Special Friends

A quick post to share some really cute creations I've recently received from very talented special friends.

This darling little Easter basket was created by my friend and dh's co-worker, Heather. Heather altered the four-square basket pattern to make it a little narrower and decorated it with the bunny from the Doodlecharms cart. On the back of the basket she added a little pompom bunny tail...so cute! And inside the basket were these absolutely cutest and yummiest Easter cookies that she baked and decorated!

Heather is an amazingly multi-talented lady...in the kitchen, she is a master baker, (dh always brings home the most delicious, mouthwatering goodies she's made for me to taste) and on the crafting table, she's gotten to be quite a wiz with her Cricut and DS! Back in March, she attended my first DS class at Photocraft, and since then she's been hooked. Here are photos of some of the awesome things she created with DS for a recent baby shower she hosted. The theme of the shower was castles and dragons...

The castle diaper cake...just love how she made those towers!

Back view of the castle...

The tri-fold invitation to the shower...

The amazing decorated cookies...

The gift bags...

Pretty amazing, huh. I was so stoked when I saw all that she had done!

This next photo is of a thank you card I received earlier this year from Teri of "Big Ideas from a Little Girl". Loved how she used non-traditional colors for this winter themed card. And just like the name of her blog suggests, Teri is always brimming with the best and most creative new paper crafting ideas.

I recently received this sweet card together with Gorjuss Girls stamped images from a new blogging friend, Jodi of Inked Inspirations. Her copic blending techniques and eye for coordinating colors is awesome! I credit this talented lady for much of my renewed interest (and buying!) in rubber stamping. Visit Jodi's blog, and you'll see what I mean. She is on the design team for so many companies, and rightfully so, because she has some of the cutest rubber stamped cards.

Now take a look at all these goodies given to me by another new friend, Kris who I met at my Cricut DS class. We recently got together for breakfast and she showed up with all these wonderful surprises that she had created.

Yup, that's Pochacco! Isn't he the cutest? Kris used SCAL (Sure Cuts Alot) and Inkscape to create him and her Cricut machine to cut him out. She even made the octagonal shaped gift bag...and she used rattail cording to macrame the handles. Totally amazing, huh. Inside the bag were more goodies she made...a test tube and holder filled with candies and a cover for my cricut she had sewn. And even a bag of my favorite macadamia nut puffed rice candies...SWEET! And if that weren't enough, Kris also shared several handmade cards and patterns, enough to keep me busy for a long, long time.

I am truly fortunate to be blessed with so many wonderful and generous friends. Thank you so much!!!!

Welcome Baby Girl

Often times I'll start off with an idea for a card but for some reason or another it just doesn't turn out as I had imagined. Such was the case with this card. Don't know why, but I really struggled with this one. For starters, I spelled baby's name wrong. With so many ways to spell "Allison" I knew I would. So I checked the spelling with two different people to get the correct spelling before I got started and I still couldn't get it right. (Sorry, Nat!) Yup, I am totally losing it.

Anyways, after much doing and re-doing I finally finished it, and even now I'm not satisfied with how it turned out.

The front of this double window tri-fold card was done welding letters from the Hello Kitty font with Design Studio. The branch with leaves is from Zooballoo, welded to the window (square from George).

After cutting, I ran the front of the card through the Cuttlebug Swiss dots embossing folder. Had to run it through twice because the card was too large. I then used a stylus to "re-emboss" by hand the individual dots that got flattened from running it through twice.

The second flap of the card was covered with printed paper, then I added a simple square frame created with George and two strips of border punched using a Martha Stewart scalloped lace punch.

On the inside, I added the peeking baby bunny in a stroller and birdies in a nest; all cuts are from Zooballoo. Added two more lace borders, then finished it off with a ribbon tie to keep the card closed.

Easter Treats and Goodies

Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays. Love everything about it, the colors, the flowers, the Easter bunny, baskets of goodies and dyeing eggs. And though all the kids in our family have grown up, I continue to enjoy making Easter goodies to share with friends and family.

