month, Madison over at Funky Cards asks her followers to make cards for a specific child or family that is in need of some extra blessings. This month, the cards are for a little boy named Ethan, who was diagnosed with a rare liver disease at 2 months of age. Thanks to a liver transplant and some fabulous medical professionals, Ethan will be celebrating his 2nd Birthday in November, and we are going to make this birthday a HUGE celebration by showering him with Birthday cards! Head on over to Madison's blog and join us. :)

The dino, the balloons and the cloud shape are all from Create A Critter, and ALL the paper is from my scrap pile. I'm also going to enter this in the Birthday Sundaes Ribbon Challenge.

Thanks for looking everyone, and be sure to stop by Cooking With Cricut on Wednesday for my very first DT project! :)

Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

Sweet Tooth Box

2011-10-02T20:25:00.000-06:00

So, in between unpacking boxes (yes, we are STILL unpacking) and ripping out floors (yes, we are STILL renovating), I managed to squeeze in some crafting time this weekend.

My sweet friend Karen, over at Kaleidoscopic Sparkles, celebrated Sweet Saturday this week with **Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcakes**. Oh, be still my heart!!! Naturally, I made myself a batch (almost) immediately. Wanna know what heaven tastes like? These CUPCAKES! Oh my, oh my, these are SO delicious! And when you make something this DELIGHTFUL, you have to share, right?

I decided to include a couple of these masterpieces as part of a thank-you gift for one of the family members who helped us out with our move. So I pulled out my Sweet Tooth Boxes cartridge (for the first time!). Oh, this is a FUN cartridge - so many options! I originally wanted to make the box that's shaped like a house, but in the interest of time (as in, I didn't have any), I made this one instead:

I just used plain DCWV textured cardstock and then added 1" circles that I Cuttlebugged with various folders. It IS for a boy, so I didn't want too much fluff. I stamped two sentiments - one from MPS (to say "Thanks") and one from Scrappy Mom's Sweet Somethings (to give a hint as to what's inside). I finished it off with ribbon I bought from Michaels. And voila! A simple, yet sweet, gift box. :) I'm entering this into the Celebrate The Occasion (use ribbon) challenge this week.

As an aside, I feel I need to explain what happened to my used-to-be-gorgeous frosting. The cupcakes were stored in a container that got a little "shake-up" when my Abigai decided to try one (she LOVED them, and her enthusiasm for these delightful creations got the best of her - completely understandable). So the cupcakes ened up playing bumper cars with each other and my frosting got smushed. Repairs were attempted but... Ah well, they still taste marvelous! :)

Thanks for looking and have a great evening! :)

Copic Christmas

2011-09-30T14:44:00.000-06:00

Happy Friday! :)

I have another Copic attempt for you today. I found the CUTEST digis at Pink Cat Studio, and when I saw little Lily here it was love at first sight. :)

Isn't she the sweetest? I am still learning to use my Copics (especially hair -oh, why does colouring hair have to be so HARD?), and I am still VERY limited in the colours that I own, but I'm kinda proud of Lily. :) I used my white gel pen on her mittens, the marshmallows, and to give her coat trim a little "fuzziness". The sentiment is from My Pink Stamper, and I also used a MPS snowflake stamp (included in Winter Punnies) to create the white background behind Lily.

I'm entering this one in the following challenges:

Less is More (use the sketch)
Whimsical Wednseday (anything goes)
Crafty Creations (clean and simple)

Too funny - I kept looking at this card and trying to figure out what was missing. Finally my Abigail says, "For goodness SAKE, Mom! It's perfect. Leave it alone already!" So I did. :)

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful weekend! :)

Fall = Coffee

2011-09-27T11:24:00.000-06:00

Well, for me anyway. :) Good morning all! I noticed that loads of challenges lately are asking for the use of Fall themes and colours. And that got me to thinking: what exactly do I love about Fall?

The truth is, as beautiful as Autumn is here in Canada, there are two things about it that create anxiety for me. The first is the allergens that float around throughout the Fall season. I spend the majority of Fall suffering from sneezing, red & watery eyes, nasal congestion, etc. It's either that or I'm doped up on Reactine (which is a never a good idea when I have to drive my babies to activities).

But, I could love Fall in spite of this (after all I love Spring, and my allergies are just as active then), if it wasn't for reason #2: WINTER. That's right, Fall means Winter is coming. And I do NOT like Winter. I spend Winter FREEZING. I spend much of the summer wearing a sweater, and that's in temperatures of +25C (77F) and above. Winter brings with it temperatures of -30C (-22F); sometimes it evens gets to be -40C (-40F) and below with the windchills. I spend Winter in a state of perpetual frozen-ness. No fun.

So, I had to really think about what things I might like enough about Fall (and the pending Winter it represents) to put into a card. And suddenly, it came to me: COFFEE! Yes! You see, Fall means Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Salted Caramel Mochas. And Winter means Peppermint Mocha Twists and Caramel Brulee Lattes. Oh the JOY! I know some of you probably think I'm a total nut, but sometimes it really pays to have a coffee addiction! :) Here's what I came up with:

I cut the coffee from Love You a Latte at 1.5". The leafy background paper is from DCWV. The sentiment is from K. Andrew Designs "Coffee & Tea for You and Me". These are BRAND new stamps and I kind of love them (just like I would love anything that has to do with coffee!). The ribbon is from My Craft Spot and it's my favorite part of the card. At first I thought about using twine, but this crinkly ribbon is so warm and creamy and...comforting (can ribbon be comforting?) - just like coffee. :)

I'm entering this into a number of challenges:

My Craft Spot (use ribbon)
Cooking With Cricut (use Autumn colours)
Whimsical Wednesday (Just Because)
Wacky Wedneday (Fall)
Card Patterns Sketch #134

Thank you all for looking and JAVA great day! ;)

Happy Christmas to Ewe!

2011-09-21T10:59:00.000-06:00

Good Morning and Happy Wednesday! Would you believe we're still doing renos on our new house? I finally got to paint over the orange in the dining room, and I'll soon be tackling the living room and the kitchen. We also have to re-face the fireplace (almost done!), and then we get to rip up the floors and install new hardwood. Whew! Add that to the beginning of a new Homeschooling year (with BOTH children this time around), and we have one busy mommy! Fortunately, I am still able to find time for a little crafting now and then. :)

I have a new card to share today, and I tried TWO brand new things with it: paper piecing and colouring with Copic markers. Both need more practise, but for my first time, I'm rather pleased with the result (unfortunately, my fancy camera is still at the camera hospital, so I am not really pleased with the photo. Bear with me).

The sheep is a digi-stamp from Pink Cat Studio (there are so many fabulous images here!). I coloured the head and legs with Copics, and pieced in the body using paper from Recollections: Jingle Bells. The rest of the paper was from my scrap pile, and the twine is Sew Easy. I created the sentiment on my computer (you KNOW how I love puns!).

I'm entering this into the PKS Sketch Challenge (with a twist: use twine) and the Jingle Belles Use a digital image challenge.

Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful day! :)

Birthday Card For Grandma

2011-09-18T19:11:00.000-06:00

Two posts in one day. A first for me! I was going to post this card tomorrow, but then I remembered that one of the challenge deadlines is tonight (not tomorrow, like I always thinks it is!).

This card was designed specifically for my Mom-in-law. She turned 65 yesterday (so the card is now late. *sigh* Such is my life these days), so kind of a special birthday. I wanted an over-sized card for the occasion, and the CTO challenge to make a tall birthday card was perfect. I turned to my brand new Birthday Bash cartridge (another purchase during the Michaels sale!), and asked Abi and Luke to help me select the right cut for Grandma's card.

The cat in the cake was the chosen image, and the kitty has special significance. She is the spitting image of Grandma's cat. Now, Grandma's kitty is kind of a running joke in our family. This cat is mean and cranky, and more than a few people (myself included) are afraid of her. But she and Grandma love each other dearly - I guess opposites do attract, right? ;)

Card: 8 1/2" x 5 1/2"
Cat in Cake: Birthday Bash, 5 1/2"
Cake: Swiss Dots & Divine Swirls Cuttlebug folders
Gifts: cut by hand, Distressed Stripes & Seeing Spots Cuttlebug folders
Blue paper: DCWV Brights Cardstock Stack
Patterned paper: Echo Park Summer Days
Sentiment: Scrappy Moms Sweet Somethings
Twine: Jillibean Soup

I'm entering this into 2 challenges: Celebrate the Occasion (make a tall birthday card with a present) and Cooking With Cricut (make something about or for Grandparents).

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful evening! :)

Musical Birthday

2011-09-18T00:21:00.001-06:00

My goodness, I feel so out of touch with the blogging world lately. Between renos and family visiting, I haven't had a lot of time to devote to crafting. I have managed to squeeze in some quick visits to my favorite blogs, but I haven't been able to leave comments. :( So, to all my bloggy friends, I HAVE seen your projects, and they are all gorgeous. :)

I have another CAS card for you today. The FCCB challenge this week is to create a project using musical instruments or notes. Michaels had a sale on their Cricut cartridges last week, so I picked up a couple that have been on my wish list for a while - one was Quarter Note. I LOVE this cartridge.

