New Year and New Project

Well, I hope everyone's 2012 is off to a good start! So far my year has been decent. I decided to try a completely new type of project (to me anyway!) for my first project of the new year. I decided to try making a mini album. It ended up turning out better than I thought it was going to. This project really gave me some grief at the beginning stages of it, and I started thinking maybe I should give up on it, but, I stuck with it and it turned out pretty good!

I'm going to go through the step by step process of how it all came together, and pictures of the finished project will be at the end. Hope you enjoy!


First I made my designs with the Gypsy. I chose a rounded square (from the Cricut Essentials cartridge). I set the size at 5.5" x 5.5".

I decided I wanted to add some flare to the cover pages, so I added lettering and welded the letters to the design. I used the Cuttin' Up font cartridge and set the lettering at 1.25"

I then prepared the chipboard for cutting. The chipboard I used was 0.022 thickness. I used my Expression for cutting the chipboard. I ran into a few issues with cutting the chipboard. Here are some tips I found helpful: 1. Tape the chipboard to the mat, but make sure the tape does not overlap on the area that will be cut, I found this causes the blade to lag and the cuts end up coming out wrong. 2. Use the deep cut blade housing and deep cut blade set to blade level 6. 3. For the first cut, set pressure to medium (level 3), speed medium (level 3), and multicut 2. 4. For the second cut, set pressure to high (level 4), speed medium (lever 3), and multicut 2.

Here are my chipboard shapes cut out.

Next, I chose my papers to use. They all came from the same paper stack. I picked this stack up at Hobby Lobby last summer.

Next, I cut out all the cardstock shapes to match the chipboard shapes (same Gypsy file).

Once I had everything cut out, I adhered my paper to the chipboard pieces and I chose my pictures that I wanted to use.

Once I had all my pictures in place, I added various bling to the pages. Blind used : Stickles, hot fix stones, flat back pearls, ribbon. I also cut out various words to add to some of the pages. Of course, all these things are based on your own personal style :)

And here it is, the finished project!

I hope you enjoyed my adventure in mini album making! School will be starting up again in a week, so I don't know how much time I will have to create and post, but I do have some other ideas for "new to me" projects that I would love to share when I get them done! I hope 2012 brings lots of good things to you all. Thanks for stopping by!

Merry Christmas!

Just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!! Hope you all are having a fabulous day. Also wanted to share the Christmas cards I made in bulk this year to send out to friends and family.

I have learned that I need to have more time to make enough cards!! Time always seems to fly by so fast.

And, for a little bit of holiday humor, here is a video of Lulu in her Santa hat...enjoy!

Sorry For Not Posting

I apologize for not having any new projects yet. My Imagine is still not working and is being sent back to Provo Craft and they are going to send me a new one. Dealing with that has been part of the reason I have not had a project to post. I was really wanting to do my next project with it!!

The other reasons for not posting have been that I have had to work on some cards and have not had time to take step by step pictures. I also have finals this week and have had to spend time studying for those. But hopefully by this next weekend I will have a project to post!

Went Out for Black Friday Sale

Unfortunately this weekend I do not have a project to post for my weekly posting. However, I did get a new addition to my crafting tools. I decided for the first time ever to go out for a Black Friday sale. Wal Mart had the Cricut Imagine on sale and since I didn't have one of those yet, I figured this would be the perfect time to get one! I went to Wal Mart 2 hours before the sale started and waited and waited to ensure I would be able to get one of the Imagines. Luckily only one other person showed up to get one too. So, I was able to get it and get out!! 


I had planned on making a project with the Imagine this weekend in order to have a project to post here on my blog, but I have been having some troubles setting up my Imagine and getting it to full working order. I will have to call customer service on Monday and will hopefully get it up and running!


So, if I'm able to get my new Imagine working this next week, I will be doing a project with it to post here. If I'm not able to get it working this next week then I will be doing a different project to post next weekend. 


I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. My Thanksgiving was very enjoyable with family that came in from California. I hadn't seen them in about 6 1/2 years, so it was really nice to spend time with them.


Anyway, thats all for now! Hope to have a fun project next weekend for my blog!

Thanksgiving Mini Banner

In the spirit of the holidays, I decided to make a decoration for Thanksgiving. I decided to make a mini banner. This is the first time I've ever attempted a banner and I'm really satisfied with how it turned out!!


