Bright cards to beat the blahs!

I decided to make some bright cards to battle the morning sickness! Creating Keepsakes featured this color combo this month, and I really love it.






And I never posted these fun cards I made during the Christmas rush, but they're so much fun I can't resist!

My Big News!

Our big news for a Happy New Year -- we are expecting a baby! The due date is Sept. 1st, and we're so excited. I'm also totally freaked out, because my first two pregnancies were no walk in the park. With Sammy I was horribly sick for the first 5 months. With Joshy it was all 9 months, plus I was on bedrest for the last 3 months. I worked really hard during 2007 and lost 57 lbs, so I'm hoping that will help. Here's my last layout from my weight loss scrapbook! It uses the same digi-kit I used for my mom's party -- I just love it!



And here's my first layout for my little pregnancy journal. I've never done a real pregnancy journal before, but I have a lot of thoughts I want to get down right now. I got some super cute 4x6 albums from Target, and I'm going to use them so I can just slide the 4x6 pics in and create 4x6 journalling cards. For the album I bought a luscious digi-kit called "Meadow Bliss" by "Designs by Mindy" from www.designerdigitals.com. It has some really gorgeous stuff in it, so I can't wait to use it! I also got the super-cool Bamboo Fun pen tablet for Christmas (thanks, Mom and Dad!), which I used for the handwriting and doodled scallops on this layout. So fun!

Birthday Party for my mom!

I've been working on the plans for a big 50th birthday bash for my mom for months, and last night was the big night! I was so happy with how everything turned out (even though she wasn't really surprised after all...).

It all started with this adorable free digi-kit by Ronna Penner, which I downloaded from www.shabbyprincess.com. I used the flowers and paper from the kit to create this invitation. I drew the dress, balloons, and body parts on white paper with a thick marker, then scanned them in so I could work with them in my graphics program. I LOVED the result -- so much in fact, that I decided to base all the decorations for the party on the colors and feel of the kit!

I made these centerpieces for all the tables using Bazzill cardstock that coordinated with the kit. I cut all the hats from the Cricut Celebrations cartridge. This was the first time I used this cartridge! I never thought I wanted it, but I couldn't resist when I found it for $25. I'm SO glad I gave in! I bought these little tin pails at WalMart and put floral foam in the bottom. I painted bamboo skewers white and added the hats to the top, then filled the pails with curled ribbon. Each centerpiece was sitting on an oversized flower that I printed from the digi-kit.



Here are a few more examples of the various centerpieces:


Here's one of my favorite parts of the decorations! I printed this 2' x 5' banner on my dad's large format printer using elements from the kit. Then I made use of my parents' huge windows and the darkness for a fun and meaningful idea -- I got one of those markers they use for writing on car windows and asked all the guests to write one word they thought described my mom. She totally loved it!



I used the base design of the invitation to make this guest book/album, bound with the Bind-it-all. All the guests signed it, and there is plenty of room for pictures. I printed the inside pages with a border and some of the flowers from the kit, so they are all ready to adhere the pics and do some journalling, and the album will be done!



After the party was over, I grabbed my favorite out of all the party hats to make a card! I created the circle card with the window using Cricut Design Studio by making two 5" circles, welding them together, then adding a 3" circle to the middle of one of the big circles. I then cut the yellow scallop (which is the edge of the card -- the brown in the background is just so you can see the yellow better) with Mini Monograms and adhered the circle card to it. I added a 4" white circle to the inside for writing. I adhered the hat to the front, added the doodle outlines with a white gel pen, and wrote "happy birthday" on the band. I love it!



Phew! I have to admit I'm exhausted, but I love how it all turned out! And the best part of all is that it made my mom feel so happy and loved, and that was the whole point!

So excited about Cricut Design Studio!

I have some fun projects I want to show you all in a bit, but while I'm finishing those up I just had to say how excited I am about the new Cricut Design studio software! So far I've just downloaded the free trial version, but my little mind is just brimming with ideas about the possibilities. You can do so much with this software -- it makes the Cricut more flexible and creative than ever before. You can bet you'll see a lot of use of this software in my future projects. So far lots of people (including me) have had some technical difficulties, but I still think the potential far outweighs it. Hopefully PC will back up the software as well as they have the bug itself. Here's a very cool link -- a blog where you can download some really amazing cutting files!

http://cricutsoftcuts.blogspot.com/

Back soon!

I'm back with Disney albums!

Boy, life has been crazy lately! If anyone out there is still checking my blog, thanks for hanging in! I have some fun projects planned for December, so I should be on a little more than I have been.

But now I'd love to show you my Disney albums! This first one is the autograph book/album that Sammy and I made together. We had so much fun! I made it 5 1/2" by 8 1/2" just because that was easiest, and it was a great size for having room to add the character die-cuts, room for autographs, and room for a 4x6 pic and journalling. The less work the better! I was able to finish this quickly after we got home, and Sammy has been proudly showing it off to everyone who comes in our door.






I made this little album as a Christmas gift for my SIL who instigated our trip to Disneyland. She's not a real "cutesy" person, and her tastes run to the funky, so I thought I'd do something grown up for her. This is a 4x6 chipboard album from We R Memory Keepers, so I just slid the photos into the pages on the inside. The outside I decorated using Scenic Route paper and chipboard "J", Autumn Leaves swirl stamps, American Crafts rub-on letters, and "Disney" cut from Mickey Font at 2 1/2". Oh, and the little Mickey head is cut at 1 1/4".




Hope everyone is having a really wonderful Christmas season!

Thankful Hearts

I've been AWOL for a bit because we went to California and DISNEYLAND! It was really fun, and I've got a cool autograph book/album in the works that I'll post when I get the pictures printed and put in. It was a blast, and I'm so glad I took the time to make the book before we went so now I can just slap the pictures in, journal, and be done!

In the meantime, here is my project for Regina Easter's "Bitten by the Bug" blog this week. She sent me some fantastic Cornish Heritage Farms stamps to use on this bag from the TTBM Cricut cartridge -- you've gotta check out all the amazing designs on her blog this week, plus there's a link to Cornish Heritage and a cool contest they're sponsoring. It's http://www.regina-bittenbythebug.com.

I've been busy!

I've been working on several different projects at once over the past couple weeks (translated, that means: my office is a complete disaster area). But at least I've got some fun things to show for it!

This project was a new one for me -- a local store was having a charity auction of decorated paper lanterns, and I made this one to contribute. It started out black, but I just wasn't feeling it, so I decided to go with a Thanksgiving-type theme. I painted it green, painted on the flourishes, and added flowers (cut with my Cricut) and ribbon. I then made these thank you cards to go with it -- I thought they'd make a nice card for Thanksgiving.





These next few layouts are my most recent forays into digi-scrapping. They're for the books I make for my mom and MIL (I'm supposed to do a layout every month, but I keep getting behind!).





This one is my November layout for my weight-loss album. I love this 6x6 album -- I get to use all my fun digi-kits and they're quick to put together! This totally fab free kit is from Shabby Princess -- see link at left!



Next, here are a bunch of cards I made experimenting with my new Cricut Colors pens. They are pens that fit into the Cricut instead the blade, so you can draw the images instead of cutting them out:







And last but not least (thanks if you've hung in this long!), here are a couple of layouts I finally did! I've been working on cards and gifts so much I haven't had a chanch to do any layouts for quite a while.

This one is my cute boys playing together -- I LOVE this pic!

OUT FOR PUBLICATION

And here is me and my cute hubby, out on the town in Seattle! This one was for a BBTB challenge, to use the & from George. See the other really cool projects at http://regina-bittenbythebug.blogspot.com.






TFL!