Yay! I’m using more stash!

These cards will find homes with my son’s teachers. They’d make good any occasion cards, but this time they’ll be valentines. I used Daisy Bucket Designs patterned paper, Making Memories glitter letters and prima flowers on both cards. The squares on the smile card were from Cock-a-doodle Designs and have been in my stash for years (literally). I attached the rick-rack to the squares and hand-stitched floss around the edges. The peridot flower centers are from Dress It Up. For the Enjoy card I added faux stitching to opposing corners to balance it a bit, and made white dots in a circle around the center. Added matching glitter dots from the same stickers the sentiment came in to the upper left. The prima flower is nesting on top of heart-shaped cardstock arranged to look like petals. The center gem is Me and My Big Ideas. I really like the feel of the smile card. There are so many different textures. It’s just fun to touch.
TFL

Chinese New Year

These are some invitations I did for my son's Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet. The theme this year is Chinese New year. They had to be simple so I could do a lot of them quickly. It's customary for red envelopes with money in them to be given to bring good luck, so I tucked some fake money into these "envelopes". The "Fu" symbol is printed out and then cut and mounted with my circle cutter. Gold paint around the edges of the front, and also used to distress the insert. I found the back picture on another pack's website and stuck it to the back. Tied the symbol and the pull-out insert with rafia.

An Elephant Never Forgets

This is a tri-fold card I made for my daughter's teacher for Valentine's day. My daughter is a big animal lover, and her teacher is well aware of this, so the elephant theme is perfect for her. The kids had a lot of fun making the elephants (one of which is the center of this card). They're cut with hearts for the ears, and a heart for the head with a "J" welded to it using my cricut. The papers are all from stash. The card is kept closed using magnetic snaps from Basic Grey. These things are great! The heart brads are Making Memories, and the ribbon is Martha Stewart. It was fun to do a card with my kids. They like how it turned out, and I hope my daughter's teacher does as well.

Goals

Wow! My crafty space is in some desperate need of tidying up! I'm finally feeling well enough to start taking down our Christmas things. I have a lot of handmade ornaments, and some of them were in need of repair, so they all made their way up to my desk, and now I can't make any cards or layouts until I get that taken care of. So I've mad a goal to get this tidied up this weekend. These are my goals for the coming week:

• Tidy up my desk!
• Valentines cards for teachers from my kids
• "Reflections" jar - fold the tasks, and alter the jar. (I may need a larger jar)
• Alter "Reflections" book
• Trains LO of ds#2

That should keep my plenty busy. I made a new year's resolution to do an on-going project that was all about me. Something my posterity can look back at and learn more of who I am. A journal if you will, but I intend to keep it in a scrapbook form with tons of journaling. That will be my reflections book. I found a cool message board at http://123-scrap.com. On this board, one of the projects is a Book of Me, which I figure will be a HUGE help to me for my reflections book. I'm sure there are going to be days that I'm not compelled toward a certain subject. On those days, I'll go to my jar, and pick a topic they've used for the Book of Me. I hope to do 2-3 pages in my reflections book a month all year long. I've printed the topics out on pp and cut them into strips (1 topic on each strip). I need to get them all folded up and into my jar, which I need to alter. From the looks of my cuts, I should add replacing my trimmer blade to that goal list...

"Foiled" Challenge - Shine Like the Star U R !

I decided to try my hand at the challenge over at http://daringcardmakers.blogspot.com/ this week. The theme is "Foiled" and the challenge was to use some plain old aluminum foil from your kitchen on your card. This is what I came up with, and let me just say, it was indeed a challenge. Foil is hard to work with- It's so thin! I also had trouble getting it to photograph well.

The paper background is Karen Foster Design, and I used my Cricut to cut out the stars, tag and words. My Cricut didn't want to cut the foil (even after mounting it onto cardsotck) without tearing it, so I added the foil afterward and hand trimmed it. The eyelets are Making Memories, and the ribbon is bulk from my local craft store. I just love this ribbon. It's got an opalescent look to it, and it's not very wide. I like the delicate touch it adds. I added dimension with some dots used under the main star.

Thanks for the challenge!

1 Reason not to scrap at 2am

This is a page I've been wanting to do of my dh. I got it all finished in the wee hours this morning, and was looking forward to putting it in my book when I noticed I dated the letter with the wrong year. I should know by now never to date anything with a year until at least June, since that's how long it takes me to get used to the change. Anyway, now I need to go in and fix it.

The paper is K&Company. I used lots of Cricut cuts on this one: Opposites attract, Mini Monograms, Jasmine, Teardrop, and All Mixed Up. I used DS to help me with this (LOVE IT!).

I hand made the notebook look letter using my Cropadile and then ripping the holes outward. Antiqued the edges with "caramel". The ribbon is Making Memories.

TFL

My Stars

I finally finished my dd's star, and my set is now complete. (Unless I decide to add one for me and my dh hehe). I love these stars. They come in all different sizes. These are about 6". The technique is the same as listed below on the larger star post. Pictures printed at 3x5 are just the right size for these. The papers I used on all are from a color block mat stack from DCWV.

TFL