Happy St. Patrick's Day!

     We had our St. Patrick's Day meal a day early since I have to work tomorrow. The menu was: corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, a new Irish bread recipe ( it was so good, thanks Trish!) and lime jello for dessert. I love the red brisket rather than the gray. I realized years ago that if you add 5 peppercorns and 2 garlic cloves to the water you never have a salty corned beef and it just pulls apart. Yummm!

     The challenge at Just Us Girls this week was to try a new technique: acrylic smash! There is a great tutorial at Splitcoaststampers.com. I also combined this with a challenge on the circut circle blog where you had to show your green.
     I chose to cut the acrylic piece using my Imagine and the image is one preloaded on the machine. The white card stock is cut with the same 3" image. For my "smash" part I used an adirondack gold dabber and the stamp is from studio G stamped in forest green StazOn ink.
     The plaid background paper is from DCWV Nana's Nursery Baby Boy. I wanted a soft green so the image of the shamrocks would stand out. The gold shamrocks are cut using the Celebrate With A Flourish cartridge @ 1.5".  I love this shiny gold it's a scrap I had left over (I think from a Christmas project).
     The sentiment is also from the studio G stamp set that I backed with green card stock cut using a spellbinders die. Of course I had to use some ribbon and the beautiful gradient jewels from Creative Charms.

     The inside says "Everyone is Irish for a day". Originally I was going to use these shamrocks on the front but I decided to go with the gold instead so I thought, what the heck, I'll put these on the inside, lol. Hope you all enjoy being Irish for the day. Top 'O the Day to ya!!!

My American Girl Album

     Hi all! I'm back with the second album I just completed. These are so much fun to  make and are ready for pictures . All the pages were cut using Spellbinders new Grand dies. The main album was cut using Grand Labels One the 3rd of 6 sizes.
     The album cover and pages are cut from K&Company Sparkly Sweet pad plus 2 chip boards for front and back cover. There are 5 double sided pages and plenty of embellishments and tags for journal spots.

     The cute little pop out image is from an embellishment pack of American Girl embellishments I got at Michaels. The green tag on the left is from a cuttlebug tags folder and the pink tag is from K&Company valentine tags. The right mat has corner punches so a photo can slip right in place.

     The left page is double matted and the right side has a pocket with a slip in tag. I love these tags because you can add pictures on the front and back of the tag.

     These are both matted pages with cute American Girl embellishments. There also is a skinny tag to leave a private message!

     The left page leaves room for another picture where as the right side has a pocket to add secret messages, receipts etc.

     This is my favorite page in a mini album. It has double sided tags that slip in a pocket. One side could hold a picture with journalism on the back!
     I love making these albums because they are so much fun to decorate. They are also easy to do when you use a bind-it-all. The album cover has the tags from the Cuttlebug tag folder that I inked and added glimmer mist to. I also added glimmer mist to some prima flowers and of course, a creative charms gradient gem for the flower center! After adding some beautiful ribbons it's done. Now I'm going to add it to my etsy shop if anyone cares to purchase one, lol. Thanks for stopping by.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/cardsnmore0005