X-Mas Cards (2 Sketches 4 You) + Give Thanks!

Yesterday, I finally sat down and figured out how many cards I need that are extra special for close family and friends(haven't done those yet) and how many I need for those that aren't as close. I'm making several of these for friends and people at work! I used the Cutting Cafe (see link to the right of the blog) Bingo Cards. I used paper that I got last year and ribbon that I had gotten on sale at Michael's or had in my stash. I embellished with penguins or the metal holiday wishes. Both were in my stash. The penguins I got in the summer at Michael's for 49 cents on clearance! Glad I'm using them and didn't just lose them in my stuff! Thanks Laura for a great sketch!

I'm also including a Thanksgiving door hanger I made for a friend of mine to give to her daughter who teaches school! I used a card patterns sketch but it is way past the week when it was posted! I used both quickutz and the cricut on this one!

Have a great turkey day!

Card Patterns #89 - Kayla's Birthday Card

Shaina needed a birthday card for a party she is going to today. We had bought this cute felt bag to put the gift card in and she wanted something to match. I used scraps of paper and quickutz for the 13 and sizzlets for the cupcake and gift! The circles were cut with the cricut!

Have a great week!

Easter Door Hanger (Card Patterns)

I used this week's card patterns sketch to make an easter door hanger. Happy Easter, the grass, daffodil, and egg were cut using the cricut easter 2010 cartridge. The bunny is one of my favorite quickutz die cuts!

Have a great day!

2 Sketches 4 You ~ St. Pat's Day Door Hanger

I decided to make Kazan's sketch #46 into a St. Patty's Day door hanger. I got this really cool green sparkly paper at Michaels (My Mind's Eye, Home) and used that for all my pieces of patterned paper. The clover is from the cricut cartridge "indy art." I believe st. patrick's day is from the designer calendar cricut cartridge. The little leprechaun is a quickutz original (I'd actually cut a bunch of them out years ago and hadn't used them all ~ there are so many pieces I bet I wouldn't have had the patience today to do it anyway!).

Hope you are all having an enjoyable weekend! It is beautiful and sunny in Oregon!

Pink Elephant Challenge #47

I've never done this challenge (and I may too late because I don't know when their weeks run) but they had a very sweet sketch! I loved it and I used the quickutz cake again! Thanks for looking and happy monday!

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!

2 Sketches 4 You - Kazan Sketch #36 - A Door Hanger!

In the summer, I had made a couple door hangers with sketches and Kazan's sketch just made me think of one for fall! I wanted to do one so it was perfect!

The size of this is 8 X 8 and the paper is from a Making Memories 8 X 8 fall pack that I got at Michaels. I got the ribbon at Michael's also. The tree and Fresh Air are from the Cricut Graphically Speaking Cart and Fall is from the Cricut Ashlyn's Alphabet Cart. The pumpkin is a sizzix original and the leaf on the pumpkin and the owl are quickutz (I managed to use all my die cut systems in one thing!). The sparkly leaves are little buttons I got at Walmart when I did my daughter's outdoor school book!

I really like how it turned out! Thanks Kazan for a great sketch!

Card Patterns #12

At first when I looked at the Card Patterns Sketch #12, I just couldn't see anything! But then I noticed another cool Cutting Cafe Printable Stamp ~ see the link to the right ~ from the All About Mom set. And then I found this cool Junkitz paper in my stash that I've had for a long time. It is absolutely beautiful and colorful and I have 4 sheets of several patters so why I've never used, I don't know why. I love this quickutz revolution 3D butterflies and they look great with the junkitz paper! The I love you in the middle is from the cricut cartridge Lyrical Letters.

I'm really loving the Cutting Cafe Stamps and the Card Patterns Sketches!

2 Sketches 4 You (Week of 4/20/09)

I'm on the last day again to do 2 Sketches 4 You! But here is my card for Laura's Sketch 24! I got some really cool printable stamps from the Cutting Cafe (see the blogs I follow on the right for a link!) ~ Thank You Big Circle and All About Mom ~ and just thought this was a cool sketch to use them for! I added some bling and viola!









My second card is for Ewonne's Bonus Sketch at 2 Sketches 4 You. I used some printable stamps from the Cutting Cafe again! The Happy Graduation Big Circle and the calendar circle! My daughter gets "promoted" from 5th grade to middle school on June 10 so this is for her! She likes lots of bling and so this worked out really good. The owl and arrows are quickutz dies.

I spent most of the day taking a very cool class at my local scrapbook store (Scrapbook Fever) ~ it was to make a frame from the fancy pants 6 window frame. I need to put some pictures in it and then I will post pictures!

