Those December Birthdays!

     Wow can you believe it is 1 day away from December? Yikes! I don't know where the year has gone. As the sign says there are only 25 more days left to craft!!!! Today Erica @ My Cricut Craft Room  gave us the choice to do Christmas/ Birthday lists. I chose to do a Birthday layout since December is a HUGE Birthday month for us. My 2 sons were born 15 years and 4 days apart. They are such blessings in our lives. The oldest lives in Florida and will be (gulp!) 39 years old while our youngest will be 24! It was so surreal looking at Nursery schools and Colleges at the same time, lol.
     My layout is from pictures we took last year with my youngest son Steve, his girlfriend Renee, and my grandson Ben and grand daughter Cecilia. I know, I'm slow at getting these done but that's a great thing about being on a DT, it pushes you to get moving! My son Mike (Dec. 22) and his son Nicholas (December 7th birthday) will be here for Christmas this year so hopefully I can do a layout of them this year. Ready for the pics???

    

     Don't ya just love the hat? This is our traditional birthday hat . I bought it in Disney one Halloween to use as a costume (it just happened to be my birthday so it was entirely appropriate!) This hat has been getting a lot of use in our family. Ok Mary, enough chit chat, they want to hear the details on the lay out. OK!!!

     This is pretty straight forward since I really wanted the pics to show up and definitely wanted to get as far away from red and green colors that I could. As a result I found this great green paper with a wonderful blue swirl to it. I cut the font from Mickey's Font @ 1" and glued them to a strip of yellow card stock from my stash after I had used a Fiskar border punch.

     I added  a rhinestone to the title. I also thought a few balloons would be in order so I cut some @ 1.75" from Elmo's Party. The balloons are in a set of 3: circle, star and heart. I decided to use the heart ones for the "Birthday Girl" page. Of course what would be cuter than adding some Peachy Keen Stamps for the features. I used Laffy Taffy for the girls.

     Pink By Design Paper Doll Features for the boys.

     I also added some chalk to the cheeks and a cute twine bow from the Twinery. There always has to be a twinkle in the eye so, I used a Sakura white gel pen that Erica was generous enough to send me. Here are the girls:

 

     Here are the boys:

     I hope you enjoyed this project. Now be sure to head back over to Erica's and see what the rest of the team has to show you.

 

A Whale Of A Time!!!

    
     Welcome to Theme Day Thursday! I'm so glad you decided to stop by. Yes, I have a new look to my blog and hope you feel more at home here. Hey it's spring so it was time to freshen things up a bit!!
     Today at Erica's Craft room we were to create a project with a Beach theme. I am always amazed when I go through my library of cartridges ( yes I have enough to call it a library!). You would be astounded at the images that you can find on the least likely places. For example I used Life's for  A Beach for some of my images but, I also found some really neat die cuts on Stretch Your Imagination and (believe it or not: Sponge Bob Square Pants and Pack Your Bags). I have a lot to share with you so let's get started.

   
After almost two weeks of rain (can I just say torrential!!) in Hawaii we finally had 2 beautiful days so my daughter wanted to show me the famous spot on Oahu where the whales winter over. There is a lookout spot where the tide rushes into the rocks and sprays up like the blow hole on the whales. Thus the name Blowhole Lookout.

   
 I found the whale border on Life's A beach cartridge on page70. It was cut @ 1.5" for the height out of a gray shimmer pack from recollections.For a shadow I cut it again in black card stock and off set it from the gray. I added some black pearl embellishments for the eyes.
     I found the whale stamp on Pack Your Bags on page 56 and used the stamp feature.I believe I cut this @ 2.5". I cut all the layers and then added stickles to the water spout using Star Dust and Waterfall colors and again, a pearl for the eye. When I cut this out I loved the separate whale and the negative part of the stamp so I decided to use these to my advantage and turn them in a journal tag. The only thing I had to do was cut another layer of the water spout!
     I bet you are wondering where I got the wave die cut from.: Sponge Bob Square Pants!!! That's right. After looking at all my carts this was the most realistic looking waves. You can find the image on page 47 under Icon. I cut 4 sets then inked them with distress inks Evergreen Boughs and Tumbled Glass. I used liquid Glass as an adhesive and Donna Salasar's Sugar Sparkle for the glitter. Now let's follow the turtle as we head on over to the next page!

     It was so nice here in the sun so I had to add this phrase.I found this on Pack Your Bags on page 44. I used a cream card stock but inked the sun with Dried Marigold and Antique Linen distress inks and also used Perfect Pearls Lemon Sparkle on the sun. I also cut it again in black and offset it on the page.
     This spot is near the Blowhole and is sort of an inlet where the turtles get swept in with the tide. There is a beach area where people sunbathe and swim with the turtles. Unfortunately it was too windy and cool for us to venture in.

