I made cards!

Whaaaaat?  I know, it seems like forever.  But suddenly, we had gift cards to go to our nephews (one for his birthday, the other as a Christmas present) and I was like "I need cards!"

The first card, I made for our older nephew's birthday in January.  We'll be seeing them at Thanksgiving, so I thought I'd pass it along to his mom to take home with her, taking the usps out of the equation.  He's into Monsters Inc right now, so I used these freebies from SVG Cutting Files.  The paper is all from my scraps file, believe it or not!  Way to use up those scraps of paper!  And the sentiment is from an old Pink by Design stamp set called Guess Who?  I'll be entering my Monsters, Inc card into the Simon Says Stamp, Wednesday Challenge- Anything Goes.

The second card is for our younger nephew, who is too young to appreciate toys for presents (4 months!) and whose parents said that he already had everything he ever needed.  We figured a gift card for Christmas would help them out with anything they might need to buy him.  For his card I pulled out the Cricut and used Create a Critter 2.  Again, all of my paper was from the scraps file.  I used a sentiment from Jaded Blossom's Puppy Love stamp set.

Shop til you drop

I hope you're all having a happy Friday in your neck of the woods!  I had a chance to get into the craft room and make a card yesterday, when three of my four appointments for the day cancelled, leaving me not having to go to work until 4!

Although this card looks A2, it's actually a couple of inches smaller.  It's a card base I got from the Target dollar spot a long time ago.  I'm trying to work on using up my stash a little.  :)  I stamped the background myself, using Distress Inks on a craft mat that I sprayed with water and a Heidi Swapp arrow stamp.  Next, I stamped the image of the girl holding gifts onto another piece of white cardstock and colored it with my Bic pens.  The image and sentiment that I stamped are both from a Pink by Design stamp set called Black Friday.

See that cute little purple enamel dot up in the corner? It's a homemade enamel dot that I bought from a shop on Etsy.  For only $1.20, you can order a pack of 50 of any color.  I got blues, greens, and pinks, and the owner of the shop threw in a small sample of other colors for me to try- thus the cute purple!  I'd really been wanting to try homemade enamel dots, but with a *very* sensitive smoke detector and a dog that goes bonkers when the smoke detector goes off, this was a wonderful alternative.

I'll be entering this card into the following challenge:
Simon Says Stamp, Wednesday Challenge- Make your own background

Fortune Cookie

Here a little fact you may not know about me: I'm a comic book movie nerd.  You'll never see me at a romantic comedy, but you better believe I'll be sitting all the way through the credits for even the tiniest morsel of goodness at the end of a comic book movie.  So, when I saw on Facebook that SVG Cutting Files was giving away a set of Rocket and Groot freebies just for entering this month's Fall Colors challenge, well...I just entered faster.  Because let's be honest, I love them and I just about always enter their monthly challenges anyway.

Anyway, here's my card for this month's challenge.  In the past, I've made fall themed cards and although I like them, I never send them because "fall" just doesn't seem like a card sending occasion.  So I used my fall colors (all from my scraps file, just the way I like it) to go along with a fortune cookie.  I popped him up on glue dots, which is hard to tell on the photo.

I used the second half of a sentiment from Pink by Design that I thought sounded kind of like a fortune to stamp on the paper.  I thought it might be a kind of neat non-traditional card for an engagement or when someone announces they're having a baby or something.

"Silhouette Challenges #16 "Create a Shadow using the Offset Feature"

It's the time for another challenge over at

Ch# 16 "Create a Shadow using the Offset Feature"

Begins: Friday, August 1

Ends: Sunday, August 31

A blog dedicated to the Silhouette Cutting Machines.

You MUST use a Silhouette somehow in your project.

Sponsor this month is:

My Crafting Channel

Silhouette 25-Pack Chipboard

Hello everyone!  For this month's challenge, I decided to incorporate one of the things that really means summer to me- fireflies!  The background of this card is pretty simple- it's two scraps from my scraps bin that I thought looked cool together, with some orange ribbon between them. I put them on an orange card base- it's not often I get to use orange outside of Halloween! If you're wondering why my picture's at a slight angle, it's because the blue paper has a shine to it and my super bright craft room lights were not cooperating with the shiny paper, so I had to put it at an angle to photograph it.

