Claire's Surprise Party!

Claire was really surprised today! She thought her family sort of blew off her BIG 6-0, and today they got her good! Her hubby told her he was taking her to a restaurant out on the island, and on the way he started to pull over, and told her he wanted to show her a water meter??? Who stops to see a water meter? Anyway, she was SO surprised to find about 40 of us waiting for her! It was a gorgeous afternoon, nice picnic, loads of fun with the jet skis and tubes, etc.

This is the card and gift certificate I made for her. Thanks to OkieLadyBug for the help with getting the shading nice and smooth around the edges. That adds such a nice touch. This card was cut from Walk In My Garden, and flourishes from Accent Essentials.

New Message board Friend

On the cricut message board I am participating the Birthday Swap and I am delighted to be partnered with Amtrammel from Texas. Soooooooo, I am busy making some challenges for her, but you will all have to wait to see them until the end of the project time, because they are a surprise!

Maybe a sneak peek or two once in a while, we'll see :-)

**hint** AM loves red! This week's challenge is to make six birthday cards. I have 5 finished, and a couple of surprises in mind.

MARINE CORPS CLUB

At long last I can post the photos of the vinyl lettering project I have been doing for the local Marine Corps Detachment's new Club. It is finished and up, and ready to see :-) This was my first vinyl project .... a big way to start with almost 300 letters and stars!!! It turned out really well. It's a little hard to see in this photo, but the yellow words along the red border list all of the campaigns that the Marines have participated in from the Revolutionary War through Iraq. The red lettering are eight of the different Marine units, like Air, Ground, Recon, Snipers, etc...

Congratulations

It was my pleasure to send this card to a retiring Major in the US Army, and thank her for her service to our country. This tri-fold card was a fun design to learn. It used the cuttlebug for the swiss dots, and cricut for Congrats. Accented with Stickles.

Happy Birthday Claire

This big cupcake box was done with design studio for my friend Claire's birthday. She loves Americana, and my icing! I downloaded one pattern, and found that the top didn't fit, so I've revamped the design a bit on my own. This one is a true 4 inch square. Love the window, and the Skittles for accents!

Mini Swarm

Memorial Day weekend brought Mom and Joni over to learn to use their Big Bugs. We were treated by DH (which is usually Dear Husband on message boards) He fixed us popcorn, chocolate, sodas, fruit, cookies and anything else we wanted. Then he fixed us a great dinner of lasagna, salad, garlic bread and a gorgeous angel food cake with strawberries on top! AND he has decided that DH now stands for "DESIGNATED HOTTIE"!!!!!! Don't you agree!

Mom and Joni learned a lot about card making, and the things their bugs will do for them. Next step is to get their Design Studio systems installed, and get them going!

Identifying People in a Group Photo

This is how I have found to be the best way to identify individuals in large group shots. First I took a piece of tracing paper or vellum and made a tracing of the outline of the people in the photo. Then I reduced that on a copy machine. I numbered each head. Then I typed a coordinating log with everyone's name on it. I used coordinating colors, chalked the head sketch paper to blend with the background "wallpaper" and placed it on "dead space" in the sky of the photo. Hope this is helpful to you.

The journaling on this page is the key element. The story to be told is very important to our family. Dear Aunt Irene was very special to us, and this is about the day she welcomed our family into her home. The accents are cricut cuts from Walk in My Garden and Plaintain SchoolBook. The flowers are glittered with stickles.

Lay Outs

This heirloom page is my hubby Robert S. Brett. The framing is a shutter style with embossing on the edges and around the cut outs at the top and bottom. This is an original photo, protected in an heirloom scrapbook.

Lay Outs

This was taken at Whitney Beach, which is their last name, just before they left Florida and moved to Pennsylvania. It as a busy afternoon, and getting four little ones to look the same direction and smile was no easy task! There was even the "Look at Nana doing the Hula" trick, and that didn't even work! Finally! This two page spread is done with sandpaper, stickles, and the writing on the upper left photo is done with brush markers.

This book is for keeping track of upcoming birthdays, and putting your cards in the pockets to send them out on time. Just write special birth dates on the appropriate pages, put the cards in there when you make or buy them, and you are on your way!

This book still need a hand made cover, and to be bound with pretty ribbons. The first edition was a birthday gift for my sister, Joni!!

First Mother's Day Card

This is Barbie's first Mother's Day Card. Looking forward to the birth of baby Porter in just a few weeks!

These are the My Community cuts that I am sending to AshJoy for her hubby's bulletin board in their 911 center. I hope they are somewhat like her community's hometown heroes!

These are cards made for a Cuttlebug small embossing folder swap. They were fun to do, and it will be really fun to see what cards come back!

This is the Pearl Ex kit that I used to accent the wedding card. There are 12 bottles of pigment powders in different colors. The cards in the backgrounds are samples, but I don't think they are going to show up very well. They all shimmer in the light. The paperwork shows different ways to use the powders. They suggest mixing it with different mediums, like water, or gum arabic. I have used embossing gel, and will try other stuff, and let you know.

OH NO! Skittles in the mail!!!

Tori sent this to her Dad after he had a nasty fall, and needed stitches in his face.

I can hardly believe that it made it.... the holes were exactly over the skittles!!! One was gone. I guess it was a good thing these were on the back of the envelope, and the address didn't have big holes in it!

A pretty Thank You card from Tori :-)

Notice all of the skittles on the flower and the bottom edge.

I love the paisley embossing on the background. I still want to get this cuttlebug folder.

She sent this card in a box of other goodies.

Another quick birthday card, this one featuring the Pearl Ex on the cuttlebug embossing background. It made it shimmery blue. The red, green and yellow circles were with the cricut, and then the image was also cut with the Expressions Center Point feature, which is a great invention!

This image was one I got from the image swap, and I think these mice are adorable. I colored them with water color pencils, and baby oil gel. It works really well. I added some pop-dots under the image, and stamped the message at the top.

Another of my favorite stamp cards, decorated with stickles.

This one went out to cheer a fellow who could use some get well wishes, and I hope he feels lots better.

This card is a lot of fun, because it is a set of stamps Tori sent me. There is the little cherry set,

that I can do the background paper with, and then the cute little Mom and her little one Cooking Up a Batch of Best Wishes for whatever the occasion might be.

This one has some cherry colored "skittles" in the corners.

I've made quite a few of this particular card, and it's been fun to make slight variations in the accents.

This shows some of the details up close, and also shows the pearl ex on the swirls on the bottom. This was my introduction to this cool new medium! I love how it changes plain paper to very lovely elegant paper.

Thanks to SusieB for the inspiration for this card for Krissy and Will. I really like the different embossing styles on the same card.

Happy Mother's Day!
I have new cards to post, and hope to get them done in the next day or so. I have been a little busy making them, and getting a lot mailed for the Cricut Card Fairy missions. I am also in a couple of swaps that are coming due.

This has been a really busy week. One of my dearest friends was married on Saturday. Her Mom and I are best friends, and she and Barbie are best friends. She practically grew up in our home. Barbie was her Matron of honor, so we were glad to have Barbie and Craig visit with us for a few days :-) Krissy was a gorgeous bride!! The wedding was fabulous! They even arrived at the reception on a magnificent yacht! Soooooooo romantic. Watch for pictures :-)

I also had a very sad occasion this past week. Christi Crowl Charles, a young mom who was one of my Young Women a few years ago, was in a tragic accident last Friday, and she and her 10 year old son and unborn son were all three killed. She left behind five other children, too. Her brothers are also very close to our family, so this has been a big shock to us all. There were about 500 people at their funeral yesterday.