~Graduation Card

My hairdresser's only child (a daughter) is graduating from high school in a couple of week.  She sent out graduation announcements (I know her mom is VERY proud) and even invited us to her graduation party.  Unfortunately, we can't make the party, but I did want to acknowledge her special day.  This was also the PERFECT opportunity for me to get some use out of Teddy Bear Parade.

I cut the graduation doily at 4" from Happy Graduation and the Teddy graduate from Teddy Bear  Parade at 3".  Teddy was pop dotted from the base.  I used Artbooking for the year and cut it twice in gold and purple.  There is also a banner on the inside of the card that I cut at the width of the card that says "Be Yourself".  I might have also included a little fun $$$ in the card.  To be spent on something fun and frivolous, of course.  hee hee

Thanks for stopping by!

~NSD 2014 - Monochrome Rosette

For this NSD project, I combined two challenges into one card.   First Cricutaddicted posted a challenge to do a monochromatic project.  You can see her lovely butterfly card here.  As you can see, I used several shades of my favorite color ~ PURPLE!!!  The second challenge met with this project is to use a rosette.  Colleen posted this challenge and has some AWESOME party projects you can see here.   I welded 6 individual pieces of Rosette together (at 1" tall) so I only had one point to connect the ends (hot glue and I don't always get along!).  I also added a little strip of the pattern paper to the center of the rosette strip before connecting the ends.  I put a matching brad in the center of the rosette medallion.   This card was really simple, yet looks so elegant.  I used a flower embossing folder that sort of matches the pattern paper to emboss  strips on the outside and inside of the card.  The best part is that this birthday card was already earmarked before it was ever made!  So these challenges gave me just that push I needed.  I hope you will visit the tutorials on these blogs and try some of your own projects.  Thanks for stopping by!

~NSD 2014 - XO Three In A Row

The tic-tac-toe challenge is one of my favorites.  Maria challenged us to create a project choosing any three items in a row from the following.

I needed to make a Mother's Day card anyway, so I chose the center row down for my card.  The Sun, leaves and basket are all embossed on this card (the sky and grass are pre-embossed paper), there is ribbon wrapped around the basket handle and the basket and flowers are all die cuts.  I also hit the first column down with this in that there is bling in the flower centers, purple on the card and the main feature is flowers!  And it case you were wondering how I wove the basket, check out the last pic.  After I wove it, I ran the whole thing though my cuttlebug and just wrapped it around the die-cut basket.   Just love this challenge.  :-)  Thanks for stopping by!

~NSD 2014 - Happy Hour!

It's true.  It IS 5 o'clock somewhere.  lol   Linda's challenge was to use a drink somewhere on our project.  Any kind of drink.  I'm not much of a drinker but when I saw this cute pineapple on Life is a Beach I just had to use it on my card.  And, since we have a friend in Hawaii who hasn't gotten a card/note from us since Christmas, the Aloha  was the perfect sentiment!  Visit Linda's blog here to see her really cool little piggie in a barrel and some AWESOME shaker cards.   Thanks for stopping by and have a free drink on me!

~NSD 2014 - DID-I-MENSION II

The challenge here was to create something three dimensional with one of the many cartridges that have boxes, bags, etc..  Our challenge hostess Renee created some beautiful tabletop décor for Cinco de Mayo, which you can see here.  I had been thinking about making some decorations for Tacoah using Pinwheels and remembered there were some on one of the newer carts that I hadn't used yet.  So, I dug out my Home for the Holiday - Spring and Summer and created these bright and cheery Pinwheels!  I cut these at 4.5 inches and folded two of them in the reverse direction from the other 3 just to add a little interest.  I wrapped coordinating bakers twine around the vase and added coordinating stars cut from Craftoom Basics at 2" along with some acrylic beads.  I mounted the pinwheels to bamboo sticks that I had wrapped with washi tape.  I planted these into some fish tank gravel in the bottom of the vase and voila!  Really cool table top decoration!  I hope you'll try this three dimensional challenge and thanks for stopping by!

~NSD 2014 - When the #1 Fan is a Man

This challenge from the lovely Diane was to make a masculine themed project for the #1 Man in your life.  You can check out Diane's awesome project on her blog here.   I decided I would do a scrapbook page of David - something I have NEVER done before.  That's really because he will rarely hold still for a picture and is always busy fixing something.  Hence the title of my LO ~ Mr. Fix It.  There are only two Cricut cuts on this layout .  The arrow on the right is the negative from one of the frames on Small Talk Frames and Tags and and the Look Here box on the left is from Artbooking.  Other than that, I just used some paint and ink and ephemera.  The title letters are from 7 Gypsies.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll try this challenge!

~NSD 2014 - Use music Lyrics for inspiration

Sing. Sing A Song.  The lovely Sara at Sing A Song Challenge has challenged us to use song Lyrics for inspiration on a project.  One of my favorite songs is Wind Beneath my Wings by Bette Midler.
I used New Testament for the dove on my card.  The Clouds are from Forever Young and pop dotted.  The tag is from Art Philosophy and the ribbon from my stash.  I wasn't sure I would be able to do this challenge, but this song just popped into my head.  Funny how that works!  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll sing a song or two today!

~NSD 2014 - Make Mine A Mini

This challenge was fun but I learned a valuable lesson when using a pattern paper with
different patterns.  MAKE A TEMPLATE FIRST!  I won't tell you how many times I
messed this up before I got the flower on the front where I wanted it!

This challenge comes to us from the ever lovely Amy at Make Mine A Mini Challenge.  She has some links on her post to YouTube videos showing these techniques.  This was a fun challenge making a mini using only ONE sheet of 12 x 12 (that is unless you screw up repeatedly like I did)!
We also had to use at least one Cricut cut.  I have two.  The secrets was cut from one of the fonts on CM - Divine Wedding and the flower is from Flower Shoppe.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you try this challenge.  These little minis have tons of uses!

~NSD 2014 - Let the Challenges Begin (with Color!)

This weekend is National Scrapbook Day (Weekend) and Circleville Sisters have planned some fabulous tutorials and challenges for the weekend.  First up for me is the color challenge by the fabulous cowgirl1hh. 

Here are the colors were were asked to use.

I decided to do a tag since I figured that would be quick and easy.  Yeah right!  I began with a plain rangerink tag #8 and stamped two different stamp in watermark ink and embossed with white.  Next, I sponged blue and yellow Dylusion ink in a random pattern.  I used a punch on some glitter pattern green and yellow floral paper for the band at the top.  I cut Dream from Sophisticated at 1", inked the edges and coated with Glossy accents.  The branch and bird were both cut from CTMH Philosophy and inked.  The bird was also coated in Glossy accents and pop dotted from the tag. The lavender flower came from my stash.  The twine was vanilla and I turned it purple with Dylusion ink.  That's it!  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you try the color challenge too!