Thank you Julie!

I'm so excited to receive this blog award from my dear friend Julie from the Cricut message board. She was the first to encourage me to start a blog and I so appreciate all of her encouragement and support. Thank you so much! Be sure to check out her wonderful blog HERE.

Now for the rules:
List 5 addictions (gee, only 5? LOL)
List 5 of your favorite bloggers (again, only 5? I have soooo many faves!)

Addictions:
1) Shoes! It's been awhile since I bought a new pair since all my $ have been going to craft supplies (LOL) but DH REALLY indulged me for Christmas.
2) Chocolate
3) Card embellishments (they're taking over my craft room)
4) The Cricut message board
5) Forensic tv shows (both true life stories and fictional)

Favorite Bloggers: So so difficult but here are 5 from my long long list.
1) DeeDee
2) Nancy
3) Sharon
4) Heidi
5) Bety

BBTB Birthday Girl and Presents Challenge

Okay guys, I know I'm way behind. Seems like the last two weeks were a blur and my creative mojo was somehow lost in all of the food, fun, and festivities. Although I have been doing a little designing with my Cricut Design Studio when I've finally settled down at night in front of the tv, the next morning it's been rush rush rush and the actual execution has fallen by the wayside. I apologize BUT I finally managed to make a card. The past challenges I missed over at Bitten by the Bug were to use the "Birthday Girl" cut from the Storybook cartridge and the presents from New Arrival. These seemed pretty convenient to combine, especially since I had sort of dropped the ball but really wanted to participate so here it is. I made a shaped card using Design Studio and the shadow feature, then cut the presents 3 times to get the different wrappings. Same with the bows, and I added some skittle-like flowers and adhesive pearls to decorate. "Birthday girl" was cut in shadow, then regular, then just "girl" in pink, again accented with adhesive pearls (don't you just love them?) and popped for dimension. You have no idea how happy I was to finally have something new to post. Hopefully I'm back on track and can start on this week's challenge. Be sure to stop by Bitten by the Bug and see what the fabulous designers have been cooking up.

My Winter Wonderland

Happy Christmas Eve everyone! So sorry this isn't a craft post but I'm afraid I've dropped the ball this last week. Have loads of ideas and will probably still do a few of them but thought I ought to keep the peace in the valley since this is the first year DH has had to compete with crafting as well all my decorating fury etc. I've been thinking of all of my cyber friends and their wintry weather when the best we get is a bit of frost. Hope everyone is staying safe and warm and enjoying their holiday. I do miss the snow (at least to look at) and talking to my Bff Becky in MI and seeing Heidi's beautiful pics on her blog inspired me to take some pics of the winter wonderland in my dining room. It's as close as I can get. LOL Thank you to everyone who has inspired and encouraged me this year. The new found friends I've met through the Cricut message board and blogging have enriched my life immeasurably. Merry Christmas to all!

Spot the Dog Challenge at BBTB

Oh boy have I been missing my crafting! Since I'm ALMOST finished decorating (Yeah, I know it's the 16th) I thought I'd take a little break and do this fun challenge at Bitten By the Bug. This week Regina chose the cute little dog Spot from the Paper Pups cartridge. He's so adorable that he needs few embellishments especially when you use the border feature. I cut him in black 3 times and colored in his hat and presents with Bic markers, added a big paw print bow and a "Happy" tag. Inside I cut "Happy" two more times, the present using the circle feature and a big "Happy Birthday". Three paw print punches (Marvy) and I was done! It's rare that I use only one cartridge to complete a card but this went together so fast and easy I was thrilled. Be sure to check out the fantastic cards done by Regina's design team. They're always an inspiration.

