Royal Tea Bridal Shower Blog Hop Day #1

Are you stoked for the wedding between Kate and William? I have been watching coverage all week on the Today show and I will very likely get sucked into watching some of the event! Today and tomorrow I am excited to be involved with the Royal Tea Bridal Shower Blog Hop in honor of the big day!

I will feature two cards so stop back tomorrow to check out the other one!

You probably got here from Monica's blog, but if you stumbled upon my blog and want to start at the beginning, go back to Ellen's blog. You don't want to miss any of the wonderful projects.

Here is the complete line up for your viewing pleasure!
Ellen at http://cardmonkey-business.blogspot.com/
Alex at http://youhadmeatcraft.com/blogspot.com/
Jennifer at http://craftycardgallery.blogspot.com/
Nicolette at http://beyondscrapin.blogspot.com/
Jessica at http://customcreationsbyjessica.blogspot.com/
Stacey at http://creatingacraftylife.blogspot.com/
Holly at http://scrappily-everafter.blogspot.com/
Jacqueline at http://madebyjacqueline.blogspot.com/
Corri at http://buglvr.blogspot.com/
Mandie at http://mandiesscrappin.blogspot.com/
Christel at http://onescrappinsista.blogspot.com/
Nadia at http://nadiasbeautifulmess.blogspot.com/
Theresa at http://thescrapbookingqueen.com/
Lori at http://savingmine.blogspot.com/
Michelle at http://queenofmycraftroom.blogspot.com/
Monica at http://scraps2treasure.blogspot.com/
Amanda at http://stellarscraps.blogspot.com/
Brynn at http://flairandfrillscreativity.blogspot.com/
Nikki at http://theglamoroussideofscrapping.blogspot.com/
Elaine at http://expressionsbyelaine.blogspot.com/
Gina at http://ginascraftingspot.com/
Shannon at http://purplelionpaper.com/blog
Lisa at http://lisahjulberg.blogspot.com/
Jen at http://jenscraftcorner.blogspot.com/
Sue at http://susanascorner.blogspot.com/

 Now for my card. I absolutely had to use Once Upon A Princess...it just wouldn't be right otherwise! So I made a cute little shaped invitation for a tea party. I could totally see it used for a little girl's tea party play date or birthday party.

I welded the shadow for the tea pot together using Design Studio and then created the regular shape to fit the card. I used a few different shades of pink (of course) for the tea pot and embossed the main part with Swiss Dots.

I cut the tea party words from Once Upon A Princess and used my white pen to enhance the light pink cardstock.

The "You're Invited" sentiment stamp is a Fiskars Repositionable Rubber Stamp set and I cut the shape from Once Upon A Princess and put an eyelet in it. I pop-dotted it, then tied it with light pink twine.

I also did a simple invitiation stamp on the inside so it would be quick to fill out. It would also be super cute to print out a cute poem about the event on the computer and cut it to fit inside.

I hope you enjoyed my simple, pretty tea party invitation. Check back tomorrow to see another shaped card that is a completely different style!

Now, head over to see Brynn's blog to see her royal project!

Actually Scrapping

I was a scrapbooker pre-Cricut, but in the past year I have really only made cards. I did one book for my niece when I first got my machine, but I only used words because I didn't have any cartridges that fit her birthday theme. I started an "All About Me" book, which has about four or five pages done, but absolutely no pictures or journaling!

However, about two weeks ago, my mom told me that she found 3 spools of Ohio State ribbon on clearance at Walmart so I got to thinking about my OSU scrapbook that was in my dreams from the 2009 season. Hubby and I got to go to all of the home games and I have been thinking about that book for a long time! Now I have three pages done...Yup, I completed 3 scrapbook layouts so far and a bunch of diecuts to go along with the pages as I do them!

I don't have pictures today because I want to wait until I get the pictures printed and on the pages. I think they don't look as good without the great pictures, so I will share after I print!

I hope to have something new to post this week!

Paper Rosettes

I have, what my husband and I affectionately call, an obsessive personality. When I think about something or try something new, I have to go all the way. For example, about a year ago I discovered a love for "fancy scarves." I wear them all of the time with my dress clothes at school and they enhance my shirt, which are mostly solid color! But I do not just have a few scarves--I have about 20 of them! It's that way with most everything I do. Anyway, yesterday I decided that I wanted to make paper rosettes that I have been seeing other people do. After watching one tutorial video I decided today that I was ready to do it!

It is really easy. I used this video and some of my many scraps. So, because of my obsessive personality, I could not just make one card with a paper rosette today--I had to make 6! And I still have 2 more rosettes to use!

Here's what I came up with today.

I used some yellow baker's twine on this one and very simple paper and sentiment stamp.

I love this with the memory thread! It looks perfect to me!

