Sunday, May 30, 2010

Not quite the weekend I envisioned.


This weekend we had a lot of things going on. My youngest was going to turn one on Thursday, and I had cupcakes that we would give her to get all those wonderful messy cake eating pictures. Her first birthday party was going to be on Saturday, and we were going to have family and friends over with birthday cake and party hats, and the whole shebang.

Then we all got struck with the stomach flu on Thursday, and everything went sort of down the drain.

So, that is where I have been. And hopefully that is a good enough reason for not posting on the blog for the last few days. It still means that I haven't fulfilled my personal goal of posting each day for thirty days though. So I will start over again (probably once I get my cricut back).

Since my cricut is broken, I tried to make a Father's Day card for my dad without it. The last card I sent him was sort of feminine, so I really wanted to make this 'manly' which to me means distressing the thing to heck :) I used various goodies that I had in my stash and had long since forgotten about, so I'm pretty pleased about that part of the cricut tragedy.

Happy Memorial Day everybody!

Thanks for looking!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Adam's pity card


This is the card I made (very quickly) for my son when he started getting pouty about my daughter's super awesome birthday card (see my last post).

It isn't standard card sized because I made the deer and the words first (valuable lesson learned) and then they wouldn't fit on the card. :)

In a very sad turn of events, my cricut has died. (insert wailing and sobbing here) I have a few projects that I did before it's demise. I guess this means I will have to break out the stamps again. That isn't a bad thing since I love my stamps, but my love affair hadn't yet ended with my new cricut yet.

So wish me luck waiting for my new friend to come back to me well again ;)

Thanks for looking!

Monday, May 24, 2010

Still so many birthdays...


I had a large chunk of time available on Saturday (shocking, I know!) so I sat down to make an extra special card for my baby. Well, technically she isn't the baby anymore because she now has a little sister, but even after a year with the new baby, I still think of my Taylor as my baby.

She is going to be six next Thursday (and I am a big old wreck because six seems just SO old!) so I started on her extra special card early. She is a huge fan of Olivia (both the books and the tv show) so I wanted to make a pig card, and I knew that Olivia would have to wear a red dress (if you know Olivia, you know why)

I used some K & Co patterned paper that I got on clearance at Michael's ages ago, let's hear it for using your stash! Taylor likes when I make things sparkle on cards, so I put a whole bunch of stickles all over everything and added jewels from Heidi Swapp to her dress.

So I think she'll love her extra special blinged out card. When I called in my older son to ask his opinion of the card, he got a little upset that he didn't get a special card for his birthday in February (um, I just got this cricut a few weeks ago bud!) so of course I ended up having to make a card for him too. (I'm such a pushover sometimes) So I'll probably post his card next time.

Thanks for looking!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Happy Anniversary!


Thirteen years ago I married my very best friend. Three kids, two cats, and seven(!) different residences later I am still pretty sure I'm going to stick around ;)

Our big night consists of the Lost Series Finale and probably a pizza delivery from somewhere. (We are simple folk, we please easy) So we said we weren't doing the gift thing, but I figured the least I could do was to make him a lovey dovey card that he would think was was too frilly and girly! :)

Happy Anniversary to one of the three people that read this blog! Hope I don't do anything to tick you off today :)

Did I mention that May seems to be birthday month?




My 8 year old was invited to two birthday parties this weekend, so I was busy making cards. Only problem is that I am so well versed in little kid and girlie cards, that I was having a problem when I realized that a cutesy little woodland creature wasn't going to cut it for 10 and 8 year old boys.

So I did manage to find one image that was birthday and didn't have an adorable little smiling face on it (seriously, even the mailbox on Create-a-Critter has a smiley face).

Hopefully these will do until I can get tough boy stuff for cards :)

Thanks for looking!

Friday, May 21, 2010

Inspired by my upcoming anniversary!


