Monday, December 28, 2009

A Magnolia Piggy Card

When I saw this Magnolia stamp, I knew I just had to have it. My daughter's nickname is Piggy, my blog is called Scrappy and Piggy, it was a no brainer! So, here is the card I made with this adorable stamp Tilda with piglet. Also, have you heard the news that stampingscrapping.com is

now selling Magnolia stamps? Her prices are awesome!!!! For this card I used the Eskimo Kisses paper pack from Basic Grey. It has some great colors in it. Tilda and her adorable piggy are colored with copic markers. The sentiment is from Cindy's awesome new nestie friendly sentiment stamps. They fit perfectly within the embossed area of a nestabilitie. On this one I chalked the outside edge to make it look a little more layered. Be sure to check out the Magnolias at stampingscrapping.com and while you're there, check out the sentiment stamps as well.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Santa's Card

For the current Just Buggin challenge, we needed to alter our die cuts with ink. I decided to take the stocking card and make it look a little more vintage. I did this with the help of some distress ink and a stipple brush. Brushing the ink on gives it a much more subtle look than applying the

ink directly to the die cuts. I brushed it all over everything so that everything that was white would have a sepia look to it making the card look old and vintage. The stocking is cut from Christmas Cheer and the holly is from Winter Woodland. The sentiment is from stampingscrapping.com the new nestie friendly stamp sets. I actually stamped this on white paper colored with my E33 copic marker to make it blend more with the vintage feel of the card. My daughter liked this card so much, she decided to leave it for Santa. You can see the note she left to him on the inside.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Some Christmas Home Decor

Here are a few things I have made to decorate my house for the holidays. I have also given a few of them as gifts since they are so simple to do. This first decoration I made for the Just Buggin challenge where you need to make a gift for someone involving your cricut. I made this adorable little Hello Kitty wreath for my daughter.

I bought a styrofoam wreath from the Dollar store and wrapped ribbon all the way around it. I cut the Hello Kitty figures from the Hello Kitty Greetings cartridge as well as the Merry Christmas. I added some pom poms to the little elves shoes and for the ball of her hat. On the other Hello Kitty, I used some little rhinestones for the buttons on her coat. I added a few decorative flowers and it is ready to decorate my daughter's door.

Scrappy Frogs has a Christmas home decor challenge going on right now. I have been addicted to making hurricane glasses for a while now. I saw this on a blog and knew I had to give it a try. Here are a few of my glasses that I have made and filled with various Christmas goodies. I have them on my mantle. These can be decorated for any holiday depending on what you want to fill them with. The best thing is that the most expensive one of them (the one with the lid and the cinnamon sticks in it) only cost about $4. To make these Hurricane glasses, you will need a few supplies- E600 glue you can find it in the jewelry department of Hobby Lobby and I think they have it at Wal-Mart too. You also need some glass candle sticks preferable from the Dollar Tree (they do have the same ones at Hobby Lobby, but they charge $3 for them) and various glass containers of different sizes you can find several of these at Dollar Tree too. The only thing I didn't get from Dollar Tree was the one with the lid, I got that at Michaels with a 40% off coupon. This is what the candlestick from Dollar Tree looks like. You just squirt the E600 all the way around the the

top of the candlestick and place the top layer on top. You can kind of move it around to make sure it's centered and then let it dry. I usually let them dry overnight. There you go, easy as pie. I also tried it with a brass candlestick from the Dollar Tree and that worked as well.


I like the way the brass looks with the red glass. The red glass piece came from Michaels. My final Home Decor piece was this ribbon tree. I made one of these a couple years ago with strips of paper, but I think I like the way the ribbon looks more. I chose 3 styles of coordinating ribbon

and cut it into strips. After you have it all cut, you fold it in half and start pinning it to the styrofoam cone. For the top I just made a couple of loops. I put some E600 around the lip of the flower pot and stuck the cone on top of it. So, those are my Christmas decor crafts, I hope you enjoy them.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Happy Holidays!

