25 Days of Christmas Day 7

  Remember the tag line on my blog?  Well I am willing to try anything.  I am discovering that teenagers like to do their own thing on Friday nights and well, I had Bible Study Christmas party to attend.

We had sooo much fun! Of course, no Christian function would be complete without some good food. Well, no function in the South would be complete without food. So we ate and then played games.  You've never seen someone's true self until you see them play Cranium.  How old are they?  You will find out based on the Humdingers they either know how to hum or how to guess.  Were they good spellers in school?  Just have them do a few sgnilleps and you'll know.  Are they a drama queen?    One copycat and you will know.  I recommend everyone to play Cranium with some of their closest friends, just not their most competitive friends..it could get ugly. Sadly, I am a competitive gamer and I get ugly.  :(

So since I don't have a true 7 Day of Christmas...here is another to do from my Christmas on a budget.

Remember this is to be Cindy Lou Who themed...so what is the Nutcracker doing there?    Well he is part of tradition so he stays no matter what.  Each year, we go to the Nutcracker with my father.  This Nut is from the first time.  The rat king's autograph is on the bottom of his left foot.  I won't bother you with the details of why we couldn't get near a Nutcracker.  Little girls dressed in their beautiful gowns, hair tied back perfectly with a bow can act more like Halo 4 soldiers when it comes to trying to get an autograph.  So we went for the Rat King.

The balls are from a huge Christmas decor package from Sam's.  The jar usually has dried rose petals from all the bouquets my husband as given me over the years. But at Christmas time, they are put in a Walmart bag and it is filled with holiday goodies.  The wine glasses are part of the decor from my wedding (also done on a budget...but not as nice...Pinterest didn't exist back then.)  So so easy to do.  Just find some small balls, put them inside the glass and turn upside down.  Top with more balls.  

You will notice that most of my ideas for decor are not original.  I eat and breathe Pinterest.  You will find most of my ideas for Christmas right HERE. 

More to come.

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Day 6

  I don't know if it was my lack of cooking skills that scared the children away from baking cookies tonight or if it was the homework. In either case, all the kids, including my daughter, did not want to participate in baking cookies.  Bummer, because they really are the best cookies.  I made them last year and my family talked about them for days.

So I thought I would share one of my Christmas projects.  We are changing our Christmas theme this year  We usually do the traditional colors.  My daughter has asked for a Cindy Lou Who Christmas for years.  So this year we were taking the plunge on a budget.

My first project was the mantle.  I wanted to take a quote from The Grinch and have it across the mantle in Grinch green.  So I bought some paint...kidding.  Years ago, while window shopping at Home Depot (it must have been date night), I saw these vinyl wall pops on clearance.  They were on clearance for $2.00 each. So I bought some in each color.  I knew they would come in handy some day...even if that day was 700 days later.

This isn't all of it but you get the idea.  It came in squares and rolls.  I wish I could say I pulled out my Silhouette, found a Grinch font and cut it on my Silhouette.  But I don't have one.  So I pulled out Cricut Expression and my Gypsy and started to design.  I decided one of the fonts on Lyrical Letters would look the closest to a Grinch style font.  If you have never cut vinyl on a Cricut, I find it is best to change the pressure to 3 and let the Gypsy choose the speed.  This will cut the vinyl but not the backing.  Once you cut the letters, pull off the extra vinyl on your mat, so that all that is left are your letters and/or words.  They place your transfer paper over the words.

Trust me, it is worth getting transfer paper to transfer items from the mat to the mantle. I gently rub the paper over my words.  Because my quote was longer than my mat, I cut the transfer paper into word size strips.  Then when I got to the mantle I gently pressed the paper against the mantle until I had all the pieces lined up.  Once they were lined up I pressed the letters onto the mantle.

If I had this to do again, I would have chosen to make the font larger. I think this one is less than 3 inches tall.  It kind of gets lost in the final look...to come later.

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Card Candy

I thought I would share a picture of the Card Candy I made for a swap. I am a member of Cricutscraplifters yahoo group. I had so much fun making these. I hope everyone will enjoy them!

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Card Candy

I thought I would share a picture of the Card Candy I made for a swap. I am a member of Cricutscraplifters yahoo group. I had so much fun making these. I hope everyone will enjoy them!

