LAST DAY for Belated Blogiversary Giveaway

Today is the last day to enter my Belated Blogiversary Giveaway.  One lucky Cricuteer will win a FREE downable copy of the My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software.  AND because I love all my Cricuteers, there is also a coupon code for $10 off the My Memories software AND a $10 credit to the MyMemories.com store.  Be sure to head back to Sunday's post and enter to win!

Kid-Inspired Thank You (& Giveaway Reminder!)

If you are looking for my Belated Blogiversary Giveaway ~ which includes a FREE downloadable copy of the My Memories digital scrapbooking software AND a COUPON CODE for great discounts at MyMemories.com, click here.

This simple thank-you was designed by request to be given to a daycare provider.

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ Purple cardstock ~ The Paper Company Meadow pack

♥ White cardstock ~ Georgia Pacific

♥ Patterened paper ~ the Paper Studio All Seasons I paper pack

♥ Baby Border edge punch ~ ek Success

♥ Photo Labels punch ~ ek Success

♥ Kiwi, Bright Yellow, and Smoke Blue 1/8" ribbon ~ Offray

♥ "thanks" sentiment ~ Stampin' Up! So Happy For You

♥ Pumpkin Pie stampin' pad & marker ~ Stampin' Up!

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

Mini Baby Cards

One week from today, I will drop my son off at Grandma Daycare for the first time and return to work.  *Tears*... *BIG tears*... Okay, who am I kidding??  *BIG HUGE sobs combined with crocodile tears*  I know the world is full of working moms and moms returning to work from maternity leave every day, but I really am not ready to be one of them.  The road to bring our son into our lives was long, yet blessed, and I simply don't want to go back to work.  But next Monday morning, I will wake up, spend a little time with my son, give him a BIG kiss, and head to the warehouse for the first time since June!  Once there, I will do my best (yeah, right!) to focus my job.  HOWEVER - for today, I still have babies on the brain.  So here are some baby-themed mini-cards I made.  These little cards are great for gift giving and so much fun to make!

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ White cardstock ~ Georgia Pacific

♥ Blue / Green striped pattern paper ~ Recollections 24-Sheet Printed Scrapbook Paper Pack

♥ Multi-color striped pattern paper ~ the Paper Studio Sweet Pea matstack

♥ Pear Pizazz cardstock ~ Stampin' Up!

♥ Elephant and Turtle stamps ~ Inkadinkado Welcome Baby

♥ "hello baby" sentiment ~ Stampin' Up! Teeny Tiny Wishes

♥ Photo Labels punch ~ ek Success

♥ Light blue 1/8" ribbon ~ Offray

♥ Clear gems ~ Recollections

♥ Various Stampin' Up! ink pads & markers

BIG THANKS & HUGS go out to Janis at Pause, Dream, Enjoy for sending me this super cute stamp set I used for these cards.  I just LOVE the little elephant and all the sweet sentiments.

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

P.S. Don't forget to enter to win my Belated Blog-iversary giveaway!  Click here for more details.

Belated Blogiversary Giveaway!!!

Hello Cricuteers!

15 months ago today, I sent my first post out into the blog world.  At the time, I was following lots of great scrappin' blogs and wanted to share my creations, too.  I am so happy I did.  I've made some wonderful friends and enjoyed every minute of sharing with other scrappers who truly understand what an addiction this crazy hobby can be!  :-)  Now I know most bloggers typically celebrate their blogiversary closer to the actual anniversary date, but my blogiversary slipped by while I was on bed rest... so we are going to celebrate today!  AND thanks to MyMemories.com, I have goodies to share with you!

Scrapbooking is an excellent way to preserve your family's memories for the future (and for many of us, to relieve a little stress and find some "me" time, too), but as we all know, scrapping also takes LOTS of time and storage space ~ which most of us don't have extra of these days.  Now that my little guy is here with us, I so badly want to capture and document all his fun moments while they are still fresh in my mind, but more importantly - I want to spend that time with him.  So rather than feeling stuck between creating memories now in the present and saving those sweet memories for the future, I've been playing with the idea of digital scrapbooking and am excited to use the My Memories digital scrapbooking software on this new adventure.

I haven't had much time to really dive into all the fun features in this program, but already I'm hooked.  Here's why...

♥ Seemingly endless amounts of papers and embellishments including brads, buttons, flowers, and ribbons.

♥ Quick & easy ~ You can simply drop your pictures into one of the numerous pre-designed templates or you can design your own pages from scratch.

♥ Color matching ~ you can simply "click" the color you wish to match right from your picture.  No more searching for the perfect color! 

♥ You can enter HSB/RGB color codes and store them in your favorite colors for future use.  (I cannot wait to look up and enter all my favorite SU! colors so I can coordinate ribbon and other embellishments from my personal collection with my digital designs.  That's right... for those of you who, like me, have an insane amount of scrapbooking supplies that you can't bare not to use, simply print your digital pages and then embellish to your heart's content!)

♥ Multimedia Output options ~ Design digital pages, and instead of printing them to put into traditional book-format, turn them into DVDs or iPod-ready files... COMPLETE with music AND voice narration.  Can you imagine making scrapbook pages for your kids and then being able to turn them into their life stories on DVD with your voice narrating??

Okay... so now that I've rambled on WAY too long (which I have a tendency to do when I get really excited about something - just ask my hubby!), let me show you a quick birth announcement I made for our son using the My Memories suite.  Once I was done designing my layout, I exported it to a jpeg file that I saved on my computer and can now print at my local Costco. So simple, so quick, and personalized just the way I wanted.

AND NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY!!

(*drumroll please*)

My Memories has gratiously given me a downloadable copy of this wonderful scrapbooking software to give away to one lucky Cricuteer.