We're a fairly musical family. My husband plays trumpet and guitar, and I play piano. Abigail has begun her 4th year of piano lessons and her 2nd year of violin lessons, and she plans on taking up voice lessons AND harp lessons as soon as we can manage it. My Luke begins piano lessons this year, and he's waiting impatiently for the day he can get his own drum set. So you see how much I NEEDED this cartridge. :)

I have been dying to use this little violinist. She reminds me of my Abigail, who learned and performed a special song for her Dad on his birthday. She's such a sweetheart. :)

The violinist was cut at 3.5" using glittery paper from the DCWV Glitter stack, although it's hard to see in the photo. The musical notes were cut at 1/2" and I used twine to create the music staff. The sentiment was created on my computer.

I'm also entering this into the Less is More Anything Goes challenge.

Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful weekend! :)

Pumkin Challenge

2011-09-12T23:59:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post today to share a new card. My mom is visiting this week, so I've been hanging out with her - visiting, shopping with the kids, and tomorrow, we're baking! My mom makes THE BEST cinnamon buns, and I've never been able to get them right. So, tomorrow, I get a lesson. :)

The Paper Cutz Challenge this week is to make a project using pumpkins. I wanted to create one more Halloween card for Madison's I Feel the Love project, so I combined the two and came up with this:

I used Simply Charmed for the pumpkins (2") and stamped them with PKS faces. The paper is Me & My Big Ideas, and the sentiment is from MPS Spooky Puns. The ribbon is Snow White crinkly ribbon from My Craft Spot. I wasn't sure about it after I added it to the card, but my Abigail was delighted. Apparently it resembles a little Halloween prank called TPing. HA! :) Just to clarify, no one in our family has ever toilet-papered anyone's property, but Abi thinks the whole idea of someone actually doing that is hilarious. My nutty family. :)

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day. :)

I Feel the Love

2011-09-09T21:36:00.000-06:00

Happy Friday! I have a couple of very special cards for you today, but only one was made by me. If you've not heard about it, Madison over at Funky Cards has created a special project called I Feel the Love. Each month she spotlights someone in need of some love and asks her followers to make cards. This month the cards will go to the children at Pediatrics Specialty Care, and Madison has requested fun Halloween cards that are not scary.

Naturally, I enlisted my Abigail to help and we created a few fabulous cards for this great cause. Here are a couple:

This one is Abi's:

Abi used the Mini Monsters cartridge for the ghost (3"); we used my Gypsy to hide the face so she could stamp her own. She embossed the white background paper with the Cuttlebug Halloween folder, and the sentiment is from MPS Spooky Puns.

And this one is mine:

I used my Gypsy to creat the purple cut-out paper using Gypsy Wanderings and Plantin Schoolbook. The witch is from Mini Monsters (3"); I hid her face and used a PKS face instead. I also didn't like her paper hair, so I used embroidery thread to make her beautiful. :) The orange paper is from Echo Park Summer Days, and the sentiment is from MPS Spooky Puns.

Didn't Abigail do a great job? She's really getting the hang of this card-making thing. She loves to learn and practise new techniques (like colouring PKS faces. She made me stamp an entire page full of faces so she could get it just right).

I have to apologize for the photo quality of late. My fancy-pants camera is at the Camera Doctor due to some ongoing focusing issues, so I have to use my husband's little point and click that doesn't really hold up in low-light situations.

If you get a chance, stop by Madison's blog and join us in the I Feel the Love Project. It's a great cause. :)

Clean and Simple (again)

2011-09-06T09:58:00.000-06:00

Happy Tuesday! I have been a busy bee around our house, painting, painting, and painting some more. Thankfully, we are nearing the end of the "must-do's", and we can take a break from painting for a little while. Of course, then we have old floors to rip out and new hardwood to lay. And a fireplace facing to rebuild (the old one practically FELL OFF. Yikes!). Eeep. So much work, but with every project we complete, I can see how beautiful this new house will be in the end. :)

Last night, my husband informed me that I needed to take a night off and do something fun. So, after bedtime stories and prayers, I tucked my Abigail in (it was Dad's turn for my Luke), and headed into my craft space. I seem to be in the Clean and Simple groove lately. Maybe I'll gussie things up next time. ;)

I combined a couple of challenges with this one: the M.A.G. challenge by the page (use Once Upon a Princess, p.66) and the FCCB challenge (use letters or numbers.

This card is all about nostalgia for me. :) The yellow diamond was cut twice (2 1/2" & 2 1/4") from Once Upon a Princess. I originally tried to stamp the "S", but it looked kind of weird, so I dug out some of my old chip-board letters and found one there (yay!). The ribbon is from Michaels, and the sentiment on the inside is MPS Boy Crazy.

Thank you all for looking and have a SUPER day. :)

Funny Conversations With My Children: Episode 5

2011-09-04T22:10:00.000-06:00

Luke: "If you go far enough down the drain, there are sharks."
Me: "No there's not."
Luke: "Yes there IS. Cuz all drains lead to the ocean."
Me: "Umm, I think there's a little too much Finding Nemo in this house."
Luke: "NO, Dad told me that."

:)

Ruff Day?

2011-08-30T11:18:00.000-06:00

Two cards in a row! It's a good week! :)

A while back I won some fantastic Blog Candy from my friend Karen over at Kaleidoscopic Sparkles. The prize? A gift card from My Craft Spot! I was in craft heaven. :) I ordered some beautiful crinkle ribbon in a variety of colours, and waited anxiously for it to arrive. Now that it's here, AND all my craft stuff is unpacked, I finally get to use it! Thank you Karen!!! :)

I was checking out some of the challenges this week and came across CAS-ual Fridays challenge to use stickers. I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Let me tell you about my inspiration. My puppy, Perri, is a 1-year-old Bichon ShihTzu, and she is HIGH ENERGY. She's also super friendly, super curious, and sometimes, super bad. See how dirty she is on this card? She's been digging a hole in the flowers. She loves to do that. She's even gotten her paws all muddy and left puppy prints all over the floor. And she brought her dirty old bone (in our case it's usually a stick) into the house too. But look at her smile. She's so cute. How can I be mad? This is a true story, by the way. Here's my Perri, on a good day.

The card: the stickers are from Michaels - I've been hoarding them for quite awhile, waiting for the right project to use them on. The sentiment is MPS, and the paw print punch is EK Success. The ribbon is from My Craft Spot, and the colour is called Milk Chocolate. Doesn't that just SOUND like a beautiful colour? Because it is. :)

Thanks so much for visiting! Have a wonderful day! :)

I'm back!

2011-08-29T10:19:00.000-06:00

And with a brand new card! Woot! Woot! My crafting stuff is all unpacked and neatly arranged in a small but beautiful cupboard in my dining nook. Of course, once that happened I HAD to make something! I can not tell you how HAPPY I was to sit down and create!

This card is destined for one of the people who helped us move. Because our new house is only a couple of blocks away from our old house, we didn't hire movers (with the exception of piano movers. Our family doesn't love us THAT much). Instead, we enlisted the help of a couple of family members. Given how much stuff we have, a verbal thank-you just didn't cut it, so I made them each a card stuffed with a gift certificate to a special restaurant.

Since this card IS for a boy, I wanted to keep it clean and simple. My friend Stacey stopped by the other day bearing gifts - Tim Holtz embossing folders (Isn't she fabulous?)! :) Naturally, I had to try them out, and I used the wood grain folder on the tree trunk. The leaves are from Simply Charmed, cut at 2" Real Dial Size - I scrunched them up a bit and then inked them to given them some depth. The sentiment is MPS.

I'm entering this one in the Crazy 4 Challenges Make a Male Card challenge this week.

Oh, I am SO very, VERY happy to be back! We still have LOADS to do on our house, so I'll still probably disappear for days at a time. But at least it won't be WEEKS at a time, right?

Thanks so much for looking, and have a wonderful day! :)

BBTB2 Project of the Week!

2011-08-26T14:37:00.000-06:00

Me again! I can't believe it! I hopped on the computer and discovered that my Penguin card had been selected as project of the week over at BBTB2! How cool is that?!

Thanks to Melissa for selecting my card! What an honour! :)

A Blog Award and an Update

2011-08-26T10:51:00.000-06:00

I'm back! Well, sort of. My craft stuff has been moved out of the garage and into the house, but it's still in boxes. Fingers crossed that I have a new card to show you tomorrow! :)

I hope to be back to checking out my favorite blogs very soon too. I feel so bad I haven't been able to look and leave comments lately. This house has proven to be more work than we were expecting. It's coming along, but we keep finding things that have to be fixed before we move forward, so that's slowing us down a little. BUT, we've painted a lot of walls (the Vampire's Mouth is no more!), and unpacked a lot of boxes, and we're working hard to make the place our own.

Wanna hear something gross? If you're squeamish, probably you should skip this part. Last weekend we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and clean out the backyard. The previous owners left us a lot of garbage, particularly under the deck. My husband suited up in his work overalls, crawled under the deck, and found (among other things) a dead cat! Can you imagine? And THEN, as if that wasn't bad enough, there were spider nests/egg sacks all over the fence, so I sprayed the fence with Raid to kill everything before I removed them. And all of a sudden, DOZENS of very, VERY LARGE spiders started dropping out of the fence. EEEWWWWW! I screamed and ran away (I'm a chicken, I know. I really, really, REALLY don't like spiders, especially big ones), and my husband took over. Some of those critters were big enough to make HIM jump. BLECH! I still get the shivers just thinking about it.

