My Circle Calling Card

In anticipation of possibly attending a circle meet up I created a few calling cards and a box to carry them. Now I can't wait for a meet up I can actually attend!

 The first card has a clear printable acrylic front (using the imagine and Hopscotch cartridge) and is stapled to the white backing. Love this one but I ended up using plain paper and trying a different style as well. The sun is actually cut from the Imagine using photo paper that had less than stellar results in my printer but looks great with the Imagine! Using photo paper in the Imagine is one of my favorite effects. I can't wait to try some interesting things using the gypsy and the Imagine when they update it to print and cut. The box was just a quick whatever works kinda construction but I wanted it reinforced so it was an interesting project, with lots of scraps left over :)

Halloween Blog Hop Winners are....

Big Thanks to those who stopped by and left a comment on my blog. I heard from some who made houses and loved all their ideas, I heard from those who were inspired to try some projects of their own. So, I consider the blog hop a great success! You were all very kind to offer such nice comments and I wish I had something for everyone like (trick or treating) but I only have three prizes and those prizes go to....

1. Sin City Chix  
2. Christina 2
3. scrapBugz

Congratulations to the winners! They were chosen by random.org after I copied and pasted everyone's names into the "List Randomizer" so rest assured I read each and every comment! :)

Christina 2 was the second Christina to post who said...

I love your haunted house and the 'spooky' word on your wall! The candles are adorable too! You are very talented!

Christina

They each left contact info! So I'll be sending notice today and wait to hear from them.  Winners, please let me know which prize you want...first come first served! If I don't hear from the winners after two weeks I will move down the list that was generated from random.org! Thanks, again, it was so much fun!

Pretty in Pink

I love it when I have a challenge to work on so this week I decided to try for the Circle Blog challenge. Any type of submission was accepted with a minimum of two cricut cuts, and PINK! Ruffles, swirls, and scallops and bling were the order of the day as well. For my submission I redid a purse I tried for a friends daughter this week. Hers was not so pink so I decided to go over the top.  Found this swirled pink lustrous paper in the DCWV Luxury stack and went to town. It cut really nicely from the Forever Young cricut cartridge and I decided to try the ruffles again.

This time I put a double row of sookwang tape at the edge of a plain white base cut from the same design. Just the back of the one section(make sure it's the one with the slit or you'll be cutting through it later) I pleated along the edge laying it along the tape and letting it show over the edge. Then taped all through the center to help it stay put. The effect was a pretty ruffle right at the edge of the purse, sandwiched between the papers. Next I added a triple scalloped circle tag with the same ribbon and then added a few sparkles in white on the handle and the center of the closure. I went together surprisingly easily and quickly! Think I'll put in some goodies for a dear friend who watched my B today! ;)

Welcome to the Haunted Halloween Blog Hop!

Welcome to my blog for the Halloween Hop. I can't wait to see what others have crafted as well as show you my latest creations. If you want to start at the beginning, hop on over to CricutConfessions to see what all of our talented crafters have in store for you!

If you are following along already you've just been to SeaSwansCreations blog and your next hop will take you to Bitz-n-Pieces blog.



Well, were you wondering if anyone would tackle the house on the Happy Hauntings Cricut cartridge? Well I did! And boy am I glad. It is a really nicely planned out piece and the directions are pretty good. Other than wishing I had a few more hands at some points, I think it was more time consuming than anything.There is so much detail in this it's amazing. I used a very thin mulberry paper hand cut for this and plan on putting a nice bright light underneath! I'll also be adding to it with some ghosts and some tombstones in front over the next few days, as well as the spooky 3-D tree already in the works, so come back for an update! ***Updated!***

The complete display!

I also made a few quickie candles to display using some vinyl and some cut from the seasonal cricut cartridge Pumpkin Carving..Funny but the center one is called the owl! :) These would look good with some candy corns sprinkled around them but hmmm......somehow the candy has disappeared! Maybe one of my little goblins. ;)

Love the little one in the middle and they smell so good! Love IKEA!

 Another incentive to check back? I will be randomly selecting three winners from the comments left on this post for some blog candy!! I happen to be a CTMH rep and have two super cute Halloween stamp sets to give out as well as a set of a glue pen and super sparkly prisma glitter!! You don't have to follow my blog but please check back in one weeks time (Friday Oct 15th) for the announcement of  the winner...also, only one entry please.

