Digi Monday at Paper Playtime

Today over at Paper Playtime is Digi Monday.  The last Monday of each month will be Digi Monday, and the challenge will always be Anything Goes.  So check out my project below and then head on over to Paper Playtime to join in the fun!

The Digi Team was challenged to create designs using digis from 5 different companies.  I decided to use the fun Little Red Riding Hood digi from Digital Delights by Louby Loo to create a Color By Number project.  First, I printed the digi on scrap paper and mapped out the colors.  Then, using the Paint program on my computer, I added the color key and the corresponding numbers to the digital image.  Finally, I saved the new image, printed it on white card stock, and mounted it on the red card stock.

JD’S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ Little Red Riding Hood digi ~ Digital Delights by Louby Loo

♥ Red and White card stock

♥ Paint program on my home computer

I really wanted to color one myself, but after creating the color key, I realized I don’t have any yellow or blue markers in my collection.  Thankfully, I’m hosting a Stampin’ Up! workshop this weekend and have already saved to get the Brights, Regals, and Subtles marker collections.  It is Sale-A-Bration… so go big or go home, right?

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

Flaunt It Fridays Challenge #9 - Paper Pups

This week at Flaunt It Fridays, we were asked to flaunt the Border Feature of the Dog and Cat from the Paper Pups cartridge.  I don’t have the Paper Pups cartridge in my collection, but I was excited to find several of the Paper Pups’ cuts on my Cricut Sampler cartridge.  While I didn’t have the exact cut, I did find another cute dog and cat pair.

JD’S SCRAP-IPE:
♥ Dog & Cat ~ Cricut Sampler “Paper Pups”
♥ Friends Forever ~ Cricut Sampler “Makin’ the Grade”
♥ Lavender and Dark Pink cardstock ~ Recollections Butterfly Wings
♥ Cream cardstock ~ The Paper Company
♥ Patterned paper ~ gcd studios Cloisonne collection
♥ 1/8” Lavender and Cream ribbon ~ Offray
♥ Lavender mini brads ~ The Paper Studio

Good luck with your Paper Pups projects this week!  I look forward to seeing your creativity!  And be sure to head on over to Flaunt It Fridays to be inspired by the other fabulous creations from the FIF design team.

Here’s to a fun and crafty weekend!

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 ~

Paper Playtime Challenge #33

Happy Monday!

I have to say that I LOVE this week's Paper Playtime challenge to use only black, silver, and white in a project.  I love black and white, and silver just adds a sense of glam.  So fun!  This card was full of firsts for me... my first project as a Paper Playtime Queen, my first card of 2011, my first "legal size" card, AND my first card with the Celebrate with Flourish cartridge.

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ Black and Silver card stock ~ Recollections Essentials pack

♥ White card stock ~ Georgia Pacific

♥ Argyle patterned paper ~ DCWV The Glitter Stack

♥ Champagne bottle / glasses and Happy New Year sentiment ~ Celebrate with Flourish Lite cartridge

♥ Silver ribbon ~ The Robert Stanley Collection at Hobby Lobby

Have any of you ever used Celebrate with Flourish?  I had such a hard time with these cuts.  They are so intricate that even cutting at low speeds and using multi cut, I still got frustrated!  I think it may be time to change my blade.  Maybe that would help.  Hmmm... But anyways, I'm curious to hear about your experiences with this cart.  I absolutely LOVE the designs, but welcome any hints / tricks on cutting them without tearing or leaving frayed edges.

If you enjoyed my card (and well, honestly... even if you didn't!), you have to head over to Paper Playtime and check out all the fabulous projects created by the rest of the Queens.  Once you are full of inspiration, be sure to enter your own black, silver, and white project into this week's challenge!  I can't wait to see what you create.

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

Flaunt It Fridays' Hello Kitty Blog Hop

Welcome to the Flaunt It Fridays' Hello Kitty Blog Hop!  If you came from visiting Michelle at Purple Monkey Moments, then you are in the right place.  If you just happened upon my little corner of the scrappin' blog world, you should definitely head over to Flaunt It Fridays and start from the beginning of the hop.  Almost all of the Flaunt It Friday designers are participating in this fun hop!

To all my Cricuteers - SURPRISE!  I am now part of the Flaunt It Fridays design team!  Exciting, right??  :-)

For this week's challenge, we were asked to flaunt the Hello Kitty with Airplane on Page 65 from the Hello Kitty Greetings Cart.  I do not have the Hello Kitty carts in my growing collection, but I remembered that my favorite license cartridge, Mickey and Friends, has a cute little plane.  So I decided to flaunt the Mickey plane instead.

I made this fun bookmark to give to my young nephew who will be flying to Florida in March.  It's a little hard to tell, but I actually used my Gypsy for the lighter blue layer and cut out the plane using the Shadow feature.  This allowed me to inlay the darker blue plane into the bookmark.  It's easier to see in person.

