Holly Jolly Christmas layout

Happy Monday!  I wish a Merry Christmas to all of you!  My family will all be home spending the day together and I am looking forward to it so much.  The tree is lit up and the packages are all wrapped, just a little baking left to do, which is always a challenge as the kids eat all the cookies as fast as they are baked.    

My Christmas layout for the BBTB2 holiday challenge, which will run for 2 weeks over at the BBTB2 site, features holly and a wreath plus the fun holly jolly title on some old DCWV paper from the stash.  It came together pretty quickly and is all ready for those Christmas Day photos!  I hope everyone is able to have some moments of Christmas cheer during this holiday season.

Cricut:

Holly Jolly Christmas-title

CM Cheerful Seasons-holly and wreath

Paper-CTMH solids, DCWV All Seasons 2 prints

brown chalk ink for edging

square punch for photo corners

xmas ornaments

 Happy Monday!  December is here and that means Christmas!  The challenge theme at BBTB2 is to use a cricut cut Christmas ornament on a project.  I always make Christmas cards for the special people in my life, so I made 10 of these Christmas cards featuring an ornament from the Anna's Winter Wonderland image collection.  While you can't see it on this photo, the white ornament and berries and the gold are shimmer paper, so the card looks prettier in person.  I used the SU softly falling embossing folder behind it for some texture.  Very happy with how it turned out!  You can check out the rest of the designer's projects over at the BBTB2 site and link up projects for the next two weeks.

Cricut:

Anna's Winter Wonderland-ornament

Paper-CTMH French Vanilla, CTMH solids and gold and pearl shimmer

Stamp-CTMH Artistry stamp set

Ink-Encore gold

Embossing folder-Stampin Up softly falling

pop dots

Bon Appetit! Baking Cookies Layout

Happy Monday!  I hope you're staying warm where ever you are-this cold from the polar vortex is getting old!  I've spent a lot of time in my craft room  because it's literally too cold to do anything.  (And I have a space heater in there, lol!)  I'm enjoying the crafting time with no distractions, so I guess that's the silver lining.  

I'm hosting the BBTB2 challenge for the next two weeks and selected the challenge theme Bon Appetit!  I wanted to scrap some pictures of our Christmas cookie baking and made the layout below.  I love how it turned out!  I especially love that kitchen mixer cut from Nifty Fifties for some reason!  I hope you will "whisk" up some food themed creations and share them over at the BBTB2 blog.

 

Cricut:

We Whisk You a Merry Christmas-title

Nifty Fifties-stand mixer

From My Kitchen-all other kitchen cuts and cookies

Paper-Echo Park Happiness is Homemade bg paper, CTMH solids

brown chalk ink for edging

square punch for photo corners

 Happy Wednesday!  I've finished making Christmas cards and thought I'd share one below.  I'm getting them all in the mail today!  There's only one more Christmas gift to order and most of my online orders have come in-yay!  Santa's elves are clearly very busy working for UPS, FedEx, and Amazon this year.  

Cricut:

Christmas-bell

Paper-Through the Woods (Catherine Pooler) 6x6 pad

Stamp-have lost the name of the set-it's old!

Ink-SU Crumb Cake

Christmas layout

Happy Monday!  Are you hanging in there in this December 2020?  I hope you are all able to find a few moments for some joy in the season.  Crafting is sort of my happy therapy during these difficult times, and I had fun planning and making some Christmas scrapbook layouts and cards this week. 

The BBTB2 challenge for the month of December is a partnership with Double Trouble.  You can go read the exact challenge requirements over at BBTB2, but essentially it is a Christmas themed challenge and you can use any type of die cutting machine this month, not just a cricut.  There are some optional twists and prizes involved too!  I used the Close to My Heart Artbooking image collection for all the cuts on this project and I love how it turned out!  All ready for some Christmas pictures!  Take a look over at the BBTB2 site to see the other design team projects and you have the whole month to link up a project and maybe even win a prize!  

