Happy Valentine's Day!

Hi, I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day with your Valentine...weather it was with your spouse, or just you and your kids or even just friends.  No matter who you chose to be your Valentine, I hope it was special and fun!  My family chose to stay home and just have a nice evening home.  And for us that seems to be something rare.  LOL  So as tradition, that has been passed down from my parents, my kids woke up and came down to a heart shaped box of yummy chocolates, and it did not end there. My wonderful hubby surprised me with a box of yummy chocolates and a card, and then later he had a bouquet of flowers sent to me too.  Talk about feeling special and very spoiled.  At lunch then, I made grilled cheese sandwiches, with a heart cut out of the center of the bread and replaced with another kind of bread.  Mmmm, yummy and fun!   Then at dinner time, I made a very special meal, with heart shaped homemade pizzas and dessert was Black Forrest Cakes in individual servings all served with candle light and dinner music!  LOL  They had fun and really enjoyed it all!  Wow, everyone was stuffed too!   But is in the mix of it all, I made my hubby a quick Valentine card to go with the box of chocolates I gave him.  I think we have enough chocolates to last us quite a while!  LOL  Anyways, I wanted to share the card I made for my hubby!  I think he liked it!

I Used:
Cricut Craft Room Basics Cartridge for the Heart cuts, circle cut and the scalloped circle cut
Gypsy Font Cricut Cartridge for the Letters
DCWV Glittered Stack for the large center Heart
Authentique Paper, LLC Authentique Genuine Collection
DCWV The Shimmer Stack for the smaller hearts
Love's In the Air Cuttlebug Embossing Folder
Rhinestones from Michael's
The Sentiment was computer Generated

Thanks stopping by!  I hope you have a fantastic day!

Purple Butterfly Pop Up Box Card

Hello Blog friends!  It seems that many of the birthdays in my family happen to run in bunches.  Where I will have 3 or 4 of them all at once and then nothing...then again 3 or 4.  I wish they were more spread out so that my "creative juices" would be able to continue to flow.  LOL  Well, I had no problems with  this card for my sister.  I knew exactly what I wanted to make for her.  She loves the color purple and nature.  And because she lives so far away from me, I knew I wanted to make her a pop up box card.  Since she is so far, and sending her a "exploding box", or another handmade dimensional gift is not all that practical without paying extra shipping, this was the perfect solution.  I love how it lays flat to put into the envelope and yet when you open it, it is full of "WOW"!  Such an unexpected surprise!  I hope she will enjoy it!  Plus, I received a wonderful gift/toy for my birthday a while back, that helps in aiding with sending such great types of cards...the Envelope Punch Board!  Oh my, this thing is great!  I can make my own envelopes that fit my cards perfectly.  I love that thing!  It sure came in handy for this type of card.  So now I can use up a lot of my thinner scrapbook papers for custom envelopes!  Oh how perfect!  Anyways, this card style is very easy to make, it is up to you on how complicated or detailed you want to make it.  This was a little more embellished than the last one but it still did not take very long to do. 

I used:
Me & My Big Ideas Specialty Cardstock
DCWV The Shimmer Stack
Dark Green and purple Cardstock
Potpourri Basket Cricut Cartridge for the "Ivy leaves" cut
EK Success Butterfly Punch
Stickles
Celebrate stamped Sentiment from Stampin' Up!
Happy Birthday Sentiment from my stash
Paper flowers from my stash
Glue Dots

Due to many requests of how to make this kind of card, I figured I would share the link to where I got a really great tutorial.  Very clear and simple!  Have fun! 
Pop Up Box Card Tutorial

Here is what it looks like closed!

Thanks for stopping by to see what I have been up to!

I hope you all stay warm!

May you have a wonderful day!

 

Hoppy Birthday!

My sweet little baby girl just turned 12 this week!  Where does the time go!  She is growing up way to fast, yet there are moments where I still see little glimpses of that little girl in her.  She is always ready to smile or giggle at something or with you.  I am truly blessed that God chose me to be her momma.  If you could know her, she always has some kind of insect or frog in her hand or in a jar, through out the spring/summer months.  Even last summer, she cried when one of her many caterpillars died.  Last summer we ordered a butterfly kit where we got to see the caterpillars turn into butterflies and then released them back into the wild.  That was so cool!  She really enjoyed that a lot.  Actually, I think we all enjoyed it.  She brings so much joy and adventure to our little family! So naturally, this is where my inspiration came from for her card!  It made her giggle a little, especially with the frog being on an action wobble.  When it wobbles, the goggle eyes rattle!  What fun!