Let me know your first choice in your comment!

Enjoy the hop!!! Next blog is....Bitz-N-Pieces!

A little bit of fun for B...

Since I had this cart out(Country Life) and felt bad for B about her cake I made these two fun horses for her to play with. I layered the top and bottom with two papers with different texture and added some glitter for accent. She loves playing with them still!

Happy Birthday to my B!

I can't believe my littlest one turned three recently. Since she is currently obsessed with everything pink, except for an imaginary black horse she named Flicka, so I decided to make her some pink things for her birthday!! I got decent results with Marshmallow fondant, chocolate Ganache, and the cricut cake for a double cupcake mini cake...but not so much luck for her big cake. Did you realize that black gumpaste is nearly unobtainable? Well at least for me it is! I spent way too much time on it and ended up with a good pink base for the cake (finally got MMF down) but weird colored shimmery horses and "Happy Birthday". I won't describe the fiasco with the spray on color and hours of kneading gel coloring into gumpaste. LOL
She loved it and didn't mind it looking off luckily, and with practice maybe her sweet 16 cake will look good. LOL

For her mini cake I used the Cricut Cake with the brown frosting sheet and Crisco rubbed on top to darken it to nearly balck. The B is from Country Life and the horse is from Animal Kingdom cartridges.

Her banner and card are made with the new Cricut cartridge "Country Life" Using the banner feature. It was so easy it was done ahead of time, rare event for me! :) The front pieces are cut to fit the background layer at the same size and after taping the back with packing tape I sprinkled black glitter over the exposed sticky portion. I was fast and turned out so pretty! In the interest of time, I just used brads to fasten them together...The card has the cut out form the banner which I ran through my Xyron and glittered again! Easy!

Shrinky Dinks!

Unbelievably, I haven't posted, much less created anything all summer long! I have been fed up with my craft room and running out of space so a big reorganization was needed. But with that motivation I got my act in gear and pulled everything out, painted and designed a whole new space which I will show off once it is completed. Even though I am not finished, in the spirit of cleaning house, I'm posting the few things created in August and September...Here are some Shrinky Dinks charms I made in August for a swap, a fun card cut with SCAL from SVGcuts.com never made it to the photo shoot. Oops!

Before

After

As you can see they shrink quite a bit as well as well as intensify in color. These were cut from clear shrink film using my expression, deep blade, almost max pressure and multicut 2, but mostly since my E is on her last legs! I believe this owl is done with the Give a Hoot lite cart form walmart and colored with my Copic markers although any solvent ones like sharpie should do the trick.

June!

Wow, so much time has passed so quickly and I haven't even posted any of my Projects for the past two months. Hopefully you have all been too busy to check on my blog too! So, here are some projects I've managed to get done and get pictures of...

• A mini purse from Cricut  Forever Young. I turned it about a quarter turn in DS and got it a bit larger on a 12by paper. Threw on some leftover tags laying around from the teachers gifts, and Viola! Cute for a 10minute project. One discovery here was that the sides of the purses do not go all the way up and little things are prone to fall out! The paper is a DCWV paper stack, Nanas Garden, I believe, and the ribbon is stash with some CTMH twine to tie the tag to the bow. I did not get a picture of the cute pillow box I tucked inside. It was from the Stampin Up Sizzix Die, and fit some rolled up money perfectly. All tied with ribbon of course. :)
• Some quickie end of the year gifts for all the girls teachers. I used the Sizzix Bigz Die, matchbox, from Stampin up and just love it!! I could put two Giarhdeli chocolates (from the big bag) in each. I also found a trick online that gets the most from your paper. Use one 12X12 and cut at 6.5 down to 5.5in  then turn a quarter turn and repeat all the way around. You will get 4 6.5X5.5 pieces and a small square from the middle. I mixed and matched a few papers from a DCWV stack. Used the mini tag set and punch from Stampin Up, ribbon from a stash and some CTMH twine. Another helpful hint...I roll the twine between my fingers opposite the direction it is wound to separate it into individual strands. It goes a long way and looks more in scale with the tiny tags.

