Christmas Tag

Here's a vintage style gift tag I made for a basket of goodies I gave to a friend.

I cut the tag with my Cricut  then embossed it with my Cuttlebug and  inked it up with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I cut the lamp post and holly leaves with my Cricut also. Then just added the poinsettia, stickles for the holly berries and the Merry Christmas banner. This also fit a challenge from the 12 Days of Christmas Crop over at Turtle Soup.

Let It Snow

It's Friday so that means it's time for another Design Team Sketch Reveal at My Scraps & More Sketches and there is the December Mini Crop beginning at Turtle Soup. I have a layout up for both.

And here is the sketch we used at My Scraps & More 

This was a great sketch to play with. Everything on here is from Fancy Pants Winterland Collection except for the wood title banner. I'm proud to say I finally used up all the paper from this collection that I've had for several years now. I still have a few small pieces left but they went into my scrap pile, so they don't count!

Over at Turtle Soup this layout is for the December Mini Crop Family Challenge that I'm hosting. You need to scrap a layout about family. This is my son-in-law and granddaughter on a winter hay ride and my two granddaughters on a sleigh ride. 

So come join us at My Scraps & More Sketches and see all the Design Team's takes on the sketch and of course we'd love it if you'd play along with us.

And be sure and check out the December Mini Crop at Turtle Soup. Lots of fun challenges going on and the crop lasts til Sunday, Dec. 28th.

Gift Card Holder

Here's a quick and easy gift card holder I made for my step daughter. I couldn't believe how quickly it came together.

I took a toilet paper roll and just folded the ends in to make it a pillow box. Wrapped it in red and black cardstock and added the gold belt buckle. It looked too plain so I added the little gold tree embellie. It probably took me no longer than 15 minutes to make it!

This gift card holder was for a 12 Days of Christmas Mini Crop challenge at Turtle Soup.

Flower Moon

Over at Turtle Soup we are having a DT sketch reveal today. I love these reveals. It always amazes me to see so many different takes from the same sketch.

And here's the sketch:

I must admit, I struggled with this sketch. Everything I tried just looked so busy and seemed to take away from the photos. So I finally decided to go very simple and it worked! There's nothing fancy about this layout but I really wanted these photos to stand out. 

These photos were taken when we went to Sanibel Island, Fl. for a few days of rest and relaxation. It had been a stormy afternoon but just as the moon began to rise that evening the clouds started breaking. We were sitting outside on our ocean front lanai and couldn't believe how beautiful the moon looked. It was breathtaking!

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to check out the rest of the Design Teams layouts at Turtle Soup and play along with us!

New Turtle Soup Design Team

We're announcing the new Turtle Soup Design Team today! We're all so excited to welcome our new Design Team members and welcome back our returning members as well. We're also changing up some of our daily challenges, adding a Turtle Soup Magazine and we'll also be contributing to the Turtle Soup blog. This all starts January 1, 2015 and we hope you will join us to play along with our challenges and monthly themed mini crops.

Here's a cute photo collage of all our Design Team Members

Please stop by and check us out. We'd love to get to know you and see your work! And as an added incentive, we have monthly prize drawings for participants of our challenges and mini crops.

Hope to see you there!

Shaped Santa Card

I always try to come up with cute but different Christmas cards for my granddaughters. As I was walking through a local gift shop I saw a very large metal star with a Santa hat on it and I immediately said to myself "I could do that with paper". Here's what I came up with and it just happens to fit the Santa is Coming to Town challenge over at Cards in Envy.

I cut the star out with my Cricut so it would fit an A2 envelope and embossed it. The hat and mustache (which is actually a parenthesis) were also cut with my Cricut. For the face I used a circle punch then inked it and added rosy cheeks and eyes with water color pencils. I added cotton to the tail of the hat and lots of stickles to the band on the hat. I found the red nose in my stash, not sure where it came from but it works well here. This was a lot of fun to make and I know my granddaughters will love it!

This card also fits a challenge at the 12 Days of Christmas Mini Crop at Turtle Soup.

Twelve Days of Christmas Card Challenge

We are having a 12 Days of Christmas Mini Crop over at Turtle Soup and my challenge is up today. I decided to make a quick and easy Christmas Card. I lifted this from Pinterest. It's another one of those all white cards that I seem to making a lot of lately.

