BBTB2/Easter/Chick

Happy Monday and it's BBTB2 challenge week with Penny Shuberg as our talented hostess. She asked us to design from the Easter Solution cartridge and to use that darling little chick as our main design. I LOVE this cartridge...it has wonderful Easter Eggs, all scrolled and layer. And that darling little chick is just ....well......chicka-precious! I did Gate Fold Card design. Normally the gate cards open and stand, however this style opens from the top. Gate Fold cards don't usually fold flat so I made a little tab just under the overlay of Happy Easter, and the tab slips under the popdotted Easter Egg on the lower flap.

The top flap has the Happy Easter sentiment from the Easter Solutions card and that was mounted on an embossed white cardstock shaped with my Nestie, and that was mounted on a larger Nestie with the green checkered paper. I added a lime green ribbon just above the layer.

The bottom layer has two chickens and an easter egg.... mounted on a strip with green checkered paper and the same lime green ribbon.

Here is a side view of the Gate Fold design.
Recipe: Cricut: Easter Solutions (Sentiment, Chicks, Easter Egg)

Cuttlebug Embossing Folders

Green Ribbon

Checkered Pattern Papers.

White cardstock base in Gate Style ... (6x11, scored at 2-3/4 at each end.)

Thanks for stopping by and if you have left a sweet comment, I thank you. I always appreciate your visits. I hope you came to my blog from the BBTB2 blogsite and enjoyed looking at the wonderful design team offerings.

BBTB2/Ladybug/BoysWillBeBoys

Happy Monday.... Heather, our wonderful leader in all things BBTB2, is the hostess for our week's challenge and she selected Boys Will Be Boys cartridge. We are to design with the ladybug. I do not have that cartridge so I went to my trusty and oh so versatile Doodlecharms cartridge to use that cute ladybug. Be sure to see all of the cards by the designers at BBTB2.

I decided to use the Easel card design. Usually the easel card is cut at 10x4-1/2 inches but because I had some rather busy scenes to design, I cut the base card at 10x5-1/2. In usual design style, I scored at 2-1/2 and 5 inches in, and the first fold is folded down to accommodate the outside card. This photo displays the card in the easel style. The Mushroom on the bottom half of the card has been popdotted with double layers so it will stand nice and high.

This is the front of the card when laying flat.
I love how an easel card stands. I often find that recipients of my easel cards do not know how to display my "art" so I will enclose a little direction sheet.
Recipe:

Cricut: Doodlecharms - Ladybug

Simply Charmed - Mushrooms

Paisley - Sweet

Flower: Creative Memories flower punch

Cuttlebug: Embossing
Thanks so much for stopping by to visit and I always appreciate it when you leave a little comment that tells me you were here.

BBTB2/BirdHouse/BirdCage

BLOG HOP WINNER: Congrats to Samantha J Designs. You have won the draw on the felt flowers. Please email me quickly so I can mail the blog candy to you. Thanks to all for playing along with our BBTB2 blog hop.

Happy Monday my friends. It's our month end challenge and a blog hop tossed in for fun. Sandi was our Blog Hop Hostess for this week however she's encountered those dreaded computer problems so I am taking her helm with the challenge. Sandi selected the Straight From The Nest as the cartridge ...and we were to use the bird cage. Also in the fray is the bird house from Stretch Your Imagination. However we want everyone to play along in the challenge so you may use a bird cage and/or a bird house from any cartridge you have. Please do submit your cards... we love it when you do.

Donna starts out our blog hop and you are always in for a wonderful treat with Donna's fantastic creations. From Donna's blog you probably have come to visit me...and from me, please visit Shelly's blog for her talented creations. .Meantime ...please hop from each to see what they have in store...and since it's a blog hop challenge, you can leave a sweet comment and perhaps be the winner of something wonderful.

Here is my card. I used Stretch Your Imagination to cut 4 double layered bird houses. I've popdotted them in different heights. The cute little birdie is from Create A Critter. I love this darling little birdie.

Bird Villages have coooooool birdy places to chirp around in.
Here is my candy.... These are 5 colorful layered felt flowers with a button center. Great embellies for cards, scrapbooks or maybe even using as a pin or hair decoration....just leave a comment on your visit and I will put your name in the draw on March 4th. Check back after 2PM that date and if your name shows as the winner, please email me quickly so that I can make arrangements to mail the felted flowers to you. If I do not hear from the winner by March 6th, I will draw another name. Thanks for playing along with our blog hop.