• And this is where I realize I didn't get pics of my girls Birthday cards! Well I will get them. I didn't get any pictures from my girls cakes either as they were finished last minute as usual and they were nothing worth showing. LOL Hopefully I can play with my Cricut cake some more really soon and show something fabulous.
•  OK one last thing....some yummy pancakes. The girls actually eat a mix of Hodgsen Mills Buckwheat pancakes and Bisquick. I add a bit of special pure vanilla extract and top with some strawberries crushed and heated with real maple syrup. Not too bad for you? :) We are so happy to be eating a great variety of fresh fruits and veggies from a local farm that participates in the CSA farm share program. We purchased a half share which means we pick up our share of the farms produce every two weeks. We've been happy to get enough to eat a enough to freeze for later too. *I promise to work on my photography skills too. :)

My Chocolate

This is my little thief  B! She discovered my stash of scrapping chocolate last year and instead of being mad I took pictures! She happened to be wearing the best shirt...It says that everything is "mine" according to the toddler rules of property..so true!

One of the workshops for CTMH is for the new papers Cherry-O...I thought of these photos when I saw this layout and just followed the directions then popped in the photos. Of course I embellished a little differently, hey I am creative. Plus I had to cover a mistake, (Um, I mean I had a creative opportunity) when the edge of my block made a line of brown ink under the word chocolate. So I added more lines! Overall I am enjoying the CTMH scrapbooking workshops....

Miracles

This is a very appropriately named scrapbooking kit from Close to My Heart. It's their freebie for national scrapbooking month and I loved using it. It has a neutral palette for the background papers and you use ink to dye some of the elements for your accents. Sooo easy to work with. The second picture shows the flaps up...way cool to add so many pics to a LO!

Teacher appreciation...100 yards of ribbon! Plus...

80 candy/gift card holders.....240 cards......80 chipboard/wire-bound post-it note holders....nuf said!

WooHoo! I finally found a great option for my ribbon storage. They say third times the charm and it certainly holds true here...So here's the history. When my littlest was very little the ribbon rounds were such great entertainment. But as she grew up, she was able to do more damage, and I had added to the collection. I really needed something to get them stored out of the way, and yet easy to see and easy (for me) to get to. I liked the idea of putting them in drawers rather than hanging them, so the CropperHopper embellishment storage boxes seemed like a great solution. I had drooled over others blog posts of neatly organized ribbon and decided to order what I thought I needed. Well, i ended up with a bunch of the small and nearly useless boxes and none of the most useful size. Apparently they don't make them any more. Strike one. So, onto the ribbon storage from Bestcraft. The ribbon spooler and small round cases seemed nice and easy to store even if they offered less flexibility and were more expensive. Well after they arrived I excitedly started to roll ribbon....strike two. With only a very few exceptions the ribbon I had wouldn't fit!! Ugh! So while I was shopping for some ribbon for my teacher appreciation projects (we use a lot) I stumbled o another product at the wholesale site. It seems that their clear favor boxes are just the ticket!!! They come flattened out and with a bow on top that is easily removable but the boxes are cheap, about 34 cents a piece, and they are just about the right size for every roll! So exciting. I happily rolled up a few of the most unraveled ribbon spools and put them in the few trial boxes I ordered...it works! They are 2X2X1 and fit inside the sterlite 12X12 drawers so nicely! As you can see I left some spools that already fit and some adhesive ribbon in boxes in their original containers and I put some ribbon together with a chipboard spacer. I love this new organization and even these few in the drawers have freed up one of my big baskets! :)

I forgot Some-bunnies

My oldest was so proudofthese bunnies that she set up a special photo shootfor them and I fogot to post it to my blog. So, for her, here are the stars of the day! :) And here's a look at the fun!

How Cute is this?!

Meet Cocoa, our newest little girl! She is a vey sweet tempered , 6 month old hedgehog. After a year of watching hedgehog videos and then researching for a few months, we finally decided to jump into the world of exotic pets. Well unless you consider the girls wolly worm pets exotic. :) There willbe more photos of her tom come and lots of scrappy oppurtunities. K already made her first two page lo of her first day with us!