I bought this cute firefly from the Silhouette Online Store, and created a shadow to go around it to make it really stand out from the background paper.  I added some gems to its' antennae and a TON of glitter glue to its' bottom. It's kind of hard to tell, but he's adhered down with foam squares.

To finish it off, I cut a banner by hand from another scrap of paper I had, and stamped my sentiment.  It's actually from a Pink by Design stamp set, and it's only part of a saying, but I just masked off the rest.

Head in over to see what the DT has created for you inspiration and link up today.

Click HERE

On a sadder note, this will be my last post as a Design Team member at Silhouette Challenges.  I hope you'll all continue to play along with the challenges and get to know your Silhouette machines better. I know I will!

Quick note card

I hope you all are having a great weekend!  I'm typing to you today with Sophie on my lap, cowering from the loud noises of my husband cutting the trim for the family room (which is his current renovation project).  A few dog snuggles and I get to hang out in my pajamas for awhile?  I'll take it!

Today's card is one I made when I needed a quick notecard to attach to a gift.  I cut a piece of kraft paper to 4 1/4 square and stamped a sentiment from Pink By Design's "You are my Happy" stamp set.  Then I cut these flowers from Lettering Delight's "Peacocks and Pinwheels"- it was super easy to layer, and since I wanted to use gems instead of the centers that come with the flowers, it went very quickly.  I added the gems from my stash and some stickles to give the leaves something, and it was ready to go!  I love how I can make elaborate cards one day, and something so quick and simple the next, just based on what I need.  No fighting the crowds in the card aisle for me!  ;)

I'll be entering this card into the flowers challenge at Simon Says Stamp, Wednesday Challenges.

Poodle card

It's Friday!  Woohoooo!  For today's card, I decided to start out with the cute, girly poodle from the Create A Critter cartridge.  You can't really tell, but her darker pink hair was made by spraying some of of the same pink as her body with a layer of pink walnut spray followed by a layer of Heidi Swapp white spray.  It gave it a really nice shimmer, and made it a pink that was darker than her body but still matched well.  I put some Flamingo stickles on her bows and added a tiny rhinestone for a little added sparkliness.

After I'd made the poodle, I decided that too much more pink was going to make it look like Pepto Bismol had spilled on the card, so I went with the blue card base and the two scrap pieces of patterned paper from my scraps bin.  I added a little label sticker and stamped the sentiment from Pink by Design's Scripted Year on it using StazOn ink.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge- Animal Antics

Happy Birthday!

It's Thursday!  Even better, my morning at work got cancelled today, so I had some time to get into my craft room and create.  It felt great to get my hands dirty again.  :)

I'm working right now on finishing up all of the birthday cards for the next two months until our families' birthday seasons are over.  I made this card on a navy card base, with some patterned paper from the Trendsetter 6x6 pad.  I cut this paper airplane from the Silhouette Online Store.  I didn't have any scraps of grey paper, and didn't feel like cutting into a 12x12 for two tiny strips, so I cut all of the pieces in white and colored them in with my Bic markers.  I used my uniball pen to draw lines behind it to show it flying.

I punched two tags from a scrap of red paper, and put the small one at the top of the card and the big one at the bottom.  On the bottom one, I stamped a sentiment from Pink by Design's Scripted Year on the tag.  On the top, I used a white button that I colored navy with another Bic marker and tied with some twine.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:
Craftin' Desert Divas-Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp- Wednesday Challenge, Happy Birthday!

