Some Pebbles Inc, projects

Below are a few projects I did back in August using the darling Lil' Miss line from Pebbles Inc. I absolutely adore the color palette from this line! The card didn't turn out quite as nice as I was hoping, Having a bit of trouble with the spacing of the lines & the adhesive was being a challenge too. I finally gave up trying to fix it at that point & called it done enough. I recreated another one for my friend, but didn't get a photo of that one & it turned out much nicer. Go figure!
















Inside of card.
















Layout using a sketch that a friend made for a crop challenge. These colors work great with a sepia photo! The paper I used for the mat is actually the 8x8 Travel paper from Making Memories. I thought it went perfectly with the Pebbles Inc. stuff.




















A cute little card I made with the leftovers from the layout. I got tons of compliments at the crop over this.











That is all I have today. I have to finish getting my house in order for the big Feast on Thursday. It's my hope to complete little table decorations, but I seriously doubt that's going to happen.

God Bless & have a great day!

2nd Craft show Update

Sorry, there's no pic sharing today, just a lot of blabbing. So just be warned in case you're looking for some inspiration - it's not happening today, unless you're looking for craft show advice. ;)

I made it through the 2nd craft show for 2 weekends in a row. I did pretty good for the first day by making just a little over $200, but the 2nd day was pretty much a bust. I only made $14.50. My partner made much more than that the 2nd day, but she was marking her stuff so cheap, that I could not/would not compete. I marked several things down, but it didn't help too much. Many of the vendors were not selling well on Sunday anyway. We really did not expect to do well anyway. It's a Sunday, if people are going to spend their money, they're going to hit the new sales that just came out in the paper that day. Most are trying to start their Christmas shopping & the box stores are going to get the business on Sunday, not crafters. The show went too long on both days & we're hoping that the people hosting the show got the message that 5:00 is too late to stay & Sunday doesn't work at all. I don't regret doing the show, I just could have done something more with my Sunday than drive 30 minutes for $14.50 & lost 5 hours of my weekend, that's all I'm saying.

I did manage to sell the Red charger plate that I added the vinyl Christmas trees on to make the star and the plate stand to go along with it! I wasn't going to sell the plate holder, but I thought, what the heck? I can probably get more if I need any.

I did end up getting sick not too long after I got there with a sore throat & then my stomach wasn't feeling too great by the end of the evening. That's probably why I'm feeling kinda cranky about the whole thing. My throat was feeling really nasty this morning, but it's easing up now. Now I need to start on getting things put away & the house cleaned for Thanksgiving. I really can't afford to be sick right now, so I'm plugging along at the cleaning thing, slowly but surely!

I did receive my prize package from Crop Addict on Sat.! They always send out great stacks of paper in their prizes! I got some of the AWESOME Little Yellow Bicycle Halloween papers that I never was able to get my hands on, so I was totally THRILLED to see those among all the other cute everyday papers. I love the everyday papers, they work so well with making cards & I am starting to get more & more into cards these days. Oh dear, that reminds me....I had a card swap meeting tomorrow night & I need to get my 16 cards done! I have them started, but a long way to go for getting 16 done! I thought that was a lot of card to have to make for one group, but I was in the minority in that thinking, since everyone else liked the idea of getting 16 cards! Call me lazy then. LOL! It's not really being lazy, it's from not having enough supplies to complete 16 cards in the same style. You don't usually get a whole lot of ribbon on a spool, so I ran out the last time just trying to complete 14 cards. I do have to admit tho, I loved the different styles of cards I received from all the girls in the group, so maybe when I'm feeling better, I'll be a little more into it.

So, with that being said...I suppose I should get off here & get to work on my Winter cards for the swap. I'll share them after the swap & you might even get a sneak peak before then.

God Bless & have a great day!

The craft show was a HUGE success!

As some of you may know, I had a craft show on Nov. 7 & was totally stressing out in trying to prepare for it. Yes, I procrastinate the whole year in getting stuff made, but it's not like I'm not crafting anything! I did have a craft show in the Spring too & did quite well with that one, so much so that I even got a few orders. I have a couple of new orders still outstanding that I need to get my butt in gear on too!

These ladies probably think I fell off the face of the earth! They work where I bank at, but I have not seen them at any time that I've gone in there, & the last I knew, they weren't in any hurry for them, Thank Goodness! I think that time is running out for me though, since one wants something made with snowmen.

