My Core'dinations DT Into...

it's up today on the Core blog!  You can see it HERE!

For our first assignment/challenge we were to create an "all about me" page to go along with our dt profile introduction, so here is what I did...

For this I used some beautiful Teresa Collins Core Amour cardstock, "Posh Flowers" from the Prince and Princess collection. The photo itself, I printed out onto a sheet of Vanilla Cream Core Essentials cardstock.  I also did some sanding of the photo and spritzed on some Mister Huey's Calico Cream mist. The Large circle area of roses on the corner I painted on some sparkles with some Glimmer Glam paint in Chandelier and I painted the gray leaves green with Glimmer Mist spray. Those other roses are cut from Sassafras paper and I added pink glitter foam paint from DecoArt to those.  And there's also some pink Vintage Core used on here too for matting the photo.   I've also been playing around with one of my new favorite punches lately... the Plaid border punch from EK Success.  I used it here along the bottom edge of my photo because I thought it worked well with the look of the  woven texturing in the Teresa Collins Core Amour. 

I guess that's really all I have to share with you today.  It's Monday, so I've been doing a lot of catch-up chores from the weekend... got the laundry hanging on the line, and I am finishing up a DIY paint job that I started on our fireplace front this weekend.  It's coming along pretty good, so I'm satisfied.  I'll probably share pictures of all that sometime soon.  I've got so many rooms that I want to paint here at our house but I just hate the thought of actually putting it all into play.  DH has a week of vacation coming up in August so hopefully we can both kick it into full gear! Enjoy your week, everyone! 

Soooo Hot!

I feel like I am wilting, it is so humid and icky!  I've had a bad headache all day and this heat just isn't helping, argh!! Where is my favorite time of the year already?  I'm ready for October, lol!

So I know I haven't blogged again in over a week, and my buddy Ellen had to give me the nudge to let me know.  What can I say, this summer heat really slows me down, and also since I've been working at the preschool these past months, I require more naps too.  I really do, and I did just that today!  I came home and settled down on the couch for a snooze for a good two hours :)

Did you happen to visit the Core'dinations blog or facebook page recently?  Well, if you haven't you really should because there is always a lot of inspiring work being posted that you really don't want to miss out on.  Fun challenges and giveaways happening too... like this one...

It’s June 1st. Let’s kick of this month with a fun CHALLENGE!

What do you think?

We just loved this technique that Melissa Oliveira shared with us yesterday on the blog that we wanted to extend the invitation to try it to YOU!

Journaling is such an important part of a scrapbookers journey to preserve memories and tell stories.

SO for this challenge….we want to see your Journaling. It doesn’t have to be this specific technique…you can journal any way you choose.

But for this challenge there are a few things you must do:

1) JOURNAL

2.) Use Core’dinations Cardstock (it must be a visible component of the layout).

3.) Link your project to THIS blog post or post it on our Facebook page. Make sure you “like” us, too!

4.) Show off a cool Core technique and we will throw in an additional chance to win!

The rest is up to you!

And how could I forget??? Of Course a random Winner will win some CORE’DINATIONS CARDSTOCK!

                     Deadline for this challenge is two weeks…June 15th by midnight PST.

Some fun news!  This past weekend I was pleasantly surprised to open my email inbox and have it full of publication requests.  I got a total of 11 projects requested... 7 things for the Cricut Holidays Idea Book, 2 for Cricut Nov. 2011, 1 card for CARDS Nov. 2011 and my first project with Simply Handmade! 

And before I leave ya, I'll share with you a

birthday card that I submited for publication which didn't get selected.  I love this one, and I created it for a little girls birthday...

Of course I used my Cricut!  Here I used the Straight From the Nest cart (again, one of my faves) to cut the cupcake border and party hat. 

The paper collection is Cosmo Cricket's Togetherness. 

And here's another card I made not too long ago also with the Togetherness collection...

I just love the lil' bead accents from Recollections that I added as rain droplets coming from the clouds!

Thanks for checking in with me, and please don't forget about the challenge over at Core'dinations... you still have until the 15th to get yours submitted!   Have a great weekend!

Just Call me Lazy!

