Super adorable mini books

Good morning friends! I wanted to show you the mini books I just finished for my two nieces. My brother and sister in law adopted our dear Kate almost exactly 8 years ago. It took them about 2 years from start to finish because they adopted her from China, she was almost 1 when she finally became part of our family. Now this past Christmas they began the process to adopt another daughter, Morgan. She is 11 and from a town local to where they all live. I wanted a special way to welcome Morgan to the family and celebrate the deep friendship she and Kate have already begun. I guess they are inseparable and so silly!

 So these are the two different covers to the books. I made the books identical except for the tags on the cover and throughout them. Most of the pattern paper was from Cosmo Cricket Mini Deck called DeLovely. I got two of these mini decks and I adore them! The paper was just great for cutting with. The solids were some left overs from a Basic Grey Urban Prairie stack I had and my usual Core'dinations paper I always have on hand. For the girl's names I took some iridescent white paper I had from Hobby Lobby and went to town on it with my alcohol inks. I just love how they turned out, they are so much prettier in person! I used Gypsy Font to weld their names together, it such a great font for welding! The green paper was punched with a Martha Stewart punch around the page set.

 Forever title on this page is from Gypsy Wanderings and embellished with my stickles and a rhinestone of course! The daisy border is from Paper Doll Dress Up. I know you can't tell in this picture but I completely covered this border with white glitter and then added I-Rock jewels to the center of each flower. Crocheted flower was from a stash I've had for years. The center is a basic brad that I glittered. Throughout the books I added double sided blank tags for the girls to write on.

 This set of pages is because both girls love music, especially playing the piano and keyboard. Music notes are from Gypsy Wanderings. Again I glittered parts of the notes so they would really stand out.

 These pages are in honor of Kate and her chickens. She adores them and they are her pets. Apparently she sits and visits with them quite a bit and now Morgan has joined in on that fun too!

 I made the word sweet using Alphalicious and glittered the S just for fun. I think the little chick turned out so sweet, couldn't you just hug her? She's from Create A Critter. Her wings are glittered and her beak and legs were cut with the Core'dinations glittered cardstock-that stuff is so fantastic and easy to cut! Of course Chickie's eyes are more rhinestones.

 This set I decided to just make glittery and girly. Ribbon is some I picked up from Walmart, it is so pretty! Of course I added rhinestones to the ribbon and picture mats. I also stickled the edges of the paper flowers for some extra sparkle. One can never have enough sparkle I say!

 Kate and Morgan both love horses so this is in honor of that love. What young girls wouldn't want a pink sparkle pony? I stickled the mane, tail and hooves of the horse and glittered her bandanna. This horse is from Create A Critter, isn't she FAB?! All the cuts and embellishments in these books are strategically pop dotted so the girls can attach their pictures with out having to remove anything.

 And finally, the back cover...so exciting isn't it?! This was also the first project I made using my new Cinch. It worked like a dream and I am so excited to have a different way to bind my fun little projects now.

I hope you all have a very blessed day!

Fun 6 x 6 Mini Albums

Hi crafters! The last few days I've been busy, busy, busy. At the monthly crop this past Saturday I made my first pre-made mini album. It was so much fun doing a little book where I didn't have to decide what pictures to put in it and where they should go. I made this first one a Valentine's Day theme because we all know I'm a Valentine addict.  The paper was a stack from My Mind's Eye called "Love Nest," I've been drooling over this collection for a few months now. Isn't it just so tweet???!!! The love bird, scalloped circle and rectangles  are from Cindy Loo, the heart with wings is from Create a Critter, and the scalloped ovals are from Sentimentals.

