My Scrappy Life

Inspired By

2012-01-27T20:33:00.003-06:00

That was the theme on the Pebbles Blog last week. We were to create a project based on an inspiration piece. And where did I go? Pinterest, of course. LOVE that place! Here's what I found -- a little beauty by Melissa Phillips.

And here's what I created -- a Valentine's Day gift bag for my mom. I used the Pebbles With Love collection and a plain kraft bag.

Be sure to pop by the blog and see the rest of the designers' fabulous Inspired By projects. You might just find some inspiration yourself. Have a great weekend!

Soul Mate

2012-01-26T08:00:00.000-06:00

Hello Thursday! Today ProvoCraft has released several new Cricut Craft Room Exclusive cartridges. I had the privilege of designing with Chess Set. My family loves to play chess, so I made a Valentine's Day card for my husband. Hopefully, he's not checking the blog today. Hee!

Soul Mate Card

Be sure to check the official Cricut Blog HERE to see all the cartridges and design team projects with each one. Super cute!

Project Life: Week Three

2012-01-23T08:58:00.001-06:00

I have another week of Project Life to share. I am loving this project SO much that I took it with me to a crop over the weekend. My fellow scrappers had to listen to me go on and on about this book. By Sunday, though, I had people asking me to write down Becky Higgins' name and to tell them what they need to order. Um . . . . I'm thinking I need some dividends. Ha ha! Anyhoo, here's Week Three.

Pretty simple design again this week. No surprise there. I used my Martha Stewart anywhere star punch on a journaling card, then backed it with paper from the extra paper pack. Easy! Another easy embellishment are the number stickers that come with the Core Kit. Just a little pop of color to link my photos and journaling.

For the right side, I dug out a couple of items in my stash. Baker's twine wrapped around a journal card, a couple of American Crafts stickers, and my Martha Stewart butterfly punch. It doesn't take much to add a little interest and color to the journaling cards.

My insert sheet holds the boys' report cards. Ethan was especially excited over his behavior grade. Given that he gets a frownie face or oops! face on his calender almost daily, I was quite surprised that he made such a good grade. And the other sheet is a handwriting sample from this week. And how helpful that the teacher date stamped it for me.

Well, that's it for me today. I'll be back soon with a sneak from The ScrapRoom's February kit. YUM!!!

Hello Thursday on Friday!

2012-01-20T07:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was Hello Thursday on the Cricut Blog. I wanted to share a few projects that I created with some of the awesome new releases.

Chemistry Valentine Tubes

These were created with the Cricut Craft Room Exclusives Chemistry cartridge. Sooo many cute uses for this one besides just science. And the tubes are from SRM Stickers. LOVE those!!!

LOVE Frame

This frame is on my mantle, and it was SO easy to make. It's a cheap 12" x 12" metal frame that I filled with four sheets from My Mind's Eye 6x6 paper pad and four layered letters cut from Letter Envy. That cart is my favorite! So fun and funky and elegant all at the same time. Here are some close ups.

Dos Amigos

These pictures crack. me. up. My scrappy friend Beatriz drew these mustaches on my boys' faces to entertain them while I packed up my stuff at a crop. Too funny! As soon as I saw the Ole cartridge, I knew I had to scrap these photos. Just look at this guy . . . perfect, hun?

Sweet Love Treat Bag

Three new Valentine's Day digital cartridges were released, and each of them is precious and just perfect for all your Happy Heart Day projects. I made this little treat bag topper for my boys.

That's only four of the recent new releases from ProvoCraft. Be sure to pop over to the Cricut Blog or to Cricut.com for more great inspiration!

Doodlebug Cards

2012-01-18T07:00:00.000-06:00

The Doodlebug Design Team was fortunate to work with a Becky Fleck sketch for this month's Doodle Cards. I created a couple of cards with the same sketch but they have a totally different look. What do you think?

Love Card

This 3D heart is SUPER easy. I punched out five hearts, folded them in half, and then glued them together. If you don't have a heart punch, you could use a die cut machine or freehand them. Remember doing that in grade school? Fold your paper in half, draw the heart, and cut. Fun times!

Sweet Card

This one was inspired by the strawberry Doodle Pops sticker. Too cute! To create the sentiment, I cut apart one of the little flag stickers and tucked the edge of it under the leaves.

You can see the sketch HERE at the Doodlebug blog and you can find out the details about submitting your card. We'd love to have you play along!

Friendly Frog

2012-01-17T07:00:00.000-06:00

Hello scrappy friends! We're on day four of a four-day-weekend at my house. Didn't get done nearly as much as I'd hoped. My list is always longer than my energy level. Hee!

Anyway, I just wanted to share a layout that I had up on the Jillibean Soup blog recently. This one is about one of my son's favorite finds -- a toad that visits our yard regularly. That toad gets barked at by the dogs and rough-housed by my boys, but he keeps coming back. I say he's dumb but my kids say he's friendly.

Friendly Frog

Those paper strips (yes, STILL loving those) are all from various 6 x 6 pads. The smaller patterns are perfect for the small strips. And I just love all the color and pattern it adds. I've been surprised at how much I've used the Paper Pads on layouts since I always assumed they were for cardmakers.

Alright then, gotta go finish up a few chores to get ready for school and work tomorrow. Back to the grind!

Project Life: Week Two

2012-01-16T08:45:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, I completed my second spread for my Project Life album. It was an absolute delight to scrapbook just for me, no assignment or deadline, no specific papers or embellishments to work with. I had a great time digging through all my bins and boxes looking for stickers, die cuts, and punches. Here's what I came up with.

I noticed that a couple of my pictures had the same green color in them as the green in some of the Core Kit cards, so I went with a green, yellow, and red color scheme. I may not be so matchy, matchy every week, but that's part of the fun. Just letting myself play!

I found an apple chipboard circle to add to the title card to represent this week's school theme. I need to go back and add a title, maybe something like All About School. Still thinking on that one.

I have a mini stapler in my Project Life bucket after seeing lots of staples in other people's albums. Love that extra bit of texture that a staple adds. In fact, I'm ordering Tim Holtz's Tiny Attacher to use for this project. Eeek!!! Can't wait for that to show up.

A yellow snowflake? How about that, hun? I wanted a bright pop of color there, so why not. Hee hee! I have found that punches are a great tool for adding quick, flat embellishments.

My favorite find for this page was this candy jar sticker. It was in an Echo Park collection pack, and it was perfect to accompany journaling about my son getting a huge bag of gumballs in the mail. I also like that it took up the entire journaling card . . . I love bold, bright graphic elements. Score!

Well, that's Week Two. My kiddos have already poured over every detail of the page. They LOVE that this album contains an entire week's worth of moments and that they can look at it right away. And for me that's even more inspiration to keep at it!

Have a happy Monday!

Make Mine a Double

2012-01-13T06:56:00.000-06:00

What a fun assignment I had for Pebbles this week! A double-page layout. Woo hoo!!! When I came across a cute picture of my boys on New Year's Day last year, I was inspired to create a 2011 year-in-review layout. Here's what I came up with.

2011

Those photobooth style photos were a happy accident. My original intent was a large collage, but the spacing wasn't right when I printed my pics. I decided to go with it, and I really like the fun result.

I really like the combination of primary colors and kraft in the Fresh Goods line. With such cute papers and so many photos, I kept the embellishing to a minium. I used my Cricut Expression to cut out the 2011 title, some Pebbles mini alphabet stickers to label the pictures with the month, and a few layered butterflies. Easy!

I love how this one turned out. Just goes to show you that sometimes the best laid plans don't work out and you end up with something better. Woo hoo!!!

Thanks for popping in today. Have a great weekend!

Project Life: Week One

2012-01-08T21:09:00.001-06:00

You may remember from THIS POST that I decided to join in on Project Life this year. My supplies arrived in November, and ever since then I've been surfing the Internet (mostly Pinterest and Becky Higgins' blog) looking for different ideas about getting organized, setting up the album, keeping up, etc. There is a LOT of inspiration out there. I decided to keep it simple -- since that was the appeal to me in the first place. I gathered together all the Core Kit contents and a few items from my stash and created this little Project Life bucket.

And then this weekend, I made the title page and first week's spread. It is very simple. Maybe even too simple. I figure once I get the hang of this method of scrapbooking, I can go back and embellish these pages if I still feel the need to. Anyhoo, here they are!

After seeing Lisa Dickinson's title page HERE, I really wanted to make one just like it. However, I didn't have a page protector with the same size openings, I didn't have a picture of all four of us together, and I didn't want to stress over the very. first. page. So, I used what I had. And I like it just as well. Wanna know why? Because it took me about ten minutes and I just love the pictures I chose. However, if you have any suggestions on how to dress up my 2012 card, I'm all ears.

As you can see from my date card, I am planning to create a double page spread for each week of the year; however, I am not planning to take a photo every day. I know that will not happen. So, I plan to take whatever pictures I want and then I'll figure out how to make it work for the album. The first pictures I printed were the eight center pictures from a trip to the park. I always take a ton of pictures at the park, and I usually create a bunch of separate layouts using those pics. SO glad to have them all here in one spot. Then, I scanned in a note from my oldest to my youngest, printed it, and paired it with a journal card. And finally, I added a picture that I took at the movies. I also added a picture of the movie poster that I downloaded. Easy!

For this right side, I added four pictures of an Uno game along with the score sheet. My oldest totally changed the rules and ended up winning with 2,000,189 points. LOL! I also added a couple of pictures of the boys chowing down on some pizza and soft drinks -- they were crazy excited to actually get to drink a whole can of soda. And then lastly, I added a journal card labeled This Week with a little run down of what all the pictures are about.

I would have liked to add some stickers or stamps to the journal cards, but I'm not really sure where. Or what. Or if it's really necessary. So, I'm waiting to see.

