World Card-Making Day Contest and Cricut!

Yes, today is October 1st, and it's World Card-Making Day! I love October AND card-making so it's a perfect fit!  And I happened to see that one of my favorite blogs, The Cricut blog, is offering up a super cool contest for the occasion.  :)  All you need to do is submit a card creation for an opportunity in winning one of 3 Cuttlebug machines that they are giving away!  Awesome, because although I have a Cuttlebug, I've been wanting to upgrade to the new and improved machine, so here's my chance!

Here's my card creation... perfect for October as well...

I used the Cricut Happy Hauntings cartridge for this card... and I LOVE this holiday cartridge!  To make the spider's body and Dracula's hair more textured here, I used some green pom-poms that I cut off of a section of  American Craft's Dear Lizzy trim.  I took the pom-poms and smooshed them and pulled them apart slightly then inked them with some black Staz-On ink.  After adhering the inked fibers to his head I took a white gel pen and used it to draw some emphasis to his hair part, as well as details to his eyes and fangs.  The web background was created with the Cuttlebug Spider-Web folder.  Hope you enjoyed my Halloween inspired, Cricut and Cuttlebug created card and thanks for stopping by!

An August Core Colour Challenge and More!

Are you all ready to play along with another colorful challenge with Core? 

Here is the inspiration piece for this month from Pinterest that Debbie Standard pinned for us from the shepaperie.blogspot.com.

Isn’t it beautiful?

SIX gorgeous colours to play with…..

For the Colour Lover’s Challenge you must use a noticeable amount of Core’dinations Cardstock

on your project. And since we are technique junkies here…we wanna see some technique, too! Sanding…embossing…sky is the limit!

Link your submission to THIS post or post on our Facebook account by August 30th for a chance to win some fabulous Core’dinations Cardstock!!!

And here is what I did with the combination of all these delightful colors...

For my card I used several colors of Core Essentials and some fabulous WhiteWash which I fringe cut for added texture.  The stamps used are from the BasicGrey Marjolaine collection and I also created that super plaid edging with my favorite plaid EK Success border punch! And thank you, Ellen... for letting me use your favorite American Crafts Charcoal Pigment ink-pad for my stamping!  It really is a wonderful gray ink ;)

Next up, Core is also pleased to be partnering with Paper Trunk this month!  This is the first time I had the pleasure of creating with their pretty paper designs, and I must say that they are beautifully textured! 

Core'dinations is so excited to bring you some fun Paper Trunk projects over the next few weeks.

Make sure you head over to their blog today for some awesome inspiration, too!

Keep commenting on both the Core and Paper Trunk blogs and you just may win some cool prizes for yourselves! Just sayin'!  ;)

And here is a card that I made with Paper Trunk patterned paper and alpha stickers and some BasicGrey Core Impressions and Core Essential cardstock...

The chandelier embossing is from a Sissix folder... definitely a cool one to add to the ever growing collection of folders! 

In other goings-on here at home, must say it's been a very productive week since the hubs has been home on vacation!  We decided to stay home and get some projects done around the house so now the garage doors, the porch banisters/railings, the window shutters and both the front and side doors have all been re-painted now.  It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do!  But we still have plenty of rooms to paint inside and I don't even want to think about starting them now, lol!  Think we will wait till the weather cools down a bit.  After two days of sprucing up around the home we took the day and went to one of our favorite local amusement parks, Knoebel's!  We had a beautiful day of bright blue skies and we took my mom along too.  She hadn't been to the park in at least 15 years, so I was glad to see her enjoying the day there as well! Now tomorrow we may escape to Lancaster for the day... the QVC outlet is calling my name, lol!  Have another wonderful weekend, everyone!

Lazy Saturday!

It is a very beautiful Saturday, and here I sit!  I am absolutely lazy... have not done a thing but flip the stupid remote.  I don't know what's wrong but I just can't find my motivation plus I'm sad because today is Knoebel's opening day, and since the dh is working, that means we aren't there :(  What a perfect day it would be for a day at the park! 

So since I have no urge for housework, I thought I'd at least squeeze in a blog post!  How bout' a look at some recent publications?  First up, I had 3 layouts and a card in the April/May issue of Cricut magazine. 

Once more, I can not stress enough how awesome the Cricut mags are!  Absolutely my favorite publication now.   And since Mother's Day is just days away, I can show a card that I made for my mom which is in this magazine...

For this card I used the cute button frame which can be found on the Cricut Wild Card cartridge.  It worked perfect with the sewing theme!

I also had a few pages in the issue, including this fun page of a photo I snapped of my crazy niece hugging a tree.

This one is of me doing one of my favorite Springtime activities... hanging out my laundry!  I used the Straight From the Nest cartridge to create the clothesline and to show that you can easily mix your Cricut diecuts with various company product lines as I have done here with the clothesline to match up with the American Crafts Dear Lizzy collection.

