So Grateful and Thankful!

Hi my crafty friends, Brenda here and today at Sweet Sassy Diva we were asked to make a project for something we are grateful for.  I was inspired by Cheri over at DJ's Sundries and Mary over at CardzTV.  Mary inspired me to use the Artiste cart and make the 3D pumpkin but she added more layers. And even though I didn't do it the way she did, she did inspire me to do this.  Now for the rest of my project I lifted from Cheri.  She had an amazing idea and I went with it because I so loved it!  She has an awesome video too for you to watch here, just scroll down a little and it will be there.  Sooo, I started with the Ariste cart and cut out 16 3D pumpkins at 4.5 inches I think.  Sorry I can't remember for sure.  Because they have a slit in each one, I cut both.  So 8 with the slit at the top and 8 with the slit at the bottom.  Had this cart been in my Gypsy I would have hid the slits, but it's not so I didn't. lol  But I did find that I like the slit on the bottom and not the top.  So if you are going to use this pumpkin I would use the bottom slitted one.  You can also use any scallop you like as long as you cut a flat bottom on them.  I just happend to like that shape of the Artiste 3D one.

After cutting them all I folded them in half and dry embossed them.  Also you will want to ink them at this stage too.  Ink on the inside fold.

Next you will start gluing them together by stacking them.

Here's what it will look like after they are all stacked and spread out.  I also wrapped hemp around a paper clip to use to hold a special little surprise.

Want to know what that special little surprise is???  It's a little mini to record what I am thankful for for many years!  It will hold the years 2011 to 2019!  I love that I can write what I am thankful for on each Thanksgiving!  I'm starting with last year because it was a special year in that a son of mine came home for the first time in years and had Thanksgiving dinner with us. I took a tag from Plantin Schoolbook and welded them together.  I put it on my matt diagonally because I wanted an extra tag and that was the only way to fit it on a 12x12 piece of cardstock.

I also cut two more sizes of tags not welded together for my layers. I took some old Creative Memoires Sticker letters and put my years and title on each tag.

Here's what it looks like all done. My leaves on my curly cues are from My Creative Time dies.  I think it will be cute sitting on my table.  I am going to enjoy writing what I'm thankful for each year!!

So what can you make to show how grateful or who you are greatful for?  Happy Craftin my friends!

Criss Cross Easel Card

Hello crafty friends!  I hope you are having a wonderful day so far. Brenda here and today is "turkey" day at Sweet Sassy Diva.  Yes, I know it's not Thanksgiving yet. lol  For this weeks theme I chose for my design team sisters to make anything with a turkey on it.  So hence the turkey day! lol  For my card I chose to do a criss cross easel card and I got this fabulous idea from Lorraine at Card Creations by Lorraine.  She has a great video on her blog and I will do a tutorial here for you as well. A very easy card to make and you can also put candy or other little goodies in the criss cross pocket.  So are you ready to get started???  We are going to start with the criss cross part of our card first. Here we go!

My orginal card is a 6x6 card, but the card in my tutorial is a 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 card.  So I'm going to give you the size for the 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 card.  Start with 3 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock.  Cut each 5 1/2 x 11.  Score 2 of these at 5 1/2 inches.  Like this:

Now you are going to cut each of these 2 pieces like I have marked on the paper.  You two full squares will be glued together ontop of each other after you cut the first square in have diagonal. And the second piece the same way but the opposite square.  Clear as mud?? Hopefully the pics will make it clearer for you. Click on the pics to see them bigger.

This is what your two 5 1/2 x 11 inch paper should look like now.  Now you are going to glue the two whole squares on top of one another.

This is what it will look like after you do that.  This is where you are going to add your designer paper in the center square.  Cut a 5 1/4 x 5 1/4 inch in the paper of your choice and adhere down.

