Card Patterns #67 - Bee Happy!

This is a door hanger ~ not a card! I found the the bees and the bee happy on one of the new cricut cartridges and just had to use it. I've had the buzzz paper for years as it came in a DCWV summer stack years ago. A perfect match! And card patterns sketch #67 was the perfect template to use! Thanks for looking!

card patterns #52 - Retirement Card

A woman at work is retiring and she loves purses so I decided to do a non-traditional retirement card. I used paper from the DCWV Whimsy stack. Enjoy is cricut graphically speaking and the purse is from cricut paisley (it actually has more layers but I decided to "bling it out" a bit.

The pearls I got from Yvonne Yam in a RAC. Thanks Yvonne. This is the 2nd time I've used them. I made a really cool wedding card with them back at the first of February (with this same paper). Loving them!

Birthday Cards and Cake Balls!

I've been in the mood to make birthday cards! Partly because there are alot of people having birthdays and partly because I'm trying to get organized for the year!

This first card uses the Laura's Sketch 42 from 2S4Y. My sister, Teresa, gave me this quickutz cake die that I've been wanting for a long time for Christmas and I just had to use it! The paper is DCWV and the lace is Fancy Pants. The tag is also a quickutz and I used one of the dollar stamps on it!

I'm going to save this for my mom's birthday in June!


A guy at work had a birthday on the first and I tried my new cricut "Sweet Treats" cartridge to make this birthday cake card. The paper on this is Basic Gray "Cupcake."

I used some stickles to make it "sparklier!"










I had so much fun with this cricut cartridge that I made several different versions using the Basic Gray paper....












And then I used some other paper I had that said Happy Birthday so I didn't cut out the sentiment for the front!












My friend Bonnie's birthday was this last week (although she was in Arizona and won't be back till Sunday) so I found this cool tutorial on Split Coast Stampers for a "flower pot" card. I used birthday paper for the "pot" and then cut out flowers and leaves with my sizzix. These were so fun......










That I made 24! I used the non-birthday ones for thank you's for x-mas presents and little things people gave me at work! Here they all are (picture isn't that great but you can see I was busy!).














I also made these yummy cake balls to take to work this week. They are super easy and look cool! Here is the recipe:

1. Make a cake (any flavor) from a cake mix in any sort of pan (I used 9 X 13 because it was the easiest).
2. When the cake is done, crumble it into a large bowl while it is still warm. Stir in a can of frosting mix (any flavor) until well blended.
3. I then let it set an hour or so to cool down.
4. Form small balls with the cake mixture (the recipe I found on the internet said to use a melon baller but I found it just as easy to roll in my hands). I then put them on a plate in the freezer for a 1/2 hour or so.
5. Dip the balls into melted chocolate and place on wax paper to set.

Everyone at work loved them!

Card Patterns #35 - Fall Door Hangers!

I made a door hanger the other day using 2 Sketches 4 You but I needed another door hanger for work so this time I'm using Card Patterns! Don't you just love the sketch challenges!!

I actually made several of these ~ I'm going to give one to my mom and one to each of my sisters (I made 2 almost alike ~ and if you are my sister reading this blog then I guess the surprise will be ruined!).

The fall and fabulous were both cut from the Ashlyn's alphabet cricut cartridge. The paper is from the Making Memories fall 8 X 8 paper pack and one very old DCWV fall paper pack (don't know how long it has been hanging around).

I copied the ribbon folding idea from another person who submitted a card for this sketch (I'm sorry I can't remember who it was!). I was so intrigued on how it was done with a stapler that I had to try it! The turquoise colored ribbon I just got at Michaels (40% off) and the plaid had been hanging around for awhile!

The little photo corners are quickutz.

It was very fun to use the turquoise color with fall!





Thanks for taking a look! Hope everyone has a great week!

Use It ~ Challenge #7

Wow! This was a tough one!

I don't know if I got everything in but it was a great way to get my daughter's birthday party invitations done! She is only inviting 2 girls because we are going to a small amusement park in Portland and then they are staying the night. So it wasn't one of those massive card making exercises!

I knew I wanted to make a shaker because I found this cool confetti that was tropical themed! We had bought a bunch of cool tropical party stuff last year thinking ahead for now! So, let's see how I did on the challenge:

**Use black or white cardstock as the base: I used both (sneaky, huh! maybe I'll get extra points when I don't have one of the other elements!)

