School Bus mini album

My oldest son went off to first grade last week (yahoo, more time to craft). Anyway, I thought I had better get his kindergarden photos put in a scrapbook.

I prefer mini albums, so I came up with this school bus. The bus was cut out with my Cricut using the 'Doodle Charms' cartridge. I cut out the stop sign with the 'My Community' cartridge. The pencil and paper clips or 'office supplies' were made from Revolution Dies in my Cuttlebug.

clearing some stash - 2

Here is the rest of the paper and stickers. Feels good to have some thing accomplished with this stuff rather than just sitting in my stash!

clearing some stash

I have had this paper and matching stickers from Making Memories sitting around for almost a year now. I kept thinking the stickers were too cute to use on just cards - so I never used them. Well I found them again and thought I should use them up and clean up some stash! I think that I need to do this more often and go through my piles of paper.

Ice Cream 3

Here is yet another set of cards using the ice cream template and the Doodlebug paper. I like this one the best.

Ice Cream 2

Here are some other cards that I made with the Ice Cream template. I found some cute paper at the local scrapbook store by Doodlebug. I love all the fun pastel colors in this paper, I think I bought 4 sheets!

Ice Cream

I have been playing around with the Lasting Impressions Ice Cream template.

Here is a circle card that I put together using my cricut and the 'Wild Card' cartridge. The card is the 'Doily' cut out with the Blackout function. This card has a matching envelope that is very cute! I don't normally use the envelopes on this cartridge as they are not a standard postal size -- so they cost more to send in the mail.

Milk Carton with Flowers

Here are some photos of a milk carton that I put together and then topped with some paper flowers.



I made it as a thank you for my neighbor. I intend on filling the carton with some candy. My neighbor was nice enough to let me borrow some tables so that I could have a garage sale over the weekend. We had a great sale - finally cleaned up my attic!



Aren't the flowers pretty? I got the inspiration of the paper flowers from the Cosmo Cricket blog. They have a great tutorial on the flowers so if you want to make some for yourself, check out this link .... cosmo cricket flowers

same paper differant template

Sometime when I don't know what I want to create and the ideas just aren't flowing, I copy some other cards - but try to make them my own. In the above photo the wedding cake, windowbox, and fleur card were given as examples in some Lasting Impressions demo boards. I really like the color combinations in these cards, so I tried them out with a differant stencil. The card below is what I came up with.

Sympathy Cards

Here is a sympathy card that I had made a couple weeks ago for some family members. I made about 12 of these cards and just varied the quotes. I usually try and make several sympathy cards so that I have some on hand when I need them.

With this card I found an EASY way to glitter -- I ran the C letter thru the Xyron UPSIDE DOWN to get it nice and sticky and then poured glitter over it. That glitter is NOT coming off!

I really hate sympathy cards, I never know what to say! I did find a couple quotes that I like, and tend to use those all the time.

Cast your cares upon Him,
for he cares for you.


Be still and know that I am God.


Someone remembers,
someone cares.
Your name is whispered
in someone's prayers.

If anyone knows of a some other quotes that are suitable for sympathy cards ... Please share! I really think that sympathy cards are the hardest cards to make!

Real Hydrangea

Ok, can you tell that I like Hydrangeas? This is a photo of one hydrangea in my backyard. I have a couple differant varieties, and I highly recommend the 'Forever Bloom' if you are shopping for a new shrub. I have a couple other varieties but they don't seem to bloom as much, take the heat, live as long as a cut flower indoors, or even dry down as well. The dried blooms can be just as pretty as the fresh new blooms!



Here is a photo that show a fresh new bloom and an older dried bloom. I really enjoy watching the colors fade from the bright pink to the pale green!

Another Hydrangea

This another Hydrangea card, this one is made from a Lasting Impressions brass stencil.

cricut - hydrangea

This is a card that I made with the Cricut machine and the Walk in My Garden cartridge.

The hydrandea is paper pieced, and I used some pop dots to give added dimension to the flower. I also used some ink around the edges and a white gel pen to mark the centers.

The card itself is a matchbook card that opens at the bottom. The bottom has a scalloped edge and is tied closed with a ribbon.

First post - bakesale

My son's church preschool is having a bakesale.

I made two batches of cookies and sealed 2 cookies in a cello bag. I couldn't help myself -- I embellished them with some papercrafts. (I just hope they sell!)

The first batch of cookies were an oatmeal cookie with cherry chips and white chocolate chips. The various flowers were made with a technique called dry embossing from brass stencils by Lasting Impressions (I love their stencils, and use them a great deal so you will see more of those here).

The quotes were printed out on my computer and then cut out using some Spellbinder dies in my Cuttlebug.



I also made a second batch of cookies, ones with a school theme. These cookies are chocolate with white chocolate chips.

The cookies were embellished with some Quikutz Revolution dies. They have some very cute school dies such as pencils, buses, words.

I used the pencil die to make crayons - by adding two black stripes and not using the eraser portion of the die.