Blog Award ;-)

Hi my crafty friends! I am so excited because my wonderful friend Amy-The Redheaded Crafter has passed this awesome blog award onto me! I am so honored, and I am so excited that Amy thought of me! Thank you so much Amy!!!!! :-) You truly inspire me everytime I go to your blog!!! You are  truly a wonderful blogging friend that I could ever ask for!  You  always leave me encouraging  comments on everything, and you always inspires me with your amazing creations!  Please go and check her blog out you won't be disappointed!!  It's a really cute award too, and I just love the butterfly and the purple and green colors!! 

Here are the terms under which this 'Green Blend Award" are to be given.

1.) This award is for any co-blogging friend who has helped your blog in any and all ways.

2.) This award is for any co-blogging friend who has cheered you along in your blog building, craft advancing career.

3.) This award is for any co-blogging friend who always stops by and is kind to you. you can count on them to always be one of the great comments at the end of your posts.

4.) This award is to be given to 3 to 5 Blends whom you feel meet the listed requirements.

5.) Create a post with the terms of use and publish your Blends of Choice.

6.) Blend of choice may copy the award from your blog and proudly post it on theirs.

7.) Blend of choice may continue the kindness by issuing this award to keep the circle forever growing.

I'm passing this wonderful award onto:

http://cricutcraftingrammy.blogspot.com/

http://vickiesscrappings.blogspot.com/

http://craftmeaway.blogspot.com/

http://quiverofangels.blogspot.com/

http://www.scrapcavecreations.com/

http://queenscardcastle.blogspot.com/

These ladies are so encouraging to me and my blog!!  Thank you my friends for encouraging me and my projects!!  You are all awesome!!!!  I also want to thank the ladies who don't have a blog, and they are the ladies from the former Cricut Crafting Friends thread.  We all have been a great support to each other and have made super friendships!!!  Thanks my friends!!! Hugs!!!

Button Challenge Layout

Hi Crafty friends!  Brenda here from Friends Craftin With Friends, the design team was asked to make a project using at least one button for Sweet Sassy Diva.  I wanted to do a layout of our newest grand daughter that was born on her Papaw's birthday.  So I started off with a crude, and I mean crude sketch. Yeah, I'm no artist! lol But it was something to give me a starting point.

Then I decided to make it a double page layout and I got the idea to punch my paper using a Martha Steward around the page punch. I also used the ticket punch from SU.

So I printed my paper that I wanted to punch and started punching.  But......

....the punching didn't work out so well for me. lol  I didn't want to waste the paper that I had already printed so I trimmed off the botched punching making my paper size 10 1/4 by 10 1/4.  Punched again and only had one little boo boo this time.  I can live with that, I can always hide it with an embellishment.

So with a smaller punched paper I had to add another paper cut down to 11 x 11 inch and I printed that a solid color of green.  Layered it with my base and my top layer.  Ok that is working alright-not what I had in mind but it is working.  Next I printed and cut the images that I wanted to use from my Imagine using Nursery Tails. I also printed my pics I wanted to use too.  I played around with my images and buttons for a while.

I finally had to go with just two pics and I also didn't use all my embellishments.  Here is how the finished layout turned out. I didn't fill out all the info on our grand daughter since it was on the internet. Over all I am pretty pleased with it after all the problems I had getting going.  It isn't how I envisioned it with the sketch, but I made the most out of my mistakes and I am ok with it now.  Always try to take your mistakes and turn them into something you can use.  It is always worth a try!!

Keep Smiling

Hi my crafty friends, hope all is well in your neck of the woods.  Here is a card I made for a young woman going through some health issues.  We wanted to encourage her and make her smile.  So I stamped this basket of tulips and colored them in with alcohol markers.  I definitely need lots of practice and need to watch some vidos on how the use them properly, but it looks ok as it was a small image.  Don't notice that I don't know what the heck I am doing with them. lol  The stamp sets are from Paper Trey Ink and My Creative Time, paper is from my stash, I think the pattern paper is from DCVW Citrus Stack, and an EK Success Punch.  Hope you enjoy and as always I love your comments and thank you for them! You are all so awesome!