My hubby and I will be celebrating thirteen years of marriage this coming Sunday. Our big plans? We will be spending our anniversary watching the Series Finale of Lost! It is funny the ways you celebrate once you have been married a while and have kids (or else it is a little sad) ;)

So as I was trying to come up with a card for him (because I can at least do that, right?) I came across my newest Stampin' Up! stamp set with this cute pear pun. So it gave me the perfect reason to bring out my very loved Preserves cartridge and make a couple of pears. After making it, I realized that it was more appropriate for a couple on their anniversary, so I'll probably stick it in the vault until I need a card for someone else.

So I still need a card for the hubby. Lucky that I'm liking making cards right now :)

Thanks for looking!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Best Fishes!


Part of me is thinking I need to start spreading the love to my other cricut cartridges, and part of me is still itching to do more with Create-a-Critter because it has soooo many cute images!

So the itching won out (ok, that may have come out wrong) and I used CAC again and made this cute little fishie! SU pixie pink, pretty in pink, soft suede, and gable green are the colors used, and the patterned paper has been long since retired so I can't begin to tell you what it is called.

I used SU's Very Punny stamp set for the 'best fishes'. Wish it was a little larger though.

Thanks for looking!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

May must be birthday month


I have to say, May is the busiest month for birthdays. I should probably understand it since I have two kids born in late May and early June, but I still don't. I have been inundated with birthday parties, which means tons of cards to make (and tons of presents to buy). I don't mind the card part so much ;)

So I am not sure who I was making this card for, but the other day my eldest daughter informed me that she wants it for her birthday. So that worked out pretty easily :) I used Create a Critter (because I really don't have any other shape cartridges and because it is so darned cute!) and another color challenge from Splitcoaststampers.com
The colors used are soft suede, certainly celery, and tempting turquoise. The cupcake has pretty in pink, rose red, and lovely lilac layers.

Thanks for looking!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Time flies!



The little baby that came into our lives so unexpectedly and turned everything upside-down, is turning one in a few weeks. It's amazing how quickly time moves by sometimes!

So this was a quick little card I made for her. As my older kids pointed out, she will probably eat the card, rather than admire it. :)

I used celery, pretty in pink, apricot, and whisper white for this one. I just love this little lamb from the Create a Critter cartridge (and yes, my older daughter now needs a lamb for her collection) and I LOVE David Walker's font from Zooballoo which was used to make the word.

Thanks for looking! :)

Monday, May 17, 2010

Bumblebees make the sweetest pets.


So I almost got away with making just a card with the cricut today. As I was finishing the last touches though, my daughter walked in and saw the bumblebee on the card. 'Bumblebees make the sweetest pets, Mama!' So of course, I had to make her one to add to her 'collection'. Perhaps today I will try to get my cricut work done before she gets home from school ;)

Another color challenge from Splitcoaststampers.com. I just love those challenges, they give me the most awesome color combinations, and you can print all of the past challenges out for future reference. I almost always go to my cheat sheet when in a creative slump, and it picks me right up again. The colors were riding hood red (so glad it is coming back in the next SU catty), kraft (which will be called something different in the new catty, but is NOT going away), and summer sun (which will be gone come July 1st).

The Bumblebee is of course from my new Create a Critter cartridge, the only one that seems to get used lately. I really wanted to use one of the cute sayings from Stampin' Up!'s 'just buzzin by' stamp set, but I rarely use it and have it put away to sell so couldn't find it. There are so many talented designers coming up with cute pun stamps especially designed for this cartridge that I am not worried that eventually I will find the perfect saying. For now it is just generic ;)

Thanks for looking!

Friday, May 14, 2010

I've created little monsters...


My friend, Vicky, told me that my kids would benefit from my getting a Cricut machine, but I thought she was just trying to sell me on it. :)

Truth is, as soon as my 8 year old son saw it on HSN with me he immediately thought we needed to buy one. Even offered to use his allowance to get me one for a present. (I know, he is a very sweet boy)

The day the we took it out of the box, was the day my kids wanted stuff made. The day that the Create a Critter cartridge came in the mail, was the day I lost all control.

Every day each kid needs a new 'critter'. I haven't made them all yet, but I'm pretty sure that before my daughter is finished, I will have. She plays with them everyday, and puts on shows (that I'm not allowed to watch, sadly). I hear her in the other room, and I've secretly video taped her singing their 'theme song' (because the critters are super heroes and ALL super heroes have a theme song).