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ Light and Dark Blue card stock ~ Recollections Cape Cod value pack

♥ White card stock ~ Georgia Pacific

♥ Plane ~ Mickey and Friends cartridge

♥ "Fly Away" ~ Mickey Font cartridge

♥ Cloud ~ Create A Critter cartridge

♥ "with a Good Book" ~ printed on my computer with a Mickey font

* inked with Stampin' Up! Pacific Point

♥ 1/4" White ribbon ~ Offray

For this fun hop, we were also asked to create a second project using any cut from Hello Kitty Greetings.  I found the HKG handbook online and discovered a cute heart with wings on page 51.  I then located a similar image on Create A Critter and used it to create this card...

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ Olive Green card stock ~ Recollections Spice Market

♥ Patterned paper ~ gcd studios Cloisonne collection

♥ Light Pink textured card stock and Dark Pink and Cream glitter card stock ~ DCWV Hippie Chic Mat Stack

♥ Heart with Wings ~ Create A Critter cartridge

♥ Love ~ Home Decor cartridge

(cut three times and layered to give chipboard effect)

The Hello Kitty Blog Hop will run until Sunday night.  If you leave a comment on all blogs along the hop, you will be entered for a chance to win an awesome grand prize... the Love Always stamp set from Pink By Design.  Special thanks to Sarah at The Pink Cricut for sponsoring this giveaway!  The winner of this great prize will be announced on Sandra's blog, 365 Days of Cricut, sometime Monday or Tuesday.

Thank you for visiting me at JD's Adventures in Cricuteering and for hopping with us on the Flaunt It Fridays' Hello Kitty Blog Hop!  I can't wait to see how you "flaunt" your Hello Kitty airplane this week.  After you finishing hopping, be sure to head over to Flaunt It Fridays for all the challenge details.  But first, fly on over to Jenny at Jenny K. Scrappin' Addict, and check out what she has in store for you.

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

My First Attempt at Glass Etching

I have one more homemade Christmas gift to share with you, Cricuteers!

Every year, when I start thinking about Christmas gifts, there are those family members who I immediately know what to get and there are those who I wonderfully stumble upon the perfect gift for in the most random of places... and then, inevitably, there is that one person who I just can't figure out what to get.  Well, this year, I actually had more than one person like that.  I don't like to do gift cards, and I try so hard not to ask the person what they want, but this year... it just couldn't be avoided.  So when I asked my sister-in-law what she wanted for Christmas, she simply said a thank-you stamp set from Michaels and Jelly Bellies.  The stamp set was easy - it felt like I was at Michaels / Hobby Lobby / JoAnn's at least once every few days this holiday season - and Jelly Bellies are always fun, but I just couldn't bring myself to give her a bag of Jelly Bellies.  So I decided to attempt my first glass-etching project.

Drumroll please...

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ Glass jar from Hobby Lobby

♥ Armour Etch glass etching cream

♥ Mini Foam Brush

♥ Vinyl

♥ Ribbon with wired edges

♥ Gypsy (for designing / cutting the template used in etching)

I love how the jar turned out.  I ended up leaving the etching cream on a little longer than the directions said in order to get a nice even etching.  But it turned out so fun!

And just so you can get the full effect, here's a picture of the jar filled with 1.5 lbs of Jelly Bellies in my sister-in-law's favorite flavors...

 

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

Flashback to 2010

Hello Cricuteers!  Wow... where to start??  Sorry I have been gone for so long.  The holidays were super busy for us, and then I had to go get sick over New Year's.  But I am much better now.  2011 is in full swing, and the scrappin' projects are a flowin'.  Before I start posting about 2011, let's rewind back to 2010 for a bit.  I have some fun Glitter It ornaments to show you that I couldn't post before because they were gifts and how sad would that have been if someone saw their gift on my blog before I was able to give it to them!

These were for my childhood best friend, her husband, their 3 kids, and of course, the family dog.

This next set was for my brother, my sister-in-law, my nephew (who loves Mickey Mouse), and my niece (who will be born on February 28th!  Can't wait to meet her... and finally learn her name!).

These two J's in this next group were for my sisters.  The elephant was for my mom.  The white elephant is a family symbol of sorts on my mom's side as my great-grandparents owned a tavern called the White Elephant, and white elephant stuff is so hard to find so I had to make my mom her own ornament this year.

On Christmas morning, my husband and I snuck all the ornaments for my family onto the tree while everyone was still in other rooms getting ready for our Christmas celebration.  It was fun to watch everyone hunt for their ornaments on the tree.  And don't worry... while I didn't make my dad a Glitter It ornament, he got a special ornament, too.  :-)

Hope you all enjoyed your holidays and were able to spend time with family and friends.  It's so hard to believe that Christmas 2010 is already over.

Here's to a fantastic 2011!

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~