Blog Candy - NEW WINNER

Sorry but the original winner did not contact me (I did wait an extra day just in case) so the NEW WINNER is:





I sure hope Sue contacts me at Mandas1610 at sbcglobal dot net ASAP :)

If Wendy contacts me before next weekend I will also send her a bag!

I'm only 5 followers away from Running a HUGE blog candy giveaway so please refer your friends!

Cricut Circle

Of course, I would LOVE to refer all of YOU!

So, if your interested, send me your email or leave a comment with your e-mail address in it and I’ll send you a personal invite.

I have been so pleased with the Cricut Circle– they have a great message board, with fun activities going on all of the time–including contests and giveaways! Plus you can't beat the exclusive cartridges. I LOVE the first one - French Manor - and I saw a rendering of one of the images for number 2 and it looks like a good one!!!



I won the Cricut Expression for my daughter’s preschool along with 499 other Cricut Circle Members– that alone made it worth every penny for me! PLUS thanks to my membership I was able to score an invite to the Cricut Gala during CHA and in that goodie bag was the Happy Hauntings cartridge... oh and a certificate for an IMAGINE!!! There are definitely some great perks available! Oh, and just so you know, the Cricut Circle is open for enrollment, by referral only!

Cutters Creek & Ecstasy Crafts

Today’s project is featuring some of the gorgeous Ecstasy Crafts cut-outs that Kim has started stocking in the Cutters Creek store. Now these exact ones aren’t available *yet* but I’m sure that if you ask Kim really nice to add the “Charlie’s Ark” line to the store she might be persuaded. I personally think these are soooooo cute! The sheet I have is the “Sweet Dreams” one but there are many others including: Closest of Friends, Sharing a Special Moment, and Gardening Friends.

These images are so simple to assemble and look stunning in the end. I made a layout so you could see these aren’t just for card makers (although they make adorable cards too). I took the photos so you could see the top and side views since it is so hard to capture the beautiful dimension in a photo.

Once I assembled all four of the characters that came on the sheet I decided that the little girl holding the teddy bear made me think of Christmas morning! Also the little elephant asleep on the present really sealed it! I used photos from Christmas 2008.

I’ve had the “Christmas” title in my stash for about 3 years now and I decided it looked so cute with the papers I chose. I cut out the word “Morning” with my Cricut Nursery Rhymes
cartridge and used the Christmas Cheer cartridge for the tree (It’s actually 2 layered together).

I also used my 1/8” Scor-Tape to adhere my ric-rac to my layout. The gold chipboard star was sprayed with Yellow Daisy Glimmer Mist.

I also used my i-rock to bling out the little file folder tab. It came from a box of goodies from one of the Fancy Pants Christmas lines along with the star. I love how quick and easy the new i-rock tool makes it to add some sparkle to my pages! It heats up in less than 30 seconds and then sets each gem or stud in 3-5 seconds! No messing around with adhesive because it's already on the back of the gems!

Shopping List:
Ecstasy Crafts
Nursery Rhymes
Christmas Cheer
Scor-Tape
Yellow Daisy Glimmer Mist

BLOG CANDY WINNER!!!

Today is the big reveal.... our random number generator has chosen....


I have double and triple counted and our winner is.....



So if this is YOU please e-mail me at Mandas1610 at sbcglobal dot net with your mailing info by Friday September 3, 2010 at 11:59pm to claim your prize!!!

I am only 12 followers from reaching 100, so please tell your scrappy friends! If they comment here and let me know that you sent them I will send you BOTH something! This offer is only good until Friday September 3, 2010 at 11:59pm and only for the next 12 NEW followers.

Pancake Day Layout

I love my Helmar tape runner!!! Just used it to assemble this gorgeous layout. Notice the Cosmo Cricut Early Bird papers that I WON a few months ago! They were soooo super generous in their prize pack! I love the papers so much that I was kind of afraid to cut into them, LOL! But lately I've been trying to actually USE my stash... You might think that means use what I have before buying more but I'm not that strong yet... The three patterned papers I used are called Farmer's Market, Ribbon Sandwich and Sunrise. I used my Old West Cricut Cartridge to cut out the title.


