Organizing My Thoughts in 2013

On Pinterest I came across  a journal comprised of index cards.  There were 365 cards tucked into a bowl. Each day a person is encouraged to write one sentence about their day. The bowl with index cards was cute and I love the idea of journaling a simple sentence every day.  However, knowing me...I need to have my cards bound together. Plus, I want them to be reflective of me.  I wanted something that screamed, "Nacole made me!"  My sister and I headed over to Walgreens. They had the little Five Star Notebooks on sale, buy one, get one free for $2.87.  I looked at index card books, but they didn't quite have enough cards.  I decided this notebook would be ideal. Here is what I started with, a black little notebook.

This project was perfect because it happened to fit in with the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Get Organized Crawl! I started by designing the cover. I had some paper that I fell in love with and purchased on a whim a few months ago.  I didn't know at the time what I would use it for, but this project was the perfect use! The paper is from Simple Stories and is part of their Documented line. As I pieced the cover together, I added some ink to distress, a strip of brown rib, a gear to look like a flower, and of course used my Cricut to cut out tabs, letters, and numbers. The tabs are from the Elegant Edges Cartridge and the letters and numbers are from the Plantin Schoolbook Cartridge.  On the letters I did a shadow to match the tabs and topped with the letters I cut out in chocolate.

After the cover was done, I decided to add just a little more to the covers. This is the inside cover!

This is the back cover. See that last tab? It has a hidden surprise!

I added a secret pocket! You know, for those fortunes out of fortune cookies, special photos, clippings, etc. that sum up that year! I tucked a silly little card in to the pocket so you could see it.

This is how the tabs turned out. I staggered the tabs and the numbers.  Finally, I updated the first three days of January.  My biggest challenge? Just writing a single sentence about the day. I am a very verbacious person, so one sentence is a bit tricky. I planned to use a half of each side of the page per day.  I'm glad I did, because I have been filling up my space! 

This was a fun project and I'm so excited to have a fun way to organize my daily thoughts in 2013!

51 years of bliss

I whipped up this 51st Wedding Anniversary card for some friends of ours. They our ranch neighbors and the Everyday Paper Dolls just fit so well with the Alphalicious numbers. The heart is probably from George and Basic Shapes.  The paisley background was just the finishing touch to this bride and groom!

Hoot Hoot for the Graduates!

This Memorial Day weekend we are celebrating a couple of graduates that we know! This week I decided to make a couple of cards.  One card is for a male graduate and the other is for a female graduate.  I have been able to use more of my scraps lately, because they are all nicely organized by color. Eventually, I may have to post a few pictures of my new craft room, but that will be another post.  For today we will talk about my Hoot Hoot Graduation Cards. To make them I used two different cartridges: Just Because Cards and Everyday Paper Dolls. I cut out the owl from Just Because Cards and the graduation cap and tassle from Everyday Paper Dolls. I used some designer series paper on each card to add a little oomph, some ribbon or twine for texture, and Stickles to make the graduation caps extra special.  I also glossed up the owl's beak and used my Tim Holtz distress pads to give my owls some character.  I think the cards turned out to be a ....hoot! Okay, I couldn't resist that one.  These cards are also being used for the CAS-ual Friday challenge for a masculine card using designer series paper and the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge asking for a "You Did It!" card.  Be sure to click on their links and check out their awesome challenges!

Hula Time

The weather is warm here in Colorado and all I want to do is go find a spot of sand to wiggle my toes in! Good thing I have a comfortable new craft room, a challenge, and a beach themed cartridge to play with. Fantabulous Cricut's challenge this week was around the theme of dance.  I looked at my cartridges and right away thought of Life's A Beach! I was so excited to see a cute little Hula girl.  I cut her out, added Stickles, Glossy Accents, some pink chalk for cheeks, and popped her up on a pink oval that I distressed with some pink ink.  I thought the lime green floral print made a nice background, so mounted that on a peach cardstock.  Finally, whenever we have visited Hawaii, there are flowers abundant. So, I added a couple bright pink ones to remind me of the tropics!

Itty Bitty Love

This is a quick 3x3 card, all made on the Cricut for the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge this week. Used Just Because Cards for the base and Create a Critter for the cute heart and sentiment.  Popped each layer up with pop dots and added some Stickles. Used my hearts Cuddle bug folder to add some embossing to the background.  Short and sweet and full of love!