First I started off with my Gypsy (makes projects so much easier!) and chose the basic shape for the banner pieces. I chose this shape from the Cricut Essentials cartridge and set the size at 3 inches. I made enough for each of the letters in Thanksgiving. Next I chose the lettering. I went with the Storybook cartridge font and set the size at 2 inches and centered the letters within the banner pieces (as shown in the photo). 

I cut the top layer in a light brown and the base layer in a darker brown. After I made the cuts, I ran the top layers through my Cuttlebug in the D'vine Swirls embossing folder.

I used my Tombow mono adhesive to stick the top and base layers together.

Next I punched holes on each side of the banner pieces. I used my Crop-A-Dile to do this and used the 1/8 inch punch.

After I got all the holes punched, I attached eyelets in each hole. Again, this was done with the Crop-A-Dile, the C side on the top and 3 on the base. I used Recollections eyelets from the Metallic mix.

After I got all the eyelets attached, I inked around the edges. I used Memento Dew Drop ink in Rich Cocoa.

Then I tied each of the banner pieces together. I used Naturals bamboo cord (from the jewelry department at Michael's).

 After I got all the pieces tied together, I decided I needed to add some color to the project. So I decided to make flowers to go at each end of the banner. I used the Flower Shoppe cartridge (another one of my absolute favorites!). I cut the flower shapes at 2.75 inches.

Before putting the flowers together, I inked over them. I used Memento Dew Drop inks again. On the orange I used Potters Clay, on the red I used Rhubarb Stalk, and on the yellow I used Cantaloupe. I used a quilling tool to get a nice tight wrap on the center piece of the flower. I used hot glue to put the flowers together and to adhere them to banner pieces.

And here is the finished product!! Like I said at the beginning, I am VERY satisfied with how this turned out! 

I'm so glad I decided to try making a banner. I wasn't sure if it would be very easy or not, but it was! It was just somewhat time consuming. I think I will be doing another mini banner for Christmas!

Let It Snow Penguin Card

I was going to wait until next weekend to post another project, but I felt like that was just too far away! So since I didn't have any homework that needed to be done, I decided to sit down and make a card. 


Featured in this card are Recollections cardstock from Michael's, cuts from Create-A-Critter, Wild Card, and Winter Frolic, Glossy Accents, and some silver glitter embossing powder.


First I started out with a plain white base card measuring 4x5.5". For the background, I chose a snowflake patterned paper from the Recollections Bright & Jolly paperstack (currently at Michael's). I cut my patterned paper to fit on the front of the base card and used double sided tape to adhere the two together.

Next I took some plain white cardstock and cut out a snowy foreground. And again, I used some double sided tape to adhere it to the card.

Next I cut out my lettering and shapes with my Gypsy and Cricut Expression. From Create-A-Critter I cut the penguin at 2.25". I used black for the base layer, white for layer 1, yellow for layer 2, and red for layer 3. From Wild Card I used the font selection to spell out my words and then melded the letters for each word with the Gypsy. The lettering was cut at 1.5". Lastly, with Winter Frolic, I cut the pine trees at 1.75".


Before putting all the pieces together on the card, I also used a silver glitter embossing powder on the lettering to give it a nice little sparkle.

Finally, I used a glue pen to adhere the lettering and pine trees to the card. I used double sided sticky foam to adhere the penguin to the card. (Sorry that you can't really tell that from the picture!). For the finishing touch I added some Glossy Accents to the penguin's eyes, beak, and feet and also on the pine trees.


And here it is, the final product!

Sorry for the quality of the pictures not being the best. I currently only have a 2 foot by 2 foot space to put my projects together and take pictures of them (darn that tornado for taking my house and crafting space!). But I will eventually have a new crafting room where I will have the proper space and set up to get this stuff done up nice!


Thanks for stopping by and checking out my latest creation!

Cricut Paper Pups

This happens to be one of my favorite Cricut cartridges. It has so many cute designs. Here is a simple card I made featuring a cut from Paper Pups. 

The Paper Pups cut was done at 3.5". I used the font from the Wild Card cartridge and enlarged the lettering to 2". I embossed the yellow strip of cardstock using my Cuttlebug and inked over the embossed areas to make it stand out a little more.

Well, there you have it, my first project post! Please bear with me while I learn the ropes of blogging and keeping track of exactly what I do on my projects so I can share it here :)

Thanks so much for visiting!