The first big card order!

Hi Everyone! I can't believe it has been a week since I've post. I do apologize. It was a crazy week, but that isn't why we are here. What do you think of the new blog layout? I'm liking it!

Labor Day weekend brought some out of town family into town. Before the weekend was over the out of town family had placed an order for 16 cards. She was rather specific as to what she wanted (which was helpful). She had seen the cards I've made for Jim's Mom and she wanted some of her own so she would "have something special to pass around" for her friends in Georgia. It took a little longer than I had wanted, but they are done!!!
Here is a close up of one of the cards.

We have come up with a line of cards we are calling Jynxisms (She's a crafty cat just like her humans servants) We've taking witty sayings and put a feline twist on them! Well, our out of town family LOVED the ones that I had made for Jim's Mom so she wanted some for herself. 10 Birthday and 5 Get Well.
That is what she will be receiving in the mail. She also asked for a vampire card similar to the one seen here. I also made her a bonus thank you card. I still need to make a thank you card from us. She gave us a gift certificate to our favorite nursery/greenhouse so a thank you, thank you, thank you! is definitely in order. Here is the order minus the vampire, the Stickles on his cape are still drying.

Look at that room, all nice and neat! That sure isn't what the craft space looked like when I was finished. Does anyone else make this big of a mess while creating? I sure hope so, but if not, this is how I roll and I clean it up and move on the next project.

WHAT A DISASTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is bound to happen with all the toys, tools, supplies etc!!! I promise you the work space can be seen and is waiting for the next project!!! There are some other individual card orders to work on and a Halloween village!!!!! It won't be clean for long!
Picked up some fun 'treasures' over the course of the week. Look for a blog post or two on those coming up!!
Thanks for stopping by and hopefully it won't be a week until next time.
~Jen

A Day of Many Things....

Today is a day of many things. 9/11. Grandparents Day. Patriots Day. The 10 year anniversary of 9/11. Steeler Sunday. I started the day by watching some of the ceremony in NYC. I know exactly where I was 10 years ago today. Not only do I know where I was, I remember being even more scared because once the air traffic was halted that left my father half way across the country.
In the months and years immediately following 9/11 I would meet some people that were directly affected by the tragedy. People that lost more than one loved one, friend or family member. People that went to Ground Zero to help. Thank you to everyone that needs thanked and prayers to everyone that needs a prayer. I will never forget.

Today is also Grandparents Day.  I had the pleasure of working on a couple Grandparent's Day projects this week with our girlfriend Steph.  We made two calendars and an explosion box.  The explosion box was my first attempt.  I am definitely in love with the concept and will be making some more!
The box had three layers. One 12x12 square, one 11x11square, and one 10x10 square. The lid was made from an 8x8 square. I wish I could tell you more about the paper and embellishments, but I can't.  They were in the stash.

The 12x12 scored at 4 inches with the corners cut out. I think double sided paper/cardstock would've worked better, but this turned out just fine. (see the Steelers pencil? GO STEELERS!)

The 11x11 square scored at 3 3/4 inches and the corners cut out. I can tell you about this paper. It is from the DCWV All About Boys stack.
(Again GO STEELERS!)

The 10x10 square scored at 3 1/2 inches with the corners cut out. This paper is also from the All About Boys Stack. (Yep! Go Steelers!)

The 8x8 square used for the lid. It was already embossed and is definitely from the stash. I am pretty sure this was in one of my great yard sale purchases this summer! This one is scored 2 inches from each edge, leaving a 4 inch section down the center. I would score it and turn the sheet of paper so I would be less likely to screw it up! The corners do not get cut out of the lid. (One last time, GO STEELERS!) I can't give credit to any one place for the help with the box measurements. I looked around and then 'winged it'

The glue I used to glue the lid together. A little definitely seemed to go a long way!

The lid all glued together!

The inside. The blue squares lift up to reveal additional photos. You could definitely make some places to hide tags etc. So many options with this project!!!

The lid decorated and the whole thing put together. LOVE IT! The ribbon is from the Stampin' Up Beachfront collection. The tag and other embellishments were in one of many drawers.

Another view... I think it turned out pretty well. Steph and I didn't get the projects completed when she was here. I finished them up yesterday morning and we dropped them off to her. She was quite happy! They also seemed to be a hit with the other people in her office too!
I am not including photos of the calendars but they turned out cute too!

Happy Grandparent's Day Grandma, Grandma and Gigi!!! Love Brenden!!!!!






Happy Grandparent's Day to all of our Grandparents too.  We love each of you bunches!!! xoxo
(oh and despite the loss, we love our Steelers too!!)

Linking up at  and

A house, a cupcake and a frog Oh My!

Here are some of those paper projects you've been waiting for! I have three cards to share. A house for our friend Ashley. A cupcake for another friend's niece and a frog for our friend Connie.

The house...is for our friend Ashley and her family.  They just bought a new house. The Lady at the post office wished I hadn't sealed the envelope...she wanted to see the house.

 The card and the envelope were cut using the Wild Card Cartridge. The envelope was cut at 7 3/4 and the card was cut at 7 1/2.
I hand cut the pots for the trees. There are trees on the cartridge for this purpose but I wanted to stamp my trees. I used the tree from the Stampin' Up "Loads of Love" set. I hand wrote "Welcome Home" on the inside of the door.


Congratulations on the new house Ashley and family! <3

A cupcake...birthday card for another friend's niece.

The cupcake was also cut from the Wild Card Cartridge. I just cut the pieces out, I didn't cut the actual card out. The 8 was cut out with the Plantin Schoolbook cart. The papers were in the 'scrap drawer'. I think I need  to make a BUNCH of cards out of the scrap drawer (s). I hope she likes it!


A frog...for our friend Connie's birthday!

