I made these little guitars from the Luau cartridge for my dad to hand out at church tomorrow as part of his sermon. I am interested to find out how they will fit in with what he is preaching on.

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I got this idea from Authentique paper company. This is a great way to use paper scraps and punches.

Encouragement card

Feeling gloomy? Bee happy. I am working on my Random Crafts of Kindness mission project for 2012. I am making sympathy and encouragement cards for local churches to give to people that are having a hard time. I will be putting Bible verses and quotes in the cards in hope that I can help lift their spirits in some way. I know when I was very ill I looked forward to getting mail and hearing from the "outside world." It's important to know that you are not forgotten. This card is for my cousin in Alaska that has been battling a rare illness thay causes her debilitating pain and crippled her ability to walk. Denise I love you and pray you will find peace, comfort and happiness. I also do get well encouragement cards for my mom's best friend Doris. She has battled kidney disease for years, something I am very familiar with, and now she is also battling breast cancer. I can't imagine having to go through chemo and dialysis. She is such a strong person, taking care of her two mentally handicapped adult sons. She has such a kind and good heart. If you ever have any ideas for cards that I can make for these projects please let me know.

So Excited

I'm really excited about my new Winnie The Pooh cartridge.  I  think it will be a lot of fun to use with my Punilicious stamp set from My Pink Stamper.  The pun stamp sets have some great sayings about bears that go along so great with Winnie the Pooh.  I think there are some sayings about pigs too that would go along with Piglet as well.  Hopefully I will get time to work on some projects this weekend.  I want to make a mini album for a very special somebody that I can't mention in case they are reading this.  :o)  I saw an awesome Winnie The Pooh mini album on Youtube last night that looks like so much fun to make.  I may attempt something like it.

Winnie The Pooh and Friends

Friends Make Life Bearable card. My Pink Stamper set. I picked up my cartridge from WalMart today. The site to store pick up service WAS SO BAD! It took 40 minutes to get my item...I was the ONLY customer back there. Half of that time was spent waiting for someone to help me. I won't have stuff sent to that WalMart anymore because that is the second time that happened. On the plus side, I did get some great paper and stamp stuff for a low price. I don't normally shop there for craft stuff as their selection is so limited.

Trying on our hats

Meggie and Me...trying out our New Years hats.

Winnie The Pooh Cartridge

Well my Winnie The Pooh cartridge arrived at Wal-Mart today for me to pick up.  I'm excited to go and get it!  Every time that I get a new cartridge I check out Youtube to see what videos there are about it.  Some of the cartridges I am getting don't have many videos on them yet, so maybe I'll start making videos on the ones that don't have many online yet.  I guess that would make sense.  :o)  One of my resolutions or goals for 2012 is to start to make Youtube videos about crafting or using my Cricut.  I also want to participate in more challenges and maybe even make a couple of my own in 2012.  Do you have any New Years Resolutions for 2012?

Abby Caddaby Goodie Bag

I made this goodie bag for a coworkers 2 year old girl that has been in and out of the hospital. It has fruit snacks, a small pack of crayons, a couple home printed Abby Caddaby coloring pages, stickers, and two home printed Abby Caddaby stickers made with my Xyron sticker maker. I used the Sesame Street Friends cartridge and stamped the "thinking of you sentiment."

You can't really tell from the picture, but I used light pink Stickles on Abby's hair.  This turned out SO cute!  If any die cut needs Stickles it is definitely Abby Caddaby!

This bag was so much fun to make!  I think I'll make them for other friend's kids too, even if they're not sick.  :o)

New years hats. Cut 2 10" circles. Take one circle and tape your ribbon on the wrong side (not decorated) of your paper. Curl your circle into a cone and staple a couple times at the top to hold it together. Curl the second circle and push it inside the first manupulating it til you have the size you want. Secure circle two to circle one on the inside with tape. Decorate your hat however you want. I trimmed the bottom to make it more even. I also punched holes on the sides and secured stretchy coard to each hat. I got the idea from a Joann facebook post, but the post didn't have complete instructions.

New Years Wreath

I used the Wild Card and Wrap It Up cartridges to do this wreath for New Years.

New Years

Are you making any fun New Years projects with your Cricut? I think that I might make us some party hats using my Elmo Party cartridge.

