You're Invited card

This card is for the following challenges:

Wee Memories Challenge #49 (Anything goes)

and

Color Throwdown #135 (black, red, cream, yellow)

The ribbon is attached with black grommets (or eyelets - I don't know the difference!)

I finally got to use my Paper Lace Cricut cartridge for this one. So many pretty images on it!

Happy Birthday card

This card is for Stacy's card challenge at Sketches 4 All which is a sketch challenge

The Stamptacular Sunday Challenge which is to make an adult birthday project and use a stamp

and Wee Memories Challenge #49 which is "Free Your Creativity" meaning ANYTHING goes!

I made it and photographed it in a rush so the colors don't look too great - it's much brighter in person.

 I stamped the sentiment, the flourish and the flowers on the yellow strip of paper. That yellow paper is actually the white back side of what was left after I cut the first layer. I sprayed it with Glimmer Mists and stamped the flower to make my own patterned paper since I didn't have a yellow one I liked.



flower: Sassafrass Lass paper whimsies

I-rock pearl bling

SU! linen thread

BasicGrey Ambrosia patterned paper

Glimmer Mists: Yellow Daisy, Lemon Zest, Wheat Beer, Black Magic

Stamps: Martha Stewart (flower), SU! (sentiment), BasicGrey (flourish)

Ink: SU! Basic Gray

Happy Anniversary card

I'm entering this in:

 Wee Memories Challenge #47 - use anything Spring or green

Mojo Monday #182 - sketch challenge (I elongated mine to fit the sentiment inside!)

Sketches 4 All - Jessica's Challenges March - use 5+ flowers, pearls/bling, ribbon/lace, and spring colors

Supplies/tools:

Sizzix Fun Flowers Bigz L die

Sizzix Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder

Sizzix Little Leaves (?) sizzlet die

SU! corduroy brad

Sizzix Beautiful Wings Embosslits die

I-rock and stones

Lyrical Letters Cricut cartridge

My Minds Eye Bella Bella paper

Glimmer Mist

Mini magnetic boards

I scored these mini magnetic boards made by Boulder Innovations from ScrapbookSteals.com and used them to make teacher gifts this year. I can't find the pic I took of the raw wood product so I "borrowed" this one from the ScrapbookSteals site. I hope they don't mind ; )

They came with 5 boards that each had 1 magnetic sheet, 1 square magnet and a peg to stand it up.

This first one was for my son's 1st grade teacher who happens to have an apple theme in her room

I completely covered the board in patterned paper, then I covered the metal sheet with some chalkboard vinyl so that it could double as a chalkboard too! I covered the magnet with a green apple paper and made two more magnets as well. I painted the peg to match the paper.

One of the other magnets I made:

These are the other boards I made for my other son's preschool teachers:

I left the metal showing on these and made a giant flower for the square magnet. I painted each board brown and put a sheet of patterned paper on just the front of these. I made just one more coordinating magnet for each board:

These can be used to hold notes, photos, recipes, to-do lists, etc.

Follow along party

Looking for new ways to waste time blogs? Want more stalkers followers for your blog? Head over to the blog Making the World Cuter. She is hosting a follow along party. What's a follow along party? Well, it's a party to help you get more followers basically! You follow her (on facebook, twitter, blogger, wherever you go) and she will return the favor and follow you back! PLUS, if you blog about it you can then link your post to her blog post and maybe some of her followers will like what they see and follow you too. Read all the details here.

Hee hee. This kinda reminds me of being in school and the "do you like me?" notes or the "wanna be friends?" "Check yes or no".  Because really aren't our blogs begging people to like us? "Here I am and this is what I have to say or do. Please like me!" And that Follower box is just a big check yes or no box! Of course, there are the popular blogs with hundreds or thousands of followers that make the rest of us feel so inadequate or unpopular. Just like in high school!! And whether you admit it or not you know you want to be liked and be popular! Just like in high school!

Happy blogging!

