I won!

I’ve been having a bunch of fun these past couple of weeks playing along at The Paper Variety blog. And this week I won their (random) weekly prize for entering the inspiration challenge with my friend card. It was a $50 gift certificate to Crop Chocolate. I’ve peeked into Crop Chocolate a few times but never decided to order anything. Well, now I will give them a try and let you all know how it goes.

In the meantime, you should go over and check out The Paper Variety blog. It is a cozy place. And you just might win something too!

Make something yummy challenge

As I’ve said before I have a plan for prettying up my scrap space. For a long time I have had a sketch on my cork board of my “Creative Cafe” complete with awning, welcome sign and menu plaque. In keeping with the food theme I created a pink cake box and placed it on an actual bakers rack that holds my printers & some supplies. I didn’t post a picture of the box because it didn’t turn out well. But what I do have a photo for you of are these yummy cupcakes…

I created these both to fit with my new room theme and to enter the Make Something Yummy challenge over at My Pink Stamper. To create the cupcake wrapper I used a pattern that was in the Jan/Feb ’11 issue of Paper Crafts Magazine (and available for download here). I then ran the wrapper through my paper crimper, starting from the middle and doing each side separately. This helps the crimping to stay as straight as it can be. I used my Cricut to cut a 4″ circle and fringed the entire edge of the circle in about 1″. Adding a line of adhesive from my ATG gun all around the fringe, and across the entire surface, I then maneuvered the circle to fit inside the top of the wrapper. This gave me a solid base to adhere my ribbon to. I twisted and folded my ribbon as I wound it around the cupcake to create fluffy icing. I topped it off with a rich pink button threaded with green twine for that sweet cherry on top.

So go whip up some of your own crafty cupcakes. Enjoy!

2 challenge projects

I worked on two blog challenges today, My Pink Stamper’s birthday challenge and The Paper Variety’s friendship challenge. Both of the cards I made will be going into my donation pile. You can read about who I am currently donating to on this previous blog post.

Let’s start with The Paper Variety. They gave us this quote to use as inspiration to craft a project.

I went with a general friendship theme to make this card…

Recipe
Cardstock: Paper Accents
watercolor paper: Strathford
watercolor pencils, hemp thread, blender pens: Stampin’ Up
marker: Marvy
die cut: Cricut
other: computer printing, thread

And now on to My Pink Stamper. Robyn celebrated her birthday this past Monday and is offering two Cricut Cartridges as prizes for entering her birthday challenge. Just make anything with a birthday theme. So I made this card…

Recipe:
cardstock: The Paper Company
die cut: Cricut (pennants from Give a Hoot)
white pen: Signo
watercolor pencils, blender pen: Stampin’ Up

Up-cycling

I never intended to upcycle my daughter’s birthday party decorations, but that is just what I did! I had been wondering what I would do with all the decorations. I love making decorations but I hate just plopping then in the recycle bin when the party is over. It feels like a waste to me. When my husband saved the jellyfish from the party cups and stuck then to a kitchen cabinet temporarily I stared and stared at them. I was thinking about what to do with them. That urge to just recycle them was strong. But then a lightbulb came on. I can use them on the thank you cards! It seem so obvious now. Well I’m glad I had the idea before I actually tossed them. Time saved, money saved and a new idea in my tool box for next time.

I had to make one change to the jellyfish. Each one had a party attendants name on it. I just drew black squiggles over the name to hide it. Worked out okay I think. Here is how they turned out…

Recipe
carstock: Stampin’ Up, Wausau
border punch: EK Success
stamp, ink: Stampin’ Up
marker: Marvy

Sketch Challenge

Hello everyone,

I recently found out about a blog called The Paper Variety which hosts weekly sketch challenges and offers prizes. Their about page says they offer Prompts, Projects and Products. A new challenge is posted on Wednesday and the submission is due by the following Tuesday. There are a few rules about submissions, but they really aren’t a big deal. The “big” rule is that it must contain paper!

Currently, it looks like a quite blog– a personal feeling blog– which is really what I am looking for. I’ve struggled with online scrap communities because I tend to feel lost in the crowd. In spreading the word about this site I’m sure it will increase traffic, which is good for their viability. That will make their community grow but I hope it doesn’t grow to be so big that it will lose it’s personal feel. Right now, I’m hoping to use this blog to have some fun and get to know some other scrappers. You might check it out too and see if it is something for you.

On to this week’s sketch challenge…

Sketch challenge

And here is my submission. This is my youngest daughter’s calendar layout for the month of December…

Recipe:
pattern paper: DCWV
cardstock, mulburry paper: Stampin’ Up
die cuts: Cricut (Storybook, Plantin Schoolbook & Heritage)
marker: Marvy
alpha: American Crafts, Cosmo Cricket

Now go cook up your own crafty soup using this sketch!

