Had to Copy a little Spooky!

This is a wall hanging I saw on the CEO's blog that I had to copy!
She posted all of the ingredients and wouldn't you know it I had all that I needed to make one for myself - now that's really scary! I was actually short black waxy flax, but I sponged brown hemp to make it work.

Here is a metal tag with the center cut out and two Dementional Elements Stars sponged Sunflower Yellow!

I stamped 2 owls and layered him with foam squares. I colored in the Sunflower Yellow eyebrows and beek with a marker.

Created the flaux wood grain background and wrote on the tombstones with a marker too. I think it's close to the real thing. I was suppose to sew around the edge, but I used Simple Stitiches stamp set to make it look like I did. Other stamps: Creepy Cobwebs and Whoo Loves You. Click on the logo on the right to go to her website and you let me know if I did a good job of scraplifting!

Pumpkin Invites

Over the weekend my friend Patti needed a little help with some invites - a Couples Costume Bridal Shower to be exact! So we came up with these pumpkins. We cut them out using the Cricut. Then printed the words on with an Inkjet printer. I took Orange ink and sponged curves on them to give them some depth. This is a tester for the green ink for the stem - but it shows you what it looked like without the orange lines sponged on below:

We realized that we forgot where they are registered so we made a crystal ball out of green paper and the ball we cut out of velum paper. On a laser printer we printed off the information for the registry.
Marker in machine - we outlined them with green ink first - gives them an edge.

A whole sheet of them!

While Patti's machine was cutting pumpkins and crystal balls, mine was cutting 4 colors of paper confetti - white skeletons, orange pumpkins, black spiders, and purple moons and stars - all about an inch big - took all day! (I had the settings too slow!)

Here are just a few of them:

Mini Flip Flap Album

A Sister Consultant showed us this Flip Flap album in September and we planned on making them at the next Unit Meeting, but I couldn't wait and figured out how to do it - it's a good thing I did because everyone I showed wants one or wants to do one. It is very easy. I don't know if you can tell there is a flap that opens on the right where it says "there's no place like home".

The Flip Flaps are individual pockets for pictures that have an adhesive end that you can use to add a picture to anything. I used the paper from our Sweet Home Paper Kit and created the cover and back. I scored it where the Flip Flap pocket ends so it would fold open without pulling on the glue. There is no stamping, just used the Stickease from the Sweet Home Level 2 Pack and a few pearls for bling.

Playing with D.E. & Embellishments

At the Unit Meeting in September we took the Dimensional Elements On Target and cut up one of the circles to create this card. Dimensional Elements are white chipboard that are great for just about anything! Here we took a sponge and colored a piece of the scalloped circle Chocolate, hole punched it and put little brads into it. We used Nature's Vein to create the background paper. Using a sponge and Chocolate Ink, we colored the Twill Ribbon to match or D.E. With a Glue pen we added Prisma Glitter to the veins on the leaf. On the next card we played with the Metal Frames (sorry discontinued) - Got'm never took them out of the plastic - love to collect cute things like this!!! Here we did another fall theme. The bottom scalloped piece is a D.E. from the Borders set (check out the scrolls on this set!!), cut and sponged with Colonial White.

The photo below shows the depth better. The frame is held on with two brads.

Thanks for looking!

September's Card Swap

For September's Unit Meeting we were suppose to do a card with an Autumn theme. Here is a few from the meeting: Amy's Card above uses the Stamp Of the Month for September (Which I have an extra set and I love this one!). Bev's Card below has Nature's Veins stamp set, brads and Colonial White ribbon featuring the crochet ribbon in the collection.

Then there is my card. I used Neighborhood stamp set and Nature's Veins too. The leaves are Sunkissed Yellow and rocked onto Holiday Red and Citrus Leaf. I crumpled them up and put a foam square under them for depth. I stamped the houses twice and cut out part of the house and roof. Using foam squares I gave it raised 3D look. I stamped the trees in Citrus Leaf, then the trunks were tapped onto the Chocolate ink pad. I then rocked the edges of the leaves in Orange Ink, and I tipped a few areas in Holiday Red Ink - giving it a fall look. No 2 trees were alike!

The tires on the car are silver Bity Brads. The car was Grey Wool Ink. Brown Bag Ink and cardstock was for the house and background. I used a Nestibilites die to cut out the Colonial White CS and I shaded the inside with Bamboo Ink while the die stayed on the paper so that the embossed edge stayed clean and free of ink - great 2 tone effect.

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What have I been doing this summer???

Not blogging, that's for sure, and I'm sorry I haven't been! Here is some things that I've done:

I bedazzled my Cricut Expressions with VINYL!!! It now has my name on it and flowers. This was a long hard decision. My hubby and I were up to 2am playing and learning vinyl and that's when I decided to do my machine. He said flowers. I wanted something like a crest. He won.

I added a ladybug right above the logo :)

The hubby and I sell real estate for a living and so we did the Shorewest Logo and some yard signs. The Expressions is now a write off!!!

I'm doing an advance class for Hobby Lobby so I played around with making my own rubber stamps! Here is a monkey:

He fits nicely on my CMTH 3x3 clear block! I've got to play with the embossing folder for the Cricut and I also did glass etching using vinyl. Here's my first project:

It's a votive cup for a candle. I used the negative of the vinyl and put it on the glass and with Armour Etching paste I created this look.
The side view. Want to learn how to do these projects and more, come join my class! I'm going to be teaching at 3 Hobby Lobby's in Wisconsin in September!