I used:
Create A Critter Cricut Cartridge for the Frog
Kate's ABC's Cricut Cartridge for the Jar and grass cuts
Sweet Treats Cricut Cartridge for the party hat
Elegant Edges Cricut Cartridge for the Background cuts
The Paper Studio Persnickety paper pack
Action Wobble behind the frog
Goggle eyes from my stash
Martha Stewart Butterfly boarder punch for the butterflies
Paper flowers from my stash
"Hoppy Birthday" sentiment made using alpha bet stamp set from my stash
Stickles
Butterfly Ribbon from my stash

 

Here is what it looks like with the Action Wobble in action!  Fun!

 

Thank you for Hopping by!

I hope you have a day filled with many blessings!

A Little Bit of Summer Pop Up Box Card!

Hello dear bloggy friends!  I hope you all are staying thawed out this cold winter.  It has been unusually cold here.  I love winter, but not when the temperatures are this cold.  I would like to be able to send my kids outside to play in the snow, but with it being this cold, they can't.  Anyways, knowing that spring and summer are just around the corner, I decided to bring a little bit of that into my card making.  My sweet SIL's birthday was just here and I know she loves being outside in her flower beds and garden and I am sure she is getting antsy to be able to do that again.  So I thought I would send her a little bit of summer to warm up her birthday a little for her.  Plus, I have been enjoying seeing the "Card in a Box" technique and I decided that I wanted to try my hand at it.  If you know me, I am always trying a new card technique.  Pushing myself to try something new, is something I really enjoy doing, especially when it comes to using my papers and glue!  I love how this turned out!

I Used:
DCWV  Lemon Flower Stack
Yellow textured cardstock
DCWV Glitter Stack for the Star Cuts on my Cricut
The Daisy were stickers that were given to me years ago,from Walmart
Cupcake and "Celebrate" stamps from Hobby Lobby and hand cut out
Stickles
Rhinestones from Michael's dollar bin 
"Happy Birthday" Stamp from my stash

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Stay warm!

 

Simple Birthday Card

Hello, I hope your new year is treating you well.  I know things have been going great here.  My son is playing on his first basketball teams this year, and he is doing great!  He is actually between age groups, so he is playing on 2 teams.  So when we have games, he finishes one game and goes right into the next one.  Which leads to a very busy schedule for us all, with all the practices and games. We are all so proud of him and enjoying something new for us all.  Besides, that is kinda how my wonderful hubby and I met, 23years ago, through basketball games.  LOL 

Anyway, this card was made for my Brother in Law.  Simple but quick is what I needed, due to his birthday being right after Christmas.  And with Christmas being so CRAZY this year for me, I needed a card that was easy and quick.  And that is just what this is!

  I sure hope he liked it!

 

I used:

Red/White/Blue cardstock

Polka Dot Cuttlebug embossing folder

Stars Cuttlebug embossing folder

Ribbon from my stash

HB Stamped Sentiment from my stash(I honestly can say that I have no idea where it came from)

Stickles Blue and Silver 

 

Thank you so much for coming by

and seeing what I have been doing!

I hope you have a wonderful day filled

with lots of blessings!

Merry Christmas/Happy Thanksgiving Letter Blocks Tutorial

Well Hello again!  At Thanksgiving time I made a craft for my family.  It was Letter Blocks that were reversible for two different holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  One side said, "Happy Thanksgiving" and the other side said, "Merry Christmas".  Complete with vinyl lettering and decoupage papers in the background.  As in the previous post, I had to make about 30 of them.  Whew, it was A LOT of work and due to the layers of paints, it took a lot of time.
 
Anyways, some have asked me for more details on how to make them.  The funny thing is that as I was making these little letter blocks, I thought to myself, "I should take pictures of each stage and prepare a tutorial."  Well, in my hastiness, I failed to do so.  So I won't have pictures of it all except for the finished product.  Sorry!  So if you do use my tutorial and have a great success with it, please leave credit where credit is due. 
That would be greatly appreciated. 

 

So here is what I can give you to do them.