MPS Blog Hop & Challenge

Robyn over at My Pink Stamper hosted her first blog hop last week. The goal was to follow the hop, gather the clues and then post a project based on the clues to her blog. You can check it out by starting at her blog hop post and follow the first link!

It took me a while to get to my project. I decided to use the work that I am doing for my daughter’s 4th birthday. She wants a Spongebob birthday so that is what we’ve been working on. We are transforming the garage into Spongebob land, complete with flower-power background, Seanut Butter and Jellyfish Jam to snack on and other lovely decorations & games. I used my Cricut to make the transformation!

Decisions, decisions

February is looking like a choice filled month in my craft life. I’ve come across at least 4 events for February that have caught my attention.

Big Picture Classes: Embrace Imperfection by Karen Grunberg. Free. I’ve told you all that I already signed up for this one.
Big Picture Classes: Creative Retreat by May Flaum. $25. I just signed up for this one.
Big Picture Classes: Got Paint? by Emily Falconbridge. $25. I have so been wanting to play with more paint. But with what I already have on my plate for February I’m not going to sign up for this one just yet. If I’m feeling energetic by the time the class starts (toward the end of February) then I will likely give it a go.
Layout A Day by Lain Ehmann. I’ve done this one-layout-per-day challenge once before. It was challenging and rewarding all at the same time. I would like to do it again but I’m not sure February is the right month for me this time.

So check out all of these events and see if any of them are right for you. And just so you know, if you visit the Paperclipping website, they currently have a 10% off coupon for BPC classes!

November layouts

Here are my kids’ pages for November in their scrap calendars…

I kept my son’s page super simple. The only thing new I tried on this layout was to do my typed journaling in a circle. I don’t think my copy of Photoshop Elemets 6 allows me to type text on a path. So I just did it manually. If you know of another way to do text in shapes then let me know!

I had fun with this wintry layout. I pulled TONS of snowflake goodies from my stash. There was no way I could use all of that I pulled so I narrowed it down to a few items and went with that. Some of my elements such as the sparkly “ICE” in the title and some vellum snowflakes didn’t photograph well. As I re-do my scrap room I’m going to try and incorporate a photo station so that I can get better pictures of my work. Since I know nothing about lighting it will be a challenge for me!

And last is this layout. Sigh. I don’t like this layout. I wasn’t feeling inspired at all in the beginning. I just slapped down some cardstock and pulled out my markers to add some pizzazz. Didn’t work. Then as I was debating my title I ran into this geometric pattern paper from Scenic Route. It was perfect for making a Lego-like title! Too bad I found it at the very end. Since I don’t believe in going back and reworking pages, I just threw my title onto the already formed page and moved on. I will create something else more eye-pleasing later. Don’t kick yourself for making something less than beautiful. Chalk it up to learning and move on!

Crafting with my son

My son was part of a Lego Robotics team under the parent organization First Lego League. His team won 3rd place in the local qualifying tournament with the opportunity to advance to the state tournament. We went to state this past Saturday. At the tournament, FLL was celbrating its 20th year and the state organization, ORTOP was celebrating its 10th anniversary. They asked the kids to make some kind of celebratory hat for the occasion. After starting one type of hat, my son changes his mind and wanted to make a birthday cake hat. So we pulled out the Gypsy and Cricut and he designed this festive hat. Hope you enjoy.

Recipe

cardstock: DCWV sticky back 12×24 pad, Stampin’ Up, stash
die cuts: Cricut (Plantin Schoolbook and A Child’s Year)
ink: Stampin’ Up

New-to-me Cricut shop

My daughter wants a Sponge Bob birthday party for her fourth birthday. So I sat debating whether or not I wanted to buy a Sponge Bob Circut cartridge to decorate up the house for the party. I looked around to see what deals I could find. And at the cheapest — $40 I decided to skip it. Then that evening I came across a blog announcing a Cricut cartridge sale at CricutMachine.com. I’ve never shopped there so I didn’t know what to expect. The cartridges were $16.95 apiece on sale and they had all of the ones on my wish list on sale too. So I ordered Sponge Bob (and a few others). I placed my order on the 4th and it arrived on the 11th. So that was 7 days (only 5 business days). I was happy with shipping speed, happy with cartridge prices and happy with shipping cost. All in all I will recommend this shop and plan on heading there first for my next Cricut purchase.

(P.S. Rumor has it that this shop and one or two others are actually run by Provo Craft and operate on Ebay under yet other names. With the prices they have on cartridges I can’t imagine a separate business being able to pull a profit. After doing a little research, I’ve seen the “they definitely are Provo Craft” and “they definitely are NOT Provo Craft.” So, who knows.)