Happy birthday TOOL you!

My dad and brother-in-law have birthdays a day apart.  They are both handy guys and I was inspired by a pun I came across on Pinterest.

The wrench is from the Cricut Indie Art cartridge and the hammer is from Everyday Paper Dolls.  It was not a layered image, so I cut out one in black and one in gray, cut the top off the black one and glued it on the gray one.  The oval is from Cricut Font and Basic Shapes.  I ran it through the Cuttlebug Diamonds in the Rough folder.

This card will be entered in sketch challenge #251 at Die Cuttin' Divas.

Hope your day is purrfect!

My friend's little girl is turning 8.  Knowing that they have several cats, I decided to go with that for making a card.  I used the cat and the word "purrfect" from Create a Critter.  The other words were printed from my computer.  The turquoise background was run through the Happy Birthday Cuttlebug folder.
I am getting her a package of embroidery floss for making friendship bracelets and a box to put the floss in.  I decided to use vinyl to put her name on the lid.  I used the Cindy Loo cartridge for that.

This card and project will be entered in the Anything Goes challenge at the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog.

A wedding card for my niece

My niece is getting married next weekend and Tiffany blue is her wedding color, so I tried to match the color of the card as closely as I could.  I am including a recipe card in the envelope because I was unable to make it to her shower, so I had to use a larger envelope.  Because of this, I had a little space next to the Cuttlebug (Scrollwork) design, so I decided to run a piece of ribbon down the side.  The sentiment was a freebie from Paper Crafts Mag.  I printed it and cut around it using my Creative Memories Custom Cutting System.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:

Fantabulous Cricut #254--anything goes

Die Cuttin' Divas #222--anything goes

Happy Mudders Day!

The idea for this card came from this pin I came across on Pinterest.  The sketch came from Die Cuttin' Divas.  The cow die cut is from the Create a Critter cartridge and the background was run through the Juli's Garden Cuttlebug folder.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:

Die Cuttin' Divas #214--sketch challenge

Scrappy Moms--All about mom

It's Pass-ture birthday!

Here is another cow birthday card, in keeping with the tradition I have with my best friend.  I came across the pun on Pinterest.  The cow is from Create a Critter.  The orange piece on the left was run through the Spots and Dots Cuttlebug folder.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:
Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog #215--sketch challenge
Little Scrap Pieces--Saturday Linky Party
Simon Says Stamp--Monday challenge: Anything Goes

Beer's to You!

I came across this saying recently and knew it would be perfect for my dad!  It was the inspiration for this Father's Day card.

The  mug of beer is from Smiley Cards.  I ran the foam through the D'Vine Swirls Cuttlebug folder.  The sentiment was printed from my computer.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:

Jo's Scrap Shack #54--I love you Dad

Fantabulous Cricut #214--Celebrate Dad

Cute Card Thursday #325--So Macho

More Than Favors #91--Father's Day

Congrats on your little squirt!

I am helping to host a baby shower for a coworker tomorrow.  She is having an ocean themed nursery, so I wanted to make an ocean themed card.  This whale is from Create a Critter and the font on the front is from Life is a Beach.  I ran the background through the Spots and Dots Cuttlebug folder.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:
Jo's Scrap Shack #51--Life's a Beach
Scrappy Moms--Summer, Here We Come!
My Craft Spot #138 Congrats and Grads

Simple Mother's Day Card

For the first time in a long time, I'm not making this card the night before I need it!  This is largely due to a fun Facebook event I came across, NSD 2014.  There are lots of challenges, and I wanted to try to enter as many as I can, getting cards and projects done for several upcoming events.
For this card, I used the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder as the background.  The flowers are from the Locker Talk cartridge, but rather than cut out the ribbons that go with the image from paper, I recycled some ribbon from a Victoria's Secret shopping bag.  I cut out the yellow centers for the flowers using a regular old hole punch.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:

Really Reasonable Ribbon# 94--Bright Summer Colors

Pause Dream Enjoy #9--Flowers

Die Cuttin' Divas #163--Make it Girly

More Than Favors #89--Mother's Day

CAS-ual Fridays #131--use 3 of something on 1/3 of the card

Simon Says--Anything Goes

NSD 2014 Facebook Event Challenge #2--Flowers

A FINtastic Birthday Card

I have a birthday party for a 2-year-old to go to this afternoon.  Part of his gift is a shirt with a shark on it, so I thought I'd make a card to match.  I like punny cards, but couldn't think of any shark ones.  A quick Google image search resulted in a FINtastic pun :)  Since the birthday boy is only 2, I thought a simple card would be fine.  I cut out the shark from Life's a Beach.  The dark gray layer on the cartridge is actually a thin border that gets glued on top of the lighter layer.  That sounded like a bit of a hassle to glue, and probably a frustration to cut out, so I modified it on my Gypsy so it was like a shadow layer.  I wish I had a water waves embossing folder, but I thought Chevron was close.  Unfortunately, I didn't plan that out ahead, and the "waves" go the wrong direction!

This card will be entered in the following challenges:

NSD 2014 Event Facebook Group, challenge #1--Birthday Card

Simon Says Stamp Blog--Anything Goes

Hope your Birthday is Scraparrific!

I made this card for my picture-taking, scrapbooking sister.  The inside sentiment (the title of this blog post) is a little joke from our scrapbooking group.  The camera is from Campin' Critters.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:

Jo's Scrap Shack--#44 Anything Goes

Totally Papercrafts--#213 Pastels (The colors look much brighter in this picture than they actually are!)

Simon Says--Happy Birthday

Mixes Page

This year my friend and I got together to try making some mixes--herb rice mix, ranch dressing mix, and onion soup mix.  So, I decided to make a "mixes" divider page for her recipe binder.

I used a sketch I found here.  The jars are from the From My Kitchen cartridge.  I used my Gypsy to get rid of the labels they came with and then used my Gypsy and Cricut markers to write labels on them.  The dark blue strips on the side were run through my Cuttlebug in the Argyle folder.

This page will be entered in the following challenges:
Desert Island Crafts Challenge--#70 No flowers, Not a card, Do not color your image
Simon Says--Emboss it

Soups page

This is the latest installment in the set of divider pages I'm making for my friend's recipe album.  The layout is based on a sketch from Pamela's World of Scrap.  The bowl and spoon image is from the From My Kitchen cartridge.  Although hard to see in the picture, the background behind the bowl and spoon was run through the Scalloped Dots embossing folder by The Paper Studio.  The word "soups" is from A Child's Year  (I welded the letters with my Gypsy) and the tag behind the word is from Gypsy Wanderings.

This page will be entered in the following challenge:

Little Claire's--#40 Make a gift

Christmas Cards 2013 version 2

This is the second design of the Christmas cards I made today (yes, December 21st!).  I used the Christmas Tree embossing folder by The Paper Studio.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:
Paper Playtime--#25 Winter fun
Simon Says--use a stamp
Die Cuttin' Divas--#146 Anything holiday related
Scrappy Moms Stamps--Christmas greetings
Tuesday Throwdown--#176 What Christmas means to you

Christmas Cards 2013 version 1

It is December 21, time to start making this year's Christmas cards!  Since I got going so late, I needed a REALLY simple design.  I decided to let some embossing serve as the design rather than a multi-layer Cricut image.  Here is one of the two designs I made, using the Cuttlebug Snowflakes folder:

This card will be entered in the following challenges:
Paper Playtime #25--Winter Fun
Simon Says--use a stamp
Die Cuttin' Divas--anything holiday related
Scrappy Moms Stamps--Christmas greetings
Tuesday Throwdown--#176 What Christmas means to you
Totally Papercrafts--#197 Christmas using non-traditional colors

Desserts

My friend and I have both started printing out the good recipes we have found online.  We've discovered that if you don't, it can be hard to remember later where the recipe was, and sometimes the recipe is no longer there when you go back to it!  I saw my friends giant binder of recipes the last time I was at her house.  They are all in sheet protectors.  I asked her if she had them organized by categories, and she said, "Not yet."  I decided that for my Christmas gift to her, I would help her organizer her binder.  I went to Office Max and purchased a set of tabbed sheet protectors.  There are 8 in the pack.  I'm going to make sheets for different sections of a recipe album.  (I just hope I make categories she will use!)  Here is my first one:

The sketch for this page came from Sketch Saturday.  The word desserts is from the Cricut cartridge Cursive 101 (I welded the letters together on my Gypsy.)  The oval and piece of cake are from the From My Kitchen cartridge.  I ran the oval through the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder.