Just Buggin Challenge time again. This time the challenge is to make a Christmas or winter holiday themed project with at least one cricut cut on it. I decided to use two of my favorite new winter cartridges- Snow Friends and Winter Woodland.


The snow girl is from the Snow Friends mini cartridge. I cut her outfit from the Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses. I think the paper really lends a sweet look to the card. I cut the trees from another pattern in the paper pack and put them behind her. The trees are from winter woodland. It's hard to tell but the blue piece behind the trees and snow girl is embossed with a cuttlebug snowflake folder. The sentiment BRRRRR is also from Winter Woodland. That cartridge is full of great winter sayings. Can you see how I messed up on the BRRRR? It was late and I was ready to go to bed. I put it in the swiss dot folder backwards and actually debossed it. I touched the tip of a spica glitter pen in each little hole to make it look like polka dots. I would love to see you all participate in the Just Buggin challenges. It has really gotten me to start using my cricut more and more.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Christmas Candles

I created these adorable House Mouse Christmas candles as my Design Team project for Stamping Scrapping. They are very easy to do and make a really cute Christmas decoration.


I have seen this done a few different times on the internet and finally decided that I needed to give it a try. It's actually a very simple procedure. To get started, you will need a few basic supplies, plain white tissue paper, a white candle, ink, markers, a stamp, wax paper, and a heat

gun. The first step is to stamp your image on the tissue paper. If you look carefully you will see there is a shiny and a flat side to the tissue paper. Stamp and color on the shiny side. I stamped my image in memento and colored it in with copics. The tissue paper is thin, so I suggest putting a sheet of white paper underneath the tissue paper to protect whatever surface you are coloring on. After you are finished coloring your image, you need to cut it out (carefully the tissue paper is really thin) leaving as little tissue paper around the image as possible. Then get your candle and put a small strip of double stick tape on the candle where you want your image to be. Stick the image on and wrap wax paper all the way around the candle leaving extra in the back to hold on to. Then you get your heat gun and move it around melting the image into the candle. You will see the image get a little shiny the tissue paper "disappearing". Be careful not to overheat and start melting the candle. I haven't tried this yet on colored candles to see how it works, but I

think I will soon since it was so easy. I got my candles at the dollar store. My daughter loved this idea and she wanted to make one herself. She colored the little guy on the right with the all red hat. When doing this project with kids, I wouldn't let them hold the candle while it's getting heated. It can get pretty hot especially on the small candles since there really isn't enough room to get your hand out of the way. So, there you go some adorable House Mouse Christmas candles. You can purchase these and other great House Mouse images from Cindy at stampingscrapping.com or stampscrapsave.com



Saturday, December 5, 2009

Just Buggin Layers Challenge

I made this card for the Just Buggin layers challenge. The challenge was to use at least two die cuts and layer them together. (for instance, cut out flowers in two different sizes and layer them on top of each other, two snowflakes, etc) I think I kind of messed up on this one a little bit. I layered my mushroom on top of the shadow feature of the same diecut. When you use the shadow feature on your diecuts, it really grounds them and helps them to stand out against the background. For the main part of this card, I cut paper into squares and laid them out like a patchwork. The mushroom is from Tinkerbell and Friends. The sentiment so happy is from Stamping Scrapping.com she has a lot of new sentiment stamps designed to correspond perfectly with the nestabilities.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Merci


I made this card for the just buggin challenge- sew it. I'm not an experienced sewer (is that a word) so, this one was a little tough. I took some paper, 2 pieces of plaid and 2 solid pieces that I embossed with my cuttlebug and taped them down to a piece of cardstock, then I sewed around the edge of the card and the seams were the different pieces matched up. I think it's easier to

sew when the pieces are actually already adhered rather than try to actually sew them on. Then I cut the fleur de lis from Don Juan using the stitched feature. After it was cut, I went back and poked through all the holes with my paper piercer to make them a little larger. I sewed through the holes with some embroidery floss. The only needle I could find was for thread, so I could only
use I strand of the floss. It would probably look better with more strands. The Eiffel Tower I used is from the Destinations cartridge and the sentiment- Merci is from Beyond Birthdays. I embossed the Eiffel Tower in my cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder. So, if you like sewing on your cards or even if you're more a fan of faux stitching, come on and play along with us at Just Buggin!




