Grad Button

Hello my crafty friends, I hope you are having a wonder Thursday. It is a grey day around and 32 degrees cooler as well!! How you can sweat buckets one day and be freezing the next day is beyond me. lol But that is this crazy weather for you. Hope it is warm but not hot where you are today. I like perfect weather. lol Not sure where to go to find it, but that's what I like. Me and a million other people, right?!

I have made a little Grad button that I will be wearing tomorrow night at Graduation, and will probably wear it at my son's grad party too and who knows where else. lol I used Accents Essentials Cricut cartridge for my spiky circles. I really wanted the Graduation Cricut cartridge but didn't buy it when it was marked down and now people are selling it at outrageous prices. Lived and learned on that one! But all is ok, as I made what I had work for me.  I cut them out in silver and a maroon cardstock and off set them. I use silver and maroon ribbon as well as some white ribbon. I staples these in between the spiky circles. Then I made a rosette using the MCT stitched rosette dies. Took a wallet sized pic from his grad pictures and made it into a circle using a old My Creative Memories cutter and placed it on my rosette with hot glue. I was going to use vinyl to put his initials, school initials and the year but I have so many letter stickers that I just decided to use those instead, they are My Creative Memories too. This will make it's way into the photo album after I'm done wearing it. That's it! Now all I have to do is wear it! Next is going to be some table decorations and banners. Thanks for stopping by a spell and visiting with me. I really love it when you do stop by especially on a grey day. I appreciate and love all your comments and offers of help when I need it. Karen, I am so looking forward to your tutorials on water color next month!! Crafty hugs to you all, Brenda

Entering my grad button over at Decorate to Celebrate! for their challenge of "Everything wonderful about caps and gowns and diplomas and birthdays"

Simple Thank You Cards

Hello crafty friends, I hope you have been having a fabulous Memorial Day!! I want to thank my son and all the other soldiers out there for protecting our freedom and for our Vets and fallen soldiers. Our soldiers are awesome, past and present and it saddens me to think of the fallen soldiers who gave all. They will have a special place in my heart. 

I didn't get to do my BBTB2 challenge because I sat from Thursday to Sunday morning with heat on my back. I bent over and out went my back. Then when it was feeling better, I did it again!! So the rest of the time I behaved myself and put heat on the area. That helped loosen the tight knot in my back, but only if I kept doing it and rest my back. So it was no crafting for me. I did however behave myself long enough to be able to go to my son's birthday part on Sunday. Just sat there outside and behaved myself too! lol So today I was able to get a little bit crafty. I made thank you cards for people who sent/gave me gifts for my birthday. I kept them simple because I didn't want to over do it on my back. I like how they turned out even if they are very simple. They are all the same, so I only took one picture. I stamped my chevrons with Hero Arts Shadow inks. I only have the 1x1 inch cubes, but boy do I love them. One day I will get the whole pads. lol But these little ones really work nice especially on sentiments. I also love how vivid they are, but then dry to such a soft pretty ink and really smooth out. Just beautiful inks in my own opinion! My chevy's are from MCT and you can find them here. I also used MCT speech bubble dies and you can find them here. Before I stamped my sentiment, which is from an Avery stamp set that I got on line from Staples, I can't remember the name, but it is a wreath set with some Christmas sayings, I think. lol  I cut my speech bubble out of watercolor paper. Then I used some of the Hero Shadow inks that I stamped my chevrons with and squished some on my craft mat, spritzed it with water and then dipped my speech bubble in it. I loved the way it turned out. I hope you do too! I'm dipping my toes here and there with the water coloring. Nothing hard because I haven't any clue how to do much. lol But am pleased with the outcome.

As always thanks for stopping by today and sittin' a spell with me. I hope you enjoyed your visit because I always enjoy having you. Enjoy your day and your families, there is nothing better than family. Crafty hugs, Brenda

Don't Eat the Daisies!

Hello my crafty friends, I hope this Saturday finds you all doing well and enjoying the weather. I had gotten some sweet birthday gifts in the mail  from a very special person to me and so wanted to play with a couple of them. I took a few minutes to do just that and you will see that it was only a few minutes. lol The lattice border on the side was once of the die cuts I received as was the beautiful daisy die cut! I have been seeing so many water color projects on the blogs lately from the classes everyone is taking and I have been just loving them. Of course I haven't taken the classes, but am hoping to in the fall. Or whenever I am over my melancholy from my son leaving for college. lol But I thought I would try taking some Tim Holtz Distress Inks and putting some of the ink on my teflon mat and I spritz them with water and then laid my die in the area's where I wanted the colors to be. Not great, but not to bad either. lol  Of course I used water color paper to die cut my daisies out in. I placed them on a mat of their own and popped it up on to my white card base. I used the lattice die cut, cut in white on my white base as well, adding some white liquid pearls on it. Very hard to see, but enlarge the photo and you may see them. I wanted them to be there, but not very noticeable. I added a few iridescent sequins. This same person sent me some die cut sentiments a while back so I inked up a "hello" sentiment and placed on the card across the daisy stems. That's it, nothing special, but I had fun playing. Loving the lattice die and the daisy die. Can't wait to get some time to play some more with some other goodies.  Thanks for dropping by today, love it when you do! Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and let's please remember all of our service members past and present. Our soldiers always been and still are so awesome!! And I thank them for their sacrifices in keeping us safe. As a military mom, I know all to well the sacrifices our soldiers make as well as their families. Believe me, it is not easy on the families or the soldier. So a big thank you goes out to them and their families-they are my hero's!!!  Crafty hugs, Brenda

