Fire Up the Grills!

Hi my crafty friends, Brenda here from Friends Craftin' with Friends.  This week at Sweet Sassy Diva our challenge theme is "Fire Up the Grill".  For my project I decided to go with a card.  I'm sorry I have no tutorial for you as it was just a simple A7 card.  I used Three Birds on Parade and Elegant Edges for my die cuts. I used some white ink for my title to highlight it and I popped my title up.  I hope that you are inspired to scrap your Memorial Day cookout pictures.  I want to take this time to thank our military, past and present,  for the many freedoms that we have here in American.  I am very proud of our Soldiers and very proud of my two Soldiers, my son's Lance and Evan for fighting for their country.  Please remember our Veterans and our Soldiers this Memorial Day and everyday.  Thanks, have a wonderful Memorial Day my crafty friends!!

How Does Your Garden Grow? BBTB2 Challenge

It's Monday so that means it is time for a BBTB2 challenge!  Our talented design team sister Julia has yet another  fun challenge for us this week.  She has challenged us to make a project with the theme "Garden".  Well I really wanted to do a scrapbook layout of my flowers, but I ran out of time soooo...I chose to do a card instead.  It didn't turn out the way I had envisioned it, but it is what it is now. lol  I guess some ya' like and some not so much. I used the card feature in Freshly Picked and the sentiment is from there too.  I welded the sentiment into the open window on my Gypsy then cut the sentiment again and glued it to the welded one on the card base.  I took pink and green scraps and put behind the tulips to give them color.  For the inside I a scrap piece of double sided paper for the mat behind the sentiment on the front of the card.  Clear as mud, right?!  I put a mat on the right side of my card and then using My Pink Stamper stamps, stamped the butterfly and the sentiment.  I used a little Tim Holtz distress ink in Vintage Photo around my card base.  There you have it, simple, plain but half way cute.  lol  Please come on over the BBTB2 and share a project that you make with the theme "Garden", love seeing all your creations!

Graduation Cards

Hi my crafty friends, Brenda here and this week at Sweet Sassy Diva we are celebrating graduations.  Perfect timing as my 5th son (and his girlfriend) graduated from college that Saturday before Mother's Day.  It was a beautiful day for graduation.  I only wish they could shorten the speeches. lol  Anyway for my son I made a card from Wild Card, the graduation hat.  But to mix it up a little I welded the scroll to the hat.  I also add ribbon to the scroll and a twine tassel along with a metal embellishment (been in my stash forever) that has prongs that punch through the paper and then you push the prongs down.  I think it turned out pretty good, DS loved it anyway. lol  For his girlfriend and soon to be fiance, I made a Hello Kitty card using Art Philosophy for the card base, Hello Kitty Greeting for Hello Kitty in her graduation gown and Gypsy Wanderings for the sentiment.  I pop dotted Hello Kitty's pieces of her gown and hat, then popped them up on the card as well. I used white ink to ink around her graduation gown to make it stand out and it give some depth to the gown.  Using glossy accents I made her eyes shine as well as the sentiment.  I am pretty please with this card as well.  My  future DIL loved it as she loves when I make them their cards. I hope that you have gotten lots of inspiration this week here a Sweet Sassy Diva and will give some graduation cards a try too.

Here is my Gypsy showing that I welded my scroll to the hat as well as welding two if the hats together to make it a shaped card.

Here are some of the cuts, for the white die cuts I used my Spectrum Noir markers to give the cuts some depth.

Here is a close up of the tassel, yeah I know not the greatest tassel but it will do. lol  And a close up of the brad and metal embellishment.

Here is my Gypsy with Hello Kitty layout on the card base.  Nothing fancy here, no welding or anything. Simple, easy peasy!

Both cards together

Yummy in my Tummy! BBTB2 Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, this week on BBTB2 our talented design team sister has issued us a kitchen challenge.  We can make anything we want using any carts as long as it is something you would find in a kitchen.  I knew what I was going to do right away! I had pictures of my grand-daughter, Cadence, eating cake batter when I was making cupcakes.  I had kept a little batter on the scraper and in the bowl and let her have at it. She was so cute and she was so loving this little treat!  Of course she can have anything she wants when she is at Grandma's house! lol  I used From My Kitchen for the mixer and the bowl.  Simply Charmed was used for the word "yummy" and the Mickey Font was used for the word "tummy" which I welded to gether.  Billionaire was used for the words "in & my".  I used scrap papers from my stash for the mixer and the bowl.  My other papers were from DCWV Nana Kitchen stack. A little doodling with a white gel pen and a brown marker.  Thanks for looking my friends, hope you feel a little inspired to get your precious photos scrapped!

Whitney's Sweet 16 Blog Hop!