Thank You Card Fun

Made a few thank you cards tonight. I am enjoying using my new Stickles glitter glue. It looks so much more vibrant than the glitter pens that I was using. I used the Birthday Bash cartridge for this card. I got a new Sweet Treats paper pack from Joanns today after work. The paper is perfect for the So Sweet cards. I lovd these thank you cards!

Going Away Card

A friend from work is leaving our company, so I made this card to have everyone to sign for him.

Crocheted Flower

I made this card at work today with very limited supplies. I think it's pretty cool. I might make some more crocheted flowers for cards and hair clippies.

Thank You Week

Well this week I will most likely be making Thank You cards for all of the wonderful people in my life that got me great Christmas gifts.  I have a couple done already, so I don't really have that many to make.  I also need to start stocking up on birthday cards for 2012.  Then the next step will be to start working on Valentine's Day cards for family and friends.  I plan to do some cute Valentine's projects for people that I'm working with, the kids at my daugther's daycare and the teachers there as well.  I'm really looking forward to working on those projects next!  I have so much fun making crafts for other people and seeing their reaction when they get a great, creative, unexpected, and hand made gift!

Getting some thank you cards done. I am losing my mind because I got out my "thank moo" pink stamper stamp and completely misplaced it before I could use it. I spent forever looking for the stamp before I broke down and wrote the sentiment on. Hopefully I will find the darn thing soon.  I used the Birthday Bash cartridge to make this card.  The flower was cut from Forever Young when I was making the paper purses the other day.  I love all of the cute animals on the Birthday Bash cartridge!  You can do so much with them besides birthday themes.

Cute Paper Purses

Forever Young cartridge purses for some jewelery gifts for my mom and sis in law. They turned out SO cute!

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Oh yeah!

Yes I have been up all night getting ready for Christmas. I got on ebay to see if they had any good deals on cartridges and got three new full content ones for$39.53 and free shipping. That is the best deal I have ever gotten on them.

Gift tags I made with Winter Frolic

Santa gift bag.

I couldn't forget all of the doggies! My brothers both have them and my parents. These were fun treat bags to make!

Gift for my brother to put his favorite dog picture in.

I just finished making this tonight for my dad's Christmas gift. It looks crude, but it's supposed to look like a rustic cowboy piece of art. I woodburned and stained it.

Day 11 - My Pink Stamper's 12 Days of Christmas Challenges

Day 11 of the My Pink Stamper 12 Days of Christmas challenges.
Today we were supposed to make a decoration for our home or a hostess gift.  As I'm not hosting Christmas this year, I opted for the decoration.  I had a couple of round wood blocks in my stash of "items I will make SOMETHING with SOMEDAY" box.  I attached a ribbon to the back of both of them with my stapler, this holds the two together.  Then I covered them with sticky white craft foam.  I used sticky craft foam for the hat and scarf.  I used glitter craft foam for the snow.  I stamped my sentiment on a piece of cardstock and decorated with my new bottles of STICKLES.  I was excited to get my stickles in the mail today and see what all the hype is about them.  It seems that a LOT of people use stickles and the craft store by my house doesn't even sell the stuff.  Anyway, I have three bottles of the glitter glue now, so I should be good for awhile.  Back to the snowman, I stapled another piece of ribbon the back so I can use that to hang the man to the wall.  I used a black foamies marker for the mouth and sticky foam again for the eyes and carrot nose.  I embossed the nose with lines by using pressing down on the foam...it embosses really easily in case you've never used it before.  The end result is a super cute little snowman dude.  I was contemplating going out and getting a couple of sticks to glue on for his arms, but we'll see if that happens or not.  :o)  If you don't visit my blog again tomorrow have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Cartridge Inventory

Ok followers, here is a list of my cartridge inventory so far.  If you ever want to see me make anything from something on this list let me know.

Baby Steps
Best Images of 2007
Birthday Bash
Christmas Village
Create A Critter
Elmo's Party
George and Basic Shapes
Everyday Pop Up Cards
Forever Young
Freshly Picked
Happy Hauntings
Independence Day
"Just Because" Cards
Kate's ABC's
Luau
Once Upon A Princess
Preserves
Sesame Street Friends
Spring Holiday Cards
Wall Decor and More
Wild Card
Winter Frolic
Wrap It Up

Seriously!

So after ALL of the time I have been shopping at Joann how did it take me SO LONG to realize that Giant Eagle sells Joann gift cards!?! Yeah I'm just not that observant.