Asking a favor....

My friend, Suzanne from Cricut Craftin Grammy is trying to reach 500 followers by her birthday March 10th. If she gets to 500 followers by the 10th she will be giving away 3 $10 gift cards as blog candy.  She has some awesome, awesome crafty goodness on her blog, so check her out and it would be a special favor to me if you would follow her.  Trust me my friends, you can't go wrong following Suzanne and I don't think you will be disappointed either!!  Thanks my crafty friends!! Now back to your regular scheduled program....

Pool Invite

Hi Crafty friends, this week the DT was asked to make an invitation of any kind.  I thought about this for a while and while searching my Gypsy I saw that I started to make an invitation one time for a pool party for my son, but then he decided he didn't want to have one.  So I went with that idea.  I took the sunglasses from Forever Young and welded two shadow shapes together to make a shaped card.

I used white card stock for the shadow base of my card and then cut out the top layer out of black card stock.  I would have chosen a red, pink or turquoise blue for myself-but if I ever use this for DS he won't go for any of those colors!! lol  So black it is!

I was going to do the next layer with the cut outs at the corner, but decided that it looked too girly so I just cut out the lens layer next.  I cut that layer out in pool water paper so it looked like the water was reflecting in the glass lenses. I cut out "pool party" out of the cart Street Signs and stamped "your invited" using a Paper Trey Ink stamp.  Before gluing down "pool party" I put glossy accents all over both lenses so they looked shiny like lenses should.  After it dried, I glued on "pool party" added some bling because it just needed something a little girly-ok now I won't be able to use for DS unless we use plain for the guys and blinged out for the girls. I also doodled on my font sentiment. Yeah, not a great doodler. lol

I made the invitation so it would fit into a #10 (business size) envie. Now it is ready for DS to hand deliver.  If you are going to mail I wouldn't use the bling as it would coast extra to mail it.  Isn't this a cute invite?!!  We love to have people over to BBQ and swim in the pool during the summer so what better way to send out an invite for the pool!

Sizes:  shadow base: 8.90 wide x 5.58 height

base layer: 8.73 wide x 2.82 height

lens layer: 6.02 wide x 2.82 height

Pool Party font: 1.50

Enjoy seeing all the different invites this week, I know they are all going to be awesome!!!

Kissing Ball

Hi Crafty friends, Brenda here from Friends Craftin with Friends.  This week on Sweet Sassy Diva the DT was asked to make something fun, no layouts, no cards.  So after thinking about it for a while I decided that I wanted to make a kissing ball.  I started with a 5" styrofoam ball.  Picked out my paper-old stack in my stash that was called Love Letters from Little Yellow Bicycle and then deciding on what flowers I wanted to use on my kissing ball.  I decided on some spiral flowers from the Flower Shoppe, the spiral on page 12, the spiral on page 13 and the spiral on page 15.  I my flowers at 2.25, 2.50 and 2.75.

There are around 160-170 flowers on my ball.  So I started cutting and rolling flowers, and cutting and rolling.

I placed a piece of ribbon on my ball for my hanger using to straight pins with heads. After having a pile of flowers done, I started gluing them onto my ball. 

Taking care to get them as close to each other as possible, I kept working around and up the ball. After I got to the top I glued flowers to each side of the ribbon hanger making sure to glue tight up against it so the pins wouldn't show.

Here it is with all the flowers in place.  Now I thought that I would add a heart from the Sweethearts Cart, with the lips from Hannah Montana and the "muwah" from Smiley Cards.  I glued this to the side of the kissing ball. Then I took some pink twine and punched to hearts using some old Creative Memories punches.  I sandwiched the twine between the hearts and glued the other end in a crack of the kissing ball on the bottom.  Here it is handing from my ceiling.  Sorry about the pics getting out of order, I'm not sure how to fix it. lol  One more thing I need to learn!  Thanks for joing us here at Sweet Sassy Diva, be sure to keep checking in to see lots of inspiration from our fabulous design team, you won't be disappointed! You may even walk away with some inspiration!