Thanks for taking a peek! And have a great rest of the weekend!

Card Patterns #9 - Another 3 pages from the Silverwood Altered Book!

The Card Patterns Sketch yesterday was so cute! I made this card for my daughter for easter. I love the peek-a-boo bunny from quickutz and I have used it every year for something! I used this Basic Grey paper that I had in 6 X 6 and had to cut it down the middle and finagle (is that a word) it so that it would fit the card but with all the stuff down the middle you don't even notice!







Here are some more pages from my Silverwood (Amusement Park in N. Idaho) Altered Book. these are all the driving pictures. I had so much fun using my cricut on these pages. The old car is from the My World Cartridge, the Driver's License is from Locker Talk. Both of these patterend papers were in my stash! Yeah, I used something I've had for years!








For this set of pictures I also used paper from my stash! I used the Going Places and Graphically Speaking cricut cartridges. I love how it turned out!











For this last one, I had purchased this paper at my local scrapbook store, Scrapbook Fever because it was just so cute! It is double sided and the strip where Driving is is from the back side! All the words on this one are from the Storybook Cartridge and again I used Going Places!

I'm sure the kids won't get the "Driving Miss...." from the Driving Miss Daisy movie but the old cars and my son driving his sister and cousin was just too cute. In the picture on the left, if you look close you can see he has his thumb up!

This book is a little hard to take pictures of because it is just crammed full and will hardly shut. If I did it again, I think I would do it differently but even though it is really stuffed, it will be a keepsake for all of them!

Have a super week!

2 Sketches/Card Patterns #8/More Silverwood Book!

So I'm really slow at getting the 2 Sketches card done this week! In fact I don't think I've done it for a couple weeks now! Everything has been incredibly busy at work and I've been trying to work on some altered books in all my spare time! It feels good to be scrapping again and getting something completed!

I used the 2 Sketches sketch this week to do some more "all occasion" cards that I could use as thank you type notes at work. On February 14, Oregon celebrated it's 150th birthday so I took this picture of the cake (it fed 3,000 people) and used it for the cards. I work for the State of Oregon so this works great!

The 2nd card I made is for the Card Patterns #8 sketch. I broke out my 2008 (or was it 2007???) DCWV paper pads and used some patterned paper from it. The cute bunny is a Scrapyland.com exclusive Quickutz Die. He is so cute! I was just waiting for a time to use him!

Here are 3 more sets of pages from my Silverwood altered books! I had a lot of fun with the Elephants page ~ this is my niece Sydney. I used the Indie Art Cricut Cartridge to do the wings (I got such a deal on this cartridge as it was the last one at my Michael's and they were clearancing it - I got it for $19.99!). The Elephant is an exclusive Quickutz die cut (I'm not which store was the one that offered it but I had to have it and this is the first time I used it!).

They have a great Merry Go Round at Silverwood also. The stamp that says Best of Times is a Teresa Collins.

On the 2nd Merry Go Round page, I had an opportunity to use another Quickutz Exclusive die -the horse (From Shop Remember When).

This has been such a fun book and I've been able to be so creative! I'm shooting for getting it completed by Easter but that could be a little aggressive as I have 6 sets of pages to get done (X 4)!

Take care and have a great weekend!

Thinkin' and Feelin' Green! St. Patrick's Day is the Next Holiday!

Today was a Holiday so I didn't have to go to work today! We had some errands to run but I actually had time to work on sketches early this week! I was in the St. Patrick's day mood as I had just gotten out all of my St. Patrick's day paper. I usually make some cards for the food drive for every holiday so this is a fun one! It is fun to make things green! So here are some green cards! The first one is Kazan's Sketch 20 for the week of 2-16-09. I turned it upside down. The shamrock is made of the irish blessing printed on cardstock. I made the pattern after seeing a card a few years ago on scrapbook.com. The shamrock brads are from Oriental Trading. The little love charm is from Michael's (found it in the wedding section). The green patterned paper is imaginisce (I've had it for a couple years!). The little tag thing with lucky me on it is a quickutz die and Lucky Me is one of those cool $1 stamps!

The 2nd card is for Julie Campbell's bonus sketch. The patterned paper is from my stash. The stamps are also $1 stamps! The poem I found somewhere on the internet and typed in. The circle is a quickutz cookie cutter and the leprechaun is an original 2 X 2 quickutz ~ I'd cut out a bunch one year when I was making cards and they never fit quite right on what I was making so now I have a bunch ready to go!

I found another cool sketch web-site this morning called Card Patterns - see the blogs that I follow for a link! Kristin Swain who was on 2 Sketches 4 You design team before is now on their design team! This is only the 2nd week of their sketches so it is very cool to get in on it early! I used the same poem and some more paper and stamps from my stash!