How to win??

♥ Become a follower of my blog (required)

♥ Visit MyMemories.com and tell me what your favorite digital paper or embellishment pack is

♥ Share this giveaway post on your blog - include a link back to this post and leave a comment here with a link to your post

♥ Become a follower of the MyMemories blog

♥ "Like" MyMemories on Facebook and tell them I sent you

Be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry (5 possible entries!) and include an e-mail address for me to contact you with your exclusive promo code if you win.  You have until 11:59 PM EST on Wednesday, 9/28 to submit entries.

In addition, My Memories is offering $10 off the My Memories Digital Scrapbooking Software AND a $10 credit to the MyMemories.com store to all Cricuteers.  Simply enter coupon code STMMMS87876 over at MyMemories.com to take advantage of this special offer.

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!

Stampin' Up! Fun & A Surprise!

Happy Fall, Cricuteers!

The signs of Fall are all around... the leaves are changing colors and falling from the trees, the temperatures are cooling off (49 degrees this morning!), I can hear the sounds of the local high school football games out my window, Hot Apple Cider K-cups are back in stores, and my Stampers 10 Club has begun again!

I hosted a SU! Workshop last weekend and ordered my new 2011-2013 In-Colors.  I'm super excited to get them along with the two exclusive hostess sets I ordered.  Deb, my SU! demonstrator, got a "workshop-in-a-bag" kit at SU! convention this year, and because I was her first post-convention hostess, she used it at my workshop.  It featured fun projects made with the new in-colors, the new Easy Events stamp set that I cannot wait to get my hands on, and some fabulous new ribbon!  All the projects in the kit were so cool that I just had to share them with you.  Let me know what you think!

Here's the first card... I love the ribbon and baker's twine!

This cute tag set was made using all of the new in-colors!

This was our fun make-and-take.  The pocket envelope was made by first sealing a traditional envelope and then cutting an inch off one of the sides before using a large circle punch to punch a semi-circle out of the same side.  



Hope you all have a fantastic first weekend of Fall!  Be sure to stop back on Sunday for my belated blog-iversary celebration.  I will have a fun giveaway for one lucky Cricuteer AND a coupon code for all!!

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

Fall Birthday Fun

Lately, I've really gotten into using punches for adding sentiments to my cards.  So easy!  Just punch, stamp, and go!  I still love my Cricut, but I am having fun with punches.  I even re-joined the Stampers 10 club I was part of last year and used to build my Stampin' Up! ink pad collection, and I plan to use this year's club to expand my punch collection.

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ Black cardstock (base) ~ Recollections

♥ Patterned and coordinating cardstock ~ DCWV The Mango Frost Matstack and Cardstock Matstack

♥ 1/4" black satin ribbon ~ Offray

♥ Deco Scallop edge punch ~ ek Success

♥ Journal Plate & Bracket punch ~ ek Success (my new favorite!!!)

♥ "Happy Birthday" stamp ~ Pink by Design Scripted Year

CHALLENGES:

♥ Fall-colored Birthday / Anniversary project ~ Lady Luv Bug

♥ Fall theme ~ Scrapalicious USA

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

"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 ~

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I've been dying to share this project, but had to wait in case my mom visited my blog before we celebrated her birthday.  I've been wanting to make her a box of cards for a while now.  She loves black and white so I challenged myself to make each card using only black, white, and only one color accent.  This was surprisingly difficult.  I kept finding all sorts of multi-colored or coordinating papers, ribbons, etc., that I wanted to use, but I stuck to my original design plan and LOVE how these cards turned out.

The Entire Collection

The Box

The Cards

I also made a fun 3x3 card to use as her actual birthday card.  I've been told these cards were one of the new "trendy" things at this summer's Stampin' Up! convention.  They are super simple to make and a great way to get in a little grown-up coloring time with your watercolor pencils, aqua painters, or markers.  And yes - there are envelopes available for these little cards.  I got mine from Hobby Lobby - just $4.99 for 25 (and of course, I used a 40% off coupon!).  Oh... and one quick design note - for the side trim, I used a scrap of the black and white striped paper from the elephant thank-you card above and colored it in the same colors as I colored the image.

As for my Scrap-ipes for all these designs, I used black cardstock for the card bases and various papers, colors, ribbons, accents, and tools from my collection.  Way too much scrappin' goodness to list in one post!  But if you see something you just have to know what it is, where I got it, or how I did it, let me know.  I'd be more than happy to share!

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~

Simple, Yet Elegant Sympathy Card

Ask any scrapper what she/he considers the hardest card to create, and I bet many of them would tell you a sympathy card.  Birthdays, thank-you's, holidays... Those are all fun cards to design.  No one ever wants to have a reason to work on a sympathy card... me included.  They are almost always last-minute cards and usually take some time to create because you want to get them "just right".

The following design was no different.  I needed four cards for my cousins who lost their mother after a long road of illness.  While I was not happy with the occasion behind creating these cards, I am pleased with how pretty they turned out and plan to make a batch of similar cards for future use.

Front

Inside

JD'S SCRAP-IPE:

♥ Black and white solid cardstock

♥ Cream shimmer cardstock ~ Recollections Gemstones pack

♥ Printed scrapbook paper ~ Recollections *NEW* 24 sheet packs

♥ 1/4" white satin ribbon ~ Offray

♥ Accnt48 regular and shadow cut at 3 3/4" ~ Cricut Accent Essentials

♥ Photo labels punch ~ ek Success

♥ "With Sympathy" stamp ~ Pink By Design Scripted Year

♥ Flower stamp ~ Stampin' Up! Silhouette Sentiments

Until next time, Cricuteers!

~ JD ~