Cards for Emily Day 2 Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Cards for Emily Blog Hop Day 2!!!

This is a 2 day hop so be sure to go back to Day 1 to hop through yesterday's posts for some more inspiration! :)
If you came from Beckie - http://justbcreativecrazy.blogspot.com/ then you are at the right place! If you just happened across my blog and are interested in participating then start back at the beginning at Michelle's blog at Scrappin' For Kenzie!

Emily is a sweet little 6 year old girl that has battled Leukemia since before Chrstmas 2011. She has had to endure more pain in a few short months than most adults in their entire life. She has gone from Leukemia to Rotavirus, to pancreatitis, to kidney stones, then to shingles, not to mention over 300 pokes in her tiny little body! From chemo to blood draws to feeding tube. Her bone marrow is finally at 0.00% so she is now in remission and back at home! She is still going through 7 different chemotherapy treatments but is finally doing better! To read her full story and updates please visit the original Cards for Emily info post HERE

For this hop all we ask is that you hop through the list, then when you are done, link up your card for Emily back at Michelle's blog at Scrappin' For Kenzie. The link up tool is in the left hand side bar under "Cards for Emily". You will see her picture right above it.

REMEMBER: There is no requirement to leave comments or even hop through all of the blogs if you don't have time. There will be no personal candy at any of the stops along the way. That way you can get maximum inspiration to make your own card and have enough time to link it up and send it away!

There WILL be however a giveaway to one lucky winner that links up their card by February 29th 2012. You can link up as many cards/projects that you would like. The more you link up and send the more greater your chance is of winning a.....

$20 gift certificate to

 Their etsy store has over 100 stamps to choose from!

Now on to my card for Emily!

My card base came from Birthday Bash and my wagon and sentiment came from Just Because Cart  I inked my sentiment with Tim Holtz distress ink, Vinage Photo. I used white stickles on "pulling" and "you" on the sentiment and the highlight on the wagon. I think I will add a bow on it yet, it just looks like something is missing. lol  I think that will finish it off then.

Thank you sooooo much for joining us in this great cause for Cards For Emily!! We REALLY REALLY hope you will participate and link up your card to put a smile on this very beautiful, very deserving little girl that Michelle is honored to call her niece. :)
Your next hop in the line up for day 2 is Lisa - http://indymermaid.blogspot.com/

Happy Scrapping! Hope to see your card soon!

Here is the line-up for Day 2 in case you get lost along the way!

Michelle - http://scrappinforkenzie.blogspot.com
Faith Abigail - http://www.faithabigaildesigns.com/
Amanda - http://amandascraftsandmore.blogspot.com/
Lisa - http://lisascreativeniche.blogspot.com/
Elizabeth - http://visionsofpaper.blogspot.com/
Marie -  http://ethansimprints.blogspot.com/
Suzanne - http://cricutcraftingrammy.blogspot.com/
Tina - http://www.teenabugg.blogspot.com/
Beckie - http://justbcreativecrazy.blogspot.com/
Brenda - http://friendscraftinwithfriends.blogspot.com/
Lisa - http://indymermaid.blogspot.com/
Jessie - http://edoggsugarlipsandprincessbuttercup.blogspot.com/

Visit Michelle when you are all the way through or jump here now to link up your card!
Michelle - http://scrappinforkenzie.blogspot.com

Cards for Emily Blog Hop

Welcome to the Cards for Emily Blog Hop Day 1!!!

This is a 2 day hop so be sure to come back tomorrow for some more inspiration! :)

If you came from
Karen - http://www.creationsbykw.blogspot.com/ then you are in the right place! If you just happened across my blog and are interested in the entire hop and Emily's story, start back at Michelle's blog at Scrappin' For Kenzie!