So, the question I have regarding the previous owners is: who ARE these people, with their blood red bathroom, dead cat, and "pet" spiders? *shudder*

Anyway, after that experience, I was most please to log on and discover I had been awarded this:

by Amy, the red-headed crafter! Amy is SO super sweet, and always has something positive to say about all my creations, even the messy ones. :) On top of that, she is incredibly talented. If you've never been to her blog, be sure to head over there. You won't be disappointed!

In accepting this award, I have to answer a few questions about myself.

Q1) Name your favorite colour.
        blue

Q2) Name your favorite song.
        Come to Jesus - Chris Rice

Q3) Name your favorite dessert.
         Lemon pie.

Q4) What wizzes you off at the moment?
         The gross orange colour on my dining room walls. That has GOT to go.

Q5) Your favorite pet?
         My Perri. She's a 1-year-old Bichon ShihTzu, and she's adorable.

Q6) Black or White?
         White

Q7) Biggest fear?
         Spiders & Heights

Q8) Best feature?
          The ability to stay calm in a crisis (with the exception of crises involving spiders and/or heights).

Q9) Everyday attitude?
           Smile. Smiling makes the bad stuff not so bad. :)

Q10) What is perfection?
            Not me. Accepting this makes me a happier person. :)

Q11) Guilty pleasure?
             Chocolate-covered anything.

Q12) When you're upset you...?
             Go for a run or walk. Anything involving exercise and I feel better.

I also have to pass the award on to 10 other bloggers. This was a tough one, because there are just so many creative geniuses out there. But in the end, I'm passing this award on to the following people (in no particular order):

Amy http://redheadedcrafter.blogspot.com/ (right back at you!)
Jessica http://cricutafterdark.blogspot.com/
Karen http://kaleidoscopicsparkles.blogspot.com/
Sherry http://upordowntheyrebeautiful.blogspot.com/
Madison http://funkycards.blogspot.com/
Maribel http://ilovescrapping.blogspot.com/
Lisa http://indymermaid.blogspot.com/
Stephanie http://www.alwayscrafting.com/
Amber http://my3escrapbooking.blogspot.com/
Jenni http://mylollipopgarden.blogspot.com/
Dawn http://simplydawn53.blogspot.com/
Court http://courtscrafts.blogspot.com/

Okay, so there's a couple more than 10. I couldn't help it. Each and every one of these ladies is deserving. :)

Thanks for stopping by and reading my very long-winded thoughts for today. Have a wonderful weekend! :)

The Scariest Room in the World

2011-08-14T22:17:00.000-06:00

Aaaack! I was right! I AM having withdrawl from crafting symptoms! :) My craft stuff is still packed away. I actually don't have a clear spot to put it yet, so it will stay that way for a few more days at least. So in lieu of a card, I thought I'd share something a little funny/creepy with you all today.

It's been a BUSY week with moving, renos, repairs, etc. We moved the last of our stuff over from the old house today, gave it a courtesy cleaning, and turned over our keys. It was a little sad, honestly. We built that house nine years ago, and made it our very own. Both our children were born there. We had some wonderful neighbors (who are STILL our wonderful neighbors because we actually only moved a block and a half away! HA!).

But I digress. Our NEW house is wonderful. Or, rather, it WILL be when we've finished with it. The previous owners did some wacky things with wall colours, some lazy things with renos (wall repairs & new flooring are needed throughout), and some DANGEROUS things with electrical work. We spent last week working on the second story where the bedrooms are located - new paint, new carpets, new light fixtures (the old ones were these ENORMOUS ceiling fans that were not installed correctly - can you say fire hazard?), and brand new carpets. Whew! We're still working on baseboards and bathrooms up there, but it's coming together.

But the SCARIEST room in our new house is the main floor half-bathroom. The rest of the house was painted with what is supposed to be (I think) a Spanish decor. Lots of greens, oranges, and clay brown colours. But this bathroom... well, here it is.

reeee! reeee! reeee! EEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKK!

You know how our cameras can never quite capture the beauty of our crafty creations? My camera can't quite capture the UGLINESS of this room. It is small, and it is RED. BLOOD RED. And it GLOWS. It's like the scene of some awful horror movie. Abi and Luke call it "The Vampire's Mouth". No one wants to use it. With the door closed, it's like being surrounded by bleeding walls - it totally makes me nauseous. Ew.

SO, guess which room is next on the list? ;)

I hope to be back to sharing PRETTY things with you soon! Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day...if you can, now that you've seen the BLOOD RED ROOM! LOL! :)

Happy Christmas & TTFN

2011-08-05T10:10:00.000-06:00

Well, this is it. My last post for a little while. We take possession of our new house TODAY and we have LOADS of painting and cleaning and repairs to do. Then we have to actually move in. I have no idea when I'll get back to crafting (all my stuff is in boxes! *sniff*), but I do hope to get some visits in to my favorite blogs over the next few weeks. If I don't make it, know that the INTENT is there. ;)

When I saw the PKS Sketch with a Twist challenge this week, I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to do. I've kind of been on a Christmas card kick lately. Actually, my family would tell you that I'm always on some kind of Christmas kick. I usually finish up my shopping before Halloween, and I'm always on the look-out for cool Christmas decorations. Some have referred to me as "Christmas Crazy", and those people are...RIGHT! :) :) :)

When I showed this card to my family they all said exactly the same thing: "HEY! That's US!" lol! You can see it, can't you? There's my Abigail, singing away, and my Luke, laughing at some silly joke he's made up. And Mom and Dad are looking on, smiling proudly at their wonderful children. :) This card is definately one of my favorites - I'm not sure I'll be able to give it away.

I used paper from my scrap pile, and the twine is Sew Easy. The sentiment is from MPS Christmas Wishes, and the light strings were cut from Winter Frolic. I stickled the white lights to give them some Christmas sparkle.

The ornaments were cut from Winter Frolic at 2". I cut each of them twice, gave them some PKS faces, and attached the "front" and "back" together with pop dots. Then I hung them from the top of the card with plain old thick white thread. I thought about securing them to the card, but decided it would be more fun if they were hanging loose, like an actual ornament. I tried inking the edges, but it ended up coming out kind of weird (which works because it DOES represent my family! HA!).

Well, that's it for projects for a little while. I am so hoping it won't be more than a couple of weeks - I'll be going through withdrawl in no time! Thank you all for looking and have a super FRIDAY!! TTFN!

Trying Something New

2011-08-03T10:53:00.001-06:00

Good Morning! I want to begin today by saying THANK YOU to all my bloggy friends for their well-wishes regarding the "Foot Fiasco". I am happy to report that, other than sporting some lovely shades of blue and purple, my foot is fine. It's still a little tender (duh, I dropped a shelf on it), but as long as I don't bump it into things (why is it that we always bang our injured appendages on walls and door frames?), it's perfectly fine. Whew! Thank you all for your sweet comments; you all really made me feel better. :)

So I tried something brand new this week! I will admit I am completely intimidated by digis. I am copic/colour pencil-challenged, and I just never know what to DO with digital images. I have found colouring them in with PhotoShop is pretty easy, but it never looks exactly "right".

And then I found Digital Delights. Did you know that you can buy digital images that are ALREADY COLOURED?!!! I know, I know. You stamping experts (that I admire so greatly!) are probably cringing in horror. It's totally cheating, I know. But for those of use whose children colour better than we do, it's the perfect solution!

But the digi stamp isn't the new part. On my card this week, I not only used a digital image, I also used digi paper! I was a little worried - I don't have the best printer in the world, nor do I have quality card stock. But it worked perfectly!

The yellow paper with blue polka dots is from the Spots & Stripes set of digi paper from Digital Delights. The racoon is from Digital Delights as well. I bought him already coloured, but I could have changed any of the colours in PhotoShop if I wanted to. The ribbon is from Michaels, and the sentiment is MPS (I used some masking).

My sweet Abigail didn't like this one as much, which makes me nervous. Maybe it's not as cool as I thought? Or maybe it's because she's not a huge fan of polka dots. Ah well, it's always fun to try something new. I will DEFINATELY be using the digi paper again.

I'm entering this one into 3 challenges: Birthday Sundaes (use a cupcake), The Paper Variety (use circles), and the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #128.

Thank you all for looking and have a fantastic Wednesday! :)

Blue (& White) Christmas

2011-08-01T19:03:00.000-06:00

I'm really, really liking the Christmas card challenges lately. How fun to break out the Christmas cheer in July!

This is my very first shape card! Woo hoo! I designed it on my Gypsy last night while waiting for my little man to fall asleep. I wasn't sure when I'd get to actually put it together, but then I dropped a big shelf on my foot this afternoon. My husband and I were moving it to the garage and it just slipped. It's not super heavy, but my foot has a gash, it's swollen, and it HURTS. So, I took a break and did some crafting, all the while praying that it's simply bruised and not broken. :O)

The snowglobe is from Doodlecharms; I cut two of them at 4 1/2" each and welded them together. The paper is from DCWV Shimmer Stack, and the blue is embossed with my Cuttlebug snowflakes folder. The snowflakes are from Winter Woodland (the hat), cut at Real Dial Size 1.5" & 1", and then sparklefied with Stickles. The ribbon is from Michaels, and the sentiment is MPS Winter Punnies.