Are you doing Project Life? If so, I'd love to see your pages or hear any tips/tricks you have to offer. Leave me a comment . . . invite me over to your blog. Us Lifers gotta stick together! Ha ha!

Dear Pebbles

2012-01-07T10:49:00.002-06:00

For my Dear Pebbles assignment this month, I created a couple of cute cards. Even though I used the New Addition 2011 line (primarily intended for babies), I was able to create a couple of all occasion cards. LOVE it when a line is versatile like that.

Love You Card

The cute swirled pink paper clips are also by Pebbles. I had a whole stash of those at one time or another and never really used them in any way I thought worth mentioning. But these little cuties fit perfectly on top of the New Addition 2011 layered die cut flowers. How fun is that? Hmmm . . . wonder if I have any more of those laying around here somewhere? LOL!

Precious Card

Have you noticed a theme? Scallops, pennants, flags, layered die cuts? Yep, that's what I'm into these days, and I'm allowing myself to just run with it. As in every. single. project. We'll see. Maybe in a few ~~weeks~~ months, I'll be over it. Doubt it, but we'll see.

Ok, that's it for me today. Gotta get back to chores. And not the fun scrappy kind either. Ha ha! Happy Saturday to ya!

January Jillibean Designers' Challenge

2012-01-04T11:31:00.000-06:00

This month, Jill challenged the Jillibean Soup Designers to use twine in some fun and interesting ways. I put my thinking cap on and here's what I came up with.

Party Hat Card

To create the little pom pom on top of the party hat, I looped the twine around two of my fingers about twenty times, tied another piece of twine around the center, and then cut the loops. After fraying the edges a bit, I ended up with a fun pom pom.

Be sure to pop over to the Jillibean Soup blog HERE to see some awesome twine projects AND to enter an awesome giveaway by Jill. Hint -- CHA!

Sweet Cakes + Sketch = YUM!

2012-01-03T11:57:00.000-06:00

Doodlebug just released a NEW line just perfect for Valentine's Day! Lots of red, pink, and white. Oodles of sweet treats, hearts, and flowers. Muah!!!

And all this month on the Doodlebug blog, we'll be showing you all kinds of ways to cut it up and use it on your pages, cards, and projects. Today, I have a layout about my two boys created from this month's Doodles sketch.

I Love You Always

All the details about this month's sketch contest can be found over at the Doodlebug blog. Sure hope you'll join in!

TSR January Gallery

2012-01-02T07:00:00.002-06:00

Happy Twenty Twelve!!! Did you have a happy new year's eve? I hung out with my two munchkins all day. We saw Chipwrecked, popped fireworks, and then boogied the night away watching Rockin' New Year's Eve. At midnight (well, almost) we made a toast with some sparkling grape juice and called it a ~~night~~ year!

I also spent some time this weekend working with The ScrapRoom's January Flavors of the Month kit. This is one amazing kit!!!

I LOVE how diverse this one is. I pulled out all sorts of pictures to use with this one.

Fall Delight

Furry Friend

A Winning Smile

Bee Thankful

This last double-page layout is my recipe card for the month. As a member of ScrapRoom, you get a recipe card with detailed instructions with each Flavor of the Month page kit. You can see the rest of this month's gallery HERE.

Have a happy Monday!

ScrapRoom Sneaks

2011-12-28T16:25:00.000-06:00

January kit sneak peeks have started at The ScrapRoom. Here's mine using Little Yellow Bicycle's Winter Twig.

Winter Memories

You can see more fun sneaks HERE at The ScrapRoom blog. The entire gallery will go live sometime on the first. Eeek . . . it's such an awesome kit!

Christmas Joy

2011-12-25T08:07:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

I hope you have a day filled with peace, love, and joy.

Christmas Eve Chowder

2011-12-24T07:00:00.001-06:00

Popping in quickly in between wrapping presents, baking cookies, and cooking dirty rice for Christmas dinner to share a couple of Jillibean Soup layouts using their Christmas Eve Chowder papers.

Holiday Traditions

Stocking Stuffers

No chit chat today, people. Just pictures of layouts. That's what you really want anyway, right? LOL! Hope you have a fabulous Christmas Eve!!!

NEW Cricut Craft Room Digitals

2011-12-23T08:42:00.000-06:00

Just about every week ProvoCraft has been releasing NEW digital cartridges for Cricut Craft Room. And the Cricut Circle Design Team has been creating projects to show off these fabulous new images. Last week, I created these two layouts with 3D Chinese Lanterns and Musical Instruments.

Epcot Asia

Instead of creating 3D lanterns, I used a portion of the images and layers to create a set of hanging lanterns for my layout. I added some contrasting cardstock, jewels, and jute string. I love how much dimension and texture they add to my page.

Practice Makes Perfect

The Musical Instruments cartridge contains a variety of instruments. Each one is very detailed and just perfect for this layout about my son practicing his baratone. There is also a Music Notes cartridge that complements this cart well.

I also used the CCR Exclusive Labels cartridge to cut the blue image that backs the trumpet. I will be revisiting that cartridge for sure . . . it has sooooo many cute images.

You can see all the Cricut Craft Room releases as well as some amazing projects at the Cricut Blog HERE. And since these cartridges are available to download immediately (and VERY well priced), you still have time to convince Santa to bring you one or two!

Our Elf Layout

2011-12-15T07:00:00.001-06:00

We started a new holiday tradition at our house this year -- the Elf on the Shelf. My kiddos named him Fred Finkle and they have been having a great time finding him each day, telling him their Christmas wishes, reporting on their behavior, apologizing for their slip-ups, and telling anyone who will listen about Fred's antics. It has been such a magical time that I don't want to forgot, so I am creating a series of layouts about Fred. Here's the first one documenting his first five hiding places.

Our Elf

I LOVE this Welcome Christmas line by Pebbles. It has traditional colors with a bit of brown thrown in, perfect for scrapping boys, yet is fun and whimsical in its patterns. I chose to use several of those patterns on the bottom portion of my layout.

I created this little bow from a strip of 1" x 12" paper. First, I created a loop from about 6" of paper. I then added a glue dot to the center and pressed the loop together. I used the rest of the strip to create a couple of tails and a center piece. This gave me a place to add some toothpick flags and a dimensional sticker. Fun!

A ~~few~~ lot more embellishments, and I decided to call it finished. I had a hard time holding back. There were just so many great stickers to choose from. I did save a few, though, so I could create more layouts about Fred's whereabouts for the rest of the month.

Have a great day!

Merry Christmas Doodlebug Shadowbox

2011-12-14T07:58:00.000-06:00

This week at the Doodlebug blog we are sharing gift giving ideas. I decided to create a little Merry Christmas Shadowbox using the Santa's Workshop line. So bright and whimsical and perfect for creating a Christmas scene for my son's Pre-K teacher to display in her classroom.

Merry Christmas Shadowbox

To start, I added a piece of Bubblegum Petite Prints paper to the back of my shadowbox. Then, I cut a large traiangle from a sheet of Teeny Toys Santa's Workshop Paper. I draped my tree with lights, stickers from the Sweet Love Fancy Frills Sticker and Santa's Workship Fancy Frills sticker sheets. To create my ornaments, I added some jewels and brads and a Snowflake Doodlepop for the star.

And what Christmas scene would be complete without Santa, presents, and the reindeer? I added some foam adhesive and popped these cardstock stickers on the edge of the frame.

And the finishing touch is a giant paper bow on top created with two 2" x 12" strips of Candy Cane Lane paper. The first strip, I notched at the ends and attached it to the top of the box. With the second strip, I created a loop and attached it to the center of the first strip. Then, I added a Poinsettia Doodle Pops sticker to the center.

This was such a fun project to create thanks to the variety of papers and embellishments in the Santa's Workshop collection. I think Ethan's teacher will love it!

For more fun gift ideas, be sure to head over to the Doodlebug blog this week. And who knows . . . you might just win yourself a littlesomething!

I said a hip hop, a hippity hop . . .

2011-12-13T06:47:00.000-06:00

To the hip hip hop, a you don't stop
The rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie
To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat!

Oh hi there, just relieving some of my youth. Some good old "Rapper's Delight" by Sugarhill Gang from 1979. I banged out my boogie many a times to that one!

Anyhoo, I'm really here today to post some projects with Imaginisce's brand new Hippity Hop line. It has nothing at all to do with rap. More of a Spring and Easter line. Such a colorful and cute line. Here's what I created.

One Rainy Spring Day

Sending Showers of Love Card

See what I mean? Too cute!!! You can see more Hippity Hop cuteness at the Imaginisce blog. While you hop on over there, I'll be bang banging the boogie to the rhythm of the boogity beat. Word!

i-Top, anyone?

2011-12-10T08:21:00.001-06:00

Our friends at Scrapbook and Cards Today are giving away the entire i-Top collection! Eeek!!! What an awesome prize! Just pop over HERE and leave a comment.

Santa's Workshop Layout

2011-12-09T09:39:00.003-06:00

I was SO excited to get the assignment to work with a Sketchabilities sketch and Doodlebug's Santa's Workshop collection this week. Here is what I whipped up.

Christmas Pajamas

Isn't Santa's Workshop such a fun collection? I think the peppermint border is my favorite touch. And the cute elves were the perfect complement to these silly pictures of my boys in their Christmas pajamas. You can check out the sketch HERE and see Wendy and Monique's awesome layouts.

Thanks for stopping by!

Pebbles Pillow Box

2011-12-07T09:33:00.002-06:00

This week at the Pebbles Blog we are showcasing holiday gift giving ideas. So many of my family members are asking for gift cards this year. In order to still have some cute packages to pass out on Christmas day, I decided to create an oversized pillow box for my brother's gift card.

I used my Cricut Expression and the Girls Makeup Party cartridge to cut this pillow box at 8" and the Ribbons and Rosettes cartridge to cut the large white flower. Then I decorated it with lots of Pebbles Welcome Christmas papers and embellishments. The colors and patterns of the papers were the perfect masculine touch!