Emily is a sweet little 6 year old girl that has battled Leukemia since before Chrstmas 2011. She has had to endure more pain in a few short months than most adults in their entire life. She has gone from Leukemia to Rotavirus, to pancreatitis, to kidney stones, then to shingles, not to mention over 300 pokes in her tiny little body! From chemo to blood draws to feeding tube. Her bone marrow is finally at 0.00% so she is now in remission and back at home! She is still going through 7 different chemotherapy treatments but is finally doing better! To read her full story and updates please visit the original Cards for Emily info post HERE



For this hop all we ask is that you hop through the list, then when you are done, link up your card for Emily at Scrappin' for Kenzie. The link up tool is in the left hand side bar under "Cards for Emily". You will see her picture right above it.



REMEMBER: There is no requirement to leave comments or even hop through all of the blogs if you don't have time. There will be no personal candy at any of the stops along the way. That way you can get maximum inspiration to make your own card and have enough time to link it up and send it away!



There WILL be however a giveaway to one lucky winner that links up their card by February 29th 2012. You can link up as many cards/projects that you would like. The more you link up and send the more greater your chance is of winning a.....



$20 gift certificate to




 Their etsy store has over 100 stamps to choose from!



Now on to my project for Emily!

My project for Emily is a little treat box!  The die box is from My Creative Time as well the tag and sentiment.  I cut the dies with my Cuttlebug using K&Co paper.

I then put adhesive on my tabs and glued the sides of the box together.  I used the stickers that were in this paper line to decorate the box.  So cute!!  I tied one end together and then put some heart fruit gummies in the box.  Of course I had to fold up extra packaging and tape so I could fit it in the box, but I got it in there! lol  Then I tied the other end closed and placed my little stitched tag on as well.  So with the sticker heard and the tag it says "Be Mine Sweet Valentine".  I thought that was so cute!

Thank you sooooo much for joining us in this great cause for Cards For Emily!! We REALLY REALLY hope you will participate and link up your card to put a smile on this very beautiful, very deserving little girl that Michelle is honored to call her niece. :)

Your next hop in the line up for day 1 is
Charlotte - http://alittlebitofdetail.blogspot.com/



Happy Scrapping! Hope to see you again tomorrow!



Here is the line-up for Day 1 in case you get lost along the way. Be sure to come back tomorrow as we have all new projects and some new designers!



Michelle - http://scrappinforkenzie.blogspot.com

Faith Abigail - http://www.faithabigaildesigns.com/

Amy - http://www.lovetocrop.com/

Elizabeth - http://visionsofpaper.blogspot.com/

Marie -  http://ethansimprints.blogspot.com/

Michele - http://fishmememoriesandmore.blogspot.com/

Suzanne - http://cricutcraftingrammy.blogspot.com/

Tina - http://www.teenabugg.blogspot.com/

Jennasa - http://findtimetocreate.blogspot.com/

Teresa - http://scrappintplace.blogspot.com/

Jen - http://www.jenscraftcorner.com/

Beckie - http://justbcreativecrazy.blogspot.com/

Karen - http://www.creationsbykw.blogspot.com/

Brenda - http://friendscraftinwithfriends.blogspot.com/

Charlotte - http://alittlebitofdetail.blogspot.com/

Robin - http://robinscreativecottage.blogspot.com/

Lisa - http://indymermaid.blogspot.com/

Missing You

Ok third post for today!  Wow, never do I have three posts in one day! lol  This card is a card that I did for Mojo Monday.  Here is the sketch and here is my card.  Only used my Nestablities in the Oval shapes and My Creative Time stamp set. It's a plain card, but I kinda like it. lol

Sympathy Cards

Sympathy cards, they are hard to make.  I've made two, one using Inspired Hearts for a friend of mine who lost her adult son.  His life was taken much to early, he was only 53 years old.  One more year older than me.  I can't imagine having to bury a child, no parent should ever have to bury a child. This man was an amazing member of our community, so amazing that he had around 700 people show up for his viewing.  Another friend and myself went to the viewing and stood in line for almost 2 hours!  It was the most amazing site I have even seen.  I mean what a tribute to this man!!  It was so uplifting to see everyone come out and pay their respects to his family!! For my card I used the Inspired Hearts Cicute cart and the Cuttlebug corner die as well as a sentiment from Paper Trey Ink.  The paper was some holographic paper from Wal-Mart. Love this paper!!!