I'm entering this into 4 challenges:

Jingle Belles (blue Christmas)
Cricut Card Challenge (anything goes Holiday)
Crafty Creations (Christmas in July)
Wacky Wednesday (Christmas in July)

I'm hoping to squeeze in some crafting time for a couple more cards this week, but I may be pushing it. I still have SOOOOO much to pack (how did we end up with so much STUFF?) and so little time to do it. It'll all be worth it when we finally move into our new place, but for now, well, I've remembered how much I dislike moving. :D

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day! :)

Clean and Simple

2011-07-30T18:17:00.001-06:00

Happy Saturday! :) I FINALLY got to play with my Gypsy. Oh my, I love her already. I mean, I REALLY love her. I can't tell you how much easier it is to design a card with her. And she is PORTABLE! I was designing in the van yesterday on the way to the lawyer's office to sign the paperwork for our new house! How convenient is that?

Speaking of our new house, we have one week left until we take possession! Woo hoo! I have a TON of packing to do before then, and then we have about a week's worth of work to put into the house before we actually move all the way in. It needs new carpets (the current carpets are old and dirty, and with my family's allergies, it's just a necessity), new baseboards, and LOADS of painting. The people we bought it from favored a dark orange/dark green/dark brown colour scheme (seriously, they put these colours on the walls - sometimes even all at the same time in the same room), and we're more of a light & bright kind of family. :)

Anyway, I have only a few days left before I say goodbye to crafting for a little while and focus on making our new house our own. I have way too many cards in my head, and simply not enough time to bring them all into being. But I'm sure gonna try!

Here's one.

I will admit, this one was tough for me. Not tough to design, but tough to LEAVE IT ALONE after it was finished. The CAS-ual Fridays challenge this week is to make a 9 x 4 card. "Embrace the white space" so to speak. I just kept looking at this card and thinking, "I should add something more." But I didn't - will power prevailed!

I knew I wanted to use this sentiment from my MPS Fruit and Veggie Punnies stamps. I read it out to my Abigail and she CRACKED UP. I love that she appreciates the pun as much as I do. :D

However, I didn't have a single grape cut on any of my cartridges. Not one. So, I pulled out my Gypsy (who still doesn't have a name! I'm working on it!) and created one using several little 1/2" circles from Plantin Schoolbook. The stem is the strawberry stem from Simply Charmed, cut at Real Dial Size 1 3/4". I cut the circles, pieced them together on a triangle-shaped piece of purple paper, added the stem and VOILA! A bunch of grapes. I thought they needed a little personality, so naturally, I added some sassy PKS faces. I dug some twine out of my leftover ribbon box to hang the grapes from to finish the card off.

And it IS finished. I will not add a thing. I WILL embrace the white space (which is harder than you think). :)

I will, however, enter this into a couple more challenges: FCCB (use a fruit), LFIF (use a PKS face & a pun), and Frosted Designs (use circles).

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful summery Saturday! :)

Birthday Kisses

2011-07-28T10:08:00.001-06:00

Yesterday my wonderful husband turned a year older. Birthdays are big deal in our house. I always go overboard with the kids' parties, and as a result, they feel that Birthdays should be a national holiday. :)

So for my husband's big day, we each made him a special card, we cooked one of his favorite meals (BBQ Pulled Pork), we baked him a cake, and we bought him an electric guitar (which he had been asking for for awhile, and which I'm probably going to regret at some point.) My son thought his Dad should have the day off work too: "What do you mean Dad has to work on his Birthday?"

Here's my card:

My husband is NOT a romantic guy. He never has been. But for some reason, when we go on vacation, especially on a beach vacation, he gets all relaxed and mushy. And THEN his romantic side shows through. You can imagine that I push for a lot of beach vacations. Lol! :) I tried to capture that with this card. I used the Card Patterns Sketch #125 as my base, and the colours were inspired by the Birthday Sundaes photo inspiration challenge this week. The bunnies are a digi stamp from Amber Ink, and the umbrella is from EveryDay Paper Dolls. I created the sentiment on my computer. I love when cards you make for special occasions coincide with fun challenges. I'm also entering this one in Cooking With Cricut (use a bunny) & Paper Cutz (anything goes).

The Birthday Boy received 2 other handmade cards on his special day.

Here's Abi's card:

And here's Luke's card:

These were their own handiwork. Do I not have creative kids? :)

Dad also was treated to a delicious Chocolate Chip Coffee cake. If you've never been to see my sweet and crafty friend Karen over at Kaleidoscopic Sparkles, then you have been missing out. Along with showcasing her beautiful cards & projects, Karen also celebrates Sweet Saturday, on which she shares marvelous recipes. This coffee cake is one such sweet delight.

Here's a photo. It tastes even better than it looks. Hard to believe, I know. :)

Thank you Karen! My sweet hubby says to pass on his supreme gratitude to you for sharing this heavenly cake. "Thumbs Up". :)

And thank you all for stopping by. Have a wonderful day! :)

She's Here!

2011-07-27T19:03:00.000-06:00

Well, today I'm ashamed of myself. All my whining yesterday about needing a Gypsy was sad and pathetic. Shame on me. I've gotten along this far without one just fine. What a baby I am.

But all that shame did not stop me from doing a happy dance when I got the mail today! She's arrived!!!!! WOO HOO!!!!! Oh, I am so excited! *insert big giant smiley face here*

So here's the whole package. It was a GREAT deal at Scrappers Must Haves (I highly recommend!), and despite all my complaining, She was definately worth the wait. :)

Notice I keep calling her "She"? My family thinks I should name her. My husband has suggested Lucille - he wants to name everything Lucille. What a weirdo. I haven't chosen a name yet, but I think I'd better do it soon...before Lucille sticks. Any suggestions? ;)

It's my husband's birthday today, and I've been cooking and baking up a storm, so no time to play with my new toy yet. But soon. Very, very soon. :)

Ho! Ho! Ho!

2011-07-26T17:35:00.000-06:00

Well, I spent the day crafting when I should have been packing. It's my husband's birthday tomorrow, so there was a lot of Cricut Kids stuff going on (more on that tomorrow), and then I was working on a card for the Jingle Belles challenge this week. I like the whole make Christmas cards early idea. Just makes for a more relaxing December.

So this one stumped me. The theme over at Jingle Belles is "Oh Holey Night", and the idea is to put a window in your card. Sounds easy enough, but it wasn't (for me, anyway, but I AM still a novice!). I think a Gypsy would have helped, but mine is STILL lost in the mail system somewhere. The good news is that the wonderful folks over at Scrappers Must Haves have determined that I have been waiting far too long, and they've shipped me another one (hooray!). The second Gypsy is sitting in Canada Customs right now, so very soon I should have her in my very own hands. :) ANYWAY, I found the whole window thing kind of hard. I ended up using an exacto knife, and I had to modify my original idea (about 6 or 7 times! ha!), but this is how it came out.

The penguins are from Simply Charmed, and the sentiments are both MPS. The glittery striped paper is from the DCWV Glitter Stack, and I embossed the presents with the Cuttlebug Snowflakes folder (again, I have no idea what it's really called) and the Swiss Dots folder. I wish I could tell you where the penguin's Santa hat came from, but I have no idea - I found it in my stash of unused Circut cuts.

Because I used penguins (I have a family member who LOVES penguins, so this card was designed specifically with her in mind), I'm also entering this one in the BBTB2 use a penguin challenge.

Still not sure if I'm happy with this one. Sometimes I think I'm Christmas card-challenged. :D But practise makes perfect, right?

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day! :)

Beating the Heat

2011-07-24T20:28:00.000-06:00

Well, we've been enjoying some beautiful summer weather here in Calgary (mixed in with some not so summer weather, but I try to pretend those days don't happen), and spent much of the day outside. We took a walk, went for a bike ride, played in the backyard, BBQ'd and ate our dinner on the deck. And, of course, we treated ourselves to something cold and refreshing. :)

Which brings me to my new card (which I will admit looked better in my head, but my husband thinks it's great, so what can I say?). The challenge over at FCCB this week is to create a project using a cool treat. For my children, this means ice cream, popsicles, and their favorite, Slurpees. For ME, it means this:

This was my treat this afternoon. A Mocha Coconut Frappucino. Oh, how I love the iced coffees and frapps! So naturally, I included one in my card.

I used the PKS Sketch #56 as my base, and the iced coffee is from Love You a Latte. The paper with the sparkly squares is from the DCWV Glitter Stack, and the orange paper is from DCWV Baby Girl Stack (it is amazing how much I use this stack, but never for a baby girl).

The sentiment was printed on my computer. Some of you may be saying "Frap Birthday? What the heck is she talking about?" I realize that many people do pronouce it "frap". But, in Canada at least, many people (including myself) pronounce it "Frap-ay". So Frappe Birthday is "Frap-ay Birthday". I do so love puns. :)

Now that I've explained it, you're probably all saying "why is she explaining this? I KNEW it was frap-ay". :D

Thank you all for looking and have a wonderful night. :)

Sweet Birthday Wishes.

