Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The Little Blue House - Scrapstashers Anonymous

I'm so excited to share my latest discovery. This wonderful little paper studio opened up right down the street from where I live and they have the most amazing classes! It's called The Little Blue House.

Yesterday I took my first class with them. It's called Scrapstashers Anonymous. Each month they show you a project you can make with your scraps. And what's totally fun is you don't know what you are making until you get there!

Anyway, it was a blast and the time went by too quickly. Once I got home I added the finishing touches and voila! I have this awesome wall art for December. So here's a look at what I made.

Mine came out a lot busier than some of my classmates (which were gorgeous, by the way) but I love it! I couldn't help add more and more and now I just love to stare at it all.

This was so much fun we signed up for the next's month's class. You have to check it out if you are in the area.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Oops almost forgot!

In case you haven't heard. Provo Craft is offering 6 free cartridge downloads on Nov. 1st for Gypsy owners if you register your Gypsy by Oct. 31st. One is a new cartridge called Smiley Cards! So hurry and register your Gypsy this weekend.

For more information vist here .

Happy Halloween!!

I hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween! I wanted to stop in and share a couple of cards I made for Halloween this year.
Even though I don't have children to share in the Halloween fun, I still love to play with the fun images of the holiday. And so, I also made a little treat bag with my Cricut for a friend's daughter. I think it came out pretty cute and it took less than 1/2 hour to cut and put together.
Here's the front.
And this is the back.
For some reason this year it seemed like a long Halloween season. I don't know why, maybe because I started decorating for fall and creating Halloween projects in mid September. Then I volunteered for our neighborhood's Fall festival earlier this month or maybe it's because I read about so many other bloggers who've been preparing for the holiday also. Nonetheless, I've had fun and am now turning my sights to Christmas.


For November, we are having a fun handmade Christmas ornament contest/challenge at ScrapaholicsQClub. There is still time to join us if you'd like and you only need to make one handmade ornament for this simple challenge.


I'll try to stop in again soon and share some Christmas projects.



Wednesday, August 18, 2010

What I've been up to lately




Hello! I know it's been a while since I've posted here but I've been so busy working on our new crafty community Scrapaholics Q Club. At SQC we share our ideas, techniques, findings and news on the scrapbooking industry. We also have fun sharing our projects in our gallery and we've just started a fun swap group. So, you should come on by and join us. Everyone crafty is welcome.

Right now, we have a contest sponsored by CropStop.com. The winner gets a $30 gift certificate! So you can make your own prize package. How cool is that!

Now, before I leave, I wanted to share some of my latest projects that I've shared at SQC.






Hope you are having a great Summer!


Thursday, May 6, 2010

Happy Mother's Day!

Just a quick pop in to wish all the Mothers in the world a wonderful upcoming Mom's Day.

In honor of Mother's day I created the following layout:


This layout was inspired by the Playing with Punches course I took at My Creative Classroom (Also, check out their Haiti Benefit Class).
All the scalloped circles and butterflies were punchies from scraps. Have you noticed all the butterflies in paper crafts right now. I just had to punch some out also. Here's a close-up.


I also made a cutsie Mother's Day Card. I used the Cricut Straight from the Nest for the birds and I stamped the ribbon. The three birds represent my Mother's three children.


Then I was in a card making frenzy and made a couple more cards just for fun. The one below is very dimensional but I didn't take a very good pic of it. The butterflies here were stamped and cut out, not punched.
This one was made with the Cricut Create a Critter. At first, I did not know what the accessories for this image were. Then I asked my DH and he figured out it was a skirt! I can't believe he could figure that out and I couldn't! I cut the band of the skirt and center of the flower out of foil paper. That's why it looks a bit strange in the photo and the mat looks lopsided. Anyway, isn't she just adorable?

These projects made me realize something very interesting about myself. I realized I love to scrap more than I like to make cards. Card-making is a beautiful craft and offers instant gratification but I feel I've accomplished something more important for me when I create a scrapbook layout. I will look at it again and again and admire it more so than I do a card.

You usually have to give a card away after you've worked so hard to make it. Do the people you give the card to truly appreciate the effort you put into it? Do they keep it forever? I can go back to my scrapbooks and appreciate every little thing I did on that page. I can remember my mistakes and what I did to correct them. I can remember how long it took me to find the perfect paper or the perfect embellishment to go with the pictures. And you know what? When you're gone, someone is going to treasure those scrapbooks. There's something so gratifying about that.

I've also noticed more blogs and challenges changing gears towards card-making, even when they claim they have scrapbooking or show scrapbooking in their menu. There's still a large group of us scrapbookers out there and we love to share ideas and see some of your ideas for layouts. Please don't forget about us.

There's a great little group of us at Scrapaholics.ning.com. We are in the middle of working out some changes but we would love to share ideas and shopping tips with you.


Have a good one!




