Greenville, SC Circle meetup!!!

Here are a few pics of us at the Circle meetup in Greenville this past weekend. A fun time was had by all!! Cant wait to see you all again!

Teacup and stick pin swaps

I really had a great time recently joining some stick pin swaps. One was a teacup pin cushion swap and one was a stick pin swap. I found this "teacup" at TJ Maxx. It originally was a paperclip holder I believe and thought it was Perfect!! I used some Christmas rubons for the ornaments on the cup and also added a metal tag to the front. I created the cushion from plain red fabric and batting and a styrofoam ball and glued it into the cup. Made the pins using 3 in flower pins and beads. SOme from Oriental trading and some I got from a bead sale at Michaels.

This is the one I made for the stick pin swap and didnt require a tea cup. I made a noteholder for the pins for this one. I ran foam through my zyron and cut to size and layered to hold the pins. I wrapped ribbon around the foam to cover the edges of the foam and glued in the note holder and used red ribbon to hold it closed.

Closed view of stick pin holder

This is a picture of the pin cushion I received back in my swap. I havent yet received the other swap back but will post that once I do (should be next week) I sent mine early as I had to mail a bunch of things so thought that would be ok.

Stick pins are soooo easy to make and alot of fun. I will definately be going more of these to add to some of my Christmas cards this year!!

Heat embossing challenge

These projects were made for the papercraft weekend challenge blog. Technique Tuesday was all about heat embossing. I made 3 projects.

The Just a note card was made using a versamark on a flower border stamp then I filled in the leaves with a light green viva pen and the flower centers with a red viva pen. The embossing powder I used was pearl white. I used a Martha Stewart punch and Just a note Unity stamp.

The Love you card was made with an image printed and cut on my Cricut Imagine. I used a versamark pad on the entire surface and using clear embossing powder to make the whole surface glossy. Added a few Rhinestones, a ribbon and a couple prima flowers.

The last project is mini monogram tags for small gifts. I used my cuttlebug with the all in one monogram folder for the initials. Martha Stewart punches for the tags and gold embossing powder on the initials.

Stop over to the Papercraft weekend challenge blog to check out everyones projects.

www.papercraftweekendchallenge.blogspot.com

Paper Craft Challenge

Well...this is the first Christmas card of the season. I made this for a glitter challenge on the Paper craft weekend challenge blog and let me just say I am so dissapointed in how it turned out. But thats ok. I have lots of time to make more and get them right. lol The challenge was to use glitter on a project.

I love this stamp but can never seem to get it to look how I want it to and end up putting it back on the shelf so this year I am gonna keep trying until I have this image glittered the way I want it to look!!!

I stamped in black and then dotted a little color on the snowmens' hats and scarves. I colored the trees and then added glitter and micro glass beads to the trees to appear as ice patches once dry I added viva pearl pen and glitter on the trees and on the snowmens' path for piled on snow. This has given a very nice 3d feel to the card. It is really puffy and texturized. I cut black cardstock and red glitter cardstock frames around the scene (which I dont like how they turned out) and adhered to a white cardstock card. I cut the frames by hand and next time I will turn on my cricut to cut them as they are very uneven.

Stop by the Papercraft weekend challenge blog to see everyone elses glittered up projects!

www.papercraftweekendchallenge.blogspot.com

2 Thinking of you cards

I have finally gotten back into my craftroom after a couple months of not crafting. I made these for the Paper craft weekend challenge. If your not familar with it please stop by! This has been on facebook for a couple of months now and this weekend they have launched their new blog! They have a new challenge every Friday and Sunday and will be throwing in some other challenges and tutorials through the week.

Here is the link to their blog:

http://papercraftweekendchallenge.blogspot.com/2011/09/september-sketch-challenge.html

Birthday Card for Kai

I tried some new things on this card, one was sewing the edges (I truely need practice) and I used an action wobble. LOVE THEM!! The bunny is so springy and wobbly I will definately be using them again. I used my cuttlebug on 2 of the mats, the happy birthday folder and the traffic folder. I used cricut cart Birthday bash for the bunny and gift he is holding, the birthday hat and also for the sentiment inside.

Campin Critters mini Album / guide book

I made this for my parents, they are new to camping and I want to make them a guide book or to do list for the things they need to do when they go camping so they dont forget anything. I decided to make them a mini album using my Your Story binder and the Campin Critters cart. The inside pages are layered with white, brown and white again so that they can write on the front or the back and each page will be sturdy. They can make lists or add pics.

Masculine Birthday card

This is the matching birthday card for the painters tray gift. I used the same papers (Bo Bunny Timepiece collection) in making this card. Very simple and perfect for a guy, not frilly and even though it has a bow on it there is not ribbon or glitter. The colors are also well suited for a more masculine card. I love the bicycle image on this!! I loosely based the card on a beautiful card I saw on Pickeled Paper designs blog. I absolutely adore her work and I noticed a masculine card she had posted a while back and thought it would fit well for what I was looking for, I didnt use all of the elements that the other card had as my paper had more pattern to it and I really wanted the pattern paper to stand out.