Halloween dress up card

I just couldn't resist getting one last Halloween card in before the big day approaches.  This is my first Halloween living in a neighborhood since I was a teenager, so I'm pretty excited.  I've already bought three bags of candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters and I pulled Sophie's bumblebee costume out of storage so she'll be ready to greet the kids at the door.  :)

This card started with my idea that I wanted to color some of the kids from Pink by Design's Guess Who? stamp set.  I stamped them all and then colored them one day with colored pencils.  After that, I got out my 1 inch circle punch and punched some of them out.  I realized that I had a really colorful crew, so I decided then to make a little mosaic with 9 circles.  The two sentiment circles are also from the Guess Who? stamp set.  I had to mask the "got candy?" to stamp it in two lines instead of one to get it to fit. 

I layered it onto some spiderweb paper because I wanted the card background to be all black so it didn't interfere with any of the kids' costumes.  Then I put that onto a black square card base.

I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge- Halloween. 

Christmas bunny

Hello!  If you remember from a few days ago, I talked about how I had made a couple of cards using the same basic pattern and two different die cuts in between my wallpaper removal (why does the crafting always have to work around the real world stuff?)  Here is my second card from that day:

This Christmas card uses a die cut from Lettering Delights.  I love this set, which is by the same artist who made the Create a Critter series for the cricut.  It's such a cute little snow bunny!  I used some stickles on his scarf, and I think the glitter glue on his hat was off-brand glitter glue I got at Hobby Lobby.

Once again, the background paper is from Recollections. The ribbon is from American Crafts I think, and the button is from a Halloween button pack that also had a few that were just polka dots or stars.  I used some embroidery floss to tie into the button.

My stamp is from Pink by Design's Old Time Christmas stamp set.

This card is being entered into the following challenges:
Paper Playtime- Ribbon and Buttons
Simon Says Stamp- Wednesday Challenge, Christmas/Happy Holidays

Halloween Turtle

This week I have been taking wallpaper down in our main floor bathroom, which means that after taking the top layer off, I spray a small section of the adhesive layer, wait 5-10 minutes for it to soak in, and then scrape it off and start over on a different section.  Because of this, I decided that the cards I made this week would be kind of "batch" card making, in that I cut the die cuts before starting the bathroom, and then went up to my craft room during my 5-10 minute breaks to do the glitter, background paper, embellishing, stamping, etc.  It was really kind of fun to see the two different cards that came out of the batch.  I'll post the second card later this week.

Today I'm sharing a Halloweeny card using the Create a Critter 2 cartridge.  I made the witchy turtle and also her broomstick.  I used some Stickles on her hat and stomach to make her a fancy Halloween turtle.

The background paper is from Recollections.  I used a Halloween button from my stash and also some ribbon from my stash.  The stamp is from a Pink by Design stamp set called Artisan Tags 2.

This card is being entered into the following challenges:
Craftin Desert Divas- Halloween
All That Stickles- Halloween
Paper Playtime- Ribbon and Buttons

My Scrap Chick blog hop

Welcome to our "My Scrap Chick!" Blog Hop!

This is a 2 Day Hop.

We are on Day 2!

There are only a few stops on this hop each day, and you are going to love the projects you see.

My Scrap Chick is giving away a 

$20.00 Gift Card

Silhouette Challenges will be giving away a

$15 My Scrap Chick Gift Card

Just leave a comment on this post and each blog hop post for both days to be entered to win.

I am today's final stop!  I hope you've enjoyed hopping with us for two days!

Here is the entire list of stops for day 2:

Nana @ My Crafting Channel

Theresa @ Scrappers Anonymous 

Lisa @ The Paper Princess 

Karon @ Karons KraftyKorner 

Becky @ Becky's Craft Place 

In case you missed Day 1, here is the entire list of stops.

Nana @ My Crafting Channel

Colleen @ Creations By Colleen

Kim @ Kims Card Corner

Kristin @ Paper Creations by Kristin
Barbara @ Craft Me This

I made a card using the awesome easel cards available at My Scrap Chick.  For this one, I decided to use the square easel card.  I decided to go with some green cardstock, and some blue and green patterned papers from my stash.  

