Using my Gypsy to Make Cuts That I Don't Have

Hello everyone!  I hope that you enjoying a wonderful holiday week.  We recently went to stay overnight at my parents' house, and, like every good mom, I made sure that we had everyone's clothes and pj's.  However, just before we left our house, the DirectTV guy had been late for his appointment with us and it was a little crazy at our house to say the least.  So, when we arrived at my parents, I realized that we had everything except my pajama's and change of clothes.  Ooops.  So I borrowed a pair of my dad's pajama pants and a white tshirt.  So I wanted to send them a quick thank you note for still taking care of me, even at 38.

I looked through all my cartridges, and I have about 15 great cartridges, but I couldn't find a tshirt and pants.  So I used my Gypsy to create them.  I found that the pants could be from a scarecrow on my Creative Memories Cheerful Seasons cart and the shirt from a dress on my Paisley cart.  But hide contour didn't work, so I ran the scarecrow off the mat so only the pants were showing, and then used hide contour to get rid of the buttons on the pants.  For the shirt, I ran the dress off the side, and then used hide contour to get rid of the heart.  (Ignore the other paisley shapes on the mat, I was working on two projects at once.)

A double mat under the shirt and pants finished off the card.  I've been so impressed about what I've been able to do using my Gypsy.  If you haven't checked out Emma's blog at www.creativetimeforme.com, she has a lot of fantastic gypsy videos.  Have a great day!

Finishing Up the Last Homemade Gift

I hope you are all enjoying holiday festivities.  I've finished wrapping everything except the seven gifts which haven't yet arrived from Amazon.  (Yes, I'm very worried about this.)  But my two little elves were wonderful wrapping helpers today.

My last homemade gift for this Christmas has actually been in process for several months now.  Thanks to some time to work on it early this week, it is now completely finished.  It's an ABC album for my youngest daughter who just turned three.  I made one for our older daughter several years ago and she still loves looking at it.

I used a retired Creative Memories 7x7 album along with my CM 1 1/2 inch circle and square punches.  The stickers are from the CM Primary Power Palatte.  Once I decided on which pictures to include, putting it together went very quickly.  I do recommend laying everything out before you begin though.  That was how I realized that I was missing two of her uncles for the letter U page.

I will be entering the 'W' page in the My Pink Stamper challenge.  It's a bit of a stretch since the only brown I could put on the page is in the leaves, but I thought I would go ahead and share.  I'm also sharing it on the Fantabulous Cricut blog.  If you are visiting from either site, I would love to have you as a follower and/or read your comments.  Have a wonderful Christmas everyone!

A New Twist on the Sock Cupcake...a Cherry on Top!

I love to look at the ideas other bloggers share on their blogs. In several places, I've seen sock cupcakes. They look so cute that I kept thinking about making some, but I wanted them to have a little something extra on top. After mulling it over, I came up with the idea of wrapping a tube of lip balm in the middle. And it turns out that Carmex makes a cherry flavored tube with a dark red lid. Perfect! It adds to the gift as well as making the cupcake look more authentic.


I don't own a cartridge that has a cupcake wrapper on it. But, after much trial and error, I discovered that I could use a rectangle and two triangles from George and the trees from the Christmas cart to create one. The actual cut file has been improved from the one in the photo. The edges are now angled to make it easier to wrap. Using the magic of the Gypsy to weld the shapes together, I was able to create my own wrap. (I just love my Gypsy!) You could also cut a sentiment or use a punch in place of the trees.


Once the wrap was cut, I rolled up the sock with the lip balm in the middle. A tight wrap seemed to work the best.






Then I wrapped the paper around the base. Wrapping a little more tightly at the bottom gave the cupcake a more realistic look.

A clear celophane bag from Michael's with a little curling ribbon finished the gift. I'm planning on making them for the wonderful ladies who help take care of my girls at preschool and afterschool.