Anywho, back to the craft show...I didn't sell as many of my own crafts as I would have liked, but I'm not complaining, I came home with half of what I actually made. The rest of my sales were from purchased items that I bought wholesale. I made well over $300 in sales! Woo hoo!! That's about 3x more than I've ever made at any craft show I've ever done & I've been doing them for 10 yrs or more.

I made up a few Hand Sanitizer bottles with characters on them & sold 3, which I didn't have that many to begin with. I sold the Cars picture frame that I altered. Those are usually a big hit & I make no 2 alike, so they all have original designs.

Here are just a few of the things that I made with vinyl & my Cricut machine to sell. Of these 3 items, only the Tinkerbell bottle sold. There was another lady at the show selling chargers & tiles with vinyl designs on them, so it's a good thing I didn't go that route & I didn't simply because I figured someone would be doing just that (plus she has SCAL-her designs were gorgeous!). So I only made one charger simply because I had this design in my head for quite some time & was dying to try it out! I love the result, but it might have been a little easier if I could have welded it in Design Studio or the new Cricut Gypsy, which I don't have either.

Here is the Charger that I used the swirly tree cut from the Christmas Noel cart (I think?) Ihave been wanting to try to make a star image using this tree, but my original plan was to make it a 5 pointed star, but I cut them too small & I was NOT about to start all over!



This is the TinkerBell Hand Sanitizer bottle I made & used Stickles to sparkle it up a bit, but the stickles doesn't want to stay on the vinyl. It flakes off pretty easy, but it's a good thing this is a pump dispenser & won't get much handling on the image (hopefully).

















This is a small jar candle that I thought would look really cute with the evergreen tree cut around it. This is one that I wish I had DS for, because it sucked getting all those tiny green parts onto the beige background for a cut-out look.

















Well, like the fool that I am, I have a 2 DAY craft show again this weekend in the same town! So, me thinks I need to go make some new stuff so if the same people return, they'll have something different to look at. It ain't like I don't have enough supplies to make more either! DOH!!

So, that's my cue to get off here & go do something!

God Bless & have a great day!

Remembering Halloween

My husband, Alan really enjoys doing up Halloween. He hasn't been able to celebrate it the way he would like to, because our daughter has been hysterically afraid of many creatures in costumes. Even some of the cute ones, like Pooh or Mickey Mouse. She could tolerate them, but would totally avoid any house that had a scary person even remotely close to it. She has gotten much better this year, so Alan thought he could decorate up our golf cart & even get to dress up scary to drive her around the neighborhood for trick or treat. She wasn't too thrilled about his costume, but managed to get over it & loved the golf cart, since she was able to help decorate it. Unfortunately, it was much colder & windier than was tolerable, so we didn't get too far with the golf cart before having to head back for home to get the van. We stayed in our costumes though & enjoyed getting the looks & smiles from the other families. We go to a nearby neighborhood to do the trick or treating, so most people don't know us anyway, but we were totally unknown in costume. Brooke ran into a few kids from her class & bus route, but they didn't even pay any attention to us. LOL!!

So, here are a few shots of our 2009 Halloween, just in case you need a chuckle or two, or to even laugh out loud hysterically!


















































































Well, I don't know how much I'll get to be on here as I've got a ton of stuff to do to get ready for a couple of craft shows I have for the next couple of weekends. And then, I get to have Thanksgiving at my house this year with a big family get together that I haven't ever gotten to do. I just hope I don't break under pressure! I'm only used to the small gatherings.

God bless & have a great day!

I feel so SPECIAL right now!

I got a sah-weet surprise when I checked in this morning. One of the girls from the former Memory Zone design team has honored me with this blog award! Thanks so much Charity (charygirl)!

I feel really honored that she chose me because she's got one of the best blogs out there (IMO!) & she's so stinkin' talented, it just oozes out of her! I think if you cut her, she bleeds out amazing projects. LOL!!













