Sweet Hearts from our Sweetheart!

Wowee! Look what a treat we found in our mailbox when we got home from work today!Yummy, buttery cookies baked with L-O-V-E from none other than the BEST COOKIE BAKER IN THE WORLD (that's what the return address read!). Aren't these the purtiest cookies ever? (2 are missing because dh & I had already eaten them before I thought to take a picture) Dd really knows how to tug at our heartstrings! Thank you babee, we love you!!!

Thinking of You with Love

Although this Valentine smilebox greeting was actually
created a year ago for dd, I decided to post it here together
with my other "creations" just for warm and fuzzy feel
good memory keeping purposes. (Pause the music on
my player before clicking on the video to watch)

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

Sending Love on Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day! Without a doubt, one of my favorite holidays because I enjoy making all this cute stuff to give away. Finally had dh install my Christmas present, the Cricut Design Studio and started playing around with it. But it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Got so frustrated with it that I was ready to toss it out the window. Luckily though, I found a lot of helpon line at the Cricut message board. The amazing ladies there had answers and solutions to almost every frustrating problem I had. And I was just stoked to see some of the awesome creations some of these ladies had posted to share. My first attempt at using Design studio is this pair of gatefold Valentines for dh and dd.


The scalloped heart was created by welding circles to the heart using Design studio and the George cart, and the arrow by welding rectangles and hearts.


Design studio enabled me to size the puppy and kitty from Paperpups cartridge to fit perfectly into the heart shape.


Design Studio at work again to make these Valentine tags. Welded tag shape from Plantin Schoolbook together to create a folded tag/card and more welding with hearts from George and letter from Mickey Font for Jason's tag. Placing the heart shape on the tag shape cuts a window in the tag and I embossed "i love you" using a Cuttlebug template to show thru the window.


Really love how these little boxes turned out! Used Tags Bags Boxes & More cart for the very
first time and Design Studio cut the heart window for the cute little teddies to stand in. They're actually key holders that I got on sale at Fisher. These were made for dh to give to special friends of ours at his work place.










These little goodie bags were so quick to make, again thanks to Design Studio. Pink hearts were glittered with ultra fine prisma glitter. Bags were filled with my favorite Dove chocolate
hearts, candy coated Hersheys Kissables and heart shaped Peppermint Patties (with pink mint
centers...yum!)




And last but not least, I decided to try a heart "mesh" again
using Design Studio's weld function. Hearts are from George and the swirls are actually the number "6" from the Celebrations cart.
Ashley's name is the Jasmine cart welded to a heart from George.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Chinese New Years Day is this Thursday, February 7th and marks the beginning of the Year of the Rat. Being that my dd was also born in the Year of the Rat makes this year especially meaningful to me. Presented handbag holders wrapped in these red organza bags to friends during our luncheon couple weekends ago. Tied them with organza ribbon and a Year of the Rat tag. Found the mouse on the internet...isn't she cute? Printed and cut her out, and layered

her on a black circle, gold scallop circle and a square of red and a square of gold. Used the same tag to make the New Years card. Sentiment is a clear stamp from Stampendous.

A Set of Simple Cards

In keeping with my goal to practice making simple cards, I challenged myself to make a coordinating set of cards, similar in color scheme and design. Maybe if I get ambitious enough I could make several different sets packaged in an altered/decorated tin for gift giving. All of these were made with left over scrapbooking papers, cuttlebug flower embossing folders and circle scallop punches. Rubberstamped sentiments are from Hero Arts.

Learning To Make A Simple Card

I think I most enjoy making fancy, special kinds of cards . . . cards that swivel, slide, pop-up or have some sort of surprise element. But cards like that take a lot of time to do, something I don't have a lot of. So I decided that this year, I would try to make an effort to learn to do "simple" cards that can be put together at the spur of the moment. But even these two simple cards took me longer than expected. The goal is to use my stash of scraps from scrapbooking to make quick & simple cards that don't look it. Not so easy. I need lots more practice.

First Card of the Year

My first card of the year is for a very special friend and co-worker who celebrates her birthday this month. It's an origami fold type card that I learned to do from Brian at Photocraft Hawaii last week while visiting the store. It's a good thing he let me take home a sample 'cuz even though it looked so simple to make while I was at the store, it was quite a challenge to try and make my own once I got home. And because there are 4 panels on this card, it was kind of like making 4 cards for one. Took me quite a while to finish! Used the Cuttlebug Happy Birthday embossing template and oodles of Sizzix and QK dies.