This was so easy and came together quickly. I embossed three pieces of white cardstock with three different embossing folders and then cut them out to the size I wanted, wrapped some twine around them and added bows and pop dotted two of them on top of the third one. I then stamped Believe, heat embossed it and pop dotted it all on a white card. I love how it came out!

So if you're looking for some quick and easy ideas for Christmas cards, tags, gift boxes, etc., please stop by Turtle Soup and check out our 12 Days of Christmas Mini Crop.

Santa Card

I saw this card on Pinterest and just had to lift it! I thought it would be perfect for one of my granddaughters.

I didn't have any directions, so I just had to wing it. I used a scalloped circle for his beard and embossed it. Then cut a long triangle for his coat and hat and added two strips of black for his legs. I punched a circle for his face and cut his mustache out on my Cricut. I think he turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself.

This also fit a challenge at the 12 Days of Christmas Mini Crop over at Turtle Soup. We've got lots of fun challenges and games going on over there. Please come join in the fun with us!

Bathing Beauties

It's Friday and we have another sketch reveal over at My Scraps & More Sketches today. We really had a fun sketch to work with this week. These are my two granddaughters, with some more silly poses, when they went to the brand new Great Wolf Lodge in Fitchburg, MA last February. They had a blast at the indoor winter park there during February school break. Who wouldn't with all the bad weather last winter!

And here's the sketch we used:

I really liked this sketch. I used a new template for my paint splotches, twine for my circles and the burlap flower came from the floral department of Hobby Lobby. I printed out the Great Wolf Lodge logo from my computer. The paw print in the logo should be red but my printer was out of red ink! Oh well, it still works!

The title was cut on my Cricut using Lyrical Letters. This was a fun sketch to work with!

Christmas Card

Just wanted to share another Christmas card with you. And this card also fits a challenge at the Turtle Soup November Mini Crop. You still have through Sunday to come play along with our Mini Crop Challenges.

This one looks easy, right? Wrong! Those snowflake banners are washi tape and they were a pain to get off the roll. They kept ripping and it was so hard to keep them straight. After many attempts, and throwing away a lot of washi tape, I finally got the banners done. I cut the snowflakes out with my Cricut and then coated them in glue and sprinkled Snow glitter over them. The mittens came from Simple Stories Cozy Christmas line.

So if you're looking for some fun challenges come join us over at Turtle Soup!

Birthday Card

One more for today and then I'm done! This is a birthday card for my son-in-law that I made today.

Again, I found my inspiration on Pinterest. I also wanted to make a monochromatic card to fit a Sunday Card Challenge at Turtle Soup. I had received an All Things Chalk 6x6 paper pad by MME as a RAK and thought it would be perfect for a masculine card. This photo doesn't really do it justice but that's what happens when you take a photo so late in the day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Peace and Joy

Started working on my Christmas cards again. Don't have many done but thought I'd share one with you.

I used Simple Stories Cozy Christmas collection for this one. The paper and sentiment are both from that line. I cut a doily in half so it would fit on the card and the flowers are from Hobby Lobby, I believe.

This card fits a challenge over at the Turtle Soup November Mini Crop. Lots of fun holiday challenges going on there through Sunday. Hope you can find some time to come play along with us!

Pilgrim Card

Here's a Thanksgiving card I made for my granddaughter. I was inspired by one I saw on Pinterest which is where I get a lot of my inspiration from.

This was so quick and easy. I cut out a scalloped circle on my Cricut and then cut it up to make the collar. I also cut out the belt buckle on my Cricut. I embossed the belt on my Cuttlebug, added the nail heads for buttons and tied the little black bow. I love how it came out and my granddaughter thought it was "just perfect for Thanksgiving".

Papa and Cada

It's Friday so we have another Design Team Sketch Reveal at My Scraps & More Sketches.

And here's the sketch we had to work with:

I love this sketch and had fun working with it. I decided to use some papers from a Simple Stories 6x6 pad from the Urban Traveler collection. The splats and circle were done with a new template I just won and some Rusty Hinge Distress Ink. I cut the title out on my Cricut and all the different embellishments came from little things I've picked up on my shopping trips.

It's a Girl

I've got a sketch challenge up at Turtle Soup today. I had this great sketch by Bev to work with.

And here's my take on the sketch:

This is my darling granddaughter, Brylie Grace, who was born on my birthday. She was only a few hours old in this photo and she is just so adorable.