Friday, November 20, 2009

Happy Owlidays

This is my second creation for the just buggin challenge blog. This challenge is to use at least 3 cricut die cuts on your project. Once again I used the Paisley cartridge for this one. It is my favorite at the moment. I cut 2 of the owls and pieced them

together with a mixture of cardstock and patterned paper. I wanted them to look Christmasy. The paper is from one of the huge Die Cuts with a View Christmas stacks. The snowflakes are a Cuttlebug folder embossed on Core'dinations white wash paper. I cut a branch for the owls to sit on and then tied a big red bow on one side. I printed the sentiment Happy Owlidays on the computer.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Just Buggin

I was recently selected to be on the design team for the Just Buggin Challenge Blog! This is exciting news because it will get me to use my cricut more. Sometimes I get too carried away with stamps and forget how much I love my little guy. So, the challenge for this week is called Into the Wild and the assignment is to use an animal from any cricut cartridge. That's tough there are soooo many cute cricut animals. How could I choose. Well, I decided to start with my newest cartridge and see what I could find. I was lucky enough to have someone pick up the new Paisley cartridge for me. This cartridge is simply adorable- very adorable and cute. I chose this crazy image of a dachshund hula hooping. I started with some K and Company paper and chose
my colors from there. I added some stickles to the hula hoop to give it a little pizazz. I used my cuttlebug to emboss the strips of paper behind the dog and added a few flowers. I thought smile was the perfect sentiment- what else are you going to do when you see a pink dachshund hula hooping?

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Snow Friends

I recently got the new limited edition cricut mini cartridge Snow Friends and I have been having a blast with it. This cartridge is full of the cutest snow men you have ever seen. If you don't have a copy, you can find one here. I got the idea for making a 3-D window from bug junkie. You can see here version here. So, here is my version. I put a Christmas tree complete with garland inside the window.
The window and the tree inside are cut from the Christmas Solutions cartridge. Gotta love those cricut rewards! I cut the window on blackout to be the backdrop. I dressed the snow people in outfits from Basic Grey and added a little polar white flower soft to the window and the tops of their heads. All supplies can be purchased from Stamping Scrapping.com.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Thanksgiving Turkey

Our challenge on Scrappy Frogs is to create a project featuring something that has to do with Thanksgiving Dinner. I found this adorable digital stamp called turkey talk and had to use it for this challenge. I used the oven on the From my Kitchen cartridge. I love how you can see the little eyes peering out at you while the door to the oven is closed.
I took a piece of paper and folded it in half and glued one half to the inside of the oven and the other half to the back side of the oven door layer so that I could open the door to expose the nervous turkey inside. I also added the sentiment Got Ham to the inside of the door. The trick is to put some repositionable glue along the edges of the door so that it will stay closed, but be able to open when you want to expose Mr. Turkey.

I matted the oven to a piece of paper cut with the Martha Stewart around the page loop punch set. I love that punch set- it's a good thing. I would love to see what you can come up with so hop on over to Scrappy Frogs and show us your Thanksgiving Dinner project.


