Halloween Lanterns - Is it THAT time of year again?

I've been in a Halloween mood.  I am not sure why, but I am ready to see some spooky projects on crafting blogs/boards.  Of course I haven't ordered my kid's Halloween costumes yet, but eh, I'll get around to it.  This morning I decided to do a bit of glass etching on a lantern, spooky style.

One of the hardest things to do is photograph a lantern or a mirror so I apologize for the the pictures.  Also, this is not my best etching work.  There are a few imperfections, and again, I'm seeing this grainy etched surface in a few places.  I am beginning to think that that batch of etching creme I was using was defective in some way.  I am so full of excuses today! No worries though.  It's good enough for display on the porch on Halloween and around the house until then.

Recipe:

Cartridges:

Happy Hauntings, October 31st

Armour Etch Creme

Thanks for stopping by!!

A Few Things on a Sleepy Monday Morning

It's Monday already!  Yikes!  I wish I could wind the clock back a few days, the weekend went by too quickly.  First I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who visited my blog over the weekend and left such nice comments about my latest projects.  I really appreciate it.  I have had several requests for gypsy files, and unfortunately I can't send any right now because my gypsy is not backing up correctly.  I can't download or backup ANY of my files right now (insert chewing on hands in great nervousness emoticon here) and I haven't had the time to get on the phone with PC to do some more troubleshooting.  Let's all hope this has a happy ending . . .

And for those who are interested, we had my Dad's birthday dinner last night and I gave him his gift.  He absolutely loved it!  Well, I think he did - he laughed hysterically over and over again, which is how he shows emotion.  I think he was laughing so he didn't get too choked up.  So, mission accomplished.  I actually made a birthday gift, and the recipient loved it!

Sophie Meets Flower Shoppe

Sophie arrived several days ago but today is the first day I've actually had a moment to sit down and play with it.  Out of all of the Cricut Circle cartridges this is the only one I have actually been excited about receiving.  Actually, this is only the second Circle cartridge that I've really liked.  It's right up there with some of my favorites - Elegant Edges, Damask Decor, and Flower Shoppe.  I can see myself using this over and over again.  

Without any specific occasion in mind I decided to make some general sentiment cards tonight.  I didn't really have a particular theme in mind, but just sort of went with whatever struck me.  I picked one of the flower shaped cards from the Card 1 feature I believe,  and made several versions using paper I printed from my Imagine.  Audrey is my go-to cartridge for paper in seems.  I have quite a few more, but I keep coming back to Audrey.  I added flowers I quilled from Flower Shoppe, along with leaves that were also cut from Flower Shoppe.  You guys know how much I love things to pop.  At first I didn't think I was going to be able to add any dimension other than the quilled flower but I was able to work in a bit of dimension with the leaves as well. I don't know what I'd do without my pop dots!! The bling was the final touch.  I am pretty pleased with the way these cards turned out.

                        

Recipe: 

Paper:  Cricut Imagine Audrey; Black - AC Cardstock

Cartridges:  Sophie, Flower Shoppe

Stamps:  Stampin' Up, Verve

Bling - My Stash

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Saturday Morning Musings - Beauty

Beauty once seemed to me to be an accident of nature. ...But now that I can see my life on my face, I realize we earn the way we end up looking. Time, it seems, gives us all a chance to really be beautiful. ~ Anne Curry  

Sky Diving Take Two

You guys know I've been scrapping in duplicates.  This is the second page of my father's Sky Dive page.  The papers are all My Mind's Eye - Stella & Rose.  This is the paper I bought for this project initially, several months ago.  I wasted a bunch of it on a failed first attempt to this project, but this one, this one finally came out right.  The details behind this page can be found on this post.

Ignore the scrap piece of paper sitting right above the journaling block.  Oops!!

Recipe:

Paper:  My Mind's Eye  Stella & Rose

Cartridges:  Elegant Edges, George & Basic Shapes

Make The Cut:  Sky (Bell MT TTF), diving (Adore TTF), Skydiver Group EPS

Spellbinders:  Labels Four

Ink:  Stampin' Up More Mustard

Brads:  My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose

Ribbon, Bling, Flourish - My Stash

Thanks for stopping by!!

Happy Birthday Daddy - Sky Diver Scrapbook Page

Long time no post eh?!  The rush back to school is, several weeks in, still the rush back to school.  I have also been taking a little time off in my craftroom just to start to let things flow freely again.  But, this one has been marinating in my head for a while so I wanted to see it through.  My father's birthday is this week, and instead of the usual phone call or card I decided to scrapbook a few of my favorite pictures of him from my childhood.  Because it's just a single page, I mounted it a shadow box that he can hang on his wall.  I think he is really going to like this.

I started with this sketch from Sketch Savvy.  

I know I tend to really load up pages, and my hope was that I could keep the embellishments to a minimum so as not to freak my Dad out by making it too girlie.   I think I was successful.  I added some bling but not so much as to detract from the overall design.  Here is the final product:

 Recipe:

Paper:  DVWV Lemon Flower

Cartridges:  Elegant Edges, George & Basic Shapes

Make The Cut:  Sky (Bell MT TTF), diving (Adore TTF), Skydiver Group EPS

Pins:  Maya Road

Spellbinders:  Labels Four

Ink:  Stampin' Up Pear Pizzaz

Ribbon, Bling, Flourishes - My Stash

Thanks for stopping by!!

Feed The Giraffes!

Okay, remember my "Oh, I'll just create duplicate layouts" resolution? Yeah, well, for some reason I didn't factor the quadrupling of time that I have to put into these babies.  I have been working on these double page layouts all week long - a little here, a little there, and well, finally tonight I am finished.

These pages cover a trip to the Brevard Zoo (Melbourne, FL)  that my kids and I took earlier this summer.  I adore this zoo because it's never crowded and the exhibits are amazing.  Plus - you can feed the giraffes!  They are the most majestic animals.  Anyway, This layout gave me fits for a few reasons - 1) it's picture heavy because I really wanted to include so many of my kids actually interacting with the giraffes and 2) cutting out all these little animals (in duplicate) is soooo time consuming.  I am not a patient crafter.  Halfway through this project I was reminded of why I like cardmaking so much.  But hey, it's done.  Nothing to complain about now.  My Mother's scrapbook just grew by two pages!

Here's the first one:

And here's the second:

A couple of notes:  The grass on the bottom is from the ZooBaloo cartridge.  I often turn to this version of grass when I need it for a project.  One of my favorite scrapboookers, Jana Eubank, posted a page on the Cricut Circle blog using the grass, but upside down.  I liked the look so much I decided to try it.  I do like it a lot and I might do it again in the future.  I wish I could link to the page where Jana's page was posted by the Circle blog is private.  You can however, see Jana's work on her personal blog and also on the  Cricut blog.

Alright - time for some closeups!  

And again for the duplicate:

Recipe:  

Paper: DCWV Animal Crackers

Cartridges:  Life is a Beach, Everyday Paper Dolls, Paper Doll Dress Up, Home Decor, Animal Kingdom, ZooBalloo

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope to have something else to show you real soon!