lattice die-Memory Box Trellis Border die

daisy die-Simon Says Daisy Fresh die

Grad Invites

Hello my crafty friends, I hope this hump day finds you all getting ready for the upcoming weekend. Time is flying by and May will soon be over. How did that happen?!! And it hasn't even really heated up here yet. So unusual. But I have found that the weather has been unusual since the beginning of winter and since it was such a cold and bitter winter, I look for the summer to be on the cool side as well. Not sure it will be worth opening the pool which is my tropical oasis :-(  Might be enjoying the hot tub instead! lol 

Well as you know my baby will be graduating on the 30th of May. I can't believe it-I really can't. I can't image being kid-less. I've been a mom forever, what ever will I do without a child at home giving me a hard time?! This is gonna be hard but I know this too shall pass and I will find my niche eventually. Just not looking forward to it at all. 

Here is my "baby"- He's turned into a handsome man and I'm sure gonna miss this smiling face come Aug. And yes, that is totally mischief you see in them eyes and that smile!!

So his school colors are maroon and grey and his sports colors are red, white and blue. I used the red, white and blue for his congrats card, but for his invites I decided to go with his school colors.  I used a few My Creative Time products on this card. The "your invited to a" and "party" is from the "Let's Celebrate" stamp and die set, "graduation", "class of", and the "grad hat" came from "Follow Your Dreams" stamp set, the photo corners came from a Fiskars grad set, the "2014 comes from "Just Simply Live" stamp and die set. 

The inside of the invite-the heart is covering up our phone number. Once again the the banner is from Let's Celebrate and the grad scroll is from Follow Your Dreams and the "we're so proud" stamp is from the Fiskars stamp set.

Close up-

Well that is it, kept is pretty simple so they were easy to make. Now I just have to pray for some nice weather for graduation and for his graduation party. I hope you like his invite. I asked him if he wanted to approve of the invite and he said, "No, just sent them out." lol Typical guy! But I think he is looking forward to his party and just knowing that he is done with high school. He didn't like high school. Our other 5 boys loved high school. Bret did not, but I didn't like high school either so maybe, just maybe he is a tab bit like his mother. He looks like and acts like his dad and I can see his 5 brothers in him too. You would never know that I had anything to do with his conception. lol But I am starting to see little signs that he had a touch of me in him too. I hope to share some grad decorations and banners as I get them made. So I hope you will check back! Thanks for stopping by for a spell, gosh you know how much I love it when you do!! Thank you so very much for all the birthday wishes too! That guy up there, well he had a party for me and got me this beautiful cake. I will share more on some birthday adventures soon. Until then crafty hugs my friends! Brenda

Gift Packaging! - BBTB2 Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, I hope this Monday finds you are doing super! We had a gorgeous weekend, but a cool one of only 64 degrees both days. Now that's not cold, but put 20 MPH wind in there and it tends to be a little cool. lol But I'm not complaining because it was sunny and beautiful. Today is hubby's treatment, only an hour and then in three weeks it will only 30 minutes each time. Not bad, and he is doing wonderful except for the neuropathy in his hands and feet. But then again he thinks working 16-18 hours a day is good for them! And he can't understand why he is tired because he has always done it. But he hasn't always been taking chemo. I shake my head at him and tell him he needs to take it easy and just increase his work load a little at a time, but what do I know?! lol He is going to be tired because his body is fighting and the chemo is fighting wearing him out. This man is giving me more grey hair than my 6 boys, speaking of which I need to color my hair! lol