Anyway......, I really had fun making this such a girly layout. For the butterflies, I took some modeling paste and mixed in some pink gelato and then used a stencil mask on the background paper. I then took the white lacy trim and just loosely stitched the edge with some light pink floss adding a small white pearl every so often. The title sticker is something I've had for years and thought it was perfect for this layout. I really love the soft feel of this layout and how this sketch was just perfect for this adorable photo! 

Christmas Card

I have just fallen in love with all white or mostly white Christmas Cards. They just seem so elegant. Here's one I made with a new snowman stamp I recently bought.

After I stamped the snowman, I cut him out using a Spellbinders deckle edged die and then colored him in with watercolor pencils. Then I just pop dotted him up on an embossed piece of white cardstock and then adhered it to a white card. You can't tell from the picture but I added a little bit of snow glitter to the center of the embossed snowflakes, just enough to give it a little sparkle.

This card fits the 11/6 Thursday Scraplift Challenge at Turtle Soup. Come join us for some fun challenges!

Hope to see you there!

Gift Tags

Today I've got a challenge up at Turtle Soup. It's All Sorts Saturday so you never know what kind of challenge you'll find. So I came up with some quick and easy gift tags made with Washi Tape.

It took me no time at all to put these together. I took a piece of cardstock and taped down some Washi Tape. I then cut the cardstock into squares and rounded a couple of the corners and glued them to the gift tags which are just folded pieces of cardstock. As you can see, I didn't even add any embellishments to most of them, except for the one with the flower. Quick and easy!

Please stop by Turtle Soup and see what we're up to. Lots of fun challenges going on all month long!

Love This

It's time for another Design Team Sketch Reveal over at My Scraps & More Sketches today.  We had a great sketch from Audrey to work with this week and here's my take on it.

Here's the sketch we had to work with:

And here's my take on the sketch:

I decided to go nautical since the photo was taken in Rockport, Mass. I cut the little sailboat and dolphins out on my Cricut and then just dug through my embellie stash and added all sorts. For the rings behind the die cuts, I sprayed some mist on my work mat and then used a drinking glass like a stamp to stamp the rings. 

So, if you like working with sketches, stop by My Scraps & More Sketches and play along with us.

Love

It's my turn to host the Sunday Card Challenge at Turtle Soup today. So I decided to challenge you to make a shaped card of any sort other than a rectangle or square card.

I cut everything out with my new Cricut Explore. I embossed the white scalloped circle, popped the sentiment up and added some bling. Very quick and easy card.

So come on over to Turtle Soup and join us. We have lots of fun challenges going on all month long!

Hope to see you there!

Frozen Birthday Card

I found some Disney Frozen stickers at Walmart the other day and thought they would be perfect for my granddaughters birthday card. She'll be 4 years old and of course she just loves everything Frozen.

It's kind of a fancy card for a 4 year old but I know she'll love the stickers and all the sparkle. The whole card came from my pile of scraps. Love when I can do that! I cut the snowflakes out on my Cricut, sprayed them with Seaglass mist, covered them in glue and added Snow glitter. I really like how they turned out!

This is also for the Disguises challenge over at the Turtle Soup October Mini Crop. You had to take a layout sketch and turn it into a card. That's always a challenge for me! 

Thanksgiving Card

Thought it was time to start on the few Thanksgiving cards I make each year. I found this one on Pinterest and decided to give it a try.

I cut the tags out on my Cricut Explore (love that machine!), taped them down to my work mat, stamped them with a Studio G stamp and Rusty Hinge Distress Ink and flicked some green paint on them. The embossed background is hard to see but it's a fall leaves folder. 

This is also for the October Mini Crop Inspiration Challenge at Turtle Soup. I pulled Thanksgiving and the colors green and orange from the inspiration piece.

Come join our Mini Crop. It runs through this Sunday and there are lots of fun challenges. Hope to see you there!

Kisses

I found this picture of my granddaughter and stepdaughter and just fell in love with it. I couldn't wait to scrap it!

All the paper, including the word stickers, is from a very old paper pad that has a date of 2007 on it. It's called Victorian by Stemma. I've never heard of that company but their papers are pretty nice. I also added a piece of embossed vellum and some stitching. 

This fits a recipe challenge at the October Mini Crop at Turtle Soup. You had to use rectangles, a heart, stitching, buttons, bling, different alpha fonts and some gold. 