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Updating my look and cupcakes

OK, call me crazy but I gave up sweets for Lent. Now, I must admit, I am not Catholic but I thought I would join the fast. I think that is why I have become obsessed with paper cupcakes. Don't they look yummy? I made them using my Cricut, Design Studio, Glitter paper and DCWV pattern paper from the Sweet collection. Oh yeah and Robins Nest pebbles. I used my Cuddle Bug to make the swirls on the glitter paper to make it look like frosting. I made some into cupcake shaped cards and others I just made into cupcakes that I could place on a card. Ok, I have a confession, I forgot to hit the "weld" button on design studio so my first ones did not come out like cards, so I just made individual ones with those. They still look great on the front of cards. But you know what I thought about? What if they made scratch and sniff pattern paper? I would so use those on cards. Scratch and sniff chocolate paper or wedding cake flavor...yummy!! Ok, I can't wait for Easter, as Queen Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake!!"

On a side note, this may be difficult to read but I am working on my changing up my blog. I bought some Blog Couture from House of 3 but I can't seem to get it right. I have emailed them and they are going to help me. I can't wait. So again, I apologize, but it will change soon.

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Updating my look and cupcakes

OK, call me crazy but I gave up sweets for Lent. Now, I must admit, I am not Catholic but I thought I would join the fast. I think that is why I have become obsessed with paper cupcakes. Don't they look yummy? I made them using my Cricut, Design Studio, Glitter paper and DCWV pattern paper from the Sweet collection. Oh yeah and Robins Nest pebbles. I used my Cuddle Bug to make the swirls on the glitter paper to make it look like frosting. I made some into cupcake shaped cards and others I just made into cupcakes that I could place on a card. Ok, I have a confession, I forgot to hit the "weld" button on design studio so my first ones did not come out like cards, so I just made individual ones with those. They still look great on the front of cards. But you know what I thought about? What if they made scratch and sniff pattern paper? I would so use those on cards. Scratch and sniff chocolate paper or wedding cake flavor...yummy!! Ok, I can't wait for Easter, as Queen Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake!!"

On a side note, this may be difficult to read but I am working on my changing up my blog. I bought some Blog Couture from House of 3 but I can't seem to get it right. I have emailed them and they are going to help me. I can't wait. So again, I apologize, but it will change soon.

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Just a layout

Sorry for the bad cropping but I seem to be so busy lately. Taking a week off, when you are your business, can really put you behind. I did this layout at a Saturday crop with my Meetup group. I have so many projects to upload but I just don't have time. I have one more layout to do tonight for the SBE challenge. Gotta run.

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Just a layout

Sorry for the bad cropping but I seem to be so busy lately. Taking a week off, when you are your business, can really put you behind. I did this layout at a Saturday crop with my Meetup group. I have so many projects to upload but I just don't have time. I have one more layout to do tonight for the SBE challenge. Gotta run.

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Happy Hump Day!

Ok I have really got to remember to upload in the opposite order of how I want the pictures to be displayed on my blog. This page is a little out of my element. I am doing a Scraplift Challenge at Scrapbook etc. This is a scraplift from the Scrapbooks etc. Page Planner Bookazine. The original is on page 62, You are Beautiful, by Becky Novacek. I did it last night...really late. But I knew I would not have time today to do it because we have a track meet tonight and this past weekend I had the Revolve Tour. I used my Cricut on this one. I used Celebrations Cartridge to make the cake and the "its a party". I used pop dots to raise up certain elements. Oh and I used my Cricut to cut the squares in the pattern paper because it was easier, for me, to use the Center point button and make sure I cut out exactly what I wanted without ruining the rest of the pattern paper. There is more I will probably add because there are these cute puppies with party hats on the Celebrations Cartridge that I want to use.

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Happy Hump Day!

Ok I have really got to remember to upload in the opposite order of how I want the pictures to be displayed on my blog. This page is a little out of my element. I am doing a Scraplift Challenge at Scrapbook etc. This is a scraplift from the Scrapbooks etc. Page Planner Bookazine. The original is on page 62, You are Beautiful, by Becky Novacek. I did it last night...really late. But I knew I would not have time today to do it because we have a track meet tonight and this past weekend I had the Revolve Tour. I used my Cricut on this one. I used Celebrations Cartridge to make the cake and the "its a party". I used pop dots to raise up certain elements. Oh and I used my Cricut to cut the squares in the pattern paper because it was easier, for me, to use the Center point button and make sure I cut out exactly what I wanted without ruining the rest of the pattern paper. There is more I will probably add because there are these cute puppies with party hats on the Celebrations Cartridge that I want to use.