I also used the FABULOUS Doodle Flowers file from My Scrap Chick.  I have loved these flowers since the first time I saw them.  They are so intricate, but the Cameo cuts them beautifully!  I put the pink one directly onto the paper, then used thin foam squares on the purple flower and then thick foam squares on the orange flower for dimension.

I also added a few blue gems from my "bling drawer" in the bottom corner to bring in a little more of the blue from the patterned paper.

I also used a stamp from a Pink by Design stamp set called "Grow" that is flower themed.  If you can't read it well from the picture, it says "let us be grateful to those who make our souls blossom."

I hope you enjoyed hopping along with us these last two days!  Make sure you commented on all of the blogs for a chance to win the gift cards, and stop by My Scrap Chick and check out all of their awesome designs!

Orange you Awesome?

Good morning, friends!  For today's project I made a Kool-Aid packet holder.  I've seen similar things used to gift hot chocolate, but it's just a tad too hot for hot chocolate right now, so I thought I'd make a summery twist on it.

I used the Seed Packet file from SVG Cutting Files and just resized it so that a Kool-Aid packet would fit inside.  I cut it in blue, and then cut out a piece of patterned paper from an MME pad just a tad smaller to fit over it. 

The orange is also from SVG Cutting Files.  The set came with this cute orange, and also a slice and a wedge, both of which can also have cute faces.  Then I hand cut the little banner from a scrap I had and stamped the sentiment from Pink by Design's "Orange you Awesome" stamp set.  Of course, I stamped it in orange! 

Front of the packet

 I slipped the Kool-Aid packet in and closed it with a piece of orange washi tape.

The packet opened up

I'm entering this project into the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp- Summer Food and Drink 

SVG Cutting Files- Hot Tropics Color Challenge

Painter's Palette card

Good morning!  I have a super sparkly card to share with you today.  It's a little larger than my normal size, measuring in at about 6.5 x 5 inches.  The background paper is from my Amy Tangerine- Sketchbook 6x6 paper pad.  I wanted to make sure there were watercolor splotches from more colors, so I added a little purple to the bottom left corner and a little yellow to the bottom right.  I put the black polka dot washi tape down the center to hide a seam in the paper- there was a bit of a pattern showing in the bottom left corner, so I covered it up with the scrap that I cut off the paper.  The other seam is covered up by the paintbrush.  Sneaky, I know.

The image is cut from the Silhouette Online Store.  A tip: keep a careful eye on the eyes and mouth.  My guy's mouth got away from me after I had already put my Cameo away, and I spent some time on the floor with a flashlight until it was found.  I inked up the paintbrush and palette with some Distress Ink, trying to make it look a little more used.  Each of the colors of paint has been covered with a matching color of Stickles to really make it sparkle.  You know I love some sparkle!

The sentiment in the top corner is from Pink by Design's "Bracketful" set. 

This card is being entered into the following challenges:

Cameo Creations- Glitter it Up

Get Well Slider card

I was thinking about what kind of Get Well card I could make for the first challenge over at Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons (the link to the challenge is at the bottom of my post) and I remembered all of the slider cards that I've been seeing all over the internet, and I thought that the bottle from Happy Pills would be a fun slider card!  So, I pulled out my Cameo and got to designin' and here's what I came up with:

First, I took out the layers that made the faces.  Then, I added an extra copy of the bottle itself.  For the slider, I just added an internal offset, made it the size I wanted, and removed a few points to make it smooth.  I ran into a bump in the road when I realized that the cap was supposed to adhere to the top of the front layer, but solved it by cutting off the part that the cap adheres to from the front layer.  Then I just glued it directly to the back layer while leaving a slit for the slider card to go in.

All of my stamps are by Pink by Design.  I liked them both and couldn't decide, so I used the bigger one for the label on the outside of the bottle and the smaller one for the slider within.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons- Get Well

Birthday piggy

Howdy friends!  I hope you're all having a great Friday and are going to have fabulous weekends!  Today I have a fun little piggy to share.  He's one of the past freebies from Miss Kate Cuttables (don't worry, you can snag him for only $.50 if you missed him as a freebie), but the birthday hat I cut myself.  I have about a million birthday hat svgs and cricut cuts, but the bad thing about being in this little bitty craft room is that everything gets stashed away and then I don't want to get it all back out again, just for a triangle.  So, since I had already put my Cameo away to make room on my table for the actual crafting, scissors it was.  :)  I figured he was a birthday pig because I'm a firm believer that you can do whatever you want on your birthday, and I imagine splashing in the mud is just what a pig would like.

