A Baker's Dozen

I wanted to share some cards Susan just finished up. She coached the little girls Upwards cheerleading team at her church this past winter and wanted to send each of her girls a special card. She made each little paperdoll look like the real girl! I curled a bunch of yarn for her to make their pom-poms with. Susan put so much work into theses cards and I think they are super adorable!!!! (I'm not just sayin that because she's my BFF!) Didn't she do a fantastic job?!!! She stickled over each girl's name so they are very glittery and fun.

 She of course used Every Day Paper Dolls for the girls and Lyrical Letters for their names.

And now to make the baker's dozen complete, here's a thank you card I made yesterday. I actually made two, I was having a very indecisive day for sure!

 The bunch of flowers is from Kate's ABC and was cut out with pages from a book of Shakespeare's works.(quick! who can tell me what tragedy I used????)  I hand dyed each layer with my alcohol inks because I knew I didn't have that many coordinating shades of pink. The thank you is from Cindy Loo. I decorated the inside of the card with a small orange flower and a bow made from my ribbon seam binding-would've shown this, but the pic turned out horrible!

Hope you all have a fantastic and blessed day!

Spencer Word Book-Finally! (picture heavy)

Here is the book I made in honor of our sweet little Spencer, I am going to give it to his mom as soon as possible. This little guy has been in and out of hospitals his whole life and he is such a miracle. We know God has some big plans for Spencer!

 I made this book in Design Studio. The base of each page was made using George and the font is from Lyrical Letters using the "jumbo" font. Each page in this book was designed individually, I really had no rhythm or reason to it other than it had to capture Spencer and who he is. I only did one or two pages at a time, then I would put the book away. I didn't want to rush this and I know that I start loosing creativity when I work on something too long.

 This is Spencer and my daughter way back not too long after she started watching him. He has married her many, many times and we think it is so sweet!

This is a pocket and a tag I knew had to be in this book. The tag pulls out and a poem my daughter wrote for and about Spencer is attached. The pocket had to be pop-dotted because the poem ended up being pretty thick once it was folded. Becky wrote him this poem about 3 or so years ago.

This picture was taken last November when we got to go visit Spencer and his family out at the Ranch they moved to. This is one of my favorite pictures ever! The adoring look Spencer has on his face is priceless, he was so excited to see "his" Becky again!

Ok, to know Spencer and his mom, Kimberly, you know that he is her EVERYTHING, that is what inspired the key to my heart here. The cover lifts up here and you see Spencer and his mom. This picture was taken about 3 years ago when Spencer spent the entire summer being treated at MD Anderson in Houston for his brain tumor. His family spent so much time driving back an forth and even had to rent an apartment there because Spencer had to be in treatment almost every day. It was a very hard time for everyone, but Spencer being the trooper he is, came through it with so much grace. He is amazing!

This picture was two years ago almost to the day! I don't remember what happened to send Spencer back to the Children's Hospital, but he ended up being very very sick. We came to see him one day and let him hug on his Becky. About 2 weeks after this Spencer was readmitted back here and ended up having a bone marrow transplant just before Christmas. Once again he was so strong. He had to be in complete isolation with his mom for at least 2 months. Kimberly was allowed to stay in his room with him and didn't leave his side the whole time! Again we came to visit him on New Year's Day, he was very weak and couldn't talk much, but do you know what he did? He sang "I Can Only Imagine" to his mom and to all his visitors on the other side of his glass wall. He said it was his song! Makes me cry just thinking about it. He is one special guy!

This book is obviously not in chronological order at all, this is one of Spencer's great loves, horses! This was taken out on the Ranch with his new miniature horse. I'm sorry I don't remember his name. Spencer was so thrilled to get his own horse finally!

This picture was right after we first meet Spencer, Becky had just started watching Spencer then. They became fast friends and the rest is history!

My husband and his friends love flying radio controlled (RC) helicopters and airplanes, well Spencer thought that was the neatest thing ever! He was always asking Mike to fly for him. Once when Mike had his flying buddy over they got out the helicopters for Spencer. Spencer's eye sight is very bad, so he touches everything and is very tactile. Greg was so nice and let Spencer touch and feel the helicopter, it was so awesome! (that's a big deal because the guys don't let anyone touch their "toys.")

This picture is from the same summer I mentioned above but this was the happy time. Make A Wish sent Spencer and his family to Disneyland and Lego Land in CA. Mind you none of them have been to the West Coast ever! Spencer had such an amazing time, he especially loved Lego Land. He is all about the Legos! Because he can feel them, he builds amazing things! Unfortunately I didn't have a picture of him playing with his legos, not sure why,I don't have access to the pictures from his trip right now.  He also loves trains, so I put a train full of legos on this page for him.

