This past Valentine's Day my mom offered me a great oppurtunity!  She manages a very cute bed and breakfast and they were having a special valentine package for their guests.  She had certain ideas on what she wanted to do and asked me to help her out in creating a few things.  I got to work right away!

One of the things that she wanted was a way to package up some truffles that she can put out for the guests.  After cleaning out a closet I found a box of little favor boxes from my wedding almost 10 years ago!!  They were perfect to use for the truffles, but they definitely needed a bit of decorating.

The first idea I had was to put a band of patterened paper around the outside of the box.  I searched my stash and found some that would work perfectly. 

I also created a circle to go over where the paper meets, that way you can't see the seam

I used a stamp from SU! with versamark ink and clear embossing powder, then I spritzed the paper with some Glimmer Mist.

Once that was done I needed to work on the tops because it was way too plain!

I took plain black cardstock embossed with an embossing folder.  Layered on top was a cut from Storybook Cricut cartridge, which was then sprayed with Glimmer Mist (will need to go read my notes to find out the color).  The heart is also from Storybook, and the L is for Love is a SU! stamp.

Another request was a little valentine greeting card to leave in their rooms.

I did 5 cards each of 4 designs and colors.

Items used:

cardstock: whisper white, rich razzleberry, dusty durango, crushed curry, melon mambo (all SU!)

ink: basic black, rich razzleberry, dusty durango, crusged curry, melon mambo (all classic, SU!)

stamps: SU! I {Heart} Hearts, SU! Grateful Greetings (not available anymore)

Other: night and day speciality dsp (SU! not available anymore); 1/4" black grosgrain ribbon (SU!)

That last thing I had to do was make hearts for the guests so my could write their names on them.  Unfortunatey I don't have any pictures of them, but I used my Cricut to cut them out, sprayed the red cardsock with some Glimmer Mist, and then layered that on black cardstock.  I was so happy I was able to help my mom out and I hope I get more opportunities like this in the future.

Friday Favorites: Becky Higgins sketches

In honor of Becky Higgins resignation from Creating Keepsakes, I figured my love for her sketches would be perfect for my Friday Favorites.

Before I begin, though, I want to apologize for any blurry pictures!  We just got back from apple picking and I wanted to quickly get the pictures and in my laziness I didn't go back to redo blurry pictures!


I loves sketches, all kinds, but these are the ones that introduced me into the sketch world.  It seems that finding the perfect picture placement for my pictures has always been the hardest part for me, so having a blueprint made things go so much faster for me!

After a while it seemed that I had collected so many of Becky's sketches, plus her 2 sketch books (at the time) and I was getting tired of always pulling everything out each time.  So I came up with a way to put it all together and it made it so much easier for me to browse the sketches without having a whole bunch of different books.

I decided I would take all her sketches and put them in one big binder.  I started with the monthly ones from the magazine.  I took the sketch and the layout examples and put them in page protectors and then into the binder.  I did these for all the ones I had when I had my subscription to CK magazine.

When I no longer subscribed, I would get the sketches from online on the website.

 I put the sketch and the examples layouts on a sheet and then print out each month, hole punches the sheets and put them in the binder with the others.

The next part was a little traumatizing, but after I did it, I felt it was worth it.

 I ended up taking apart the idea books so I would be able to put that into my binder

I did it for both the books...

Now I had all her sketches and all examples in one place.  All I have to do is pull out one binder instead of a bunch of magazines, 2 books, and some print outs from the computer.

The only one I don't have in the binder is the Best of Becky Higgins Sketches - her latest sketch book.  I like the way the book is set up and I didn't want to take it apart.  But there is something I did do in this book...

I know the pictures is blurry, but down at the bottom of the page I wrote where the sketch came from.  So if it was from the magazine I wrote the month and year.  If it was from one of the books, I wrote which book and the page number.  This way I can reference the sketch in my binder.

I thought I would also show some scrapbook pages I did using the sketches as inspiration.  Most of the times I start with a sketch and I modify it some way to fit the pictures I have, but sometimes I do my own page almost the same placement as the sketch...it really depends.  Oh, and let me apologize again for the pictures taken right from my album.  Again, laziness!  I just wanted to get the pictures and didn't want to pull each one out of my album and then have to put them back in.  Also, I was trying to get some of the 2 page layouts side by side and I can't seem to get it to work, so I'm sorry that they're not next to each other!