One of the stipulations of receiving & accepting this award is that you have to answer a series of questions with one word answers. No one told me there was going to be a test involved with this! ;)

Here are the questions:

1. Where is your cell phone? desk

2. Your hair? graying

3. Your mother? loved

4. Your father? loved

5. Your favorite food? homemade

6. Your dream last night? IDK

7. Your favorite drink? raspberry martini

8. Your dream/goal? peace

9. What room are you in? DD's bedroom

10. Your hobby? crafting

11. Your fear? cancer

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here

13. Where were you last night? home

14. Something that you aren't? stupid

15. Muffins? zucchini

16. Wish list item? Gypsy

17. Where did you grow up? Indiana

18. Last thing you did? woke

19. What are you wearing? clothes

20. Your TV? off

21. Your Pets? doggie

22. Friends? Some

23. Your life? busy

24. Your mood? anxious

25. Missing Someone? No

26. vehicle? van

27. Something you're not wearing? earrings

28. Your favorite store? TMZ(for now)

29. Your favorite color? pink

30. When was the last time you laughed? today

31. Last time you cried? weeks

32. Your best friend? Hmmmm

33. One place that I go to over and over? Walmart

34. Facebook? sometimes

35. Favorite place to eat? Many

Now I get to bestow this award honor on to 5 other great bloggers out there. I have to admit, they're scrapbookers & I love them for their talent, inspiration & friendship! I check a lot of blogs, so this was a little bit tough...but these are some of the best of the best!

And the nominees are (in no particular order)...

1. SimplyRose1
2. The Artful Validation of Vicki
3. I'm Living on Scraps! (Andrea)
4. Elisabeth's Paper Art
5. CoffeeAddicted (Jessica)

You are sure to find some great inspiration from these ladies - guaranteed! So give them a little look - K?

God Bless & have a great day!

Waaaaaay behind!

Wow! This has been a slow month for me to get projects done & posted on here. But, it's been for a very good reason! We just returned from a week at Disney World in Florida!! I also had a sick daughter right before we left, so that was a bit rough trying to get her well enough to go so we didn't have to cancel the trip.

We drove there from northern Indiana, so it was a 2 day drive for us. All I have to say is, Thank GOODNESS for portable DVD players!! We bought a new one just days before we were to leave & it was a blessing to have that. We warned Brooke that we would not be getting to DW on the first day, so don't even ask if we're there yet.

I wish I could have had a picture of her face as we entered the Magic Kingdom. It was priceless & the look of wonder & magic was definitely in her eyes. There is so much to see & do there, it's just so amazing! It's my 3rd time at the Magic Kingdom & still have not seen it all. It's difficult only because I keep taking people that haven't been there before & things are always changing with the park too, so you see some of the same stuff over & over with each new person you take & some you just have to see again to remind you of how cool they were!!


My daughter's favorite thing was her Princess Storybook dining experience at Akershus in the Norway village at Epcot. I highly recommend the roasted chicken for yourself & your child. The buffet is a bit challenging from a child's point of view with the pickled fish & cold salmon among other unique Norwegian cuisine, but my very picky daughter was able to find the salami, cheese cubes & rolls to her liking. She liked the chicken & thank goodness the veggie they served with it was corn! I thought the chicken was delicious too. Much to my surprise, when you see the list of the desserts on the menu, you might want to keep in mind that you get ALL 4 of the desserts! The chocolate mousse was devine! They only serve real vanilla ice cream at Disney, so that was very tasty. I tried a small bite of the apple dumpling, but I was already stuffed to the max as it was, so I didn't eat much of it. I must say, I tried something called cream & rice that was one of the dessert items, and I must say, I liked it! It was more like a semi-frozen, sweet cottage cheese with strawberry sauce on top. It wasn't overly sweet, so I think that's why I liked it. I have a sweet tooth, but in the past year, it seems to like the really sweet stuff less & less.













































That's all I'll post for today.
God Bless & have a great day!

Did ya hear?

I can't believe I missed out on this for 3 weeks already. Cricut is giving away the Winter Woodland cartridge for 5 weeks in celebration of it being their 100th cartridge!! How cool is that of them?? They're finishing up week 4 now, so there's only one week left if you don't make it for week 4. All you have to do is post a reply on their message board for the appropriate week. Then, you have a second chance by posting the contest in your blog, like I'm doing here, right now, with this link: http://www.cricut.com/shopping/ProductDetails.aspx?id=361&s=1&sc=2. It's as simple as that, it's the winning that's the hard part. LOL!

If you're not participating, can you keep your fingers crossed for me then?

Some more additions

So, a few people were asking what the pull out tag looked like from the Christmas page in the previous post. I went back & took a shot of the front, which the text has been embossed, & one of the pocket on the backside of the tag. The pocket is to hold the letter or a picture of it (whichever I might have) for her to see later on.

