Blog Candy from Short Cuts

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Don't delay - visit them today!

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone has been having a great holiday season. I will be getting back on board with the posting soon. I have been busy as well as others with making gifts and getting ready for the season. Many good wishes to all for a great New Year.

MIA again

Hi Everyone,
I have been MIA for almost 2 months but I have been stamping and creating a lot of gifts this year. I have done three craft shows this season which has kept me busy. I have a Christmas card order I am working on right now which is taking up most of my time. I will post all my creations soon. Needless to say, the inside decorating of the house has taken a back seat but the outside looks very festive thanks to my hubby! Thats his job. Hopefully we will be getting done the rest of the decorating soon.

Have a Happy Holiday!

Happy Halloween!

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Halloween! Now that it is over and the kids have eaten their share of candy, we can all say that it was lots of fun. Every year we gather the kids together for a picture and then a parade. Then we all have a hot dog social for the kids before we go trick -or- treating. It is so much fun for them to be with their friends. Hope everyone had a good night.

Polka Dot Birthday

Here is another easy birthday card I made. I used the Cuttlebug Swiss dots folder to create the background. Next, I put some pink polka dot ribbon around the piece. I punched out a flower with my SU punch and added dots with my white gel pen. I used marker to color in the birthday stamp from SU set So Many Scallops and punched out the circle using my 1 3/8 SU circle punch. I layer all the pieces onto lovely lilac cs. Easy peasy!

Flowered Filled Birthday

So I have been wanting to use my Prisma flowers that I picked up from Michael's. I decided to make a simple birthday card. I used a light purple cs to match the flowers. I stamped "Happy Birthday" in Lovely Lilac ink with Warmest Regards SU stamp set. I embossed the white cs with my Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder. Before adhering the ribbon (from my random stash), I attached the ribbon to the white cs and then to the card. I placed the flowers, with a rhinestone brad, in the middle using glue dots. It was a quick and cute card.

Designer Clipboards

Here was a fun summertime project we did one day. My daughter had a friend over for the day and we decided to make some fun designer clipboards. It was a fast and easy project. I took some of my Provo Craft 12x12 Summertime paper and cut to fit the clipboard. We used the Mod Podge glue to adhere the paper. I used coordinating colored cardstock to separate the different pattern paper. We used the designs from the paper to make the embellishments for the clipboard. The clipboards were purchased at Walmart.

Teacher's Gift

I love making name frames for my daughter's teachers. Here is one that I made for a teacher using the SU stamp set Typeset Alphabet stamped with bold bright craft ink. The Framed stamp set was also used to highlight the M. I used some embossed papers I bought from Michael's craft store. I used my Cuttlebug Dies (Apple & Books, School House, and Globe) to embellish the outline. I used the Dies with several different colored paper to get the desired effect. The frame was a $3 one I bought at Walmart. It is a perfect gift for end of the year or a gift for Christmas time.

Thanks so much

Here is a quick and easy thank you card I made using some fun supplies. DS paper is so much fun to make quick and easy cards. I just loved this DS retired paper Flowers for You which I used with the coordinating colors of Lovely Lilac and Certainly Celery. The stamp set I used was SU retired Riveting which is easy to use. The polka dot ribbon I picked up at AC Moore which coordinates well with the color scheme I used. The Scallop circle punch is my favorite and adding dots to it with a white gel pen adds just the right touch. I bought the adhesive rhinestone brad at Walmart which adds a little bling.

Monogrammed note cards

Here is another set of monogrammed note cards that I made for teachers gifts. I could not resist the $1 Spot at Target. They have great deals. I just added a flower using one of my Marvy punches with the initial stamped using my Fiskars alphabet I bought at Joann's Craft Store. It was easy and simple plus they each received 8 cards to use. The teachers always love note cards and they were a cinch to make.