Now you are going to bring you triangular flap over and glue down.  Yes, I forgot my designer paper and had to tear it back open to put it in there. lol

Now you want to place your designer paper on your triangluar flap.  So cut another 5 1/4 x 5 1/4 square and cut it in half diagonally.  Use one of your triangle pieces to adhere to your triangular flap like this.

Now you are going to do the other side the same way only you have to put adhesive half way up the side too like this:

Glue on your designer paper once again and now your criss cross card is done up to this point.  And you can decorate as you want.

Now you are ready to make your easel base.  You should still have one piece of 5 1/2 x 11 piece of paper left.  You are going to score that at 2 1/2 and 5 1/2.  Fold as shown and then glue your criss cross base on.  Finish off the base with something raised to hold the criss cross open.

And there you have it, easy peasy lemon squeezy!  Now are you ready to see my turkey criss cross easel card?  Here it is:

Here's the specs of this card:

6x12 criss cross base and easel base

Teddy Bear Parade Cart for my little turkey bear, and he is on an homemade wobble so he can wobble as he gobbles, lol

Fall Leaves from My Creative Time as well as the sentiment and you can find them here

Paper from the DCWV Fall and Halloween stack

Sentiment mat from Elegant Edges

I hope you will give this cool card a try, they are fun to make and fun to give!!  Until next time my crafty friends, happy craftin!

Turkey Swing Card

Hello my fabulous crafty friends!  It's Monday and time for a new challenge at BBTB2.  This week I am hosting and I chose for my Design Team to create using a turkey from any Cricut cartridge.  Oh my the Design Team has some fabulous inspiration for you today!!  So please go check them out and then hopefully you will have time to making a project using a turkey too.  Just please make sure that you follow our simple rules found at the top of the BBTB2 blog-I'm promise they are basic and easy to follow.

Now onto my project.  I decided to give one of the swing cards on the Artiste cart a try.  They are quite fun to do! lol  Nothing was hard to do about this card as the Cricut does all the work for you.  I just added my pattern paper and also found my cute little turkey silhouette on the Ariste cart as well. I cut this card at 7" because I wanted a bigger card, but I have also did one at 5.5 and that is a good size too and will fit in an A2 envie. My sentiments are from My Creative Time and you can find her stamps here.  I think it is a great little card to send on for Thanksgiving.  I hope you enjoyed this card and I hope you will give some of the swing cards a try.  Happy Craftin!

Exciting News!

I just have to share this exciting news, I was chosen to be on the 25 days of Christmas Showcase on My Paper Crafting formally know as Cooking with the Cricut!!!!  How exciting to be one choosen. Melinda has wonderful cut files as well as digi stamps and I feel blessed to be one chosen to work with them.  I will be working with the digi stamps as well as the Cricut.  You need to go check it out, it is going to be lot of inspiration during a busy time.  And an added bonus is everyday from Dec. 1-25 you will get a free cut file and a free digi stamp and/or graphic!!!  Can you say Merry Christmas to you?!!!  Melinda is so generous!  There are fabulous design team members and you can go check them out by visiting here.  Thank you to Melinda for chosing me to help showcase her awesome files and and hopefuly inspire everyone out in blog land!

Blog Award from Mary H!!

I want to thank Mary from Carolina Cards who was kind enough to pass this award to me. Thank you so much, Mary! Please go check out Mary's blog, she makes the most amazing cards!  I'll pass this award along to other bloggers by following the rules, and hopefully make them feel as happy as I did when it came to me. It was a real bright spot in my day!  I went through a lot of blogs trying to pass this award along and follow the rule of less than 200 followers. It was hard as so many blogs have more than 200 followers. lol  There are so many blogs that I visit, with so much awesome talent, this was a tough task to fulfill. Hope you'll check out these creative bloggers.

About this award:

Liebster is a German word meaning "Beloved","Favourite," or "Dearest." This award is a peer to peer award in which fellow bloggers present the award to their favorite bloggers with less than 200 followers. The origins of this award is unclear, but is believed to have originated by a German blogger. This award was designed to be a blog award in the pay it forward fashion to share your dearest and most beloved blogs that have less than 200 followers.