Odds and Ends with Bags, Tags, and Boxes

This week at work a co-worker pointed out a cute box in a magazine.  We got to talking and I remembered that I had the Bags, Tags, and Boxes Cricut Cartridge. I wanted to see how big of a box I could make sometime during my vacation.  Fast forward a couple days and I needed to wrap a gift card.  I decided to make my own box using the cartridge.  After looking at various boxes, I decided on the crayon box.  I had some heavy green metallic card stock, some green trees I had stamped using Tim Holtz distress inks on water color paper with a few flicks of water, and a piece of ribbon from Bath and Body Works when they gift wrapped something for me last year.  I dug through my scrap drawer and found some red and white scraps of paper.  I cut out my box at 8 3/4 inch.  I used some adhesive to put it together, wrapped the ribbon around the box and framed my stamped image of an evergreen tree.  I popped my tree up with some foam adhesive. I was happy this turned out to be fairly masculine, because the gift card is for a male.

I also knew that at Fantabulous Cricut they issued a challenge to trim with a tag in this week's project.  I used some of the same green cardstock to cut out a tag on my Cricut.  I trimmed the bottom of the tag and rounded the edges with a corner rounder from Stampin' Up! Next, I used some scrap paper and some seasonal Tim Holtz ink to stamp my message on my tag.  I added a little green gem to the corner of the stamped image.  I finished the tag off with my coordinating ribbon. Voila, a gift box and tag!

Give Thanks

I bought some fun BoBunny paper at Artsy and whipped up this fun little wall hanging.  I simply cut around various leaves and patterns, stacked em up, and used foam adhesive to attach.  I cut out the Give Thanks part on my Cricut using the Cindi Loo cartridge. I loved that the word "Thanks" was already together.  To finish off the whole piece, I added some Stickles in Diamond to the dragonfly and a sheer brown ribbon tied with a bow.  Quick, cute, fun, and festive!  Works out great for this week's challenge on Fantabulous Cricut where we are sharing our blessings using the colors red, brown, and orange.

The Birthday Tri-fold-a

Okay, hope you love seeing birthday cards! This week the challenge at Fantabulous Cricut is Birthday Bash...make a birthday card.  I was also checking around and found the challenge at CAS-ual Fridays promoting embossing! Fortunately, I needed to make a birthday card for my dear Father-in-law who has a birthday in 8 days! One of my on-going issues with cards is to make more cards that are masculine. I am great at ribbons, glitter, bows, and all things feminine.  I had also been itching to make a tri-fold card.  When I looked in my paper stash, I immediately saw lots of black and white.  I decided to accent with red.  The paper I used is all from my scrap bucket or DCWV.  The buttons are from a random assortment I keep on hand sorted by color. I used the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug Folder to emboss my white card stock.  I used my Cricut to cut out the red panels.  The cartridge I chose was Just Because Cards.  I used stamps from Stampin' Up! Birthday Whimsy on the red panels. Finally, I used yellow Stickles on my candle and some rhinestones on my birthday gift...all birthday wrap has some short of shine, doesn't it? I have a picture pre-fold and post-fold for you viewing pleasure. :-)

Cake please, with a cherry on top!

Fantabulous Cricut's weekly challenge asked for a cupcake or other sweet treat.  This works out perfectly since we have lots of August birthdays in our family.  I knew my Stretch Your Imagination cartridge had a cake card, I played around with that for a little bit before scratching the project and starting over.  I decided I just wanted to make a cake and not do a window card.  I started rifling through my cartridges and came across one I haven't used very much at all.  I decided to give Just Because Cards a shot.  I found a cute little cake, fun card shape, fun border, and went to work cutting.  I had some more recently purchased paper from Artsy that I hadn't been just waiting for the perfect card to make.  I decided this was my chance.  When I got all done cutting out my cake, cherry, card, border, I didn't want to just put my cake on the card.  It needed a pedestal! Fortunately, the From My Kitchen cartridge had a cake on a pedestal.  I measured the size of my cake and cut out a cake on pedestal from the cartridge.  Then, I just snipped off the cake on the pedestal and replaced it with the cake I created.  I wanted some dimension on the card, so popped the border up with foam tape and popped up the cake pedestal and stand.  I still needed a little "oomph" for my card.  I used one of the giant sized jewels from Jolee's (also purchased at Artsy) to bedazzle my pedestal.  Then I used red Stickles on my cherry to give it a roundness that popped off the paper.  Finally, I added a thin grossgrain ribbon to the side.  The bow sort of reminded me of opening a fragile birthday gift with something fancy inside! Anyway, with just hours to spare, this is my card for this week's challenge!

This cake's for you!

Time to make a birthday card!  I used the From My Kitchen Cricut Cartridge to create this slice of cake.  I wanted it to look like a slice of German chocolate cake, so chose a lighter brown paper and a chocolate brown for the middle.  I used the Sizzix Big Shot to cut out and emboss the white paper in the background that says, "Happy Birthday!" I used a scrap of blue paper with brown little flowers to pick up the chocolate in the cake and the blue in the brightly colored, patterned card stock.  I popped the cake up with foam tape to give it some dimension.  To tie it all together, I used a sheer ribbon at the top. Ta-da a cute little birthday card!