Money Gift Holders

This is one of the items in which I and the other room parent made at the end of the school year back in June. Here are some money holders which we made for the teacher aids in our children's classroom with the extra money we received from the parents. They are quick and easy using a full sheet of paper scored in thirds. the image was stamped using SU retired Riveting stamp set which I love. The image was punched out using the 1 1/4 circle punch and a silver adhesive rhinestone (found at walmart) was used in the center of the image. The flower was punched out on So Saffron paper using the scallop punch and the stitched wild wasabi ribbon added a nice touch for the stem as well as a tie to hold the paper closed.

On the inside, we layered a light pink paper on the inside with the top being a tyed thank you from the class with their names on it (not shown due to privacy issues). Certainly Celery paper was used to make the mountings for the money holders by using the slot punch at all four corners to slip the money into. Vola'! This was very cute and simple.

I'm back!

Hi Everyone! Its been a long time since I have posted anything on my blog and I apologize for that. I do not know where the time has gone. I have been busy but I have also been creating but not posting. I am going to start posting again with new creations and ideas just for you. Keep checking and I will be at it again. Thanks for sticking with me.

Lois

First Communion Thank You

Here is the last of the First Communion Card set. I started with the invitation and then some cards to send with gifts for close friends. I finally ended with thank you cards that my daughter sent with a picture of herself. If you look at the earlier postings for these sets of cards, they were made with the same elements. The embossing of the gold ink added a nice and elegant touch. I want to thank my friend Joanne B. for lending me the God is Love SU stamp set. I thought this image was perfect.

Birthday Girl

My daughter was invited to a birthday party. It was a glamour party and the girls looked so stunning with hair, makeup and evening gowns. It was a glympse of what these 4 and 5 year olds would look in years to come. Here is the very special birthday card I made using my retired SU set Pretty Princess. I just love this set. I used my Cuttle Bug D' Vine Swirls embossing folder on Pink Passion CS. I stamped the image in black ink and then colored in using SU markers. Other CS used was Lavender Lace and Yo-Yo yellow along with my corner punch and slot punch. I wrapped the ribbon around and tied to link the separate pieces together. I added Dazzling Diamonds to create a sparkle effect for the princess.

11 Step Program to Kids

My friend Joanne B. put this on her blog and I thought it was a hoot. Visit her blog and check it out.

Want some Candy?

My Sister Sammi has posted some candy to celebrate for 1000 hits on her blog. Be sure to check it out here. Congrats to Sammi!

Stay At Home Moms - Tips to get your point across

I found this on my Sister Lisa's blog and thought I had to share. Thanks for the tip...

A man came home from work and found his three children outside,

still in theirpyjamas,

playing in the mud,

with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn allaround the front yard.

The door of his wife's car was open,

as was the front door to the house andthere was no sign of the dog.

Proceeding into the entry,

he found an evenbigger mess.

A lamp had been knocked over,

and the throw rug was waddedagainst one wall.

In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel,

and the familyroom was strewn with toys and various items of clothing.

In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink,

breakfast food was spilled on thecounter,

the fridge door was open wide,

dog food was spilled on the floor,

a broken glass lay under the table,

and a small pile of sand wasspread by the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs,

stepping over toys and more piles of clothes,

looking for his wife.

He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened.

He was met with a small trickle of water as he made his way out the bathroomdoor.

As he peered inside he found wet towels,

scummy soap and more toysstrewn over the floor.

Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste hadbeen smeared over the mirror and walls.

As he rushed to the bedroom,

he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pyjamas, reading a novel.

She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went.

He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?"

She again smiled and answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?"

"Yes," was his incredulous reply.

She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it."Send this page to another woman.

Priceless

Card Club #2 - Sweeter Than Apple Pie

I liked this card so much that I decided to CASE my own card and add another layer. I used Wild Wasabi and WW CS. I added a layer of WW under the DS Summer Picnic Paper to make the apples pop. I decided in this version that I would omit the Dazzling Diamonds (ok it is my signature to add sparkle to every card but the ink ran with the glue and made it look sloppy). You can check out the older version on 2/28/08 to see the changes.

