One Last Hoorah For 2010!

With it being so close to 2011, thought I'd make one last blog post for 2010 today.  I must admit I am for the most part happy to say good-bye to this past year and do just that... put it all in the past!  In some big aspects, this wasn't a very good year for us and I am really looking forward to starting off with a clean slate and hoping and praying for some uplifting and positive blessings for us all in 2011!  I still have faith so that's a good thing!

Anyway, today is a lazy day... hubby is off work and I made us a nice brunch today and now we are keeping warm and cozy fireside.  Tomorrow is New Year's Eve.  We never really have much planned in the lines of partying... we usually save that for Super Bowl time, lol!  No really, we tend to stay put safe at home for NYE... order in Chinese take-out and make a few drinks of our own... watch the ball drop in NYC and that's about it.  I believe my niece and her boyfriend will be here so we may get to playing some card games too.

As for Christmas... hard to believe another one had come and gone so quickly... but as usual, it was a very nice one!  Always nice to relax and enjoy the company of family and good food.  Of course my personal Santa was very generous... and he always is!  This year he spoiled me with not one, but two very beautiful rings!  :D  Guess I was nice this year, lol!  I surprised my hubby with a Keurig coffee machine so he's been really enjoying that! He loves his coffee!
 

Not much else going on here these days... but of course I can not make a post here without showing something crafty or scrappy!  I know a lot of scrappy bloggers are closing out their year end posts with a Top Ten of sorts... a review of photos of their top ten favorite scrappy projects they've accomplished throughout the past year.  I'm not going to do a top ten and I did want to share my favorite layout with you all, but then I realized I can't because my very favorite is currently out being published with Cricut magazine!  For now though I'll show you another of my favorite projects I did for the year... this one being a home decor piece that I created...

I made this large hanging snowflake ornament with some gorgeous Webster's Pages goodies... their beautiful teal and gold netting, some of their paper and alpha stickers and a heart shaped Whimsy.  The wood snowflake base I bought from Michaels, as well as the sweet vintage- like resin frame used for the center portion.  The frame was gold but I painted both the frame and the snowflake base with lots of white Tim Holtz crackle paint.  The tips of the snowflake also got embellished with a good amount of Diamond Dust glass glitter.  I'm glad I'll be able to display and enjoy this piece all throughout the Winter months!  And speaking of Webster's Pages... did you know that they are having their first ever "open Design Team call"?  Ohh my word... all I can say is WOW!  Such a fabulous opportunity that would be because I hear absolutley nothing but good things about this company and being able to be apart of their creative team!  The call ends December 31st, so you still have the chance to get in your entries for this fab opportunity!  I did enter... sent in my submission a few days okay, so now I patiently (or impatiently) wait with all the others!  What an honor it would be! 

Now how 'bout a looksie at some of the Christmas card designs I put together this year to send out to family and friends?  I usually do one card design and then make them all alike, but this year I decided to make a few different variations... thought maybe I wouldn't easily tire of doing them this way, and I really did enjoy making them much more!  This first set uses some "Everybody Loves Christmas" papers from Echo Park.

For the Joy card design here I used the "Joys of the Season" Cricut cartridge... my favorite for holiday designs!

I also did a card variation using some Lily Bee "Christmas Town" paper and the Peace card design from Joys of the Season...

AND... I also did a variation using both the Peace and Joy cards and Webster's Pages...

I also made a few others... these all different...

This one used some of the K&Company papers and accents for Christmas.  I also cut the partridge and pear tree from Joys of the Season. 

For the card I used more Echo Park paper, only I used their Sweet Summertime line, and yet again, Joys of the Season...

This one I used some American Crafts stuff with snowflake designs cut from Winter Woodland Cricut cart...

Yet another using Winter Woodland...

I had made this one with the "Deer Wishes" for a neighbor lady of mine who wanted a Christmas card with a deer on it to give to her grandson! 