Front Side:

















Back Side with Pocket:

















This is a page I had to do for my Design Team assignment, which was to create a Christmas page using older non-Christmas paper. so I chose the 3 main patterned papers from Making Memories for this one. I'm not all that sure I like it, but I do think it's kind of pretty. I think it's the green that's not doing it for me.





Next are these cute little treat ornaments. I had just enough of a scrap piece left over from "The List" Christmas page in my previous post to create these 2 little folded ornaments that can hold a small treat, but you can make them a little larger, if necessary. I like the foil paper for these, because it makes them look more like an ornament. I just added some dimensional stickers to them & even came up with a cute little snowman that I created by using some button stickers by Reminisce. He's another one of those, "I don't know if anyone else has done this, but I thought of it on my own!" kind of ideas. *snicker~snicker~*





OK, I have to say that I have loved the vintage look of this scenery holiday paper from Bo Bunny since it came out! I think I could easily buy it all up! I think it sort of pairs up well with the snowflake paper from SEI. The colors are a little off, but not in certain lighting & it looks great in this picture together!






Then I made this sweet little box also from the Bo Bunny vintage paper. I simply cut it with the scalloped square shape from the Storybook Cricut cartridge & followed the box making instructions that I previously posted here. I made the little scalloped circle phrase using a Quickutz nested Flower die around a "Something Sweet" Just Rite stamp image. These would be very cute to put pieces of fudge in for someone that you just want to do a little something for.







And last, but not least, is this card I made up to display at my demo day at my LSS using the Just Rite circle stamps. There is a little trick to these stamps & I'm not totally sure I have it figured out, but I did find that when you are placing the stamp on the block, to get an even fit, you need to start from one side or the other & gently push it on going in the opposite direction. If you don't, you get little bumps that tend to get ink splotches in places you don't want, especially around the edges. I think the images actually need to be a bit taller to help prevent that, but that's just one scrapper's opinion...;) They're still very cute stamps & if you want to see some truly amazing creations, you need to check out their site: Just Rite Stampers.


So, that's it for now & these projects were sadly my last design team projects for The Memory Zone. They will be closing their store by the end of this year after 9 years of being in this community. I have met some wonderful people at this store & have made some truly amazing & gifted friends through them. It is with a heavy heart that I will have to come to say "good-bye" to my favorite store. It is a great loss.

God Bless & have a great day.

Simple stuff, but fun!

I have had some very busy weeks here since school started. Gee, I thought I'd be able to relax, get some cleaning caught up...but NOOOOO, of course not! I've had funerals, illnesses, Endoscopy's, demonstrations, meetings, used sales, yard sales etc. to get ready for! I'm not even close to being done, but I have manages to get some projects done (thanks to needing some for demo day at The Memory Zone) & some wild hair inspiration along with design team requirements. Whew! It feels good when I get these things accomplished though, whether they're required or not.

Here is a Halloween page I did, because I was verbally "challenged" my a staff member at the Memory Zone to come up with something unique using the cool new die cut paper from Reminisce. Boy, did I think I was clever when I decided to cut it into 2 sections & make a 2 page spread out of it. Little did I know that Angela Ploegman, Design Team member of Reminisce , had already done a page almost exactly like mine! I went to see if someone there had used it in a different way, but my page was essentially complete at that point. I was disappointed that I wasn't the first to come up with the idea, but glad to see that great minds think alike! ;)

Mine is quite a bit different from Angela's, aside from cutting the die cut paper apart. I used Reminisce witches hat paper & used the backside instead for the background because I was looking for a gradient effect to look like a sunset. The paper wasn't exactly the way I wanted it to look, so I used Hollyberry Red Glimmer Mist at the top to give a more orangish-red hue. I love how it turned out! Then I used black Stickles on the moon to add a bit more of a subtle accent to it. Looks kinda cool in real life. I used the same yellowish-orange cardstock from the title behind the house & pumpkins to add a bit more "glow" & added some yellow stickles to the pumpkins faces.

Next, I created a shadowed effect with the new Quickutz "Halloween" 12 inch border title that I thought was so cool, I just HAD to have it the moment I saw it!!

The cute little font at the bottom is Jack Sprat cut at 1 1/4" from the Lyrical Letters Cricut cartridge. This page was so fun & easy to do, the hardest part was finding the pictures I knew I had somewhere! LOL!