 

Supplies that you will need:
Blocks of wood, of your desired sizes: 
(All of the single lettered blocks were approximately all about 3/4" thick)
For the Outside blocks, I had them cut at 1 and 1/2" wide by 3 and 1/2" tall
For the smaller center blocks, I had them cut at 1 and 1/2" wide by 2 and 1/8" tall
For the base block, I had them cut at 4 and 3/4" long by 1 and 1/8" deep by 3/4" thick
Primer
Paint color of your choice (I choose black for the letter blocks and burgundy for the Base/word block)
Seasonal styled scrapbook papers (*Hint:  the smaller the print the better, so that you can see it more)
Stain of your choice of color
Vinyl, colors of your choice (I used black and White)
A way to cut or have the vinyl letters:  I used my Cricut Expression and the Cricut Winter Woodland Cartridge, for all the letters and my Gypsy to design it all on, but you could use the Cricut Craft Room to do the same. 
Decoupage, some of the block sets, were done in a matte finish and others in a glossy finish (I liked the glossy the best because I like shinny things!) 
 
Step 1: 
Cut and sand off rough edges, blocks of wood to desired sizes
 
Step 2:
Prime with a coat of primer paint
 
Step 3: 
Paint at least 2 coats of your desired paint colors for all your blocks, letting them completely dry between each coat.
(*Hint, only paint the one side and then wait for it to dry, then paint the other side/edges also, focus your best painting on the edges where they will be seen)
 
Step 4:
Sand around the edges to give them a bit of a distressed look
 
Step 5: 
Rub stain on the exposed edges to give them a darker more distressed/aged look
 
Step 6: 
Put on your desired paper on one side using the decoupage glue, then put decoupage over top of the paper to seal it down on the blocks.
 
Step 7: 
Cut and adhere your vinyl letters to each block, I just "eye balled" in trying to figure out where the center was and the perfect level for each.  You may find a better way to getting them centered.  I did not have the time/patience to do that.  Besides, it is supposed to look homemade, right?  Each letter was cut on my Cricut Expression with the Gypsy, using the Winter Woodland Cricut Cartridge, at about 3" wide, but the Larger letters were cut at about 2 and 1/2" tall and the smaller letters were cut about 1 and 1/2" tall.  The words were cut at about 1/2" tall and the length varied on the word and the "welding" that I did in the designing.  "Christmas" was cut at a length of 3 and 3/4" long and "Thanksgiving" was cut at about 4 and 1/2" long.  (*Hint:  If the vinyl seems to not want to stick to your decoupaged papers, try placing them into the position that you want them to be in, and heat them up just a little bit with a heat/embossing tool or a blow dryer and while it is still warm rub them down where you want it to stick.  It does not take a lot of heat to make them stick quickly.
 
Step 8: 
Put another coat of decoupage over top of everything, just to seal the vinyl onto the blocks.
(*Hint:  Another step that I did not have time to do that probably would help keep the blocks from sticking together, would to put a coat or two of clear coat on everything.)  I did not have the time to let all the layers completely dry/cure in between each coat, so that may have been part of the problem, too.   

 

 

I hope this little step by step tutorial is enough for you to understand and to make your own little letter set! 

 If you do have any questions,

 I will do my best to answer them. 

Thanks for stopping in and good luck!

Exploding Boxes for Cousins

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!  I know I sure did!  Mine was filled with so many little blessings and surprises.  You may have heard this a million of times, but Christmas for me, truly is more fun to give than to receive.  I believe that my children are starting to realize that too.  Especially my oldest, who this Christmas, wanted to give something to the 3 cousins that she is closest to.  They are all about the same age as her and have been there for her through out her ever changing life.  They have been her best friends and confidants.   What a joy and a blessing, as a parent, to stand back and watch the many memories that they have made together and will continue to make.  They all love the Lord, and encourage each other to do what is pleasing to Him.  Anyways, my oldest came to me a few months back and asked if I could help her make some Exploding boxes, for her to give to her cousins for Christmas.  Well, in all the craziness, we did manage to squeeze in a few days to get them done.  They turned out beautiful and I think each cousin loved them.  They were all different, and unique for each girl.  Plus, there were some special things that she put in them that were specific to them, weather it was memories, or silly little sayings that they have shared through the years. Each one beautiful, unique and special just like the cousin that received it!   This post is picture heavy!  But enjoy!

Exploding Box #1

I love the floating horse shoes!

 

Exploding Box #2

This "Secret Pocket" was more of a fun joke! 

 

 

Exploding Box #3:

 

I think the girls all really enjoyed their boxes! 

What do you think?

Thanks for stopping in and seeing what my daughter

and I have been up to!

I hope you all have a blessed New Year!