Quick and Easy Gifts

I have been admiring all the cute gifts that Candace from Paper Crafts by Candace has been creating. These Post-It note holders for my coworkers are modeled after one of her ideas.

The pictures are a little dark, but the paper is Recollections Purple Daze in Lava Lamp, Flashback, and Seafoam that I picked up from Michaels. The purple cardstock is Grape from Creative Memories.

I welded a scallop circle from Gypsy Wanderings and a narrow rectangle from George to make the strip for the monograms. (I love the features of my Gypsy!) The monograms are from a variety of carts - I couldn't find one font that was perfect for all the letters. The holder itself is an acrylic 4x6 frame from Walmart.

I've got some other gift ideas in the works that I'll be posting later this week. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving weekend!

Stylish Blogger Award

I'm so excited, just before Thanksgiving I received my first blog award! Even more exciting was the fact that I received it twice from two other bloggers whose work I really enjoy. Thank you craftymrs and Pigtails and Paper Trails!

The rules for accepting this award are:

1.Thank and link to the person who awarded you this.
2.Share 8 things about yourself.
3.Pay it forward to 8 bloggers that you have recently discovered.
4. Contact those bloggers and tell them about their award.

So here are eight things about me:
1. I am happily married and we have two beautiful little girls.
2. I am a middle school teacher.
3. I have lived in three different countries.
4. I love Creative Memories products and adore album making.
5. I won a Gypsy a month ago and am having fun learning all that I can do with it.
6. I wouldn't have dreamed of having my own blog if it wasn't for a dear friend and fellow crafter.
7. My husband helped me set up my crafting area, and we even included a lower table for my girls to use for their projects.
8. I was trying to get a plum Expression from Walmart on Black Friday, but missed out.

Here are the bloggers that I would like to pass the award on to:

Paper Crafts by Candace - She has fantastic ideas and is so wonderful about sharing them.
You Had Me At Craft - Great ideas for cards and home decorating.
Brown Paper Packages - So many great ideas on this blog for making gifts and she provides the links or PDFs so that you can make your own!
Craft Junkie - Great ideas for cards and more.
Teach Mama - Wonderful ideas to use with your children.

I really appreciate our blogging community. It's amazing all the wonderful ideas that everyone has to share.

Easy as Pie (or at least as easy as eating pie)

I recently went to a dear friend's house for a Jolee's House Party. We had a great time making jewelry, but my favorite part was a little extra something that my friend had planned for us. She had some beautiful cardstock colors, her Cuttlebug, and a set of monogram stamps. With just those supplies, we were able to make some beautiful cards. I used the paisley Cuttlebug folder to emboss the card fronts. Then the leftover paper from cutting down the cardstock, became a ribbon/stripe on a different color card. The last step was using a 1 1/4 circle punch to stamp on the monogram.

These are going to be part of my mom's Christmas present. She asked for a set of cards for all occasions. Hopefully these will be a nice start...only 28 crafting days left until Christmas.

A cure for the challenging family Christmas card picture...

If your family is anything like mine, we have a terrible time getting a picture where everyone is smiling and looking good all at one time. This makes it very difficult to get that perfect Christmas card picture. Well, this year, I think I've found the solution, Shutterfly has some beautiful collage frame cards that allow me to choose everyone's best picture! You can check out the choices by following this link.

I'm also a fan of sharing a little bit about our family events during the year, but I have to say that the idea of writing a full letter holds little appeal for me. So Shutterfly comes to the rescue again. They now have these great Holiday Story cards. You can see them here and then click to get a closer look. You can also see all their beautiful photo cards here.

I have often used Shutterfly's photo prints service and have always been very pleased with the quality of their prints. I've also ordered their photo books which are easy to make and beautifully bound. If you're interested, for the next two days, you can save $10 of a $30 order. That's in addition to their sale prices. Just enter the promo code YFM6-7WBM-WFF7-GPK9VO at checkout.

I'd love to see what you create. Please post a comment with a link if you decide to take advantage of the Shutterfly offer.