It's the Hap, Happiest time of the Year...........

It's almost Christmas......I did find the challenge I created the project for, it is the Circle Monthly Challenge for December.  I  knew I needed a red ribbon for a reason!! I did 3 gift tags and settled on this one.  It too is made from Jolly Holidays with the exception of the stamped saying.  That is one of those $1 bin stamps they have everywhere.  I have had a few requests for similar frames as the one for the challenge that will be a present for my mom (shhh).  She doesn't follow my blog, or scrap or make cards so I am pretty safe posting it here. 

I am hoping to get the next picture done by.....Sunday night, so check back because I have already sketched it--and if it turns out as sketched it's going to be pretty cool.  Time will tell.  

Thank you for all the great comments.  You really keep me motivated!! I am so busy with the two jobs and my kids activities that I am not a daily blogger, but I am going to try to do at least one post a week with a project of some sort.

 

December, Almost the end of 2010

I am sure a lot of you went to WM for the BF special on the Lites.  I was in line at 10 p.m. to get the laptop and a few other goodies.  I did get the laptop and gave it to my friend to buy for her son because I just couldn't justify everything I had already spent money on and that....She did buy me breakfast to make up for  my total lack of sleep while she was warm and dry in her bed. Well, I did NOT get the Jolly Holidays on BF even though I had it in my hands.  I decided against it.  And then I went back on Saturday and purchased it for the $25 instead of $20.  I do get a 10% discount so that kinda made up for it?  Yeah, not really.  So usually I get a new cart and do nothing with it for a long time and then after making myself feel guilty about not using it I try to find something to do.  WELL, not this time!! I started and completed a Home Decor project tonight.  I think it is for a challenge but cannot find the one that it fits. 

I am not a designer and sometimes my head spins in circles when I go to the designers gorgeous blogs to see their projects and the list of Ingredients is 25 long and 4-5 carts mostly for one cut here and one cut there.  Perhaps I should be the Thrifty One Cart Wonder Blogger!!  LOL.

So here it is..........and I LOVE IT !!  This is completely done with Jolly Holidays and Bazzill cardstock except for the background paper and you will have to forgive me it was in my bin of paper I have had for a long time and I do not know the designer.  I used Diamond Stickles to add the sparkle and a red grossgrain ribbon from J's on the frame which is recycled from my Give Thanks home decor.  The frame came from Walmart and was $3.  It is very dimensional which is hard to tell on the photo but in person it pops out of the frame.  I wish the photos did not take away from the colors, the gray house looks dull in the photo.

November already??

Wow!! Time has been flying by.  I do have some projects to post here tonight or tomorrow. I have been a little busy in my craft room.  Pink Cricut will be very proud of me because I am using "Gidget" my Gypsy and one of the projects I will be posting all the letters and words were done on the Gypsy!! 

I would really like to snaz up my blog.  I am going to try to put some time into that this weekend.  My job is IT and I also do HTML and website design and yet I have this blah blog!!  I would love to take the time to redo it with CSS and XHTML.  We will see, Time is something I never have enough of .

Circle Magazine Take 1

Yeah!!! This is my first Gypsy Project!!  I got the Gypsy on Monday and brought it home and did the updates and the I updates and all went well.....or at least I believe it did.  I created my layout on the Gypsy and then cut it (wrong as you can see by previous post...live and learn).  I had to redo the pumpkins and turqoise leaves. 

This is also my first Embossing Project!! Love it.  How did I ever go without this tool?? Silly me.

This is my take on the Circle Project.  I only used the Gypsy cartridges that came with the Gypsy.  I did not leave my leaves natural to make them dotted as they would be on a tree I used Walnut spray stain held up very high and misted over them.  I crinkled them and used pop dots for all the leaves.  The twine is from my Garden supply shed.....All the paper is Bazzill except the stripe which is scrap I had left over from another project.  I used Studio G Sparkle writer for $1.00 on the G and T and Stickles on the pumpkin.  I love Studio G. The frame was $2.50 at Walmart.  The colors were picked to match not only Fall but the colors of my family/dining room also. 