Rules:

*Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to their blog.

*Post the award onto your blog.

*Give the award to five bloggers who you appreciate that have less than 200 followers.

*Leave a comment on their blog to let them know you have given them this awesome award!

WOW! picking just five bloggers was not an easy task, but here we go:

Vickie from Vickie's Scrappings - Vickie is amazing and I love her projects, so check her blog out, she is a friend and a sweetie!

Annette from Charlottes Web - Annette makes the most amazing mini albums, you have to check them out!

Tammy from Scrap Cave Creations - Tammy does amazing videos and projects, you must check her out, you will learn a lot!

Andi from Never a Dull Moment - Andi is amazing and has been on an amazing journey, please go share some love and give her encouragement and congrats!!

Julie of Julie's Krafty Korner - Julie is so talented and I love her country style, her blog is a must check out blog!!

Thank you so much Mary for this award!  I hope that my followers will check out these blogs that I picked.  Cause even though they don't have a huge following, they are simply amazing blogs with talent that is so amazing as well.  Thank you ladies for all the inspiration that you give to me by visitng your blogs!!!

Circles, Circles, Circles-lots of Circles!

Hello all my crafty friends, I hope that you all have had a fabulous weekend!  Now it's time to get down to business,  we are having an inspirational Monday here at BBTB2! lol  We  used the die cut of a circle from any cart as our inspiration on any project.  Well that had me thinking what I wanted to do.  There are so many things that can be made with a circle, but I finally decided to make the ornament (I guess it is an ornament, lol) in the Artiste book on page 57.  You cut 20 circles and then score them and start assembling.  I used some beads hanging below the ornament on some simple hemp twine and then threaded it up throw the top to make a loop for my hanger.  This little ornament is simple to make and would be cute on a tree with many of them in different papers. I didn't dress mine up much, but you could if you wanted too.   I went with the recommended size of 1" and I like the size of the finished ornament. I'm telling you if you don't own this cart, you need to go and buy it!  It's such as fabulous cart! So I hope you enjoy the inspirations on using circles on a project.  Sorry but there is no challenge opportunity this week just inspiration from our fabulous Design Team. 

Eek!!!!

Hi my crafty friends! I hope who ever is in the path of Sandy will be safe!  We are hunkered down and have the generator ready to go as we are supposed to get 60 - 80 MPH wind and may be without electric for a while.  So I thought I'd better get my post ready!!  Brenda here and this week at Sweet Sassy Diva my design team sister Lori gave us the challenge of party favors or party decorations.  I went with a favor.  Nothing here to do a tutorial on as it is all basic stuff cut, score and decorate. I cut my coffin off the CTMH Artiste cart on fit to page.  I must say it is a pretty big size and holds a ton of candy! lol  I also cute my skelton as well as the spider webs.  I cut two skeltons because I wanted one on the botton of my coffin for when my guest eat the candy they will have a little surprise.  Then I cut it again and cut off the arms and legs to glue to my lid to look like Fred Bones is trying to get out of the coffin. lol  The smaller webs I cut at 1.20" and I like that they had some problems cutting because it looks like the webs have been disturbed, but the big one is good to go because momma spider is make suring no one distrubes that one! My spider came from the Oct. 31st cart.  I cut the eek out of the Artiste cart too and use glossy accents on it as well as my spider. I haven't glue my "eek" down or my spider down yet as the glossy accents is still wet in spots. I inked up my skelton legs and arms with vintage photo and barn red, to mimick dirt and dried blood on the bones.  I filled iwth an assortment of candy and called it done!  I hope you will get crafty for Halloween too.  Looks like our Halloween night won't be happening depending on the hurricane.  But that's ok, we want everyone safe and sound!  Happy crafting!!!