This is sweet little tag or ornament that I made for my demo at The Memory Zone last Sat. I used the Flower Nesting shapes from Quickutz & the snowflakes too. I cut them from a turquoise sugared paper from Doodlebug. The snowman was stamped using the JustRite circle stamps in the Something Sweet stamp set. I colored it in with colored pencils & cut it out. I think it looks cute with the trendy winter colors of red, white & turquoise! This was the most popular idea at the demo that day.

















These are a couple of very simple treat/gift bags that I also made for the demo. I like to show people that you can make something that looks very cute, but very easy to make. These were a hit, but not quite like the snowman above!


































This was card I made using some older Bo Bunny Holiday paper, but I used the the stamped circle text as a background for the card. I think maybe the decorative swirls might have looked better, but what's done is done.




This was an assignment for my design team project. I was to use the fabulous new Christmas Time line from Reminisce in a layout. This line is just GORGEOUS!!! So much sparkle & shine, enough to put a gleem in any scrapbooker's eye! This line is a standout show stopper, so I tried to keep it a bit simple so as to not overwhelm & take away from this darling picture of my daughter holding her Christmas List before giving it to Santa. It's still a really striking page, if you ask me.

The little arched area with the date at the top of the page is actually a large tag made from one of the Present stickers in this same product line. I printed my journaling on it & then embossed it so that it would have a bit of shine & texture. The slickness of it allowed me plenty of time to add the embossing powder before the printer ink dried. Then, on the back of the tag, I created a pocket from one of the scrap pieces left over from the matting I cut. This pocket is intended to hold the letter, if I can find it, as I believe that I was able to retrieve it from Santa once he stored into his memory bank at the North Pole. If not, there just might be a photo of it somewhere also. You might not be able to see it in this photo (you can click on any of the images to enlarge them) but there is a red jewel that I used on the reindeer's nose.

Well, sorry that this is soooo long, but when I talk, I talk a lot! LOL!

God Bless & have a great day!

Simple Paper Box with the Cricut

It seems that my simple box that I made with my Cricut Expression was liked well enough, that some were asking for instructions on how to make it.

So here goes, I hope I can make it clear enough, since I don't have video capabilities, so this will be with photos instead & I can't seem to be smart enough to get Blogger to work the way I want it to. I say that all the time, but it's true.

Here are the top & bottom pieces cut at 11" (or Fit To Page function) using the Storybook cartridge. I've used some older Scenice Route double-sided papers here.



This is the reverse side of the Lid. I have placed the corner scallops at the 2" mark & used the cutting channel of my paper trimmer to score/emboss a fold line & I repeated this for all 4 sides.






For the bottom portion of the box, I've done the same thing, only I scored all 4 of my fold lines at 2 1/8", using a ruler as a guide can help to keep the paper lined up better at the top & bottom marks.

You need the bottom portion of the box to be slightly smaller than the top for it to fit properly without causing it to flex.



This doesn't show up very well here, but this shows where the score lines cross at the corners.




Then, you need to take your scissors & follow the score line just to where it meets the cross score line.




I can't explain clear enough how to cut the corners in the proper fashion, so you just need to see the photo below to maybe get a better idea of how to the cut the corners.

Then you fold them up so that the opposite sides are facing each other.



I like to trim the corners a bit in this style because otherwise, I get a bit of uneven overlapping that just doesn't look appealing to me.

Then, I fold the paper upwards/inwards along the score lines to create the box shape.



After that, I place adhesive just on the outside of the flaps.



From there, I carefully line up the corners & stick the flap to the straight cut piece & repeat for all the corners.








Here is the sticker sheet I used from Creative Imaginations for the quote. You could make lots of boxes with this one sheet!

















Here is the completed box. The pumpkin/vine was created using the Happily Ever After Cricut cartridge, cut at 3 1/2" & layered with pop dots on the pumpkin. I then added Crystal Stickles to the vine. It's a clear stickles, but the glitter has a bit of a green sheen to it that brings out the color of the vine. The Harvest label is one I bought from Walmart either last year or the year before.




Here is my daughter, Brooke, modeling the side view with a peak at the bottom, as well.



This is a view of the inside too.


I hope this was clear enough for you to be able to make your own box. Play around with the design to make them smaller & add lots of fun stuff using your Cricut. I made this basic one to use up some older stuff I had on hand, but the possibilities are endless!