How much do you LOVE those layered felt poinsettias that Pebbles makes? Look at all the detail. Perfect!

And the last touch was a tag tied with twine and adorned with a sweet little mini clothespin. So cute!!!

Now that I have a fun way to wrap some gift cards, I might just buy one for everyone on my list. My family will be happy to receive a gift card, and I'm happy to save time shopping and get to play in my scrap room and call myself wrapping a gift. Win, win, right? LOL!

Random Crafts of Kindness

2011-12-06T10:58:00.001-06:00

We're sharing Random Crafts of Kindness at the Cricut Blog. I made a candy bouquet for a retiring coworker. She is a country girl, who loves to ride horses . . . sooo we went with the theme of Happy Trails for her retirement events. We all wore blue jeans and bandanas to work her last day, we gave her rocks throughout the day that eventually spelled out Happy Trails, and we presented her with this candy bouquet and card at lunch.

Happy Trails Candy Bouquet

Happy Trails Cactus Card

This project was posted HERE on the Cricut Blog yesterday. I used my Cricut Expression and the new Cricut Craft Room online design program to create this one. You can download a CCR and a Gypsy file if you'd like to recreate it.

Thanks for dropping by!

We've Got Puppy Love!

2011-12-03T07:53:00.000-06:00

The Jillibean Soup design team are featured in Becky Fleck's December PageMaps Newsletter. I was excited to get to work with a 12 x 24 sketch.

Puppy Love

The original sketch had ornaments dangling on both sides. I used hearts instead . . . to reinforce my love theme. They were so easy to make with my Cricut Expression and Just Because Cards cartridge.

I followed Becky's sketch pretty closely. You can see it (and the rest of the design team's layouts) HERE. You are sure to find something to inspire you!

Have a great day!

Echo Park ScrapRoom Layouts

2011-12-02T06:57:00.000-06:00

Yesterday the December kits were revealed at The ScrapRoom. All I can say is Oh. My. Christmas. They are festive and fabulous. Today, I just want to share two of my layouts. That way I'll have something to post in the next few days. LOL!

Not So Jolly

Would you look at the faces on these two kids? Not happy. You'd think that after standing in line for 45 minutes after Christmas shopping for 3 hours, they'd be a little more excited to see Santa. Sheesh! Some poeple's children. LOL!

Popped these beauties straight off the sticker sheet, added some baker's twine and a pop dot. Oh yea!!!

Christmas List Joy

Every year I love watching my children open their Christmas presents, excited for whatever they get, whether it was on their lists or not. They are so easy to please. Such sweet boys!

Both of these layouts were created with just ONE of the FOUR page kits in The ScrapRoom's December Flavors of the Month Kit. Pretty nice, hun? You can see the rest of the kits and the entire design team gallery HERE. Well worth the trip!

Ok, I'm off to do some more Christmas shopping for my two boys. Can't wait to see the joy on their faces again this year!

Love Notes from Ethan

2011-11-30T08:44:00.000-06:00

This week is With Love week on the Pebbles blog. Every day we are featuring projects created with Pebbles Valentine mid-release. And it is such a great collection -- lots of red, pink, and white mixed in with some Kraft. LOVE it! Here's my layout that was on the blog yesterday.

Love Notes from Ethan

Even though the quality of the photos of my son aren't the best, I still wanted to scrap this sweet memory. I edited them the best I could but they were still a bit dark and grainy, so I printed them in wallet size. That helped a bit.

I used my Cricut Expression and Just Because Cards cartridge to create the layered hearts and the word "love". I added some sweet heart-shaped Pebbles buttons to the hearts for a little dimension. And then to finish off the title, I used a variety of Pebbles alphabet stickers. LOVE a mixed title!

For my journaling, I cut out three speech bubbles from the Pebbles Dear Valentine patterned paper and added them to my layout with a little foam adhesive. Easy!

Well, that's it for me today. I'm off to brave the cold weather (a crisp 36 degrees today) to do a little Christmas shopping. I haven't even started yet. Yikes! Hope you have a fabulous day.

Jillibean Soup & Petaloo Gift Tags

2011-11-29T07:00:00.001-06:00

Jillibean Soup and Petaloo have teamed up this week to bring you tons of scrappy Christmas inspiration. Petaloo's specialty and floral embellishments are such a great pair with Jillibean Soup's Christmas Eve Chowder. And just to prove it, here are three gift tags that I made.

For You Tag

Season's Greetings Tag

JOY Tag

Aren't the colors of the Petaloo paper flowers a perfect match for the Jillibean's Christmas Chowder? I thought so, too! You really should go HERE and check out what the rest of the design team created -- SO cute!

Thanks for popping in!

Thankful Cricut Projects

2011-11-23T09:18:00.000-06:00

Hello scrappy peeps! Today I have a couple of Thanksgiving projects to share. The first one is a card I created from Imaginisce's Happy Harvest paper collection for the release of the new I-Top 2.0. LOVE the new version of the tool. Sooo much easier to use. You can read all about it and see more fab projects HERE at the Imaginisce blog. But first, here's my card.

{Thank}ful

I used my Cricut Expression and Sophie cartridge to cut out the layered flower and leaves. Then, I covered a large Imaginisce Brad Daddy in brown cotton fabric for the center. Quick, easy, but oh so lovely layers and textures.

My second project is a Thanksgiving layout that I created for the Cricut Blog. Be sure to check out my post HERE for detail shots, cut and supply lists, as well as CCR and Gypsy file downloads.

Thankful Heart

Thanks for coming by today! And I hope all my stateside friends have a Happy Thanksgiving. I'm off to my in-laws house to enjoy some good food and good company!

Counting My Blessings

2011-11-22T18:06:00.000-06:00

Hi friends! Just wanted to share a layout that I have up on the Doodlebug Design Blog today. There's also a tutorial for creating the journal pocket and tags.

Count Your Blessings

Thanks for stopping by! And be sure to head over to the Doodlebug blog for your chance at an awesome giveaway!!! See ya soon.

ScrapRoom November Recipe Card

2011-11-21T07:00:00.001-06:00

Every month the ScrapRoom design team creates a double page layout complete with detailed directions for club members. This is the layout that I created for November.

Happy Fall

I LOVE the large tree on this Little Yellow Bicycle paper, so I designed this layout around it. Once I decided to just stick down the whole sheet, the rest of the layout came together pretty quickly.

I cut this cute blue frame from the striped paper and used it for my title. It was just the dimension that the right page needed.

For this left side, I layered up some die cuts and created a flower out of a canvas strip. The sticky back made it super easy to crumple and turn into a flower.

To see the rest of the design team's recipe cards, you can check out the blog HERE. We'll be revealing the December kit and gallery soon, so be sure to come back soon.

Have a happy Monday!

Missing: Natural Tweenage Smile

2011-11-18T06:58:00.000-06:00

Today I have three Jillibean Soup layouts to share. And for some odd reason, all three of them are about my youngest boy. Odd meaning that my tweenage son has forgotten how to smile. Every time the camera is pointed anywhere near his face, he tenses up and his whole upper lip disappears. The more I try to coach a natural smile out of him, the more contorted his face becomes. So, unless I want to scrap pages and pages of candid soccer game pictures, I don't have that many of him to glue down right now. In the meantime, here's some pages of my little redhead who is a total HAM and doesn't mind the camera at all.

He Melts My {Heart}

His Balloon Man

Oh my. I. LOVE. Pennants. So I covered this whole page in them. Most of them were created from scraps, too. Easy, trendy, and cute. Can't help but love that!

First Day of Pre-K

Ok, so besides all my crooked border strips (UGH . . . gotta work on gluing stuff down straight!), did you notice the green alpha stickers? I made my own patterned paper by adding a whole lot of random alpha stickers to some green patterned paper. I love the tone on tone look and how it reinforces the school them of my page. And I love that it used up the rest of a sheet of alpha stickers! Stash killer!

Jillibean Soup offers so many different styles of letters that it is really easy to create a mixed title. And there is just something fun about a mix of fonts, textures, and colors on a title. Fun!

Well, that is it for me today. The kids are out of school for the next ten days, so we will be busy trying to keem them busy (read keep them from getting on our nerves). And maybe, just maybe, the elusive tweenage smile will rear its beautiful, nautural head. Have a good day!

Imaginise & Glue Arts: Day 3

2011-11-16T07:00:00.002-06:00

Hi everyone! Happy Wednesday to ya. Happy two down and three to go. Happy it's practically the weekend. Ok, that one might be pushing it. LOL

Today is Day 3 of the Glue Arts and Imaginisce Blog Hop. Glue Arts sent me a nice assortment of adhesives to use with my Imaginisce papers and embellishments. And it was such a nice pair. Here's what I have up on the Imaginisce blog today.

Baby Shower Corsage

I used an assortment of Imaginisce's flowers in various shades of pink: Fabric, Cupcake, and Roly Rosies. And for the leaves, I used the backside of a sheet from the Berrylicious line.

Glue Arts's Cut It Up 3D Foam, 3D RaisNs, and Adhesive Squares were perfect for attaching the layers with a strong hold. Here are some close ups.

I think the 3D RaisNs are my favorite. I love the dimension they provide while still being a bit flexible. You can see more projects at the Imaginisce blog HERE and the Glue Arts blog HERE. Be sure to leave some comments because there are usually prizes to be had.

See you soon!

Cricut Craft Room & Cricut Digitals

2011-11-14T21:38:00.000-06:00

I am SUPER excited to share with you some new releases from Cricut. First, Cricut Craft Room is now open. And what is Cricut Craft Room, you may ask? It is a FREE online design tool that allows you to view and design with Cricut's entire image library, and then cut with those images that you own. The search tool is amazing! You can see all the details and learn how to sign up HERE.

