Here are some holiday projects that Topher and I have done throughout this month.  Every Sunday this month we've had Christmas Sunday!  Basically, all we do is stay at home, listen to Christmas music, watch Christmas movies, bake Christmas goodies, and work on a Christmas puzzle or crafts.  Here is our little tree that we decorated.  We were excited since it was our first Christmas as a little family together.  We bought little mini ornaments as well as made out own.  

We made ornaments using the floor wax method.  All you do is buy that magic stuff (Pledge Floor Care with the Future label) and poor it into clear glass ornaments that we picked up at Michaels.  We used Martha Stewart Glittee in Blue, Silver and White...poured just a bit in there and rolled it around!  Beautiful results and Topher loved making them!

Next, we made these snowflakes off of this idea I saw in the Martha Stewart Living Magazine.  I purchased the Snowflake snowpunch, and punched out a billion of them in grey, blue and white.  I glued three together using my zig 2 way pen to give them some stiffness and then covered them with modpodge and covered them with glitter!  Added a little ribbon loop and there you go!  I then started getting a little crazy and making dual colored snowflakes.  I kind of like the way they look!

Here's Topher hanging em up

We also spent one Sunday making scarves.  I've been dying for a cute plaid scarf all season, but I can't seem to pony up 30 bucks for a scarf that I'll wear sporadically.  So I just went to Joanns fabric, bought some material and cut it up and used fusible webbing to bond it to make it long enough.  Some of them didn't come out all too pretty (drat my lack of ability to cut in a straight line!!!) but when it's all wrapped up you can't really tell (or that's what I tell myself).  Topher has decided to be a stylish model for us, displaying all our wares. 

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Peppermint bark anyone?  So I have 40 college baseball players and so I wanted to make them a little gift for the holidays.  I figured guys would rather have sweets instead of a frou frou card, so I decided to make them little goody bags of homemade sweets.

My version of "Peppermint bark"is really simple and easy to make.  I just melt down a bag of white chocolate chips in the microwave and add rice crispy cereal until it's the consistency of rice crispy treats.  Spread it out nice and flat so it's just a thin layer on a sheet of foil and then sprinkle Andes Peppermint baking bits on top.  Pat down to make sure the baking bits are in!  Put in the fridge for about 15 minutes and break it up!  It keeps forever but it probably won't last very long.  Guys especially find it irresistible.

I just used the little reindeer guy from the Create a Critter cartridge and I believe I cut him out at 3/4 inch.    Paper was bazzil basics from Michaels and I just cut alternate scarves in green and red.  (By the way, the gypsy is a god send in mass production, thank you, thank you, thank you).  The tags were just labels I printed out on the computer and slapped on to the little treat bags!

Here's my second set of Christmas cards (and my main one, that little deer is the theme this Christmas).

All of the cuts came from the Create a Critter Cartridge.  The Season's Greeting Sentiment is from the Seasonal stamp set from Papertrey Ink and I used Tim Holtz distressed ink in red brick.  One thing I must say I'm grateful for is that I have the stamp-of-a-ma-jig since I am terrible at aligning my stamps!  For the first dozen or so cards I made I heat embossed the lightbulbs to give it sparkle, but it was inconsistent as far as thickness and would stain a bit.  I went and purchased some glossy accents and it worked BEAUTIFULLY (oh Glossy Accents, why did I not purchase you before?!)  I'm sorry I do not have a picture of the new and improved holiday lights!

Here's the inside sentiment and the corresponding envelope I made.  I must say, I wouldn't be able to make my envelopes without the envelope guideline from Scor-Pal.  That is a lifesaver!

Here's my first set of Christmas cards.  Ahh the craziness of the holidays!  So this year, I've decided to make two different card sets.  Today, I'm showing the first design.  I'll tell you, next year, I'm going to start much much earlier!  It's tough to mass produced cards when you work 10 hour days!

So this is my "elegant" and simple card.  I used the Christmas and Joys of the Season cartridge for the deer and the tree.  My cricut was being temperamental and I was only able to cut out 8 or so trees completely with no snags or tears.  I popped the deers on top of the tree, and added adhesive pears (that I colored red with copics) to the tree.  The background was cuttlebugged using the swissdots folder.

The inside sentiment came from my Christmas stamp set from papertrey inks, and I made matching envelopes with my Martha Stewart scorboard.  The lining was some patterned paper I picked up and I cuttlebugged the top of the envelope with swiss dots as well to tie it all in together.