Yep, that's why I haven't been updating my blog these past days.  I am just plain lazy.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it, lol! That, and I'm tired and right now I'm sticky hot on this Memorial Day Weekend.  Today I went to a family picnic and now I'm at home catching up on laundry and prepping my 2 rocking chairs on my front porch to be repainted.  That's what I love about these extended holiday weekends... gives me the opportunity to do extra household chores and home projects that have been on hold for so long!  Ohh, and of course, being lazy and chowing down ice cream AND all the other favorite picnic foods ! ;)

So  this week I had a very heavy box delivered to my front door.  We are talking about 35 lbs. of heaviness... 35 lbs. of pure LOVE!  My first Core'dinations dt box arrived and it was overflowing with  cardstock.  I just couldn't believe my eyes, and tearing into that box, I felt just like a little kid on Christmas Day!  I've started creating some things with it too this week, mostly card designs. 

Most of them I can't really show just yet, but I'll share one card that I made using the Vintage Core collection, which is one of my favorite lines. 

This card also uses some yummy Sassafras papers and one of their chipboard flower accents.  And to you see the denim strip on there?  I rubbed some cute Studio Calico button rub-ons over it and added them to an old Creative Cafe diecut frame as well!  The sentiment is a Papertrey Ink stamp.

I also participated in a fun card kit swap this week at the Nook and here's a card that I put together to send along to my swap partner...

For this card I used up the remains of my Pink Paislee (House of Three) Daily Junque paper scraps, and the darling flower I created using the Cricut Give a Hoot cartridge.

So that's all I have for this time, but I hope everyone is having a great weekend!  We don't have much at all planned for tomorrow but we'll probably hang out with some friends at their camp-site... and maybe I'll even have some more ice cream!  ;)  Perfect plan!

A Sketch At Nikki Sivils!

Howdy!  Hope everyone's had an enjoyable weekend.  Hard to believe it's about wrapped up... those Sunday evenings sure do come around quickly when you don't want them to, lol! 

I had big intentions of doing a lot of scrapping this weekend, but somehow those intentions didn't amount to much at all between catching up on the loads of laundry, sweeping the floors and cleaning out closets.  The Nook was having their May virtual crop all weekend long and they had 29 challenges listed.  I really had hoped to do many of them... I wrote them all down too and was thinking about which challenges to attack first.  In reality though, I was only able to produce one layout for the #12 challenge to "Go Wild About Animals".  At least I did finally get these pix scrapped from last summer when we had a little thief amongst us... a sneaky groundhog who kept burrowing it's way into our garden to feast upon our veggies.  For this page, I used some of the adorable Beatrice papers from Nikki Sivils and also used the sketch from the Nikki Sivils blog to try to earn a Guest Design Team spot. 

And here's the sketch...

I also used a variety of Core'dinations cardstock here and the Paper Lace and Sweethearts Cricut cartridges. 

Okay, that's it... that's all I got done, so it's all I've got to share for this time.  Ohh, I almost forgot though, I also wanted to share that I had some fun scrappy happy emails this past week as well... I had one card requested for the Oct. CARDS issue as well as four other projects picked up for the Oct. issue of Cricut, so of course those really made my week super exciting!  And did you know that the Cricut magazine has gone monthly now instead of bi-monthly?!  I'm really stoked about that! 

Well, I do need to be on my way... Monday morning will be here before I want it to and I've got to go to work.  It is nice to be working outside of the home part-time again, but I don't think I can ever get used to and enjoy the Monday morning routines!  Hope everyone has a great week :)

I'm Shocked to the Core!

This is what I woke up to find this morning...

HAPPY NATIONAL SCRAPBOOKING DAY!

We wanted thank each and every person for applying for the Design Team Call.

It was not easy and the Core’dinations Team spent endless hours going through the entries. There were so many amazing entries and narrowing things down was extremely difficult.

Without further ado, here is the new Core’dinations Cardstock Design Team (in alphabetical order).

 Andrea Amu 
April Derrick
Char Dobson
Leica Forrest
Lydia Jackson
Kim Jeffress
Brianne Nevill
Melissa Oliveira
Debbie Standard
Shaunte Wadley

Sarah Hodgkinson, DT Core’dinator

Ellen Sosnoski, Blog Core’dinator

Core Teachers:
Vicki Boutin
Cari Locken
Kimber McGray

Again, thank you to all of the applicants!!! We thank you for

the amazing entries and for your love of Core’dinations Cardstock. It

means so much to see that.

I was floored!  Still am.  But I can not hardly wait to get started in my venture with them.  I also want to give my congratulations to all the other designers!  Well done, and I look forward to working with you all this term!

