Saturdays are Great Days!

Yes, Saturdays are wonderful days for lots of reasons, but NOT for snow and especially not snow in October!  How disappointing!  I thoroughly love my Fall wheather every year and I enjoy October in all it's wonderful Autumn splendor, but snow does not belong in the category of "Autumn  splendor"... at least not for me!  But, it is what it is, and I guess we just have to deal, lol!

However, like I said, Saturdays are great days, and today, well... today is a great one to stay home inside all curled up cozy on the couch enjoying one of the last days of October... watching AMC's Fear Fest on the telly!  It's also a wonderful day to bake some Chocolate Chip Pumpkin muffins and to finish up some crafty assignments with my Core'dinations cardstock and Cricut! And it's also a great time to finally catch up my blog posting with some previous magazine publications I've had!  So, for today I'll share with you various cards that I had showcased in the Cricut magazine's "Cards" issue...

 

My first card uses the fun martini Cricut cut on "From My Kitchen" and some of my favorite Summer Soiree papers from Fancy Pants. 

Second card is a heart shaped card from "Wild Card" and I used Basic Grey's Green at Heart collection... I love the turtle stickers that I Cuttlebug embossed!

Then I had one of my favorite cards featured!  I love this one because I used different cuts to make and form a totally new image.  For this one I combined a birdcage cut from the "Straight From the Nest" cart along with a flower pot cut to create a hot air balloon! 

This card uses the "Dad's Day" phrase from the "Designer's Calendar" cart.  I love the textures displayed on this one from the Green Vintage Core base and the shape cut from Prima screen-printed canvas! The Basic Grey Marjolaine collection was also used.

Next up is a card using some fun Core Amour Collection in Onyx (Darling print).  Other patterned papers are by BoBunny and Cricut cuts from "Lyrical Letters" and "Straight From the Nest".

And last, a wedding card featuring cuts from "Stamping Solutions", "StoryBook" and "Wild Card", along with papers by GCD Studios. 

And that's a wrap!  Okay, it's back to enjoying the rest of my wonderful, but snowy Saturday!  I hope everyone else enjoys their day as well!  

Already August!

The months sure are flying by... especially these Summer months!  Can't believe it is already the beginning of August, but I'm not complaining of course because that only means my favorite time and season of the year is almost in sight!  I'm already starting to enjoy the Fall scents in the house... I can't resist, lol.  Over the weekend I was in Wal-Mart and ended up in the candle aisle (no surprise there).  They had a new item from their Better Homes collection, Scented Wax Cubes... their version of the Scentsy warmer bars! I guess they had them in the stores last Christmas season, but I missed them some how, and other Wal-Mart stores have carried them for months now, but it's the first I've seen them here at our closest WM. Let me just say they smell just as great and are much cheaper at $2.00 each! I got the Vanilla Caramel Spice to try and I'm in scent heaven because it makes the house smell just like Cinnabon!  Seriously, I keep getting cravings for sticky buns now :)  Yep, I will be stocking up on these, and they (Wal-Mart) better not go and discontinue these anytime soon like they did when I was in love with buying their wall plug-in scents they used to have that were like the Bath and Body Wall Flowers!

Since it is August now, I thought today I would show some of my past publications that were in the June/July issue of Cricut magazine.

 You know I love my Cricut and I love to share what I do with it... and I also can not say enough about the Cricut magazine!  It is my favorite publication and I can happily relay that I've had and will have some of my work featured in every single issue (regular and special issues) since the magazine has been in publication up to and through the January 2012 issue.  That's very exciting for me! 

Anyway, here's a look at what all I had featured in this particular issue (their final bimonthly, because starting with the August issue they are now MONTHLY)...

My "Lazy Days" card featured the Life is a Beach Cricut cart and the Echo Park's Sweet Summertime collection.

This next layout, I used BoBunny papers and cardstock along with a combination of the Don Juan,Stand and Salute and Wild Card cartridges to create the layered title words and stars...

(Don't forget you may click on the images to view them larger!)

And here's a layout where I got creative with embossing the diecuts... aren't those cute crabbies?

The Life is a Beach and From My Kitchen carts were used for this along with Kaiser papers.  The bottom border was created by using the negative cuts of the crab border to mask and mist with Glimmer Mist spray.

I do also have 2 more cards and another 1 page layout that were published in this issue as well, but I have seemed to lost my images on the computer, so I can't share those, but maybe later. 

For now though, I am about to go get busy in the kitchen.  I have been wanting to try to make those super yummy looking cake ball truffles that are all the rage now in the world of sugary confections!  Have you seen them?  If not, this is what I am talkin' about...

And, here's a recipe! They are really dense and truffle-like because you actually fold the frosting into the already baked cake pieces, making it both dense and moist.  You really can use your imagination and do any flavors or combination of flavors you'd like!  I just went and bought some candy melts today and I'm going to first try making some lemon cake truffles with cream cheese frosting, because that's all I have here at home right now.  I'm going to coat them with both white and dark chocolate though.  Ohh, you all... I just can't wait anymore, so I'm off... but I'll be sure to let you all know how they look and taste! :)   Good day 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"!