And along with the opening of Cricut Craft Room comes the release of 20 brand NEW digital cartridges, available for purchase and use NOW. When you buy Cricut digital cartridges, they are immediately available for you to download and use with Cricut Craft Room with any Cricut machine. To see these new cartridges (as well as some AMAZING projects created with them), go to the Official Cricut Blog HERE.

Oh, and be sure to leave a comment on the Official Cricut Blog for your chance to win TWO Cricut Craft Room Exclusives. Woo hoo!!! How fun!

Give Thanks Card

2011-11-10T06:47:00.000-06:00

Yikes, totally forgot to post this card that went up on the Jillibean Soup blog last Friday. Jill challenged the designers to use some of the new corrugated sheets and this is what I created.

Give Thanks Card

I used the Brown and Kraft Plain Corrugated Sheets to paper piece a couple of acorns. I love how much texture they add to the card. The sheets are also available in white and red. You can find sooo many uses for them. In fact, be sure to pop on over HERE to the Jillibean Soup blog to see what the rest of the girls came up with. LOVE!

Thanks for stopping in today. See you soon!

Thinking About Grandma

2011-11-07T06:38:00.000-06:00

As I was looking through my Cricut Circle projects from the past few months, I ran across this layout that I did about my grandmother. This is an older picture of her. From before she had Alzheimer's. This is how I want to remember her and that is what inspired the layout. She passed away last week, so this layout is especially precious now.

Thinking About Grandma

I used the Cricut Circle exclusive Sophie cartridge. It has so many fabulous feminine cuts to choose from, and I really liked the doilie shapes. They were perfect for a page about my grandma. These American Crafts Dear Lizzie papers compliment her shirt so well. And she would have loved all the flowers on the page.

If you would like information about membership benefits and signing up for the Circle, check out this page. I hope you'll consider joining us. You'll LOVE it!

Joining Project Life

2011-11-05T10:24:00.002-05:00

Saturday is chore day here at my house. Sweeping, dusting, vaccuming, laundry, bathrooms.  This Saturday I also need to take down the Halloween decorations off the mantel and put up my Fall/Thanksgiving mantel decor.

And for the past ~~few~~ several Saturdays, I have needed to put away five buckets of layouts. I finally got enough albums, page protectors, shelf space, and adhesive (to repair several layouts) to put them away but the pile is SO huge that I am just. NOT. motivated.  What is your system for getting layouts into albums? How do you keep them from piling up?

I have decided, though, that I am going to try a new approach in 2012. First, I am not going to create so many layouts. Every single picture I take does not require an entire 12 x 12 page in an album, but I do still want to remember those moments.  So, I bought this from Amazon today.

It's the Project Life Amber Edition Core Set by Becky Higgins. I have considered this project for the past couple of years, but thought it meant I would have to take a picture every day of the year and I know myself well enough to know that won't happen. However, I've seen other bloggers showing how they make it work without a picture a day. So, I am going to give it a try. I'm hoping it will allow me to create fewer layouts while still recording whatever memories I want.

I also bought this variety pack of 12 x 12 divided sheet protectors. Having so many different types of pages will give me the freedom to put the album together however I like. Sixty sheet protectors fit into an album. Awesome!

I'm looking forward to playing around with this new system for documenting my family's memories, but I'm not letting myself open a single package until I have put away all my scrapbook pages from 2009, 2010, and 2011. Ridiculous!

TSR November Sketch

2011-11-04T08:05:00.002-05:00

Hiya scrappy peeps! Hope you are well on this Fall Friday. Today I wanted to invite you to play along with the ScrapRoom's November sketch. It calls for one photo and a sprinkle of leaves, which you could change to any embellishment you like. Pretty easy, right? Here's the sketch and my take on it.

Sweet Fall Memory

You can see more layouts using this sketch as well as the details about linking up your sketch HERE at the ScrapRoom. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Eleven One Eleven

2011-11-01T07:00:00.002-05:00

Wow, it's November. The eleventh month of two thousand eleven. It just never slows down, does it? Only 55 days until Christmas. And only 61 days until next year. Ok, enough of that. I'm stressing myself out. LOL! On a happier note, today is reveal day at The ScrapRoom. And if you love Fall, you will LOVE this month's Flavors of the Month kit. I want to share a few of my projects.

Family in Fall

You're Sweet

Thankful for My Boys

Soooo many awesome patterns and embellishments this month. You can see the full kit HERE and lots of awesome inspiration HERE. And I'll see ya soon with some more work from this kit!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T07:39:00.001-05:00

Are you excited? Are you ready to rush through homework and dinner and face painting and photo-taking so you can tromp around the neighborhood dodging cars and hay rides to go trick-or-treaing? Yeah, me too!

In the meantime, how about a little scrappy inspiration. Here's a Halloween card that I have up on the Jillibean Soup blog today.

31 Card

Oh, and I also want to mention how excited I am to have my scrap space featured at Northridge Publishing's Create blog HERE. In addition to scrap spaces, they've also got some great tutorials and awesome Fall cards this week.

Happy Haunting!

Anderson Farms

2011-10-30T08:35:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a beautiful day at the pumpkin patch!

Happy Sunday to ya!

Halloween Recipe Challenge

2011-10-27T08:55:00.001-05:00

For my last Scraptastic Kit Club project, I teamed up with design team member Michelle for a little Halloween Recipe Challenge. You can see all the challenge details HERE. For my project, I chose to create a decor piece.

This was such a quick and easy project, which is just my style. Anyhoo, I already had this plain wooden 8" x 10" frame. I used some Tim Holtz Stain from the kit to actually stain the wooden frame. I can't believe how rich and multi-tonal the color is. Then, I added some paper to the insert, a die cut, a couple of spiders, and some twine. All the embellishments were in the kit. LOVE that!

So, after you take a TON of Halloween photos this weekend, head over to the Scraptastic blog HERE and participate in our challenge. We'd love to see what you create!

Happy Halloween!!!

A Fall Family Photo Shoot

2011-10-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

It was a glorious day yesterday. Sunshine and Fall colors abound. So after church, I decked everyone out in some Fall colored garb and loaded 'em up for a little drive. We went south to Chicot State Park and had a fall family photo shoot. I thought I'd share a few of my favorite pics for our family who visit the blog.

This park offered so many great spots for taking photos. I ended up shooting at least a hundred. And soooo many that I like. Lots of scrappy material. And lots of pics for the grandparents.

Have a great day! See you soon with something scrappy.

A Pair of Punkins!

2011-10-23T07:37:00.001-05:00

A perk of being Scraptastic Kit Club's October guest designer was a discount on her fabulous kits. Couldn't let that go to waste, now could I? So, I bought her Halloween kit, which is stuffed with Authentique and My Mind's Eye. Yummers!!! Here is my first layout with that kit.

Pair of Punkins

I used the My Mind's Eye October layout sketch (found HERE) as my inspiration for this one. I liked that the paper placement was a bit different. Gotta get out of my box sometimes, ya know?

Jessica put an entire sheet of thsoe super cute Doodlebug black alphabet stickers in the kit. LOVE them! I liked them so much that I wrote out the entire date. I couldn't find a place to put it, so I curved it around my embellishment. Love how that turned out!

I have one more Scraptastic Kit Club project to share with you, but it'll have to wait until the 27th for the Halloween Recipe challenge. Hope you'll check it out!

OCTOBER Hello Thursday

2011-10-22T07:39:00.000-05:00

This past Thursday was the release of a TON of new cartridges by ProvoCraft. All of the new carts and a ton of sample projects were posted HERE at the official Cricut blog. Here's one that I made using the new Go Canada cartridge.

I {Heart} Canada Card

Oh. My. Goodness. How cute is that little beaver? I just love his little buck teeth and that he's just waving away. Too cute! The cartridge also has a really cute moose head on it. Both of those critters alone were enough reason for me to love the cartridge.

I cut the large maple leaf at 5" from a piece of Bella Blvd Sophisticates paper. And then I cut the little beaver was cut at 4", embossed one layer with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, and layered him up with some foam adhesive. And finally, I cut a 2" maple leaf, added one of Imaginisce's glam rock hearts in the middle, and attached it on top of a toothpick to create a flag.

Even though the cartridge has a lot of Canadian motifs and phrases (and I live in Louisiana), I do plan to use this cartridge. The alphabet that comes on this one is super chunky and cute. And, there are several motifs that would work well for scrapping some of my husband's Alaskan work photos -- an Igloo, polar bear, snow shoes, and moose. And the maple leaf could work for many of my Fall pics. Oh, and . . . well, you can see for yourself by checking out the cartridge at the Cricut blog HERE.

Well, happy Saturday to ya! I'll be back Monday with another Scraptastic Kit Club layout.

Create A Card Treat Pockets

2011-10-21T06:31:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday! I'm so excited to share my first Doodlebug project with you. This week's blog projects focused on the Create A Card system, and here is what I created.

Treat Pockets

For my pockets, I chose to use four Halloween colored Square Grid Cards. I LOVE the little tab up top! To create the pockets, I used some Terrifically Tacky Tape to close up the bottom and right side. Then, I just adorned each one with Monster Mania papers, stickers, die cuts, brads, and rub ons. Simple!

I can't wait to share these with the fam at dinner on Halloween night. Won't they look so fun on their plates? Eeek! Good times.

Have a great weekend!

Working the Wood Grain

2011-10-20T08:45:00.000-05:00

My sweet fella painted a bird house for me for Mother's Day in 2009, and I finally scrapped that photo. The layout is up on the Jillibean Soup blog today, and I thought I'd share it with you here.

Wood Worker

Love all those patterns, especially the wood grain. Isn't it perfect for a layout about wood working? Oh, and check out the woodgrain patterned chipboard letters. Ca-UTE!

I just LOVE Jillibean Soup patterns. So much so that I included 11, count 'em, ELEVEN patterns on this one layout. Oy . . . chill out scrappy lady. LOL!