My last birthday card for the month!  This card is for my older brother.  He's an avid White Sox fan so I decided to make him a card based off of that!  I found the logo online and converted the .jpg file into an .svg file.  I converted it into 3 cuts and cuts them out on Sure Cuts A Lot.  The happy birthday was also cut using Sure Cuts A Lot and shadowed as well.  

The inside sentiment was printed on a piece of designer paper found at Hobby Lobby.  The second sox logo was also a .jpg converted to an .svg file and cut out with sure cuts a lot. I don't know what I'd do without that program!

A card for my older sister for her birthday!  Nice and very simple, just to highlight the sheet music paper I picked up in a scrapbooking store in my travels.  The sentiment is printed onto kraft paper, and I just lightly stamped the paper with metallic inks from the Martha Stewart teardrop ink pads.  I added brads and that's it!

I made the envelope using my Martha Stewart scorboard and lined the inside with the same paper.  Nice elegant card for my older sister.

Quick card for my brother-in-law for his birthday!  I have a lot of birthday's coming up this month so I have to get cracking on the card making!  The cake is cut from the Smiley "cartridge".  The Smiley cartridge was a special download for the Gypsy, and it has a ton of really really cute cuts.  I made him a red velvet cake with white frosting since it's his favorite and the sentiment was printed from the computer.  Nice simple card with some stickles on the flame.

The cardstock for the base was using the charcoal cardstock from Papertrey Ink that I just purchased.  It's so lovely as a base since it's so heavy, I'm so glad I purchased it (in black and white as well)!

I don't care what anyone says, when you're in the baseball world, wedding season is not in the summer, it's between late October and January.  The reason why is because baseball season is during the summer, and when your husband has a baseball game every single day (literally, one off day per 28-31 days!), there's really no time to have a wedding or honeymoon!  So the couple who I made the engagement card for awhile back  (Jay, Topher's teammate and his fiancee Jenny) just got married up in Washington, and we made them a congratulations card using their wedding colors.  The stamp is a digital stamp from The Greeting Farm collection, the heart and just married sign are from the Sweethearts cartridge.

I used the Martha Stewart scor-board to give a subtle border to the card as well as made a envelope for it.  For the envelope I just used regular white cardstock and patterned paper from Hobby Lobby.  

I colored the background behind the couple with a pale pale pink copic (I believe it was 000) and popped the flower in her hair.  I outlined her wedding dress with stickles to give it some sparkly (when I make a card for a girl I jump at the chance to use stickles!).  The couple are very blonde blonde, (her moreso then him) so I decided to color them in to reflect that.

I printed a sentiment on red cardstock using my computer and glued it to the inside.  The lentils comment is because their hometown is known for Lentils!    Hope you enjoyed this card as much as I enjoyed making it!  Here's a picture of the beautiful couple!

The Brossmans

Love the Red Shoes and Cleats!!

Birthday for my niece who turned 6!  She lives in San Diego and had a pirate mermaid party so I decided to make her card with that theme.  The stamps are from The Greeting Farm, Pirate Ian and Mermaid Anya.  I colored them in with Copics and popped dotted them up on two backgrounds that were digital papers that I don't remember where I got it from.  I did a terrible job stamping happy birthday and the ribbon was plain white ribbon that I colored with Copics to match the paper.

Each of the stamps were fussy cut after I colored them.  I colored the mermaid's hair to mimic my niece's hair and I stickled some strands of gold and added adhesive gems where the pearls were to give it some interest.  I stickled her shells and her tail to add more sparkly since every little girl loves glitter!  

Here's he birthday girl with her cake!

It's been so long but I've been so busy with moving again.  I've taken a new job as the athletic trainer for the University of South Alabama's Baseball team.  Haven't had much time to be making cards and haven't had a chance to organize my scrapbooking material to easily make cards.

This card was as a thank you for my dentist back home in California.  He's been wonderful and so I wanted to thank him for everything he's done.  He's an avid surfer so I decided that I would take the Surfing Riley and make him into a surfing dentist moose!  The colors I chose were based off of the pattern paper I found at a hobby lobby and the green paper up top was cuttlebugged with the leaf folder. I drew in the toothbrush and cut out a little tooth to put in his hooves, and the sentiment was from papertrey ink.  I added some white souffle pen marks on the waves and then just stickled the wave.

Quick little card I made for Topher's sister's 19th birthday.  This card ended up being a lot tinier than I thought!  I think I cut the giraffe (off the Create a Critter cartridge) out at 1 1/2 inches, and the card is 2x2 inches.  Poor Topher had to really squish his handwriting to fit it all in.  I cuttlebugged the pink with the floral folder and borderpunched it with the martha stewart border punch.  Ribbon was from the dollar bin and I just stickled the border to give it some sparkle!  His sister is very girly and loves pink and black.