It also fits the 10/2 Throwback Thursday challenge at My Scraps & More. You had to use something at least two years old along with some vellum and bling.

Wacky Tacky Fun

We've got another DT sketch reveal at My Scraps & More Sketches today. We had a great sketch to work with and I had so much fun with it. My granddaughter, Cadence, had a Wacky Tacky Fun Cheerleading night where she could dress up as crazy as she wanted. Since she looks like she's having fun with her poses and crazy outfit, I thought I would try to make this a fun, crazy layout.

And here's the sketch

I really had fun getting messy. I used gelatos and mist on the background. Then tore the bottom borders and stitched them on. I used 3 different styles of letters for the title and the word fun is covered in orange stickles. Then I just went through my embellie stash and picked out different ones to make this wacky & tacky.

This also fits the 10/1 Word Up Wednesday challenge at My Scraps & More where you had to use the word fun on your layout.

And another challenge it fits is the 10/3 Friday Inspiration challenge at Turtle Soup where you had to use an owl on your project.

Fall

Fall is my favorite time of year. I love everything about it! So for this month's Mini Crop at Turtle Soup I am hosting a fall colors challenge. You just have to use fall colors on your project.

I've had the background paper for a few years. It's from Core'dinations so I just sanded it to bring out the stitched flourishes. All the strips behind the photos are washi tape and then I just added some wooden pumpkins and all different kinds of leaves.

This also fits the 10/6 Mix It Up challenge at My Scraps & More. The only paper you can use on your layout is your background paper. Everything else must be some sort of embellishment.

Come on over to Turtle Soup and play along with our October Mini Crop Challenges. Lots of fun challenges and of course there is a prize !

Halloween Cards

As we all know, World Card Making Day was last weekend and I finally got to play along with some of the challenges at Turtle Soup. I decided to get my Halloween cards done.

This challenge was to make a window on your card. I cut out the ghost with my Cricut and then just backed the cut out with white paper and added the wiggly eyes.

                 

This challenge was to use layers on your card.. I just ripped strips of paper and then inked the edges with distress ink and pens. Added some wiggly eyes and the sentiment is an old sticker I found in my stash.

This challenge was to use banners on your card. I used a stencil to make the background and then cut out the bats on my Cricut. I inked the orange moon and then stamped and embossed the Happy Halloween banner.








So, I got all my Halloween cards done and now it's onto a couple of Thanksgiving cards and then all my Christmas cards!

Sanibel, Florida

It seems like forever since I posted or even scrapped! I just lost my mojo and finally made myself sit down and scrap something. I have several DT projects due soon so I thought I'd better get started.
So today we have a DT sketch reveal at Turtle soup. Please stop by and check out all the different takes on our sketch. When I saw this sketch I knew I wanted to use my new stencil on it. I used modeling paste with the stencil and then used some gelatos to add the green and orange colors.

And here's the sketch we used

I wanted to keep this fairly simple because I wanted the photos to really stand out. These photos were taken on Lighthouse Beach on Sanibel Island in Florida. It just amazes me how you can find whole trees with the root systems still attached along the beaches. 

My Scraps & More Sketches Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to the My Scraps & More Sketch Blog Hop!! Today, each design team member has created a CARD sketch to celebrate World Card Making Day. That’s TEN different sketches!!!

There will be TWO prizes given out for the blog hop: 

1. One person will win a $10 gift certificate to the store just for commenting on one of the designers blog posts. I will choose one of the DT members blogs and then choose a random commenter from that post. 

2. Another winner will be chosen from all the card sketch entries uploaded to the In Linkz on the My Scraps & More Sketch Blog. For each card sketch, create a DIFFERENT link up. So if you complete all 11 sketches, you will need to do 11 link-ups! (On your card link please be sure to mention whose sketch you used and link back to the My Scraps & More Sketch blog. If you’d like you can also leave the DT member a comment with a link to your card so they can see what you did with their sketch.)

Here is the prize for the card sketch blog hop:

All comments and card sketches for the Blog Hop must be linked up by Monday, October 6th at 12 pm EST.

BUT, if you don’t complete all the card sketches by Monday, that’s OK….you can still upload them through the end of the month for the monthly prize drawing on the sketch blog! The more sketches you do, the more chances you have to win!