First Communion #2

Here is another card I made for First Communion. These cards were given with a few gifts I had for a few of my daughters friends. This card used the God Is Love SU stamp set. I have two versions shown here. Both cards were stamped in Gold and then embossed. I cut the edges of the card with either the scallop or zig-zag scissors. I then used some post-it notes to line off the edges to ink them (direct to paper technique). I embossed the edges as well. In the first card, I used my scallop circle punch with my 1 1/4 circle punch to layer the cross on top to make the image pop. I am not use to doing a clean and simple card but these were appropriate for the occassion.

Happy Mother's Day!

I just wanted to wish all my stamping friends, neighbors, friends and Sisters (SBS15) a Happy Mother's Day! Hope it was relaxing and enjoyable for all!

Happy Birthday to You

I needed a birthday card and I wanted to use my cuttlebug embossing folder so I came up with this idea. I used Pink Passion, Green Galore and WW CS. I embossed the WW with my cuttlebug embossing folder Happy Birthday. I used my SU So Many Scallops stamp set with my SU markers (Pink Passion, Yo Yo Yellow and Green Galore) to color in the middle of the stamp. I added some sparkle with my Spica Glitter pen to the flames on the candles. I punched it out using my 1 3/8 circle punch. I took the Green Galore CS and punched the 1 3/8 circle and then the scallop punch around it. I used my white gel pen for the dots in the scallop. I attached the scallop over the birthday using the dimensionals. I purchased this Green Polka dot ribbon at Walmart. This was a cute card that I used for my daughter's friend.

Monochromatic Mother's Day Card

This is a card that I CASED from my friend Ann V. She is my upline at SU. She had given me a similar card that was a thank you with the same color scheme and stamp set. I just modified it with ribbon, stamped the background and used my punches to highlight the image. The card used Pale Plum, Perfect Plum and WW CS. I stamped the image with Balck ink and then watercolored in slightly using blender pen with the Pale Plum ink. I used my Mega Oval and Giga Scalloped Oval punches to highlight the image. The scallop oval was dotted using my white gel pen. Next, I used the corner rounder to round the edges on the frame. I tamped the background using Pale Plum in and Itty Bitty background SU stamp set. Lastly, I stamped the saying in Perfect Plum which I received in my new stamp set from Paper Pretties "Made with Love".

Card Club #1 - Orange You Cute

This card was CASED from a fellow Demonstrator Robin J. She came up with the layout and color scheme I just added some Dazzling Diamonds on the orange and the saying stamp. So for this card I used WW, Old Olive, Bashful Blue and Pumpkin Pie for CS. DS was the Summer Picnic paper. I used the Pumpkin Pie ink pad. For ribbon, I used the wide Old Olive Grosgrain. Its a cute card and easy to do. One could try making the orange a scratch -n- sniff element as well.

Show and Tell

Eventhough I haven't published much lately, I have been working a lot on several different projects. Here is one of them. I was asked by my daughter's teacher if I could design some Show -n-Tell boxes for her. I was given these boxes and off I went. I knew I had a doodling design book somewhere and I found it in the depths of my closet. I took some Sharpie markers and went to work with my design team (my daughters). I had my daughters choose images and colors and then I drew them. I desgned both front and back of each box with images of children and fun images of toys and such. The teachers were impressed and loved the boxes!

More Show and Tell

Here are the other boxes I made for Show and Tell. I used a book called "The 123's of Creative Doodling" by Lindsay Ostrom & Friends

First Communion Invites

This past weekend my daughter made her First Communion. She was so excited about it. I made these invitaitons for her party afterwards and invited all of her friends. She had such a great time.
These invitations were one of my clean and simple design. I simply used WW CS, trimmed the edge with my scalloped scissors. Then I took my gld ink pad and did a Direct to Paper technique along the edge and then embossed the gold with the embossing powder and heat gun. I stamped using gold ink with a $1 stamp that I bought at Michaels and a stamp from the retired Brides and Babies stamp set on the inside. Again, I embossed the images. They came out simple and elegant which is what I was looking for.

