~Valentine Cupid Bears

Tacoah's classroom Valentines this year come from the wonderful cartridge Teddy Bears on Parade!  Just love this cart.  We chose the cupid for her Valentine's and made the boys with blue wings and the girls with pink.  Twenty-four in total.  That meant 24 bows and 24 arrows.  LOL.  On the back of each bear is a treat bag with two heart shaped lollipops and a name tag tied with a coordinating color of ribbons.  The bears were cut at 5" using Bazzill cardstock.  I also used a scalloped circle from Art Philosophy for the Valentine stamp on the bags.  These sure beat the store bought Valentine's in MY opinion. 

Of course, Tacoah grumbled about writing all those name tags.
Of course, the kids are only interested in the candy.  hehe

~Lots of Hearts

What would February be without hearts?   There is a challenge on the Cricut message board right now to make or share previous projects - with Hearts!  Makes sense since Valentine's day is fast approaching.  I have several projects in progress, but thought I would share the first two that I've completed.

I've been looking for this photo of Tacoah - taken at around 9 months for awhile.  It wasn't on my computer, but when I got the new issue of CKC magazine in December and saw this layout by Kayleigh Wiles, I just knew this Red Hat picture would be perfect!  Fortunately David has brought pictures along through 3 laptops he's owned since Tacoah was born.  Yeah!  By using a pretty much black and white layout, the pictures really stand out.  The hearts lend another touch of red and of course the title is silver glittered.  Gotta have some BLING.  The background is white acrylic paint and white dye ink that I stenciled on.  I made the rest of the embellishments with my Cricut and tried to stay pretty true to the original.  I used Hanna Montana for the big heart behind the pics, Artiste, Art Philosophy, Create a Critter to make tags and the other hearts and the Ace of Hearts playing card.  There is only a little pattern paper on here and it's from a 6x6 MME pack called Love Me.  I also used a couple of Becky Higgins Project Line 3x4 grid cards to make the tabs behind the 2nd picture.  The $2 stamp is from Stella Rose and Recorded is from CTMH.  The pussy willow branch was cut from a bunch that I got at Michaels.

 

Next, I set out to decorate her Valentine Mailbox.  Target has these in the $1 bin every year but I missed out on them last year.  Tacoah likes getting little notes  all the time, so we will use this even after Valentine's day.  I put her Monogram on the front and used images from Storybook, Create a Critter,  Stamping, Beyond Birthdays and Pretty Pennants to decorate all sides.  Then I added some bling that I got as a gift for ordering from ScrapbookPals.com.  I just love working with Vinyl!

Anyway, I hope the be back later in the week with her class valentines and some cards.  In the meantime, Thanks for stopping by!

~Sympathy Card

A former coworker recently lost her husband to cancer.   She retired last year so that she could devote more time to caring for him.  I sent her a Mass Card, but wanted to create something a little more personal to let her know I was thinking of her.

This card was created with one of the Year 2 Circle Carts called Sophie.  This cartridge has such elegant cards on it, that it's really my "go to" cart for those extra special cards.  I cut the card base from a solid rose colored cardstock at 4.75" and inked the overlay leaves.  I then chose a blue and peach patterned paper for the card front.  These pieces were inked as well and pop dotted for extra dimension.  Finally, I had a package of different colored fabric rose buds and I made a pin from some little angels I've had in my stash for over a year.  I felt it appropriate and she looks so sweet there.  I lined the inside with cream card stock and stamped a Thinking of You sentiment and hand wrote a note to her.  I hope it provides her some comfort.  Thanks for stopping by!

~Beautiful

I've had this picture taped to my office wall for about 2 months.  I think it was taken when Tacoah was 4 or 5 years old.   It's such a gorgeous picture that I really felt I needed to think long and hard about the perfect layout to put it on.  Well you know how that goes.  lol.  It never gets scrapped.  So when Sara on the Cricut message boards posted another challenge today to kill some time while we await Provocraft's new reveal, I decided it was time.  There was a layout in the Nov/Dec issue of CKC magazine by Maggie Holmes that really caught my attention and I used that as my inspiration.  There is a little of everything on here including tissue paper, inks, twine, ribbon, burlap, buttons and tiny staples.  I still like staring at it. hehe.

I used Accent Essentials to cut the circles, Lacy Labels for the adore phrase and Artbooking for the kraft overlay.  Thanks for stopping by!

~Daughter's Birthday

Time just keeps on trudging by even when you don't want it to.  Today my daughter Michelle turns 34.  Her birthday's are really starting to make me feel old.  ;-)  I did have her when I was quite young, but still.....

She said to me last night, "I guess you haven't started working on my card yet.".   eeekkkk!  So now they EXPECT a handmade card.  January is always a busy month for me at work and I just recently finished Christmas cards AND a December Daily.  I hadn't had time to catch my breath and consider what I would do for her birthday card.

So I got adventurous and pulled down a cart I've not used yet and CHEATED.  Haha!  Not really, but Creative Cards gives you basic card that you can bling up and really make your own without having to think about measurements and welding stuff together, etc. 

I loved this color combination of purples and soft greens.  I cut the card at 6".   I embossed flourishes on the butterflies and popped them from the page.  I added machine stitching and inks.  On the inside, I glittered another butterfly and used my cuttlebug on some vellum.  I really like the way this turned out and it really WAS minimal effort.  Michelle loved it too and that's what really counts!

Now who will make MY birthday card in two weeks??????
Thanks for stopping by!

 

~December Daily 2013

This is the first time I have attempted to do a December Daily and I am THRILLED with the way it turned out.  I used papers and embellishments from 25th & Pine, Simple Stories and MME.  I used Cricut cuts on a few of the pages with the most notable being the overlays from CTMH Artbooking.  Shown below in order is the cover, inside cover Intro, Days One through Thirty-One and a Year in Review Summary.  I will DEFINITELY do this again next year!  Let me know what you think.  I value every comment I receive.  Thanks for stopping by!

~2013 Christmas Cards

Although I got a late start this year, I did manage to mail out all the Christmas cards 10 days before Christmas.  I did a red and green version (20 of each) using the elves from Jolly Holiday.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

I made two of the 3 Birds on Parade Santa cards for my two BFFs.

 

..

 

I also always make a special card for my mother-in-law.  This year I used Inspired Heart. 

Finally, the cash holders I made for my kids using the Imagine cartridge The Good Old Days.