And my last published item in the issue is the first 2 pager I've had published!  This one was for their banners section and I used all Bella Blvd. for this layout, and once again, the Straight From the Nest cartridge. 

For some reason, blogger is not allowing me to change the sizes of my pix on here at the moment, so hopefully you can just click on a picture to view it larger.  This 2 pager has a ton of fun details... esp. with the banner.

 

And one more publication to share... a card that I had published in the March 2011 issue of CARDS. 

The butterflies used on this card I had cut from a roll of printed kraft paper wrap...

And the other "ingredients" came from one of the Yellow Bag kits from For The Luv of Art.com!

 

Okay... that's all of my projects for now.

Before I go though, just wanted to share one more thing that's near and dear to my heart.  As most of you know, I am a mommy to 3 beautiful Heavenly angels whom I'd give anything to just be able to mother them here on Earth.  Mother's Day is coming up shortly, and although I enjoy celebrating that day with my own mom, I still can't help but to feel let down, disappointed and hurt that I do not have my children here with me on that special day (and EVERY day).  Even though in my heart I know I am a mother, it's often very difficult to "feel" like a mother.   All mother's who have experienced their own loss feel this way to some degree and that is why International Babylost Mothers Day was established.  This day is celebrated tomorrow, Sunday, May 1st.  Please, if you have a close friend or family member who is missing their child, don't forget that even though their child is not here with them, they  still deserve to be a celebrated mother!

If you know of a mother who holds her baby in her heart and not in her arms, let her know you are thinking of her that day. "United in grief, we find love and strength"!

Chalk it Up to Lovin' Me Some Vintage!

Yes, I am a lover of antiques and vintage stuff!  Although I don't neccessarily have a lot of valuable items in my own collection, I do love to pick up an occasional piece here and there to sit around and pretty up the house!  And, I do love to go to the flea-markets and antique malls and such whenever I get a chance.  Absolutely love browsing.  So as I was up in my gram's attic helping my mom put some things away one day, I came across a very cool shabbily chic white ornate frame lying in a bag.

Of course my gram told me to take it, and so I did... wasn't going to pass that offer up, lol! At first I was thinking I'd use it to frame a mirror, but then I was looking through either an issue of Country Living or Better Homes magazine, and saw that they took similar frames and turned them into chalk boards.  What a novel and cool idea, so that's what I did with it.  First I had my brother cut me an oval shaped wood board  to fit the frame.

Then all I had to do was paint the board with some black chalk board spray paint and glue the piece into the frame opening and now I instantly have a very chic framed chalk board for my room.

Think I need to soon make another trip up to my gram's attic!  I'm sure there are plenty more hidden treasures! 

As for scrapping/crafting... I had myself a very productive extra-long weekend at Ellen's for our scrappy girls's retreat!  Gosh, did we ever have so much fun.  If it's something we girls can do to the best of our abilities, it's scrap, laugh and eat, lol! We sure didn't go hungry!  Anyway, already looking so forward to our next gathering in November.  But this past weekend I was concentrating on designing a lot of projects with Core'dinations Cardstock, as they have a new Design Team call in the works right now, and I'm planning on submitting for it.  I would totally LOVE to join the Core team and create til my hearts content with their yummy cardstock! Ellen is a part of the current team, and I'm always so amazed by the magic she creates with Core... definitely would be a thrill to join her ;)

I'm not going to show you any of those projects with the Core right now... that will be in a post coming soon!  However, I'll share with you a little gift bag I made for a Baby Shower gift-card.  I was so excited with this one because it was actually the first time I used my Tags, Bags, Boxes and More Cricut cartridge!  I believe I've had this cart for a year or more already and never broke it out til this weekend, but I can tell ya it's not going to take me that long to put it to use again...

Oh, I also used my new Sew Easy tool on here from WRMK.  It got a little wonky in areas, but I'll practice with it some more.  Those cool wood stars on there are new wood veneer stars from Studio Calico (thanks, Ellen)... love them!  The papers are from Echo Park's For the Record line, and I used a Papertrey Ink label die with an SRM sticker.  The wee lil' duckie is was cut using the Wild Card cart from Cricut.  And the buttons... again, chalk it up to vintage.  Love my stash of vintage buttons, and I even found a yellow gingham one to match the paper here! And before I head out, also wanted to share a previous card publication.  This one is a Thanksgiving card that was in the Nov. 2010 CARDS issue...

Lots of American Crafts paper there and the turkey was cut with the Cricut Doodlecharms cart. 

Okay.. I'm headed out.  Mornings come way to early and I've got to work so I must find my bed.  But please visit me again soon... I'll be back in a few days to reveal my creations for the Core'dinations DT call!  C-ya! 

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