2011-07-23T17:43:00.000-06:00

Happy Saturday! We have been a busy bunch over the past couple of days. Luke, my 5-year-old, earned his yellow belt in Karate last night. Abigail, my 8-year-old, competed in Kata Forms this morning and won a gold medal in her division! My two Karate kids - I couldn't be more proud! :)

That, on top of packing and preparing to move to our new house, AND having company for the past week, has meant very little time for crafting. BUT, I stayed up way too late last night watching "Say Yes to the Dress" (yes, I watch this show and I LOVE it!) and created a sweet birthday card at the same time.

The Whimsical Wednesday challenge this week is to use your scraps. This wasn't difficult for me, because I usually try to use my scraps before I break out the new paper. I confess, I am a pretty paper HOARDER. I find it so hard to cut into that brand new sheet of beautiful paper. I'm working on it, and fortunately for me, I have a crafty daughter who is forever digging into the new pretty paper. "Mom, why are you saving this? That's silly! Let's USE it!"

Here is a portion of my scrap pile (the scraps I used for this project are in the pile beside the box):

And here is my card:

I used the Sassy Lil Card Sketches July 21 sketch as my base, and I wanted to include lollipops so I could play along with the Cooking With Cricut challenge this week. The candies are all cut from Sweet Shop, and the sentiment is from Scrappy Moms Sweet Somethings. I'm also entering this into the Birthday Sundaes anything goes challenge this week.

WAIT A MINUTE! Did I just say I used something other than MPS???!!!! *GASP* Yes, I did! Don't get me wrong. I am still a My Pink Stamper maniac. I love those stamps and I use them every chance I get. But I recently ordered a couple of fabulous stamp sets from Scrappy Moms. And they contain loads of food puns. You all know how I love puns. Be on the look-out for some super funny food cards coming up in the future. :)

Thank you all for looking, and have a super day!

Beaver Feature

2011-07-21T14:53:00.000-06:00

Well, I can admit when I'm wrong. And I was wrong about my cute little beaver on my Canadian Christmas card. He was featured on Jingle Belles this week! Woo hoo! My Abigail was THRILLED. I believe her exact words were (said with a smug little grin): "Told you so mom!" :)

Thanks so much to the Jingle Belles gals for featuring my critter card! I am delighted! :)

My Pink Stamper Design Team Call

2011-07-20T09:56:00.000-06:00

I am so last minute with this one, which is very unlike me. But with the move and our vacation, I almost missed the post that announced the My Pink Stamper DT call! Thank goodness for my bloggy friends!

For those of you who've been following me for awhile, you know how much I love My Pink Stamper stamps. Watching Robyn's Cricut videos was my introduction to the Cricut-world. I was completely hooked after I saw how simply and beautifully Robyn could make a card. And then I started collecting her stamp sets (and Cricut carts, and paper, etc, etc, etc). Suddenly, a craft addiction was born. ;)

So, when I heard Robyn was having a DT call, I HAD to enter something. Given the enormous amount of talent she has following her, I'm not holding my breath. But hey, you can't win if you don't try, right?

The requirement is to make a project using the colours orange, green, brown, turquoise, and one other optional colour (I chose cream)

Recipe:
-5 x 5 easel card (you can find instructions for that here)
-base is brown Kraft paper
-green/orange striped paper on card front: 4 7/8" square, DCWV Baby Girl stack
-butterflies (1" & 1 1/4"): Create a Critter, scraps
-potted flowers: PKS Cottage Cutz dies, scraps
-pearls that make up the butterfly trail are from Michaels
-inside cream paper: 4 7/8" square from scraps
-layers on bottom: kraft paper (4 5/8" x 2"), green/orange stripe (4 1/2" x 1 7/8"), orange checkers (4" x 1 1/2") from scraps, cream (2 1/2" x 1") from scraps
-sentiment: MPS Buggy Punnies.

The most detailed card recipe I have ever provided. :D

Wish me luck!

"Canadian" Christmas Card

2011-07-19T10:09:00.000-06:00

Good Morning! And a Happy 14th Anniversary to me & my wonderful husband! :)

Just a quick post today for a few challenges.

This is one of those cards that I completed and then said "blah". It wasn't my favorite, and I almost shouted "do-over!" and started it all over again. And then my daughter saw it. And she said "Oh MOM! I love this! That little beaver is SOOOOO cute! Don't change a thing!" She is my biggest cheerleader. And the card stays as is.

Beaver - Winter Frolic, 3"

Holly - Winter Woodlands, 1"

Striped paper - Me & My Big Ideas

White paper - DCWV Shimmer stack, embossed with my Cuttlebug snowflakes folder (I have no idea what the actual name is)

Sentiment - MPS Winter Punnies

I'm entering this into 3 challenges: Jingle Belles (use a Christmas critter), My Craft Spot (Christmas in July), and GAB (use a product you've never used before).

Would you believe that this is the FIRST time I've used this MPS set? I know, I know, I'm as shocked as you are. Usually I tear open the package and use the stamps as soon as I get them! It's also the first time I've used my Winter Woodlands cartridge - it actually still had the little sticker on the bottom. It's also the first time I've tried doodling with my white Gel pen, which is totally obvious. I'm not very good at it. In my defense, I have tendonitis in my hands, which makes writing difficult at times. Still, there is definately room for improvement - I just need to practise. A LOT. :)

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful Tuesday!

A New Card and A Confession

2011-07-18T11:06:00.002-06:00

Well, I have a confession to make. I was on vacation all last week. *sheepish grin* I spent the week in Saskatchewan visiting family. I just didn't feel comfortable posting on my Blog, for all the world to see, that my house was empty for an entire week (especially with all my belongings packed neatly in boxes due to our upcoming move!). I did have a couple of pre-drafted posts ready (which I managed to get posted), but my children and my niece and nephews kept me hopping. I only see my family a couple of times a year, so my time was spent having fun with them. :) So if I didn't comment on all your wonderful creations, it was definately NOT because I didn't think they were wonderful.

My vacation was delightful. My mom lives in a small town in central Saskatchewan, right next door to a farmer's field. My children and their cousins had a BLAST. Adventures with a baby spider's nest (EEEWWWW!!! Thank goodness my husband found that one before I had to see it!), a wasp's nest (again, my husband came to the rescue, but not before my nephews suffered a couple of stings- poor little guys), AND a garden snake that made it's home in my mom's flower bed. My daughter named the snake Checkers and asked if she could keep it. :) Such fun!

One of the things that most delighted my children were the dragonflies in Saskatchewan. They were EVERYWHERE (so were the mosquitos that the draogonflies feast on, but that's another story). Abi and Luke were delighted with their beauty, and tried to capture them on more than one occasion. And here lies the inspiration for my card.

The dragonfly was cut from Doodlecharms (3") and all the paper is from The Pile (of scraps). The sentiment is MPS Everyday Occasions, and the ribbon is from Michaels.

Turns out that the Paper Cutz Challenge this week is to use anything you might find in the sky. Since dragonflies are all over the skies in Saskatchewan, I'm entering this card. :)

Thank you all for looking, and have a wonderful day!

Another Blog Award!

2011-07-13T13:57:00.000-06:00

I have to start by saying that I have "met" some fantastic Blog buddies over the past few months. It is amazing what a warm and accepting community the crafty blog-world is. :)

Amy, the Red-Headed Crafter, has given me another Blog award. Isn't she sweet? And talented? If you haven't been to see her Blog, you really, REALLY need to check it out. She is amazing!

In accepting this award I have to tell you all a little something about myself, and then pass it on to at least 5 friends.

So, something about me. Hmmmm, I've already shared so many things, but here's a little something that's new, and perhaps a little strange. ;) I collect Muppet stuff. I have Muppet finger puppets, a Muppet Chess set, an old Muppet board game from the late 1970's, even plastic Muppet cutlery (and much more). If I can find it, and it's in good shape, AND I can get a deal on it, I will buy it. I've been a Muppets fan since I was a wee lass and I doubt it'll ever change. :)

I'm passing this wonderful award on to:

Karen http://kaleidoscopicsparkles.blogspot.com/
Jessica http://cricutafterdark.blogspot.com/
Sherry http://upordowntheyrebeautiful.blogspot.com/
Lisa http://indymermaid.blogspot.com/
Amy http://redheadedcrafter.blogspot.com/ (right back at you!)

It is seriously hard to pick just 5. Honestly I could have listed 50 of you that always support and encourage me. :)

Thanks again to Amy for this fabulous award! Happy Wednesday! :)

Cards for Marley

2011-07-11T13:58:00.000-06:00

Have you all been to visit Madison at Funky Cards? If you haven't then you are missing out! This girl is super talented, super creative, and super sweet. AND, she has created something spectacular called the "I Feel the Love" Project. She selects a family with a need, and asks all those in Blogland to create a card of encouragement to send to the chosen family. This month the project's cards will go to a beautiful little girl named Marley, who has been dealing with a brain tumor. You can read all about her at Madison's blog.

Anyone who knows me can testify to my weepiness when it comes to hurting children. When I hear about a child in need I cry. Just like that. I no longer watch the news because I spend too much of it in tears. I avoid certain movies and books because the images of children hurting stay with me for days. I have joyfully passed this trait onto my children, by the way, and I hope they never lose that heart for the hurting.