Cricut Word Book

I've created a Cricut Class for Hobby Lobby that uses the Design Studio Software. It's a hands on class where you bring your machine, laptop and create this book in class! This is using the Plantin Schoolbook Cartridge that came with the Expressions machines. $15 plus some supplies.

Each page is a letter that spells LOVE!

Plenty of places for photos inside too!
This book is made with the George and Basic Shapes Cartridge that came with the Orginial machine (6x12) I did one for each machine so that anyone can attend the class - you will get the cutting file downloaded onto your machine - I'm pretty clever - hey?

Decorate and there you have a great homemade album for any occasion!

Classes are at the end of August - email me if you are interested!

The Acrylic Album - Hobby Lobby

This is a class I will be teaching at Hobby Lobby in September.

It will teach people how to work with acrylic and what you can do to create this book.

Email me for details - $7 for the class. (Plus supplies).

There is water splash stickers on many of the pages.

They look like real water - clear and raised. She was not going in until I had her cousin B. take her hand and walked her thru.

By the end of the day she was dragging him thru!

My Water Baby!
Don't Drink The Water!

She slept good that night!

Where Have I Been?

Can't believe it's almost a month since I posted! I've been enjoying the summer! I've been taking tons of photos I'll have to share (see me on FACEBOOK and you'll see family fun almost daily.) I've even managed to do a few things too! Stay tuned for more postings!

THE WEDDING CARD

Now I know that many of you wanted to see the wedding card that I made with my Cricut Expressions and so here she is (now that the wedding is over I can show it off!) When you open it up there is a pocket with 4 cards on the right side and each one is for a different part of the wedding. We had to do 2 different sets, one for the people coming to everything and another for people not invited to the dinner.
Half the cards are two sided. The directions card has a map on the back and the response card is an actual post card that you mail back. I created the layout using the Cricut Software - no it didn't come predesigned on one of the cartridges. I used the George Cartridge and it takes about 9 different shapes (from the letter "C" to a triangle) to create the base/folder that holds everything. We really lucked out and somehow we managed to make the inserts 4.25 wide so we ran them thru my DreamKuts machine that cut the 8.5 x 11 in half - one less cut manually for us! This is what the layout looks like on the screen when I did it using the software for the Cricut:
It took 9 objects and there is welding, stretching and cutting being done all on one layout!We printed everything on my inkjet printer. There is Sparkles on the invite center page below the swirl on the bottom (not a good photo). We used Garden Green and Colonial White cardstock. (Thanks to the sister consultants that lent me their extra paper until my order came in! The Purple/Wine Paper is a specialty milled paper and was super expensive (there's a shimmer in the paper - trust me you don't want to try and glue on shimmery paper!)

The wedding party stayed at my lake house for the weekend to assemble all of them! (And they almost had all of them done in one weekend too - what great girls!!!) I'll have to post the assembly line photos. Each girl had a job to do and the cards just kept circling the table. We made 250 of these! I went thru 4 to 6 large mats and about 3 blades (the special ones for thick paper). I think it ate 4 to 6 ink cartridges too - they make those things soooo small lately - it's sad.

June Deal of the Day

CHOCOLATE BRADS!

Buy a stamp set (any size) and get FREE BRADS! Check my CTMH website every day to see the great savings!

Father's Day Fold Out Card

This last week Daddy has been taking our daughter fishing - I'll upload photos. She's a natural. She catches about 6 fish everytime she goes and she's just standing on the pier! It's a full time job keeping the worms on her hook (and YES she touches those GROSS worms TOO!) She can cast (and I'm deadly afraid of the hook - very long story). She hooked Daddy's sleeve once! But he's so proud of her. So I made this card for her and signed her name and gave it to her to give to her Daddy. While he was opening it she was ROLLING her eyes and she's only 3 years old. After he opened it she said she wanted to make her OWN card and got off the couch and went into my room and we made one. I guess she didn't like not having any part of making the first card!
I totally scraplifted this card and layout - loved the 3D effect and I made this one to fit a 6x6 envelope (I thought the 4.25 x 5.5 size would be too small and the canoe wouldn't fit very well.) I highlighted the edges of the boat with my Bamboo marker and did all the fish and boat with Chocolate Ink. The water waves are Moonstruck. There's a piece of thread that goes from the fish to the top of the fishing pole.

This is when it's flat. I almost made the water too high and the sign would be too tall for the envelope! Gotta watch the height. I'll post directions shortly.

Why I'm afraid of hooks story:

When my Uncle was a small boy he was fishing with a very close friend of the family, someone they would consider an uncle to the kids. My Uncle HOOKED this man in the eye lid while fishing.

When I was a little girl I went fishing with that same Uncle and I hooked HIM in the eye lid!!! I'm afraid it's my turn!! I cover my face with my hands whenever we go fishing. I'm also silly enough to worry that it might skip a generation and she'll get one in the eye - a Mother's job of worrying is never done!

OPEN CROPS!

Bring your stuff to work on and come borrow my inks, markers, Cricut and other great toys - plus Tastefully Simple will be catering! What more could you want?

Bring a card for the troops and get in for only $4 instead of $7! See my calendar at CTMH for details!

Thanks for looking and when I get more energy I'll create stuff soon.