You may have noticed this GORGEOUS flower near my title. I bought it from Precocious Paper a GREAT shop on Etsy. The owner, Tessa, makes all kinds of beautiful flowers that can be used in scrapbooks, on cards, to make headbands... what ever you can think to stick a flower on! Take a minute to browse her shop and you will be drooling! This particular flower actually didn't have the brown cardstock in it but it felt like it needed a little extra color to anchor it with all the pattern on my page. So I pulled it apart and added the cardstock and I am so happy with the results! I feel a little strange because there is NO ribbons or buttons added to this one but I didn't want to overpower it!

Making this layout has made me hungry for pancakes! Luckily, the Park Forest Pancake Day is coming up quickly, September 25th, and I will be able to enjoy another great meal with family and hopefully see a few friends too!

Halloween Layouts and BLOG CANDY!

So I've been in the Halloween mood lately. It always seems to hit me about mid-August, the urge to decorate my house for Halloween... Thanks to scrapbooking I can play with my Halloween pictures and supplies without the neighbors thinking I'm some sort of freak (although I know there are a few who'd probably love to get their Halloween stuff out now too)! The photos from all three of these layouts are from Halloween 2008.


For this first layout I cut the title with the new Cricut Happy Hauntings cartridge. I am IN LOVE with this cartridge!!! There are soooo many great images and the phrases and font are awesome. Best of all, I've already made the 3D house and it is super cute! I still need to add some decoration to it so I will post it closer to Halloween.

Here is a close-up of the spiral flowers I added to the layout. These are my new favorite thing to make right now. Simply cut out a circle with a punch or Cricut or even by hand. Then start at the outside edge and spiral cut into the center of the circle. Try to keep the sprial uniform but you can vary how wide you cut from flower to flower. These I tried to keep about 1/4" wide. Then start at the outer edge (where you started cutting) and roll the paper. That is the center of the flower. Keep rolling until you reach the middle! Then stick a Glue Dot on the center of the circle and adhere the spiral to it. I just love the look this adds!


I had so much fun creating this layout! The silver paper at the bottom was actually colored with Silver Smooch Spritz. This stuff is really fun for adding color to projects. I experimented a bit and tried it on black 1st but it was too dark for my layout so into the scrap pile it went for a card or something later. I was much happier with the results with the rest of my papers on the white card stock.



This last layout took me like a week to finish! It just didn't seem to want to come together for me. Where the orange bat paper is I had a completely different paper which I LOVE but just didn't look right. The bat paper is from a Target pack that I bought about 3 years ago. I didn't have much in my stash yet but they seemed so thin that they have just been sitting in my stash since then. But the orange really seemed to work for me and now I LOVE this layout! I used one of the fonts on Happy Hauntings for my title (I think it's called Creepy Font) cut out of orange glitter paper and of course I ended up matting all of my photos with the same paper. Here's a tip: If you're cheap like me and you don't want to "waste" glitter paper by matting photos with it, cut out the center before you stick it down! For this layout the border on the photos was about 1/4" around so I left it 1/2" wide all the way around. One of the mats you see was actually the center of the large mat! This is a GREAT way to stretch a sheet of paper. And yes, I only had ONE sheet of this glitter card stock.

So looking at all of these layout do you see a common paper? It's the super cute Halloween Words paper from Little Yellow Bicycle's Happy Halloween line (2009). I was lucky enough to WIN a super cute tote bag from LYB's Facebook page over the weekend and I thought I would share the love with my fellow scrappers! Leave me a comment here before August 31, 2010 at 11:59pm CST and you could win it! Send your friends and if they mention your name in their comment (and THEY are the winner) then you will BOTH win one (I have a 2nd one from CHA). If I can reach 100 followers before the end of this contest I will choose an additional winner for a special surprise blog candy too!!! One comment per person, additional comments will be disqualified. I will post the winner or winners names on September 1, 2010 and they will have 48 hours to contact me or I will re-draw the prize. Good luck!!!

So excited!!!

I just got notified that I was the Glue Dots Fan of the Week on facebook! Woo Hoo! I use Glue Dots to attach all of my flowers and buttons and anything else that just needs a little bit of good adhesive to layouts and cards! They are so easy to use and there is NO mess!!!

In this fun layout I used them to adhere my fun little embellishments to the lower right corner of this layout. The adorable baby is my cousin's sweet little girl on her 1st birthday... isn't she a doll? Thanks for looking!