And one last card... I also made this one for my neighbor lady.  She wanted another card for another grandson who likes to fish, so I came up with this card thanks to my very crafty friend, Wendy!  I happened to be perusing Wendy's blog looking for ideas because I know she always has cute "fishy" stamping designs for her son who loves everything and anything fishing!  I came across this fun set of stamped card designs that she did HERE and knew I could translate THIS idea with the help of Cricut!!  This is what I came up with...

I just love how the ornaments upside down can look like fishing lures!  Again, Joys of the Season and Life is A Beach for the fish image!  Okay, I am sorry that this card sharing went a bit over board... I didn't mean to draw out this post!  But alas, it is the last one for the year from me!  I hope that everyone has a prosperous, joyous and healthy New Year this coming 2011!  Enjoy and Blessings to all! :D

Time Keeps On Slippin'!

How can this be?  It's already well into December... and this is my first post of the month?!! Geeesh!  Time is slippin' away!

So much more yet to get done before next weekend and sooo little time.  I hope everyone has been having a terrific holiday season, even if it is going fast for ya!

Anyway,  last time I blogged a post, I did say that I was going to share with you all a lot more of the projects that I had done for LCOM using the new Bella BLVD. lines that the DT was givin to work with.  I can still share a bit, but I have to tell ya... several of my Bella projects have been picked up for publication!   Yeah!!  Last week was totally a great week of requests for me... I had a total of 6 project, requests!  First, I had 3 layouts and 1 card picked up for the April/May 2011 issue of the new Cricut magazine from Northridge Publishing.  Very exciting because as most of you all probably know,I love, love, love using my Cricut... how cool it would be to have something published in every Cricut issue (fingers crossed)... so far so good because I'm 2 for 2! Then, I also had a card picked up for the May 2011 issue of CARDS, which is one of my Bella BLVD. creations.  Last, I had 2 more layouts requested for the other new Cricut inspired magazine, The Bug Magazine.  They requested 2 pages for the Spring theme, however I could only send them one because the other was already sent in for the Cricut magazine request!  So looking forward to seeing all these things in print in the coming year! 

So yes... here are some things that I can share with you... all using Bella BLVD.  I had never really played with Bella BLVD. before getting these collections in my hand, but they are seriously CUTE lines!  I love how there are 12x12 pages full of coordinating sticker embellies AND alphas... perfect! 

This first card uses the Hello Beautiful line.  Aren't the bold colors fun?  Lovin' the teal paired with the red.  See the embossing in the cupcake to make it look wavy on the blue icing top?  I used the Zebra animal-print texture plate from Sissix! 

I used the Distressed Stripes folder from Cuttlebug to add the texture to the cupcake liner.  The cupcake is actually one of the cut-outs from the 12x12 sheet of Hello Beautiful paper. 

And, here's a layout that I made... this using mostly the Lovey dovey line!  Sorry about the quality of these photos though... for some reason I was having a tough time photographing this page well... the colors just didn't show up well for me at all.  They really don't appear as washed out IRL, as they do here! 

This page has been a long time coming. I've been wanting to scrap this photo for awhile and the Lovey dovey line from Bella BLVD. just seemed to really fit the "feel" that I wanted for this layout! The flower part I cut using my Cricut and then I embossed it with the Meadow Lark Cuttlebug folder. I cut the heart portion from a sheet of the 12x12 pp from the Lovey dovey line and used it for the center of the flower!

Well, as always, thanks for stopping by to visit!  I hope to come back to make another post before Christmas arrives... time willing!  It's been one whirl-wind of a month for sure, but I'd still like to share pix of our Christmas decorations for this year so I hope to do that.  Enjoy your weekend ahead and have fun getting all the last minute stuff together... one more week equals last minute IMO! 

 

Let's Capture Our Memories DT Projects!