I love this pink and grey paper that I bought in a giant pack of patterned paper at Sam's Club--cuz everything is giant at Sam's! But, it will not cut on the Cricut. However, I think it looks great as a rosette! I cut the heart and star from Doodlecharms and again used baker's twine.

And a few more with some brighter colors. On the first one, I used hemp rope--which looks cool but I had a terrible time wrestling with it! I used a Martha Stewart punch for the butterflies and embossed the white one with Swiss Dots. On the second one, I used an EK Success border punch and a simple piece of brown ribbon.

There you have it. My complete look at paper rosettes in a variety of sizes and with all paper scraps!

A Year? Already? No Way.

I have had my Cricut for a year now. Really? It seems just like yesterday that I was graduating with my master's degree, filled with so much hope and promise.

I was so excited to get enough money to finally buy my much-coveted Cricut machine and a few cartridges to go with it--Stretch Your Imagination and Doodlecharms. Very soon after, I also bought Base Camp, Locker Talk and Makin' the Grade. Combine that with Don Juan that came with my machine and I was off and running.

Now I have about 45ish cartridges, tons of paper, ribbon, twine, Stickles, stamps and stamp pads, a Cuttlebug and folders, a Cinch, a Crop a Dile Big Bite, buttons, eyelets, brads and bling.

Oh, yeah. I couldn't be happier!

My niece and I

Me and hubby, who made it all possible!

Blog Design and a Card

I spent forever today working on a new design for my blog. I don't really know a whole lot about designing a blog other than the basic designs that are provided. I downloaded a header kit and a photo editor today and worked on a header for a while--I couldn't get it to look like I wanted and it just looked blah. I put it on the blog and changed the background. Ugh. I hated it.

So I went back to my roots and took some pictures (with my NEW camera, by the way) of some of my favorite crafting supplies; ribbons, buttons, twine and some of my favorite cards. I then used Picnik to create a collage, which I then added to my blog. I changed the background and font color again.

I finally like how it looks. It fits my personality better and I think it was more of an impact. I hope you like.

In between all of the messing around, I also made a new card using Once Upon a Princess. I have only used this cartridge a few times but it's so cute!

I like the simplicity of the card and I think the pinks just pop off of the kraft paper. I used all scraps on this one--woohoo! I have too many and I think one day I am going to make tons of flowers, just to get rid of them!

I am not sure if it's because I was blond growing up, but I just think a princess needs to be blond! I think she turned out so cute!

I finally got to use some of the memory thread that I bought on super duper deal from Joann's (online) a few weeks ago. I bought every color they had online, but I still need to get pink and purple from the store. Here I used the bright green and I love how it pops off of the pink ribbon! The sentiment stamp was on sale at Michael's and I believe the set is by Recollections. It doesn't look quite so fuzzy in person, but I still have to decide if I want to restamp it or just live with it!

Tomorrow I am going to do less blog design and more crafting. It's supposed to be 80 degrees here tomorrow--maybe I'll even go outside (doubtful!!).

22nd Birthday Card

I am very excited to be guest designing today for Kassidy at Inking It Up Crazy. She wanted to feature birthday cards today and I happen to have a sister with a birthday in two days so I created a card just for her.

My sister, Brandy, has been into pink and black and the "punky" feel for a long time and I knew that Rock Princess was the best cartridge to make a card for her. I also used paper from Recollections All Girl Stack which fits the vibe perfectly.

I cut the numbers from Lyrical Letters and the "Rock On" is from Rock Princess as well. Remarkably, Country Life has almost the exact font that was used for the "Rock On" so I welded together the letters for "It's Your Birthday."

I added the little stars to the numbers and as accents a few places on the card. I pop dotted just about everything on the card and I think it adds a great dimension to the elements. I punched the star border using an EK Success punch that I got for super cheapness!!!

I had to modify the cut from Rock Princess. They way they had her arm on the guitar was extremely weird and nearly physically impossible! So I literally cut her hand off and repositioned it so it looked more natural!

This is my first stair step card and I really like how it turned out! I am sure my sister is going to love everything about it and it fits her personality perfectly!

A Pretty Piece of Paper

I love, love, love using my Cricut to fancy-up cards. However, it doesn't always seem necessary. Yesterday I bought the new DCWV Lemon Flower stack from Joann's--it has some super cute paper in it and I thought it would be perfect for a card that I needed to make for my husband's grandma's birthday.

This flowery paper is so nice and has the great silver sparkly flowers. I layered it with a subtle yellow pattern from the stack and used the same paper to stamp the sentiment on. I got new Fiskars rubber cling stamps and I think they stamped really nice. I added a pretty piece of silver ribbon and another piece of black ribbon that I tied in a bow and it was complete!

A quick stamp on the inside and I had a nice card in about 10 minutes! I am sure that Grammy is going to love it and I can't wait to get it in the mail!