My next card doesn't use any Cricut carts.  I just used a die and stamps from Paper Trey Ink. This card is for Hope and Faith Cards. 

Thanks for looking and love to hear your comments!!!

Hello Kitty Valentine

Hi Crafty friends, I made a Valentine for a little girl who is sick with Leukemia and could use some thinking of you cards, Pulling for you cards, etc...So I started with a Hello Kitty card from Hello Kitty Greetings Cricut cart.  I used the card feature of this cart and made sized my card to 5 1/2 inches. Thinking that it would fit in an A2 envie.  But it didn't, her little whiskers where to long. lol  So if you want her to fit in an A2 envie, mabye make her 5 inches instead.  I sized her on my Gypsy, but didn't realize that the whiskers where out of my template.  That's what I get for not zooming in!!! But that was ok, I just used a larger envie for her.  Nothing special about this card, didn't do anything special just made the card as it was supposed to be.  Still think she is super cute though and I am hoping that Hello Kitty brings a smile to little Emily's face.  If you would like to put a smile on this sweet little girls face, please send her a card.  All info can be found here.

3 x 3 Valentines

Hi all my crafty friends!  I made two more 3x3 Valentines.  I think these are so cute to pop in a lunch bag with a sweet note or to leave on your husband's desk, etc...I didn't use any Cricut on these two, just Stampin Up stamps with sentiments coming from My Creative Time and Studio G stamp. I hope you all have a super Super Bowl day and that your favorite teams wins!!

Old Fashion Valentine

Hi Crafty Friends!  Brenda here from Friends Craftin with Friends.  Our challenge this week on Sweet Sassy Diva was an old fashion Valentine.  I was all over the place on this challenge. lol  I just couldn't make up my mind or achieve the look I wanted.  When I think of an old fashion valentine two things come to my mind.  I think of a child's Valentine with cute sentiments and I think of an adult valentine with lacy hearts and doilies.  So I started by designing my card on my Gypsy.  My card base is from Damask Decor and it is really, really big! My lacy heart came from Love Struck and the "I Love You" lace came from Paper Lace. I am doing double duty with this card, it will be DH's anniversary and Valentine's.  I knew I wouldn't be mailing it so I made it extra big (9x7 1/2). You know, making a big statement. teehee

Next I gathered my carts I was using and some of the papers I thought I would use.  I didn't get any embellishments together because I wasn't sure what I was going to want to use thus far. The pattern paper I used is from Little Yellow Bicycle.

I cut my huge card base out of 12 x 24 white paper. Then I cut part of my base again by hanging the part I didn't want to cut off my mat in my Gypsy.

I did some distressing on my layer using Tim Holtz Black Soot distressing ink.  Tip: I didn't want to buy a handle for each color of distressing ink, so I took old blocks from when I unmounted my stamps, but velcro on one side and attached the sponge to it and on the other side I labeled the color on it.  It works as good as the orginal and it didn't cost me anything but some velco and the sponges!

Next I picked out the colors of card stock that I wanted to cut my images out of.  I thought I would stick with the color red, pink, and black.  The pink is glitter paper by DCWV.

After getting my die images cut out, I assembled them and placed them on my card.  After looking at it for a while trying to figure out what embellishments I wanted I decided to go with a large silk daisy, folded and a smaller paper daisy on top with a heart rhinestone.  I had some black and white genertic ribbon in my stash and I used that to go around the base, made a bow and place another heart rhinestone in the middle of the bow.  Did a little stickling and put on some gems.  I really love how this huge card turned out and look forward to giving to DH even though it is a little femine. LOL  I hope you enjoy it too!

Enter this at Fantabulous Cricut where you need a heart on your project.