My first attempt with a Painters tray

So this is a work in progress, I have never tried working with one of these before and I love all the pictures I have seen of others and thought I would give it a try. This is a birthday gift for my step father. I have used some very old pics of me, my son and my grandson. (lol, he isnt even one yet so I guess his pics arnt that old but they are some of the first taken, lol)

I used a 7 Gypsies white painters tray I purchased at Archivers when I was in Atlanta. I used crackle paint on the front to distress a bit (doesnt show well in photo) and rubbed distress inks on a few spots to distress even further. Being for a man I didnt want to use flowers and frills so have been truely at a loss as to how to "decorate" it. I am giving this to him this coming weekend so I have a few more days of looking at what I can add, I think it is missing some pizzaz. Any helpful comments would be greatly appreciated!!

Baby card

I actually made this card back in Sept when I got my Imagine but never posted it. I love how easy it is making items when using the Imagine. Having the ability to match everything effortlessly is such a time saver!

Easter sign for our front door

I made this quick and easy sign for our front door for Easter. I bought the sign at Hobby Lobby, the bunnies were already there so I just cut Hoppy Easter and the egg from vinyl and slapped on there and voila! Tomorrow I will take a pic of it hanging on the door.

Challange 5 from Circle board

This is the fifth and final challange from our online swarm! The challange was to use a frame in some way on the project, I chose to make a framed gift box from the wild card cartridge. I cut it at 5 inches, it is a little smaller than expected however it is perfect for a chocolate square or two like Ghirardelli.

Circle challange 3 and 4

Here is my entry for the third challenge on the circle boards this weekend. It is a note card holder and 8 matching monogramed notecards. Super easy and turned out pretty cute. Hope you like it!

Here is Circle challange 4 - It is a Thank you card. We were to use any type of wet medium on our project. I used wet embossing on the birds so they would stand out (didnt show up in pic) and I used my Viva pearl pen to accent the bird cages. Pic doesnt show the card well since I cant take a pic to save my life but it is relly pretty in real life.

Circle online swarm challange 2

This is my entry for challange 2 on the Circle online swarm. This was a color combo challange. We had to use pink, purple, green and yellow. I made a spring card for this challange.

Circle online swarm challange

We are having an online swarm on the circle boards for those of us not lucky enough to be in TX for the stampede. Here is my take on the first challange, I chose to do the layout sketch instead of the card sketch since I have only done about 3 layouts previous (I normally do cards). Im sure there is lots of room for improvement but I thought it didnt turn out half bad. I am really bad at taking pictures so there is quite a bit of glare.

Cricut Circle Montly Challenge

I completed my entry for the Monthly challenge on the circle blog. This challenge was all about Banners. I used the Inspriation banner sentiment BE MINE for my banner and used my Imagine for most of it. I printed the pink paper for the pennents from Lori's Garden and also the medalion was printed from Lori's garden. The letters were cut from the Country Life cart on my Imagine. I made rosettes using tissue paper that surprisingly was a perfect match to the colors from the Loris Garden cart. This was the biggest challenge as I had never made rosettes before and didnt know what I was doing at all. I think I could have done better with a little more practice but they did turn out better than I had expected! I lightly glittered around the rosettes and used my pearl viva pen to make little pearls on the letters. I cuttlebug'd the pennents and sanded then to distress them a little and that really made them pop. The pictures are not doing this any justice it is really pretty and soft in person but I cant take a picture to save my life.

Valentine Card

This is the second Valentine card I completed this weekend. I used a roller stamp for the background and stamped I Love you. I ct the heart's from my Cricut, I think I used Doodlecharms but I dont really remember which heart I cut.

Valentine 2011

I was able to get 2 Valenentine cards completed this weekend and here is one of them. This was such a simple card. I used a roller stamp of hearts for the background and then stamped the little cups of hearts image, I used Tombow markers to color in the image and addes some stickles and a viva pearl pen. I placed a pink glitter frame around the image. The Kiss Kiss sentiment is from The Scrapmaster's Ultimate Sentiments stamp set.

Just Because

I have been fairly busy crafting this weekend and this is one of the cards I completed. It is a just because card and I was insired by a card I saw in this months Cardmaker Mag. I thought it was so pretty I had to give it a shot. I made this with scraps from a banner project I am working on for the Circut Circle monthly Challenge. I printed the pink paper with my Imagine from the Loris Garden cart and also printed the pattern paper from one of the patterns on this cart. I stamped the tree (from Imaginisce) and used Sweet pea flower soft on the branches and leaves. The sentiment is from the Ultimate Sentiments line from The Scrapmaster.

Winter birthday card

Here is a cute winter birthday card idea that I completely stole from the circle blog. It was really cute and I had the same paper so I thought I would give it a whirl. I used Echo Park paper and lots of glitter and snow. I used the Christmas card cat for the card shape and the snowman. Inside of card says... Happy BRRRday!

Birthday Card

Here is a birthday card I made today for a weekend challenge on the cricut board. We were to use one of our first purchased carts. I used Blackletter for the frame and script paper. On this card I also used my cuttlebug, I used distressed stripes and swiss dots. I sanded the frame I used distressed stripes on to well distress it. lol On the brown circle I used swiss dots and used 2 shades of distress Inks to give it a suaded look. (looks great in person and worked well) I also used my Imagine on this one to print the script paper this was from Lori's Garden. On the center of the flower I used stickes on top of a brad and well it looks messy so I may go back in and correct that. The Happy Birthday tags were pre printed from an old paperpack I had laying around. Tied it up with a red ribbon on the side.