Thursday, December 31, 2015

My Favorites of 2015

It is the end of another fun crafty year.  I slowed down in my crafting in 2015, but that doesn't mean I am not happy with the projects I created. Here is a look at my favorites of 2015. 

In March, I made 2 of this themed card - one for the music teacher, one for my daughter in honor of the Gotta Be Jazz concert at school. 

For my daughter's dance teacher I made this Mary Poppins card for the recital as my daughter danced to a melody of songs from the movie.

Loved making these road trip books for my daughter ad niece before the went off on their adventure with grandma and grandpa.

I enjoyed playing more with Project Life and while I did mostly printing of pictures and planning for pages to still finish off I feel good that I am ready to create more spreads like this soon. A fun combo of pocket pages and 12x12 scrapbooking. 

This was a fun card to make - all the ribbon made me smile. I sent it off to my pen pal in Cali and she enjoyed it as well. 

Finally, I made this fun card and gave it to a friend to send to her fiance study away from home. I love how I combined images to create the fun Santa kiss under the mistletoe. 

In 2016 I hope to spend a little more time in my craft room and share more projects with you.  I am staying with Die Cuttin' Divas and Bitten By the Bug 2 and am exited to share projects for those upcoming challenges. I also have many pages in my scrapbooking planned out and in the new year I plan on getting them done. Also, be on the look out for Sewing with Sophie posts as I venture into the world of the sewing assistant to my daughter and her new sewing machine.

Thanks for visiting and hope to see you soon!!

Sunday, December 27, 2015

My New Quilt

I wanted to brag a little bit on my Mom today. She is a crafter as well. While she loves scrapbooking, floral arrangements and wreath making her favorite material to work with is fabric. She has been sewing since she was 9-years-old and her grandma taught her how. Over the years she has made clothes (for us and various dolls), blankets, table runners, tree skirts and Prom dresses! For the holidays she made me this wonderful t-shirt quilt out of the shirts for plays I have directed over the years.
Now she is passing her skills onto my daughter.  For Christmas we gave our daughter her first sewing machine. She has been into designing clothes for dolls and I felt she needed the right tools. My mom helped me find the right machine and is helping our little designer learn what she needs to know.
I look forward to sharing the fun projects she creates with her new tool and let me tell you the list is already very long of what she dreams to do with it. Thanks for letting me brag.

Have a great Sunday!

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Elf on the Shelf 2015 Wrap Up!!

We love little elf, Conner,and enjoy having him around each year to bring us some holiday joy. I know he tries very hard to be creative when he visits us and so I thought I would share some of the ways he brought us joy this year...

He arrived on a night when our daughter was not home so he saved our arrival breakfast for later and just decorated a little.
He promptly got into the sugar in our house and got sick from it (did not move for 2 days!!!)

We finally had our special welcome breakfast a week later...He knows we like when he sits in a container we can move around without touching him.

We still did not have our tree up so he got very picky about it....
We got it up fast...or our daughter might have had a fit..
Apparently Conner has also become a reader recently and he read one of my daughter's favorite books...again not moving until he finished (but he made progress and showed his excited for the story!!)
He helped us celebrate my hubby's birthday and cuddled in some blankets. This year my daughter was set on asking him questions most nights. He would answer in notes or just by going to where the answer was...This is his favorite ornament on our tree.
Tragedy did strike one night...grandpa was over and picked Conner up....our daughter was very upset. Lucky for us we knew a little cinnamon could help make sure he did not loose his magic. Conner also explained to us that someone not living in the house, a "noneffector",  could not destroy the magic as they did not know the rules. (Grandpa was very worried about this!!)
It is now the final few days with our special visitor.  It is always hard to say goodbye but I bet he has some great ideas. He will be back next year I am sure.

Happy holidays to all and to all you Elf families...maybe you can share these ideas with your elf for next year!!