Cricut:

Artbooking-all cuts

Paper-CTMH

Sleigh all day layout

Happy Monday!  Christmas is almost here....and I'm not quite ready!  Hard to get the baking done when the kids keep eating the cookie, lol!  Hopefully Amazon is delivering the last packages today too-some of Santa's elves are working overtime at Amazon for sure.  I'm looking forward to Christmas with all the fun, chaos, and family time though!  It's good to have all my chicks home in the nest for their school and college breaks.

Our BBTB2 challenge for the next two weeks is to use a number on a project.  So this challenge can be for New Year's or a birthday or whatever you want, not just Christmas.  I'm all about the Christmas right now though, so I used Miss Kate Cuttables for the sleigh full of toys, Santa, and the Sleigh all day title.  I used a font on cricut access for the December 25.  I hope you all get to spend some time over the holiday with people you love as you celebrate!  Wishing you all a very merry Christmas!

Cricut:
Miss Kate Cuttables Merry Christmas-sleigh with toys, and Santa
Holly Jolly Christmas-sleigh all day title
Paper-DCWV All Seasons prints, CTMH solids
brown chalk ink for edging

pink and gold Merry Christmas layout

Happy Monday!  December is here and we have a new challenge at BBTB2 for the next two weeks, a pink and gold holiday theme (it can be any holiday, not just Christmas).  I am feeling the Christmas spirit after putting our tree up this weekend,  so I made a scrapbook layout for some of the many pictures I'll take this month.  I wanted soft pink print background paper but didn't have any, so I made my own pink snowflake paper by stamping snowflakes all over my plain paper.  I had some of this beautiful gold glitter paper from Michaels (it is so glittery in person-the photos don't do it justice at all) and used it to cut my titles, tree, and ornament (from the Holly Jolly Christmas collection on Cricut access).   I can't wait to put pictures on!  You can see the rest of the design team projects over at BBTB2 and link up a project for the next two weeks.

Cricut:
Holly Jolly Christmas-all cuts
Paper-CTMH solids, Recollections gold glitter paper
Stamps-Jumbo Snowflakes by Stampendous
Ink-CTMH Bashful, brown chalk ink for edging
Square punch for photo corners

holiday gift tag

Happy Christmas Eve Monday!  Are you wrapping a few last minute presents?  We are sharing some Christmas gift tags you can whip up to dress up your package or gift bag!  Mine is super quick and simple-a basic tag from Plaintain Schoolbook with a cute snowflake to pretty it up.  I made the whole thing in just a couple of minutes.  You can see the rest of the team's projects over at BBTB2 and link up your tag.

I am getting to spend some time with extended family before Christmas, which I am looking forward to, but it will be the first Christmas without all the boys home.  Son#1 is flying to London on Christmas Eve to see his girlfriend, who is studying at Oxford this year.  It's going to be a little quieter around here without him.  I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and get a chance to celebrate with some of the special people in your life!

Cricut:
Plaintain Schoolbook-tag
Joys of the Season-snowflake
stamps-unknown set
twine/ribbon-My Mind's Eye
Ink-brown chalk ink for edging, Stampin Up cherry cobbler for sentiment

Sparkly ornament Christmas card

Happy Monday!  I'm sharing another one of the very sparkly Christmas cards I made using the SU Dazzling Diamonds glitter.  The ornament is from an SU stamp set my mom owns, so I can't remember the name of it.  I used SU coastal cabana ink and the lighter color is just the imaged stamped off a second time.  I'll link to my post describing the glitter application process.  The banner is cut with my cricut and stamped.  This card is so pretty and sparkly in person!  Truly a WOW card to send.

Hope you are keeping up with all the demands of December with your sanity intact!  Santa's elves have been busy delivering all my Amazon packages, so I've got some wrapping to do.  (Thank goodness for being able to shop at 2:00 AM over lunch at work at the hospital with Amazon!)