The last 2 pictures are of some shakers that I did using the same poem and the cute leprechauns! Just having a good time with green today! And shakers are so fun!

I've still got more green paper in my stash and still a month to St. Patrick's day so you can bet there will be more green cards coming!

Happy Birthday Oregon, Happy Valentine's Day, and 2 Sketches 4 You!

I had some fun with the sketch this week at 2 Sketches 4 You. My first card is another valentine to sell for the Governor's Food Drive. Patterned paper and journal page are Making Memories. The butterfly is one of those cool new 3-D dies from Quickutz (this one is for the revolution). I'm really liking these! "Kisses" is an imaginisce snag 'em stamp. I used stickles on top of it and to outline the heart.

I've been making so many valentines for the food drive that I have not had time to make any for my family and friends that I usually send them to so I was trying to figure out what to do at such a late time and then while I was looking at the sketch, it came to me!

Valentine's Day is not just Valentine's Day in Oregon! It is also Oregon's Birthday! In fact if you look closely at the state seal on the flag it is in the shape of a heart. And this year is Oregon's 150th birthday. Can you say, sesquicentennial? I'd never heard the word 'till recently. There is going to be a huge party on the Capitol mall on Saturday that is a huge family event and my kids are incredibly excited. Radio Disney is going to be there, a cake that feeds 3,000, and even a "live" gold man (the gold man is on top of our capitol building) among other things! So that is where my card idea comes in! I'm going to take some pictures of the kids at the birthday party and put them in these cards to send to family and friends ~ after all, next year they can get a valentine.

For this card I put the sketch on it's side. I made some back ground paper out of yellow-gold cardstock by typing in "oregon" words in a word processing software. The state shape and the word Oregon are cut using the Cricut 50 shapes. The number candles are 2 X 2 quickutz and happy birthday is a quickutz revolution.

I want to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! I'm also a very proud Oregonian (for 25 years!) and am excited to be celebrating such a big event!

Sweet Valentines!

Every year at work there is a food drive during February. One of the traditions that I and another gal have started is to sell cards with all the money going to the food drive. February is a great month to sell valentines. I had made several (and so had she) but last week people were really buying them! So this weekend, I'm busy cranking out some more for the rush next week! I scrapped with my friends yesterday and finally finished the 2009 calendar and accompanying album for my parents so I spent the rest of the evening doing some valentines. Here they are!

The first one uses Bo Bunny polka dot paper and the other patterned papers are Making Memories Sabrina. I used the quickutz revolution 3-D butterfly (I'm loving this guy!) and the quickutz ticket. The tickets are stamped with Autumn Leaves stamps. The flower is felt cut with a sizzix die.

The 2nd card also uses Making Memories Sabrina with a doily from target. The round stamp is a Teresa Collins and the tag is a quickutz tag, stamped with quickutz sophisticate stamps (I had made several of these tags last year so they will come in handy to make some quick cards this week).








The 3rd and 4th cards also use Making Memories Sabrina. The 3rd one also uses the Teresa Collins Stamp.













The 4th card combines a lot of the elements from the previous cards. Love is cut with a sizzlet and the round circles are quickutz cookie cutters.










My favorite card of this group is the last one. All the patterned paper is Basic Grey Bittersweet. I used that wonderful butterfly again! I told you I loved this butterfly! The oval is cut with a quickutz cookie cutter and the love is a 2 X 2 quickutz.









I made some cool food for my friends yesterday and decided to take some pictures as I still have a dream of making a family recipe book for my sisters and mom that combines our favorite recipes with some scrapbooking so it is a family heirloom! When that will be, I don't know but I am going to start taking pictures when I make something would go into it!

This wonderful creation is a S'Mores Lava Cake. My sister sent me the recipe (see perfect for the book) and it comes from Everday with Rachel Ray. Here is the link: http://www.rachaelraymag.com/recipes/dessert-recipes/smores-lava-cakes/article.html



I made a sausage egg bake and overnight french toast for breakfast. (I could do better on my picture taking!)

And this is one of my favorite lo-cal treats. It is a weight watchers yogurt pie. I made an orange one and it was yummy!



Well, I'm off to make more cards!