     Most of the turtles die cuts are from Stretch Your Imagination on page 41. These were so much fun to make!!! First I cut them at different sizes out of brown cardstock. I had left these on the mat until I inked them with both Frayed Burlap and Forest Moss distress inks. I wanted a realistic look and something that would bring out the sand and rocks in the photos. I cut the layers as well and ran them through my cuttlebug with the "Tiny Mosiacs" embossing folder.
     Now for my absolute favorite cut on this whole layout. this would be the "shelled turtle. You can find this imagine on Stretch Your Imagination on page 73-S. I love this turtle! I used the CCR tomake sure the layer fit and hide the outline of the shell. I cut this out of black shiny card stock. I will share a tip with you. Rather than try to glue all these tiny pieces on the shell leave them on the mat and remove the cuts you don't want and leave the tiny pieces on the mat. I use a piece of transfer tape (the kind you use for vinyl transfer) and apply to your cuts. I then trim the edge of the tape and run it through my Xyron machine. After you remove the Xyron backing I place it on my die and gently put into place. I can then use the Cricut "hook" to jockey it into position and then smooth it down! Easy Peasy!!!! I had just gotten some new liquid pearls in with the most fantastic colors and this was a project just begging for it.I used the Avocado to outline the areas between the shells and the  outer edge.
     Sorry this is so long but I just had to share. Although a lot of the Cricut cuts are cute, with some ink and the right cut you are able to achieve a very realistic look.
     If you are looking for products like the ones I used here, please visit Ericas Shop as she has a fabulous sale going on . Believe it or not she is giving 33% off your order! Here are the details:

      The 33% off code is 33 and it will take 33% off your total purchase, except ProvoCraft items (Cricut cartridges, they are only $15-$32 EVERYDAY :)

     Erica is also giving away 3 free action Wobbles. You heard that right FREE! Just head back over to http://www.mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com/ and on the right side bar you will see where you can  follow the instructions on where to send a self addressed stamped envelope for your 3 FREE Action Wobbles from The Scrapbooking Queen.

     You will also want to download the most up to date Cricut cartridge list directly from Erica's blog on the top left. She has also posted the Excel and Word formats for you all!

     Lastly our design team is having a garage sale!!! Whoo-Hoo! What fun! Next Thursday our sale will kick off. Right now the group is "closed" please request to be added to the group and once we have all of our items listed I will APPROVE you into the group....

The crafty garage sale is Thursday April 26- Saturday April 28

EVERYONE will get approved into the group on Thursday the 26th.

This is the crafty one

http://www.facebook.com/groups/135244386606507/

     Our anything but Crafty Garage Sale will be Sunday April 29- May 2

and this is the non-crafty sale

EVERYONE will get approved into the group on Sunday April 29

http://www.facebook.com/groups/226289120806147/

    

     At this time it is only open for Design Team members to sell their items. This is a temporary group and will be deleted after the event.... I know there are other crafty sales and crafty auctions. This is not to replace any of those. This is a one weekend only event.

     Wow that's a mouthful but I just didn't want you to miss anything that is going on with our FABULOUS Design Team!!!

     Also, I would love if you would head back over to Erica's Craft Room to see what the rest of the Design Team has to show you! I hope you have a wonderful week with the week end coming up.

Hang Ten!!!

     Are you ready for vacation yet, lol? Well I had an unexpected trip to Hawaii to help my daughter after some surgery. So when I saw today was Theme Day Thursday @ Erica's Craft Room, and that the theme was vacation I figured it would be the only way I would scrap any part of this trip.
     Please keep in mind that I am a card maker and am WAY out of my comfort zone yet I am so happy with how this turned out. It rained 12 out of the 14 days I was there however we did have one evening where we went to downtown Honolulu and went to this fabulous park.

     Where do I begin? This beautiful park had statues of a Queen who was reading books to children. It was surrounded with palm trees that were all light with lights. There were even lanterns hanging from the trees. I wanted to remember these so I used the Luau cartridge to cut the lanterns@ 4" wide and 1.861 high out of black card stock.. I then cut 3 sets of the layer feature @ 3.208" x 1" high from different colors. I used my Xyron X to adhere the layers, added some stickles and some black bakers twine. If you need some stickles, bakers twine or other supplies, please be sure to visit Erica's Shop, she has some awesome products over there.

      No matter where we went people make this hand gesture called "hang ten". It's sort of like waving high or goodbye. Believe it or not the Life's A Beach cart has the hang ten symbol, lol. The image is on page74 and I cut the main image @ 3.5" x 4" with the layers @ 1.792" x 2.569" for the fingers. I inked them while they were still on the mat then added pop dots to the fingers. The back side has journaling on it. Since I had saved the coffee wrapper it seemed like a good spot to tuck the hand in.

     Naturally I had to use the "Paradise" from Life's A Beach. You can find this on page 33 under Title words. I cut it @ 6" x 3.111. I wanted a blackout but this image didn't have one so ....CCR to the rescue! I sized it @ 6" x 3.125 and, using the edit button, I blocked out the center of the letters. Again I cut 3 sets out of different colors, then cut them apart to have a multicolored sign. I popped the letters in my Xyron X again (love this little machine!) and after everything is adhered added so stickles.

     This is a picture of how I set up my mat. I love designing in the CCR. Once I have it designed I just place the colors on my mat and cut!!

     This is the right hand side of the page. Notice the second set of lanterns in the top right hand side. I made a tag in the CCR using the Luau cartridge and the Hibiscus image. I cut the image  @ 2.25.

     This has to be my favorite element I created for this lay out! You can find this image on the Luau cart. I cut it @ 4.5" and cut the layer of leaves 3 times out of velum. The layers are separated by pop dots, adorned with stickles. The center has a brown pearl from creative charms.
     I hope I have given you a few ideas and please pop back over to Erica's Craft Room to see what the rest of the team has to show you.