So I made little snack boxes for Josh and the athletic trainer for the Bakersfield Blaze since they were traveling.  Hopefully I'll show you pictures some time of what I'm talking about, what I do is I take an empty box for baseball and fill it with little goodies.

Now the usual snack packs aren't very guy friendly, they're so tiny, so I decided to make my own "man-sized" packs of snacks (more fit for 6'5 baseball players).  I just purchased big cellophane bags and filled them with goldfish and what thins.  I made the toppers with some cuts off of the Create a Critter cartridge, the goldfish and the peanut).  Just something to help personalize the box of treats!

So I've relocated back to my hometown of California for the time being since all my siblings are back here at my parents home for the summer (after our family Caribbean cruise).  One of my friends Josh is out here playing for a minor league team out here, the Inland Empire 66ers.  As the season draws to an end, I made him a card to give to his host parents who were kind enough to let him and his teammate live in their house all season.  It's a cabin up in the mountains and is decorated with a moose theme...so what better way to say thanks then with a Riley stamp?  I wish they had a baseball Riley stamp.  Instead I went with the Fishing Riley and accidently colored a bit too much on one side of his face.

I used the color scheme of the 66ers, red, blue and white.  I used a strip of baseball paper, and I used a versamark ink pad and tiny leaf stamps from the dollar bin to make a watermark background on the grey.  Sentiment was from Papertrey Inks and I used brads to emphasize the statement (and I feel like hardware masculinizes cards hahah!)  Nice little tiny card.

Here's Josh before one of his starts

I made these thank you cards for Topher's brother Dan.  He just graduated from Lemoyne college and he wanted some cards to thank some of the staff members and teachers for all they've done while he's been in college.

I decided to make these cards completely Lemoyne theme so I used their school logo and colors.  I downloaded a jpg of the logo online and converted it into an svg file, breaking it down to two colors.  I then cut them out, as well as the Thank You using Sure Cuts A Lotand cutting it out on my Cricut.

Nice and simple matting so as not to distract from the awesome college logo.  Here's the original logo.

Not bad I must say so myself!  I'm definitely proud of myself for this card!

My first RILEY THE MOOSE card.  I love love love love these stamps, and have been dying to getmy hands on them!  I purchased some when I was in Dallas and have been waiting for a chance to use them!  I finally felt secure enough with my stamping and copic coloring ability to make this card for one of my best guy friends Justin.

Now Justin loves to work out.  He'd probably rather work out than celebrate his birthday, let alone eat cake.  So I made this card to celebrate his quirky personality.  I used both the aerobic Riley and Birthday Riley for this card.  I paperpieced more presents into the card and stamped the sentiment using the papertrey ink stamp from the birthday basics stamp set. Some ribbon trim from the dollar bin and round all the edges and my card is done!  I love these stamps because I love moose!!

Topher and I made a little trip to Saratoga recently and we saw this cute little doggy bakery boutique.  I bought some treats for my brother's dog, Brimley, and decided to make him a little card to go with it.

The dog was made to look like him and the all those cuts came from the Create a Critter cartridge.  The bue background was cuttlebugged with the spots and dots folder and trimmed with ribbon from the dollar bin.  In return, I got this lovely pic of Brimley enjoying his gift!

Cute little doggy huh?  Too bad the I fell off in Brimley en route.  Oh well, if it was perfect it would have Hallmark on the back!

A little belated birthday card I made for my Bestie, Sarah!  We call each other turtles so I decided it would be an appropriate card to make for her.  The turtles are cut from Create a cricut and so is the pond and grass.  The oval is a label off of the Heritage cartridge I believe and the sentiment is from papertrey ink, Birthday Basics!

Just a these little note cards I made for my two favorite teachers in college.  Alabama's non official textile pattern is houndstooth (due to the houndstooth cap that Bear Bryant, legendary football coach, used to wear).  So I made strips of houndstooth paper using my cuttlebug folder, and then inking the raised parts with a brayer inked in black.  I then used my GYPSY to weld the Circles from the Mini Monogram cartridge with letters from the Jasmine cartridge.  I made 3 cards each and just tied them up with a ribbon!

Happy Father's Day!

This is the card I made Topher's dad for fathers day!  I forgot to take a picture of the card I made my own father (DRAT!) but I can at least share this one.

I decided to go unconventional and make a long card with rounded edges (using my trusted corner punch).