Thursday, November 5, 2009

Penguin Challenge


The challenge for the week on the Bitten by the Bug blog is to create a project using the penguin from the Joys of the Season cartridge. I love this blog, but rarely play along. I think I'm intimidated by how good their cards are. Anyway, I decided to give it a try this week. This is my card. I cut 2 penguins from the cartridge and decided to dress them up with some of the cuteoutfits that come with the newly released Snow Friends cartridge. I widened the skirt a little so it would fit on the penguin and then gave her some earmuffs. For the little guy, I used the scarf. The paper used on the skirt, scarf, and ear muffs is from the new Basic Grey line Eskimo Kisses. The background paper is from another Christmas Basic Grey line I think Figgy Pudding. I cut some hills from the Everday Paper Dolls cartridge and embossed them with my cuttlebug.

I used the new Core'dinations white wash paper with a blue core and then sanded the embossing to bring the blue out. To finish the card off, I cut some snowflakes (also from Joys of the Season) and stamped a sentiment on a tag. I colored white embroidery floss with a blue copic marker to make it blend with the rest of the card.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Time for Fall

I had a lot of fun doing Christmas cards, but I need to try and mix in a few fall/Thanksgiving cards as well. This image is from the Magnolia So Spooky collection and is called witch Tilda with pumpkins, however, to me her witch hat looks a little smooshed almost like a pilgrim hat. So, I am using her for Thanksgiving cards. I colored her with some fall colors and cut her into a tag. I added a little of the Autumn flowersoft to make it look like she was sitting in a pile of fall leaves. I matted the tag on some orange paper embossed with the pumpkin harvest folder. Then I added a sentiment, colored a petaloo flower with my orange copic to make it match and finished it off with an acorn in the center. So, what's the verdict- pumpkin or witch? I will be using this card for the cuttlebug spot fall card challenge this week.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Christmas Cards Already?

I know it's probably a little early to start posting the Christmas projects, but I just really loved the way these two turned out. I decided to make 2 different versions of the same card. One more vintage and traditional looking and one that was a little more playful. Nearly all the supplies used on these cards can be found at StampingScrapping.com For this first one, the vintage card, I used Basic Grey Wassail paper and the vintage Christmas flowersoft. I have to

admit I bought this stamp because I thought the wreath would be perfect for the flowersoft and I think it turned out really well. I colored the image with copic markers then I cut it out with labels 4 nestabilitie and chalked the edges with some shimmery gold chalk. I added the vintage christmsas flowersoft to the wreath. I went over the bright white lace with some distress ink to make it blend in more with the rest of the card and finished it off with some felt snowflakes. Here is a close up of the wreath so that you can see the texture of the flowersoft. It's very realistic looking.
This is my second version of the card, the more playful version. I used Cosmo Cricket's Jolly by Golly paper for this card. I used the same layout and image for the card. This time I colored the Tilda in brighter colors. I also used something different on the wreath this time. Here is a closer
look at the wreath. I used Irish Green sparkly fluff flock on the wreath this time so that it would coordinate better with the papers. This stuff is really cool. It is flock with a little sparkle thrown

in. It is hard to see the sparkle in the picture, but it's there. I also added some cotton candy flock to the trim and the pompom of her hat. This time I left the lace white and added a couple of flowers to finish off the card. I had a lot of fun with these cards and I'm excited to get a head start on my Christmas cards!


Saturday, October 31, 2009

One last Halloween post

Ok, this is my final Halloween post. I just wanted to post some non crafty Halloween pictures for you all. So, here is a picture of my adorable little Candy Corn Witch on the way to her school carnival.
Here she is working on our pumpkin. A word of advice, those little patterns aren't as easy as they look.

Hope you all had a wonderful and safe Halloween.






Friday, October 30, 2009

New Stamp Sets Coming

Cindy at StampingScrapping is releasing 4 more NEW STAMP SETS! I have a sneak peak for you! The sets are DRINK MINIS, FANCY ACCENTS, TAGS ACCENTS, LABELS ACCENTS. I will have samples to show you in the next couple of weeks, but they are available for pre-order HERE right now!

