Woohoo!

Wow! My "it's a girl" card from last week made it in the Fab 5 on 2 Sketches 4 You! I am so excited, because I have been amazed by the talent of all the people who submit cards there every week, and especially those who have been chosen for the Fab 5 in the past. Thanks, Kazan, Laura, and the DT!

I love hand stitching!

It does take a long time, but for a very special card there is nothing I love more than hand stitching. This baby card is for my brother and SIL who just had their first baby (yay, I have a niece!), and I really love the handstitching on the buttons. For this card I used this week's sketch from 2 Sketches 4 You -- it was just perfect for this stamp! A friend gave it to me unmounted, so I have no idea what company it came from, but I think it's just adorable.


For the birthday card I used a Bazzill In Stitchz template and added the french knots for a little extra pizzazz. This is actually last week's sketch from 2 Sketches, but I didn't finish it in time to upload it there.

Supplies used
(Baby Card) Velvet ribbon -- Fancy Pants
Buttons -- All My Memories
Glitter -- Stickles Cotton Candy
Jewels -- Westrim Crafts
Scalloped square -- Cricut Mini-Monograms cartridge, cut at 1 1/2" on RDS
Embossing -- Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder
Other - chalk ink, cotton thread, foam squares, mystery stamp

(Birthday card) Patterned Paper -- Scrapworks
Flowers -- Making Memories
Stitching Template -- Bazzill In Stitchz
Stamp -- Imaginisce
Jewel brad -- Joann Craft Essentials

Christmas Cuties

Our challenge for BBTB this week was to use this adorable stocking from Christmas Cheer in a non-traditional color (anything but red). Although I don't usually make layouts before I have pictures, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this one! (Waiting for this baby has done this to me a lot!) My SIL is having a baby any day now, and we're so looking forward to having our two little babies at the same time. We'll be together at Christmas, and I thought this would be just perfect for some Christmas pictures of our two little lovies together. The only catch is, they don't know whether they're having a boy or a girl -- they're some of those crazy people who like to be surprised... ;) Luckily, this paper and layout have enough pink and blue that we could fit a baby boy in there if we HAVE to, hee hee!

Materials used:
Patterned Paper: Scenic Route
"Celebrate the Season" Stamp and Scallop Punch: Stampin' Up
Journaling Stamp: Autumn Leaves
Acrylic letters and heart: Heidi Swapp (I used acrylic paint to highlight the edges and sewed them to the page with pink embroidery floss)
"Christmas": Cricut Opposites Attract cartridge, sized and welded in CDS, in both chipboard and cardstock
Stocking: Cricut Christmas Cheer cartridge, cut at 4" and embossed with the Cuttlebug. Top and toe are covered in fun flock!
Snowflake: Cricut Christmas Cheer cartridge
Cardstock: DCWV

Here are some close ups of my favorite elements:

I've been nominated for...

Thanks so much to Lori, author of a great new blog called LiveLaughScrap and The Daily Scrapper -- they've both given me this fun award! It means a lot to me to know people actually check my blog out and appreciate my creations, so thanks, ladies!

So here's how this award works:
1. Post the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who gave you tha award.
3. Nominate 7 other bloggers who you think deserve it.
4. Add links to their blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on your nominees blogs.

I have awarded this to:
Kazan at Nunu Toolies
Jason at ScrappinDad's Scribbles
Amy at ScrapbookingMommy
Teri at TeriBeri
Sonia at SKScrap
Diane at Capadia Designs
Tammy at Paper Pastimes

All these amazing bloggers inspire me, and I appreciate the time and effort they put into their blogs and especially their projects! Thanks, ladies and gent!

2 Sketches 4 You this week!

Another Monday, another yummy sketch from Kazan at 2 Sketches 4 You! I had lots of fun with this one.

Supplies:
Paper: Sassafrass Lass (I just love their fun and funky papers)
"thanks": Cuttlebug Olivia font
Stamp and scallop punch: Stampin Up
Flower: Fancy Pants
Acrylic heart: Heidi Swapp
Liquid glass (on the little heart in the middle of the stamp)
Brad and black stamping ink: JoAnn Essentials
Cardstock: Provo Craft and DCWV

Here's the sketch of the week!

A Little One is on the way! -- LO for BBTB

I love the New Arrival cartridge for the Cricut machine -- it's a must-have if you have any baby things to do at all. Our challenge over at Bitten By the Bug this week was to use the train cut. This layout isn't my favorite -- one of those things that just didn't turn out on paper the way it looked in your head -- but you should definitely check out all the other creations this week. The projects are just too cute, and a lot of them show how versatile this cart really is!

All the cuts here are from New Arrival. I sized the train in CDS, and I cut all the other little shapes at around 2". "Little One" is cut at 1 1/2". I use Making Memories paper, a Jolees flower on the baby, and some ric-rac. I sewed the mat for the picture to make a journaling pocket. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this lo -- I may use it for a picture from the baby shower my family is doing for me, or I may save it as a gift for someone else.

Family Fun -- layouts for our family album

I'm the only scrapbooker in my family (not for lack of trying to convert my mom and sisters, though!), so when I do pages of big family events, I scan them in and get copies printed for everyone in the family (Costco is a great resource for this, btw). I started doing this when my little sister went on a mission for our church, so she would have something fun when she was homesick, and also so she could introduce people to our happy, goofy family. Now that more people are growing up and spreading out, it's more important to me than ever. I love it! I scrap in 12x12, generally speaking, but the books I made for everyone else are 8x8 -- it's just easier and cheaper to print and ship all the pages that way.

My little brother Eric is just as camera happy as I am, and when we are both on a trip we end up with mountains of pictures -- hooray! He's also a very talented photographer, which is why some of these pictures are super nice and some are just run-of-the-mill (those would be mine...) That just leaves me with the dilemma of which to pick, so I always need a lo with tons of picture space. I couldn't do it with just one double-page lo in this case, so I did two almost identical layouts for the book.

I like to coordinate the colors of the pictures with paper and embellishments, but in this case nearly every pic had different colors! I also wanted something that reflected how much fun we had on this trip. I found this great striped paper in my stash (by My Mind's Eye, Magnolia stack) that definitely fit the bill. But I didn't want it to clash, so I mounted the photos on kraft paper (which reminded me of the sand on the beach at the lake). I also added some decorative stitching and used my Heidi Swapp edge-distressor on the kraft paper (love that tool!). The flowers are cut from some coordinating pp, and the title is cut with the Cricut Base Camp cartridge. I cut the journaling block with SCAL. TFL!