My first month of dt projects are finally up for reveal at LCOM!  For this month we were supplied with a fun box of vintage inspired goodies which included papers from the Tim Holtz collections.  Honestly, I was a bit unsure about how to begin... how to approach working with these papers.  I had the idea-ology Lost and Found collection, definitely more vintage in style, and not normally something I would use, but I believe I did a pretty good job of creating some well rounded projects in the end!  Sooo, here's a look at all my creations, and if you'd like to see more supply info..etc... you can check them all out over on the DT projects board at LCOM, HERE! 

This was my Anniversary card to DH for our 10th last month!  :)

 

 

 

Ohhh, and for the above card design, I must give credit to Calia Yang for her beautiful stamp embossed tags above!  I only attached them onto my card, but Calia created those beauties... thanks, Calia!  They sure did make for a fabulous looking card if I must say so myself!  :)

Get Picky!!

Have you heard there's a new challenge blog,
"Get Picky"? 
This one is all about creating with
multi-photos... something that I really enjoy in my scrapping! 
I'm very excited about their challenges and I hope to participate in them whenever I get the chance.

The first sketch went up on their blog on the 15th, which also happened to be Wave of Light, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.  We lit our special candle that night in observance of this day and in remembrance of our angels.   I took some great photos to commemorate what we do on this day every year, and they were a perfect fit for Get Picky's first sketch!  Here's my page...

(You may click on the pictures to view them larger)

and here's the sketch, Get Picky Sketch #1...

I tried to be a little creative by creating a large flame for my background image in place of the sketch's circle.  I also got to play with some of the new Tradition line from Fancy Pants.  I love the flocked red damask transparency... it's gorgeous! 

Tomorrow will be a fun day... spending the day in Lancaster!  We're going to a Britt Nicole, Revive and Hawk Nelson concert!  My niece loves Hawk Nelson, and her Birthday is coming up November 27th, so we are taking her and her boyfriend along with us for an early Birthday surprise!  I know she's going to be soo excited!  We're also going to do some outlet shopping and get dinner before the show.  Times to Remember, an awesome scrapbook store located at the Hershey Outlets just recently opened up their second Times to Remember location at the Rockvale Outlets in Lancaster... sooo you know where I'll be headed! :D Have yourselves a good one... I plan to!   

Not Feeling So Fancy!

So... the notifications for the new dt were to have gone out last night for the new Creative Team at Fancy Pants, and the list is to be posted sometime today.  I did not get a notification!  :(  Not real happy about it at all... just tired of putting myself out there and once more left feeling disappointed.  Blah!!! Anyway... thought for today I'd share the rest of my submission here, and then I can go back to my sulking for this bleak Monday afternoon, lol.  Hope you like them... I did! 

An October Sketch at Imaginisce...

I haven't participated or followed along in any sketch challenges lately and I was kind of craving one, lol, if ya can call it that... a sketch craving!  So I happened upon a great one over at the Imaginisce blog the other day and decided to dig into some of my Fall Papers from the Imaginisce Apple Cider collection. 
It's a one page sketch, however I decided to make mine a 2 page layout... but only my first page follows the sketch...

Here's the original sketch for October from Cindy Stevens at Imaginisce...

And again... here's the first page of my layout that goes with the sketch...

And some close-up detail...

Here's the second half of the layout and some detail as well...

I totally love this Apple Cider line as much as I loved these fun Fall pix from last year!  Look at the gorgeous colors in the leaves... I soo wish they were as brightly colored this year too, but so far they aren't anywhere near as colorful!  Check out that fun leaf doily I used on here... cool, huh?!  I bought  those leaf shaped doilies at the Dollar Tree store can you believe!  I thought they were totally perfect for scrapping with and for making some Fallish cards.  I spritzed on some Glimmer Mist for extra color and shimmer, and I also used them on the layout background here as masks... creating a really cool almost tie-dye like effect to the layout.  Anyway, thanks for checking out my layout and before I go I thought I'd also share a card that I made with a leaf doily and a left-over scrap of Imaginisce...

Hope everyone is enjoying their Fall as much as I am!  :)