Swinging from the Chandeliers?

I have been obsessed with chandeliers recently as I think they would make some nice images for my upcoming wedding scrabook as well as cards. They are both classy and dark/goth at the same time. I would love to have a giant, over-the-top, crystal chandelier in our otherwise modern dining room and another one in a kitschy bathroom/powder room. So cute.

There actually aren't a ton of chandelier craftiness out there, but I managed to find a Sizzix Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, which comes with a Chandelier and a Thank You emboss, so both pretty handy. This was around $9 on Overstock.com. I hope these work as well as the Cricut brand folders in my Cuttlebug.



I also found this great set by Inkadinkado (also on Overstock.com) that has a few different chandeliers. I am just getting into stamping so we'll see what I end up doing with these.



And finally, I was able to purchase the Home Decor Cricut cartridge on eBay for less than $12 with shipping. Yah! love those kind of finds. I mainly wanted it for the chandelier image (since I don't have the Cricut Circle exclusive French Manor cart, and never will based on the $100 eBay price tag!). But it also has some other neutral images that would be great for cards and backgrounds.



My mom is coming on Friday and staying for a whole week, so we are hoping to launch into my wedding scrapbook. Our wedding hall had gorgeous chandeliers, so hopefully I can incorporate these fun new finds!

Cheers!
-marcia

Rain, Rain Go Away!

My mom has been having a rough time lately, so I wanted to cheer her up with a card. And I wanted an excuse to experiment with the ol' Cuttlebug.

I used a pre-cut A2 Card from DCWV. These sets are great, and you can often find them on sale at JoAnns and Michael's. I chose a yellow one as that reminded me of rain boots.

Here I put lots of paper and ran it through my Cricut ... all DCWV paper.

I then used the Paisley Cricut cartridge to cut out this umbrella and the rain boots. Paisley is kind enough to have the shadows for both, so that makes things nice and easy. 


















I ran the umbrella through the Cuttlebug using a flowery embossing folder, and then attached the top layer of the umbrella on with some pop dots so it would stick out / be awesome.

I glued the shadowed boots on the inside of the card to add a little somethin' somethin'. I used my handy Zig 2 Way Glue for all this gluing. When I spied this DCWV paper in one of my Stacks, it reminded me of some rain boots I saw at Target recently. ha!

You could also add a frame, some grass or a ribbon to this card to make it your own. I chose to add a butterfly embellishment I have from K. and Co. to the umbrella to help symbolize the rain clearing and brighter days ahead .... These cute butterflies were part of my Wal-Mart finds. Sometimes, Wal-Mart is worth braving (kind of).

I ran a second set of boots through the Swiss Dots embossing folder and stuck those to the envelope to cute that up a bit. Another bonus with using these DCWV pre-cut cards is they come with envelopes so no fumbling to make that fit just right. yay!

The finished product is below ... hopefully this help cheer my mom up a bit / chase the rain clouds away. :-)

cheers!
-marcia

Over my Head

For our first anniversary, Mr. Awesome got me a gorgeous wedding album from Pottery Barn. It comes with it's own box and everything! So chic.

Well here we are, 2.5 years into marriage and I still haven't assembled it. I've gotten as far as picking the photos, which was such a task ... to pick the photos that would live on in infamy ... that I took a year off after completing that task. Oh boy.

One of the things that plagues me about the project is that the Pottery Barn album is closer to traditional wedding album size, and I am used to working in 12x12 scrap layouts. So my amazing trooper of a mother, who is willing to do the crap work of scrapping that I hate, cut all my 12x12 pages of pink, brown and cream Bazil paper to the appropriate Pottery Barn-imposed size. Yes, she really does rock.

The wonderful thing about waiting this long is that now I have a Cricut. And a Gypsy. And a Cuttlebug. And an ATG. And Zig glue in every size. So really I think it's much better that I waited (is what I tell myself), but really there's no excuse (except for my Imagine-lust, but that's another Christmas away at best) .... So now all I need is my mom to come down here from the great white north to motivate me to assemble this thing and be glad about it. ha! Then I can show everyone my wedding album and they will scratch their heads while nodding and thinking to themselves "that was so 3 years ago."

And now I have a blog to post my progress, so hopefully this will hold my feet to the fire ... or Cricut, as it were.

Cheers!
-marcia

Molly and the Craft Station

Cupcake Birthday Card: Wild Card Cartridge
 
I had to put my new Cuttlebug to use today, and get ready for some upcoming birthdays. So I grabbed Molly the wonderpup, who just had her lady business removed a couple of weeks ago and needs lots of naps now, and we went to work on making the birthday cupcake card from the Wild Card cartridge. Who doesn't love cupcakes??

I really like this Wild Card cartridge. It makes cranking out shaped cards super-easy -- especially if you have the Gypsy! You can save your cards in there and just print them when you are ready. Ta-da!

I cut this card at 5 inches. You also cut all the liners and phrases you want at 5 inches as well -- it automatically makes everything fit together perfectly. This is especially nice if you don't have a Gypsy.

I have the Fiskars paper cutter, but I bought the replacement blade three-pack, which comes with an orange "scoring blade." It works great.
 
I used all DCWV for the card and Paper Source paper for the envelope. DCWV makes a great Glitter stack, which is what I used for the cupcake frosting and the candle -- they are both super sparkley though you can't really see it in the photo. If you have glimmer mist (which I don't ... sniffles.) you could use that instead.

I used pop-ups so the cupcake frosting would be 3D. I have these ghetto foam ones from Therm O Web (jigga what?), but they work great and I can't justify getting trendy gel flavored ones until I run out. I used my Scotch ATG Gun to put the envelope together--that seems to survive the mail. I used Zig adhesive to put the rest together.