**Use 4 different patterned paper: green on the tree is DCWV Christmas Glitter stack from years ago, Brown on the tree is Basic Grey, flip flops are WR Memory Keepers, and the yellow sun is making memories

**Non-scrap item: This is where I have some problems, unless you count the confetti which is technically not a scrap item but I bought it with the intention of making shakers!

**Doodling: Yeah - I did it!

**Use whatever is laying around: I had this tropical flower ribbon that I used in another project 2 years ago and was able to use it all up! Whoo Hoo!

Have a great rest of the week and Happy Scrapping!

2 Sketches 4 You Week of 1/19/09

This week was Kazan's turn at 2 Sketches 4 You. I really enjoy seeing each week's sketch but I had a hard time figuring out what to do! I had originally thought that since Monday was a holiday I'd get it done Monday but nothing came to me! Then yesterday my Mini-Monograms cartridge was delivered and I cut out this cute square and then went from there!!





The patterned paper on this card is from the DCWV Glitter Stack - I love the bling! The "U" is also from the Mini-Monograms Cricut Cartridge! The hearts are a Sizzix Original - Heart Border. The cute little "love" charm I found in the wedding section at Michael's (I walked down that row because another row was busy and there they were!).








So, even though I was having trouble with Kazan's sketch, I thought of even more ideas for Laura's sketch from last week! I have been busy all weekend making a scrapbook for my boss (he is leaving after Friday for another job). While I was making it, I was using the revolution die for small album pages (I'm putting them on some of the pages for people to sign and write things to him). All of sudden it hit me how those little album pages could have been used on Laura's sketch so here are a couple new cards for the sketch! The teacher card uses DCWV paper from the Fall Stack from either 2006 or 2007 (I mixed up the paper!). All the die cuts on it are from the quickutz revolution!

I used the album page again on Love Notes. The heart is a sizzix original, the flower is a sizzix original cut out of felt. And the love is a sizzlet. The paper is Cloud 9 that I got a couple years ago.

This Saturday, I'm getting together with my 2 good friends Gail and Bonnie to scrap! I'm very excited because we haven't all 3 gotten together for almost a year! Gail has a quickutz exclusive die she ordered for me last February and I haven't gotten it yet! Bonnie is planning chili for lunch and something with chicken for dinner. I need to bring some snacks! I'm also taking my cricut to show them as they have not seen one in action. My goal is to finish the 2009 calendar for my parents that I started before Christmas as a Christmas present. I've been giving them one each year along with an album with extra pages - then I have them put the calendar pages in the album so they have a little album of my kids each year. They haven't been home much since the first of the year so they wouldn't even be enjoying it so not so bad that I'm late!

We will see if I get it done! Take care and have a great rest of the week!

2 Sketches 4 You Week of 1-5-09 (Times 2!)

I've already posted some cards for the 2 Sketches 4 You Sketches this week but I had so many ideas (I actually have more but running out of time!). I was helping my son with a school project and we had the Going Places Cricut Cartridge out and we made a compass for him. I had remembered a card from a Papercrafts Magazine 2 years ago that had a valentine that said you are my true north so that compass started this idea! The paper on the left is DCWV Far East Stack and the right side is DCWV Old World Stack. True is Cricut Base Camp and North is Cricut Jasmine. The ribbon I got on one of the little spools at Michaels.









This tag actually started out as a card but then it just looked better being a tag (using the bonus sketch this week!). I found this cool saying on a card that was on scrapbook.com by TheScrapLady - she had a stamp but I just typed in my computer and then cut with a sizzix tag. The blue background paper is DCWV Old World Stack. The circle is a quickutz revolution cookie cutter and the little bubble stickers I got on clearance at Michaels (they are Colorbok).

Thanks for taking a look! I'm off to shopping with my parents for most of the day. Going to get my dad's birthday present (without him finding out hopefully) and going to the outlet mall (hopefully find some clearance cool clothes for my kids!) and maybe to Ruby Tuesdays up in Portland (I've never been there!). Can't wait to see next weeks sketches!

2 Sketches 4 You week of 1-5-09 (Kazan 17 and Peet Bonus Sketch)

I started out the week getting most of these done monday evening after work with more ideas brewing BUT my son got sick, my parents came to town, and it has been a busy week at work. If I get some more done I will post them later this week!

