Fall Blog Hop winner and Sophie card!

Wow, you guys!  You left me so many awesome comments!  Thank you so very much! Here's the winner of the stamp set:

Hope, I will send you a message!

I also made a card to share with you all.  I recently received the newest Cricut Circle cart, Sophie.  Sophie is definitely not my kind of cartridge.  BUT I am glad to have received her because it will push me to play around with things that aren't usually my style and it will make some cuts available to me that I would otherwise not purchase.

I made this fall card using one of the card features for the leaf.  This is a standard A2 size card.

I cut it too large the first time so I used the negative image of the leaf from that first cut and put it on the inside of this card.

I used the premade scoring marks to put some gold cord through and I used Martha Stewart glitter around the outside leaf to jazz up the card a bit.  Hope you like it!

Fall Blog Hop!

Hello!  Welcome to the Fall Blog Hop!  You should have come from our host, Kristen at Fantabulously Pink.  If not, click on her name to go back and see her post!  She has blog candy!  :)

I was excited to create something for fall.  I love this time of year when you can pull out sweaters and get all cozy.  It was 80 degrees here yesterday though so definitely no sweaters yet!  It's coming!!!

I decided to create a piece of home decor.  Once I got this idea in my head, I couldn't change it to anything else.  Here it is:

This creation is made entirely from ONE cut on the Jubilee Cricut cartridge.  Isn't that amazing?  Not even the shift key, just literally one cut!  I did a fit to page cut first to see how big the tree could be on a 12x12 piece of paper.  All of the trees and layers are cut at 6.25".   First I cut all of the pieces I would need in various colors.  I used my Gypsy "hide contour" button to hide all the extra pieces that I didn't need when cutting a certain color.  This is the #1 feature of the Gypsy in my opinion! :)

Then I took to the pieces and started inking.  I am not a person who inks on every single project but I knew there would be no background for this particular piece; I wanted the cuts themselves to be the stars.  I inked every single piece I cut, using mostly greens and browns.  Here they are side by side (Left - before inking, Right - after inking):

A few close ups:

I did use gold on the fall leaves to ink.  I think it adds warmth to the fall cuts. 

Finally, you have to imagine a little bit with me here.  I did have this frame with mat at home that ended up working for this project.  I went to every craft store we have in my area this week looking for a four opening frame.  Do you know how hard that is to find??? I just want a nice wood grain frame that has four openings in it.  Nope.  There are tons of 3s and a few 5s but I did not find one single frame with four openings.  I'm going to keep looking though and hopefully I will find what I am really looking for...

If I had a four opening frame, the yellow background would look better I think, than the way it is now.  But this is what I have and it's hanging on my wall until I find the ultimate frame!  :)

I think you could keep this same project and change the highlighted section for whichever season of the year we are in, if you would like to.  That might be fun to do!

Well anyway... I hope you enjoyed my fall project and that you take the time to visit the other wonderful ladies in this hop.  Next, you should head to Roberta's blog, TXScrapperMom.  Love her creations!

Before you go, be sure to leave me a comment and I will pick a winner on Monday, 8/29, for this Hero Arts circle stamp set!   Make sure you leave your email or MB name so that I can contact you if you win!  

Here is the full line up of the hop in case you get lost!

1) Kristen http://fantabulouslypink.blogspot.com/
2) Michele www.michelegreen.com  <-- You are HERE
3) Roberta http://www.txscrappermom.blogspot.com/  <-- Go HERE next!
4) Mary http://www.marebearscraps.blogspot.com/
5) Renee http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/
6) Carolyn http://cccscraproom.blogspot.com/
7) Gamma http://gammascreativecorner.blogspot.com/
8) Colleen http://www.scrappycol.blogspot.com
9) DoodleDiva www.doodledivadesigns.com
10) Kimbe http://kimberliscreations.blogspot.com/
11) Lisa http://addictedtothecricut.blogspot.com
12) Gonecampn http://www.scrapcavecreations.com/
13) Momto2cuties http://www.inlovewithpaper.blogspot.com/
14) Scrapalette http://scrapalette.blogspot.com/
15) Paper Memories http://papermemories4u.blogspot.com/ 
16)Darcy http://dlmbscrapping-time2create.blogspot.com/
17)Lavendergal http://ibecircled.blogspot.com
19) HappyScrapper64 http://happyscrapper64.blogspot.com/
20) Madylyn http://inspiredbycolor.blogspot.com/
21)Nancy http://lanancyworkshop.blogspot.com/
22)Debbie http://bugginattheseams.blogspot.com/
23)Tracy http://www.scrappininthewoods.blogspot.com/
24)Sharon http://designsbysharon.blogspot.com/

Thanks for hopping along with us!  I am sure you will enjoy the hop! 

Perfect!

I recently gave a gift to a really close friend who is about to have twins.  Here it is!

For the card, I used the Baby Steps Cricut cartridge.  The bibs are cut at 3".  The background paper is from a Debbie Mum stack that I got at JoAnns quite awhile ago.  The stamp is actually one of the dollar stamps and it says "A perfect pear".  I blocked off a and pear to use just the word perfect with white ink.

On the inside, I just cut another sailboat to add a little something. 