Cricut:
Artistry-banner
Stamp set: Stampin Up ornament, CTMH sentiment
Ink-SU Coastal Cabana
Paper-CTMH
SU Dazzling Diamonds glitter

Christmas card with holly accent

Happy Monday!  Are you getting the Christmas spirit yet?  Or feeling a little overwhelmed with all the stuff to do?  Maybe both?  This is the time of year there are SO many evening events to attend....while I enjoy them all, I find myself craving a little more downtime to relax in comfy clothes with a book and some hot chocolate.  One of my favorite parts of December is getting to correspond with all the friends and family that I don't see all the time.  And our BBTB2 challenge for this next two weeks is here to help you get going on the Christmas cards!

So, moving on to the actual project.  I got the Stampin Up cable knit embossing folder (featured below) as a Christmas gift last year and have used it on several of my Christmas card designs.  I cut a sprig of holly from the CM Cheerful Seasons cartridge as my bright and cheerful accent piece to go with my stamped sentiment. Sort of like wearing a pin on a big chunky sweater!  The designers over at BBTB2 have some gorgeous cards up to get you inspired and we hope you'll link up a project!

Cricut:
CM Cheerful Seasons-holly
Stamps-Stamping Up Heard from the Heart front sentiment
Embossing folder-Stamping Up cable knit
ribbon-American Crafts
Ink-Stampin Up Cherry Cobbler
Paper-CTMH solids

Very sparkly Christmas cards with Stampin Up Dazzling Diamonds

Happy Monday!  December is here and Christmas is on the horizon, so I wanted to make some Christmas cards for some of the special people in my life.  My mom and I spent a wonderful day together last week making our Christmas cards.  There was a lot of laughter and I think both of us AND the cards ended up covered in Stampin Up Dazzling Diamonds glitter.  Let's just say it is the sparkliest glitter I've ever used!  My photos do not do it justice-it looks AMAZING in person!

So here's the process I followed to make these:

Step 1:  Stamp images.  I also used some of the SU Stampin Blend alcohol markers on Frosty.

Step 2:  Use Versamark ink pad all over stamped cardstock piece.

Step 3:  Cover with SU Heat and Stick powder and heat up just until color change where it gets sticky.

Step 4:  Shake SU Dazzling Diamonds (or whatever glitter you're using) all over and briefly heat again to set the glitter.  Also, do not point heat gun at tray full of glitter.  Don't ask me how I know not to do that.  LOL!

Step 5:  Assemble card.  Admire sparkle.  Attempt to get glitter off self after heat gun/glitter mishap.

Seriously, all the cards we did with this method looked SO pretty with a big sparkly WOW factor!  I'll post some more that we did later in the week.  My family picked out our Christmas tree and got it decorated this weekend, so it's starting to feel a lot like Christmas around my house!  I hope you all have a wonderful week, getting to enjoy some Christmas spirit!

Stamps-Stamping Up Frosty and Stampin Up Snowflakes sets
SU Stampin Blends alcohol markers
SU oval and scalloped oval punches

Deck the Halls layout

Happy Monday!  It's a very cold, snowy Monday here in Kansas City after a blizzard yesterday.  I feel like winter has arrived with a bang, as we have a lot of snow!  It was a lovely Thanksgiving day near 60 degrees and I got to enjoy having all the kids and my parents over for our Thanksgiving feast.  A turkey and a half was consumed, but at least there was enough for some leftovers this year (Jeff smoked two turkeys this year)!  Teen boys can really put away the food.  And then I got online in my comfy socks and stretchy pants after a post feast nap to do some online shopping.  Cuz that's how I roll!  No Black Friday shopping in person with crowds for me.  Plus I had to work Black Friday night, although I was surprised how many of my coworkers shopped anyway and then came to work all night.  So on to crafty things...