3 Challenges in One!!! (2 Sketches 4 You, Card*A*Licious, and Non-Trad Valentine)

• I've been super busy this week (and next week will be worse!). I don't know if sub-consciously knowing I was busy, I came up with this card that combines 3 challenges:

>Kazan's sketch for this week (week of 2/2/09),

>Card*A*Licious Challenge (3 patterned papers + orange letter stickers),

>One of the February Card Challenges at Scrapbook.com is to make a Non-Traditional Valentine

The background paper is Creative Imaginations that I picked up at Craft Warehouse yesterday at lunch! The other patterned papers are Me and My Big Ideas. I actually used 4 patterned papers if you are really counting! The cute flower brads are Making Memories. The book plate is a sizzix and the butterfly is one of the new quickutz revolution 3-D Dies ~ so I actually through in using a new die in this card too! Kind of scary!

My 2 good friends will be here at 8 a.m. for a day of scrapping! Breakfast will be ready for them ~ a egg and sausage casserole and overnight french toast with strawberries! I've got a bunch of other yummy food ready and Gail is bringing pork tenderloin for dinner!

I'm going to try to finish the calendar I'm making my parents and then work on some more valentines. I make them to sell for the Governor's food drive in February and even though we had a lot when we started the week, the stash is dwindling! Which means money for the food bank!!! Yay! But more work for me!

Hope everyone is having an awesome weekend!

A couple cards to share!

I haven't done the Card-A-Licious Challenge for a few weeks so here is my card for it. The cardalicious challenge 10 was to use a circle (this paper has lots of circles - dots are circles, right? and there are circles in the square), a flower, and something sparkly (w of the flowers are sparkly!). Patterned paper is Me and My Big Ideas, the square is cut with the mini-monograms cricut cartridge, thanks is from the cricut stamped cartridge.






I've been toying with the idea of applying for the 2 Sketches 4 You design team (applications are due tomorrow night at midnight mountain time). Both Laura and Kazan do a sketch and to apply you need to do a card for each. I made several versions for Laura's sketch ~ here are 2. I e-mailed pictures of the some of them and she and her friend helped me decide which one to use (I will show it off later!). I love the internet ~ who would have thought that people in Houston can help me Oregon make that decision! Love it!

Thanks uses pattern paper from Me and My Big Ideas, Thanks cut from the cricut stamped cartridge. Flourish is a quickutz revolution.



The 2nd card is an 11 year old birthday card that either my daughter can use for a birthday party (she will be 11 and all her friends are turning 11). She loves it when the card says the age on it. The paper is from my stash. Happy Birthday is a quickutz revolution and the "1" candles are 2 X 2 Quickutz.The patterned paper is from my stash.

With the help of my friend Gertie from work, we finished the scrapbook for my boss. It turned out great and everyone was quite impressed. Now I'm ready to tackle getting the 2009 calendar and album done for my parents and then move on to finish something else!!!

2 Sketches 4 You ~ Week of 1/12/09

This week it was Laura's turn to do the sketch at 2 Sketches 4 You. I've really been into making shaker boxes so I immediately saw a shaker box in the square on the right side! I'm still making valentines for the food drive at work so I made a couple here!

The first 2 cards use a black and white embossed paper that I got at Michael's on clearance. The ribbon and the love charm are also from Michaels! I used a sizzix frame to make the shaker box (see splitcoaststampers.com for a great tutorial!). The Valentine words in the backgroud are from reginascutterdesigns.blogspot.com - I've used them several times and they are so cool! Especially as backgrounds for shadow boxes. For the card with the

black frame I used some embellishments that I had actually cut out last year when I was on a roll make valentine cards. They came in handy. For the card with the red frame, I used some felt and cut out flowers with the sizzix! I'm really liking the felt thing!










I had cut out a lot of little quickutz owls a couple weeks ago and found this cut "who loves you" stamp at Craft Warehouse. They just seemed to go together! The background paper was also on clearance at Michaels. I had originally thought I would use the paper for my dad's birthday card but it makes a cute non-traditional colored valentine! I don't know what it is about owls but they are so stinkin' cute!

The last card I made (I can't believe I made 4 but I was on a roll!) is for my dad's birthday! The paper is Bohemian and is 2 sided so the frame and the background are from the same paper. I made the background of the shaker box myself. I just put in all kinds of 77's in wordprocessing software and changed the fonts and sizes. The 77 candles are from the quickutz release. Wish is also a quickutz from awhile back. The white flourish is a quicktutz revolution. My dad's birthday is in February so it is cool I have it done. The only problem I have is I don't know when he will get it because they are traveling to warm climates right now and don't know where they will be!

My sister, Teresa (tsscrappinblog.blogspot.com) did her card for dad last week with the sketch! It's totally cool we are both done!

It is has been quite a busy and exciting week! My boss is leaving and I was asked to do his job in an "acting" capacity until about the end of June. I'm very excited! Been busy at work making lists of stuff to deal with before he leaves and after he leaves and all kinds of stuff! It was so nice tonight to relax and do some cards!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great time till I see you again!