And here's a fun Fall card, also using some Wood Grain papers.

Ok, so just a little woodgrain on this one, but lots of other fun Fall papers. Have a great day!

60-Minute Madness

2011-10-18T07:00:00.001-05:00

Today at the Imaginisce blog we are featuring projects made in 60 minutes or less. I whipped up a Christmas Advent Box. In 60 minutes. Really. I was a bit surprised myself. LOl!

Santa's Little Helper Advent Box

I picked up this kraft advent box at Hobby Lobby for $12.99, and I used my 40% off coupon, so it was a steal! Then, I covered each 2" x 2" drawer with a piece of Santa's Little Helper patterned paper. This step took about thirty minutes. What helped speed things up was when I discovered about half way through that I could use a one-inch circle punch to cut out the little notch at the top of each square.

Oh. My. Gosh. I LOVE that giant bow. Pretty fun stuff, hun? EASY. I cut four 2" x 12" strips. I looped the first two and attached them together the the folds. Then I wrapped a 2" x 4" strip over the center. Then I notched the other two and attached them to the bottom of the bow. I attached it all to the top of the box and then curved the tails and attached them on the sides.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a good day.

A Little Sunshine

2011-10-17T07:00:00.001-05:00

This month I have the pleasure of guest designing for Scraptastic Kit Club. Jessica puts together some fabulous kits. I've been working with her Blissful Sunshine Kit, which is stuffed with Authentique and My Mind's Eye. Lovely! Here's what I've created so far.

Pink Ribbons

My boys' school participated in Breast Cancer Awareness month by allowing the kids to wear blue jeans and pink shirts for a $1.00 donation to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. My youngest didn't have a pink shirt, so I made him and his brother a pink ribbon with some scraps. They were too cute! And the perfect excuse to take a picture and scrap with some pink.

Happy and Cute

My oldest son is growing up so quickly (don't they all?), so I love it when I capture a nice picture of his sweet, smiling face. This picture was taken during a break from a game of HORSE in the driveway. You just never know when you can get a good picture, hun?

Aren't the colors in this kit just beautiful? And I really liked all the Authentique and My Mind's Eye die cuts. Such fun to layer and cluster. There are just a few of these kits available HERE.

Thanks for stopping in today. I'll be back soon with some projects from the Witching Hour kit. Eek! It's cute!

Pumpkin Frame

2011-10-12T07:00:00.002-05:00

Friends, let me just tell you. I have been a decorating FOOl over here at my house. I LOVE Fall. The colors, the patterns, leaves, pumpkings, ghosts, goblins. All of it!!! But I don't like spending a fortune on some decor that will only stay out for a few weeks and may or may not survive my children's wandering hands, so I've been making a lot of fun decorations. Yesterday, I did a How To on the Pebbles Blog for this pumpkin frame.

Oh so easy and quick! That is my kind of home decor project. I hope you'll check out my post. And if you decide to make a framed pumpkin, I'd love to see it.

Ok, I'm off to drape some spider web from something. LOL!

BOO Frames

2011-10-07T07:55:00.000-05:00

With the help of my Cricut, I just got my mantel all spooked up for Halloween. I created a trio of frames to spell out Boo. Wanna see? Here's a shot of the entire mantel.

I made that banner three years ago, and I can't believe it's still in good shape. I blogged about it way back HERE in 2008. I used an old Making Memories halloween paper pad and die cut sheet and a pack of their glittered alphas. Easy!

Anyhoo, here are some close up shots of the BOO frames. I used Echo Park Summertime and Bella Blvd Sophisticates papers and my Cricut.

And one last shot of all three. You wanna know why I love them? They didn't take very long to make. An hour and a half or so. They didn't cost very much. I was able to use scraps. None of it was even Halloween paper. And they are large (8" x 10" each) so they really fill up the space above my mantel.

You can find more details (like cartridge names and cut sizes) over at the Cricut Blog HERE. If you decide to create some Halloween decor, I'd love to see it. Leave me a comment with your link, so I can check it out.

See ya soon!

TSR Sketch Challenge

2011-10-06T07:00:00.005-05:00

Hi there! Just wanted to invite you all to play along with our sketch challenge over at The ScrapRoom.

You can see all the designers' layouts HERE at the ScrapRoom blog. And here's my layout with a few close-ups.

Two of a Kind

Isn't this paper gorgeous? It's Fancy Pants End of Summer line. The colors worked well with this pic of my two boys last Thanksgiving. The hearts and the little thankful sticker really emphasized my theme. Oh, and I loved the sheet of chipboard that Tammy included in the kit. Banners? Swoon!

Can't wait to see what you create with the sketch! Toodles.

A Splashin' Good Time

2011-10-05T07:00:00.004-05:00

Sooo happy that today is Wednesday. I'm off of work today, I have no errands to run, and the weather is gorgeous! I'm planning to plant some Fall plants and do a little Halloween decorating. Fun!

Yesterday I had a layout go up over at the Pebbles blog. Another one using Fresh Goods. LOVE that line! This week's theme was It's A Party, and the primary colors in the Fresh Goods line were perfect for my party pics.

Fun Birthday Splash

Awww man . . . my friend pointed out to me that I had left out my "t" in birthday. I adjusted those letters so many times that I guess I lost that one letter. I can't believe I didn't see that before sending it over to Pebbles. How embarrassing! Oh well, maybe the yellow on yellow was a good camouflage and not many people noticed. LOL!

I just LOVE me some paper piecing. It enables me to use whatever paper I like even if there aren't any embellishments that work with my pics. And that's what happened here. I freehanded some splashes and a sun.

This was such a quick and easy layout for a few reasons. First, I scraplifted myself. I have used this same design for a couple of layouts, so it came together quickly. Second, these papers are so bright and colorful that I didn't feel the need to do much embellishing. Third, big paper pieced elements filled in the white space to make it easy to finish.

I sure hope you'll pop over to the Pebbles blog and see some more fabulous Party Week layouts, cards, and projects. Lots of inspiration there!

See you tomorrow with a sketch challenge!

TSR Recipe Card

2011-10-03T09:56:00.005-05:00

Happy Monday to ya! I'm back at work today after enjoying a weekend in the beautiful outdoors. Not much scrapping got done this weekend, so I thought I'd share another one of my ScrapRoom layouts. This one is my recipe card, which is an awesome perk for members of The ScrapRoom. Every month you get detailed directions to create a double-page layout with each of the four page kits that come in the Flavors of the Month kit. Here's mine.

September Fun

My recipe card each month will be a month-in-review layout showcasing my favorite pictures from the month before. This one includes a soccer and school picture and two birthday pictures. Since we had two birthdays in September, this Happy Day collection by Simple Stories was perfect. The colors are great, though, and could be used for other occasions as well.

To see more of this month's recipe cards, stop by the ScrapRoom blog HERE. Fabulous!

Finally Fall

2011-10-01T08:25:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite CHA releases was Bella Boulevard's Finally Fall line. Such fabulous colors! And lucky for me, it comes in The ScrapRoom's October Flavors of the Month kit. Here's a couple of layouts that I created with this kit.

Fall Fun

Counting Our Blessings

And not only are the colors fabulous, but so are all those patterns. Clouds. Owls. Woodgrain. Houndstooth. LOVE!!! You can see more great layouts with this line over at the October ScrapRoom Gallery HERE.

Thanks for stopping by. See ya soon!

Ta Da!

2011-09-30T07:00:00.013-05:00

Happy Friday to ya, friends!

I am sooooo excited to finally be able to make this post. I have finally finished organizing, reorganizing, moving, arranging, rearranging, purging, and labeling my scrapbook room. This has been a long journey, but four rooms later, I am settled and thrilled!!! Here's where my journey started. A 60" x 48" half-bath turned scraproom.

Tiny, hun? Oh, but it was cute. It had capaccino colored walls, a brown and black countertop, and lots of bins and buckets. Oh, and shelves all the way up to the 10' ceiling. What it lacked, though, was good lighting and electrical outlets. So, I moved in to the corner of my husband's office.

More shelves all the way up to the ceiling and lots of plastic! Aside from the blue drawers, I loved it again. But then, I fell in LOVE with a discount cabinet from Pottery Barn. Had. To. Have. It. So, I decided to take over the whole room. And my super sweet husband let me. Then, just last week, we swapped the entire room with my son's room. He actually wanted the smaller room (Score!) so he would be cooler at night. My husband and I were happy to trade up. We share the room and LOVE it! Here's the view from the door.

This is my computer desk and work table. I plan to add a skirt to the table (as soon as I enlist the help of someone who can actually sew) to add a little more color to the space and hide the trash can and rolling cart.

Here's a close up of my Making Memories carousel. LOVE this. It holds a ton of pencils, pens, and scissors.

Ok, this might be my favorite area -- two Making Memories shelves and a giant pic of my kiddos over my Cricut shelves. The baskets on the shelves hold my embossing folders, printer supplies, Imaginisce tools, etc.

This basket contains all my Imaginisce tools and accessories. The top tray contains my i-Rock and the bling compacts. Underneath it are three plastic bead boxes containing more bling, brad daddies, and glue sticks.

I use my Clip It Up to hold various 3D embelllishments and my ridiculous stash of Thickers. I still have the first pack that I bought. I just can't get rid of them. Good thing the Clip It Up has so much space!

And here's the Pottery Barn cabinet that started it all. It was designed for a child's bedroom, but the color got me. And it holds a TON of stuff.

In the bottom left cabinet, I keep my Cricut cartridges in Art Bin boxes. Each box holds 16 cartridges and the books and overlays. Awesome storage find!

Here's my vertical paper holders. I keep my paper stored by manufacturer in alphabetical order. I put each line in a 12 x 12 plastic ziplock bag. Then, it's very easy to grab a bag to take over to my table.