More fun with Create a Critter

This shape card was inspired by a friend who has an alligator collection.  Her birthday was coming up and I knew I wanted to make her a special card.  I used my Cricut Create a Critter Cartridge to cut out all of the layers of the alligator and an additional background layer.  The additional background layer became the card base to write on.  I used foam tape to really make the layers pop! She was amazed at all the layers and just kept looking at the card.  I also distressed as much as possible to try to tone down the bright green coloring and make it a little more alligator like. I ran a few of the layers through my Big Shot to add some texture.  I moved it from a layered alligator to a card by using the additional back layer and brad.  I hid the brad behind one of the ridges on the back. It was a fun little project to put together!

This card is DinoMite!

I have to admit when I think of purple dinosaurs, I think of Barney.  So, I wanted to be really careful with how I designed this loveable dinosaur.  Living in Colorado, everyone knows another purple dinosaur...Digger! In case you don't know, Digger is the mascot for the Colorado Rockies.  Slightly more masculine than Barney, I decided I could get away with a big purple dinosaur. 

Trying to use up some scrap paper, I chose a purple gingham print for the background. I used foam tape to layer my dinosaur that I cut out from Create a Critter on my Cricut cartridge. I ran one of the layers of the dinosaur through my Big Shot and a Cuddle Bug folder. I like that it gave the skin a little texture! I went around the edges with some ink to distress and added purple stickles to dress up the card.  I also used a light green cardstock to mount the dinosaur on, so he didn't just blend in to all the purple paper.  On the light green paper, I ran it through the Big Shot with a nesting set I had.  That created a natural frame.  I think the card turned out really well.  I gave it away for Father's Day and wrote, "I hope you have a dino-mite father's day!"  Lots of fun and it brought a big smile to the face of a special dad.

Hip Hip Hooray

I have been crazy busy with work and only had small amounts of time to make cards in the past year.  I have in those small moments found time to make some fun cards. I also just finished my Master's degree and realized I might have time again in my life to do some of the things I love, like take pictures and make cards!  I even spent some time in my craft room cleaning the other day! Anyway, enough with the chit chat, here is a sweet little card I made.

I used my Cricut and the Create a Critter Cartridge to cut out the Hip Hip Hooray and the Hippo.  Rather than keep a plain old "o" I added a flower with a teal bling in the middle.  I also used foam tape between every single layer of the hippo, which made it really stand out and added some life to this little critter.  What I love about this card is that it has endless possibilities! I gave it to my niece for her first birthday and wrote, "Hip, hip hooray it's your first birthday today!"  Really, you can hip, hip hooray anything.

Christmas in July

I have to be honest, I have not started to think about Christmas quite yet.  However, the fabulous folks at Fantabulous Cricut have! This week was a Christmas in July Challenge.  I spent a few days thinking about what I wanted to do. Instead of doing my normal cards, I decided it was time for a creation.  I always get stuck at the holidays when someone I never would have expected gives me a random gift.  I try to keep a few extra items wrapped and ready to return the joy.  Since handmade gifts are always fun to give and very heartwarming, I made a little package for some gingersnap cookies.  Again, I used all scraps from my scrap drawer.  I embossed the green card stock with the swiss dots Cuddlebug folder, used a piece of DCWV glitter card stock, and found some coordinating ribbon.  I cut the reindeer our using the Doodle Charms cartridge.  I distressed the edges of the nose with red, the brown with dark brown, and the antlers with an almond color.  I added some red Stickles to the nose, googly eyes, and a coordinating bow.  I also used some snowflakes cut out from the same cartridge and brushed on white Stickles to match the glitter card stock. I finished the whole thing off with some bling!

Going Green

This week Jitterbuggin' focuses on pastels for their challenge.  I don't use pastels very often, so it really was fun to go through my paper and think about what colors I wanted to use.  In addition the recipe for the challenge called for the use of their sketch, a button and a Cricut cut sentiment. 

I decided to go with a light green and create a thank you card.  I cut the flower out in six different sizes using my Design Studio software and Walk In My Garden cartridge.   After they were cut out I embossed them with various Cuddlebug folders.  I distressed the edges with light green ink and add a button to the center.  I have to say, I LOVE buttons.  I have mine all sorted out my color and I have so much fun "shopping" for just the right one!  I used a Fiskars border punch to cut out some coordinating green paper that was distressed with just a hint of pastel blue ink.  I added a shear ribbon and some gems to create my "lines" in the sketch. I stamped the white card with some great swirls and distressed the edges of the card with light green ink. Finally, I added my sentiment to the bottom, cut out from the George and Basic Shapes cartridge. There you have it, a pastel green card with a button in the middle and "thanks" written below.