Anyway, I got $35 worth of Giant Eagle gift cards from work and used those to put towards a $40 gift card to Joann from Giant Eagle. Ohhhhhh yeah!!! I got the Birthday Bash Cricut cartridge. Yay!!! I guess I could have started saving for a Gypsy, but the instant gratification of a new cartridge makes me pretty excited.

Ok so I actually made a ton of bows today, but these two I made out of old Christmas cards that were given to me a couple years ago. I got the idea from a friend at work today and went ahead and made some. This makes such a great upcycled craft!!!

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Day 10 Of the My Pink Stamper challenges

Today we had to make a treat bag. I say this jewelry I made my manager counts as a treat. I put one of my nrw bows on it.

More bows

Well I am back to work today. I've been working on more Christmas bows during my down time. Pics later.

A couple of card packs I put together. The cloth flowers look cute on them. I just adheared the flowers with some Zots glue dots. I love Zots!

I saw a great tutorial on My Craft Channel that showed how to do these great stiffened cloth flowers. This was my first time making them. You just cut out different sizes of flowers big to small. You mix one part glue to two parts water. I added some silver glitter glue to my mix along with the regular Elmers glue. You paint the fabric with the glue mix and roll the fabric in a ball to get it crumpled. Then you take the center of the flower and pull it into a cone shape to dry like that overnight. Don't let them dry flat or you won't get the crumpled petal look. I used my bedazzler to put them all together, which is different than the tutorial I found. I am attaching these to different gift bags for Christmas. I will definitely make these again.

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Day 9 of the My Pink Stamper 12 Days of Christmas challenges. Today we were challenged to make these paper bows. There is a video tutorial on mypinkstamper.com. I had never made these before, so this was a great challenge for me. It will be so fun to put them on Christmas gifts.

I made this card for my friend Yvonne's birthday. Stamp from the new set as well. I usef the Once Upon a Princess cartridge. I realized that there are some great tags on this one.

I made this card for a friend that REALLY loves her shoes. The Woman's Best Friend stamp is from the new set I just got. I used the Wall Decor and More cartridge.

Yay! My new Pink Stamper set came in the mail today! Can't wait to use it!

Day 8 of the My Pink Stamper 12 Days of Christmas challenges. Today we had to do something that we hadn't done before. I decided some nice wall decor would be great for my friend's Christmas gift. This goes nicely with the Paris themed card set. Since I just got my Cricut Expression I am able to start making bigger cuts for nice wall hangings. The Wall Decor and More cartridge is perfect for this!

Gift bag of cards for my friend. Used a page protector for the bag.

I got a great book about cake wrecks in the mail today for Christmas from one of my best friends. I made this fun topsy turvey cake card as a thank you. I really need to get the My Pink Stamper set that has the sweet sayings as the you're so sweet stamp I used is a cheap piece of junk. I had to use a marker and fill in where it wouldn't stamp. I still think that this turned out awesome. I used the best of 2007 cartridge to do the cakes cut in 3, 2, and 1" layers.

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Day 7 of the My Pink Stamper 12 Days of Christmas challenges. Today we had to embellish either a gift box or gift bag. I chose to do the bag since I already had several of these great brown bags from a thrift shop. They are always so much fun to decorate. The sparkly tree is cut from fun foam and the die cuts are from Winter Frolic and Wall Decor and More. I just got the metallic ink today, so I used that to ink the edges if the bag. Joann Fabrics is having their coupon commotion this week, so I got some good deals.

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Husband's birthday card

Inside of the birthday card that I made for my husband's birthday tomorrow.

The chick is from Create A Critter and the tree is from Wall Decor And More. I used my Cuttlebug quite a bit tonight to do some fun embossing on these cards. Aren't the colors on the bird cool!?!

I used Wall Decor And More for the first few cards. I planned on doing most of them with a Paris theme.

Still loving this k and c company paper pack that I got.

Just finished working on some cards that I am making for a friend's Christmas gift. I also listed this card for the challenge on http://paperplaytime.blogspot.com I guess one New Years resolution for me is to participate in more challenges in 2012.

New years cards

I was just thinking that I should make some new years cards. I'm not quite sure what I will do yet, but maybe I will have a chance to work on them tomorrow.