The Drink Minis coordinates with her current drink sets, the Fancy Accents coordinates with the Spellbinders Fancy Tags Dies, the Tags Accents coordinates with Spellbinders Ribbon Tag Trios 2 Dies and the Labels Accents coordinates with Spellbinders Labels 2, Labels 4 and Labels 8 dies. All of the spellbinder products can also be found in Cindy's store.



These sets will work perfectly for adding sentiments to cards or little journaling captions for your scrapbook pages. The stamps are clear, so it will be very easy to get your sentiment lined up perfectly. I can't wait to get my hands on these babies!!!!!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Another Halloween Card

Here is another Halloween card I made for a swap. It has a little glare on it because I took the picture after I had it in the clear envelope. The image in this picture is called Mummy Trevor and it is from CC Designs. I used various polka dot patterns for the background and myCuttlebug. I embossed the black section with the spider web folder and then punched the sentiment out of the boo folder and ran some black ink over it. I think this will probably be my last Halloween post since it will be over this weekend. I've had so much fun making Halloween projects but I guess it's time to move on to Christmas.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Haunted House

It is Stamping Scrapping Design Team assignment time again. I wanted to create something to show just how awesome the new Eerie paper from Basic Grey is. It comes in both 12 x 12 and 6 x 6 pads. I really wish I had gotten 2 packs because I am in love with it now. I found this little house shaped chip board album on clearance and thought I could turn it into a Haunted House album pretty easily. You could cut the house shape on your cricut and it would probably be easier than hand cutting the paper into the shape of the house like I did. For the front cover, I painted it with some Tim Holtz black crackle paint and some of the new rock candy crackle paint as well to make the house look weathered and kind of scary. I also distressed the edges a little bit with some white ink to make it look a little spooky.

I cut some trees and a fence from the cricut Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge and added those to the cover. The jack o lantern is cut from A Child's Year. I cut all the elements out of other patterns of the paper to showcase it as much as I could. It's all so great, it was just too hard to pick between all the great patterns. For this next page, I cut the bat from Paper Dolls and the

chandelier from Home Decor. I didn't glue down the bottom half of the chandelier so that when I add pictures later, I can slide them up underneath it if I need to. I love this orange scroll design paper. I inked the edges with some black soot distress ink. For the next page, I pop dotted

some ghosts (also cut from paper dolls- this cartridge is a Halloween gold mine) so once again photos could be added later by going underneath the embellishments. I inked the edges of this black paper with some white ink. This next page I call the witch page. You can see she left her

hat behind and that her frog is about to jump out of the potion. Once again, all these shapes were cut from Paper Dolls. I love how the skull on this page turned out. I think it looks great cut out of the pattern paper and distressed with a little black ink. Now although there is a skull and

crossbones on the Paper Dolls cartridge, I didn't use that one. I thought this one was a little spookier. It is actually cut from the new Gypsy Wanderings cartridge. I used this tree pattern for the back cover. I left it plain with no embellishment because I thought the pattern was perfect just as it is- spooky and understated. The book is held together with a binder ring and
I added a lot of lime green ribbon and some black tulle to kind of jazz it up a little bit. I have to say, if you have Halloween projects to make, get your hands on some of this paper!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Spooooky Halloween Card


Well, it's not actually that spooky, but it is a Halloween Card. I call this one Witchy Tilda. I colored Tilda with my copic markers to match the Basic Grey Eerie paper. The really cool thing I did to this card does not show up at all in the photo, so I will need to do it on another card soon. I distressed the edges of the image with distress ink and then painted over the entire image with the new Tim Holtz rock candy paint to make it look crackled. It did actually look really cool in person.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Halloween Treat Bags


The scrappy frog challenge was to create the 2-5-7-10 bag found on Splitcoast Stampers. On my first attempt, I messed up and somehow ended up making the bag upside down. Not only was it upside down, but the owl I cut to put on it was too big to fit on the bag with the flap, that's what I

get for not measuring. Anyway, I ended up decorating the back of the bag so that my owl would fit. This is a picture of the back of the bag. The owl is from gypsy wanderings and the hat is from paper doll dress up. Now, since it was too weird to just decorate the back of the box, I had to add a little something to the front as well. I welded the words trick or treat together on the gypsy (the words are from Hello Kitty font) and used the pumpkin from doodlecharms as the O. I added a little Martha Stewart drippy goo punch to make the bag look a little more Halloweeny and finished it off with some black ribbon.