Monday, December 21, 2015

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

It is the week of Christmas and my house of full of joy and happiness and excitement. Of course with all my holiday shopping and final touches I totally forgot to get a project done this week for Bitten By the Bug 2 and our Santa Claus challenge

BUT...I really wanted to share something with you. So I went back and looked at past holiday projects featuring the big guy...SANTA. This is a layout I made with my daughter and Santa.
I love this Santa (from the Christmas Cheer cart) so much I used him in one of my Project Life spreads as well. This time I just used his silhouette.
My final Santa projects are both Mickey Mouse related.  I have made many tags over the years featuring a Santa Mickey.
I hope you will play along with us at Bitten By the Bug 2 and our Santa Claus challenge this week.  I also hope the big guy is good  to you and yours this holiday.
Happy Holidays to all!!

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Happy Holidays everyone.  It is time for the last challenge of the years with Die Cuttin Divas and of course it is Merry Christmas - ANYTHING GOES!!!!
I needed a cute and fun Birthday card for my hubby so I played with the Teddy Bear Cartridge once again this week. I just thought this guy was super sweet.
I mean he has a cute Teddy bear on his holiday sweater!!! That is just adorable right?
Of course the main point of the card was the it's cold outside - the inside says something special for my hubby's birthday (wink, wink)

Hope you can join us for this fun challenge and I hope you return to join us after the holidays!! I myself have already started working on the fun challenges we have planned for you in the New Year and am looking forward to sharing them with you and hope you will join in the fun.

Supplies:
- Teddy Bear Parade Cricut Cartridge - Hot cocoa bear
- 3 Birds on Parade cricut Cartridge - baby's it's cold outside 

Monday, December 14, 2015

Deck the Halls with Bitten By the Bug 2

Can you feel the holiday magic?  I sure can and decorating the tree is such a huge part of that for my family.  This week at Bitten By the Bug 2 we are looking to see your ornament projects - either making an ornament with your Cricut or decorating a project with ornament cuts.

I found this fun card cut on the Christmas Cheers cartridge and knew it would work for my idea- simple and sweet.
I cut the card and placed some fun patterned paper behind the ornament.  I added the simple Merry Christmas and a little touch of bling to finish it off.

Hope you can share your ornament projects with us this week and are getting excited about the approaching holidays!!

Supplies:
Christmas Cheer Cricut cartridge - ornament card
MS Seasonal Cake Art Cricut cartridge - Merry Christmas

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Tic Tac Toe with Die Cuttin' Divas


It is time to play Tic-Tac-Toe with Die Cuttin' Divas. This week we would like you to create a project with 3 in a row from this fun board!!
For my card I went straight across the middle:embossing, holiday colors and 3 patterned papers.Here are my cute  papers.
This cute Teddy bear was a perfect fit for my fun sled and skates papers I found to use.he went together so well with is fun polka dot parka.

The final touches was to pop him up on some glue dots and enjoy the fun. Thanks so much for visiting today and enjoy your week. you can play along with us at Die Cuttin' Divas.

Supplies:
Teddy Bear Parade Cricut Cartridge -  sled bear
DCWV The Christmas Combo stack
5x7 polka dot embossing folder.


Monday, December 7, 2015

Reindeer Games

Time for some reindeer games with Bitten By the Bug 2.  This week we want  to see your holiday animals on your projects - reindeer, polar bears, doves and more - all themed for Christmas or winter.
I fell in lobe with this reindeer and how he almost looks like he is dancing. He was fast and easy to cut out and went together with ease as well.
I added a few details to his ace and of course her needed to be a Rudolph guiding our holiday in the right direction.
Hope you can join us this week at Bitten By the Bug 2.  Take care and happy days to you.