Well enough of my rambling. As you know Monday's are a new challenge over at BBTB2. Today our wonderfully sweet and talented design team sister Jayne has chosen gift packaging as our theme challenge. Cause let's face it we all in need of gift packaging of some sort. I tell you at first I had no clue what I was going to do. I knew I needed something to put son #2 shirt in that I got him for his birthday, so I thought well maybe I could make a box or bag big enough to put a shirt in. Uh, well not the box I chose. lol I knew that it wasn't going to work when I saw that I could cut parts of the box on different mats. But that was ok, because I thought I will use it for my son's that have kids for Father's day. So I used Bags, Tags, Boxes and More 2 for the shirt box. It comes with a tie, but I didn't use it. I tried, and the key word is tried, to make it look like a button up shirt with a t-shirt under it. It was a simple cut and simple to assemble. I didn't make my box top to close like the file intended, I instead taped my closure to the inside of my box. I will fill it some some of my guy's favorite treats. My sentiment is from My Creative Time All Around Everything stamp set placed on the Stitched Scallop and Circle dies. I don't like where I put the sentiment and may move it. Sometimes I just have to sit and look at things for a while. lol My little buttons are from JoAnns, Favorite Findings I believe they are called. I hope you will go see what inspiration my design team sisters have for you cause I'm here to tell you they have some awesome packaging to inspire you. Then have a go at making you own gift packaging and linking up with us. I'm really looking forward to being inspired by you all!! Thanks for stopping by for a spell today, I so love when you come to visit me. I will have some graduation party invites to share with you later this week so I hope you will stop back by again.. Crafty hugs, Brenda

School Day Challenge-BBTB2 Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, I hope you all had a lovely Mother's Day! Mine was very nice. And it was such a beautiful day outside too. Time for a new BBTB2 challenge and for this week our own sweet and multi-talented (have you checked out her food blog?!) Jaren gave us the challenge of doing a school day project this week. Well I have plenty of school day pictures I can do-yes I'm way behind in getting my pictures in my albums. We won't talk about that! I'm working on it. lol This layout is about when Officer Phil and his friends came to our elementary school to talk about safety and stranger danger. I wanted a police hat, but darn if I could find one, so I resorted to using the handcuffs die cut. Not what I really wanted for an elementary page, but hey, I have all boys so I knew they would have like it. And they will like it now. lol My car came from Boys Will Be Boys and the handcuffs came from Paper Dolls Everyday. The "and friends" is from the Billionaire cart. The "officer phil" is My Creative Time Lowercase Fun Dies. I hope you will join us on this challenge, we'd love to see your school days projects! Need more inspiration, go check out the fabulous projects my design teams sisters had done for you, they will rock your world! Thanks for stopping by and sitting a spell, I so love when you do!! Thanks for all your lovely comments, I appreciate each and every one of you. Crafty hugs, Brenda

Today is World Lupus Day!

This is something that many don't know about. Lupus has been around forever though and I thought I'd do my part in raising in awareness to this miserable disease. I think too, a lot of you may not know where Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds came to be with the Beatles. So I thought you might want to see this video with Julian Lennon on Lucy's Legacy. I wish I knew how to put the video right on my blog, but I don't. Yes, I am tech challenged in so many ways. As my youngest son tells me, I shouldn't be allowed to have any tech toys! lol But I don't think I'm the worst at it, just don't know it all. Right?! lol 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZXVbJ0jq7w

Thanks for watching everyone and I hope all the Mother's out there, or Mother figures out there have a beautiful Mother's Day tomorrow!!! Crafty hugs, Brenda

Readysetstamp 5 Year Anniversary Blog Hop!

Hi Everyone! Welcome to Readysetstamp’s 5 year anniversary blog hop! I can’t believe that it’s been 5 years since I started my blog!! Where does the time go?! That just means that I have had WAY to much fun crafting and getting to know so many sweet ladies in the crafting community. I am so grateful to have each and every one of the ladies join me on the blog hop and I am truly grateful to have them as friends. :0) We have so much fun in store for you today. The theme of our blog hop is anything goes. I thought this would be fun and give a wide variety of ideas for you to stir up some fun ideas for you to make!!!

For my project today, I made a paper cake. chocolate with peanut butter icing. lol I used vellum and punch 8 scallops for each dollop of whip cream. My cake has sprinkles on the top layer and different sentiments around around the cake. I took a flame-less candle and wrapped with paper and placed in the middle of the top layer. For my cake boxes I used the Cricut cartridge "Tie the Knot". I plan on putting candies in the boxes and not sure just what else yet. Maybe some homemade goodies too. Haven't really decided and if you have any suggestions on some things to put in, I'd love to hear them!l My DIL is having a surprise birthday party for my son and this is what I'm taking over to him, since we will have already given him his birthday gift.

 The sprinkles

 With the candle lit and some of the sentiments

 Close up of the whip cream and some sprinkles

 A look at the chocolate cake after a slice has been taken out. 