This second bag is the one I actually ended up using for the Scrappy Frog challenge. I colored this adorable image from CC Designs with my copic markers. I edged the bag with the drippy goo punch again. I also distressed the edges with some black soot distress ink. For a finishing touch, I added some little wooden candy corn buttons. I decided to add the little googly eyes to hide the little button holes.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Scents for the Cure


October is breast cancer awareness month. Cindy, the owner of StampingScrapping.com has created a wonder card scent especially for this month called scents for the cure. All profits from the sale of this scent will go to the Betty Ford Breast Care Center. You can get details on the scent and purchase it here. To help promote the scents for the cure, the design team was asked to create some special pink projects. I decided to make this pink Tilda card. I have had my fall kit which features stamps from the so yummy collection and hadn't even inked them up, so I figured now was as good a time as any. I colored Tilda with copic markers. The background paper is all from the Basic Grey lemonade collection. I added some smooch paint to her necklace and bracelet to make them look more like pearls.

Friday, October 2, 2009

One more tree project


This is my entry for the Scrappy Frogs tree challenge. I used a tree from the new gypsy wanderings cartridge available on the new gypsy to use with your cricut. I have had a lot of fun with that little guy lately. The stamp is from CC Designs and I think it is absolutely adorable! The paper is from American Crafts and I embossed it with my Cuttlebug. If you would like to give this challenge a try, hop on over to Scrappy Frogs and link your project for a chance to win a fabulous mystery goody bag!


Monday, September 28, 2009

Tree Time

I have been making lots of tree projects lately. I just got the new polar white and autumn flower soft and it's perfect for trees. For this first project, I used the Autumn flower soft.

The stamp is from the Happy Fall stamp set from stamping scrapping.com. I colored the scarecrow and the basket with my copics and cut the tree from my cricut. I then added the flower soft to the top of the basket and the tree to look like leaves. The autumn flower soft is beautiful!!! For this next project, I used the polar white flower soft. I wanted it to look like snow
had fallen and landed on the card elements. All of the elements on this card were cut with the Winter Woodland cricut cartridge. Cindy has 2 left, so if you don't have this one grab it now! I used a glitter card base and bazzil bling paper for this project.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Some 3D Projects

The current challenge on Scrappy Frogs is to create something 3D. I have been playing around with the cricut Winter Woodland cartridge and thought the building on this cartridge would be perfect for this challenge.
This one was cut on the fit to page option with the 12 x 12 mat. It's cute, but it's small. It ended up cutting at 3 1/2 inches. I ran the parts of this one through my Cuttlebug before I assembled it to make the building look like brick and the roof look more like wood. If you try this, keep in mind that after you emboss the pieces, they are much more fragile, so you have to be careful not to rip them. I am entering this one in the Cuttlebug spot's back to school challenge. I wanted to make the houses a little bit larger, so I used the 12 x 24 mat and the large cardstock pad to create the same building at 6 1/2 inches.
This is more of what I had in mind. It is large enough to add a stamped image (even though my daughter said she looks like a giant and could never fit through the door to get into the school). I colored the Tilda with copic markers and paper pieced plaid paper for her dress to make it look like a school uniform. Since the pieces were larger, I didn't use the cuttlebug on them. I scored the lines on the roof with my scorpal and drew the "bricks" with white chalk pencil. The grass on both schools is cut from Zoobalooo. Overall these building weren't that difficult to put together and I'm happy with how they turned out.