The frog was cut with the Create A Critter Cartridge. (I am sorry to say I didn't write down the size of the cut).
I used one of my Sizzix folders to emboss her lily pad with Happy Birthday!
I used Stickles on the crown! The papers the frog, the lily pad and the crown were cut from were in the scrap drawer. I combined parts of two different stamps from the Stampin' Up Turtle & Co. set. The background piece is from the DCWV Lemon Flower matstack.

Happy Birthday C!!!!! <3

I am linking the frog up to Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog. The challenge was to add the color yellow to your project!

I am linking the house up to Cricut Cardz Challenge. The challenge was to use the card feature on any cartridge.

Thanks for stopping by. Please leave a comment.  Enjoy this holiday weekend!
~Jen

Have you repurposed lately?

Hello Saturday morning of a long weekend!  Hi Everyone!  I do have some paper crafting projects that need loaded and blogged about. I PROMISE I HAVE BEEN DOING SOME!!! I have a handful of cards and last night I finished assembling the Happy Hauntings 3d house!!!

Anyway. I was checking out some blogs this morning. The newest blog I am following is Mamie Jane's! The link will take you to her repurposed projects! She has some amazing finds and even more amazing ideas. This is the latest she has posted. I'm a little sick because I passed one of these up recently.  The next one (if the price is right) will be coming home with me!

I took some pictures of stuff I have already repurposed so the before photos aren't available. Who knew I would actually follow through with my thought of blogging some day. Jim's Dad moved about a year ago and he was getting rid of a lot of stuff. He would look at me funny when I would tell him to "If you are just going to throw it away, put it in my pile."  One of those pieces headed for the curb was an old wooden baby gate. It had some charm to it and I just couldn't see tossing it.  I brought it home and walked around the house with it - checking out the available wall space. Well this is where it ended up and what it looks like now!

Some grapvine and some grapes = cute! Jim helped me hang it and this is where it rests!!! :)

This space was for the most part wasted space. This seemed like the perfect solution to give the space some dimension and some cuteness. Not sure what will go there when I tire of this, but we can worry about that another day!

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy this Labor Day Weekend! Have you repurposed lately?
~Jen

Happy Halloween!

Hi Everyone!!! This one is going to be short, but I did complete two Halloween cards using the Happy Hauntings Cartridge! I have been working on rearranging the craft space and seem to have tossed the sticky that had the sizes of my cuts. Sorry. :(

Here are my two Halloween cards. I hope to have some more cards SOON!! (not Halloween). I have the Cricut Lite Meow Cartridge that I got on clearance at Wal Mart yesterday.  I also still need to make cuts with the Campin Critters and Cars cartridges. So much to do so little time....

 I LOVE how this mouse turned out.  I am pretty sure I will be cutting out a bunch of these! I used Stickles on his pumpkin.

I used the gypsy to weld two of the 'shift shapes' together for the card. The inside has the same sentiment as the mouse.  I used Glossy Accents for the first time (crazy I know!) on the door.
I'm thinking about cutting out some little ghosts for the balconies.

I am wanting to try the 3D haunted house sometime soon. Is anyone else thinking about Halloween yet?

Thanks for stopping by!!!!
~Jen

Another FREEBIE!!

Happy Almost Friday!!!! Guess what Jim came home with today (for me)? The floral department at our grocery store apparently received new organizational tools/gadgets etc. That meant "out with the old!" He came walking through the door knowing he had scored something good!  Here it is...

Are you as excited as me? I am sure you would be much more excited had you been the recipient of the freebie!  Ready to see what I did with it?  I had plans to make a couple cards tonight and do a couple things around the house, but.....first things first!!!!

 WELL NOW!!!! Whatever will I do now that all of that ribbon isn't stuffed in a drawer. I'm pretty sure I don't need to purchase any for awhile. Well, there wasn't really any Christmas related ribbon on there (and there is still room for more).
Taking the ribbon out of the drawer and some of it off the spools took up my evening. We watched Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy and Jen playing with her ribbon and the freebie! LOVE IT!!!! (Thank you <3)

Of course there were some things that were displaced to make room for the freebie.  Some were given homes already, the others, well tomorrow is another day.

Thanks for stopping by.  Keep your eyes open for those freebies!!!!!!

~Jen

May Your 30's RIP -- Paper flower bouquet

Hi Everyone! Thanks for stopping by!

It was our friend's 40th birthday and I was looking for something different to give/make her. I decided to make her a paper flower bouquet! Of course knowing everyone else had plans to make sure she didn't forget this one was #40, I couldn't make it alllllllll pretty. My reminder came in the shape of tombstones the whole way around the pot.  The tombstones say "30-39 RIP"  I think it turned out really well and it was definitely a hit around the office today.
Happy Birthday Dallas!!!

The flowers were cut at 3.5, 2.5, and 1.5 using the Walk In My Garden cartridge.
The flowers with the 4 and the 0 were cut using the Songbird Cartridge.
The tombstones were designed on my Gypsy and cut using the Happy Hauntings Cartridge.
The brads and tombstone papers were from my stash.
The paper on all flowers (except the 40 flowers) is Chatterbox Scrapbook Walls and Pixie Press Ensemble.
The flower pot is made  by Jim and is made from pallet wood!

I did put a piece of floral foam inside the pot and then covered it with moss. The stems are made from a wire material I had sitting here.

It was a lot of fun to make. I am entering it into two challenges.
1. The Fantabulous Cricut Challenge #74 . The challenge is to enter a birthday themed project.
2. The Paper Playtime Challenge #53. This challenge is an anything goes challenge.
Please stop by both websites, especially if you are in a creative rut! There is plenty of inspiration out there!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by. Please leave a comment so we know you were here!
Happy Middle of the Week ~Jen