It's hard to be so good

Hello Happy Monday!! Today I've finished a page I started last week on the Vienna Christmas market. I just love this picture of Greg eating his Linzer Shortbread and me at the tea shop in the market, so many wonderful treats that we decided to enjoy some of them after all it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit one of many wonderful Christmas markets so we enjoyed sampling the Viennese fare.
So onto the page, I started with sage green cardstock then a really nice piece of Basic Grey Nordic Holiday paper I have been keeping for a while, It was actually a double sided sheet so you are seeing both sides here - both the spotted and the cute Christmas print. I added some borders from a stack I've got in my stash and did my journaling along a straight line in Publisher. I had a sheet of die cuts I bought ages ago and I loved the one that said "It's hard to be so good" as I thought it was perfect as Greg and I are so good all year with our diets and don't eat treats but this time was an exception! I cut a little gingerbread man from my "Just because cards" cartridge and used brads for his buttons and stamped with a Peachy Keen face stamp accented with white gel pen on his face and the little squiggly bits on his arms and legs.

Birthday for a special Aunt

Here is another card I made this afternoon, this one is for my Aunty Julie. I already had the card sitting on my desk as when I cut Greg's card out I cut another out of the sheet of 12 x 12 red cardstock, but this time I cut a card from Art Philosophy that had an aperture window already cut out. I sometimes struggle with what to do with these cards but I decided to print out a greeting on the computer on pink card and place it behind the aperture. I then cut out butterflies from both the Art Philosophy and Stamping cartridges and used my silver glitter gel  pen to add some sparkle as well as the black gel pen to add antlers to 2 of them and some wire to the bigger 2 of the butterflies. It turned out quite cute. I think that's it for today! Have a nice weekend!

Love you Anniversary card for my hubby!

Hello Happy Friday I started this card yesterday and just finished it. I've been to the gym so feel good for the day but now I feel even better after finishing my card, I'm thrilled with how it came out. I made this for Greg for our anniversary coming up in October, I know he's going to love it! I cut a red card on Art Philosophy at 4.75 inches and then cut a blue layer at 4.25 inches. Last week at Michaels I found a cute stamp set by Hampton Art for only $1.99 an I love the little bees making a heart, so I stamped that and then coloured in the bees and went around it with white gel pen. I used rub-on letters for my title in the heart. For the grass I used my Cricut Craft room to weld together pieces of grass from Straight from the nest in bright green. The tree is also from the same catridge. I used a mini heart punch to punch out the red hearts on the tree. I also used a mini flower punch for the flowers along the bottom. I used Create a Critter to cut out my cute little birds, the sun, the stump and the cloud. For the stump I ran it through my woodgrain embossing folder to make it look like wood : ). I went around the cloud to give it a silver lining with silver gel pen and used my Peachy Keen face stamps to stamp the sun's face. So what do you think? Hope you like it. In the inside of the card I will be putting an insert with "A True Love Story Never Ends" as that is just perfect for Greg and I.

I also decided to enter this in the CardzTV Anything Goes Challenge for this week, you can find that on this link:

http://cardztv.blogspot.com/2012/07/ctv-dt-challenge-12.html

Have a great weekend!

Friends

Today I've had some more time to scrapbook, no gym today (day off) and not as many dogs to walk today so I'm pleased I could do this page, it's very hot outside too so glad I can be in the cool and share my craft space with Greg whilst he works, I do love this arrangement : )
I like the sunburst design at the moment so tried it again with a scrapbook page this time. I started with light blue card and then some lightly pattered blue paper. I found a great bargain at Michaels the other day a 12 x 12 K & Company pad full of beautiful papers for only $4.99! So that paper is from that pad. I did the same thing as I did on my card the other day and used the Cricut Craft Room to squash some triangles in George and Basic Shapes from different patterned papers then I layered them around the page in a sunburst design. I cut out my photo in a circle shape along with some blue card for matting. Then I used Art Philosophy to cut out the half banner shape at the top and did my journaling in publisher. The font was cut from Opposites Attract. I originally wanted to layer some yarn over the top of the letters. I saw this done on "Craft Wars" the other week and liked the look however I wasn't so keen when I tried it so my lovely husband had an idea to use glitter glue which looks wonderful in blue. I used K & Co stickers for the smile and life's little moments stickers and then made my own embellishment using Accent Essentials to cut out the scalloped circles, circles and flowers then layering on a banner saying from a Pebbles Inc sheet I bought as well as some buttons, a felt flower & brad and a Making Memories butterfly clip.

Sunburst style snowman

Here is a card I started last week and finished today. I have been looking forward to being able to try out the  "sunburst" style on a card, I've been inspired a lot by it on Pinterest so I thought I'd give it a go and I'm quite pleased! I started with a precut blue card and matted on some lighter blue cardstock. In the Cricut Craft Room I used George and Basic Shapes to squash some triangles into more of a pennant shape but you could use a pennant shape off other cartridges. I cut these out in various wintery/blue themed papers and layered them around the card. It takes a little planning to get the design right. I used Art Philosophy to cut out some scalloped circles one at 2.75 inches in navy and one at 2.25 inches in white. I used an Inkindinkado set of stamps Greg bought me last year for the cute snowman. He was stamped in black and coloured with glitter gel pens and my markers. I used some liquid pears for the black buttons on the snowman. To finish I added a joy sentiment from the set of Close to My Heart stamps that came with my Art Philosophy bundle. I'm going to enter this in the Cards TV "Christmas in July" challenge, you can check that out below:
http://cardztv.blogspot.com/2012/07/christmas-in-july-challenge-and-another.html