This picture is from this past June when Spencer finally got to come visit us in our new home. He was so excited and had such a great time, of course he got his Becky hugs in. He even got to go visit her at work and tell her manager how much he loves Becky-it was so cute! He is Becky's Prince Charming!

These pictures are from way back too. Spencer just adored my hubby, probably because Mike is just a kid in a grown up body. Every time Spencer saw him he'd say "Swing me Mr. Mike!" It was their thing. So here he is having a swing!

The front picture lifts up and you see the second one...

Finally, again back out at the Ranch. Spencer seems to be holding court on his ATV (left picture). He knows how to socialize with people and entertain too, he's been around so many in all the hospitals. On the right he's greeting guests and introducing people, what a cutie!

Well there you have it! Whew! Now I need to figure out when we can see Spencer and Kimberly again so we can give them this book.

Hope you all have a very blessed day! (Kimberly's favorite thing to say!)

Sand on a Layout???

This is a layout I did recently from a short business trip to Florida. I decided to cover my little sand castle with some sand a dear friend brought me back from Hawaii years ago (yes, I'm crazy for hauling this sand around with me all these years, but look it paid off!) I tried cutting the sand castle from sand paper first. That worked ok, although it messed up my Cricut blade. The sand paper just lacked that certain something I was looking for. After I cut the sand castle out of a light brown I ran it through my Xyron upside down and then sprinkled my sand over it, Ta-Da! A sand castle! I also had just recently purchased some little glass like adhesive tiles from Michael's, they were the finishing touch I think. The word Florida was cut with Lyrical Letters and welded in Design Studio. The other cuts on these pages were made with Create a Critter. I also covered the little red crab with Tim Holtz Fried Brick Distressed Embossing Power. He's now rough and bumpy.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Flower Pot Card

So this is a card I scrap-lifted from Yvette on the Cricut message board. She got it from Split Coast Stampers I believe. I saw this card and just had to make it!

The flowers were made with Paisley, each flower was cut 4 times at 1/4 inch smaller each time. I then inked them on the tips with some Ranger Ink, Concord Grape. The leaves were cut using Lyrical Letters (it's actually a tulip cut I believe.) Flower pot was cut with my paper cutter and embossed with my Cuttlebug. Flower centers are fabric covered brads from Hobby Lobby. All paper was of course, Core'dinations.

This is actually a very fun and easy card to make, let me know if you decide to make one too...I'd love to see it!

My Personal Chef

My very dear, sweet son made me home made waffles for breakfast on Mother's Day this year. My daughter would have helped too, but she had to work all day. Here's a layout I made with the pictures of Michael hard at work in the kitchen...

I know the title is a little hard to read in this picture, it says "Mom's Personal Chef." I used Storybook font for the Mom's and Lyrical Letters for the other words. I decided that because this layout was about Mother's Day, I should make it girlie and use my favorite color...RED! I really like how my little flowers turned out, I used small Primas and added the adorable red fabric covered brads from Hobby Lobby. Paper is from Hobby Lobby as well, gotta love that place! Thank you again Michael for the wonderful breakfast! Love you!

Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Yes, I Know I'm Crazy....

 I'm a little ashamed to post this layout, not everyone understands my (and now my kids') obsession with our kitties. Now that my kids are older and pretty much self sufficient, the kitties are my "babies." I know that even though I'm still young, I am already regarded as the Crazy Cat Lady, and I'm fine with that. My kitty, Periwinkle, helped me scrap this page...he was laying on this at one point and scattered my letters all about like the "helpful" kitty he is. (Yes, I know Periwinkle is NOT a boy's name, it's a long story!)

 Now on to the actual layout details....I just received the Cindy Loo cart in the mail this week and I could not wait to cut out the adorable frames and of course the kitty too! So far it has been everything I was hoping for, I was already in love with Storybook, so how can I not love this one? Words are from Lyrical Letters and the little tag is from Winter Woodland. If you want more details (page #'s and what -not) click the link here to visit our project gallery. (Or you can just click on our lovely little Project Gallery button.)

Remember we're having a give-away here once we reach 50 followers,everyone bring a friend!

Hope you all have a great day!

Cards for Soldiers

Last week I joined a Cards for Soldiers group on the Cricut message board. I am so excited because I have wanted to do something like this for a while now. I signed up to make 20 cards this time (June 13th -July 5th.) I've now completed 18 of the 20. Here are a few of them....

Scalloped oval is from Storybook and sentiments are from Lyrical Letters.
Embossing is Cuttlebug Swiss Dots

Dog is from Robotz and so is the font

Embossing is Cuttlebug Spots and Dots and sanded paper was Core'dinations

Sentiment is from Lyrical Letters and Cherry is from Paisley
Border punch is Martha Stewart

I did most of the cards in multiples of 2's, I have many more that I haven't taken pics of yet. I think I finish up this batch with some cute kid birthday cards.

Have a great day!