Graduation Thank You notes

This card was made to co-incide with the graduation invitations. I made this example as simple as possible. I used White CS that was trimmed on the bottom edge with the deckled scissors. Then I sponged some pink on the edge. I stamped the graduation cap (from Year After Year SU Stamp Set) in black and adorned it with a rhinestone brad. The ends of the brad were cut with pliers and then adhered with glue dots. I added the Thank You (from SU Warmest Regards stamp set) in Pink Passion. I thought this one turned out simple and cute.

Graduation Invitations

Here are the sample invitations I made for a friend. I always make several editions to give my customers some choices within the specifics which they give me. The customer definitely wanted Hot Pink so I chose CS of Pink Passion and Pixie Pink. I wanted to off set it with Basic Black CS to make it pop. I used the Graduation

stamp from the Year after Year SU stamp set. In these examples, it was stamped with basic black ink. The graduation cap was adorned with either a rhinestone brad in the center or in the second set, a self adhesive rhinestone. I added some stickles to make the tassle a little sparkley. I tried two different colors for the fonts which were typed on the computer. I had alot of fun making several versions so the customer would have lots to choose from. She was duely impressed with all the options.

Baby Shower Favors

I got permission from my friend Heather to post her baby shower favors that she made for the neighbors shower. She did an awesome job! She is a wonderful and talented person who makes amazing cards and scrapbook pages. Because we both make cards, we came up with the idea of giving a box of 10 cards to each person at the shower. We both had lots of cards that we had made and collected through swaps so we just went through them and made a stash of them.

Heather made the boxes using the following materials:

Boxes: Nashville Wraps (they are actually large jewelry boxes)
Flowers: Heidi Swapp Orange Florals - AC Moore
Stamp: Thank You stamp from Heidi Swapp - Target
Brads: American Crafts (I think it's American Crafts) Extra Large Brads
Jute: AC Moore
Paper: Bazzill Basics - Right at Home Scrapbooking

They were sucha great favor! Everyone loved them and loved the cards as well. Great job Heather!

Happy Tax Day!

Happy Tax Day! For some its a great day to file and get money back and others not so fun. I hope you have them done early so you can enjoy a day of scrapping or stamping. I try to set aside a day to stamp instead of getting up early in the morning.

Have a happy day!

Monogramed Notecards

So I am addicted to Target's Dollar Spot as some already know. So over the past many months, I have picked up some adorable notecard sets (8 for a $1) from Target hoping to make some monogrammed cards for teacher gifts. Here is a red polka dot set I picked up around Valentine's Day. I made these as a thank you gift for my daughter's CCD teacher. It was so simple to do. I merely stamped the letter using my Fiskars Script Font Acrylic Set I picked up from JoAnns Fabric store in Real Red ink. I then used my SU circle punches 1 1/4 to punch it out. I next used the 1 3/8 circle punch on the Bashful Blue and then the Scallop Circle punch with Barely Banana. They came out adorable without alot of work. I will be making more for teacher appreciation week that is coming up in May.

Baby Shower Pages

Recently a group of us joined together to host a baby shower for a neighbor. So my friend wanted to do some games. Instead of that, she came up with the idea of doing a baby prediction page where everyone signs their name and guesses boy or girl, weight and due date. She wanted it to be a scrapbook page so she enlisted me to make them. I am not a scrapbooker however these pages were easy to do. Since I always do two pages so that they match, we came up with the second page being a group photo page where everyone signs their name around the outside of the photo. I went to my favorite scrapbook store - Right At Home - to see what I could find in the brown tones since the girl who the shower was for loves brown. I used a Hot Fudge (I think that is the name) Brown Brazill paper that had a shine to it as well as Berrylicious Brazill paper. I printed the words using my computer with the Harrington font which is very dressy. I also used Scenic Route Summer/Bonnie Ave DS for the second page. To the Baby Predicitions page, I used the Jumbo Antique Brass Eyelets with the Wide Grosgrain Chocolate Ribbon and on the second page I just used the ribbon tied in knots. The final touch was to use the ticket punch for the corners to add some decorative edge. These pages were a big hit at the shower and everyone thought it was a fun idea.

