Fantastic Giveaway on March 17th at Hoo's Crafty!

Another Great Giveaway! Check-out Liza's Blog - Hoo's Crafty! for a chance to win this great blog candy!

Grandchildren Autumn Layouts

I am still working on my most recent project and have not finished so I can't post about it yet, but i thought I'd post some layouts I did in November last year while at a crop with my friend Melissa.

Hubby and I had just taken two of our Grandchildren to the local Pumpkin Farm/Patch (Bishop's Pumpkin Farm, Wheatland, California) as we try to do every year.

I just love that time of year...all the beautiful colors of Autumn are my favorite and the weather here is usually fairly mild.

Here are the layouts I made:

Fun at the Pumpkin Patch!

My Precious Pumpkins!

Autumn Fun with Poppy & Gigi!

Since I did these months ago, I can't remember all the specifics of the materials I used, but I know that I used the following Cricut Cartridges for the Lettering:

Ashlyn's Alphabet (Top Layout)
Old West (Bottom Layout)

The 12x12 paper was purchased at Green Tangerine's where we were at the crop.
It is an awesome scrapbooking store in Rocklin, California with all kinds of neat goodies and two HUGE scrapbooking rooms for crops.

I have not added any journaling to these yet, as journaling is always hard for me for some reason...I just never know where to put it and I feel like I don't write my feelings down well, like that it would sound corny or not proper.

I have to get over that and just let my creative thoughts and emotions flow!

I guess for me...the photos are the big part.
I've always been a big fan of photos and have been carrying a camera with me since about the 6th grade!
I know the emotions I feel when I look at the photos, I just have a hard time writing it down for some reason.

Maybe some of you out there in scrapbook land can help me with this...what do you do to help move your thoughts along while journaling?

Thanks for looking and if you like what you see...will you please follow me?

This post/project is linked-up to the following sites:

Awesome Giveaway!

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Click on the link or pictures to get more details.

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A New Card & Happy Birthday to My Dear Friend Melissa

Whew! Finished another card...took me awhile, but I was a little bit faster this time, so I'm hoping with each additional one I will get faster!

Hubby was getting tickled that at 4:00 am this morning I was still working on it.

He probably wonders why I don't just go and buy one...but he knows how much I love to "create", so I'm sure he's figured out my insanity!

This card is a special one because I made it for my dear friend Melissa who's Birthday is today.

Happy Birthday Melissa!

Thank-you for being such a good friend to me and always being there when I needed someone.
You're awesome!

This card was supposed to be finished yesterday, so that I could mail it to her (she lives about an hour away from me) or take it to her, but...as usual, I struggled over all the little details and it took me longer than expected.

So, my blog followers will see it before the recipient...though I think I will e-mail her a link to my blog so she can see it on her Birthday!

Here it is:

Here is a picture of the items I used to make this card:

Supplies:

Cricut Imagine

Cricut Cartridge: Kate's ABC's

K & Company Blank Cards & Envelopes, White

DCWV Adhesive Paper Prints Stack, 6"x6" (#MS-012-00003)

Joy's Life Mother & Daughter Stamps

Joy's Life Father & Son Stamps

Studio 112 Clear Mini-Stamp (#60-30437)

Studio G i-clear Clear Acrylic Stamp Block (#VC0028)

Black Stamp Pad, Mini (Unknown Brand)

Sanford Color Pencils

Small Metal Flower Brads (Unknown Brand, but I think I got them at Target)

Wrights Baby Rick-Rack, White, 3.70m

Zip Dry Paper Glue

Kokuyo Dot 'n' Roller Adhesive, 1/3"

Zots 3-D Clear Adhesive Dots, 1/2" dia. x 1/8" thick

Directions:

I used a pre-made, white, blank card from K & Company and placed a 4 x 6 piece of patterned adhesive paper on the front.

I glued down a piece of rick-rack on the bottom edge of the front of the card.

I cut-out the teacup on page 35 of the Kate's ABC's cartridge, using my Imagine and colored cardstock.

For the sentiment background on the front of the card I cut out the square shape with rounded corners (included on the Imagine machine) at 3.0" and a smaller one at 2.8", using textured white cardstock and used the color printer feature of the Imagine to color these squares just to make things a bit faster.

The sentiment was something I just came up with, because thinking of my friend Melissa reminded me of a time when we went and had coffee together when I needed a shoulder to cry on and she was there for me!

I printed the sentiment in Microsoft Word using the Catholic Schoolgirls Intl. BB Font.

I first printed the sentiment on plain printer paper in my Lexmark X4975 Printer, then lined it up with the cut out sheet I had left over from cutting out the square shapes.

When I had it lined up properly, I put a piece of white cardstock on my Cricut mat and printed the two squares in color, but did not cut them yet.

Then I placed that same piece of cardstock in my printer and printed the sentiment onto the square, placed it back into the Imagine and then cut it out. 

This took a little trial and error before I got it just right, but I didn't have to waste any good card stock to do it, just a few sheets of cheap printer paper!

This may sound a bit confusing, but what I did basically was cut out two sets of the squares, one to act as a "template" to set-up the sentiment in MS Word and one that was actually used for the card.

Does that make sense?

It would be better if I did a video for this, but I know many other Cricut-teers out there in YouTube land have done videos explaining this, so I didn't want to be too repetitive.

I will try to find one that explains this and link it here...it's basically a way to make any Cricut machine perform like an imagine. 

I added one final piece of  "bling" (which I agonized for hours over whether I should or not!) to the corner of the sentiment...a metal flower brad.

Okay, for the Inside of the card I used some very cute stamps from Joy's Life to stamp the sentiment and a mini-stamp from Studio 112 of two girls drinking coffee for the corner accent.

I decided to color the stamp to give the inside of the card a pop of color...it seemed a bit bland without some color.

Hope you liked the card and thanks for stopping by!

Check out Joy's Life Create a Book Blog Today

In honor of Read Across America Day, my Crafty Blog Friend Joy is hosting a awesome blog with very talented crafters & some great blog candy!
Check it out:

Baby Shower for DIL

Well, we had the baby shower for my DIL this past Saturday and it turned out so nice!!
Thanks to K and her Sister S!
They are both so creative.
K made an adorable owl and mushroom banner out of felt, ribbon and buttons.

I gave my owl card and big sister t-shirt to my sweet granddaughter B and she loved them both!
This made her Gigi (me) VERY happy!

I even got lucky and won one of the shower game prizes:

Sweet Orange Luxurious Hand Soap and Green Tea Soap packaged in an adorable book container, with two color coordinated wash cloths!

I'm not sure where they purchased these, so the links above just take you to the manufacturer's sites.

They smell wonderful, I will have to find out where to get more!

I just love bath stuff, so I was pretty excited!

Scrappin' with Cricut 200 Follower Giveaway!

Check out this awesome blog candy from Scrappin' with Cricut!

http://www.scrappinwithcricut.com/2011/02/200-follower-give-away.html