The last picture is where it's "home" is but I could not get a good shot of it there with my camera phone.  Left my camera SD card at work  :(  The phone pics do not do it justice!!

I am NOT buying the new product at Launch on HSN since I am still paying off my Imagine!! I am hoping it is not the larger cuttlebug because I think I would cave......Instantly!!

**If you are not familiar with Blogs you can click on the picture to make them larger!!

Beginner Gypsy Mistakes!!

OK, So I get the Gypsy yesterday, and update it and the imagine.  All seems to be well.  It did say done and keep running the green update line but I just stopped it and it was fine. I connected to the "I" and quickly figured out to hit the button on the G to talk to the I for the cut.   

I create my first project and put my 4 colors of paper on my mat to correspond with the Gypsy screen keeping in mind the top right where it says "load mat this way".  Everything printed up and to the right. 
So if you look at my mat picture below it goes Yellow Top Left: Green Top Right: Turquoise Bottom Left: Orange Bottom Right......

It printed......The Orange on Turquoise, the Turquoise on the Yellow, the Yellow on the Green and the Green on the Orange!!!  Uggghh... So then I set up the Gypsy again and this time arranged my colors on my paper accounting for the shift..........and I did get the stuff to print correctly........but not really.  Because they printed correctly by me accounting for the shift !! 

Here's the kicker........after all of this I notice on the Gypsy screen the Arrow on the "Mat" is pointing Left on the LEFT side..........so you actually Don't follow the Load Mat at the top right of the Gypsy because you need to follow the ARROW on the side of the Gypsy Screen......Aye Yae Yae.....I made so much more work for myself.  

I need a good free Gypsy video.

 Pic of Gypsy Screen:

Pic of  paper for screen above

Ooops Forgot I needed a Card!!

My neighbors had a baby and I had forgotten that my girls were taking over a gift for them tomorrow and I had promised to make a card.   I really didn't have a lot of time to do this since I was playing with the new toy!! So I incorporated the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug onto a beautiful Green plaid from Nana's Collection of papers for Baby Boys.  Used 1 diecut the buggy from Graphically Speaking with the Shadow feature and printed and cut it on the Imagine using a print from Nursery Tails and pop dotted it on.  Added "spokes" to the carriage with the buttons and a ribbon and the adorable letters for BABY are Sandylion puffy letters.  I will add the baby's name once I find out what is in under the word BABY!!

Great Deal--Not Cricut, Don't be a Hater!! Ha Ha

I just love a bargain.  I was in A.C Moore's looking for bargain items and checking out the Cuttlebug when I turn around to see a display of Sizziz with this little purse looking embosser (not die cutter).  It was priced at $34.99 and since I have my EVO (What can You do on the First 4 G Network?? I can search out coupons!) I pulled up my A.C.Moore local store and hit the coupon button and low and behold there is a 50% coupon starting yesterday 10/17 till the weekend on my phone.  Well I asked the scrapbook guru if they could scan the coupon on my phone and she said "No, but they can use the UPC on the coupon off your phone."  Perfect....I read the fine print..yada yada, no PC products, no this, no that.........but alas no exclusion of Sizziz.  I proceeded to the check out counter and had her see if the coupon would work and YES, victory!! The $34.99 embosser was magically $17 and change!! I got 4 cuttlebug embossing folders and my total was $38.00!!  I call that a TouchDown!! The staff was a bit shocked as usually Sizziz is excluded.............sooooooooooooo if you want to score for your team, hike your purse onto your shoulder and sprint down to your local A.C.Moore before they tape a disclaimer to their front door!!

Two Firsts.....My First Imagine Scrapbook Layout & First Sewing

Well I finally did it!!! Yeah, I sewed on a scrapbook layout and it was sew easy (pun intended) !
This is also the first time that I used felt on a layout.  I am just busting out the "Firsts" on this layout...
This will be the baby's newborn photo page.

