Happy Monday!  Christmas is in full swing at my house....we picked out the tree over Thanksgiving as a family and got it all set up!  I'm making a few Christmas cards for the special people in my life, so here is one of them.  I bought a 6x6 paper pack of various tartan plaids to use for the patterned paper on the cards.  I felt like the blue plaid went with snowflakes (I'm doing different designs for each plaid).  Hope you have a great week!

Cricut:

Jamie Cripps Jamie Lane Designs-snowflake

Stamp-it's such an old one, I'm not sure what it's from

Paper-Craft Consortium 6x6 Tartan for the plaid, 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

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

Xmas wreaths

Happy Monday!  I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!  My husband brined and smoked a turkey and our family gathering ate the ENTIRE turkey for lunch!!!!  We had to eat frozen pizza for Thanksgiving supper, because there were no leftovers.  Of much of anything.  That's three teenage boy appetites for you (and the turkey WAS really delish...).  But it was a lovely day full of family and a nap-you can't ask for much more from life than that, really.

Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to use a Christmas wreath and I have a couple of easy projects to share.  I'm sure you're not surprised to see I am still working my way through all the goodness of the Flower Market cartridge with all 3 of these projects.  The design team has some amazing Christmas inspiration for you over at BBTB2 and this week's challenge is a great way for you to get going on some holiday projects!

Project #1

My layout below for Christmas pictures is similar to another layout I did a few weeks ago, also with a Christmas wreath, just trying out one of the other wreath choices.  

Project #2

This is one of my Christmas cards this year.  I was going for a rustic and simple look with the woodgrain background paper.   The wreath and bow are from Flower Market and I stamped the Merry Christmas in the center.  Fast and easy, so a good one for mass production!

Project #3

This is yet another wreath from Flower Market, still with the woodgrain paper.  I added some red stickle for berries on this one, and it's also pretty fast and easy to mass produce.  

 Cricut:
Flower Market-all cuts
Paper-TPC studio woodgrain, CTMH solids
Stamp-CTMH
Ink-Stampin Up Early Espresso

card with a flourish

Happy Halloween Monday!  I had to hide all the candy in the garage to keep the fellas out of it for the trick or treaters tonight!  I've managed to keep myself out of it too, until I had to sneak a few nibbles this afternoon...too much temptation!  It's hard to believe it's the end of October already!

Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to use a flourish or swirl on a project...there are SO many to choose from that I had a hard time narrowing it down!  I'm in the middle of making Christmas cards andI always like to make at least one all white version, so  I used the poinsettia from the new Flower Market cartridge that I got for my birthday, but cut it all in white.  The flourishes are from the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge, an oldie but goodie!  Sorry my picture is so dark...the glare off of the white made it really difficult to photograph.  The design team has some great projects over at BBTB2, so go take a look!

Cricut:

Stretch Your Imagination-flourishes

Flower Market-poinsettia
Paper-white heavy weight cardstock
rhinestone-American Crafts

Very Merry Christmas card

Is it beginning to look a lot like Christmas at your house?  We are trying to get through this last big week of school-the tension of my teens during this finals week is off the charts!!!!!  But the tree is up and the house is smelling deliciously like evergreens, which makes me very happy.  (The cat may actually become an evergreen, as he is drinking the tree water with the tree fresh stuff in it!)  There is still much baking and wrapping to be done, however.  Below is another one of the Christmas cards I sent out this year, using my beloved Doodlecharms cartridge for the stockings and a square punch for the squares under each stocking.

Cricut:
Doodlecharms-stockings
Paper-Echo Park dots and stripes polka dot papers, CTMH solids
Stamp-Stampin Up outside sentiment, CTMH inside sentiment
brown chalk ink
1 1/2 inch square punch
black pen

Christmas Cheer ornament card

Happy Monday!  We are having a Christmas themed month at BBTB2 and our challenge this week is to make a project that includes a Christmas ornament.  I sent out all my Christmas cards last week and this card featuring an ornament was one of the designs I used.  It is not one for serious mass production (I think I only did about 5 of these), as there are a lot of pieces to this put this ornament together, but it looks really detailed and awesome.  I used shiny gold paper for the ornament bling and some gold foil tape so it looked really blinged out (I will confess I am irresistibly attracted to the shiny sparkly ornaments…).  The background is embossed to add some texture interest.  There are some ornamental beauties to be seen over at BBTB2, so go take a look and get inspired.  Still time to do a few special Christmas cards...

Cricut:
Winter Wonderland-ornament cut at 3 1/2 inches
Stamps-front sentiment-Ali Edwards Jingle All the Way set, inside CTMH
Paper-CTMH solids, gold paper from Michaels
brown chalk ink

Holly Christmas card

Happy Monday!  I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving weekend.  I enjoyed my Thanksgiving day off, although I had to work some shifts at the hospital the rest of the weekend.  I did get a little online holiday shopping done though!