Back in Town

We just got back from San Diego today. What a nice city! Although the weather was 10 degrees colder than normal it was still warmer than here. It was a Balmy 60 degrees or so. Anyway, while my husband was on business, we were enjoying the tourist things to do like visit Disneyland, Sea World and the San Diego Zoo as well as the Seaport Village. It was not warm enough to go on the beaches but it was sunny! It was a very nice and short vacation. Now back to work! I have put many things on the back burner and need to catch up. I will be posting some invitations and some scrapbook pages for a baby shower. Looking forward to creating again.

Tortoise Thank You

I think these thank yous came out so cute! Again, I used the same elements as I had used in the invitaions and made both boy and girl versions. I want to thank Amy Czuba for lending me the level 3 hostess stamp from the Older & Wiser stamp set. I just thought this tortoise stamp was the perfect stamp and very excited that I found someone who had it so I could borrow it.
This time for the card, I used Green Galore CS instead of the Brazill paper. I first stamped the thank you on the card from the Warmest Regards stamp set in black. Then, I embossed using my Cuttle Bug template Tiny Mosaics. I stamped the tortoise image in Black ink then colored in using the same colors as the invitations. I highlighted the tortoise shell spots using Crystal Effects to add some depth and then added some Stickles to the hat for some sparkle. I also used my Mega Circle and Giga Scalloped Circle punches for the tortoise and the DS paper. After I mounted the image, I used my paper piecing tool to add some detail. I am very happy at the way that they came out. I am going to do some tortoise bookmarks too at a later date.

My First Award - Arte Y Pico award

This is my first award - I am so excited! I've received the Arte Y Pico (Art & More) award from my SBS sister Emma...thanks so much...so I am going to pass it on to some others who have some great blogs!

The rules of this award are....

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity,design,interesting material,and also contributes to the blogging community,no matter what language.

2. Each award has to give the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4. Award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog,so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5. To show these rules.So I'm passing it onto...

Kathy

Lainy

Christie

I could not come up with 5 but I hope these people get this. Visit their blogs for awesome ideas.

I have been tagged!

I have been tagged by my friend Joanne B. looking for seven rando facts. Here they are:

1) In High School, I was in Dance Club.

2) In College, I majored in Bioengineering. Boy, I can't be further from that now.

3) My first date movie was in high school to see "Aleins" after eating Chinese food.

4) I love the color pink.

5) The furthest I ever traveled was to the Phillippines when I was in high school. It was definitely a culture shock as to what they considered upper class in comparison to the US. It was a great learning experience and trip.

6)I am an advid volunteer for both of my daughter's classes and schools.

7)I am a Brownie Girl Scout Leader for my daughter's troop.

I am going to tag some of my SBS 15 Sisters: Monica, Yesy, Emma and Nany. Be sure to check their sites for some great stuff.

Tortoise Invitations

As you know, my youngest daughter loves Tortoise's so I made these invitations to her birthday party. Since she was inviting both boys and girls, I thought I would make different invitations for each. With these invitations, I went to Right at Home Scrapbooking store to get the paper - Limeade Brazill paper for the backing and Doodlebug Birthday Girl and Birthday Boy stripped paper. I did the printing on my computer. The Tortoise's were made using my Cuttlebug Cuttle Kids die cut. I hand cut the hats. The pom pom on the top of the party hats were made with 1/2 inch strips of paper, cut slits on one side of the paper and then using glue at the edge, twirl around a toothpick or paper piercing tool, bend back the small strips and stick on with a glue dot. These came out super cute. Stay tuned to see the thank yous.