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Happy Valentines Day!

I used a CuttleBug embossing strip to emboss the back of the envelopes.
I used my Cricut and the Celebrations Cartridge to make the scallops and circles for the cards.
Happy Valentines Day! One of my daughters favorite teachers, Mrs. Muzslay, is taking a group of girls to the Revolve Tour. It is a wonderful annual conference that comes to town that is geared for Tweens and Teenage girls. It shares the message of True Love Waits, What guys think and who you are in Christ. But it is done in a manner that is energetic, meaningful and age appropriate. Imagine being in an area with over 20 thousand girls, all worshipping and praising His name. There are four adults going also. But I didn't know the exact number of girls going until yesterday afternoon. We are taking nine girls.
So yesterday evening I ran around Hobby Lobby, Joanns and Walmart getting all the goodies. I used DCWV, All Dressed Up, stack to alter the composition books. They are not typically what I would use but I think the girls like all the black/pink/silver motif. I then went to Joanns and picked up the CuttleBug embossing folder for the trim and some cardstock. At Walmart I got the bags and the candy. I didn't start making anything until 11PM last night. I am tired.

So I spent last night...I mean all night, altering nine composition books, making nine cards and nine goodie bags. I used these fabulous stamps from Clear Dollar Stamps. They are called Sweet Jesus . (Thank you Aimeslee for sharing this company with me.) If you click the hyperlink, you will recognize the cards and the Hershey Kisses bags. They are perfect little stamps that can be used all year long. I even used one on the journal, "Nuggets of Wisdom". I had planned to also make a smaller books that they can carry in their purse as a reminder of this weekend. But it is almost 9 am and I need some sleep before tonight's Revolve Tour.

Happy Valentines Day! I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Single, married, Significant Other... no matter what, we are not alone on Valentines Day. There is One that always loves us. Pin It

Happy Valentines Day!

I used a CuttleBug embossing strip to emboss the back of the envelopes.
I used my Cricut and the Celebrations Cartridge to make the scallops and circles for the cards.
Happy Valentines Day! One of my daughters favorite teachers, Mrs. Muzslay, is taking a group of girls to the Revolve Tour. It is a wonderful annual conference that comes to town that is geared for Tweens and Teenage girls. It shares the message of True Love Waits, What guys think and who you are in Christ. But it is done in a manner that is energetic, meaningful and age appropriate. Imagine being in an area with over 20 thousand girls, all worshipping and praising His name. There are four adults going also. But I didn't know the exact number of girls going until yesterday afternoon. We are taking nine girls.
So yesterday evening I ran around Hobby Lobby, Joanns and Walmart getting all the goodies. I used DCWV, All Dressed Up, stack to alter the composition books. They are not typically what I would use but I think the girls like all the black/pink/silver motif. I then went to Joanns and picked up the CuttleBug embossing folder for the trim and some cardstock. At Walmart I got the bags and the candy. I didn't start making anything until 11PM last night. I am tired.

So I spent last night...I mean all night, altering nine composition books, making nine cards and nine goodie bags. I used these fabulous stamps from Clear Dollar Stamps. They are called Sweet Jesus . (Thank you Aimeslee for sharing this company with me.) If you click the hyperlink, you will recognize the cards and the Hershey Kisses bags. They are perfect little stamps that can be used all year long. I even used one on the journal, "Nuggets of Wisdom". I had planned to also make a smaller books that they can carry in their purse as a reminder of this weekend. But it is almost 9 am and I need some sleep before tonight's Revolve Tour.

Happy Valentines Day! I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Single, married, Significant Other... no matter what, we are not alone on Valentines Day. There is One that always loves us. Pin It

Valentines Card

I did this card for a class at TwoPeas. It is a monthly class that challenges you to make three cards from three different designs. I used my Cricut to cut the hearts and my Cuttlebug to emboss the base of the card and the elements. Since I was trying to stay pretty much with monotones, I added dimension by using different embossing folders and different materials. I wanted my hearts to stand out more so I used Metallic Champagne acrylic paint from Walmart to paint them.