My First Explosion Box

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. Not much crafting going on here until I finish my decorating. (Yeah, I'm one of those people who decorates every available inch of space in the house. LOL). I do however have something to show you. This was one of those projects that ended up taking me longer than anticipated and I was finishing up a half an hour AFTER we were supposed to be at the birthday dinner. Had no time to take pix so I had to borrow it back. It was for a sweetie turning 12 who LOVES pink and hearts. Thought it would be fun to do an explosion box with this darling collection of papers from Miss Elizabeth's. Lots of girly things going on with loads of ribbons, primas, heart rain dots, and borders using my Martha Stewart punches. The hearts and lips are from Indie Art Cricut cartridge and the sentiments are from the Cuttlebug Birthday Wishes die/emboss combo, the Celebrations cartridge and some Happy Birthday peel offs and I left some spaces for her to put pix of her friends. Next time I'll try to remember that you have to decorate both the front AND BACK of each of the pages and allow myself more time.

Cheers to You (inspired by Enfys)

More December birthdays. Yikes! Don't you wish we could move them all to July? (No offense to all of you, my DH falls in this category too but with all of the holiday hoopla don't ya think you sometimes get overlooked?) Anyway, Enfys made the most adorable card using this stamp awhile ago and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to get it and exactly who it was for. She had purchased it at an LSS in Fla. and the owner graciously referred me to the Sparkle N Sprinkle site where she purchases the stamps. Thought the card would be a quicky until I refreshed my memory going back to Enfys' blog and realized one of the reasons her card was so cute was because of the paper piecing she had done. AARRHHGG! I'm not much of a stamper (though I'd like to be) so this was a bit outside of my comfort zone. Besides the frog, I also pieced the olive and added an adhesive ruby for the pimento and used glossy accents in the glass to look like a real martini (which at this point I needed LOL). All in all I'm pretty pleased with the results. The cool metallic "cheers" was a gift tag from by Colorbok. The papers are from the DCWV glitter stack and the bubble letters are by Mark Richards. The inside sentiment was cut on my Cricut Expression using the Celebrations cartridge. Thank you Enfys, without you this card would not have been possible. Be sure to visit HER Blog. It is always an inspiration.

Hallmark Scrapbook Ice Skate Challenge

I was so excited to pick the challenge this week over at Hallmark Scrapbook (Thanks Nancy for letting me take your spot. xx). I've been wanting to do an ice skate card for a long time because I took ice skating lessons for 7 years as a child. My Daddy was an excellent figure skater and ice dancer and introduced me pretty young. In kindergarten I started taking lessons and every Saturday during the season we spent at the rink. He even made me one each year in our backyard to practice on. These are some of my best memories of time we spent together. For the Challenge you can use either the skate from the Joys of the Season or the new Christmas solutions cartridge. I chose the new one because it was nice and girly. I welded the shadow at 5 1/2" to make a shaped card. For some reason some of the shadows don't seem quite big enough for me on this cartridge so when I cut it on regular I decreased the size to 5 3/8". I used pearlescent and mirror cardstock from Best Occasions and the pretty patterned paper is from Daisy Bucket designs. BTW, the snowflake details didn't show up against my usual backdrop so I photographed it on the reverse dotted side of the paper. Isn't it pretty too? I ran the white cuff through the Xron right side down, left the paper attached and then ran it through Cuttlebug using the divine swirls folder. I then peeled off the backing and flocked it with fun flock. To add some more glitz I used frosted lace and silver stickles to accent the swirls. I laced ribbon through the eyelets and added tiny jingle bells and a snowflake charm to the bow. Couldn't wait to put pompoms on the ends because we weren't allowed to embellish our real skates lest some stray fiber fall on the ice and trip someone up.

OMG I WON! (My turn to toot. LOL)

What a fantastic week! Monday I found out I was the winner of Kimberly's Vintage Christmas card contest at Kiki's Crafts with my rocking horse card and this am at 4:45 PST (Goliath was raising a ruckus so I had to let him out and just HAPPENED to pop on my blog) I discovered I had won Regina's Non-traditional Color Christmas Card contest at Bitten by the Bug with my deer and citrus snowflakes card. WooHoo! Christmas sure came early for me! Thank you soooooo much! It was an honor to be chosen from such a talented group of designers. Thought I'd repost the pics just in case anybody missed them but there are more detailed ones under their individual posts. Be sure to stop by both sites to see the other gorgeous entries. There's already a new contest posted on KiKi's blog and Regina will be announcing one soon.