Supplies:
- Christmas Cheer Cricut Cartridge - reindeer
- Dew Drop Brillance Ink Moonlight White
- Christmas Stamp from Hobby Lobby


Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Sketch of the Year with Die Cuttin' Divas

Welcome to December!! The first challenge of the month at Die Cuttin' Divas is always a sketch challenge. This month we want you to look back at all our sketches for the year and select one to work with again - or for the first time. - They are all posted on the Die Cuttin' Divas site.
This of when times were warm I decide to work with the July 2015 sketch again. My daughter dais it was her favorite.
I made a simple snowman card using the fun sketch and some great  patterned papers. It was fun to use this fun sketch once again - that is why  I love sketches so much - you  can use them over and over and make them new.
Here is a close up of the cute snowman I used. I actually glued his arms on the wrong side but rather than re-cut I felt it looked more like wood after wiping the glue off. Fun.  Hope you can join us this week as we re-examine the sketches of 2015 with Die Cuttin' Divas.

Here are the links to all my sketch projects with DCD this year (I missed June & October)

JANUARY        FEBRUARY        MARCH         APRIL        MAY         JULY   
AUGUST          SEPTEMBER      NOVEMBER

Supplies:
- Hello Kitty Greetings Cricut Cartridge - snowman

Monday, November 30, 2015

Holiday Plants with Bitten By the Bug 2

Will you be standing under the mistletoe this holiday season? Hopefully when you do it is with your sweetie. Mistletoe is my favorite holiday plant and this week at Bitten by the Bug 2 we are creating projects featuring those Christmas plants we all love - Christmas trees, poinsettias,wreaths and of course mistletoe.

I love how this cute card turned out. I found the mistletoe cut and needed a plan and so I looked for cuts by searching for "kiss". This great silhouette from the Sweethearts Cartridge was perfect for what I wanted to create.

Finding the Santa hat was as easy as another search and I just selected this one from the Teddy Bear Parade cartridge and used the wonderful contour feature to get rid of the rest of the outfit so my lady would get to kiss her Santa under the mistletoe.

The stamp was the final touch to creating this fun card. I hope you will join in our fun at Bitten By the Bug 2 this week.




Supplies:
- Sweethearts Cricut Cartridge - couple silhouette.
- Christmas Cricut cartridge - mistletoe
- Teddy Bear Parade Cricut Cartridge - Santa outfit
- Pink By Design Stamps - Winter Fun
- Stickles - Froasted Lace

Monday, November 23, 2015

Thanks

Thanks is the word of the week right?  This week I am hosting the challenge at Bitten by the Bug 2 and that is what I wanted to see - the word "thanks" on your Thanksgiving theme projects.  I hope you can join us in the fun and have a wonderful Thanks filled week.
I wanted to use fall colors and a texture so I started with a patterned paper and decided to play with burlap a little but to layer it up and add that texture.
I was not sure how my layers would work but my glue worked great and it all stuck together.
To add a little more texture I used some sandpaper on the cornucopia part of my cut and added some glitter paper as well.

Give thanks this week and hopefully you will find time to join us at Bitten By the Bug 2 this week.

Supplies:
- Opposites Attract Cricut Cartridge - Thanks
- MS Seasonal Cake Art Cricut Cartridge - Give
- Celebrate With Flourish Cricut Cartridge - cornucopia
- DCWV - Harvest Gathering papers

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Thanksgiving Critter

The countdown is on - turkey, pumpkin pie and family all around the table grateful for another year. This week at Die Cuttin' Divas we are getting the Thanksgiving countdown started.  Show us your Thanksgiving projects.
I made a cute card to send to my nieces who I will not get to be with for Thanksgiving. I knew they would love the  fun critter.
He cut out so well and fast.  Putting him together was also a breeze and soon he was ready to go on his base.  I also added a little color to the inside of the card.
I love the center open card and it worked out well for this idea.  Now my little friend is all set to send to two of my favorite little ones!

Hope you will join us this week at Die Cuttin' Divas.

Supplies:
- Create-A-Critter 2 Cricut Cartridge - Thanksgiving Squirrel
- Center open card from The Paper Studio
- DCWV Harvesting Gatherins solids and patterned papers