Babies and last Friday off...

Well, this afternoon is the last Friday off I have from my workplace in the last three months. I'm enjoying it, even with the 5 minute snowstorm that wandered in and out of my community. This year it seems all my friends are having kids, and my Baby Love set (retired) is getting quite the workout.

By the way I rolled out a snazzy new blog header. Can you identify the CTMH products featured?

Today's inspiration is from Mojo Monday: MOJO234 with the help of Scrappin' My Heart Out's Debbie Carriere blue roses card.

The diecut is from the package you get alongside the Cricut Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge! It comes with 3 exclusive D-set stamps, three die cut sheets, and of course the cartridge itself. Don't you think the Baker's Twine works well with the blue rhinestones?

The recipients of this card have two cats and love them, so I couldn't resist stamping cats on the inside. To get just the cat and not the associated 'baby' on the stamp, I used post-its to mask out the baby, stamped it on the ink pad, and removed the postit notes before transferring the image.

Michaels, etc:
* Solid cardstock

CTMH
* Lucky Level 2 Paper Packet (retired)
* Baby Love (retired
* Soul Mates
* Fall/Winter 2012 Petite Perks stamp
* Blue and Green Sparkles
* Dimensional Elements - Mixed Shapes
* Baker's Twine Paradise Assortment
* Moonstruck Ink
* Olive Ink
* Smoothie Ink

Hope you're enjoying warm temps like I am,

Butterflies and Mother's Day

I just needed an excuse to use my newest stamp, Delight, but it also so happens that I need to make a second Mother's Day card for my mom who lives here and feeds me and my husband every Sunday! She deserves a card too and of course she will come over for dinner which is often a three course meal.

Today's inspiration is a mix of iheart2stamp's March SFYTT and Amber Hight of The Stamping Scrapbooker's interpretation, Mr & Mrs.

I wanted to do three butterflies, but it wasn't big enough - however, two seems to be just perfect. They were embossed with Dutch Blue embossing powder with a bling button in the middle. You can't see from the photograph, but I glued the middle of the butterflies down and then added foam tape to their wings to pop it up a little.

The third butterfly has made it's appearance on the inside, which is an echo of the colors used on the front of the card. I also decided to distress the sides of the cream cardstock so that it had a bit of a fuzzy look to tie into the blue background.

Michaels etc:
* Cream patterned paper, CM
* Solid cardstock, Michaels
* Ribbon, Michaels
* Fiskars Edge punch and embosser

CTMH:
* Delight
* Classmate Alphabet
* Dreams Come True
* Dutch Blue embossing powder
* Bling buttons
* Lilac Mist Ink
* Moonstruck Ink
* Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge

It's almost Easter! I can't wait!

It's almost Easter!!

Or as I like to tell myself, "another excuse to stuff my coworkers full of chocolate". Either way, I get to pull out the Cricut, and my coworkers never say no to free chocolate. Plus I'm hoping to make two extra baskets for me and the hubby to enjoy on Easter.

So, I put together some baskets with the help of my Cricut, some inks and a paintbrush.

The patterned paper was from my stash and I picked out all the yellow and green patterns. At some crop sometime ago, they taught me to squish my pad together so that some ink will transfer onto the lid that can be used as "paint". Except I ran out of paint really fast but figured hey, the entire inkpad is right there! I started where I wanted shadows as the ink is deeper at first and then fades.

Here's a closeup of the front basket. I stuffed them full of easter grass and then put seven eggs in. This might be perfect for the next time I have four meetings in a row, which happens every second Monday.

I did this a few weeks back, but I'm definetly entering this in for the Easter challenge at heart2heart.

Michaels, etc:
* Patterned paper
* White cardstock

CTMH:
* Sensational Season (March 2011 SOTM)
* Cricut Art Philosophy Cartridge
* Chocolate Ink
* Spring Iris Ink
* Garden Green Ink
* Honey Ink

Spring is just around the corner!