Anyway, Marley's story really touched my heart and I knew I HAD to take part. I thought about how my family would feel in this situation, and I realized that if it was one of my children wearing Marley's shoes, the other child would be hurting unbearably. So, not only did I want to send something to encourage Marley herself, but also her sister. I enlisted the help of my 8-year-old daughter, Abigail. While I was making my card for Marley, Abigail was making a card for Marley's sister, Mia.

Here's what I came up with for Marley.

I followed the Sassy L'il Card Sketches July 7 sketch, and everything was cut from Create a Critter. The sentiment is MPS Buggy Punnies.

Here's what Abi came up with for Mia.

All from her own imagination. I have a talented, big-hearted daughter. :)

My thoughts and prayers go out to Marley's family. Wouldn't it be wonderful to flood their mailbox with well-wishes? Be sure to check out Madison's Blog and join her I Feel the Love project this month!

Birthday Goodness (With a Cherry on Top)

2011-07-08T22:47:00.002-06:00

Before I even get started here, I want to apologize in advance for my photo quality. The sun went away and I'm having to rely on the lighting in our house, which is poor. Very poor. Even with my fancy-pants camera, I am fighting to get a decent shot. Every picture has this eerie yellow hue. Ah well, you'll just have to take my word for it that my cards look much better in person! ;)

So when the nice Fed-Ex man brought me my Love You a Latte cartridge the other day, he also brought me the brand new Cricut Lite Sweet Shop cartridge. Oh YUM. I finally made something with it today because I simply HAD to. There are so many delicious cut on this cartridge!

I used the Tuesday Morning Sketch #101 as my base, and modified it a little. The ice cream sundae was cut from Sweet Shop at 3.5", and the little cherries are from From My Kitchen (I can't remember what size, so sorry, probably I should start writing this stuff down as I go), and the sentiment is from MPS Sweetest Cupcakes. The ice cream cone paper is Echo Park Summer Days, and everything else is from "The Pile".

I'm entering this one in a few challenges: Birthday Sundaes (anything goes), Cooking With Cricut (anything goes), and Paper Cutz Challenge (use a frozen treat).

Stinkin' Cute Blog Award

2011-07-08T12:25:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone! Amy over at Red Headed Crafter just gave me another Blog Award! Thanks so much Amy! It couldn't have come at a better time! I was having one of those "why am I doing this Blog thing? I don't have nearly enough talent and I feel so inferior" kind of days. And along comes Amy with an award to make me smile. :) If you've never visited Amy's blog, you are missing out on some amazing craftiness!

There are no rules with this award - you just have to pass it along. So in no particular order:

Jessica http://cricutafterdark.blogspot.com/
Karen http://kaleidoscopicsparkles.blogspot.com/
Sherry http://upordowntheyrebeautiful.blogspot.com/
Priscilla http://priscrafteeescape.blogspot.com/
Julie http://designs-by-julie.blogspot.com/
Kaitlin http://cupcakesandcards.blogspot.com/

Pop on over and visit these amazing ladies when you get a chance. You won't regret it!

Thanks again Amy! You really made my day! :)

Belated Graduation Card

2011-07-07T23:14:00.002-06:00

I realize that, for most people, Graduation is long past, but I'm a little behind. Sort of. My cousin's daughter graduated from high school this year, but due to the Canada Post labour issues, I couldn't mail her anything. So I focused on other projects that could be hand-delivered instead. Now that the issues have been resolved, and mail is moving again (albeit very slowly), I was finally able to get to work on her Grad card. Hooray!

The Crazy 4 Challenges challenge this week is to make a centre step card, so I thought I'd give it a try. It was suprisingly simple, and I really like the look of it. I made it an A2 size, so it fits perfectly into an envelope. The inside sentiment (not pictured) just says Happy Graduation.

Zebra - Paisley, cut at 2 3/4"
Pink polka dot paper - Me & My Big Ideas
Sentiment - my computer
Embellishing with mini pearls

It's very sparkly and girly, I know, but it IS for a girl. And she and her friends painted a beat-up old van pink for grad, so I think I'm good. :)

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day!

You Still Give Me Butterflies

2011-07-06T18:37:00.000-06:00

Happy Summer! It is super warm here (well, warm for Calgary at least), and in between packing and other move preparations, we have been enjoying the great outdoors.

I did manage to find time to make an anniversary card for my husband (I HAD to - my crafty stuff will soon be packed!), even though our anniversary is still a couple of weeks away.

I recently discovered Amber Inks through another blogger, and I decided to give digital stamps a whirl. Did you know you can colour them in using Photoshop? I had no idea! I'm still learning, but it sure beats using my kids' coloured pencils!

I used Sassy L'il Card Sketches June 21 sketch as inspiration and here's what I came up with.

The paper is Me & My Big Ideas, and the butterfly on the front and the sentiment on the inside are from Amber Inks. I tried to keep it simple - my husband is an Engineer and likes things clean and simple. Straight lines all the way. :)

And just FYI, for those of you who were wondering if a new house means an actual craft room for me, sadly, the answer is no. We WILL have a den for the piano, guitars, & violin, as well as for the computer & it's accessories. And there is large bonus room (with a window seat!) over the garage that we'll be using as a play/school room. The children have said that they'd like me to share this space with them (there is more than enough room for me to take a corner for my crafting), because they like me around them when they're playing. Who can say no to a request like that? :)

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day!

The House Hunt is Over!

2011-07-05T15:19:00.000-06:00

Whew! Well, we did it. It took a few weeks and a lot of viewings (some of them leaving me feeling like a needed a shower. Ew.), but we found a house! It needs a little work (thanks goodness my husband is handy!), but it'll give us a lot more space. And the best part is that it's only a couple of blocks away from our current house! So we don't have to leave our neighborhood and friends behind. God is good. :)

So, on top of the house hunt (thank heavens it's over!), I have been working on a couple of projects for my family. One of them is for my sister's good friend. Now, for those of you who've been following for awhile, you may remember a cupcake stationary set I made for my sister a couple of months ago. You can see it here, here, and here. The day she receieved it in the mail, I got a very excited phone call. She was so delighted with the set that she asked me to make another set for her friend who is getting married this summer.

The wedding colours are black, white, and pink, and the bride is fond of a damask pattern. Using only this information, here is what I came up with.

First up are the cupcake cards and matching envelopes.

I also made matching tags.

And a box to store them in.

Finally, I made a memo pad and a post-it note holder.

I used the Sweet Treats cartridge for the cards (cut at 3") and tags (3 1/2"), and the sentiments are all MPS. I used my Bind-it-All for the memo pad and post-it note holder. The patterned paper is all Me & My Big Ideas. I'm really hoping the bride is happy with it!

Now, onto the next family project. I can't wait to show it to you. :)

Thanks for looking and have a GREAT day!

I love coffee

2011-07-02T10:19:00.000-06:00

So let's talk about me and coffee. Not that long ago, I didn't drink coffee. At all. I just didn't like the taste, and honestly, I still don't like the bitterness of plain old coffee. There was a brief spell during my Grad School years where I choked it down by necessity (it's amazing what a nasty Statistics course will force you to do), but other than that, I avoided it completely. Then I discovered *Starbucks* (cue heavenly choir), and a caffeine addiction was born. In fact, right now, as I'm typing this, I'm thinking about what kind of frappucino I'm going to order later.

So, when PC came out with the Cricut Lite Love You a Latte cartridge, I had to have it. HAD to. Even my husband said, "You have to have that." And so I ordered it. And then the nice Fedex man brought it to my door, and then I HAD to use it.

I saw that the Crafty Creations challenge this week is to make a thank-you card, and I thought "what better way to say thank-you than with coffee?" So using the Sassy L'il Card Sketches June 14 sketch, I came up with this.

Simple, but perfect for a coffee lover. Honestly, I may just give it to myself as a thank-you for treating me to a frapp later. :)

I used Kraft paper and I kept it pretty masculine I think (my husband has just confirmed this, so I think I'm okay), so I'm going to enter this card into the CAS-ual Fridays challenge this week as well.

I hope you enjoyed your stop at my Blog. Thanks a latte for looking! :)

Watermelon!

2011-06-28T19:40:00.001-06:00

I confess. I don't like watermelon. I want to. I really, really do. It just looks so refreshing. But I just don't like the taste. Ah well. I can't eat it, but I can make cute cards with it!

This one is for the Cooking With Cricut & Bitten by The Bug watermelon challenges. I used the PKS Sketch for this week as my base and went from there. I have been dying to use this fruity paper from Me & My Big Ideas, and I finally got to! The yellow swirly paper is from this PP as well. The watermelon is cut from Simply Charmed and I used my PK stamps to give her a cute face. The sentiment is MPS Fruit & Veggie Puns. You're probably all wondering if I have every MPS set out there. I don't, but I'm working on it. ;)

Have a great night! :)

Birthday Card for Grandma

2011-06-26T20:01:00.000-06:00

Well, house hunting has been slow-going. It's amazing to me how many people don't clean their houses before they show them. I'm a bit of a neat-nut myself, so when I view a home that is so dirty it SMELLS, it makes it super hard to see the home's potential. *sigh* We still have a few weeks left, so hopefully we'll find something soon.