I used Sure Cuts A Lot to weld the letter for Dad together and I made a shadow for the Dad in white and used a pen to add details to the word.  (I'm excited!!! I have a Gypsy coming in the mail!!   They were for sale on Customcrops.com for 99 bucks!)  The whales are from Create a Critter. I stickled the water spout.  The background is cuttlebugged with the script folder.  The sentiment is printed and cut out with the mini monograms Cartridge.  I stamped it a bit with Martha Stewart teardrop inkpads to tie it into the card.  I'm not sure what the "to a whale of a dad" sentiment was supposed to mean, but it sounded great at the time!!

Since the card was made of metallic paper, making it difficult to write with, I added a piece of plain cardstock and watermarked it with some Papertrey Ink flourish stamps using my versamark inkpad to mimicthe water.  Hope you guys enjoyed it!

So my good college friend Todd, is now a medstudent at UAB.  It's been a lifelong dream of his to become a doctor, and he's worked so very hard to achieve it.  This card is celebrate his birthday and his acceptance into the UAB med program.

For the little doctor cut, I used Everday Paper Dolls. I stickled the mirror on his forehead to just give it some texture and added buckles to his shoes.

Happy Birthday came from the Beyond Birthdays cartridge and Todd was cut using a font cartridge I don't remember.  The colors black, green and yellow are to mimic the school colors of the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

Nice and simple card, but likeall my cards, customized!

So Topher has official given up his professional baseball playing career.  He has now moved on to looking for a job in finance and putting his MBA to good use.

For the time being we are currently in Albany, NY...where Topher is originally from. Recently, he got this mysterious package from Salt Lake City.  To our pleasant surprise, a superfan of the AAA team Topher played for (the Salt Lake Bees) has sent him his jersey when he played with them!

To thank her, I made a card for her with the theme of the baseball team, the Salt Lake Bees.  The team colors are black and yellow, and so I picked the bumblebee from.....of course...Create a Critter cartridge. The hive was also the accessory that came with the bee, and the flower also came from the Create a critter cartridge.  The lustrous white cardstock was cuttlebugged with the Swiss Dots folder.   The border was punched with a Martha Stewart border punch, the ribbon from the dollar bin.  I stickled the antennae and pop-dotted the bee and flower.

The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and the adhesive gems came from the Scrapbook Barn in Dallas when we were passing through!

Topher as a Salt Lake Bee

So I've been on a Sure Cuts A Lot kick.  Sure Cuts A Lot is a software program that lets you design on your computer (using the fonts you have), hook it up to your cricut, and cut it out!  We're currently in Washington, PA and living in a hotel for the past couple of weeks.  We sure are sick of it.

We're hoping to get a host family to take us in, and so in preparation of being accepted, I decided to make a card.

Front of the card used the acorns from Create a Critter.  The leaves came from Stretch Your Imagination cartridge.  The words were created using Sure Cuts a lot and welded together (sooo much more convenient!).  I just used my white souffle pen to make the faux stitching to make it more legible.  Sure Cuts A Lot is nice because I don't have a gypsy or many Cricut font cartridges, so this is a cheaper alternative for me (as well as less stuff to lug around (space is a premium for how much we move and pack/unpack in our SUV!).

The Inside of the card was also made with the Create a Critter cartridge and sure cuts a lot.  the Yellow paper border was made using the martha stewart border punch.

 So one of my bosses at Athletes' Performance loved his card so much that he asked me to make a dozen thank you cards for him.  With nothing else to do here in Washington, PA, and no income coming in (due to us moving everywhere) I figured why not. 

Now my boss is a guy, but he told me he trusted my decision and, I tried to keep them from being too frou frou.  I stuck with a simple blue and chocolate color scheme and decided to make half a dozen owl ones and half a dozen hedgehog ones.  Of course the cartridge I grabbed was the Create a Critter cartridge!  I actually used the program Sure Cuts A Lot to make the Thank you Sentiment, and used the label from the Create a Critter cartridge.  I cuttlebugged the background using the Swiss Dots folder and plaid ribbon from the dollar bin.  I added a lighter brown inside with flourished stamped on using a versamark inkpad to give it a watermark affect. 

I think these are the first cards that I really like and can't stop staring at!  Like a proud mama!

Happy Birthday to my Love!  Topher's birthday was actually in April, but for some reason I forgot to post this card. 

I made this card  utilizing the stretch your imagination cartridge, and stamped sentiment by Papertrey ink.  I cuttlebugged the green side with the Argyle folder and borderpunched the blue side with the fiskars border punch.  I love the gentle sheen the metallic paper gave it.  Added interest.  I tried to emboss the stamp with a white embossing powder, but it came out a more translucent pearl quality.  Oh well, guess I need to invest in a better white soon! 

Quick card since I barely had time to make this card before Topher came home!  He loved it anyway.