cute cards and crafts by Jamie: Reindeer Christmas Cards and a Surprise!

Awesome Scrappy Mom Stamps Giveaway!! Please enter Jamie's contest!

cute cards and crafts by Jamie: Reindeer Christmas Cards and a Surprise!: " Ok Everyone, here is another fun project I made using my Create A Critter cartridge and some more Die Cuts With A View cardstock :) I ..."

Letraset ProMarker Giveaway!

Greetings all!

I know it has been a while since I last posted, but it has been ridiculously busy around our house.  Between jobs...housework...the kittens...and life in general, I have not had a single moment to use my Cricut (other than some very simple placecards for Thanksgiving!).  I am hoping that with my Winter Break coming up (1 1/2 weeks of no lesson planning or grading, thank goodness) I will have time to play with my Gypsy and new cartridges and get some new projects posted.   Anyways...enough about me and my hectic life! 

IMPORTANT NEWS!

Letraset, the producer of ProMarkers, has launched a new blog (http://www.letrasetuk.blogspot.com/) and a new website (http://www.letraset.com/).  To celebrate these amazing new sites and resources, they will be hosting a PROMARKER GIVEAWAY!  They will be giving away 10 assorted ProMarker 5 sets to a lucky winner on January 6th.  Although I have not used the markers myself, I have heard many good things about them and would be eager to try them out.  For information on the giveaway, please check out the blog posting here.  Good luck to all those who participate!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all!  Hope to have a crafting post up soon!

Ashley
>:@

Another Giveaway Opportunity!

Good morning all!

Enfys at Going Buggy is offering a giveaway of the entire range of Promarkers on her blog.  You can access the giveaway here:

http://going-buggy.blogspot.com/2010/10/win-entire-range-of-148-promarkers.html

She is only accepting entries until NOON TODAY (EST) so get those entries in!  Thank you Norma (PinkBlingCrafter) for letting me know about this contest!

Thanks for following!

Ashley
>:@

DCWV Street Lace and Colorful Life Stacks Giveaway!

Hello all!

I wanted to let everyone know that DCWV is giving away two of their stacks (Street Lace and Colorful Life) to one of their fans!  If you would like to enter, follow this link: 

 http://dcwvinc.blogspot.com/2010/11/sizzix-triple-play-blog-hop-week-2.html. 

Good luck to those that enter!

Ashley
>:@

Baby It's Cold Outside!

Hello all!

I wanted to share the card I created for Kassidy's Inking It Up Crazy's Design Team tryouts.  It had to be a winter-themed card.  This is my final submission:

I started with the sentiment for my card and built it from there.  The "baby it's cold outside" sentiment is from Pink By Design's Christmas Wishes stamp set.  I decided I wanted to make a shivering penguin (because hey baby, it's cold outside!) and snowflakes to support the theme I had chosen. 

I cut the penguin from the "Joys of the Season" cricut cartridge and his scarf is from the "Everyday Paper Dolls" cartridge.  I found the snowflakes on the "Christmas Cards" cartridge as well.  The "shiver" marks are from the "Cuttin' Up" cartridge - I took the "o" shape and trimmed it to make it look more like the poor penguin was freezing.   

The embellishing on the base card is the Cuttlebug Snowflakes folder (love it!).  Paper-wise I used the DCWV Brights Adhesive Mat Stack , the DCWV The Christmas Combo stack, and the ProvoCraft Cricut Blues stack.  And, of course, I used my iRock to add some jeweled embellishments to my card ;)

I am finding that I am becoming more efficinet as I use my Cricut and Design Studio more and more and that the results of my crafting adventures are becoming stronger and stronger (at least to me!).  While I am sending this card to Kassidy, I'm also entering it into the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Me Monday contest for this week since it is all about birds and I am proud of it :) 

Here's hoping that I make the Winter Design Team so I can hone my skill even more!

Thanks for reading!

Ashley
>:@

Imaginisce Contest Update!

Good evening all!

I thought I'd post an update on the results of the Imaginisce Halloween card contest that I entered last weekend.

I WON! :)

I felt pretty good about my card when some of the Design Team members from Imaginisce posted such lovely comments on my blog (thank you Melinda and Liz!!) but I was still surprised (but super, super excited) when they announced me as one of the winners!  My husband wasn't home at the time to witness me dancing around the living room, but he was as excited as I was when I called him with the news.  Thank you Imaginisce for selecting my card! :)

Since I kept the my blog post for the contest pretty Imaginisce-focused, I did want to highlight some of the other products I used.  Although I used primarily Imaginisce paper, I did use some of the DCWV Brights Adhesive Mat Stack as accent colors (the front porch, door, and shutters as well as parts of Frankenstein and Franken-Bride).  I have found that I absolutely love the adhesive stacks, especially the ability to adjust the pieces if necessary before they are "stuck" on the card. 

The other product I would live to mention (and because they are so awesome they're getting their own paragraph, lol) is Scrappy Moms Stamps.  I had struggled to find a sentiment that I loved for my card until I stumbled across their "A Haunting We Will Go" stamp set, which featured the "Die-monds are a ghoul's best friend" sentiment from my card.  I ordered the stamps almost a week before the card was due, hoping I would be lucky and they would arrive fairly quickly.  Unfortunately, I must have hit the "hot period" for these stamps because they were out of stock!  Lucky for me, Melanie (of Scrappy Moms Stamps) was more than willing to express order and 2-day ship my stamps to me for a minimal extra charge.  She even sent me a follow-up e-mail to make sure they had arrived.  They made it in time, and the rest is history.  Thank you Scrappy Moms Stamps!!  As I said to Melanie, I'll definitely be a repeat customer due to the awesome customer service I received!