I got the background label svg from Bird's Cards- it was a freebie too!  Then I layered it on top of some MME paper and added three buttons in the top corner and a sentiment from Pink by Design in the bottom corner (btw, I love the Pink by Design "Artisan Tags 2" set that this is from because it's perfect for those times when  you want to add a sentiment but your cut ended up taking up more space on the card than you had planned.)

I added some Firefly stickles around the green part of the tag because I thought my pig needed some sparkle.  I like to put stickles on colors that are similar but slightly different to see what happens- this paper is actually a sea green, and I think it turned out looking nice with the brighter green of Firefly.  It muted the Firefly stickles a little bit but livened up the pastel-ness of the sea green.

This card is being entered into the following challenges:
Die Cuttin' Divas- Birthday with Three Embellishments
Craftin' Desert Divas- On the Farm
Simon Says Stamp Challenge- Anything Goes
All That Stickles- Firefly

Thanks flower

Hi friends!  I hope you're all ready for a fun weekend!  Today I've got an A2 card that I made with a free file from SVG Cuts and my Cameo.  

The card has a dark blue background and some patterned paper from My Minds Eye.  I cut the Chrysanthemum free file from SVG Cuts and then realized that the yellow outline was going to blend in too much to the patterned paper that I had picked.  My face looked like this :( for a few minutes because I had already put my Cameo away and didn't want to pull it back out again, and then I decided to put a piece of pink cardstock under the flower and I felt much better.  I added the pink button at the bottom as an embellishment and stamped the "Thanks" from Pink by Design's "Big Thoughts" stamp set in dark blue ink.

This card is being entered into the following challenges:
Pink by Design Stamps- Thank You
Paper Playtime- Buttons or Brads

Simon Says Stamp Challenges- Flower Power
Silhouette Challenges- Anything Goes

Chickadee

Sometimes it's nice to have a card just to say hi to someone.  That's the point of this card.  I cut the two little chicks in the nest from Miss Kate's Cuttables.  One tip that I learned: I knew that I wanted the chicks' cheeks to be about one shade darker than their faces, but I didn't want to spend a ton of time searching for just the right paper- so I cut the cheeks and the face from the same color, and then just used my versamarker on the cheeks to make them a shade darker.  I did the same thing on the nest and the twigs on top of the nest.

The card itself is A2.  I am still adjusting to sizing of SVGs on my Cameo, so my chicks ended up a little smaller than I originally thought.  So to make use of my space, I cut the dark blue card base, then cut three pieces of patterned paper in increasingly small mats.  The light blue and yellow are from Recollections and the polkadot paper is from My Mind's Eye.  I wrapped some dark blue ribbon around the top layer and taped it on the back.

I added a dark blue button with a twine bow in one corner and stamped a sentiment from Pink by Design's Bracketful set in the other corner. 

This card is being entered into the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Challenges- Happy Mail 
 Craftin' Desert Divas- Use a Pun
Silhouette Challenges- Anything Goes

Mother's Day

I mentioned a week or so ago that I had gotten a Silhouette Cameo.  Here I am with my first official Silhouette card!  I still love my Cricuts and plan to use both, but this is a fun new toy for sure.  :)

This card is a Mother's Day themed card.  I used the freebie cute kangaroo from SVG Cuts for the mom and joey.   The mom's ears and feet are glittered with Icicle Stickles.  I put them on some Recollections patterned paper that I had cut and put onto the pink card base.