My first one is for Kazan's sketch 17. I don't have a lot of "wavy" type things so I did some ribbon (very loose interpretation of this sketch, I know!). I had just gotten this cute little daisy bucket stamp at my local scrapbook store and had these little lady bug buttons in my stash. I thought that they teamed up with the flowers and the stamp and would make a cute valentine card for a young girl! The flower is a quickutz revolution cookie cutter. I'm really into the black and white look so I used that again! I feel like I'm a broken record (some of you younger people probably don't know what a record is!). Hopefully, I'll break out of this black and white rut sometime soon!






















Peet did the bonus sketch this week and I thought it was so cute. Here I am using black and white again! The background paper is from the DCWV Glitter Stack, and the valentine words are a printable stamp from reginascutterdesigns.blogspot.com (I've used them a bunch in my previous post with shakers! They are very fun). The heart is a quickutz revolution cookie cutter. Love is a sizzlet. The i, heart, and u are cut with sizzix originals (metallic paper on chipboard) and pinned them on the ribbon with a safety pin. The flower is felt also cut with a sizzix original ~ I'm loving that too ~ I've never tried it until now!

Thanks for taking a peek!

Shaker Fun!!!

I got these cool Holiday Big Words Printable Stamps from Reginascutterdesigns.blogspot.com. Then at Scrapbook.com one of the card challenges was to make a shaker. I had never made a shaker so I checked out the tutorial at Split Coast Stampers. They were so much fun that I made several! I used sizzix frames for the frame and in a couple cases I used chipboard under them. Here they are:

The background is Holiday Big Words from Reginascutterdesigns.blogspot.com, lips and swak are quickutz dies and "swak" is quickutz blossom mini. Striped pattern paper is from either the 2007 or 2008 DCWV spring stack (I tore the paper out and put it with all my valentine paper!) Flower is a prima and the brad is from creative cafe.

Bee Mine also uses quickutz blossom mini for the words. The flowers were cut with one of the sizzix stacked flower dies using felt (this time was my first time to cut out felt too! I've tried lots of things this weekend!). The bees are buttons that I've had in my stash for quite awhile. This is the same DCWV patterned paper!

The tickets on this shaker were made with a quickutz die and then stamped with autumn leaves stamps! The black and white polka dot is bo bunny paper and so is the flowered paper (I got it either last year or the year before around v-day!). The flowered paper was cut with the sizzix jelly frame. The flower is another felt one cut with a sizzix die.The I, heart, and U were cut with sizzix dies (metallic paper on chipboard) and then attached with a safety pin.

The same paper combination and felt flowers cut with sizzix were used with the "Love" frame. Love was cut with a sizzlet.

The last one is a New Years Shaker (I think I'll put it on my office door!). The background is a Holiday Printable Stamp from Reginascutterdesigns.blogspot.com and so is the little saying in the corner. I used a gold leafing pen around the little saying. Polka Dot paper is Bo Bunny and the black patterned paper is DCWV Glitter Stack. I added a shiny prima flower!

Thanks for taking a look!

More Winter Weather and Some Reindeer Cards!

The Challenge at Card-A-Licious this week was to make a card with a Holiday Icon. I think reindeers are holiday icons! Aren't they??? I found this cute reindeer on the Cricut paper doll cartridge as an accessory! My daughter really wanted the cartridge and I wasn't sure we would use it and then this weekend I have been cutting out lots of reindeers! The card with all the little reindeer faces was a DCWV holiday glitter card that I had in my stash of cards (I knew I was holding on to them for a reason!). 'Tis the Season to be jolly is all from the quickutz holiday gift set for 2008. I had bought a whole bunch of the red fiber for our x-mas cards and I tied it around his neck to look like a little scarf - hope it keeps him warm!

This other cute guy with the X-mas Tree (another holiday Icon!) was also made with the paper doll cartridge. The tree and wreath came from the Joys of the Season cartridge. Be Jolly and the x-mas lights are from the quickutz revolution 2008 holiday gift set. Patternd paper is from the Me and My Big Ideas Christmas Stack.

We still have some incredibly cold and dangerous winter weather ~ quite unusual for the Northwest but for the past week it has snowed, thawed, snowed, thawed....you get the idea but last night and today we had a new twist ~ FREEZING Rain! Yuck! I hate freezing rain! It is so treacherous. I went out today for awhile and took this pictures. Doesn't Santa look like he has a stole around him of snow (and ice), the ice on the tree looks pretty. I'm holding up a piece of the ice that I picked up off the top of the snow. Everything was covered with a 1/4 to 1/2 inch sheet of ice. When you walked, you crunched through it but you had to be careful not to slip or get your foot stuck in the hole that the "crunching" made. My yard and driveway are sloped so as I broke up the stuff off of the sidewalk and driveway, parts of it would skid down like it was on a sled! I'm crossing my fingers that it will warm up over night before it is time to head to work! I've been wearing jeans and snow boots all last weeks and it looks like this week is starting out the same way!

