Thankful-H2H Challenge

 I really hope I didn't miss the deadline for this week's challenge at www.heart2heartchallenges.blogspot.com!  I almost just skipped it for the week after all the revelry of the season!  But, my designs have been chosen as a winner in the Friday Five over there for the last 2 weeks and I didn't want to miss a possible streak:-)

So, I pulled out my Close To My Heart products:  Olivia Paper Pack along with the pretty and sparkly Shimmer Brads, Chocolate ink, Flourished Blessings stamp set, A Little Thanks stamp set (available til Tuesday!), Versamark ink pad and Gold Embossing Powder.  Because all of the paper in the pack coordinates I was able  to create this in under 45 minutes-I kid you not! 

I scissor distressed the edges of the quote to give it personality.  Spritzed a little water on the back photo mat and leaves (cut with the Cricut Designer Calendar cart), wadded them up, spread them out, rubbed ink on them.FUN!  For the title , I ran the edges of the "box" in Versamark and embossing powder, then heat set.

Hope you likey-it's also a sneak peak of the calendar page blog hop(my month is November) I will be joining the week between Christmas and New Years.  Thanks H2H for helping me have half the project done.  Stay tuned for after Christmas for the "calendar" portion of this page.

Pretty, Pretty Princess H2H Challenge

This week at H2H the challenge is to create a girly girl item.  Since one of my Scrap Diva friends is expecting a little girl in Dec., I thought of her (all boys in my house!).  I will use this as a gift topper for her and she can use it as an ornament. 

The recipe is quite simple: 
Ingredients
1.  CTMH Dimensional Elements Ornament


2.  CTMH Cherry O Opaques
3.  Versamark ink and CTMH silver embossing powder
4.  CTMH organdy ribbon
5.  Micro beads, pearl pins and silver pearls from my stash
6.  CTMH Liquid Glass
7.  CTMH White Daisy cardstock and Jingle pink paper
8.  Hollyhock ink
9.  Small CTMH Chocolate number stamps

Directions:  Press decorative top of ornament and just the "cap" portion of the bottom of the ornament  into Versamark pad.  Sprinkle embossing powder over and shake off excess.  Heat with heat gun till melted and shiny.  Immediately sprinkle more powder over melted powder and heat again.  Repeat until happy with the look.  Adhere decorative top of ornament to the round bottom.  Cut stem off Cherry O Opaque flower and adhere to center of ornament.   Cut stem off Cherry O small flower Opaque and pull out center pearl.  Adhere to ornament top and poke hole in center. Put drops of Liquid Glass in the outer decorative holes and center of ornament.  Sprinkle micro beads over all and press in to adhere then shake off excess.  Decorate outer edges with pearls as desired. Attach ribbon and pins.  Create year tag with inks, paper and stamps.  Fit for a Princess Baby!

Christmas Lip Balm

These are fabulous teacher gifts or just because gifts.  I cut various Christmas shapes with my Cricut and then used my Cuttlebug to emboss.  Sanded the wonderul CTMH cardstock to show the wintry white core.  Stamped various Christmas sentiments on a tag.  Punched two holes in the cards for ribbon and used a glue dot to put a lip balm between the holes.  Threaded ribbon and tag, tied the bow and all done!  If you would like to purchase instead of make, I have several left from the craft shows.  They are $2 + actual shipping.  Let me know!

Ornaments

I really had fun making these ornaments and thought they turned out beautifully.  I even decorated "take out" boxes to put them in.  I priced them under $5 and only sold a couple.  Can't figure that out.  Oh well, now I have Christmas presents all ready to give:-)  If you've never made these before they are super easy.  Buy clear glass balls.  Remove the tops and squirt in a bit of Pledge Future Floor Polish (yes, you read that right!).  Hold paper towel over opening and Swish around to cover the inside of the ball.  Pour excess out.  Sprinkle in some super fine glitter ( I like Martha Stewart's)  and cover the top with the paper towel again.  Shake till inside is coated with glitter.  Pour out excess glitter.  Put top back on and tie on a pretty ribbon.  I also added crystal "stickers" from the $1 bin at Michaels or single crystals/pearls.   The ones that are not glittered are made by dabbing on various colors of alcohol inks from Ranger Ink.