One great tip about die cutting, whether it is with a manual or electrical machine, buy tons of heavy white cardstock and acrylic paints. Your color choices are limitless with the right acrylic paints. Use them straight out of the bottle or mix them to create your own personal color. Then you won't have to worry if you have the right color cardstock for a particular embellishment. I am a very late night scrapper so I can't just get up and drive down to my LSS for the perfect color cardstock. So I buy several paints and I try to get them in different finishes. For example, this paint has a metallic finish to it. I also have a flat Champagne color that I like to use. I use to be an Acryli[c paint snob and just buy Making Memories but I have started to use brands like Folk Art and generic. Don't get me wrong, the Making Memories bottles are so much more attractive and love the way they come in color groups but sometimes I can't find the color I want or another brand is on sale, so I just go for it. Pin It

Valentines Card

I did this card for a class at TwoPeas. It is a monthly class that challenges you to make three cards from three different designs. I used my Cricut to cut the hearts and my Cuttlebug to emboss the base of the card and the elements. Since I was trying to stay pretty much with monotones, I added dimension by using different embossing folders and different materials. I wanted my hearts to stand out more so I used Metallic Champagne acrylic paint from Walmart to paint them.

One great tip about die cutting, whether it is with a manual or electrical machine, buy tons of heavy white cardstock and acrylic paints. Your color choices are limitless with the right acrylic paints. Use them straight out of the bottle or mix them to create your own personal color. Then you won't have to worry if you have the right color cardstock for a particular embellishment. I am a very late night scrapper so I can't just get up and drive down to my LSS for the perfect color cardstock. So I buy several paints and I try to get them in different finishes. For example, this paint has a metallic finish to it. I also have a flat Champagne color that I like to use. I use to be an Acryli[c paint snob and just buy Making Memories but I have started to use brands like Folk Art and generic. Don't get me wrong, the Making Memories bottles are so much more attractive and love the way they come in color groups but sometimes I can't find the color I want or another brand is on sale, so I just go for it. Pin It

My Sewing Project

So, I started walking again. I think I may have mentioned in an earlier post that I use Nike+ to motivate me. I really enjoy it. I didn't want to buy a new pair of shoes because frankly, I like my old ones. Sure they are scruffy looking but they are comfortable. So inorder to use my old shoes with new technology, I had to make a tight fitting pouch for the sensor. Google, my dear friend, showed me a place where I could learn to do such a thing. Now, I own a sewing machine because I sew on paper. So this sewing on material was a whole new thing for me. I even had to create my own pattern. I have to admit, I enjoyed it. However, I found a new use for my Cricut. I can create a pattern in SCAL and use the Cricut to cut out the pattern onto the material. Can I just say I love my Cricut? Pin It

My Sewing Project

So, I started walking again. I think I may have mentioned in an earlier post that I use Nike+ to motivate me. I really enjoy it. I didn't want to buy a new pair of shoes because frankly, I like my old ones. Sure they are scruffy looking but they are comfortable. So inorder to use my old shoes with new technology, I had to make a tight fitting pouch for the sensor. Google, my dear friend, showed me a place where I could learn to do such a thing. Now, I own a sewing machine because I sew on paper. So this sewing on material was a whole new thing for me. I even had to create my own pattern. I have to admit, I enjoyed it. However, I found a new use for my Cricut. I can create a pattern in SCAL and use the Cricut to cut out the pattern onto the material. Can I just say I love my Cricut? Pin It

Baby Dresses

Lately, I feel so out of sorts so I decided to make a to do list for scrapping. One of my items was to learn how to use inkscape to make my own SVG files. If you don't know what SVG files are or what you can do with them, look it up on Wikipedia. If you don't want to know THAT much about it, then just understand that you can use SVG files in SCAL to cut images. Now, my only limitation is my mind when it comes to what my Cricut can cut.

This one is a simple baby dress. I dressed it up with stickles and ribbon. When I can figure out how to share files ( better put it on my "to do" list). I'll start sharing my SVG files. Pin It

Baby Dresses

Lately, I feel so out of sorts so I decided to make a to do list for scrapping. One of my items was to learn how to use inkscape to make my own SVG files. If you don't know what SVG files are or what you can do with them, look it up on Wikipedia. If you don't want to know THAT much about it, then just understand that you can use SVG files in SCAL to cut images. Now, my only limitation is my mind when it comes to what my Cricut can cut.

This one is a simple baby dress. I dressed it up with stickles and ribbon. When I can figure out how to share files ( better put it on my "to do" list). I'll start sharing my SVG files. Pin It