Now onto other scrappy news on this wonderful National Scrapbooking Day...

as I am also hosting a fun last minute Mother's Day layout challenge for NSD at For The Luv of Art.com.  Would love to see you all pop in over at FTLOA and play along.  Here is the thread LINK to my challenge.  All you need to do is complete a page which includes:

* Fussy cutting with some patterned paper.

* Using either the word "Mom", "Daughter", "Son" or "Family" as part of your title/sub-title.

* Using butterflies as some sort of embellishing.

Here's my example which I am framing and giving to my mom for Mother's Day tomorrow...

I used lots of Core'dinations (Cosmo Cricket Neutrals collection in Weathered Tin Mixed Dot and Jenni Bowlin Studio Vintage Brights collection in Aquarium Butterfly), Pink Paislee/House of Three Daily Junque papers ("Tickets" and "News") and some Maya Road embellishments.  All my diecutting accents were created with the Cricut, monograms from A Child's Year cartridge and the postcard design and Always & Forever phrase from the Sentimentals cartridge. 

Your challenge page should be completed and uploaded to my thread my Monday, noon (EST). This is the RAK that is up for grabs for one random participant...

Hope you'll play along and join in with all the other fun challenges happening over at FTLOA today and throughout the rest of the weekend!   I am going to get going so I can finish getting my scrap on ... it's been a very fast paced day and unfortunately, I've gotten very little done.  How does time fly so quickly when you are doing things you love to do?  Anyway, I hope everyone else is enjoying their day too.  Happy NSD and best wishes to all for a very special Mother's Day tomorrow as well!

 

My Layout at GingerScrapStreet Magazine!

Good afternoon all! 

Just wanted to do a quick post for today, as I'll be back Saturday to post some stuff for NSD (National Scrapbook Day)! 

I have a layout featured in the May 2011 issue of GingerScrapStreet's digital publication which can be seen HERE!  And here's my page as well with some extra detail shots too...

This layout was based on the following wonderful sketch by the uber talented, Allison Davis, featured on her Sketch Support site...

For this page I used the heart, medallion and cupid accents cut from the Cricut Sweethearts cart and the font, XOXO and fabulous heart border which I cut using the Cricut Paper Lace cart.

That wonderful houndstooth is a digital paper design by Chris Hertel.  I've used that print of hers numerous times, but I love it and it's so fun to use on layouts and cards.  If you'd like to download some of your own, you can HERE!  Just be sure to give Chris some well deserved credit! ;) 

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be seeing you all around on Saturday for NSD!  Can't wait!

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"!

Just For You!

It's another cold and wet rainy day here... the day before Easter! Kind of makes me want to crawl right back under the covers, but I have stuff to get done so there will be none of that today! 

Anyway, thought I'd come onto my blog and post the one and only crafty thing that I got accomplished this week.  One card!  Disappoints me when I don't have more than that done is a week's time... afterall, I usually like to do a little something crafty every day.  And to think, I only worked 2 days this week, so I have no clue where the rest of the week went.  Hopefully later tonight I can get my scrap on... it's not like I don't have any pictures or lack of product to work with, lol! I need a scrappy play day :)

Well here's my card... Just For You...

I really like the color palette that I put together for this one.  All the cardstock except the kraft is Core'dinations (Cosmo Cricket Impressions and Vintage Core).  The sentiment and the butterfly stamps are from myStampBOX... love these for Spring!  The patterned paper and mini brads are new Fancy Pants and the crinkled bow is vintage seam binding that I colored myself with some Glimmer Mist.  Almost forgot... the large butterfly is a Cricut cut from one of my favorite carts... Straight From the Nest.  So, there ya have it.  I am off now to make a trip to the grocery store... the day before Easter.  Should be lots of fun.  Yea!   And if you are celebrating Easter tomorrow, I do hope everyone has a very special day with the people you love! 

Woodland Animals and Woodpeckers!

Hello, and good Monday to all!  Um, I know Mondays aren't all too popular, but hey, at least it's NOT raining here!  I'm so tired of the rain.  And how nice it is to even hear the birds chirping too... so yeah, I'll take a Monday without rain!

Thought today I'd post my most recent projects that I did for CreativeXpress.com. 

First up is a sweet notecard set that I made using the Cindy Loo Cricut cartridge. 

I am lovin' this cart... so many neat images, ranging from the woodland creatures that I've used here for this set, to florals and even a dainty looking font! Anyway, this all started as a recycle project.  Instead of throwing out a box of unused notecard envelopes for which I previously used all the notecards, I decided to utilize my Cricut to create an entirely new set of notecards, and not only that, I even decorated the white box flat holding them.  Here's what I'm talking about... this is what the set looked like before the big revamp...