Blues for Birthday

The friend that this birthday card for is one of my oldest friends and she has always had a penchant for blue. So, that defined my color choices, with one small diversion. She likes flowers too, you see - and paper flowers do not require any sort of watering nor will they die. I was hoping to get a bunny or two on her card but it just wouldn't fit.

Today's inspiration is another MOJO Monday: MOJO231 with a little help from Debbie Carriere: Scrappin' My Heart Out.

As you can tell, by putting the red 3D flower against all that blue it definetly pops right out of the card! I saw the flourishes on Debbie's card under the flower and I just had to borrow the idea. The background umbrella stamp I used to give my background a pattern says "live in sunshine, it can't rain all the time".

I thought I'd bring the theme inside the card - I continued the background stamp along the bottom and added the second flourish I'd cut with my Cricut to gussy up the inside. If I haven't mentioned it before, the flower and half moon is also from the Art Expression cartridge. I've come to rely on it quite a bit.

Michaels, etc:
* Solid cardstock
* Blue patterned paper (CM)

CTMH:
* Dream Big
* Chairs To You (May 2011 SOTM)
* Lilac Mist Ink
* Outdoor Denim Ink

Hope it's just as sunny for all of you as it is for me today!

Every card has a story...

I find that each card is tailored in some way to the recipients, but usually I take inspiration from who I'm giving it to. And sometimes a background paper or a color or some part of a stamp set jumps out at me. In this case, because it's a housewarming card for both my friends, I decided to stick with a neutral color. I've never been out to their house in Airdrie, and I'm looking forward to seeing it when they have time!

This naturally calls for a card, and the past Mojo Monday: MOJO230. (I actually had it complete but never got around to posting until today) was perfect for this.

Instead of flowers I opted to do three chairs and for some reason, the chair stamped in brown always cries out to me for paper piecing. I don't think I've ever stamped that chair without piecing the cushions, now that I think of it. And I wanted some sparkle in the border, so out came the rhinestones.

I love saving scraps, since sometimes they come in really handy for that last little embellishment you want to do on a card without cutting a huge 12 x 12 piece of paper.

Michaels etc:
* Solid cardstock
* Ribbon
* Fiskars edging scissors

CTMH:
* Around the Block
* Chairs to You - May 2011 SOTM
* Clear Sparkles
* Lucky Level 2 Paper Pack - retired
* Outdoor Denim Ink
* Spring Iris Ink

I'm looking forward to spring! Are you?

Farewell Jamaica, Hello Reality.

Jamaica was beautiful and a blast; everyone's laid back there and friendly and I even learned one Jamaican word! I visited Margaritaville and Seven Mile Beach which I walked off most of the vacation food I had. I would definetly go back again... gorgeous beach and beautiful place.

This is a picture of the sunset as we got near our resort on Seven Mile Beach, Negril, Jamaica.

Just wanted to show you quickly March's stamp of the month - Potential! It's gorgeous! Ask me how you can get this awesome set for only $5.00 more!

As you know when I'm not crafting I'm travelling and of course to continue on with the Denmark theme, I had to make a Mother's Day card for my mother in law to take with me. International postage these days is crazy!!

Today's card is inspired by an older Mojo Monday: MOJO228, and in particular HandKrafted By Stephanie : Valentine for my Girl's post.

I always like breaking out a new stamp set to use for cards and this was no exception. I'd gotten it early last year when I bought my Cricut Art Philosophy bundle, and it's a perfect match! I just cut out the flowers using the size recommended on my stamp sheet, and then stamped the flowers with Smoothie and added a small rhinestone center. The background was embossed by hand using Fiskars Scrapboss.

And of course, no card would be complete without something to open it up to! I used the same set again alongside with a set that includes Mother's Day greetings inside.

Michaels, etc:
* Solid cardstock
* Printed pattern piece
* Fiskars Scrapboss

CTMH:
* Art Philosophy stamp set
* A Little Everything
* Itty Bitty Sparkles
* Smoothie Ink
* Cranberry Ink
* Outdoor Denim Ink

Happy March everyone, hope the days ahead will be warmer!