In the bottom center cabinet, I store metal embellishments, extra adhesive, and My Mind's Eye embellishments. These are some of the same plastic bins and buckets that I started with. Love that they are so versatile!

The bottom right cabinet holds my paint and stamps on the top shelf. I'm not a big stamper, so that is plenty of room. The bottm shelf is full of 12 x 12 Iris boxes. I store a variety of embellishments in these.

The top shelves of the cabinet are full of these canvas bins and totes that my husband found at Office Depot on clearance. They hold pictures, assorted tools, extra ribbon, and card making supplies.

Thanks for stopping by today. And I hope you enjoyed the tour of my space. I think it's safe to say that there will be no more remodeling or reorganizing, just decorating!

ScrapRoom Sneak Peek

2011-09-29T06:47:00.000-05:00

It's almost time for the new ScrapRoom kit to be released. And let me tell you, it is fabulous!!! We've been showing sneaks over at the ScrapRoom blog all week. Here's mine using Studio Calico's Memoir papers and embellishments.

Happy at Home

I normally have a tough time scrapping with Studio Calico papers (although I love them!) but Tammy put together such a great kit that I was able to put this one together rather easily. And the fact that I was finally able to scrap these photos of Ethan playing with his Tonka truck made me really happy.

The kit will go live on Saturday night over at the ScrapRoom website. And you are just going to love it!!! I know that I did. I'll be back soon with all my layouts. Have a great day!

Wanna Win a Cuttlebug?

2011-09-28T09:31:00.000-05:00

This Saturday is World Cardmaking Day. And to celebrate, the official Cricut Blog is having a card contest. Three lucky winners will receive a Cuttlebug. You can find the details HERE.

Between now and then, the Cricut Circle designers will be sharing cards for your inspiration. Here's my card that went up today.

Bee Happy

I don't know about you, but the fun patterns and colors of this Echo Park paper and that cute little bumblebee makes me happy. Hope you find some time to submit a card to our contest! See you soon.

Two Jillibean Cards

2011-09-26T08:23:00.001-05:00

Happy Monday morning to ya! Today is Cards on Monday at the Jillibean Soup blog and I wanted to share the two cards that I have posted today.

U R A Stitch

For this card, I was inspired by a quilt square template and Jillibean's Homemade 6 Bean Soup line. Lots of sweet stitching patterns, icons, and sentiments.

U R Sweet As Apple Pie

LOVE that Apple Cheddar Soup Fresh Apple Slices paper. Just the right shade of green for my taste!

Thanks for stopping in today! I'll be back soon to share some of the projects that I finished this weekend. Lots more Jillibean Soup and The ScrapRoom. Have a great day!

Pebbles Goes Back To School

2011-09-20T06:33:00.000-05:00

As you may have noticed, I am a big fan of bright colors, particularly primary colors. So, when I saw the Fresh Goods line by Pebbles, I was smitten. My first layout with this amazing line went up on the Pebbles blog yesterday. I thought it was perfect for back-to-school week. Here, take a look.

Bus Boys

After much internal debate about whether to let my four-year-old ride the school bus, I finally decided to give it a try. And I am glad that I did. He and his brother LOVE that time together since they don't really see each other much at school during the day. And the bus driver is awesome . . . no wrestling or playing around on his bus. So glad I got these photos of them the first time Ethan got to ride. Here's some close ups.

I LOVE all the embellishments available in this line, and the variety made it easy to create this layout. The toothpick flags and layered butterflies are so, so cute and add a lot of dimension to a page.

For more back-to-school layouts, be sure to check out the Pebbles blog this week!

Have a great day!

Releasing Imaginisce's Bon Voyage!

2011-09-19T07:00:00.002-05:00

Happy Monday everyone! And what a way to start the week than by checking out a new release by Imaginisce. This one is full of rich colors and fun vintage travel patterns. LOVE it!!! Here are my three projects on the blog today.

Vacation Journal

You've Arrived Layout

Miss You Card

So, do you just love it? I know I do. So masculine and vintage all at the same time. There are so many great ways to use this line. You can see more of those ways over at the Imaginisce blog HERE. And be sure to leave a comment because you just never know when you might just win some for yourself.

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a good one.

Dutch Mustard Soup LOVE

2011-09-16T07:32:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was my first post on the Jillibean Soup blog since being asked to join the design team. Pretty exciting stuff! Here are the layouts that were posted.

STILL loving me some Dutch Mustard Soup. The colors are perfect for Fall, which is right around the corner. These photos are from last Thanksgiving, so I was happy to finally scrap them. And the hearts were perfect for a page about how much my youngest LOVES his big brother.

To add a little interest to the right square on my layout, I added a almost all of the words and phrases from the coordinating sticker sheet. How fun, hun?

Sweet

Ok, wanna hear a funny story about this layout? Well, I had actually scrapped these photos a year or so ago but never put the layout in my album. After sitting in a crate for a couple of years all the cheap adhesive that I used had dry-rotted, so the whole layout fell apart. Since I didn't really like the layout too much anyway, I rescrapped the photos. I have NEVER rescrapped a layout, but I like this version a whole lot more. And now I use good adhesive. Lesson learned.

Goodness gracious, I LOVE Jillibean's corrugated shapes and alphas. You just can't go wrong there!

Well, that's all for me today. But be sure to check out the other layouts on the blog today and have a great weekend. Toodles!

Exciting News!!!

2011-09-15T11:06:00.001-05:00

Aphra Bolyer (LA) Wooo hooo!!! That's me!

Elizabeth Carney (WA)

Jessy Christopher (Malaysia)

Jing-Jing Nickel (MN)

Kandis Smith (ID)

Kathy Martin (NC)

Lori Allred (Coordinator)

Melinda Spinks (Australia)

Monique Liedtke (Netherlands)

Nancy Damiano (NJ)

Stephanie Buice (AL)

Rosangela Philippsen (Brazil)

Sherry Cartwright (TX)

Tiffany Hood (UT)

Wendy Sue Anderson (UT)

Thanks Doodlebug! And congrats everyone!!!

My First Pebbles Post

2011-09-15T08:00:00.002-05:00

It's Meet the Team Week at Pebbles, and yesterday was my turn on the blog. So excited. And a bit nervous. Have you seen some of the layouts going up? Wow!!! Some serious eye candy. Here's my layout.

Always Smiling

These sweet pics were taken at the beach this past summer. I love the soft colors of the sand and my kiddos clothes and skin. It's the perfect excuse to use some pastel papers and floral embellishments, right? (Thanks for agreeing with me. A momma of two boys has to really work the angle sometimes.) Pebbles' Floral Lane papers, dimensional stickers, and alphabet stickers were just perfect!

I used my Martha Stewart butterfly punch for these butterflies. The print paper is actually the bottom layer of one of the dimensional stickers. I just carefully peeled it off and then saved the top layer for another project.

Well, that's all for me today. Be sure to head over to the Pebbles' blog HERE to meet some of the other ladies on the team. I've been loving all their amazing projects!!!

Potato Head Parade

2011-09-09T07:56:00.003-05:00

Happy Friday! I'm excited today is Friday for a different reason this week. My little man has been attending Pre-K full time this week, and I'm kinda missing him. "Stay-at-home-days" (as he so aptly called them) are few and far between now, so I'm looking foward to a couple of days at home with my two boys. Nothing special . . . a little TV, backyard time, toys, a movie, maybe even a parade. Here's a layout of Ethan enjoying a Potato Head Parade during a stay at home day back in May.

Let's Play

Do you see all the Potato Head People lined up on the coffee table? Yep, that's the parade. Ha Ha! I love that 4 year old. Too cute!

I used my Toy Story Cricut cartridge and Echo Park's Little Boy papers for this one. Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head were just too darn cute! My cut list is below.

Thanks for stopping in today. Have a great weekend!

Toy Story -- Mr. Potato Head

MrPtato2-s @ 4"

MrPtato2-s Layer 1 @ 4"

MrPtato2-s Layer 2 @ 4"

MrPtato2-s Layer 3 @ 4"

Toy Story -- Mrs. Potato Head

MsPotato @ 4"

MsPotato Layer 1 @ 4"

MsPotato Layer 2 @ 4"

MsPotato Layer 3 @ 4"

Toy Story -- Let's Play Title

ToyStory Icon @ 2"

TyStry-s Icon @ 2"

Plantin Schoolbook -- Title Mat

blast @ 4"

** For some reason, blogger will not leave the carrot symbols on either side of the cuts, so I just typed the cut titles without them. Grrr . . .

Home Sweet Home

2011-09-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Labor Day to all my stateside friends! After entertaining the kiddos indoors all weekend (thanks to Tropical Storm Lee), I'm hoping we can actually get outisde today and enjoy a little sunshine. We'll see!

But while stuck in the house all weekend, I had a little time to do some crafting. I made a cute little Home Sweet Home card for my new neighbor. Doodlebug's Bubble Blue Swiss Dot Card and some Welcome Home embellishments make for one cute, quick card!

Home Sweet Home

Ok, now I've just got to go whip up a little treat to go with this sweet card and I can officially welcome my new neighbor to the hood.

See ya soon!

Garden Life Cards

2011-09-03T08:03:00.001-05:00

Happy Saturday friends! It is a dreary day here in Louisiana thanks to Tropical Storm Lee. Even though the storm will be landing a few hundred miles South, we are already experiencing wind and rain. The sun has shined pretty much every day for months, so this is a bit eerie. But also a good excuse to stay inside and scrap, right?

First, I want to share a couple of cards that I made for The ScrapRoom September Gallery. They were quick and easy thanks to a couple of American Crafts Garden Cafe Just Write Journaling Cards. I just rounded the corners, cut some cardstock to size, and added a few embellishments.

Hello Cupcake

Friends

You can find everything you need to make these cards in the September Flavor of the Month kit over at The ScrapRoom. The gallery is full of other cute cards, too.