So I guess Vicky was right. My kids are having a lot of fun with it. Someday I will be able to make things with it too... ;)

Happy Birthday!


A wonderful lady that goes to my church is celebrating her 90th birthday at the end of the month, so her family organized a 'card shower' for the occasion. I've never really heard of a card shower, but the idea is that she gets 'showered' with cards from as many people as possible. I thought that was a really neat idea, so of course I'm going to send her a card too. I think it was supposed to be a surprise for her, but our pastor announced the card shower plan while she was at church. (oops!) I'm sure she will still love getting all that mail :)

So this card was a trial and error card. I used the 'Stretch Your Imagination' cartridge (had to get this one because I LOVE David Walker!) and used the card function to make the body of the card. I also made the frame that corresponded to the cake card (another really nice function of this cartridge) I wanted the cake to look layered, but the only layers for the cake line up with the actual cake image (so if you cut your card at 5 1/4 like I did and then try to cut out layers at 5 1/4 they will be way too big). So by trial and error (and lots of scratch paper) I did find out that 2 1/4 size will work perfectly to make layers for the inside cake image on the card when it is cut at the 5 1/4 size (which was how big you can make the card when you use the size to fit paper option with a piece of 8 1/2 X 11 paper).

So now that you are super confused because of all the numbers I just wrote... I used Baja Breeze, Kiwi Kiss, and Pretty in Pink paper all from Stampin' Up. It was one of Splitcoaststampers color challenges a while back, and I just really liked them together. Kiwi Kiss isn't available anymore, but I think that Always Artichoke would work nicely with the other two colors as well. Baja Breeze is discontinued, but will be back as a new permanent color as of July 1st (so you'll be able to order it in a few months).

By the way, I'll just put this out there right now. I hate change. I'm sad to see so many of my favorite colors leaving the SU lineup. I am being a pouty, whiny, child about it.

Then, all I needed to so was stamp a greeting on the front. Glue down all those little layers, and the card was done! Pretty simple once I figured out all the measurements. Hope you like it (and more importantly I hope Betty likes it)!

Thanks for looking!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Teacher Gifts


We had a really interesting discussion at my MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) group last week. One of the Moms was telling us about teacher gifts. Imagine my surprise and shock when she said that teachers don't want to receive an apple shaped mug with '#1 teacher' emblazoned on it!

So, apparently I've been doing this teacher gift thing wrong this entire time! The main point was to give something consumable (it took about half an hour to explain what that word meant to my son, so I'm not going to define it here). So, since I have all this paper and all these envelopes lying around, I thought I'd make packets of cards. The teachers must have a need for thank you cards (to thank all the parents who give them #1 teacher mugs) so I decided that would be my gift this year.

Habits are very hard to break, so I did go with the apple theme. But I managed to branch out onto other kinds of fruit. Maybe next year I'll be able to move onto dairy or grains!

My daughter is a little aghast that we didn't buy her teacher something (I have raised material children) but I am hopeful that her teacher will be so happy not to get something I baked (because nobody wants that) that she will be thrilled with her cards. Maybe when she writes me my thank you note, I'll get my card back :)

All cardstock and patterned papers used are from Stampin' Up! and the fruits were made with the cricut machine using their Preserves cartridge.

Thanks for looking!

Ever had one of those years?

2008 sounds so long ago. Mostly because it was. Long ago, I mean. One day you are merrily making cards, planning workshops, and the next you are having a new baby, losing all track of time, and effectively sealing off your scrapbook room forever!

Now as I am preparing for my last baby to turn one, I am slowly dusting off my desk, and throwing myself back into what makes me happy. (Well, you know besides that whole parenting thing) ;)

So, if you have found your way here again by some miracle, or if you are here for the first time: Hi. Things have changed a lot in my own life, and on this blog. Welcome to the blog where I show whatever I want to without any rules. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy posting it. That is the whole reason we do what we do after all. :)