Birthday Wishes!

Today is my youngest sister's 17th birthday!  I can actually remember the day she was born.  I was 12.  Crazy!  Where does the time go?  Due to our crazy family schedules, we "half-celebrated" her birthday tonight.  We are going to "half-celebrate" again later this week or early next when we can all be together.  My plan was to give her a card tonight and her gift later, but I hit a creative block and by the time I found my scrappin' mojo, it was time to leave for dinner.  So now I'm not sure if I will give her this card or make her something different to go along with her gift.  We'll see...

FRONT

INSIDE

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ Patterned cardstock ~ DCWV Dots, Stripes, & Plaids stack

♥ Textured cardstock ~ DCWV Brights & Jewels stack

♥ Cream cardstock ~ The Paper Company

♥ Cupcake cut at 2 1/2" ~ Sweet Treats cartridge

♥ Stamps ~ Stampin' Up! Tagtastic, Vintage Labels, & Happiest Birthday Wishes

♥ Curly Label punch ~ Stampin' Up!

♥ Red Button ~ Favourite Findings -- Patriotic pack

♥ White / Natural cord from my stash

♥ Stardust & Black Diamond Stickles

♥ 1/8" Kiwi & Leaf ribbon ~ Offray

CHALLENGES:

♥ Die Cuttin' Divas ~ Challenge #36 National Dessert Day

♥ OWH Stars & Stamps ~ Masculine Card

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

Who Says Coloring is Just For Kids??

I don't know about you all, but I have always loved to color.  I even have my own box of Crayolas and coloring books (Care Bears & Mickey Mouse, of course)!  So when I went to an SU! open house about a month ago and our make-and-take project included coloring, I was completely geeked!  And now, I want to color on every project I do.  Blender pens, aqua painters, watercolor pencils, markers... it doesn't matter as long as I get to color.  LoL.

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ DCWV Dots, Stripes, & Plaids stack

♥ DCWV Bright & Jewels coordinating cardstock stack

♥ DCWV Mango Frost matstack

♥ DCWV Hippie Chic matstack

♥ Stampin' Up! Birthday Bakery

♥ Stampin' Up! Teeny Tiny Wishes

♥ ek Success Photo Labels punch

♥ Offray 1/4" Cream ribbon

♥ Stampin' Up! Night of Navy, Crushed Curry, Tangerine Tango, Bermuda Bay, and Old Olive markers

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

P.S. Don't forget to stop back tomorrow for my belated blogiversary celebration and giveaway!

"Monster"-rific Birthday Card

I just love this fun kid's birthday card I made this weekend for a friend's son's 7th birthday.  I get so excited when cards turn out better than I originally envision them.  Do any of you ever feel this way?

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ Orange, yellow, green, purple, and black cardstock ~ Recollections Halloween 2010 pack

♥  (cut at 6") ~ Sweet Treats cartridge

♥ monster cut at 2.5" ~ Mini Monsters cartridge

♥ Drippy Goo punch ~ Martha Stewart Crafts

♥ Googly eyes (two different sizes)

Note: I cut the cake card using the Cards feature, but instead of cutting the Layers, I used the solid , cut the cake tiers apart, and punched with Drippy Goo to make the pretty Cake2 more "monster"-rific.

CHALLENGES:

♥ "Get in Shape" ~ Crafty Sprouts
♥ "Card Crazy"~ Cricut Cardz Challenge
♥ Peachy Keen Faces / Favorite Card ~ Pause Dream Enjoy

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

Paper Playtime "Party" Challenge #35

It's Paper Playtime Challenge Monday, and this week, your challenge is to create anything PARTY related... banners, bookmarks, place cards, menus, programs, invitations, thank yous, cupcake wrappers... the sky's the limit!

For my project, I created a party favor bag from the Sweet Treats cartridge.  My nephew is turning 5 this weekend, and for his gift, my husband wants to take him to a Monster Truck show in a few weeks.  Well, let's be honest... what fun is it really for a 5 year old to open an envelope with a pair of tickets in it?  So I made this cute, simple little party favor bag that I will fill with candy and give to my nephew along with his fake "ticket" - I will be keeping the real one for safe keeping until the big day.

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ Card stock ~ The Paper Studio Memories stack

♥ All cuts ~ Sweet Treats @ 3 1/2"

♥ Twine from my stash

It still amazes me how many fun, simple, ready-to-assemble designs you can find on a variety of cartridges.  Sometimes I get so caught up in making such elaborate creations of my own that I forget that Cricut has given us so many simple and quick projects.  I spend hours making a project when I could use an awesome, just-as-fun, ready-made Cricut design and still have time to read a couple chapters in my book.  :-)  I am definitely going to start setting aside more time to explore the goodies my cartridges have to offer and would love to encourage you all to do the same.

Be sure to head over to Paper Playtime to see what the rest of the design team has created for this fun challenge!  I look forward to visiting your blogs later this week and seeing what you come up with, too.

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

My Biggest Cricuteering Project Ever!

On Saturday morning, just hours before my sister's sweet 16 birthday party, I put the finishing touches on the LARGEST project I have ever completed using my Cricut... and by largest, I mean in size and time and supplies!  For weeks now, I've had the idea in my head to make my sister a paper cake for her party.  But there was no way I could have imagined how great it would turn out.  I owe part of the credit to my mom who unknowingly purchased a random clearance serving tray at Wal-mart at some point in the past that would transform my little paper cake from my original two layer design into a fabulous three tiered, ROTATING paper cake.  Yes, I said ROTATING!!!  When I asked my mom if she had a tier cake / appetizer server, she pulled this fantastic little gem out of storage... still brand new in the box!  You should have seen me jumping up and down, dancing in my scrap room after I plugged it in.  I was a little excited to say the least.  But I still had a LOT more work to go.  So after many hours working in my scrap room and  the living room... and even recruiting my DH to help, I put the finishing touches on the biggest cake I have ever made.

Without further ado, here it is... in all its glory... sitting on the table at my sister's party...

The monograms on the second tier spelled out SWEET using stars for spacers, and each piece on the bottom said 16.  Only 11 pieces would fit on each layer, but my sister was going to have 13 guests including herself.  So that is why there are two extra pieces of each layer sitting beside the cake.  I filled each piece with gummy treats (wrapped in plastic bags)... sour worms in the green pieces and sugar-y bears in the pink pieces.  YUM!

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:
♥ Green and pink card stock from Recollections South Beach Value Pack
♥ Black and white card stock from my paper stash
♥ Cake pieces cut using Tags, Bags, Boxes, and More
♥ Monogram labels cut using Mini Monograms and Gypsy Font (I just LOVE being able to layer images to make "cut outs"!)
♥ Cake layers and cupcake wrapper box cut using Sweet Treats
     ~ embellished with pink and lime green Stickles
♥ 1/8" black and white satin ribbon from Offray
♥ Pink and green satin polka dot ribbon on connecting poles from The Robert Stanley Collection at Hobby Lobby
♥ Black and white polka dot ribbon on base from The Ribbon Boutique at Hobby Lobby
♥ Pink and green shreds from Hobby Lobby's Christmas collection

I am submitting this project to the following challenges:
♥ Fantabulous Cricut: Challenge Me Monday #38 Ribbon Challenge ~ use ribbon somewhere on your Cricut project
♥ Made by Momo: Tuesday Challenge ~ Make a Treat Box or Bag

Until next time, Cricuteers!
~ JD ~