Cricut Easter Eggs

I love all the things I can do with my Cricut. I had to try vinyl on our eggs this year and although we had a few learning experiences they were fun and came out great! The letters were great for mnograms, the half flower from Graphically Speaking (overlapping the petals worked best) was nice as well as simple circles...longer strips like the ric rac from the Easter Cartridge weren't so good but next year we'll make them thinner and try again! I loved the littel bunnies for the eggs but will have to cut them smaller next year and try more with some double dipped eggs. Coloring eggs with a todler doesn't leave much time for experimentation. :) Mostly the girls had a great time and so did I!

Cart Storage Solution

I think I finally hit on the perfect storage system for my Cricut cartridges! This Art Bin set of storage drawers are perfect for me. I cut some cereal boxes to make dividers so that 16 carts will fit easily without sliding around and yet they are easy to to take in and out. Now I have really fast, easy access to my carts. For a Design Studio project that uses four or five on a single project I can easily pull a bunch out and better yet, put them back! And I have room to grow! :) It's really easy to rearrange them when I get a new one....all my books and overlays are already in a photo storage box so I really only needed this. Now if I could only figure out my ribbon storage problem!

Her first layout!

I am so excited to say that my 6 yo daughter might have been bitten by the scrappy bug! My oldest daughter is probably more a crafter and card maker, who draws beautifully. So, I am excited to report this happy accident!

We started with an idea for the 100th day of school and it just so happens we ended up using my scrappy tools to create this....When I stepped back and realized that we used photo safe materials, I decided we could use a picture of her posing with her creation to make a page! She was so excited and had lot's of fun since I let her do the cutting, tearing and punching (except for the arms and scarf) . Now she wants to do more and wants to have a "mommy day" of scrapbooking!

Happy Valentines Day!

One of my goals for this year is to make more items for my girls. Usually I have been caught up with teachers gifts and all kinds of other projects but this year I wanted my girls to come first. No home made Valentines for my children's classmates, handmade special treats for them. I made the mailboxes and treat boxes from the Cricut Lovestruck 2010 seasonal cartridge. My littlest is all about pink but I couldn't help using kraft cardstock for the mailboxes and stampinup's real red ink and last years stamp set, Love You Much, that coordinates with a set of heart punches and their scallop ....Love that! I wrote a special note for each girl with what I love about them in their little mailboxes and I hope they feel loved and special since they are to me! My wish for everyone today is that somehow they feel loved and special. Happy Valentines Day!

The gauntlet is thrown!

Lovestruck 2010, Desi
The challenge is officially on! A friend was chatting recently and commented on how we all have some very unused carts for our Cricuts. One ting led to another and now we officially have a challenge to use all our cricut carts. One a week from our list that hasn't been used over the year(if ever). And so it begins. :) Now I know I will be posting at least once a week. For this weeks challenge I sorta cheated. I used my new seasonal cartridge for Valentines day decorations. Hopefully I can post a list and try to be more diligent with next weeks efforts! This is going to be fun!

Back-up!

Happy New year everyone! Yes, it's a more than little late, but I haven't been on to my blog for quite some time because of a massive computer failure. Thankfully all my pictures are on an external hard drive. Phew! Please everyone, have at least one reliable back-up for your most important things!

But onto much happier things. If you haven't already checked it out, head over to Stampin up's site for their super sale! I picked out more than a few things to start gearing up for teachers appreciation committee projects. I like to bring in samples and I was very excited to try my new toys from the sale and from Christmas! Very handily I also needed a few thank you gifts...So far I have made the bucket from the stampin up/Sizzix Bigz XL die as well as a few other "containers" These dies are so simple to use, I don't even think my Cricut could do better. I know shocking! LOL.

I also made a cute clear box with another Sizzix die in appreciation for a neighbor shoveling my whole driveway. The stamped design is part of a new clear stamp set from Stampin up(Vintage labels), and works perfectly with their scallop punch. I stamped the sentiment inside separately and positioning was a snap since you can use the rubber stamp with your acrylic blocks! The larger scallop is the co-coordinating Real Red paper. Real Nice! It worked even more easily with cardstock which I then embossed with my A2 embossing folder. I have more detailed pictures of that one somewhere if anyone is interested in a "tutorial" :)

For my neighbor who watches my littlest during Daisy meetings, I made a little mini (4X4) notepad using some leftover chipboard and paper with my BIA. It was easy to make a few for samples and it would fit a small post-it notepad as well...Stay tuned for more TAP sample projects! :)