U Rock

I made this card for the son of one of my BFF's for this 15th birthday. Thank God he plays alot of "Guitar Hero" of I would have been stumped for a theme. I used Plantin Schoolbook for the card back and CD inside. The front was welded in Design Studio using Mickey font and Indie Art on the shadow feature. The "U" was cut again in shiny black cardstock and run through the Cuttlebug using the Diamonds in the Rough folder. The red letters are Bazzill. The guitar is cut several times using charcoal mirror board, shiny black and holographic paper. I used the holographic on the CD inside as well. Stringing the strings was a challenge. The silver wire kept refusing to cooperate (that's why there are only 3 LOL). Used my fave embellie (those adhesive beads from M's) for the tuning thingys. the silver stars inside were peel offs, the red ones and sentiment were from the Birthday Wishes cuttlebug die/emboss combo. Had to make a kickstand for the back so it would stand up. All day I kept saying "Okay, is he really gonna care that I made this for him?" (to myself) but when he opened it he said "WHOA! DID YOU MAKE THIS?" Gotta love him, made my day!

BBTB Tree Box Challenge

This week's challenge over at Bitten By the Bug is to use the tree box from Tags, Bags, Boxes and more. What a fun one! For some reason when I looked at that box I kept seeing Santa so that's what I went with. I cut it at 6 1/2 " in some yummy striped paper from My Mind's Eye and was so excited to finally use the adorable ribbon sent to me by my Cricut mb friend Shelly. (Thanks sooo much! xx) The face is from Doodlecharms (cut at 2 1/2" (I think) and I cuttled the beard with divine swirls, stickled the embossing and used a sugared brad for his nose. I covered the hat cuff in tiny pompoms and added one branch from the MS punch and a little skittle like flower (thanks, Nilda!) topped with an adhesive bead. The glittery pompom on top was from Target. I cut his boots at 1 1/4" from Paper Doll Dress Up and used Swiss dots for texture. The gingerbread border from MS was punched out of DCWV glitterstock and I added a row of adhesive silver beads. The tag is a studio G stamp and ink which I punched and added to an off cut from my stash. Again I used a few adhesive beads and some glitter snowflake stickers from Jolee's boutique to glitz it up a bit.

Christmas tags

Here are some Christmas tags I made for the tag swap my dear friend Leah hosted. I cut the tag from Plantin Schoolbook at 3 1/2" for the base in both shadow and regular for the first ones and used the Cuttlebug ornament and snowflake die emboss combos. The ornament base tags were cuttled with the ornament folder and the snowflakes with (you guessed it) the snowflake folder. The snowmen were welded using design studio. The snowman head from Christmas cheer was welded to the little cap from pooh and friends and cut on both shadow and regular. I used mini pompoms for his eyes and mouth. Finally I had been dying to use this adorable face stamp I had gotten at M's. I stamped in brown staz-on, punched it out and popped it onto the centers of some snowflakes from Accent Essentials. I cuttled the white with Swiss dots and added some cute foam snowflakes for embellies. When I showed my DH he said they were kinda creepy so I didn't include them in the swap. Am I the only one who thinks they're cute? I guarantee those faces are gonna show up in other projects, creepy or not. LOL
P.S. I thought I'd do a little blog decorating for Christmas since it hasn't happened at my house yet. (Don't ask me about Halloween. LOL)