   

Title: cricut cartridge - Storybook, Patterned Paper: Basic Grey (I think...I can't remember!)

Those are just a few pages I have made using sketches.  I just love how it makes things so much faster for me when trying to design a page, especially for the part I seem to struggle with the most - picture placement.

A Cricut Thank You: Part 2

It's time for part 2 of my Cricut thank you notes, and I have 4 more cards to show!


Brown cardstock sized at 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" with the top pink layer cut to 5 1/4" x 4" and embossed with the Swiss Dots cuttlebug folder. The saying"how kind" was cut from the Lyrical Letters Cricut cartridge and that was glued onto a bookplate also cut from the Lyrical Letters cartridge. I actually cut a couple of the bookplates and glued them on top of each other to make faux chipboard and give it some dimension. The ribbon is from the craft store, can't remember the brand.


This one actually came out a bit different than what I envisioned, but I didn't feel like starting over so I just went with it. This card was cut from the Wild Card cartridge as well as the Thank You sentiment. I put an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of cardstock on my mat and hit fit to page when doing the card, and it cut it to the size of 6 1/2". The window was part of the card and the frame that goes around the window is an accent piece to it. I then placed the "thank you" sentiment so it showed through the window.
I then just took some floss thread and threaded it through the buttons and used glue dots to stick it to the front of the card.


This one is another standard A2 sized card with black as my base. The top layer was made using Faded Jeans and Dusty Concord Distress Inks. The "thank you" is from the Storybook cartridge using the accent/frame option.


Yet another A2 sized card, but I used Chatterbox patterned paper as the top layer. The thanks was cut from the Mini Monograms cartridge and I glued that on top of a bookplate cut from the Fabulous Finds cartridge. I added 2 pink brads and stuck the whole thing on my card!


Another A2 card with a white cardstock base and some old patterned paper I had for the top layer. "You're the Best" is from Lyrical Letters. There isn't much else to say about this one! lol


So there you have the next 4 cards in my Cricut Thank You series. Here you will find part 1 and first 4 cards I posted. I believe I have enough cards for 2 more parts and then I should have a good collection on thank you notes!

A Cricut Thank You: Part 1

After getting sidetracked by other things day after day, and dealing with technical difficulties, I am finally able to post the first part of my Cricut Thank You series!

I gave myself a challenge to go through all the cartridges I own and any that has a thank you type statement I would make a thank you card with it. This was for a couple of reasons. First, I needed to build my stash of thank you notes for whenever I need one. Second, I really want to make sure I use the cartridges I have and I like challenging myself to do so. Third, and probably most important ;), I wanted it for my blog so I could share it with everyone!
There is probably going to be 4 parts to this, containing 5 cards each. Most of the accents on the cards are from Cricut cartridges (except for ribbons, buttons, etc…). I have HUGE stash of old patterned paper and I try to use these up so you might see some from years ago…but that doesn’t bother me! We’ll just call them vintage!

This one is from Lyrical Letters. The size is 4.25x4.25 and the cardstock I used is Bazzill.

This one is from Storybook. The size is 5.5x4.24. The cardstock is just plain black, don’t know the brand. I then sprayed white cardstock with Dew Drop Glimmer Mist and it gave it this shiny silvery look. You can’t really tell in the picture. The Thank You was connected, and I just cut off the piece between the Thank and the You. The little swirl is also from Storybook.

This is from Wild Card. I decided to cut the actual card with one of the cuts from the cartridge as well. I loaded an 8.5x11 sheet of paper and hit fit to page and I believe it came out to be 8” tall! The cardstock is generic gray, although it’s hard to tell. Patterned paper is from an old stash I had.

I then took Ice Stickles and smoothed some over the heart for some sparkle. Here is a close up of that:

Another one from Lyrical Letters:

Size is 5.5x4.25, regular white cardstock, plain black ribbon, and patterned paper from old stash, which I believe was Provo Craft!

Another one from Wild Card, size is 5.5x4.25, regular white cardstock. The color cardstock and patterned paper is from a DCWV stack and the accents on the squares are from Accent Essentials.

Well, that’s it for part 1! Be on the lookout for parts 2, 3, and 4 very soon! I better get busy…