I'm looking forward to receiving my prize package from Imaginisce over the next few days...amusingly enough, the Imaginisce Facebook group was randomly picking fans this week to receive a fun prize pack...and guess who won again? ;) (apparently this was my lucky week!!).

As for future projects...I think I am going to try out for Kassidy of Inking It Up Crazy's Winter Design Team.  I have an idea for the card and I just need to sit down and make it...wish me luck!  I also need to do the last few weeks of coursework for the My Creative Classroom course I am taking on Design Studio...I am only 3 weeks behind :-/ The sad part is I am using Design Studio for all of these projects, so I am practicing (even if it isn't what I'm supposed to be doing, lol)!

Thanks for reading and following!  I will try to post again soon!

Ashley
>:@

Fantastic Giveaway Opportunity!

Hello all!

This is one of two posts for the evening...I wanted to alert you all to a fantastic giveaway opportunity offered by Me and the Little Rascals.  She is giving away a HUGE selection of Imaginisce product (yes, it is my favorite new line and brand to talk about!!) at the end of November.  She will be giving away small prizes at the end of every week leading up to the grand prize on the 30th.  You need to become of a follower of her blog and Imaginisce, post about the giveaway on your blog (including the link), and leave her a comment - it is that easy! 

Please share with friends, family, and your fellow bloggers!  Let's gather her some new followers!

Thanks for reading! 

Ashley
>:@

Imaginisce's Halloween Challenge!

Greetings all!

It has been a little while since my last posting, but it was a busy week!  Between work, home, and crafting materials, Saturday was the first day I was able to sit down, relax, and really work on an important project!  I created this card for Imaginisce’s Halloween Card Challenge.  The requirements were that you needed to use Imaginisce’s product lines (you could use any line, new or old) and the colors black, green, orange, and purple.  Since this was my first official major contest (hosted by a specific company), I did ask some clarifying questions to make sure that I was on the right track with my plans.  I used the following product lines from Imaginisce in my card:

Apple Cider – “Changing Leaves” paper (part of the roof, Frankenstein and Franken-Bride bodies)

Splash Dance – “Water Words” paper (front of the house)

To Love & Cherish – “Diana” paper, “Sophia” paper, “Juliet” paper, and “Grace” paper (back of house/inside of windows, outfits for both Frankenstein and Franken-Bride, Franken-Bride's hair)

iRock and the iRock Hot Rocks Compact (Franken-Bride's diamond bling ;), both sets of eyes, sentiment square)

And here is my final product:

Wondering why I chose to do this card?

When I first read about the Imaginisce’s Halloween card contest, I knew I wanted to enter.  Since the requirements included using black, green, orange, and purple in your card, I knew immediately what I wanted to do:  Frankenstein and his Franken-Bride!  Amusingly enough, when I brought up the challenge to my husband, he told me he had this fantastic idea…and proceeded to suggest a similar layout for my card (I knew there was a reason I married him! LOL).  

Being fairly new to the scrapbooking process (since August of this year), I did not have a stash of Imaginisce paper at my disposal, so I began to research where I could purchase the product lines.  Surprisingly, being in Virginia and fairly close to Washington, D.C., I had a very hard time finding local retailers.  Luckily, I located two different stores, both of which carried different lines (woohoo!) so I was able to get my hands on materials! J  I absolutely love all the product lines that I found (I also picked up some pages from the Fairest of Them All line by Imaginisce during my travels) and will definitely being visiting my new suppliers to pick up more pages and embellishments in the future!  Thank you Imaginisce for getting me hooked and introducing me to some of my local scrapbooking retailers! J

I am extremely proud of my final product.  Of the three projects I have completed so far, this is the one I feel most confident about and the one I am most excited to share with my friends.  Wish me luck in the Imaginisce contest!  I really want to win! J

Have a Happy and Safe Halloween!

Until my next project,

Ashley

>:@

Halloween Projects

Good evening all,

I hope your Sunday has gone well.  I spent time this afternoon creating two styles of Halloween cards that I am planning on sending to my family and giving to a couple of my friends.  Thought I would include pictures of both in this post :)

Boo!

Eeeeek!

I apologize for the poor quality of my pictures, but my cell phone was handy so I used that...

I'm looking forward to sending these to the special people in my life!  There are definitely improvements to be made, but I don't think it is too bad for my first time making Halloween cards :)

I hope that everyone continues to have an excellent Sunday and that the week starts off well.  My husband, the "boys" (our cats Lincoln and Jack), and I are watching the Patriots game right now.  My hubby is a huge Pats fan (I root for the Philadelphia Eagles), so he is super psyched about this game.  I'm trying to recover from double Philadelphia losses (Phillies and Eagles) :(

Ashley
>:@

My First Project!

Hello again :)

I felt that my first project deserved to be the second post for today!  I created a card for the Color Challenge that Robyn at My Pink Stamper's website posted last night.  The requirements of the challenge were that you needed to use the colors pink, purple, and green.  Of course, what better use of PINK than with a little pink PIGLET? 

My husband loved the sentiment and was my sounding board throughout the process.  I am super excited to enter my FIRST challenge on any site and for it to include my FIRST card!  Thanks Robyn! 

Enjoy!!

Ashley
>:@

First Post!

Greetings all :)

I finally took the plunge and started a scrapbooking blog to highlight the projects I am working on as I learn my Cricut!  I am a follower of so many of blogs dealing with scrapbooking and crafting projects, and it only seems appropriate that I provide myself a space where my friends and family can see what I've been working on.  I can't wait to begin to share what I'm learning and doing! 

As for the name...anyone who knows me well knows that I *LOVE* pigs and have quite the collection, so it seemed like the perfect name!  ;)

Thanks for joining me on this journey!

Ashley
>:@