Winter Theme for The Cuttlebug Spot

Such an open theme as winter lead to soooo many ideas that I was a bit overwhelmed! LOL! I really did enjoy this one. I also came back to this project on a few occasions adding just a tad bit more here and there...

The card base is from Storybook, two marque's welded together. The other marque is a stamped image that I hand cut. The reindeer was a dollar stamp for my local craft store (they have the best dollar stamps I have ever seen!) that was square but I punched it out in a circle. Snowflakes were sent to me during a swap years ago (I do not have any snowflake punches but really really want some!!!) It is a simple card but I do enjoy how it turned out and that its not your typical winter card.

Cuttlebug Highlight~ Script folder for the background, inked in a few colors.

And here is a detail picture...I used ribbon, twine and Red Brick distress stickles for the snowflakes...and I guess that's about it!

Thanks for looking!!!!

SOUS Challenge November 27

We have another great sketch from my buddy Aymee Gandy. Thanks friend for the use of the sketch!

So this is my first sketch challenge turned into a card. Also my first time throwing out my first try...thank goodness the second one worked out! LOL!

At Stuck on U Sketches we realize that with the holidays coming up that many of you will not be able to participate in our challenges so we will be running tutorials the month of December. We hope that you will enjoy those and then join us in the new year for our regular weekly sketch challenge!

Originally I had cut the large snowflake in half to use as the two semi circles but realized they just did not fit...and I also had to remind myself that sketches are never set in stone! So I thought it would look neat and cut it again so the snowflake is in 4 parts laid with a slight gap.

Paper is this years DCWV Christmas paper stack. Images were from a christmas image swap I hosted awhile ago. Snowflake is cut from Joys of the Season. Embossed with swiss dots. Inking is Faded Denim Distress Ink.

I used the light pink Stickles to do all the pink dots on the printed paper and also on the snowflakes (which were red so I painted them with white acrylic paint). My snowman was colored using the Gamsol technique and he was also covered generously with Stickles.

SOUS Challenge November 20

This weeks sketch is by Beggahuna. She has just beautiful sketches so I was very excited with this one!

Okay so this was an interesting challenge for me....I tried a couple things that, well lets say, just didn't go too smoothly! I used some of my clear stamps and embossing (the title and all the shapes were embossed and then hand cut) You can kinda see that the title got messed up (the U is too dark) but I guess that's the charm of hand made!

The paper is DCWV Kids Safari stack, a gift from my very good friend and fellow Cricut mb member, Donna. I think that most of you that know me, know her! Thanks D!

Oh can I say one more thing about this...I really adore these photos but tried so hard to find others...following some basic art rules, the picture with the black background should have been the focal photo because of the light colors of the others. It really drove me crazy but this was the batch I had to work with! LOL!

Here is a bit of a close up of the embossing. I did some different combo's with colors and paper, added a couple brads and used Liquid Pearls by Ranger to make my own gem flourishes, and then I touched each with a bright blue stickles for added detail.

Oh and can you see my other boo- boo? Well I tried hand writing another sub title and kept messing up so I layered multiple times with the same printed paper to cover it up! Can you see that? Oh isn't this fun, let's play...Where's Leah's mistakes?...ok done with that game now! LOL!

For those that follow me and have not checked out Stuck on U Sketches...I hope you do so because my fellow DT sisters are amazing!

Happy Almost Thanksgiving!

Friends Blog Award

My dear friend Sandy Windsor handed me this very meaningful blog award. She became a friend of mine through the cricut message board and now we are DT sisters at Stuck on U Sketches. I have enjoyed her friendship, always look forward to talking with her and can never wait to see what she creates next!

Now part of this award is to pass this on to 5 more friends.

I know that Sandy had passed this along to Nanne and Sandi C but I would like to do the same. These 3 woman have become good friends of mine. They are a part of my day, are always there to listen and are creative inspirations to me!

Thank you Sandy, Nanne and SC for your friendship to me!