Happy Birthday tea box

Hello happy Friday, thought I would share a little project I did this morning. It's my friend Christina's birthday coming up soon so I decided to make her a little box full of tea. She is a tea lover like me, so I decided to make the box from my Tags, Bags, Boxes & More 2 Cartridge. This is a little takeout box cut at 9 inches. It came out a bit smaller than I imagined but it still worked and I'm really happy with the result. I used my Flower Shoppe cartridge to cut out the flowers, I love this catridge, the flowers you can create are so pretty. I layered up the flowers and added a metal embellishment and button to finish with bakers twine along with some lilac ribbon around the box. The box is filled with a peach mango tea as she loves fruit tea. Have a nice weekend : )

Magical Aachen

This is a page I've been working on for a couple of days. It's still continuing on with our Europe winter photos from last year. This is of the Aachen Christmas market in Germany. I love the photo of me outside the Printen bakery, the window has such a lovely little scene, it really was a wonderland. I was inspired by a page I saw on a blog with buttons so I decided to put my own spin on it. I started with green cardstock and layered some red dot paper and green dot paper with a white border. I added a strip of cute gingerbread men paper and cut a wavy line. I used Art Philosophy to cut out my title with a shadow in the Cricut Craft Room and also some layered stars from the same cartridge. For the stars I grabbed my Martha Stewart glitter and put glitter in the layers on the stars. I added some brads to finish. I used a K & Co sticker on the photo and now for the best part. This was the most time consuming but well worth it. I hand sewed various buttons on as well as putting bakers twine through some of brads through some other embellishments to make the border. It tuned out quite well and It's one of my favourites from this trip. Thanks for looking!

You me and the view

I finished the page this morning after starting it last week, it's of our visit to Salzburg Castle and our view from above. I used some grey/blue cardstock and used Art Philosophy to cut out the scalloped square in a snowflake patterned paper. I then cut a circle out of some shimmery blue cardstock. I had a cute die cut with bundle up in my stash so I used that as well as some K & Company sentiment stickers. I cut the font in red from Art Philsophy and the snowflakes. For the snowflakes I cut them in white and glittered them with Martha Stewart Glitter. Needless to say I have glitter everywhere now lol even on me, but in life you should sparkle : ). I added a little snowman brad to finish.

Snow much fun

Yay I finally got some time today to finish a page I started last Friday, but that's ok, I can leave it on my desk and go back to projects when I have time. This one is of Salzburg Castle in the grounds where we enjoyed walking around in the Christmassy/snowy surroundings. I used a kraft brown cardstock and some striped green paper as well some cute mitten paper which I think went perfectly with the theme. Greg found this great pad of paper at Michaels a couple of weeks ago, they are just starting to get some Christmas things in (a bit scary as it's only July, let us enjoy summer first!!) but the pad was so cute so I got it as I'm still working on last year's pictures. Anyway on with the show with this page..I had a heart lying around on my desk that I had cut previously from my Art Philosophy cartridge. I cut white letters out of Base Camp and the cute reindeer is cut from Create a Critter, isn't he lovely? I cut him out in Kraft brown cardstock and coloured in the antlers and hoofs in a brown marker. I used my Peachy Keen Critter faces stamps to stamp his cute face and a red brad for his nose. Then some adhesive ricrac for a collar around his neck. I did my journaling strips on Publisher and added a Christmas tree brad and some fabric snowflakes.

Inside Neuschwanstein Castle

This was a page I did this morning. My lovely Greg said he came up with an idea to use photos on a page. I'm so lucky, he's always thinking about me in some way ♥. He talked about old school Polaroid type photos and making photos look like old Polaroid proof shots. Then I remembered a great page I saw on another blogging friend's blog and drew inspiration from it. You can see Kathy's page here.

I've been looking for a good way to display these photos from the inside of Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany and this was perfect. We visited here in December 2011 and the inside was so beautiful that I can now look at this page and think of the great day we had there. So I used orange cardstock and I found some patterned paper that looked a bit "castlely". I put the photos in Publisher and made them into a polaroid style with journaling at the bottom. I found one of the entrance tickets to the castle that I saved and put that on first then layered all the photos on top. I then used various clips to add some interest and a couple of sentiment tiles.

Christmas Day in Paris

I have been working on this page for well over a week, it's taken me a while just due to being busy and also the custom embellishment I made for the page but well worth it. Anyway this afternoon was a good day to finish it as it's too hot outside to go out (39 degrees!!) and it's a holiday here for 4th July so my hubby and I are enjoying being in the cool after walking back from the gym this morning. So about this page...I have been saving this paper for a while now, waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it and I thought a photo of us eating our Christmas Day dinner in Paris was perfect. I just love the 2 cute little reindeers. I kept the page simple as the paper is so special. I had a precut die cut in my stash which was white but the letters didn't stand out on the paper, so Greg ♥ had a good idea to color in the letters. We used red ink and sponge dauber to lightly color it red and it turned out great. I used metal letters for the title along with various embellishments from my stash. Now for the most fun part of the page the heart. This is a new technique I learned called "Stamp Casting" so clever and fun to do, I learned it from another blogger (also an Aussie) from the Doodlebug blog you can find it here. Basically it involves creating a little cast over the stamp made from tissues and Mod Podge. Once it's dry you remove the stamp and then paint it or use ink over it, whatever you like. I chose to use paint on the flowers and around the heart for mine. I'm pleased with how it turned out for a first attempt and I did enjoy being a bit artisitc with this. Hope you enjoy my page!