I didn't want to go with the traditional "Happy Mother's Day" sentiment on the outside because that way I can stamp on the inside and it won't be redundant.  The sentiment that I picked is from Pink by Design's "Bracketful" set.  I finished it off with a few purple gems.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:
Cameo Creations- Mother’s Day              

Pink by Design- Mother’s Day

All That Stickles- Icicle       

Die Cuttin Divas- Anything Goes

Silhouette Challenges- Anything Goes
Cut it up Challenges- Mother's day
Cardz TV- There's no other like my mother

Two Sophie Layouts

(This accidentally got posted back in February, but I deleted it and scheduled it to post today, when it was supposed to.  Sorry if you're reading it twice!) When I make layouts for Sophie's scrapbook, I tend to do many at a time.  I print out 8 or so pictures, get out one of our folding tables to spread out my gigantic stash of dog craft supplies, and just do a page or two a day until they're done.  I'll try to share them a couple at a time here, so that there aren't 8 posts in a row, but also so that they don't get lost in one post.  All of Sophie's layouts are 8x8.

The first layout on this post is on a dark blue piece of cardstock.  I layered on some patterned paper from the Good Dog line by Imaginisce and put Sophie's picture on top of it.  It was printed 4x6, but I cut off some of the edges that were just extra space and it came out pretty much a square picture.

The title letters are from an old pack of letter stickers I picked up in the Target dollar bin and the journal tag is from my stash, as is the bone behind it and the slip of red paper in the top corner.  Each of the three areas of embellishment has some washi tape by Queen & Co and a stamp from the Furry Friends stamp set by Pink by Design.  The "Unleashed" sticker in the top corner is from Reminisce.

The second layout for this post is on green cardstock.  I cut the picture down by just a quarter of an inch and then matted it on a piece of 6x6 paper from the Snap collection.  The black washi tape with paw prints is from Queen and Co.  In the top corner, I layered a phrase sticker from Paper Studio, a pawprint from Echo Park's "Woof" and a bone from the Deja Views Dog Days stack.  In the bottom corner I used a vellum title from DCWV and some brackets and a blue embellishment from the Deja Views Dog Days stack. I finished it off with some journaling on a journal block from We R Memory Keepers.

So there you have it: Two of Sophie's layouts!  I like the blue one better than the green.  It seems like something is missing, but I can't really figure out what.  The great thing about scrapbooking is that if I figure it out some day, I can just slip it out of the page protector and add it on!  

Hippity Hoppity- Easter's on its way!

Have I got an Easter-filled card for you today!  I had a ton of challenges this week that all were related to Spring/Easter kinds of themes, and I had such a fun time getting them all to work with one card.  Also, I may have gone a little crazy with Stickles.  As in I had to go downstairs and eat lunch while I was waiting for every.single.thing that I made for the card to dry.  

Ok, so I started with a kraft card, with some pink cardstock and a strip of paper from an Echo Park 6x6 pad (I think it was from Country Drive).  Then, I cut the little Easter bunny from Create a Critter 2 at 3.5 inches and also cut his basket at 3.5 inches.  I cut the eggs from the same page at .75 inches.  The bunny got some cotton candy Stickles, the basket got lime green Stickles, and the eggs got both, as well as a few dots of lavender Stickles on the polka dot egg.  

Next, I cut the kite from the Create a Critter (it is on the giraffe page).  I can't remember the final cut size, I just kept upping it by one notch until the stamp I wanted to use fit.  :)  The stamp is from Pink by Design's "Artisan Tags 2," which is such a great and versatile set.  The kite also got a little lime green Stickles- it couldn't be the only non-glittered thing on the page, right?  To finish off the kite, I used three pieces of twine and tied itty-bitty bows for its string. 

This card is being entered into the following challenges:
Pink by Design Stamps- Easter
Fantabulous Cricut- Spring is in the air (kites/balloons)
Bitten by the Bug 2- Eggceptional Easter Eggs
Die Cuttin Divas- Use a bunny
All That Stickles- Lime Green
Craftin Desert Divas- Easter Eggstravaganza
My Paper Crafting- Spring
Simon Says Stamp Challenge Blog- Easter/Spring