Turkey Stix

Hello all!  Thank you to everyone who joined in on the Veteran's Day Blog Hop on Thursday.  It was great to "meet" some new followers and "see" some old friends. I think I added 20 followers and I'm so thankful!  I am up to 52 and would like to hit 100 by New Year's.  Why?  It's just nice to know there are kindred crafters out in the wide world who take a look at what I am posting.  On that same note-I LOVE your comments!  Thank you to all those who took the time to do so-I felt warm all day Thursday from the kind words.

Now, what have I been up to?  Craft shows and making all the stuff to sell there.  I am one of those old fashioned gals who still believe a "craft" show should have handmade CRAFTS (or at least Cricutmade-hee hee).  Really, it saddens me to watch folks buy "made in China" cra_ at a Craft show.  Now stepping down off my soapbox.

My best sellers by far were these little M & M stixs. I did not come up with the idea but found it on the consultant's message board for CTMH.

 I welded 2 turkeys from the Cricut cartridge "Designer's Calendar" together and cut in CTMH chocolate Cardstock.  For most of them I then cut a single turkey out of Thanksgiving patterned paper I had left over from last year.  A few I just left plain and sanded the cardstock to show the detail.  I typed out the cute sentiment on my computer and just printed and trimmed.  The most time consuming part was stacking the M&Ms(and keeping them away from the hubby)!  I used 1x8 bags from www.clearbags.com.  Once you have the first one manipulated in the bag it gets easier to stack them.  I used a blunt wooden skewer to open the bag and slide them down and poke into place.  Then I folded over and sealed the bag, leaving a little space at the top to staple the turkey to.  I also made some Christmas ones (which I did NOT get a good pic of).  Again, I pretty much sold all 100 that I made.  Now I'll need to make more for family and friends!

Veteran's Day Blog Hop-Trifold Album

I'm so thankful for our veterans and our current service men and women!  My Dad served in WWII as a young man.  In fact, like so many  others, he left high school before graduation to serve. He talked many times over the years about lacking just a few credits to graduate but he and my mom married soon after he came home from the war and then started a family.  He never completed those credits to get his diploma but he worked hard and provided for his 5 children and raised us well.

When the state of Texas decided to allow schools to award diplomas to WWII vets who had left school to serve, I jumped right in and made sure Dad received his diploma.  The small town of Spur even invited us down to award it to Dad on one of their high school awards night.  Dad was so proud and we were all beaming with pride as well.  This photo is of him and my son who graduated that year.  Grandson and Grandpa both have the same graduation year of 2005!

Now, on to my project.  This Tri-fold album was so much fun to make!

I used the  "July Word Puzzle" stamp set from Close To My Heart.  I also used a couple of stamps from "Celebrate Life". The papers are from the CTMH  collections of Cherry O and Sweet Home.  Stamp inks are Indian Corn Blue and Tulip.  The colonial white flowers and title chipboards are CTMH but other embellies are from my stash.  If you'd like to make your own, you can find directions on-line at various sites, just search "tri-fold album" or "tri-fold card".  God Bless our Veterans!!!!

Stay Tuned for Veteran's Day Blog Hop

Stay tuned for The Land Of The Free Because Of The Brave Veteran's Day Blog Hop!  It's starting in just a few hours!  Wonderful stories, projects and blog candy are more than enough reasons to support our troops and honor our Veterans on this 20 blog hop!!Start here:  http://karelj.blogspot.com/ and then hop your way to my blog!

Shaped Card for H2H

This sweet little card is for the shaped card challenge at www.heart2heartchallenges.blogspot.com.  I have been in "assembly line" mode making things for craft shows so I had a blast breaking away from that and really getting creative.  I used the skate cut from the Cricut Christmas cartridge.  I welded 2 of them together on my (New!) Gypsy to  create a card and then cut out the shape from CTMH White Daisy cardstock.  I then used a silver Galaxy marker to color in the "blade".  The stamps I used were from Close To My Heart: Snow Flurries and All the Best.  I used Heavenly and Moonstruck inks.  The blue pearls were in my stash.  I know a sweet little skater that I will be sending this to for Christmas.  Have a fabulous week!