Put my Cricut and DS program hard to work this Easter! Saw the cutest Easter basket-bags in the Hallmark aisle at the drugstore several weeks ago, and just had to try my take on it with Design Studio. What I liked most about this basket was that it had gusseted sides so it could be folded flat when empty. I always struggle with angles, so it took me several tries, but this is what I finally came up with. In order for the basket to be large and sturdy enough, I had to use two sheets of 12 x 12 cardstock glued at the side seams. The basket is all George and the bunny is from Doodlecharms. After assembling the basket, I used a Fiskars 1/4" rectangle hand punch to make holes along the scalloped edge to thread the ribbon through.

Filled these with treats, wrapped them in cellophane and mailed them off to dd and her bf.

Look what else I found at the drugstore! Aren't these the cutest?

We don't dye eggs for Easter anymore, but I just had to have these. Decided to use them to decorate candy filled plastic eggs instead. Used some foam tape to keep kitty's face in place, and I created a little box holder with George and Design Studio so the eggs could be easily wrapped. Made up a dozen of these and sent a few to dd share with her friends. Funny girl...when she got her Easter care package, dd called and announced, "Sorry mom, I'm not sharing those eggs...!"

When Sizzix came out with their line of Easter Hello Kitty Sizzlit dies, I had to have them! True, I already own both Cricut Hello Kitty cartridges, but neither of them have any Easter images on them. And as much as I love my Cricut, I find that it just can't compete with Sizzix when it comes to making very small, clean, detailed cuts. I used my new dies to make tags for my goodies.
I think Hello Kitty in her bunny outfit is just the sweetest thing! In fact, I liked this die so much that I knew I had to at least give it a whirl on DS.





I used the Hello Kitty image dressed in her Halloween cat costume from the Hello Kitty Greetings cartridge and welded on a pair of ovals from George with DS for bunny ears. Then I added another oval with circles for her paw. That really wasn't too hard! Made my bunny large enough(4-1/2" tall) to decorate the front of ten more baskets. Oval and scalloped oval frame were also created with George. Really happy with how these turned out. Filled these with treats and delivered them to friends and family.


Made a bunch of these little hatching chickie boxes and filled them with my favorite Cadbury Mini Eggs to share with friends at work.

The cutfile for these are shared by Jen C on her blog, Brain Things...aren't they the cutest? Thank you, Jen! Thank goodness these were really quick to put together, because I barely had time to do them. I had originally planned to embellish the eggs on these with pretty flowers, the same as Jen had on the sample she posted, but just didn't have enough time.

And lastly, this tag was inspired by none other than our own little doggie. Lol. Doggie is a QK die, added bunny ears and embellished with flowers from All Natural Accents.
And here's the photo of our fur baby with her new toy that inspired it! Bunny ears were a gift from my niece and sil (don't worry, Latte still loves you!) . I think Latte is finally realizing that dressing up in silly outfits and having her picture taken are just part of life when you belong to this crazy family...just ask dd! Lol. Happy Easter!

Miss Anya Goes Shopping

Thought this stamp of Miss Anya shopping would be appropriate to use to make thank you cards for a couple of very sweet and generous friends. This first card went to my new friend, Kris, who I met at my very first Design Studio class last month. She recently sent me a wonderful surprise rak of lots papercrafting goodies in the mail and I wanted to send a special card to thank her for her generosity.

I wanted to frame Miss Anya in one of those fancy top notch frames I've seen being used on so often recently...SU has one by Sizzix and Spellbinders has a Nestabilities set. But since I don't own either, I decided to try and make my own on Design Studio. Found the fancy brackets on the Home Accents cartridge, stretched and welded them with Design

Studio to fit Miss Anya. It's nice having the capability to create the frame to fit the image instead of vice versa.

Stamped and heat embossed Miss Anya and colored with Copics and Prismacolor pens. Patterned papers are from my scrap stash, "thank you" stamp is an oldie from Stampendous, and added dewdrops from Robin's Nest that I purchased from Little C's.

This second card went out to my blogging friend, Teri, of Big Ideas from a Little Girl. A thank you to Teri for the neat set of photopolymer birthday stamps I won on her blog. I used the same image, but went for a pink and brown color scheme this time. Patterned paper are from a DCWV glittered cardstock stack, flower embellishments are from Prima and rhinestones are Doodlebug. The rhinestone flower in both girls' hair bows are from Photocraft.

Miss Anya stamp is from a set I purchased at the Greeting Farm. Here you will find the absolutely cutest new characters in rubber and digital format created by talented artist Marie!