Read more: http://www.mylivesignature.com/wizard2_2.php#ixzz0nDWojQ9m







Thursday, March 18, 2010

My Review of Card Making with Cricut

After I got Card Making with Cricut by Annie's Attic last month, I couldn't wait to create some of the projects. Well, I finally got a couple of projects done. But it wasn't all easy.
My first project was this cute strawberry card. All in all this was a very easy card to create and the instructions were very clear. My only problem with this card was the strawberry top. For some reason my strawberry top did not cover the strawberry as neatly as shown in the book so I had to re-cut it larger than stated in the book. So, here's my version of the card. I used copper pearls (sorry, they didn't photograph well) instead of white pearls and green wire around the top instead of twine.
This is a very simple and cute card to have in your arsenal ready to go whenever an event comes up.
Now, my second project did not go as well as I would've liked it to. I decided to create this card (Sweet Baby Girl) except mine was going to just say baby so it could be used for either a girl or a boy. Again, I simply followed the instructions and made the first cut. First, it said to cut a 6 inch card of Storybook by pressing shift, accent, blackout, wishtrue and cut . But, as you can see by my picture below, the cut of their completed project picture is not the same as the cut in the Storybook manual. You do not need to press shift for this project but I chose to cut it as instructed anyway. However, it came out way too small, in my opinion. So, I re-cut it at a much larger size. The instructions then said to cut another one in a different color, cut it in half and adhere one half to the front of the first cut. But, I figured since I was using a double sided card there was no need for this step and skipped it. Then, I also had to cut away some of the tails at the top and bottom of the fold because they were too pointy (again, not like the photo). Anyway, I was getting frustrated with this card and the instructions and just wanted to get it completed. So, here is my finished project. I got basically the same results and I used a Spellbinders scalloped die to cut the circle instead.

And, finally, I will say this. This book is full of great and beautiful projects but it seems to me some of the instructions are not very clear or accurate. It would've also been nice if they would've included some step by step pictures for some of the projects and maybe offered some of the designer's tips or tricks they used to achieve the look.
Also, if you are a Cricut beginner, I don't think this book is for you. This is definitely for the seasoned Cricut user and mostly to get ideas rather than try to recreate the cards.
I hope you enjoyed my review of this new book. If you have this book I would love to hear your opinions of it.
Have a great week!




Read more: http://www.mylivesignature.com/wizard2_2.php#ixzz0iZKzOxpz

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Simple Stories and Scrapaholics


Hi, just wanted to drop in and let you in on a couple of things.

Simple Stories now has an idea guide by Brenda Hurd available. Check out the cute ways you can showcase your monthly pictures. They were also featured on KSL Studio 5. You can watch the video here to see more on how this system works.

I received my kit about a month ago but haven't started to play with it yet. All I can say is the papers are more of a cardstock quality and it's all so very pretty. Can't wait to start playing with it.

I also wanted to post about the new forum, Scrapaholics, I set up for scrappers addicted to their craft and addicted to shopping for their craft. A group of us QVC scrappers have already signed up and are sharing our ideas and sales or deals we find. Everyone is welcome, so please join us if you want in on some great crafty savings.

No project to share this time, but I'm working on it. Until next time...Have a good one!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

My Cricut Valentine Cards & Snow in Texas!

Well Valentine's Day is just around the corner. Did you make your cards this year? Even though we aren't big on Valentine's celebrations, cards are always a staple.

And, I made a couple with the Cricut. This fist one was made with Paper Pups and Don Juan. I added dimension by layering several cuts on top of each other. The paper was all from MAMBI and miscellaneous brown and white cardstocks.



This next card was sort of an experiment. I used the Cricut Gypsy and Paper Pups to cut out the Love card then embossed it with gold glitter powder and UTEE. Then cracked it and backed it with pink vellum. I liked the glass ceramic look. This was also MAMBI paper. I decided I not to use the traditional Valentine colors and I love the results. On another note, we got tons (6-8 inches is a ton for us) of snow in North Texas today. This was a very pleasant surprise since we usually don't even get enough to make a snowman. Anyway, I made a mini snowman just because being a native South Floridian I have never ever made a snowman. So, I decided to throw caution to the wind and bring out my inner child.

And here is my little man.
Isn't he cute?


And here are some more pictures of the snow.

We're loving it.
But I wouldn't want much more like the Northeast is going through.
This is perfect.
Well, I hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day. Until next time.




Read more: http://www.mylivesignature.com/wizard2_2.php#ixzz0fGt2YpJA

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Provo Craft does it again!

My first post for 2010. How exciting! I promise I will try to blog more often. I've been having a bit of crafter's block and trying to get my mojo back. So I've been scouring the web and other blogs and I totally lose track of time. There are sooooo many talented crafters out there. Kudos to you.

Anyway, I wanted to write about the very crafty and clever Provo Craft. They are like the "crack dealer" for the scrapbooking and paper crafts industry. Not only do they create awesome tools like the Cuttlebug, the Cricut and the Gypsy to get you hooked; they keep creating irresistable cartridges, dies and folders to keep you coming back for more.

And now, they are releasing their tools in gorgeous colors and designs. So why did they wait so long to start doing this? Was it planned this way? All I can say is their marketing team is superb and to the level of Apple's marketing. So, did they hold off on these newer designs for their very poplular machines because they know that as women we would trade in our perfectly good tool just to get the prettier style? Ah, they know us women so well. So, here's some pictures I picked up from the Cricut Message boards.

Here's the uber cute red cuttlebug. Photo by Marti(pezadoodle). She got these at CHA last week.

And here's the cute blue cuttlebug and accessories. I can't remember where I got this photo from, sorry.
I love the red one but I think I will give my old green one a good run for a while before I trade it in. So, will you be exchanging yours for any of the great new designs?