Here’s the lineup: Julie-http://www.readysetstamp.com Susan- http://itsmesusanp.blogspot.com/ Cathy- http://mimiscraftcorner.blogspot.com Shawnee- http://sunshinycards.blogspot.com/ Georgia- www.geritolgal2.blogspot.com Barbara- http://www.spotofsanity.blogspot.com/ Cindy- http://www.cindyvernon.blogspot.com/ Sharon- http://meemeescreations.blogspot.com/ Karen- http://www.littlescrappieces.blogspot.com/ Nicole- http://teachdanz.blogspot.com/ Sarah- http://sarahvaitstamps.blogspot.com Brenda- http://www.friendscraftinwithfriends.blogspot.com/ this is me! Jeri- http://www.bugnme.blogspot.com/ Elaine- http://www.expressionsbyelaine.blogspot.com/ Sheree- http://bootsandblingtime.blogspot.com/ Michelle- http://mumoftwoblog.blogspot.com

We can’t have a blog anniversary without a giveaway right?? For this giveaway, please subscribe to Julie's blog if you have not already and leave a comment for the chance to win 2 sets of stamps of your choice from CardzTV!!! Julie will draw the winner on May 17^th and post it on her blog. Winner will be chosen by random.org. 

More Mother's Day Cards

Hello my crafty friends, I hope your hump day is going well. My is going pretty good. I got two cards made this morning, then went out and got the grass mowed finishing up at lunch. Came in and cleaned up and got hubby his lunch as he always comes home for lunch. After lunch I got a little lazy and watched a soap, then I got some laundry done. Now it is soon time to make supper. But before I start supper, I wanted to get my two cards posted. I made them both the same, just different colors. I used all My Creative Time stamps and dies for my cards. My papers are from JoAnns and I used a kraft card stock base. I didn't show the whole inside of the card because I had written my personal notes in them, but I am showing how what I did at the top of the card on the inside. They are out in the mail now to my special Momma's. Thanks for stopping by today and sitting a spell with me. I always love your visit and your comments always make me smile and are so appreciated. Crafty hugs, Brenda

Products used:

Lowercase Fun Dies

Pretty Spring Wreath stamp set

Linking up at My Creative Time challenge-Mother's Day

It's All About Mom-BBTB2 Challenge

Hi my crafty friends, happy Monday to everyone! This morning hubby started his chemo pills. Hope it goes well for him and that he doesn't get to many side effects from them.

 Gosh can you believe it is May?! It isn't quite feeling like May here. Still a tad bit chilly. But we will get there...soon...I hope. lol Anyway you know if it is Monday then it is time for a new challenge over at BBTB2 and our sweet and talented Emily has given us the challenge of doing a Mother's Day project. Well Mother's Day is Sunday, so gotta get moving here. lol  I have a few Mother's Day cards I would like to send out, these women aren't my mother, but they are mother figures to me. So this is a good challenge to get me moving.  I used the Cricut cartridge Simple Holiday Cards for my card, I made flowers with some punches I have, 2 are SU punches and the teeny tiny flower in the middle is a Studio G punch. I added some stickles and some liquid Viva pearls and some tiny metal dragonfly beads. My sentiments on the inside is from MCT Pretty Spring Wreaths stamp set. That's it, a simple card. So lets see your Mother's Day projects, just make sure to follow our simple rules and remember this is a Cricut based challenge. Need some inspiration? Look no farther than the BBTB2 design team. My design team sisters have some amazing projects for you!  I am looking forward to seeing your creations. Thanks for stopping by today and leaving me such wonderful comments. You always make me smile and make my day sunnier! Crafty hugs, Brenda

Calling all Mother's...

Hi my crafty friends, I hope you are having a lovely Friday! It is nice to be into the month of May, but boy is it still cool out. Not cold, but cool. It is that wind that makes it feel so cool and then Mr. Sun doesn't want to come out and play all day. Can you imagine that?! lol I love the sunshine-who doesn't? So I want it out all day everyday. Can't it just rain at night?! lol In a perfect world...

Well since we are into May that mean that Mother's Day is just around the corner. So I need to get busy with some cards that I want to send to some special people. Not my mother, but mother figures to me. So here is my first one.  I used a kraft card stock base, got some snippets out my brown snippet bin, cut a border using MCT Fun Stitched Edges die. I added that onto my patter paper edge and then added that to a white mat. I then stamped my wreath with MCT Pretty Spring Wreaths stamp set. Added my twine and bow, then stamped my sentiments from the Pretty Spring Wreaths stamp set. Using the flower only on the inside, I stamped them under my sentiment. Added some bling on the front and inside and call it done. I do wish I had moved my wreath up a little bit. My inspiration for this card came from here.  I was lucky in winning two of Emma's new stamp set! Love them, love all her products! Sop back by on Monday and I will have another Mother's Day card for you. Thanks for stopping by today, love reading your comments, they really do make my day. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and since it is National Scrapbooking Day tomorrow I hope you get to get crafty!  Crafty hugs, Brenda

Linking up with My Creative Time challenge-Mother's Day