Khristen's Craft Room giveaway

Khristen over at Khristen's Craft Room has cleaned out her craft room and is giving away lots of goodies to her followers! You have until she hits 100 followers or March 31st to enter, whichever comes first (as of this posting she has 54). If she hits 100 before the 31st then she'll do a second giveaway!

She has lots of random goodies to give. Here are a few of my faves she is offering up:

Well, there were a few more I wanted to show you but blogger won't upload them. Just head over to her blog for the details. Good luck!

Baby Name Plaques

Here's a gift I made for a friend's new baby. I started with 3 of these inexpensive wooden plaques:

I painted them a sage green with a brown border to go with the nursery colors she had. I then cut out letters from patterned paper for her name to match the jungle animal theme:

I could not find the hardware I wanted for these (small D rings) in my small town. So my husband found these for me in the hardware store. They just came in a clear bag without a label so I have no idea what they are called or what their real purpose is. If you know please tell me!

I hammered two in each plaque and ran white ribbon through them:

I tied as pretty of a bow as I was capable of  : \ 

These are them all together! Esa is short for Esabelle, in case you're wondering. They look much better hanging up in her room than they do in these photos.

Stacy's having another great giveaway!

Stacy over at Scrap with Stacy has just joined the Design Team at Crafter's Companion! Congrats, Stacy! To celebrate she is giving away some goodies! Here's what's up for grabs:

Three whole photos worth of goodies!

Just head over to her blog to get the details to enter (you can get up to 3 chances). It's open until March 31st.

So while I had heard of Crafter's Companion I had never taken the time to look at their site or to see what this Ultimate Crafter's Companion tool was. I LOVE this thing! It would be great and compact to take to a crop or scrapping weekend! It can do soooo many things.

Here is a video of this tool:

Do you have this tool? What do you think? I'd like to know if it's as wonderful as it sounds. I'm adding it to my wish list. I have a birthday next month sooooo guess what I may be asking for?! =D

Click here to visit Crafter's Companion

Blah! ...And a cute little cake

I haven't crafted in sooo long and it's driving me crazy!! I miss my craft room. Last month the boys caught colds. Then the baby got something awful and it turned into double ear infections! And now he is sick again. And it has turned into another ear infection. Then, he got a rash. So they think he's allergic to penicillin. Ugghh. We had to start another round of antibiotics. It looks like the rash is gone now. Still waiting for the ear infection and runny nose to get out of here. But at least that fever is gone! Man, that made for a fussy baby and a cranky mommy with lots of lost sleep. I normally like winter, but I can not wait for Spring to get here and all this germy mess to be gone.

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While I haven't been able to play in my craft room I did get to make a cake a couple weeks ago! I haven't made one in a while so it was really fun. This was for twins' second birthday party with a farm theme. I thought I'd share this since I have no paper crafts to share!

A red barn, cow, pigs, horse, tractor and pretzel fence

My first attempt at sculpting with fondant. The pigs are playing in oreo cookie crumb "mud".

A cow. Yes. I said cow. I know it really doesn't look like one. But it was really hard!! I didn't have white fondant so I used black and put some white spots on it to try to make it a bit more convincing. Did it work??

After the cow fiasco I worked a bit harder to get the horse a little more realistic.

The tractor was made using a lollipop mold and candy melts. And, yes, I realize it is not to scale. I made the animals before I put the tractor on. That horse looks gigantic in front of the tractor!

The fence was made by "gluing" pretzel sticks together with white chocolate.

So if you like cakes you shoould check out this blog: http://www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

It makes for a great laugh because they are "professional" cakes gone terribly wrong! Except on Sunday when they showcase some beautiful masterpieces. I hope I never see one of my cakes here. I'd be mortified!

The winner of my giveaway...

I know the suspense was killing you right?? HA HA! Well, I know at least 3 people read my blog because I had all of 3 entries for free Lemongrass Spa product. Instead of turning  to random.org I opted for the less scientific method of a 4-year-old.

Me: "Noah, pick a number from 1 to 3"

Noah: "2"

That makes Stacy the winner! I'll be in touch for your address Stacy!! I'm still not sure of the prize yet though.