Have a great day!

A Little Garden Cafe

2011-09-01T07:37:00.002-05:00

The September ScrapRoom Flavors of the Month kit went live yesterday, and it is FABulous. I LOVE all four lines that Tammy included this month, but American Crafts Garden Cafe is my favorite. At least, for today.

Spring

Aren't those colors and patterns just lovely? I especially like the brown floral one. Although I did have to work pretty hard to find an appropriate boy pic to use with it. Ha!

Hmmm . . . you know what title would've been better than Spring? Yeah, anything. I could not for the life of me come up with anything else. Especially something that would fit into my space. I really scrapped myself into a corner with the title on this one. I do that a lot. You? Anyway, if you have any suggestions for my title, I'd love to hear.

Thanks for stopping by! And be sure to head over to The ScrapRoom September Gallery. There's a lot of inspiration to be found. Oh, and some good titles, too.

Design School Guest

2011-08-30T09:55:00.000-05:00

Brrrrrrring. Two Peas in a Bucket Design School is in session! And I was asked to be a guest designer for this week's lesson on Emphasis and Repetition. Eeek! So excited. Here's my Back 2 School layout using my oldest son's last three first day of school photos to illustrate the design principle of hierarchy.

You can see this week's lesson, the Garden Girls' layouts, and the rest of the guest designers' layouts HERE. So much inspiration all in one place!

Thanks for stopping by. I'll be back soon with some ScrapRoom layouts and cards.

Back 2 School Mini

2011-08-27T08:00:00.002-05:00

Today at the official Cricut Blog, I have a fun Back 2 School mini album made from paper bags. I love how it turned out, and I can't wait to fill it with first day of school photos of my two boys. You can see more pics and get cut information at the Cricut Blog.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Fun Scrappy News

2011-08-26T08:19:00.003-05:00

Hi there my favorite scrappy people. Happy Friday to ya! I am off today and have big plans to hang out in my scraproom all day until the kiddos get home from school. Love me a scrappy Friday. Ok, sorry, I'll stop rubbing that in and get to the good stuff. My news!

A few days ago I got an email from Jill. Like Jillibean Soup Jill. She asked me to join her design team. Needless to say, I am super flattered and excited. I LOVE everything Jillibean Soup. You can see the announcement at the Bean Talk blog.

Thanks for letting me share! And thanks for all your support and kind words when I pop onto the blog and gush over how excited I am to be doing this or that. Your sweet comments are a real treasure!!!

Giveaway!!!

2011-08-24T06:18:00.001-05:00

My Memories Suite Version 2.0 digital scrapbooking software is a fun and creative way to keep and share memories, whether you have a Mac or PC. The software's design tools will help you to build entire albums effortlessly using one of the many installed templates, or designing your very own pages from scratch.

And if you aren't a digital scrapbooker, you can make other projects. I made a binder cover for a new Home Binder that I'm working on. I plan to print it out and slip it into the front cover of a plain white binder. This will make it a lot more colorful and fun.

This is a great program to have. It comes with a lot of great free images (all the ones I used above were free). Plus, there are even more available at http://www.mymemories.com/, and the easy part is that the images are added directly into you MMS for you!

I'm so excited because I get to give one lucky follower their very own My Memories Suite program. All you have to do is visit the site http://www.mymemories.com/ and choose your favorite digital paper pack or layout. Then, come back here and leave me a comment telling me which one you chose. If you want extra entries into the contest, then go follow their blog HERE and like their Facebook page HERE. That's three entries! Woo hooo!!! I'll choose a winner next Wednesday.

And if you just want a good deal, I have a special code for you to use at check out. With this you will get $10 off your purchase. STMMMS9135

Have a great day!

Imaginisce's New Line Is SPECtacular!

2011-08-22T06:00:00.001-05:00

Don't you just LOVE this new line by Imaginisce? Such great colors and patterns. But mostly, aren't the die cuts just too cute? I loved them so much that I piled them onto this back to school layout.

Back To School

Check out the new bling heart on the glasses die cut. Those are pretty new, too. Fun!

For my second project, I altered a bead organizer to hold school supplies. It will be fun filled with paper clips, binder clips, glue sticks, erasers, and such. We plan to fill it up and give it to one of the boys' teachers as a little treat. Gotta keep those teachers happy. ;)

School Supplies Box

I made a couple more projects with this line, but I can't share them just yet. But you can pop over to the Imaginisce blog HERE for the release party all week. Woo hooo!!!

See ya soon!

A Few Disney Pics

2011-08-21T07:30:00.000-05:00

Well, we've been home from Disney for a week now, and I thinnk I've finally recuperated. Walking around for eight to nine hours a day in hot, humid weather sure wears a girl out. LOL! It was worth it, though. We had an amazing time. And my family and friends have been asking to see some pictures. Here's a few, fresh from the camera, no editing.

How cool, hun? This towel art was waiting for us on our bed when we first arrived. We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. I highly recommend it!

Upon check-in, the hotel gave each of the boys a First Time Visitor badge and gave Jonathan a Happy Birthday badge (his birthday is actually next month, but close enough). They put the badges on and were ready to go to the park.

This is one of about twenty pictures that I took of the Tree of Life. It was pretty amazing!

My kiddos had a blast banging on the drums at Animal Kingdom. The faces that they made cracked me up. I have enough photos for a double-page layout on just the drumming. LOL!

Decked out Disney style! They both had to have a hat. Of course, Jonathan was a bit too old (so he says) for the Mickey ears. He got a baseball cap and pin lanyard instead. He had soooo much fun trading pins with all the park staffers. That's another layout in the future.

Awww . . . sweet, hun? Ethan LOVED all the characters. We got to meet all the Winnie the Pooh characters at lunch at Crystal Palace. And then we met all the classic Disney characters in Epcot. All those pictures are just as sweet as this one.

And this is my favorite photo. At the end of our day in Magic Kingdom, we sat right in front of Cinderella's castle to watch the parade. The castle changed colors the entire time. Amazing! And a great way to end the evening.

Well, that's just a few of the over 500 photos that I took. That's a LOT of photos to edit and scrap. LOL! Maybe I'll get them done before we go again.

Have a great day!

Back To School Teacher Gifts

2011-08-19T12:40:00.000-05:00

School started for my kiddos this week, and everyone is happy about it. My oldest son started sixth grade. Big man on campus. Last year of elementary school. Almost in Junior High. Gosh, where does the time go? And then my baby is starting Pre-K. At the big boy school. With a uniform and a back pack. And he'll be riding the bus soon. Sigh. It's been a tough week.

In anticipation of the new school year, I made a couple of teacher's gifts for Cricut Circle and I thought I'd share them with you today.

Welcome Chalkboard

This was such a fun project! I used the Birthday Bash and Simply Charmed cartridges along with some vinyl. Won't this be cute hanging in my son's Pre-K teacher's classroom?

Altered Candle and Thanks Tag

And for this little set, I used the Imagine Vintage, Straight From the Nest, and Plantin Schoolbook cartridges. I loved the bright colors of Nikki Sivils' paper paired with the chalkboard and text Imagine papers. Such a great contrast!

Thanks for stopping by today! We're off to school to deliver a couple of gifts to butter up the teachers while my kiddos are still somewhat behaving themselves. See ya soon!

Spotlight On i-Rock Bling

2011-08-18T06:00:00.001-05:00

Today at the Imaginisce blog, we are putting the spotlight on cards using the new i-Rock bling that was released back in January. With all the different colors and styles available, we wanted to be sure to show off some of our favorites. And by doing it on cards, you can really see how amazing they are. Here's my card.

Snowflake Card

After embossing a piece of white cardstock with my Cuttlebug Snowflakes Card, I added a bunch of white glittered Hot Rocks. I liked the subtle texture it added to my card. And to add a pop of color, I added one turquoise rhinestud Hot Rock to the middle of the Santa's Little Helper snowflake die cut.

I am still making these paper bows. LOVE them! You can find a tutorial HERE if you'd like to add one to your project. Warning: they are addictive. Ha!

Thanks for checking out my blinged out card today. Be sure to go see Shemaine's and Beth's beautiful cards featuring more new Imaginisce i-Rock bling. You won't be disappointed.

See ya soon!

Somebody Pinch Me!

2011-08-15T13:14:00.001-05:00

I am soooooo crazy excited to be invited to join the Pebbles Design Team for 2011-2012.

I got the email last week while we were vacationing at Disney World. My kids thought I had completely gone over the edge when in the middle of our 45 minute wait to ride Soarin', I let out a huge "WOOO HOOO!!!"

You can see the announcement HERE. And, hopefully, in a few short weeks you can see my first projects there, too!

Thanks for letting me share. Be back soon with some scrappy projects!

I'll Send Ya a Postcard!

2011-08-09T07:46:00.001-05:00

With just a little over a week left before school starts, we are grabbing our mouse ears and heading off to Disney World for our last days of summer. So, so excited! Before I go, I wanted to share a quick Disney project that I made with my Cricut.

Disney Postcard

I used my Mickey Font cartridge and some simple cardstock. Pretty fun, hun? I have another Disney project (and a giveaway) to share when I get back. See you soon!

Imaginisce and August PageMaps

2011-08-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

I was soooo excited when Becky Fleck asked the Imaginisce DT to create layouts for her August PageMaps. LOVE me some Becky Fleck. Here is the fab sketch that I received and the layout that I created.

Fall Memories

As soon as I saw the dress form on the sketch, I knew that I was going to use a tree. At first, I thought about the new Christmas line, but the photos I had didn't really work. When I found these pumpkin carving picks, I pulled out Happy Harvest and what do you know? A tree! Love when things just Fall (How punny!) into place.

Imaginsice makes it soooo easy to embellish your layouts. I added a title and some leaf die cuts and some i-Rock gems and presto! I've got layers. Fool proof really. Which is just what I need when I'm sitting at my scrap table at midnight after my little one has finally decided to go to sleep. Oh sorry, tangent.