Welcome to Whitney's Sweet 16 Blog Hop!!




Today we are celebrating a vibrant, beautiful 16 year old young lady who is a gift from the Lord. What better way to celebrate your 16th birthday than with friends. So I have asked several of my talented crafty friends to help me make Whitney's 16th birthday special. This hop features cards, layouts, and other fun projects - all celebrating that special time in life when a girl turns 16. I hope you enjoy each project along the way as everyone has worked very hard to help make Whitney's day special. Be sure to leave a comment at each hop stop to win blog candy.

If you've arrived from Suzanne's blog then you are in the right place!! If you've just popped in to visit my blog or are reading this via email please go to Rachelle's blog and start at the beginning...

To celebrate Whitney's birthday I created........A cupcake birthday card using Art Philosophy for my base and cupcake die cut, Elegant Edges for my mat to put my cupcake on and the matching CTMH stamp set to stamp the cupcake.  I used my Spectrum Noir markers to color my cupcake. Some pearls and it is done!   Whitney I hope that your 16th birthday is one of the best ever!!!

BLOG CANDY (not required) goes here.

Now you are on your way to the next party stop Jenny - http://cccjalessi.blogspot.com/

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Birthday Whitney!

If you get lost along the way here is the line up:

1. Rachelle ~ http://creationsbyrachelle.blogspot.com/
2. Ashley ~ http://theglamoroussideofscrapping.blogspot.com/
3. Ellen ♥ CardMonkey ~ http://cardmonkey-business.blogspot.com/
4. Kimberly (KPKre8tions) Pate ~ http://scrappingrookie.blogspot.com
5. Beth (M&Ddesigns) ~ http://motherandaughterdesigns.blogspot.com
6. Lynne - http://slasewcraftiness.blogspot.com/
7. Angie- http://atuttletime.blogspot.com
8. Shelly-http://kccroppers.blogspot.com/
9. Suzanne-http://cricutcraftingrammy.blogspot.com/
10. Brenda - http://www.friendscraftinwithfriends.blogspot.com/
11. Jenny http://cccjalessi.blogspot.com/
12. Kristy http://scraptasticalkreations.blogspot.com

Help a fellow blogger out!!

Hi my crafty friends!  My friend Amy at Redheaded Crafter is trying to reach 500 followers for her one year blogoversary.  She is an amazingly talented crafter and she is having an amazing give away of a gift card to a store of your choice, Hobby Lobby, Michaels or JoAnns.  If she reaches her goal her wonderful parents have said they will double the amount of the gift card!!!  Wow what awesome parents she has!! So go check her out and help her out by following her, I promise you won't be sorry!!!

Bakery BBTB2 Challenge

Hi my crafty friends!  This week at BBTB2 (which I still can't believe I'm a part of this fabulous group of ladies!!!) our talented hostess Julia gave us the challenge of making any project using items you would find in a bakery.  I knew that I had some dessert pictures (took them to put in a future cook book) so I did a lo. For my layout I used the following Cricut carts: From My Kitchen, Pop Up Neighborhood, Base Camp, Thanksgiving, Sesame Street Friends and Kate's Kitchen for my background paper.  I used a cream base shadow for all my die cuts, and inked my die cuts with Vintage Photo distress ink.  I was please with how my layout came together. I hope this inspire you to come play along with us at BBTB2!!

Mother's Day card for my Daughter-in-laws

Hi my crafty friends, hope you are all doing well today!  I am looking forward to the weekend as I am sure you all are too.  I have a couple cards that I made for my DIL's for Mother's Day.  I did an A2 wide card that Sheila from She's a Sassy Lady did.  I think they turned out cute but I do have mistakes in them so I will be trying this again sometime soon. lol  I used Sheila's directions, A Childs Year and George and Basic Shapes Cricut carts.  I also use a Tim Holtz rosette die, Martha Steward punch, some buttons (Paper Trey Ink), pearls (SU) and twine (The Twinery).  I inked everything with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo ink. The "barn" star I made by punching a star out with a Creative Memories punch and then scoring each star point down the whole way.  I then pinched the star tips to make it look like the barn stars you see all over the place. The inside I used some old stickers I had in my stash and a Paper Trey Ink stamp set.  Thanks for looking, I love reading your comments!!  I am going to enter these cards in the following challenges:
My Sassy Lady-Gypsy Made Simple Wide Partial Shape Cards
SOUS-In celebrations of mothers
Fantabulous Cricut-#110 Mother's day challenge

Happy Mother's Day card

Hi crafty friends!  This is Brenda from Friends Craftin' with Friends.  This week on Sweet Sassy Diva we were asked to make something in honor of mothers since Mother's Day is upon us.  Since my MIL loves flowers I decided to do a flower pot card to go with her gift.  But I wanted more of a 3D look to my flowers.  So I made my card base first, which is the pot.  I started out with my base size being 3.50" x 9".  I scored my base at 2" and 5.50".  Fold down the 2" side and then fold the 5.50" score back.