Here is the monthly blog prize:

                                         




To be eligible for a prize, we ask that you complete the hop by visiting EACH blog, commenting and also becoming a follower of EACH blog!

And now let me share my sketch and card with you:

To see all the other sketches, check out the other DT members blogs below:

                                                       Audrey Y.
                                                       Nadine C.
                                                       Wendi R.
                                                       Lisa M. 
                                                       Jessica S.
                                                       Michelle G.
                                                       Tracy R.
                                                       Tracy F. - You are here
                                                       Jenessa F.
                                                       Missy W.
                                                       

Thanks for hopping along with us!

Birthday Card

My stepdaughter has a birthday coming up so of course I had to make a purple birthday card for her. Purple is her favorite color.

I embossed the background with an Anna Griffin embossing folder then did some stitching. I cut the white flourish out on my Cricut and added the flowers and leaves which I've had for years. Got to use my new Celebrate stamp which I think is just so cute.

This card is for the Sept. Mini Crop challenge at Turtle Soup. Stop by and check out the fun challenges we have going on this month. Hope to see you there!

Anniversary Card

Yesterday was my anniversary. We've been married for 8 years now. It seems like yesterday we were getting married in Hawaii. Anyway, I was trying to come up with a masculine anniversary card for my husband and found one on Pinterest that was just so perfect for us!

I did the faux letter press technique using a wood grain embossing folder and brown ink. I cut the heart out on my Cricut then added the twine and the button. Decided to dig through my stash and found the cute little Destiny charm. My husband was so happy with this card probably because it wasn't girly!

This card is for the 9/14 Sunday card challenge at Turtle Soup. You had to make a masculine card and this was just perfect timing for me.

Frosty Fun

It's Friday so that means another design team sketch reveal at My Scraps & More Sketches. I love seeing all the different takes on the sketches but I stayed pretty much true to the sketch this week. I really liked this sketch a lot!

And the sketch we had to work with:

I started with a very pale pink piece of cardstock for the background and then brushed and flicked some white paint on it. All the papers here are from an old  Fancy Pants collection called Winterland. I am slowly using it up.

This also fits the Word Up Wednesday 9/10 challenge at My Scraps & More. It was an easy one....you just had to use the words Happy Moments. And I just realized I spelled moments wrong on my layout! Grrrrrrr!

This layout also fits an All Sorts 9/13 challenge at Turtle Soup. You had to use 3 buttons and 1 circle in your layout. 

I just love it when I can make one layout fit several different challenges! 

Tis the Season

Today I've got a card challenge up at Turtle Soup. I decided to get a head start on my Christmas cards and challenged everyone else to start with me.

I just got this evergreen stamp and was eager to try it out. I stamped it on plain white cardstock with embossing ink and then added some green embossing powder that has little bits of gold glitter in it. Put some heat to it and WOW it is beautiful if I do say so myself. In real life it looks so much prettier, you can really see the gold glitter. Then I embossed the white cardstock with my Cuttlebug Dotted Swiss embossing folder, added the sentiment and popped it up on a white card. I'm thinking I might use this design for most of my Christmas cards this year. 

Tis the Season

It's time for another sketch reveal at My Scraps & More Sketches. This was a fun sketch to work with! 

Here's my take on it:

And here's the sketch:

I loved the idea of using round photos but I had a hard time finding ones that I could cut down and not cut the heads off. As you can see I had to go with fairly large circles which limited the amount of circles I could get on the page. But I'm happy with how it came out.

If you like sketches come join us over at My Scraps & More Sketches! Hope to see you there!

Winterland

I've got a challenge up today at Turtle Soup. It's our Friday Inspiration Challenge and I'm using this great sketch by Bev. I loved the simplicity of her design.

And here's my take:

I followed the sketch closely and I love how it turned out. All these papers are from Fancy Pants Winterland Collection that I've had for several years. I don't do many clean and simple layouts but this sketch really caught my eye and I just had to use it.

Come join us at Turtle Soup and play along with our fun challenges!

Birds of Sanibel

Here's another layout I did that combines two different challenges. One challenge is over at Turtle Soup where you had to use something new. Well, I've had these two stencils for maybe a month and haven't used them so this was the perfect opportunity to break them out. The second challenge is the Got Talent Mini Challenge at My Scraps & More. For this one you had to cut your photos into a shape other than a square or rectangle so I chose a triangle.