Anyway, in between house hunting and packing, I've been working on Birthday stuff for my Mom. Her Birthday is still a couple of weeks away, but my Cricut & craft stuff will soon be packed, so I wanted to get everything finished early.

So, here's her card. It may seem a little strange, but I'll explain everything.

One of the things I love about card-making is that you can personalize everything. I made this especially for my Mom, and everything on it will mean something special to her.

If you've been following me for a while, you'll know that my sister and I (and our families) took my Mom to Maui for Christmas. My Mom LOVED it - she's already started asking when we're going back! :) She had never really been on this kind of vacation before, so it was super special for her.

For her Birthday, I wanted to make a card that celebrated everything she loved about Hawaii. The beach (of course) was her favorite place to be. She loved the sun and the sound of the water. We saw whales from the shore on a couple of occasions, which was super-cool. My Mom also loved the greenery in Maui, as well as the ICE CREAM! She collected sea-shells with the grandkids on a number of occasions. Now, the snowman. I know you're all wondering. lol! One day at the beach we came across a "snowman" made out of sand. Being from Canada, where snow is plentiful, and snowmen are made of, well, SNOW, we thought it was hilarious. My Mom liked it so much she actually made me take a picture of it!

So there it is, memories of Hawaii in a Birthday card. The only things missing are the grandkids! And I just couldn't fit 6 of them on the card! :) The sentiment on the front is actually "Happy Birthday" in Hawaiian.

I'm entering this card in 4 challenges: Die Cuttin' Divas (use a Christmas cut for a non-Christmas card), The Paper Variety (use a summer theme), Celebrate the Occasion (summer theme, use a sun), and GAB (use tearing).

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day! :)

News and a Birthday Sundaes Card

2011-06-22T19:02:00.000-06:00

Whew! Lots going on around my house lately. First of all, we sold our house! Hooray! And with only 10 days on the market! So now we are on the hunt for a new place to live. I know, I know, normal people have the new house picked out BEFORE they sell the old one. But the situation we're in is not a normal one, and we ended up doing things a little bit backwards.The house hunt begins tonight - wish us luck!

When the house sold and we no longer had to clean and disappear for showings, I (of course) sat down to make a quick card. :) The Birthday Sundaes Challenge for this week is to make a shaped card. Since I STILL don't have my Gypsy (long story that is. I have been assured that it HAS been shipped, but now Canada Post is on strike, so who knows when or even IF it'll arrive), I turned to the card feature button on my carts.

I love the Mini Monster cartridge. It is so cute and so much fun to play with. I am particularly partial to this slimy guy. He just makes me giggle for some reason.

Here's the recipe:
-Card cut at 6 1/4" (fit to page on 8 1/2 x 11 paper),
-Face stamped with my Peachy Keen monster face stamps (some masking here).
-Sentiment is from MPS Boy Crazy and Spooky Puns (some masking here too).
-Spider (1 1/2") is from Paper Doll Dress-Up
-Party hats (1 1/4") and present (1 3/4") are from Doodlecharms.
I also used my Martha Steward Drippy Goo punch on the sign. I love that punch. Just the name of it makes me smile. :)

Thanks so much for checking out my Blog. Have a wonderful day. :)

Creative Sisters Guest Designer

2011-06-20T04:00:00.002-06:00

The coolest thing happened to me last week! A while back, Linda, from Lindascreativity asked her followers to suggest a challenge. If she selected your idea, you would get to be a Guest Designer for the week of that challenge. And guess what? She picked my idea!! Woo hoo! And it gets better. The challenge I suggested, and the one Linda chose for this week, is CHRISTMAS!!! YES!!!! Who doesn't love Christmas, right?

I suggested this theme because I am a Christmas NUT. I LOVE Christmas. It is my most favorite time of the year (and I have passed this love on to my children), and I tend to get a little over-excited when I get to break out the Christmas stuff. My Christmas Cricut cartridges were no exception. :)

I was supposed to make ONE card to show you all, but I got carried away and made two. And then I couldn't choose which one I liked best. So I'm sharing BOTH with you today.

The first is an easel card. I've always wanted to try one of these - I just think they're so pretty.

-Card base is a 4 1/4" square on Kraft paper.
-Mouse: Winter Frolic, cut at 2 1/2"
-Gift: Imaginisce Enchanted paper pad
-Polka dot paper: K&Company Sweet Nectar
-Blue paper (embossed with Cuttlebug Snowflakes) DCWV Shimmer Stack
-Tag (3 layers): Winter Frolic, cut at 1 1/2", 1 3/4", 2"
-Sentiment: My Pink Stamper Christmas Wishes
-Twine: Sew Easy Lollipop

-5" square card on kraft paper
-Green striped paper: DCWV Baby Girl Stack
-Candy canes: Simply Charmed, cut at 2 1/2", DCWV Baby Girl Stack
-Tag: Winter Frolic 1 3/4"
-Ornament hooks: Winter Frolic
-Sentiment: My Pink Stamper Christmas Wishes
-Ribbon: discount Michaels ribbon

Now, hop on over to Linda's site and enter the challenge yourself! You'll get a super head start on Christmas! :)

Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day! :)

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-19T09:35:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to write a quick post today and thank all of you for your sweet comments on my Father's Day projects. My mini "5 Things I Love About You" books were a HUGE hit. Abi and Luke were so proud to present their dad with something they put so much heart into. And the best part? They brought my husband to tears. :)

Father's Day is bittersweet for me. On the one hand I have the most amazing husband who is a incredible father. He is so hands on, and genuinely enjoys everything about being a dad. He never had a problem with diaper changes or baby puke. He's happy to take a day off work to attend recitals or to just have a "fun day". What a wonderful father my children have been blessed with!

On the other hand, the man I call Dad lost his battle with cancer in January, 2010. This is my second Father's Day without him, so it's a sad day for me too. This man was a father by choice, which makes him even more special. He is not my biological father, but he was my Dad in every other sense. I remember and honour him today as well.

I hope you all enjoy your day with the special men in your life. We're crossing our fingers the weather will hold and we can use the grill for some Father's Day BBQ. :)

A Blog Award!!

2011-06-18T19:52:00.000-06:00

Just a quick post today. Madison over at Funky Cards gave me this Blog Award! Madison is one of the most talented young ladies I have ever come across. If you haven't visited her Blog, you REALLY need to get over there!

The rules for the award are the following:
1) Send a thank you to the person who nominated you and include their link.
2) To accept this award, tell 7 random facts about yourself.
3) Pass the award on to at least 8 other awesome blog buddies.

7 Things About Me:
1). I love The Muppets.
2). I took my first trip to DisneyWorld when I was a 32-year-old Mom, and my first look at Cinderella's Castle made me cry.
3). I have a female Bichon ShihTzu named Perri, named by my children after Perry the Platypus.
4). My favorite movie is The Princess Bride.
5). I love Jane Austen novels. I read them over and over and over again.
6). I know all the words to the Rubber Ducky song.
7). I am super clumsy. I trip over imaginary objects on a regular basis. I like to tell people it's a genetic trait. :)

I am passing this award on to the following Blogs (in no particular order):
1). Sherry - http://upordowntheyrebeautiful.blogspot.com/
2). Jessica - http://cricutafterdark.blogspot.com/
3). Karen - http://kaleidoscopicsparkles.blogspot.com/
4). Lee Anne - http://motherofonewifeofone.blogspot.com/
5). Amy - http://redheadedcrafter.blogspot.com/
6). Kaitlin - http://cupcakesandcards.blogspot.com/
7). Shelly - http://mypaperlove.blogspot.com/
8). Debbie - http://debbiesdashofthisandthat.blogspot.com/

These ladies are so super creative. You really need to check them out. I'm sure they'll inspire you as much as they inspire me. :)

Thanks so much Madison!

Father's Day Projects!

2011-06-15T20:22:00.002-06:00

Whew! Cutting it close with these ones! I wanted to do something special for Father's Day with my kids, and quite awhile back I watched a tutorial (I don't remember where or who or anything - sorry!) on making a toilet paper tube book. I thought it was such a cute idea, and I KNEW I would be making one for my husband for Father's Day.

When I presented the idea to my children, they insisted that they EACH had to make one, so double the work. But also double the pleasure for Dad, because I KNOW he is going to LOVE these!

They are really hard to show in pictures (unless I post a couple dozen photos!), but I've tried my best.

First up is a sample of Abigail's book:

Then Luke's:

So, LOADS to say about these! I saved 10 empty toilet paper tubes (making sure they were all the same size), 5 for each book, and flattened them in my Cuttlebug. My daughter loved doing this - I have no idea why. :) Abi and Luke then selected their paper and we covered each tube, leaving the ends open.

I then asked the kids to each think up 5 reasons (1 reason per tube) they love their Dad. I give them full credit - they really thought about this and came up with the sweetest stuff. My son (he's 5) came up with more than 5 reasons and was nearly in tears because he couldn't choose between them (we ended up combining a couple). How sweet is that?