The papers I used for this set were Basic Grey's Marjolaine collection.  I was drawn to the blues and greens in this line, and the plaid pattern especially!  I cut strips of the plaid paper to 3/4" and used tacky tape to adhere the strips around the edges of the box flat.  Then I cut 2 panels from a floral design to fit the bottoms of the inside and outer side of the box.  I took the long diamond border sticker from the sticker elements sheet in the Marjolaine collection and cut the sticker strip in half to finish the detail of the 2 longer sides of the box flat.

 

I made an entirely new set of 6 cards to go with the envies and I made these as monogram notecards using the pretty font included on the Cindy Loo cart.  I also embellished each of the notecards with a fabric Bloomer from the Marjolaine line, and to complete this set and make it perfectly presentable for gift-giving, I wrapped it all up with a piece of blue tulle secured with a cute clear blue button, also from the Marjolaine collection! 

 Next, I did a scrapbook page featuring the Cricut Paper Lace cartridge and the Basic Grey Pyrus collection.  This Paper Lace cart also happens to be a great companion to the Cindy Loo cart, as well as the StoryBook cart!  It's packed with so many beautiful and intricate lacey designs for backgrounds, and equally elegant borders.  You will also find a classic looking font included on this cart which is very useful!

I believe I created a well balanced page here using the content from this cart.  I used an all over pattern for the base background and also included some of the border imagery for accenting above and below my photos.  I also used the font for some of the title work (Woodpecker).

Okay, that's all I've got for now... hoping to go finish up some cards I started earlier since I'll be away all day tomorrow.  Hope you enjoyed your Monday and I'll c-ya around!

More Rain, More Core'!

Another rainy day here in PA!  Days like this, all I want to do is stay inside and snuggle up on the couch! I never seem to get much at all accomplished around the house when it's raining cats-n-dogs! So at least for today while I'm waiting for some sunshine to make it's appearance, thought I'd share a few other cards that I've made recently with lots of gorgeous Core'dinations cardstock.  Afterall, Core' is sure to brighten up any dreary day! 

So for this first card, I made a "Welcome Home"  theme for which I used some lovely Jenni Bowlin Studio Core Impressions in cream... it's the pretty floral print embossed cardstock in the background! 

 I love that the print is so vintage and subtle. 

I also used some Whitewash Core'dinations on this card for the pineapples... the yellow reverse side of a piece of Whitewash for which I debossed a diamond texture with a Cuttlebug machine and a Sissix Basic Grey design folder.  I used a Brilliance inkpad in Coffee Bean to color the diamond texture.  The green palm tops of the pineapples are also made with Core'... some Cosmo Cricket Core Impressions!  I cut the pineapples with the Cricut Serenade Solutions cartridge.

And, here's yet another card that I made using the nesting dolls embossing with Core' cardstock. 

For this card I used three different colors of Core Essentials cardstock.  I paired up 2 different shades of pink in the Pretty-In-Pink Color Family (St.Valentino, Fuchsia Fizz) with Deep Lagoon, from the Teal Blues Family. I created a double matted look to this card by embossing the nesting dolls pattern onto 2 panels of the Blue Lagoon cardstock, cutting one down smaller and mating it with the Fuchsia Fizz pink.  I then mounted the smaller panel onto the larger panel, making sure to line the dolls up evenly with their outlines.  I did sand over the embossed pattern with the Core Sand It Gadget, but then I wanted the pattern of the dolls and the texture of the Core' to be even more intense, so I shaded over the embossed cardstock with a white colored pencil. 

I only used this colored pencil technique on the smaller center panel, whereas the outer panel was only sanded.  To finish this card I added two extra pink embossed dolls to the middle of the card with foam dimensional squares.  I highlighted the flowers of these two pink dolls with a teal blue colored pencil and applied silver pearl accents.  Popped on a pretty pink Prima bloom  to complete the look!

In other crafty news this week, I was extremely giddy to have had a total of ten cards picked up for publication over the weekend!  I'll have a card set and one other card in the August issue of Cricut magazine and then seven more cards in their special Cricut Cards issue!  One of my cards for that issue will even be featured as a tutorial so that makes it all the more exciting for me. 

Okay, I need to get going... I have piles of laundry that need sorting.  I do really need to do something today since I work the rest of the week.  Hope everyone is enjoying their week, and as always... thanks for stopping by :)