In a "Blue" Mood - 2 Sketches 4 You (week of December 22, 2008) and a picture frame!

At our local scrapbook store, Scrapbook Fever, they have make and takes every monday. A couple weeks ago, they had a cool little frame that we made using chipboard. I have a bunch of frame dies for sizzix so I made this one using the rectangle frame (cut once out of chipboard ~ I recycle cereal boxes and other boxes for my chipboard!) and once out of BoBunny polka dot paper. Then I used the Jelly frame to cute the other frame out of Me and My Big Ideas paper. The flowers are prima lace flowers. I cut Carl, Shaina, 2008 with the cricut DonJuan font. The brad is Darice. I made 16 of these and included one in my Christmas Cards for close family and friends - my parents, sisters, my aunts and uncles (that don't get to see us much).













































I thought about Laura's Sketch from 2 Sketches 4 You alot while I was driving up and down the freeway in the snow and ice (see below)! After making all those little picture frames I found myself going for the white, black, and blue combo (that is why I say a Blue Mood!) because it is so striking. I made a get well card a few weeks ago that had the same colors and loved it also! The card uses the same BoBunny Paper (lots of scraps from the frames), DCWV (the black and white striped), and another black and white scrap. the happy birthday is Quickutz Revolution. The blue and white flower is a doodlebug, and the black flower is another prima lace flower (I've used them all up now!), and the brad a Darice. This was really a fun card!

It has been an interesting week here. The week started out with snow and it is still working on more ~ it has melted off a couple times and then came back! Very odd for Western Oregon! No school all week! The kids were getting stir crazy! It took a long time to get to work most days and then when it did thaw out, the lines in the stores were incredibly long because everyone took the window of opportunity to do shopping and stock up on groceries. I also had an incredibly strange car problem ~ I rolled down my passenger side window to get some snow off and the window would not go back up! Driving on the freeway with snow blowing in was not very fun. I took it into the shop and the motor in the window was shot! $429 later I'm staying dry and warm in my car and got it done before the next wave of winter weather! The weather man says more is on it's way tonight and tomorrow!

Holiday Cards

I finally finished my Christmas Cards! I still have to snap a picture of the kids and put it inside but the fronts are done and the envelopes are addressed! I picked out the paper in July and thought I would be farther ahead but I'm still doing better than last year! I had the paper in my stash and I was trying to do them all like the one on the left (all the paper on that one is from the DCWV 2007 Christmas Glitter stack but had to use some other paper because I didn't have enough - part of the paper for the one on the right came from the DCWV 2006 Christmas Glitter Stack. All of them turned out pretty well. I had lots more "holidays" cut out so am trying to use them for other cards (guess I miscounted!). Anyway, the card on the bottom is one for my boss that we will all sign and give him a gift card to Borders as he loves to read.
"happy" is quickutz revolution from "happy birthday"

Holidays is cut with sizzlet "slim jim" font

the ornament is from the quickutz revolution 2008 holiday gift set.

Laura's Bonus Sketch for ScrapStreet.com

This is my take on Laura's bonus sketch @ scrapstreet.com! These are kind of card/tags! I needed to make 12 card/tags for an upcoming award thing at work. There were 12 people who were an integral part of upgrading our accounting system and we are buying them bags with our agency logo and then we will tie these on the bags. I will have the director, deputy director, and my boss sign the tags and then we will have cake and a little speach! Can't do much when you work in state government! But I did something similar (with a different style card/tag) for a group of people who had worked on a project for more than a year and even though it wasn't a big expense, it was recognition and they loved it! So, I just knew Laura's bonus sketch would work and I replaced the 1/2 circle with a star! And I'm really liking the word Bravo (have you noticed!). Maybe it is the way that it cuts out on the Cricut (which of course I'm loving!).

The patterned paper is scraps (lower one DCWV Glitter Stack, upper one Basic Grey) from projects where I made 8 X 8 books and used 12 X 12 paper. There are only 3 women on the project so I will give them ones with flowers and the guys ones with stars!