I took those "5 reasons" from each child, typed them into my computer, and printed them out on white cardstock. I then glued them onto tags that fit inside the covered toilet paper tubes. The ribbon on the end gives them a "handle" to pull the tags out. The tags were cut from the Sweet Treats cartridge; I did have to play a little to find the right size/style so that it fit snugly, but not too snugly, into the tube.

I then found some of my favorite pictures of the kids and added those, with as few embellishments as possible. Doesn't make sense, right? I'll explain. This is for a man who likes things clean and simple. The less "fluff" the better in his opinion. So we went with it.

However, I also wanted something a little extra special for the pages of the books. So I cut white paper to fit the size of the pages, and had Abi and Luke draw pictures for Dad. I think this is my favorite part, honestly. It just captures "them" right at this moment in time

The title was done on my computer, as was the label on the back page (not pictured) that reads "Made by _____. Father's Day 2011". I then put the whole things together and bound them with my Bind It All. Taa daa! :)

My husband has PROMISED me he'll stay away from my Blog until Sunday, so I'm able to share these with you in advance. I'm also entering them into a few Father's Day challenges: My Craft Spot, Cooking With Cricut, Whimsical Wednesday, Sisterhood of Crafters, Crazy About Cricut, and the Scrappin With Cricut No Cards No Layouts Challenge (thanks to Deanne for suggesting this one!).

I just previewed this and it is loooong. Sorry about that. Probably it would have been better in a video. But since I haven't graduated to videos yet, this will have to do. :)

Thanks for looking!

Hoppy Birthday

2011-06-13T13:36:00.001-06:00

Well, our house hasn't sold yet, but we had a lull in showings yesterday, so I took the opportunity to make a quick card just for fun.

The Cooking With Cricut challenge this week is to use your favorite cartridge and your favorite colour. My favorite colour is easy - blue. The tricky part was picking my favorite cartridge. It sort of changes on a daily basis. :) It was a tough choice between Sweet Treats and Create a Critter, but in the end, CAC won out.

I used the Sketch from the Die Cuttin' Divas challenge 18, and I took a cue from the Birthday Sundaes embossing challenge and used my Seeing Spots Cuttlebug folder on the dark blue strip. The sentiment is from MPS.

You can never have too many Birthday Cards on hand, right? You just never know when you might need one in a pinch.

Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful day! :)

Funny Conversations With My Children: Episode 4

2011-06-11T11:39:00.000-06:00

Abigail (my 8-year-old) is getting a little over-excited about something.

Dad: Abigail, relax.
Abigail: No, dad. You have to say "chill-ax".
Dad: Okay then. Abigail, chill-ax.
Abigail: I can't. That's not even a word.

:)

My Crazy Life (at the moment)

2011-06-10T10:00:00.001-06:00

Our house is now "officially" on the market. We actually had a couple view it a couple of days ago (before it was even listed) and they loved it. So maybe they'll be happy with the asking price, buy it, and I won't have to go through the hassel of keeping it SPOTLESS for days and days and days. A girl can dream, right?

So, I don't have anything new to show you today, but I have been working on some pretty special Father's Day projects with my kids, and I hope to have those posted soon. I still have some work to do on them, and my craft space is a corner in the basement that needs to be kept TIDY, so my craft time is sporadic at best.

Some good news this morning. My Super Birthday Card was featured on Birthday Sundaes!! Hooray! You can see my entry here. I shipped that card, along with some fabulous presents, off to my nephew Logan yesterday. :)

My Followers are missing (again!). And I can't see anyone else's Followers (again!). And I can't follow anyone because I can't see the little "follow" button (again!). Has anyone esle had this problem? It's been on and off for me over the past few weeks.

Ah well. We're off to take the kids to see Kung Fu Panda 2 this afteroon. They are super excited - my daughter has been asking if it's time to go since 8 this morning!

I hope you all have a wonderful day! :)

A "Super" Birthday

2011-06-06T17:46:00.001-06:00

My nephew Logan turns 4 next week (I can't believe it. Wasn't he just an infant last month?). Now, Logan is something special. For one thing, he is SUPER smart. He can out-debate any adult he encounters (which often results in him getting his way. I mean, if you win your case, you win your case, right?). He also has a SUPER sense of humor. Honestly, you get him and my Luke together and it is side-splitting comedy. Logan also has a SUPER imagination. He is always a super-hero. Sometimes he's Spiderman; sometimes he's Batman; sometimes he's Buzz Lightyear; sometimes he's all three at once. But most of all, Logan is SUPER sweet. He really is. Maybe I'm a little biased, but...nah. I'm not. ;)

So, for Logan's Birthday I wanted to make him a SUPER card. I love the designs Kim over at Paper Punch Addiction comes up with, and from the minute I saw this one, I KNEW I had to try it. It's a stage pop-up card, and you can find the tutorial over at Kim's site. It's my very first try at one of these babies, and you can see where improvements can be made. But I think Logan is going to FLIP over it!

It starts out like this. Then you slide the sleeve off and...

It opens up to reveal this!

I knew I wanted Logan to be transformed into Super Logan for this card, so I did that using Paper Doll Dress-Up (I also cut the cityline with this cartridge). And I have these Peachy Keen monster face stamps that I have been DYING to use, so I pulled out my Mini-Monsters cartridge to create the villians. I do not have my Gypsy yet (when will it get here??? Arrrrgh!), so I had to be a little creative to get the monsters to cut without faces. The sentiments on the front are MPS Spooky Puns (the "Zap" is from something else - I can't remember what), and the one inside is MPS Boy Crazy.

The hardest part was getting the sizing right for the stand-up figures. If they're too long they peek out the front when the card is closed. Plus I don't have ScorTape, so I was fighting with Mono-Adhesive and my ATG gun, neither of which is ideal for this card.

All in all, though, I'm really pleased with how this one came out. I have LOADS of ideas for different scenes I can do.

Along with shipping it off to my sweet nephew, I'm also entering this card in 4 challenges: the PKS Let's Face it Friday challenge (Designer's choice), the Birthday Sundaes Anything Goes challenge, the Cricut Cartridge Chaos Challenge (use Paper Doll Dress-Up), and the Crazy About Cricut Thankful Thursday challenge (man/boy theme).

Thanks for looking! Have a great day!

Caught a Bug?

2011-06-05T21:34:00.001-06:00

What a gorgeous Sunday we had here in Calgary! They tell us we're in for more rain for the rest of the week, so I'm so glad we enjoyed the outdoors today.

While the kids were winding down, I had a chance to put together a quick get well card. I used Sassy L'il Card Sketches May 28 sketch as my starting point and combined it with the Die Cuttin' Divas Creepy Crawly challenge, and my brand new My Pink Stamper Buggy Punnies stamps (woot! woot!). Cooking with Cricut's challenge this week is a colour challenge (use at least 2 of orange, yellow, cream, brown, or green). Mix them all together and you get this:

Jar & Bug: Doodlecharms

Sentiment: MPS Buggy Punnies

Green paper: Echo Park - Summer Days

Plaid paper: Making Memories - Just Chillin'

The inside just says "Get Well Soon". I didn't get a picture of that - sorry.

So here's something cool I learned from Mary over at Cardz TV. You know that clear film that covers your brand new Cricut mat? You can CUT that with your Circut! It's hard to see in the picture, but there is a clear layer over the jar. It looks totally cool in real life - you'll just have to trust me on that. ;)

If you check out my last post, you'll see my first try at sponging. I liked it so much, I've done it all over this card too. I was like a sponging maniac. I just love the look of it - makes everything just "pop".

The brand new thing I did with this card is I used twine instead of ribbon. Every time I tried twine before, I thought it looked so cheesy. But on this card, I kinda like it.

So, our house goes on the market on Thursday (AAACK!), so I may be MIA for a few days. Hopefully it sells quickly, and I'll be back at crafting in no time.

Thanks so much for looking and have a fabulous day! :)

Father's Day Card

2011-06-04T12:36:00.000-06:00

Still no Gypsy. I've been waiting two whole weeks, and it's still not here. And now Canada Post is on strike so who knows when it will arrive. *sigh* Funny how God uses stuff like this to teach us things like patience, right? ;)

One more thing to cross off my to-do list - my Father's Day card for my husband. He doesn't like a lot of mushy gushy stuff, so I kept it super simple. I used the Peachy Keen Tuesday Sketch as a starting point and went from there. I did leave the swirlies out - just to preserve the masculine integrity of the card. :)

Seahorses: Create a Critter

Sentiment (inside & out): MPS (did a little masking for the inside)

Paper: Just plan old Michaels cardstock and Kraft paper

The challenge at PKS this week was not only to use the sketch, but also to use a sponging technique. I'll be honest, I almost skipped this challenge - I am not a stamper or an inker or a sponger. But I figured, what the heck? I'll try it and if it doesn't work, I'll call it a do-over ("Mulligan!" is what my kids yell in that situation. They're so funny.). And it WORKED. And I LIKE it! It's hard to see in the picture, but I found I could give the Kraft paper a sandy look, so I have texture without patterned paper or embossing. Neato! So glad I gave it a try - I can see myself doing it more often on my cards.

I'm entering this card in 3 challenges: the PKS Tuesday Sketch Challenge #53, the Paper Cutz Challenge (use a beach theme), and the Frosted Designs Friendship challenge.

Thanks so much for looking and have a wonderful day! :)