Our BBTB2 challenge this week starts us moving into the Christmas season with a Christmas ornament challenge.  I made a layout to hold six pics, as I take many many pictures at Christmas, between school events and all our extended family gatherings.  This Christmas ornament, tree, and title are from the Family Album cartridge.  You have two weeks to link up a project for this challenge and you can see all the wonderful design team projects over at BBTB2.

Cricut:
Family Album-all cuts
Paper-DCWV Holiday Collection stack prints, CTMH solids
brown chalk ink for edging
square punch for photo corners

Xmas in July

Happy Monday!  Hope you all had a good 4th of July!  I had a super relaxing day, finished off with watching fireworks with the fam!  Our BBTB2 challenge this week is Christmas in July....although I'm having a bit of a hard time thinking about Christmas when it's close to 100 degrees with lots of humidity.  Where is that polar air when you need it?  However, you can make a Christmas card or project to be ready to go when it is cold and festive right now!  Since I'm more of a scrapbooker than card maker, I scrapped some Xmas pics with this layout featuring Christmas ornaments.  The rest of the design team has some amazing Christmas cards over at BBTB2.  Go take a look and link up!  And stay cool...ish....this week!

Cricut:
Tis the Season-all cuts
Paper-DCWV prints, CTMH solids

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2018!  This last year has been full of difficult news, hurricanes, floods, and fires-I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a fresh new year.  While I'm not one to make resolutions, I think I'm going to try to look for the good that come up and focus less on the negative this year.  I expect that may be rather challenging to actually do when I am depressed over the news, lol!  

While we are not having a challenge this week over at BBTB2, we are sharing some Christmas or New Year projects.  I've got a Christmas layout below, using the Beyond Birthdays cartridge for the title and Jolly Holidays for the holly.  I used some of the paper from one of my CTMH Christmas papers for the printed paper accents and the overall layout design is tweaked a bit from one of the CTMH layouts I've seen.  I have a LOT of wonderful Christmas photos to put in the scrapbook!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a happy New Year!  We returned December 30 from a week of vacation in San Francisco and I am working at the hospital over all the New Year holidays, but we nurses did squeeze in a sip of sparkling grape juice at midnight to toast 2018!  I appreciate all of you blog readers who spend a few minutes here letting me share my scrapbooking and cardmaking projects-thanks for reading and sharing our passion for crafting!

Cricut:

Beyond Birthdays-circle, title

Jolly Holidays-holly

Paper-CTMH solids, prints

Merry Christmas!

Happy Thursday!  I hope you all had a Merry Christmas!  We had a wonderful day celebrating with family on Christmas Eve and flew out to San Francisco on Christmas Day for a family vacation.  We are sightseeing and enjoying the city very much!

This week at BBTB2, we are shared some of the Christmas cards we made for friends and family, so I have a included a few I made below.  I didn't get this post up in time for Christmas Day-just a little too much festive fun going on!  These are all scrap lifted from cards I saw on Pinterest.  I will go back and link these up to the originals on Pinterest when I get back from vacay next week.

 Jolly Holiday wreath, Stampin Up die for the background shape

 Accent Essentials snowflake, Jolly Holidays for "Joy"

 Accent Essentials snowflakes, Flower Market bow

Doodlecharms trees

xmas gifts boxes treats

Happy Monday!  We have "survived" a week of multiple school concerts and events, plus a birthday. Finals week for the college kid starts today and the highschoolers next week.  Family stress levels are at Defcon 2 and rising.  I think I need some eggnog stat!  And maybe a quiet dark room.  Definitely some diet coke!!!!  My goal for this week is to provide as much comfort as possible for the stressed out teens and recover my own holiday spirit by wrapping some gifts in my PJs.  Thank goodness for Amazon prime delivery to the door of all the Christmas gifts!  I'm sure some of Santa's Elves are working for Amazon, lol.  While I would like to do some local shopping, there just isn't any time!