Well, Christmas season is upon us and our BBTB2 challenge this week is the hanging of the greens: use a Christmas plant or tree.  I love holly and I make at least one card design with a holly leaf each year, so I'm sharing one of my Christmas cards.  This is my favorite cricut holly leaf (from the CM Cheerful Seasons cartridge) on a kraft card base.   I popped up my holly leaf on some foam tape and added a border with my pen to frame it.   Sweet and simple!  I hope you'll take this opportunity to check out the projects at BBTB2 and maybe create a few special Christmas cards yourself to share with us by linking up over at the BBTB2 site.

Cricut:
CM Cheerful Seasons-holly cut at  3 1/2 inches
Stamps-Paper Smooches
Paper-CTMH kraft and solids
brown chalk ink, Stampin Up cherry cobbler ink for sentiments, black pen for doodling

A few Christmas cards

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving day!  I am very thankful for my family and the opportunity to spend some time with those I love.  It was a very relaxing day, as I didn't have to work at the hospital on Thanksgiving day or night this year (for which I am also thankful, lol!  As a nurse, working a lot of holidays goes with the territory).  My husband smoked a turkey, which was, in the words of the kids, epic in taste and my parents came over to enjoy the meal with us.  We ended the evening with a family movie night with a roaring fire in the fireplace, making me feel all warm and cozy!

I also got in a little crafty time in the basement to make some Christmas cards.  So here are a couple of them!  The first one is stamping only, no cricut.  I was feeling peaceful with a slate gray and white color combo.

Card #1

This next one did not photograph well…but it's a basic snowflake cut from Winter Woodland attached onto a Swiss dots embossed pair of circle with a brad.  I was going for an all white look (which I find really hard to photograph but looks really pretty in person), with slate gray ink for the sentiments.

Card #2

Cricut:

Winter Woodland-snowflake

Plaintain Schoolbook-circles

Stamps-assorted….not sure of the line

ink-CTMH slate 

Ornament Christmas Card (for BBTB2)

It's getting closer to Christmas….I'm finishing up my last Christmas cards!  (I make a lot of them in October at the family Xmas card scrap with my mom and nieces, so I don't have to stress in December.) Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to make a Christmas ornament or use a cricut ornament cut.  I did two all white cards this year.  This one features one of the ornaments from the Joys of the Seasons cartridge.  For white on white cards, I like to add texture with either embossing or glitter paper.  I embossed the background here with a snowflake folder and embossed the ornament with my favorite all-purpose Swiss Dots (seriously, if you could only have one embossing folder that would be the one I'd have!).  I popped my ornament up on foam tape for some extra dimension.  It came out just like I was envisioning-which doesn't always happen, lol!  Hope you will share some of your Christmas ornament projects with us at BBTB2 this week!

Sorry my photo is so dark-when I shot it in a well lit area, all the white just washed out and you couldn't really see the embossing!

Cricut:

Joys of the Seasons-ornament/shadow cut at 4 1/2 inches

Paper-white card stock

Swiss Dots and Snowflake embossing folders

foam tape

Merry and Bright Christmas card (for BBTB2)

Happy Monday!  Did you brave the shopping madness this weekend?  I did all my shopping online and skipped the crowds!!!  Definitely the way to go, in my opinion.  Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to make a card with a Christmas tree-it's time to get those holiday cards out, so this is the perfect challenge!  I always like to do at least one all white Christmas card every year, so I used the Christmas trees from Doodlecharms and my snowflake and Swiss dots embossing folders for some texture for my all-white Christmas tree card.  There are some very festive Xmas cards to see over at BBTB2 and we hope you'll link up a Christmas card with us this week.

Cricut:
Doodlecharms-trees, cut at 3 inches
Paper-white card stock
Embossing folders-snowflakes and swiss dots
Stamp-???
Diamond Stickle

Xmas in July (for Exploring Cricut)

It's a Christmas in July blog hop for Exploring Cricut today…so give White Christmas (the Bing Crosby version) a hum, think chilly, and look at some Christmas cards!  I know it's probably over 90 degrees outside-maybe our blog hop will make you FEEL cooler!  The blog hop list is at the bottom, so you can see all the fabulous Christmas projects from the design team.

My card uses Joys of the Seasons for my snowy trees.  I used white glitter paper for the snowy tops, but it didn't really show up in the photo very well.  I embossed the white background with the all purpose Swiss dots and stamped my Christmas sentiment at the bottom.  It feels so good to get a few Christmas cards done early!!!

Cricut:
Joys of the Season-trees
Paper-from the scrap bin….no idea!
Stamps-from an old Ali Edwards set

Blog Hop Schedule

Annette   www.mymindsdustbunnies.blogspot.com

Sharon    www.meemeescreations.blogspot.com

Faith        www.thecraftingprofessor.blogspot.com

Donna     www.wwwkindredreations.blogspot.com

Rae Ann   www.joyinart.blogspot.com

Emily       www.emilyqueenofallthingscrafty.blogspot.com

Michelle N  www.justanutterpapercrafter.blogspot.com

Christi      www.tidbitsoftexas.com

Liz             www.unikbyyes.blogspot.com

Tina          www.thescrappinrabbit.blogspot.com

Katrina    www.scrappyhorses.blogspot.com

Michelle S www.cricutcrazyscrapper.blogspot.com you are HERE 

Diane      www.happyscrapperdiane.blogspot.com 

Totally Crazy layout (for BBTB2)