The paper is Heidi Grace, I love her thick papers.  The lambs are Nursery Tails.  The photo mat is the shape with the Imagine cut at 6.4.  The wording is BaseCamp at 1 1/4" for Capitals and 1" for lowercase.  For dimension I added the felt and pop dotted the lambs and added the ribbon at the bottom.

Vacation Time with my Imagine!!!

It's finally my time!! I took off Tues to Thursday of this week to spend time learning my machine and making projects.  I started off this morning with some quick little Iron On's.  My brother and his wife are having their first baby together in February.  My brother's wife is Romanian and I have learned a lot from her already and look forward to learning many more cooking traditions from her.  My brother has a 23 year old son Robbie and a 21 year old daughter Victoria.  He is so excited with this new baby and a chance to experience everything all over again!! We are all truly excited to have a new baby!! So here are pictures of this early morning's first simple projects.  

I did a very quick video for flipping images in the Imagine.   
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGZ_feTnpDI

Breast Cancer Awareness Month!!

My Daughter organized a group for the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer 5K and Dog Walk in Providence.  Her sister was a member of her group but unfortunately had an accident the night before at Cheerleading and wound up on crutches.  Lucky for me my job allowed me to leave and take her place in the walk.  It was a lot of fun and the dogs enjoyed it.  At the end of the walk/run they had water, bananas and bagels for the people and gourmet dog cake for all the pooches along with water and a nice goodie bag!

She will be taking part in a couple more walks for Breast Cancer and the RISPCA this month!  :) Very Proud of Her!! 


I hope everyone takes time to check their boobies each month!!
Pictured below Bailey (left) a friend's daughter(right).  Dog is Xena one of her rescues!

My Daughter Playing!

This is Kendall and she is 15.  She wanted to get in on the action too!  She wanted to  make a Doll and she did the boots, shirt and hair in layers.  I am a little confused as to why the layers do not print out in the exact size to fit the Original......we did have to manipulate them to be the right size.  Could be we were doing something wrong.  Maybe I can find some videos on the layering and cutting....... But it was fun and I think for the first two projects we did A-OK.  

 

First Imagine Playtime!

Ahh, yes I know everyone is tired of seeing this little Owl.........but he is My little Owl !! So I just had to do him first.  I did not have any issues setting up the "I" and from out of box to cutting this little guy was about an hour.  I watched the setup video.....did the Art cartridge update and it took 2 calibrations to get it to where it is now.  Not bad at all !! I am going to watch the Advanced Calibration Video, but not tonight.  

  Uggggghhhhhhhhhhh
After doing the update my calibration will not stick.  I went from a machine that did perfect even cuts right out of the box to one that I have to align every few cuts.  Very sad :( 

Home Decor Project

Hello! Here is one of my most recent and a favorite project!  I am a total bargain shopper.  I found the frame on clearance for 50 cents because it was scratched.  I sanded the frame and spray painted and accent color for my scraproom.  The chipboard was also a clearance bargain bin purchase for $2.50 for an entire coordinated package. Don't you just love a Bargain! 

My Imagine has shipped!!

With a whole lot of craziness and some stress...my "I" will be here Monday.  If you didn't already hear on the community blogs my "I" was cancelled by HSN on the day it was to ship on a technical error.  They refused (2 Supervisors) to re-open my order and send me the "I" for the original price.  That was my breaking point :( I was crushed.  My husband suggested I give them 1 more chance as I was parental blocking the channel on my cable box...and I got ahold of Krissy!!! An angel in white with a halo that glows pure gold.  She made it all right and the world was once again a wonderful place to be.  Thank you, Thank you Krissy with a K.  I called the supervisor line to leave a comment on how great she handled the situation.  

Please remember to call and report to a company when someone does you right!! So many will complain, but so few will take the time to compliment.  It does matter!! Companies do recognize the employee at employee meetings and such.  So Pay It Forward.  My challenge to you this week is make at least one phone call, email or comment to a supervisor expressing the Great Service you received.  Leave a comment here!!