Next I would like to extend this to 3 of my wonderful friends and swarm buddies! Donna I have known for awhile now and love her dearly, Jennifer who is a joy in my life and to Sandy who always makes me smile!

I feel so blessed to know these woman...to have all of you in my life.

The Cuttlebug Spot Turkey Challenge

Who You Calling Turkey?

Well its Thanksgiving (almost) so of course a turkey would be the star of this weeks challenge.

Okay want to know my original idea? To have a flock of chickens with a turkey hiding in the mix saying "cluck cluck". So after over a hour of designing this on DS and then getting my paper all laid on the mat and I realize that my cricut cartridge is gone!!!! Oh great!!!! So, this...plan B!

I started this as a card but knew I didn't really want to give it away and then decided I would write a private message to my family and put the card on a page! Now all I have to do is get that fabulous family photo on Thanksgiving and in it goes! (side note, I was a stubborn wifey and insisted all my kids have my last name as well as my husbands...not unusual in many cultures but it still is here...hence the title "we're the Schaeffer Lash's").

Cricut cuts...turkey from Stretch Your Imagination and font is Plantin Schoolbook. Turkey background is from Doodlecharms and the pie and musket is from Paper Dolls.

Cuttlebug Highlight~

I embossed with everyone's favorite Swiss Dots, rubbed it down with sandpaper and then used my colored markers to randomly color the white core cardstock. I love this look so much that I can not wait to try this is different color patterns (how about green, red and gold for Christmas!)

Last week I used this same technique for my SOUS challenge LO which was tone on tone. Again I used white core cardstock, cut my shape and distressed to show enough of the white for it to show off the page. I repeated the dinner turkey cut all over the page (and made sure some were coming off the page so it looked randomly placed and part of the background paper).

As most of you know Paper Dolls does not have layers so I cut the pie twice and just cut it in half and layered that.

Okay and as if that all were not time consuming enough...I decided the title needed a bit something. After I cut everything I pushed the title into my Distress Embossing Ink pad by Ranger and used Tea Dye Distressed embossing powder. It gives a great other element to the page and some extra texture.

Wow, okay so that about covers it! Hope you all like this and feel inspired to eat up on Thanksgiving dinner!

SOUS Challenge November 13

This weeks sketch is special to me because it was designed by one of my cricut message board friends Aymee Gandy, you may know her as Southernbellescrapper. She has a wonderful blog that you will find HERE and also one just for her sketches, you'll find that HERE.

Again, thank you Aymee, we are happy to have you at SOUS!

Well this weeks sketch was turned into a 2 page affair when I realized I wanted to finish up our family trip to the pumpkin patch. I got a couple ideas from looking at my scrapbook magazines...one was to use paint on the LO so I dry brushed black acrylic paint on the edges of the paper and the photos, that served as a mat would have. The second idea was randomly placed gems (which don't show up particularly well in this photo)

This is the page based off of the challenge sketch. I flipped things a bit though.

My second page was to hold the rest of the kids photo's from our outing. I tried my hand at a folded ribbon "look". I used black vellum, folded and then hand stitched (boy was that fun- not!) And then laid orange cord (kind of similar to thin shoe string).

Circles were cut from George and then distressed. Paper is from My Minds Eye, Boo To You (my LSS splurge). The centers are from this weird paper I found at a flea market...its kinda like flock but more spongy...odd but cool! The word stickers are from Memories Direct (I now know why we use rub-ons so that there isn't the sheen on a sticker, that bugged me but after I tried to pull of a couple it was taking up the paper..so there they lie).

This design is from Storybook, border design then welded a couple more times. Paper is DCWV white core cardstock so I was able to sand it enough to just show subtly against the same colored background. Here you can also see the black paint along the photo edges.

And that's about it for this week's challenge...hope you all get a chance to pop on over and see what my wonderful girlfriends have done at SOUS!