Our BBTB2 challenge this week is to use a dog on a project.  I made a fun layout for some crazy pictures of Son#2 and his friends goofing around before the school talent show, using the Paisley cartridge.  The dog with the hula hoop and the monkey doing a handstand sort of gave me that crazy and fun talent show vibe where anything goes and I added some stars since they all want to be a star like on American Idol!!  The "totally crazy" title is also from Paisley.  The pictures are super colorful, so I wanted kind of neutral photo mats-the layout looks much snazzier with the pics on it, but since some of the pics have children who are not mine in them, I didn't want to post the photo with the pics included.

Cricut:
Paisley-all cuts
Paper/Stickers-Echo Park It's a Boy collection bg papers, CTMH solids
brown and navy chalk ink

The DT has a whole pack of dog projects to get your ideas flowing, so check them out at BBTB2 and link up!

Noel Christmas card

It's a Christmas card challenge at Fantabulous Cricut, so I made this card using the Create A Critter 2 cartridge for the NOEL.   The background papers are from the fresh and fun Doodlebug North Pole collection and the olive ribbon is from my stash of Stampin Up ribbon.  Super quick and easy for mass production!

Cricut:
CAC2-Noel
Paper-Doodlebug North Pole collection print, CTMH solids
brown chalk ink

North Pole Christmas card

I've been having fun making Christmas cards, so I'll be sharing a few more of them over the next week or two.  This one uses the CM Tis the Season cartridge for the cute little North Pole sign and the paper is from the (appropriately named) Doodlebug North Pole collection!

Cricut:
CM Tis the Season-sign
Paper-Doodlebug North Pole collection prints, CTMH solids
brown chalk ink
stamp-Ali Edwards Jingle All the Way stamp set  

Christmas Cheer snowman card (for Exploring Cricut)

We have a great challenge to help you get ready for the holidays- it's a Christmas card challenge!  All you have to do is make a Christmas card with a cut from your cricut on it somewhere.  My card was inspired by the fun Doodlebug snowman background paper (from the North Pole collection), which clearly needed a big snowman accent!  My snowman is from the Winter Frolic cartridge, although I had a hard time making up my mind which cricut snowman to use (there are so many cute ones…).   The red polka dot strip at the bottom is not ribbon, but a scrap of paper from the collection!

Cricut:
Winter Frolic-snowman cut at 3 1/2 inches
Paper-Doodlebug North Pole collection prints, CTMH solids
Stamp-Ali Edwards Christmas collection
Ink-Memento Tuxedo black
jewels-from the stash
Punches for the sentiment-Stampin Up

Check out all the cards that the Exploring Cricut team has put together and then link yours up too!

Let's Be Merry Christmas card (for BBTB2)

It is my turn to host the BBTB2 challenge this week and since Christmas is right around the corner, I thought getting some Christmas cards ready seemed like a great challenge theme!  The design team at BBTB2 has made some fantastic cards to inspire you.  I used this cute ornament on the CM Tis the Season cartridge for my card.  I wanted something kind of fun and fresh and this Doodlebug North Pole paper was exactly what I had in mind!

Cricut:
CM Tis the Season-ornament
Paper-Doodlebug North Pole collection prints, CTMH solids
Ink-Stampin Up Lucky Limeade
Stamp-Ali Edwards set

So all you have to do to join our challenge is make a Christmas card (new, please) with a cricut cut and link it up with us at BBTB2!    Hope to see you there :)

3 French Hens Christmas card

I've always wanted to make a 12 days of Christmas series of Christmas cards using Joys of the Season, and this year I finally found some paper from Graphic 45 that inspired me to actually create them!  So here is the 3 French Hens card (don't ask me why I started with the french hens-it just happened, lol).  I sanded and inked the basket just a bit after embossing it since it looked kind of plain otherwise.  The hen and basket are from Joys of the Season and the lettering is from Artbooking.  The print paper is from the Graphic 45 12 days of Christmas patterns and solids 6x6 pack.

Cricut:
Joys of the Season-hen and basket, cut at 3 inches
Artbooking-letters, cut at 3/4 inch
Paper-Graphic 45 prints, CTMH solids
brown chalk ink, embossing folder

Fantabulous Cricut is having an Animal Cracker challenge that I am going to link my french hen up to-lots of fun animal projects to see over there!

Merry and Bright Christmas card (for Exploring Cricut)

It's my day for the daily project at Exploring Cricut!  Have you been making any Christmas cards yet?
It's time to get started!   I've been inspired by a 6x6 pack of the Doodlbug North Pole collection paper-it was so cute that I couldn't wait to dive into creating some cards!  I used the Winter Frolic cartridge to make this card and added some stickle to make the ornaments sparkle!

Cricut:
Winter Frolic-all cuts
Paper-Doodlebug North Pole collection prints, CTMH solids, American Crafts glitter paper
brown chalk ink
lime green stickle, xmas red stickle