My Favorite CTMH Product

Close To My Heart posted this on Facebook today:

Write a blog post on your personal or business blog about your favorite Close To My Heart product, post a link here [http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/CloseToMyHeart], and you could win $50 US in Close To My Heart product! Winners will be picked at random and announced Friday, November 12th.

Are you a friend of Close To My Heart on Facebook? If not, then you should be!

I'm not sure I can choose just one favorite product but I will try so I have a chance at the $50!  I absolutely love our acrylic stamps-the designs, the ease of use, the crisp images.  Our inks are vibrant and fun to work with.  I just ordered my first album from CTMH and was extremely impressed with the quality and look of them.

But, I would have to say my absolute favorite product would have to be our papers.  They are true 12 x 12 size for us serious scrapbookers, they cut beautifully in my Cricut, they have so many designs and colors to choose from but most of all-they coordinate beautifully!!  No longer do I stand in front of racks of paper and try to figure out what I want to buy or what will go with my project.  All I have to do is choose a design packet and know that everything in that collection will be perfect together. Storage of paper is so much easier now that I don't have tons of single sheets that don't match anything.  CTMH paper collections come in their own storage bag and that's exactly how I keep them.  Thanks CTMH!

I  received an order for a "Texas style" glass block using stars, this week.  Here's my first attempt.

A Color Challenge

I've been a busy bee creating goodies to sell at craft shows this month.  I decided if I was going to have time to participate in the color challenge at www.heart2heartchallenges.blogspot.com I would just have to make it along with the items I'm doing in quantity to sell.  So was born this post-it holder!  I think I've made a 100 of these handy items, made from 5x7 acrylic frames, so it was fun to challenge myself to use colors I normally wouldn't.  The challenge colors were Indian Corn Blue, Brown Bag and Sunset.  Naturally I turned to the beautiful Olivia collection of papers from Close To My Heart as the background of my creation.  I was so lucky to find this fall colored post-it pad to coordinate.  I used Sunset ink to stamp the flower from The Present stamp set onto the notes.  I used Indian Corn Blue to stamp the sentiment from the same stamp set.  The edges of the sentiment card are sponged in Brown Bag ink.  I tied some CTMH Colonial White Waxy Flax (love this stuff! now I need to order more) around the frame and embellished with a flower from Recollections that I found in the after Halloween sale at Michaels. It needed a bit of sparkle so I added some orange gemstones.  All done in a jiffy!

Coming Soon! Veterans' Day Blog Hop!

The Land Of The Free Because Of The Brave Blog Hop

November 11, 2010 - all 24 hours of it!

20 amazing bloggers!

Patriotic RED, White and BLUE projects!

Interviews and comments from Veterans,

Active Military personnel and Military Friends and Family

Got Kleenex?  Better go buy some before Thursday!

We hope you will check out links to sites like Operation Write Home and Operation Care and Comfort. You may find a new way to help support our active and retired military.

A Blog Hop wouldn't be any fun without Blog candy!

Marlo Letterle, the developer of the marvelous Scrap'NTote, will be sending a tote to the Grand Prize Winner!

Check out her great Cricut Storage Solution.

You can find a great interview with Marlo at http://www.examiner.com/arts-crafts-in-national/scrap-n-tote-interview-with-marlo-letterle

Anne-Therese Cermola Luper, who owns Paper Patch Crafts, a terrific on-line store, is donating
a *super-secret* Grand Prize too!

Make sure you check in and see what you can win! There will be prizes and tutorials from the participating blogs.  Rumor has it there's at least one Cricut Cartridge that will go to one lucky Blog Hopper! Maybe even more!!!!

I hope you will join us in celebrating the men, women, and their families and friends who help to make and keep our great Country The Land Of The Free! It is only because they are The Brave!
See You Thursday! 

To My Hubby

I heard this for the first time today and it is now my song for my sweet husband who has danced with me in many a minefield in our 27 years of marriage!