 Sunday and Monday I worked on a recipe mini album (I actually made two at the same time.) I am so happy with how they turned out! This time I used a 6 x 6 mini pad of paper from Basic Grey called Nook and Pantry, such cute paper!!! Some of the solid paper in the book is from Core'dinations and some other Basic Grey paper I already had.  I decided this mini should have a recipe card on one side and an area for a picture on the opposite page. I used Cindy Loo, From My Kitchen, Nifty Fifties, and Sentimentals on this book. I wanted the recipe cards to be on a little tabbed divider, so I added the recipe cards to the dividers with some tiny clothes pins I had laying around. I designed the recipe cards myself in Word and just printed them out on white card stock. I went a little crazy with these books, I just couldn't stop myself! I sewed the edges all the pocket pages. The title on the cover is one I made a while ago on Chloe. I've been dieing to make this retro oven and saying.

 Hope you like! I had so much fun making this minis! I think I'm going to work on our family books for a while now and then make two sister mini's for my neices....shhhhh...don't tell them! :)

Have a very blessed day!

Banana Split Cat

After Halloween this year I went to Target for the sole purpose of finding my kitty a fun "outfit." Yes, once again, I know I'm crazy! He has a cute little Santa suit, but he is much too large for it now. Perry likes this one much better because there is no hat involved. He actually tolerates this costume pretty well for a crazy kitty like himself. I finally just got around to scrapping these pictures, I thought they were so funny so I just had to share...

The title was cut using Nifty Fifties, welding on Chloe. Banana split was created using the banana from Create A Critter, ice cream was from Indy Art (ice cream cone.) Hot fudge sauce was the drippy topping on the Christmas Pudding from Winter Frolic, and the cherry was from Create A Critter.  I embossed the words with the Tiny Mosaic folder, banana was Wood grain folder, ice cream scoops were Polka Dots folder, hot fudge was Divine Swirls and finally the cherry was embossed with Swiss Dots folder. Of course then I stickled the hot fudge sauce and the cherry.

This was the first thing I made with my Nifty Fifties cartridge when it arrived last month.  I embossed the words with the Polka Dots folder once again. I know these pages are pretty simple, but I didn't want to distract from the silly Perry pictures, he does think he's pretty cool AND the top banana around here. As you can see he has a love for laying on storage totes. I just started labeling all my Christmas tote boxes with vinyl, it's so much fun!

Hope you have a day filled with laughter!

Recipe Card, Bags, and Tags Oh My!

Hi again! I've been very busy with my Love Bug and Chloe for the last few days, they are loving all the attention they're getting!

First, here is a recipe card I made yesterday. It was for a challenge about favorite holiday recipes. Well the reining champ here at our house has been these yummy little cookies officially known as Raspberry Pinwheels, but Becky renamed them a few years ago to be now called "Annabells." My mom always made them at Christmas time. Last year my mom made some while she was visiting and Mike fell in love with them again, I ended up making another huge batch of them just for him. Anyhow, they are a huge favorite here so I thought I would make a special recipe card to hold this beloved cookie.

 The card base was cut with From My Kitchen, using this cool double sided paper. Apron was from Nifty Fifties, the cherries were omitted from the pockets and I added holly from the top of the Christmas Pudding cut in Winter Frolic. Annabells was cut with Gypsy font and welded on Chloe.

 The back of the card is the recipe. I printed this out on my printer and just cut it to size.

On to another project...a couple weeks ago I made Susan's two youngest daughters matching dresses for their American Girl dolls (it's been too long since I've made these, I miss it so much!) Well of course I couldn't just wrap the dresses like a normal person, I HAD to make little shopping bags for them. It was quite a challenge making the bags large enough. Even with 12 x 24 paper, the bags have so many odd size pieces. I finally figured out how to rotate the bags on Chloe enough to get a good size bag. 

 This is Allie's bag, I decided to cut off the handles and use double sided satin ribbon for the handles, more like a little boutique bag. I just love the little kids on Winter Frolic so I just had to make the girls and put them on their bags. Bags were cut with Tags, Bags, Boxes and More.

This is  Deanna's bag. When I first saw this cut it screamed Deanna to me. I have been waiting for an excuse to make this one for her. ( I realized while making these bags, I have now created three versions of these two sweet girls in just the past year, crazy! Spring, Summer, and Winter.)