BBTB Non-Traditional Christmas Contest

This is my entry into the current contest over at Bitten By The Bug. We were to do a Christmas card using non- traditional colors. My color inspiration came from a box of frosted citrus colored primas that happened to have two peachy snowflakes included. I used Design Studio to weld a square from Plantin Schoolbook to the shadow feature of the deer and snowflake from Christmas Solutions and another snowflake from Accent Essentials. I used Provo Craft peach cardstock (the 12x24" size because the design was so long). I placed it near the bottom of the mat so as not to cut the entire deer and trimmed what hung down even with the card back. I cut it again in shadow without the card back in silver mirror board, then 3 more times on regular in copper. All layers were popped. (Honestly, I need to buy stock in that company!) The snowflakes were also cut out of peach glitter paper from Best Occasions. The deer body was cuttled with divine swirls and the antlers embellished with silver adhesive beads. I went kind of wild with ribbon but I couldn't restrain myself. LOL On the inside I covered another square of the peach cardstock with creamsicle tulle for a little more texture and trimmed it with a silver peel off border sent to me by my friend B-bug. The Merry Christmas is a peel off from Stampendous. Finally, I added the original prima peach snowflakes that I stickled a little more with copper. It just dawned on me that this also fills the bill for this week's challenge at Hallmark Scrapbook which was to use any snowflake cut. Yahoo! Better go post there too. MAJOR UPDATE: I WON FIRST PLACE!

BBTB Challenge SYI turkey

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Wow, this one is just under the wire. This week's challenge on Bitten By The Bug is to use the turkey from Stretch Your Imagination. I've had this card in my head for awhile and finally decided the best way to do it was to use the turkey head from Animal Kingdom for the front and use the fat little turkey from SYI on the inside. It's kind of a goofy card so I stuck with kind of cartoony colors. The printed paper is from the DCWV Fall paper stack. The animal sounds are also from Animal Kingdom, the word bubbles from Paper Pups, and Happy Thanksgiving is from Wild Card. I added a few google eyes, primas, and skittles, and the small adhesive letters are from J's. Fortunately this one is being hand delivered to my neighbors next door. Hope your holiday is wonderful! Hugs, Donna

Holly Hallmark Scrapbook Challenge

Last week's challenge (see I'm already falling behind with the holiday crunch!) was to use either the holly or poinsettia from the Joys of the Season cartridge. I immediately thought of one of my favorite carols from George Winston's December CD "The Holly and the Ivy." Love the rich colors of these papers. The dot is BoBunny, the greens are K&Company and the gold metallic is Best Occasions. Lots of cartridges got a workout on this one. The holly of course is from Joys of the Season, the & is from Plantin Schoolbook, the flourish is from Home Accents, and I made the ivy leaves in design studio using 5 of the leaves from Accent Essentials. I also welded the letters from Storybook for the word Holly. I love it when I can use a bunch of carts in a design. Sort of justifies the 26 I have (and my motto "more is never enough" LOL) Most cuts were shadow and regular and pop dots were used liberally. Ivy was spelled out using the tiny adhesive gems from M's, and larger ones were used on the holly berries. Tiny gold ones accent "Holly" and the ribbon is from my LSS.

In case I don't make it back tomorrow, here's wishing you and your loved ones a blessed and bountiful Thanksgiving! Hugs, Donna

Give Thanks MCPT card

Thought I'd really better get my rear in gear if I was going to send out any Thanksgiving cards. I don't have much experience stamping but have recently bought a huge number of stamps including this beautiful one by Inkadinkado so I decided today would be a great day to practice my MCPT. I stamped the image on cream cardstock using brown Stazon and colored with my prismas and used mineral spirits to blend. I matted it with paper from K&Company designer mat pad and gold metallic paper from Best Occasions. The fibers I framed it with are Adornaments, the gold peel off leaves and acorns are Stampendous. The sentiments are rub ons from me & my Big Ideas. The "give thanks" circle is popped for dimension. The inside mat is also from K&Co. adorned with the scraps from the front and more peel offs.

BBTB Challenge-SYI tree

The challenge this week over at Bitten by the Bug is to use the bare tree from the Stretch Your Imagination cartridge. It worked out perfectly for the stairstep card I was dying to make. I cut the tree twice and scored one in sort of a V to allow me to glue it to the second one. This made it more 3D and allowed me (or should I say the birdies) to decorate it with garlands strung with beads and alpha letters. I used a snow writer for the dimensional snow, a MS punch for the birds and the larger snowflakes, a fiskars punch for the small snowflakes, and Animal Kingdom for the squirrel. I also used a MS double scallop punch on corrigated paper for the snowy hills and Debbie Mumm Holiday Stack paper for the background.