Birthday Card - Card for my Uncle

This is the card that I made for my Uncle Rick...he is also my Godfather. I struggle with masculine cards. I decided to go very simple...but I really love this. I made this word in my Gypsy using Gypsy Wanderings Font. I welded the letters together and then welded the shadow letters together. I absolutely love how this font turned out. It is so awesome. My uncle loves greens...so I went with that. I got this wide ribbon at Wal-Mart. I wanted the Uncle in the brighter green with the white shadow so it really would stand out. I cut the green layer 4 times and the white shadow once. I wanted the Uncle to be really raised up off the shadow so 4 layers certainly does that. Then I used pop dots to raise the whole word. I am going to be making many more cards like these for various men in time for my next craft sale, whenever that will be. My uncle loved it so that was what really mattered to me. Less than a year and a half ago he was almost killed in a near fatal car accident in which he survived and also was truly lucky. I am so thankful he is okay and still here with us. Hope you enjoy his card.

Blog Make Over and Sign!!!

As I am sure you have noticed I gave myself a BLOG MAKE OVER!!!

I have been wanting to do this for a while, because my blog has changed so much since I started it in May. In May I was totally hooked on quilling and I didn't even have a Cricut, and while I still like to do quilling, this blog has become more of a Cricut blog...so I needed a new design that reflected that. I decided to tackle this myself and kill two birds with one stone. I wanted to make a sign that I can hang in my new craft space, and I wanted it to match my blog design.

So this is the awesome sign I made. It is 6x11.6. I love how it turned out. I love the purple tree. This has all the colors I love, but also has my favorite color purple. That is my very favorite tree and I love turtles. So this is very much ME.

Making it was the easy part. Getting good enough pictures of it to use for a blog graphics was harder. I had to do a lot of playing around with it to get this one which I liked the best for the main header picture. Then I had to change around the blog colors to match it. I love how that turned out.

Then I had to make brand new blog buttons. I am so SUPER happy with my blog button which you can grab from my sidebar. I just love how it turned out and it is so stinking pretty. If you want to display my button on your blog that would be great! Just grab it. I made buttons just like it for my Designers and Guest Designers on my challenges and they turned out just as cute. I still can't believe that I made that button.

Hope you enjoy the new look. I am really loving it and excited about it. The next time I need business cards printed I will giving my printer the button image to put that on one side of my card. My current cards matched my old blog design.

I also simplified a few things. I took the Etsy shop off my side bar and am simply linking it at the top under the Purchase Tab. I don't think I was getting much business from this blog anyone since my visitors are fellow crafters, most of that has come from the Etsy site. I also put a drop down menu for my labels/categories. It really cleans up the side bar. I did the same with my blog archive. With about 500 posts now and at least 30-50 per month usually that gets very cluttered.

I added a new Q&A page at the top in my row of pages...just a common place where anyone can post questions they might have and it will be easier for me to answer them since my posts tend to get buried fast.

Oh yes, and on my main page now there will only display my most recent 8 posts...so to see more click older. I think my blog was loading too slowly because of how much was on it and it was frustrating.

What else...yes my new craft space is pretty much done. So look out for the video tour this week!

Let me know your feedback on my new design. Hope you enjoy!

Birthday Card - Card for my Sister for her 21st Birthday

This is the birthday card that I made for my sister. She is turning 21 this month! She is almost 13 years younger than me. I wanted something special for a special birthday. I took my inspiration from her college room. She has this really pretty black and white flower comforter and her colors are the green and pink. So I took black paper and used my Versamark and then white embossing powder and stamped this pattern onto the paper. I used my heat gun and it turned out amazing. I did several pieces of it. I made the card into a 5.5x5.5 gate fold card. It is nice and thick and colorful. I kept the front very simple with a scallop circle. I stamped the 21. And I only used the little flowers for some accent. I wanted the paper I used to stand out the most. Inside I left plenty of room to write a nice note to her. She really loved her card I think! Hope you enjoy too!

Challenge Number 1 - Anything but a Card

Welcome to the FIRST Challenge!!!

Every other Saturday for 2011 there will be a challenge right here on my blog, posted at 7 am! My Designers and Guest Designer will also have their post scheduled for 7 am EST. I have a variety of challenge themes lined up and you will be able to gain inspiration from 5 talented ladies each week.

There will be a prize once per month, so if you participate in both challenges you will have two chances to win. So let's get started.

This week's challenge was to make anything but a card. Let's see what the Designers did!

First up is Paula and she made a really adorable layout!!!

Next is Denise with this amazing basket of paper flowers!!!

This adorable project comes from Darlene, and it is the prettiest little bag ever!!!

These adorable money jars are brought to you from Savhanna and they are such a great idea!!!

And this week our Guest Designer is Sarah, and she made such a cute frame!!!

All of our Designers did a fabulous job, and were very creative!!! Be sure to click right over to their blogs and read more about their projects and leave them some comment love. I think they deserve it!

And now you can participate too.

You have until Jan 24th at 7pm EST to submit your project using the Linky below.

You must make anything but a card.

You must have a blog to participate. You will link ONLY the post that has your actual challenge to the Linky below, please don't just link to your blog main page. I need to be able to easily find your project.

You must link my challenge/blog in your post.

You must also leave a comment on this post with your email address as well as which number you are on the Mr. Linky.

Only USA addresses are accepted for the prize.

Please follow all directions listed here if you want to be considered for the grand monthly prize.

And most importantly, have fun!

This month's prize will be the CHOICE OF ONE of the Cricut Cartridges shown here:

Happy Crafting, hope you enjoy this challenge!

NOTE, This challenge has ENDED. Thank you to all who participated! Number 18 is the last one that will be counted.

Valentines's Day Card - Two Hearts

This card turned out amazing. I just love it and the funny thing is it was so simple The borders are from a Martha Stewart Punch. I cut a black strip to go down the center but I popped up the whole black strip which I adhered the two red hearts and the matted sentiment to. So simple yet it really just pops to me. Hope you enjoy.

Key Chain - Birdhouse

Here is another simple and pretty key chain I made using this birdhouse from Create a Critter. I used a lot of gems to bling it up and make it prettier! My aunt bought this one right up. LOL. I think these are going to move faster than I can make them. I am selling them for 2 bucks! Hope you enjoy!

Episode 7 - Just Because Card - Butterfly Squares

Here is a very pretty card I made on video for you all. It's a bit long, I can't believe it considering I had pre ATG'd everything, but if you want to make it go faster simply skip ahead a bit. I don't have fancy video editing techniques. Hope you all enjoy.