This page will be entered in the following challenges:

CAS-ual Fridays--CFC121  8 of something (There are 8 letters in desserts.)

Sketch Saturday--week 286  I really need to start watching the ending times for challenges.  I just missed this one!

Paper Playtime--#24 Anything Goes

Cute Card Thursday--#297 Anything Goes

Simon Says--Anything Goes

Butterfly Birthday Card

I am invited to a birthday party next weekend for a little girl who's turning 6.  I went with a simple design for her card:

The butterfly is from Create a Critter.  The background is embossed with D'Vine Swirls (one of my most used Cuttlebug folders!)

This card will be entered in the following challenges:
Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog #185 Anything Goes
Paper Playtime #22 Googlie Eyes   Oops!  Looks like I just missed the deadline for this one!
Cute Card Thursday #294 Animal Magic
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Clean and Simple
CAS-ual Fridays #119 Embossing
Little Scrap Pieces  Linky Party
Jo's Scrap Shack #25 Things With Wings

Simple Card of Thanks

I will be having a Pampered Chef party in about a week.  This is the second home sale type of party I've ever had.  I like to give my guests a thank you card along with their order.  Since I need to make quite a few cards, I wanted a really simple layout.  I found one in the sketch at Atlantic Hearts.  I also used some of the fall challenges I came across as inspiration.

The yellow strip was run through the Argyle Cuttlebug folder.  The apple is from My World and the word Thanks is from Opposites Attract.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:

Atlantic Hearts sketch challenge #21

Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog--#178 use at least 1 Cricut letter or number

Cardztv--#36 Colors of fall

Paper Playtime--#19 apples

Die Cuttin' Divas--#133 Use an apple

My Craft Spot--#111 Favorite technique--mine is using the Cuttlebug

Desert Craftin Divas--#15 Fall

Have a moo-velous birthday!

My friend Kristie is married to a farmer and we got into a habit several years ago of giving each other cow-related birthday cards.  It occurred to me this afternoon that her birthday is in 2 days, so I needed to get to work!

I used Animal Kingdom for the cow and Create a Critter for the hat.  The white paper was run through the Cuttlebug Spots and Dots folder and the pink circle was run through Swiss Dots.  My ribbon across the middle is recycled from a shopping bag handle.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:
Pamela's World of Scrap--I used sketch C5 from the sketchbook.
Really Reasonable Ribbon #74 I'm seeing dots & ribbon

Sunset layout

Last summer my husband and I vacationed in Michigan.  On our last night there, we took a rowboat out on the small lake at our campground.  We took along a bottle of wine we bought locally and the fudge we had purchased on Mackinac Island a few days earlier.  We got some beautiful sunset pictures.  I was taking forever choosing a layout (I've found I always like layouts better when I find them online rather than when I slap the pictures down myself.)  Today, I happened to find a layout via Pinterest that had the same number of photos I was working with, and in the same direction.  That had to be the layout for me!  And, even better, the layout was part of a current challenge!

Here is what I came up with:

As I was taping down the last items on the second page, I realized that I had focused a little too much on each individual page and not the 2-page spread.  The line of black stars across the middle doesn't line up at all.  Oh, well.  I'm not going to tear it apart now.  At least the pages coordinate.

The black circles were cut with a punch and embossed using the Tiny Stars folder by The Paper Studio.  Here is a close-up of the embossing on the black circles:

The sentiment on the left hand page ("Recipe for an Enchanted Evening") came from a tourist booklet I picked up in Michigan.  The black stars are from Doodlecharms.  The "Under the Stars" sign on the right hand page is from Campin' Critters.

This layout will be entered in the following challenges:

Pamela's World of Scrap--layout #237b (I flipped the left and right pages.)

Desert Island Craft Challenge--#56 diecut/punch, dry embossing, sentiment

Paper Playtime--#12 Everything Goes

Simon Says Stamp Challenge--Transport

CAS-ual Fridays--CFC105 Mapquest/Travel theme

Congratulations Grad!

I was invited to a graduation party for a friend who used to work as a paraprofessional at my school and has now completed his teaching certificate.  I used Everyday Paper Dolls for the graduation hat and one of the mini folders from the Cuttlebug Congrats 4-piece set.

This card will be entered in the following challenges:
Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog--Congratulations Graduate
Friday Sketch Challenge--sketch 43 (I rotated it in order to make the embossing folder work.)
Little Claire's--#33 Open