I really enjoyed working with Becky's sketch. And from what I saw of the August PageMaps HERE, so did my fellow design team members. Their pages were awesome!

Thanks for stopping in today! See ya soon. Until then, stay cool. This heat is ca-RAZY.

ScrapRoom Gallery Projects

2011-08-01T06:28:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I probably say this every month at this time, but I can't believe it's August already. Seems like the summer just flew by. It's almost time for my kiddos to go back to school, which means no more impromptu trips to the park or yogurt shop. Oh well, good thing I took lots of pictures, right?

Since it is August 1st, it's time for me to share my projects with this month's ScrapRoom Flavors of the Month kit. And oh. my. goodness. I loved every bit of the Flavors of the Month kit. Here's what I made.

Just Me & My Boys

Summer Cutie

Fall Treat

Hi Friend Card

Treat Bag

I love all the bright colors and playful patterns that I found in this month's kit. And there were no shortage of embellishments either. In fact, I actually have quite a few left over that I plan to use on some more projects.

The gallery is FULL of amazing inspiration. Be sure to stop over and take a look!

Have a good one!

Hello Thursday . . . on Sunday!

2011-07-31T07:00:00.001-05:00

Oops! I totally forgot to post about July's Hello Thursday releases last week. The cartridge I was sent is called Art Nouveau, and it is a NEW style Cricut has not offered before. The images and fonts are absolutely Historical Elegance! The inspiration came from vintage jewelry, architecture and home décor, as well as a love for this specific style from the artist.

The cartridge includes: 50 full images with layers which includes corner designs, 2 full fonts with layers and a few themed phrases. You can see images HERE. In the meantime, here's my project.

Poppy Card

Thanks for stopping in today! I'll be back tomorrow with my August ScrapRoom Gallery projects.

Little Birdie Gift Bag

2011-07-29T09:02:00.000-05:00

Summer is a time for birthdays in my family. We have breen celebrating since June, and we aren't quite finished yet. One more to go this weekend. So today, I thought I'd share the sweet little gift bag I made. Such an easy way to spruce up a simple gift. Like a gift card . . . seems I'm giving more of those these days.

Little Birdie Gift Bag

I love these kraft gift bags. I buy them in a large pack in a variety of sizes and keep them on hand to make quick gift and treat bags. It's so easy to cover the front in a little scrapbook paper and then hang a tag off the handle. And I don't know about you, but I would feel super special receiving a homemade gift bag.

All the patterned papers are Pebbles: one sheet from the Happy Go Lucky line combined with some scraps from the Tree House line. All the bright colors were perfect for my project!

To add a little dimension to the bag, I created this layered flower. To start, I "gathered" a 1" x 12" piece of patterened paper. Then I looped it around, attached it, and glued it to a small punched circle. Then, I used some foam adhesive to add a 2" circle and then a sticker. Add a couple of leaves and you've got a fun flower!

All I did for my gift tag was cut it from the 12 x 12 paper it was printe on, round the corners, and add a button and some baker's twine. It's like it was made to be a gift tag. Sweet!

Thanks for popping in. I'm off to stuff this bag and get ready to celebrate! Have a great weekend.

Sneak Week

2011-07-28T06:00:00.001-05:00

Yep, that's right. It's sneak week at The ScrapRoom. You can see one layout with each line in the August kits by popping over HERE to the blog. Some serious eye candy with all the new lines and fabulous design team projects. You're sure to be inspired. Here's my layout using Little Yellow Bicycle's Sweet Summertime.

Happy

How about that giant pinwheel, hun? That just screams summer to me. Stay tuned because I'll be posting a little tutorial on how to make it (and a couple of other versions) later in the month.

Another banner. I can't help it; I'm still loving them. This one, though, is a bit different because of the mix of shapes. My fellow design team member Jenny Moore did a fab tutorial on this type of banner HERE at The ScrapRoom blog. Enjoy!

Alright then, thanks for stopping by. I'm back to my scraproom table, so I can get the rest of my August kit assignments finished in time for the gallery reveal on August 1st. See ya then!

Christmas in July with Imaginisce

2011-07-25T08:52:00.000-05:00

Today is the first day of the release party for Imaginisce's new Christmas line, Santa's Little Helper. Such a cute line. You will love it! Here are my projects.

My Best Gifts

Holiday Smiles

Gift Tags

I just love all the different die cuts in this line. I had a good time stringing, popping, and combining them to create fun embellishments on my layhouts. Of course, I also had to add a little bling to them all using my i-Top.

To create the gift tags, I used my Cricut Expression and the Birthday Bash cartridge, which has tons of diffferent card shapes on it. This scalloped circle shape was cut at 4" from kraft cardstock. Then I simply layered on some paper, a sticker, a bow, and an i-top brad. I'll write the To and From inside.

If you like this line, then you will certainly want to head over to the Imaginisce blog HERE so you can see more great projects every day this week. Have a great day!

NEW from Cricut!

2011-07-21T17:25:00.000-05:00

Introducing the Cricut Mini™ Personal Electronic Cutter—an all-new machine that makes home, school, business, craft, décor, party, and DIY projects simple and fun. The Cricut Mini™ machine is a small, lightweight, ultra-portable way to make almost anything you want out of many different types of materials, including thick and thin paper, fabric, vinyl, magnetic material, craft foil, and lots more. With the Cricut Mini™ machine, it’s easier than ever to make projects and be more creative!

FEATURES & BENEFITS

Simply plug it in, turn it on, connect to the Cricut Craft Room Application – the online design tool where you can see and design with the Cricut Cartridge libary – and start making projects.
Includes a cartridge port to link all your cartridges to the Cricut Craft Room Application.
Cuts paper, cardstock, vinyl, magnetic material, fabric, craft foil, sticker paper, and lots more.
Works with Windows and Mac computers with a standard wireless or wired Internet connection.
Cuts on 8.5″ x 12″ materials. Cut small shapes and fonts from 1/4″ up to 11.5″!
Small, portable, and lightweight for ultra space saving.
Extremely precise and detailed cutting capability.

WOW! I am soooooo super excited about this little guy. Mostly because I love Cricut Craft Room. Have you seen it yet? No? Well, here's a bit about it too.

The Cricut Craft Room Application is the must-have online design tool for any Cricut machine owner, and it’s also a great tool for those interested in learning about the bast library of Cricut cartridge artwork. The Cricut Craft Room Application allows you to design and personalize projects from any Windows or Macintosh computer with an Internet connection. Now you can design on a full screen with the entire Cricut cartridge libary. Finding a particular image in the Cricut cartridge library is simple with the application’s smart search capabilities.

The Cricut Craft room is Application expands your creativity – whether you’re a casual crafter or long-time Cricut machine user – with intuitive features that make tasks like welding, grouping, adding text, and adding color as simple as clicking a button. The application allows you to preview a fully designed project before you press cut to avoid mistakes and do-overs.

FEATURES & BENEFITS

Access online from anywhere, anytime
Intuitive, easy-to-use program
Design on a big screen
View and design with all Cricut cartridges
Search to easily find the right image
Storage for your cartridges and projects
Share and collaborate on projects
Windows and Mac compatible
No charge

I don't know about you, but I can't wait until both of these products are ready for me to try out. Stay tuned!

It's That Time Again!

2011-07-18T06:54:00.000-05:00

CHA time, that is. The blogs are full of amazing new products being released soon. I have quite a long list of favorites. BUT . . . before I allow myself to purchase a ~~little~~ lot of new scrappy supplies, I need to make a little room. Good news for some of my scrappy friends who live nearby. There are some bags with your names on them. However, there are some paper lines that I just had to use one last time. Today, I have a card made with one of my faves.

Be Mine

This card was made with Pebbles' Twitterpated. I didn't have very much of this line left, mostly scraps. I had saved all the little barcode strips,though, because they had patterns on the back. Too neat! And that is how the idea for this card was born.

I used my Cricut Expression and Plantin Schoolbook cartridge to cut a 3.75" heart from white cardstock. Behind it, I added the barcode strips to a piece of brown patterned paper and then used foam adhesive to add the white heart on top. LOVE the dimension it gave to my card. A couple of stickers and a threaded button and all done. Super easy, but oh so cute!

Now that I have made a little extra room in my Pebbles vertical paper holder, I can order this new line called Fresh Goods. Yikes! This one is CA-UTE!

Oh my stars . . . did you see the barcode strips on this one? Sweet!

My FAVORITE!

2011-07-15T09:25:00.000-05:00

Today I wanted to share my favorite Cricut Circle project that I've created so far. (To learn more about joining the Circle, go HERE.) This one uses My Mind's Eye Stella and Rose papers and brads and my Cricut Expression, of course.

Brighter

These photos were taken at the beach last summer. I think that's the one place my family slows down enough to take some group shots, and I cherish them all year.

To create the sun, seagulls, pelican, grasses, and buoys, I used the Life's A Beach cartridge. Being from Louisiana, I especially love the pelican cut. In fact, that summer we saw a huge bird similar to a pelican at the water's edge at sunset. Gorgeous!

The title is a combination of letters and shadows from Plantin Schoolbook and mini alphabet stickers from My Little Shoebox. To finish it off, I added some buttons, brads, and different colored twines.

So, what are you creating with the Cricut these days? I'd sure like to have a peek.

Have a great day!

A CHA Must Have!

2011-07-12T09:32:00.000-05:00

Imaginisce is releasing four collections at CHA. All are super cute! But the one featured on the blog today is my favorite. Take a look at Geek is Chic.

You can see all the papers and embellishments at the Imaginisce blog HERE. Oh, and for more of Imaginisce's CHA releases, go take a little look see at the Product Gallery at Imaginisce's website HERE.

So, what's your favorite?