I got the urge to make a card that doesn't have a Christmas theme, so here is a thank you that I made today. The glossy accents aren't dry yet on the nose. I know that I'll need a number of thank you cards after Christmas.

New stamps on the way!

Yay! I finally got to order another set of the My Pink Stamper puny-licious series. I'm super excited. By the time it gets here I will probably be in the mood to do something other than Christmas projects.

Day 6 of the My Pink Stamper 12 Days of Christmas. I love to do upcycled crafts, which happens to be todays challenge. Next Christmas we are helping to sponsor a tree for the Akron Children's Hospital Christmas tree festival. The ornaments will have an Irish theme since we are doing it with the Irish Ceili band that we are members of. I found a spool of ribbon and emptied the ribbon off from it. I covered the outside with ATG and put sparkly fun foam on. I cut off the excess so it matched up with the circle shape. I tied a ribbon on and added a little Christmas light that I found with the buttons at Joanns. I used one of my Winter Frolic snowmen that I cut last night to put on the ornament and stamped an Irish "lucky" sentiment on the snowman. I love it and plan to save my empty ribbon spools for this.

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Sick

Well, I wasn't sure if I would talk about this on my blog, but since it helps me to vent a little here we go. You may see me say that I'm not feeling the best every once in awhile because I have a number of health problems that I have been battling over the last year. I have an autoimmune disease called IGA Nephropathy. This disease attacks my kidneys. I periodically still get pain attacks...that is what I am dealing with tonight. The disease really caused a snowball effect on me medically, giving me high blood pressure and a condition called P.O.T.S. in which I can black out due to a sudden drop in blood pressure. I get dizzy spells every once in awhile, but thankfully I am able to stop what I'm doing before I black out completely.

I have always loved crafts ever since I could pick up a pen and draw in church as a child. My mom encouraged me so much that I just had to keep trying new things. I got my first Cricut this year after a week long stay at the hospital where I learned a lot about managing pain. I turned to crafting and art as a therapy to help me focus more on something external instead of focusing so much on what was going on internally.

The craft therapy helps me so much. I love to get comments on the projects that I make. I can't always do everything that I used to, but I can still create. Knowing that I still have this gift to utilize makes things so much better. I suppose that is why I still spend so much time crafting. It is such a stress release for me.

I thank my family and friends for all of your prayers. Things really have gotten so much better. I probably feel bad now because my immune system got too run down when I had bronchitis last week.

Ok so that's my story....or the Reader's Digest version of it. I'm not sure if anyone will really read it all, but it helps to vent about it every once in awhile.

Up a lot of the night feeling bad again. Probably have to check in with the doctor again. Anyway, I made this card just now to try to keep my mind off from not feeling good. Worked for a little while.

Today I got a bunch more cards made for people at work. I go back in Monday and then I'm off for 3 days again. Hopefully I'll be feeling good and will be able to get ALL of my Christmas projects done. I had been wanting to make snowman cards for quite awhile, so this was the perfect time to do it. I think they are pretty cute. There are several snowmen on the Winter Frolic cartridge, but this one is my favorite.

This movie gift card holder is fun. Love how it turned out! I don't have a cartridge to cut popcorn, so I had to do the kernals by hand.

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Day 5 of the My Pink Stamper 12 Days of Christmas. I woke up at 5am and couldn't sleep, so I made these gift card holders for the challenge. I needed to make some anyway, so this worked out great.

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Experimenting with my clear embossing powder. Need to use my embossing stuff more often.

Day 4 of the my pink stamper 12 days of Christmas challenge. I just made pink and green themed Christmas goodie bags, so I made this pink and green baby goodie bag for a pregnant friend.

My 2 year old daughter, Meghan has a princess themed bedroom. I was excited to get the wall decor and more cartridge so I could make this great wall art for her room. There is so much that you can do with this cartridge...a lot more than I thought. I didn't realize that it had so many great options for cards as well! I know that this will be a fun tool to use.

Yay!!! I got what I ordered with my Cricut reward points! Isn't this hat cute! I got a car window cling and a new cartridge that I will tell you about as soon as I use it. :-)

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I made this goodie bag for my mom who is coming to help with Meggie tonight.

Day 3 of the My Pink Stamper 12 Days of Christmas challenges. Today we were supposed to make a Christmas card.

A wine themed card that I made for a friend's birthday this month. I know she will love it as she really loves wine :-)