In the spirit of wrapping gifts, our BBTB2 challenge this week is Christmas gifts, boxes, or embellished treats.  Along with all the bows, boxes, and wrapping paper, my gift wrap area has this little cutie of a Christmas tree box waiting for some goodies!  I made it using the Cricut Artiste cartridge and it was super simple to fold and put together.  Like, you can make this thing lickety split and look like a rock star in the gift wrapping department!  It's the perfect size for that secret Santa gift of candy or tiny treat at work....not saying that's what I'm doing with or anything, so if you are one of my workmates reading this, it's totally not from me!  The design team over at BBTB2 has some festive projects for you to see to get inspired and you can link up your holiday project.  I wish you all a not too stressful week that holds a Christmas treat or two!

Deck the Halls layout

Happy Monday!  Can you believe it's December already?  I managed to get my holiday decorations up over Thanksgiving weekend, so it's feeling festive around my house!  My hubby is already over listening to Mannheim Steamroller Christmas tunes while I'm crafting, lol!  And he's got a whole month to go!!!  This week is full of school related Christmas concerts, so he better get onboard with the Christmas tunes!

Our BBTB2 challenge this week is Christmas trees.  I love the piney smell of a fresh Christmas tree!  We got ours last weekend, so I already have tree pictures to put on the layout I made, just need to get them printed.  I used the Winter Frolic cartridge for the trees and title.  The design team has some awesome tree projects for you over at BBTB2 and you can link your project up this week as usual.

Cricut:
Winter Frolic-trees, title
Paper-CTMH Beary Christmas prints and CTMH solids

Xmas nativity or menorah

Happy Monday!  I'm trying to stay warm after a VERY cold snowy weekend here in KC-not a fan of temps in the negative numbers!  I'm looking forward to Christmas next weekend though, although I still have lots of shopping and baking to do.  Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to use a nativity or menorah.  Below is one of my Christmas cards, using the nativity from the December 25th cartridge.  The stamp inside from Luke 2:11 is from a Stampin' Up set and perfect for my nativity cricut cut.  It's not too late to do a few special Christmas cards!!!  Or as I tell myself, the AFTER-Christmas Christmas cards, which will just extend the joy of Christmas even longer for the recipient, right?  It's never too late to send the Christmas card, lol!  The design team has some gorgeous cards to see at BBTB2 and you can link up your project there.  We have fun challenges and surprises planned at BBTB2 for 2017 and look forward to more cricut fun.  Have a very merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Cricut:
December 25th-nativity cut
Stamp-Stampin' Up City of David set
Paper-CTMH solids, red bg paper is a scrap that I don't know what it came from

Xmas ornament card

Happy Monday!  Mine is not quite so happy, as I'm a little under the weather.  Hopefully some hot tea and Vitamin C will fix things right up.  My nurse self is also prescribing naps (the cure for most things, lol!).   Because there is no time to be sick with Christmas coming up!  Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to use a holiday symbol like an ornament on a project.  This is another of my Christmas cards this year, using the ornament and word from the Joys of the Season cartridge.  The paper is all shimmer paper, which didn't photograph very well, but looks really pretty in real life!  Hope you will check out all the design team projects at BBTB2 and you can link up a project over there-good opportunity to make and share a special Christmas card!!!

Cricut:
Joys of the Season
shimmer paper from Hobby Lobby

Believe layout

Happy Monday!  It's December and time to get in the Christmas spirit!  As we have many holiday school music productions from the band and orchestra to attend over the next two weeks, I think I'll be feeling the Christmas vibes for sure.  Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to use Christmas wording on a project.  I used the Artbooking cartridge to make my Christmas layout below.  No fancy papers needed, just solid cardstock and Artbooking!  (Which is kind of rare for me, since judging from my craft area, I've never met a patterned paper I didn't like, lol!).  The team over at BBTB2 has some beautiful holiday projects to see and you can link up a project there this week to share:)

Cricut:
Artbooking-all cuts
Paper-CTMH