The Cuttlebug Spot Fruit Challenge

This weeks challenge was to do a project featuring fruit. So I thought more about fruit then maybe I ever had...lol...what fruit to do? Then I remembered these 3d stickers I had and matching cherry ribbon and knew thats what I had to do!

Lots of simple layering here and to add a bit more to the stickers I added Rangers Glossy Accents on top! Boy does that stuff add a ton to a project. Its one of my very favorite crafty items, something I probably say all the time here. I don't really own punches and don't have any border ones so I have decided to pull out and actually use the big set of decorative edge scissors I have! And that's about it for the card.

Week #2 on the DT for The Cuttlebug Spot! Woo Hoo!

Its offical...I am part of the DT for The Cuttlebug Spot

Here is my Cuttlebug Spot debut project!

http://thecuttlebugspot.blogspot.com/

Thank you Nilda for having me join the DT! I am so excited about being a part of such a wonderful challenge blog and I really look forward to making many new friends, as well as enjoying some old friends there too!

I used my Fiskar texture plates as well as a CB folder to do the embossing. Stamped image is from Hampton Arts. I cut him and put him against the card, popped the wood grain embossed paper, popped parts of the stamped image and then popped the "wood" frame. Whats really fun is seeing it in person..the 3 layers give it so much more!

http://thecuttlebugspot.blogspot.com/

Hush Little Baby (SOUS Nov 6th Challenge)

I have finally felt in the groove of doing sketches...I think there will always be weeks when I am not in the mood or whatever but I was excited about this one (and have to say that this upcoming month's sketches are amazing!)

I wanted to try something new here...so I cut my design (from DS of course!) with the same printed paper as the background. Inked it up pretty good but not before I did small star stamping with white embossing powder...

If you can believe I have gone all this crafty time without having a white gel pen..so I did a bit of stitching and wrote some words on the right side. Tied some bows and added some gems to the star centers.

Sadly you can not see the sheen the title but its very pretty and goes lovely with the whole LO. Added a bit more gems and that's about it!

Hope everyone enjoys this weeks sketch at SOUS!

Blog Award!

Okay I am SOOO sorry and hope I didn't come across rude that I have not put up this thoughtful award up awhile ago...but time is short these days!

I know I have recieved this award from a few of my friends, Sandi, Kaye, Margie, Wanda and Tammara. Thank you all for thinking of me....I am going to try and send this on...and not pick any of you! LOL!

Thanks again GF's!

And I would like to pass this on to....

Sandy (my wonderful long lost auntie!)

Jennifer V. (one of the most amazing women I have ever known)

Jennifer B. (my mb GF)
Stine (my oversea friend!)
and Melinda (another "pregnancy chat" friend!)

Thanks again to all of you...I feel very blessed to know ALL of you ladies....

Okay get ready to be impressed! LOL!

1. Where is your cell phone? dunno
2. Your hair? yuck!
3. Your mother? silly
4. Your father? wonderful
5. Your favourite food? sweets
6. Your dream last night? scary
7. Your favourite drink? water
8. Your dream/goal? drive
9. What room are you in? living
10. Your hobby? crafting
11. Your fear? driving
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here
13. Where were you last night? home
14. Something that you aren't? brave
15. Muffins? okay!
16. Wish list item? BIA
17. Where did you grow up? California
18. Last thing you did? phone
19. What are you wearing? nothing (j/k!)
20. Your TV? big
21. Your pets? none
22. Friends? fabulous!
23. Your life? blessed
24. Your mood? good
25. Missing someone? Lindsey
26. Vehicle? stroller
27. Something you're not wearing? underwear (j/k! again!)
28. makeup? none
29. Your favourite store? Walmart
Your favourite colour? yellow
30. When was the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? yesterday
32. Your best friend? husband
33. One place that I go over and over? bathroom
34. Facebook? never
35. Favourite place to eat? Taco Bell

Shoot that was a lot more fun then I would have thought!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!