Cheers to a Challenge!

The Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog threw down a "cool yummy treat with optional shape card" challenge this week!  I love all things cool and yummy, I think.  So I debated which treat would be made into a card.  I literally called on the skills I learned back in maybe 2nd grade, the skill of brainstorming.  I sat and wrote down every cool yummy treat I could think of.  On a couple of them I had mini brainstorms underneath. Ultimately, the margarita seemed like the perfect adult cool and yummy treat to drink, er I mean create!  Now came the challenge of finding a margarita glass on my Cricut cartridges.  On the Cuttin' Up cartridge there is a martini glass and font set.  I cleverly used my Design Studio software to mold the martini glass into a funky deco style margarita glass shaped card! The olive that gets cut out along with the "martini" glass had the toothpick cut off and became a lime.  I obviously cut the card on white card stock.  I used a scrapbooking plastic to trace out the "glass".  In between the glass and card is some DCWV green glitter card stock or margarita mix.  The ice cubes I picked up at Archiver's.  They are actually Crystal Stickers Mosaic 10mm in white.  Although, I think they have such a pretty shimmer to them, just like rock candy!  I salted the rim of the glass with Stickles in Star Dust. Since the lime was originally white, I tinted it green with some color box pigment.  I added my lines and used Stickles in Green to make the peel. Since the lime needed a seed, I used a tiny green gem in the center. Just a cut and it slipped right on to the rim of the glass. Now every good host has some way to mark who gets what glass.  I experimented with metal rings and such, but those were too bulky and just sort of threw the delicate card off.  The shimmery sheer ribbon seemed like a perfect fit.  When I entertain I really do wrap stuff up with ribbon.  For example, I think napkins with the necessary utensils rolled up inside look so cute in a basket with matching ribbon on the handle and ribbon around the utensil roll!  So, at my house it is not one bit odd that I might have bits of ribbon tied around the bottom of a margarita or wine glass to mark who gets which glass! Finally, what cool yummy treat with alcohol doesn't have an umbrella?! I just had to slip it in between the layer of card stock and my margarita mix.  There you have it, a calorie free, alcohol free, cool, yummy, summer treat. Cheers!

Simple Stationary Set

A few weeks ago I was working in a single set of colors, see back a few posts, anyway one of those creations was this simple stationary set.  There are four of each card.  I used my Design Studio Software and Cindy Loo Cricut Cartridge to design the entire project.  The paper is from the DCWV Spring Pack from 2009.    I added a little bling where there was a circle on the letter "n".  I also distressed the edges of the "n" to make it stand out.  The blue "n" has a light blue distressing around the edges and is very soft.  The red "n" in contrast has charcoal black and really stands out.  I will wrap these with a sheer ribbon and give to my sister for her birthday I think. 
 
In other exciting card making news, I got some new markers this evening and made a trip to Archiver's! I am excited to play with my new toys!  I am thrilled to have new markers for inspiration!  I just realized I bought red and blue as two of my colors, I must be on a red and blue kick! Watch for new goodies inspired projects soon!

Buzzing Around the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge

Fantabulous Cricut has a challenge every Monday. This week's challenge was to make a project using any type of bug and the color orange somewhere in your project. Of course it needs to have something from your Cricut in the project. I decided to make a card. I used the Walk in My Garden cartridge and my Design Studio software to create a bumble bee card. I cut the card out in orange cardstock and the accents in black cardstock. I used black, orange, and clear Stickles to highlight the edges and wings. I used a soft pink gel pen to draw on a little smile, after all, the card says, "Be Happy". I used a couple of googly eyes to really bring the bee to life. Finally, I added some texture with a girly bow made out of a sheer ribbon. This card is buzzing with charm!

Murder Mystery Invitations

We hosted a murder mystery dinner! I wanted a quick and really simple card to drop in the mail.  Since I was low on time, I needed to keep it pretty simple. I used Doodle Charms to cut out some polka dot witch hats, cut a ribbon for the brim and added a button.  I distressed the edges with black ink and used Swiss Dots from Cuddlebug to add some texture. The orange and black polka dot paper was in my scrap pile and I had just enough to do all of the invites.  Easy, quick, fun, and festive!

Sweet Baby Girl Card on a Budget

This card was created on a budget! Everything on it can be purchased from the Dollar Tree! Obviously, I used the Cricut and New Arrival cartridge.  I don't think anything from Provocraft can be purchased from the dollar store, but the materials to put through your Cricut can!