This bag originally was from Baby Gap and had their bear logo on it.  It is a super sturdy bag though with ribbon handles so I cut the matched sailboat big enough to cover up the bear, one on each side.

She loved it and I really liked how it turned out.  I can't wait for her to have her babies and to create more things for her!

Smores on the grill

We needed something to cheer us up today so we made smores on the grill for the first time.  It was fun and the whole family was involved.  It is simple too!  We already had the grill hot because we had hamburgers for dinner.

You assemble the smore as usual and wrap it in aluminum foil.  Then place it on a medium-hot grill for 1 to 2 minutes each.  (I think it would be best for a minute on the chocolate side and longer than a minute on the marshmallow side.)

Here they are on the grill:

And here's one unwrapped:

We all enjoyed them!

Yum, yum, yum!

Also when I checked my mail today, my charm had arrived from ProvoCraft for attending the Ohio meet up!  Fun!

Linked up at:
Patches of Pink

Snip Snip! It's back to school!

I am very excited today because my replacement Cricut Imagine came! I was so excited that I took it out of the box the moment it got here and just set it up on the dining room table!  I've been busy with it all day.  It's been awesome - I didn't even align the print heads or calibrate it or anything, just plugged in and went!  AWESOME!!!!

Here is a card I made with it today:

This card is using only the Imagine More cart that comes with the machine.  Like I said, I was right there in the dining room when all of my craft stuff is downstairs so I used what came in the box!  I printed the base pattern from the card shape on the card and cut at 8.5".  I scored it in the middle to make it fold.

The ruler border along the bottom was cut at 2".  I cut two of the base shapes from the Imagine, one in white and another smaller one in the dot pattern from Imagine More. Around the bigger one, I wound orange twine.  I did the Twinery's blog hop today and got so inspired!

The scissors were cut out three times.  I wanted it to say "snip snip" instead of just snip so I hand cut around the words and popped one up, both cover the original one word that was there.

I used one of the extra scissors on the inside and again cut one of the base shapes, flooding it with a tan color from Imagine More.

I then used painter's tape to print out a sentiment using my computer.  This method is awesome! Print your paper once (here you can see I printed the sentiment two different ways because I wasn't sure which would fit).   Then tape your precut shape on to the paper and send it through your printer again!

I am a library media specialist and myself as well as many of my friends are preparing for going back to school. This will be a great card to send to one of my teacher friends.  The "snip, snip, it's almost time" implies that school is almost here and we better hurry to get ready!

Happy back to school everyone!

I am submitting this card to multiple back to school challenges that I have come across:
Cards by Jovan - Back to School Blog Hop
Scrapbookaholic By Abby Challenge #11
Creative Cutter Room Back to School Challenge 
Amber's Crafts and Stuff

2 month spending freeze

I'm still here!  I've been busy enjoying the last bit of summer and getting ready for school.  I have been cutting away with the Cricut but don't have the bulletin boards up yet at school.  I will share pictures of them when I have them up! 

I am joining L.B. from Cool Beans by L.B. in a 2 month spending freeze.  She has issued it as a challenge on the Cricut Circle message board and I will be joining her!  I'm a little nervous about this as I tend to buy more than I craft (**shhh..... I'm not really admitting that**) I have plenty of things I can be working on instead.  Plus, without making this a political discussion, due to my wonderful governor (insert sarcasm there) my take home pay will be less starting with this new school year.  So it's a great time to commit to not buying anything!  We are allowed to buy adhesive but I also have a big supply of that so I think I really will not need to buy a single thing.  Wish me luck!  :) 

P.S. - I got bored of my old blog look so I'm trying something new! 

Presidential Program

Today, I demanded myself to scrap. :) That may sound silly but I really should be doing more crafting and taking advantage of it being summer. Today I made this layout of my daughter's 2nd grade Presidential biography project.

Here is the full two page layout. All the papers are from the Martha Stewart Year Round stack.

This is the left side. The banner is from Stand and Salute, cut at 2.25". The font is Plantin' Schoolbook, Tall Ball, cut at 1".

Here is a close up of the right side. The big scallop is a flower from Paisley, cut at 10". The medal award is again from Stand and Salute, cut at 2".

Magnets from the Ohio meet up

The swap at the Ohio Cricut Circle meet up was magnets.  There were so many creative ideas!  I doubt I got everyone's magnet but I took pictures of all the magnets I did receive and here they are!

The full collection I received:

Here are some close ups for a better view:

And here are a few of my personal favorites:

Made by Hodmom

Made by Laura Charko

I also took a picture of the variety of backings people used to create these magnets.  It was awesome how many different materials were used from vinyl to paper to mosaic tiles (that was me!).

Here is a picture of my magnet, which matches my calling card and the banner I made:

I made this using mosaic tiles (like you would use for a back splash) from Hobby Lobby.  There were two different greens in my pack, this is just one of them.  The tile is one inch square.  I made all of my cuts and then glued them to the tile.  I didn't worry too much about making sure they were all properly glued down becasue my next step was to Mod Podge the whole thing to seal it all in.  This left a nice clear finish over the entire surface and I didn't have to worry about any parts falling off.  For the back, I used the magnet that comes as a big roll and just cut a piece to fit. I hope you like it!