I made cute tags for the other side of these bags, each girl has her name on it and it is tied on with some pink ribbon. Their names were done with the Gypsy Font once again, and the tags are from Gypsy Wanderings.

Have a blessed day!!!!!

It's That Time of the Year!

Late last night dear hubby told me today was his office Christmas party. Thankfully I already had an ornament for him to take-a big tooth of course! (He's the IT guy for a large dental clinic.) I got up this morning and decided I would make a fancy box for his ornament, my Cricut was feeling neglected ya know. I also made a cut little tag to go with it. I know this is way over the top for their parties, but the girls in the office love it when I send hubby with cute packages. My box turned out larger than I needed, so I just filled the bottom with tissue paper. Of course I had to add paper lace and bling to the box as well, I mean really! Hope you like...

The "box" was made with the flower pot cut on Cindy Loo, the paper lace is from that cartridge as well. The box was cut to fit on a 12 x 24 piece of card stock, much larger than I realized it would be, but I like it anyhow. There are  green and clear crystals on the "lace" but you can see them very well here.

Here's a closeup of the tag. All the cuts are from Winter Frolic. Everything was designed on my dear Chloe (Gypsy.)

Hope you have a Merry Crafty Weekend!

Introducing Miss Chloe!

Yes, I'm nuts, let's just get that out of the way shall we? If you don't already know, I WON a Gypsy about a month ago. I am still beside myself with giddiness! Of course I HAD to name my new "baby," it was voted upon at our house, and we settled on Chloe. She is everything I dreamed of and much more! Just before Chloe arrived I made her a cute little carring purse to tote her and her accessories around in. I searched the web high and low and found some Basic Grey (my favorite paper line in the world) fabric sold by the yard, yippie!!!! So here she is styling with her new black and white Gypsy Skin and her purse...

I am a very blessed girl!
Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Sympathy Card and Exciting News

Hi everyone! Sorry I've been MIA for a couple of weeks. It's been buisy around here.
Here is a card I just made for my Uncle's wife, he just passed away this past Saturday. We all knew it was going to happen very soon, but it still is very hard for her right now. He was my mom's older brother.

I made this card using my new Gypsy I won a few weeks back. I am so in love with her, she's named Cloey. I used a layered decorative element from Gypsy Wanderings for the front of the card. The Peace was from Cindy Loo. I pop dotted the inner layers to give the front of the card a little dimension and I also used my Cuttlebug to add texture to the mat on the front. The sentiment was one I found online and it really seemed to fit this situation. We are all happy Uncle Tim is no longer battling cancer and is in Heaven where he is at peace. I printed this off on my computer with a wonderful font I found the other day.

In other news, I am almost done with my Spencer word book. I feel like I've been working on this book forever, but I really wanted to take my time with this project and not rush it. I first starting making the book as a memorial of Spencer because he had a terminal brain tumor that was growing again. Well we just found out the other day all the growth on his original tumor has gone away! No treatment of any kind this time! It is a divine miracle and we are all beside ourselves with excitement!!! He still has his original tumor, but the growth is gone! Hopefully soon I can post pictures of his book, I can't wait to give it to his mom!

Hope you all have a blessed day!

Oh Happy Day!!!!

I just found out today that I won a Gypsy!!!!! This from the girl who never wins anything! Wow! The Cricut Circle launched their blog last weekend and had tons of give-aways, I didn't win any. But the designers from the blog also were each giving away three Gypsys, I entered all those in hopes that maybe, just maybe I'd win.
I forgot all about the blog give aways last week-it was such a crazy horrible week. Well today it occurred to me I hadn't checked back on the blogs yet....so I did, and what did I find? I had won! I read it multiple times to make sure I really did! Thank you Lynn at Pieces of Me and of course Thank you to Provocraft who supplied the Gypsys!!!!!

Oh happy day! Just wanted to share my excitement with you all!