I ran the cupcake "liner" through the Cuttlebug in the Swiss Dots folder, so in real life it's polka dots on polka dots. FUN! Loving my Cuttlebug already. :)

Have a fabulous weekend everyone!
Cheers!
-marcia

Wild Card Cartridge:
Flower Birthday + Get Well

I am lucky enough to like my sister-in-law, Jamey. We were friends working at the same company in Florida before my brother snatched her up. Now she lives in North Dakota and I'm in So. Cal., but thanks to the magic of cards, I can still let her know I'm thinking about her .... especially when she falls and gets a major concussion, followed by her birthday two weeks later. Ah!

Get Well Card
I made this Get Well card from the Wild Card cartridge super quick so I could get it in the mail. Wouldn't you know the poor thing came down with tonsillitis while on bed rest for a concussion? If anyone deserves a card in the mail, it is definitely her!

I cut this card out at 6.25 inches. I cut the card in blackout twice -- once with plain paper and once with the patterned paper. I then cut the patterned paper card (from DCWV Stacks) in half and glued it on the front of the card to make a "fun" Band-Aid. I cut out the "liner," which is the "pad" of the Band-Aid. The phrase is "Get Better," and I cut that out at 5.20 so it would fit on the front of the card. If you cut out the "shift" of the liner, then you get the liner for the envelope. Magic!

I glued the whole thing together with Zig Adhesive.

Flower Birthday Card
For her birthday, I used the cute flower card. It is supposed to be a card that says "Bloom Where you Were Planted," but I used the Happy Birthday phrase from the cupcake card instead. I'm not really sure when I would tell someone to go Bloom, but I love this card so I had to find a use for it.
















I cut the card out at 4.75 inches, which is pretty much max for 12x12 paper. I cut the frame out twice; once for the outside of the card in Happy Birthday paper, and once for the inside of the card in light green matching paper (you can kind of see it in the photo). That way it made the inside of the card cute, plus I knew exactly where to write so it didn't write where the front of the card wouldn't cover. Worked out pretty nifty.

I used some "bling" for the middle of the flower on the outside and on the inside. I got a whole kit of blink at Wal-Mart for like $3 when I was driving through Montana last month. Wouldn't you know the Wal-Mary in Glendive, Mont., is actually nice!

I put my birthday phrase in the corner, also in the DCWV Stacks birthday paper.

Last year Jamey was on bed rest, pregnant with my adorable nephew. This year she needed a bright card now that she was free of bed rest from pregnancy and free from the bonk on her head.

Happy Birthday, Jamey! Stay healthy!

Cheers!
-marcia

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

When my hubby left the house for a meeting on Sunday afternoon, I took the time to make his V-Day card and gift, lickety split!

I got the idea to make these adorable fortune cookies from Carrie at Greenbean's Craftrole. So easy and cute! I printed out little sayings on my computer and then stuck them inside. I used my "heart" punch to really Valentine's it up.

 


When Scrapguy wrapped Hershey's Bars for Valentine's, it got my mind working ... only my guy likes mint with this chocolate. So I found these York Peppermint Patties shaped in hearts for V-Day. Ha! I used the Tags, Bags, Boxes and More cartridge to print out a plain old tag with rounded edges  at 7 inches wide and 3 inches high. On your Gypsy, you have to click that chain under the inches so you can modify it to your own needs. Then, I just wrapped them right around the candy, and I held it in place with Zots Singles, medium clear adhesive dots.

I used the Gypsy Font (also on Gypsy) to cut out the X, O, and two hearts in coordinating paper. I cut out slightly larger X,O, and two hearts in the same paper and glued them to a plain old kraft paper gift bag from Target. We bought a couple of 10 packs a while pack and I just decorate them up (or not)--it's great as you can use them for boys and girls, young and old.





I then used the heart card on the Wild Card cartridge to make him a cute V-Day card.

I continued my theme and did an X,O, and hearts on the front of the Heart Card.







I used the Heart Card's Liner and the "hugs & kisses" Phrase on the inside. Easy!

I used my Crop-a-Dile and punched a couple of holes so I could wrap the whole thing up with a ribbon, instead of cutting out an envelope.

Hope everyone shares some love with someone that really needs it today!

Hugs!
-marcia

I am visiting my parents in the big ND due to two family deaths. A nice lady from my parents' church brought over dinner one night without even anyone asking. Thanks Avonne!

Today I was able to "scrap" together what I would call a "cheater" card ... but I think it still turned out cute.

I used the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge and it has a leaf, shadow and a phrase that says "Grateful." My mom had a pack of the DCWV A2 card packs in Winter, so probably a little blue than I would have normally done for a leaf card but hey ... it's a "cheater" card, you do what you can do.

She also had a super cute Stack from DCWV called nursery rhymes or something to that effect. Loves it! I found a paper that had glitter -- pre-installed bling! More cheating! I think add the leaf (and its shadow) to the inside of the card, and then wrote a note telling her how much we love to eat delivered dinner. yah!

I was also able to update my mom's Gypsy and her Cricut so ... overall the trip was totally worth it. Headed back to CA tomorrow, Lord willing ...

I just got in three new Cricut cartridges from the awesome gals at Custom Crops. Love them! Wish I could buy up the whole store.

My new carts are:
Paisley
Paper Dolls Dress Up
Stretch Your Imagination

Last night I was fiddling with the Paper Dolls cart to make a cover for my new sticker binders. Finally had to move to TWO binders. Woah is me and my sticker obsession.

I got the first cover done, here's a pic.

I used ONLY the Paper Dolls cart for the whole thing + DCWV paper. The doll is cut at 5.5 inches. I added the VW bug in the lower right corner for my dad, who restores VWs. Hugs dad!

Cheers!