One the 2" score, use a decorative punch and punch the edge of the paper.  Here is my punched edge, at this point you can ink your base if you so wish too.

At this point put on ribbon if so desired around the punched area.  I did not do that and it was harder to get it through once I decided to put twine around.  Now move onto your insert for the base.  I used the same color as I did for my pot.  Cut your cardstock at 2.50" x 4.50".  Cut a white mat at 2.25" x 4.25".  Adhear to your insert base. Go ahead and decorate and stamp your mat.

Now come the slightly tricky part.  Place your card base back into you trimmer.  Place the 2" score line on the cut groove of your paper cutter and the 5.5" score line at the .50" mark and cut.  Do the same for the other side of your card base.  Now your card should look like a flower pot.

 Here you can see that your base is in the shape of a flower pot.  Those little slices of cardstock are what I cut off each side.

Now would be a good time to add your ribbon, twine or anything else around the lip of the pot.  I choose to use twine. And then I pop dotted up the "lip" of the pot. This is optional.  Next you want to open your base card and place your insert on the base, making sure that the bottom lines up with the bottom of your pot.  This fits perfectly.  Now put adhesive on either side of the insert on the base.  Fold card base back up. 

Now is a good time to make sure your base slides in and out without any problems.  Now you are ready to put flowers on the insert!  I chose to use flowers from CTMH Art Philosophy and Flower Shoppe.  I also added some sticker insects to my card among the flowers and on the pot. I also hung a tag on my twine and used My Creative Time stamps and dies.  Here is my finished card!  All my MIL has to do is pull out the flower insert to see her Mother's Day message!!

I hope that you have enjoyed the design teams take on this challenge and I hope that you will take something beautiful for the mother's in your life! 

Baptism Blessings

Hi my crafty friends!  Today at Bitten by the Bug 2 our talented hostess Melissa asked us to make a layout using any frame from any cartridge.  I got inspiration from our youngest grand daughter's baptism.  I wanted to use the eyelet frame (just reminds me of babies for some reason!) from Elegant Edges, lamb from Paper Doll Dress Up, my journaling box is from Lacy Labels and the cross is from Indie Art. I did a double layout and the titled and dad holding baby from Inspired Hearts as well for the second page.  I used pearly paper from DCVW and some metalic paper from DCVW.  My white paper is just plain white from Hobby Lobby and my white shimmery paper is from Hobby Lobby as well, these are just 8.50" x 11" but were perfect for my cuts.  I used a Martha Steward punch around the page for my border.  For my frame cut I distressed it with some Tim Holtz antique linen and worn lipstick.  I was trying to make the lace look old, worn and passed down from the generations. Didn't quite acheive that but looks ok. lol  For my lambs I scraplifted a cool effect from my good friend Suzanne.  She used liquid pearls and swirled them around on some lambs she did.  I loved it so much so I did that to my lambs as well!  Really looks awesome!  Overall I am pretty pleased with how this layout turned out although it wasn't easy to photograph because of all the shimmery paper.  I hope it inspires you to get your craft on and join us at BBTB2!!

Surgery Went Well

Hi Everyone, as some of you know I have had lots of kidney stones, 10 years worth to be exact with several times within the years.  I got stone free for about 1 - 1 1/2 years and wham, I had an attack two months ago.  Found out that I had two stones pass at the same time.  Had to go back to my urologist and he showed my how swollen my left kidney was and my tub was swollen and backed up with urine, he was thinking surgery right off the bat.  Well I really didn't want to have surgery, I wanted to give the stones time to pass.  Only they didn't pass.  So two weeks ago doc decided to stop waiting and do the surgery.  Today my surgery was done and went well.  The stones were impacted so they would have never passed no matter how long I waited. lol  Doc placed a stint in my tube to keep it open while it heals, I will have this about 10 days.  I have some problems with being put to sleep, but they gave me meds to help me out with that.  I still feel the effects of being put to sleep, and I am crampy, but not in pain so that is a good thing. DH has been awesome and taking great care of me, so good that the hospital wanted to hire him!! Youngest DS yells at me everytime I get up.  I'm only allowed to get up to go potty (they gave me meds to make me potty a lot). I have had lots of people praying for me and I so appreciate your prayers.  I am going to ask for you to keep my in your prayers as I have more stone, one in each kidney.  Please pray that these pass without any problems and that my body doesn't make even more.  I really don't want to repeat this proceedure. lol  Thank you my friends, you are all just awesome!!!  Big crafty hugs! Brenda