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A Mass of Cards

I still have lids full of papers, embellies, sentiments so another card marathon came to be last week. Also, like I do every year, I did some little handmade journals for the children in the cancer support group at the hospital. Here are just a few of the 18 journals.

Now we start with the cards that go into my sell trays...making one after another, ...using up all the stickers, punch outs, die cuts, embellies.....all those things just sitting around yelling to be used.









That's part of my card marathon endeavors. Thanks for stopping by. Always love to have you visit.

BBTB2/ACY/Boy Fishing

Happy Monday. Can you even believe that we are past the middle of February already? My mind is still functioning somewhere back in November.

This week at BBTB2, our hostess is that sweet and talented Shelly. She has chosen A Child's Year for our cartridge challenge and we are asked to design with the boy fishing on Page 38. Here is my card. I happened to have the base card laying around. It had been cut using one of the card features on a cartridge. The die cut of the boy and his fishing pole was placed over the open framework. I slipped a silly little fish on the inside of the card.

Cricut: A Child's Year (Boy Fishing)

Winter Woodlands (Joy)

Mickey Font (Boy)

Paper: Pattern Paper with Square Framework

Cuttlebug Embossing Folders

Thanks for taking a peek. If you just popped in on your way somewhere else, be sure to visit BBTB2 and take a looksee at the designer's creations. You'll love 'em, I promise...!!!

Fun Fun Card Over

My friends and followers know that twice a year I have the absolute delight of meeting up with my bloggy and card-creating friends from Tucson. They come to Glendale at the beginning of each year, and I drive to Tucson mid-summer. This year our companion card maker, Deb, was unable to attend, but Sandy and Kris arrived eager to hit the paper stacks. These two gals make the most wonderful cards. Visit the blog of Kris and you will see some delightful creations. See Kris here. This is the living room set up. My table is on another side of the room but I can tell you we end up with paths to come and go. The room is full of tubs of papers, stacks of embellishments and pencils, and all that is necessary for fun and creativity. My sweet aged dog Heidi Sweetface had a wonderful time schmoozing Kris and Sandy who have sweet little fur babies they love as much as I love Heidi. After the gals left on Sunday, Heidi crashed and snored for hours. It takes a lot out of a 14 year old doggy to constantly be in the limelight for attention, a lot of noggin pats and cookies, ya know.

I usually am well prepared for the marathon, and I've been known to crank out 82 cards in that 2-1/2 day weekend. That is because I have a box of pre-folded cardstock all ready to create a card, and I've slipped in paper cuts, sentiments and embellishments so it's all a process of slamming the cards together. This time I worked on a card order and I worked with a more care in the assembly. Here is a section of cards.
I think I had something like 17 Thinking of You, 9 Birthday, 2 Thank You and 4 Get Well cards.
Some of the sentiments are Cricut created, some are rubber stamps and a few have the most wonderful Cutting Cafe sentiments.
Here's some more...
Thanks for taking a peek at my weekend fun.... And I hope your week is going perfectly.

BBTB2/Hearts

Happy Valentine's Day. Oh my oh my, I am sending many Valentine hugs out to all of my design team sisters, my bloggy friends and visitors. Our challenge this week was chosen by my talented DT sis, Susan, who asked us to design from the MS Seasonal Art Cartridge and to use the heart border and one of the lacey hearts. I do not own this cart so I went to Give A Hoot and used the heart border on Page 45. I cut a LOT of heart borders for this card. My card base is white, and I've mounted several white embossed borders on a black cardstock. The feature of the card is a red strip of hearts that were also embossed. I have an old candy jar full of big ribbons that came from hither and yon so when I saw that beautiful gold ribbon, I just had to use it on the card.

I created the sentiment on my computer and cut that out with an oval Nestie, and embossed the white oval which has been placed on a fushia and red oval. Two heart stick pins were added for a final touch.
I hope your day is special. Thank you for stopping by. I love all of the cards my DT sisters created. I am just so honored to be on this team with these talented ladies.

If you happened to notice the 3 beaded pink felt hearts at the top of this post, these are Valentine gifties for my friends where I used to work before I retired. I used to be a wonderful beading gal but my hands sometimes work against me and I don't bead small things now. I did do these 3 hearts. If you would like to see beading beyond compare, see my friend Paulette's blog at http://beedeebabee.blogspot.com/and prepare to be totally taken in by her wonderful beading creations.

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BBTB2/Fence

Our hostess this week at Bitten By The Bug2 is oh so talented Theresa. She has selected the Lite Bloom cartridge for the fence cut. I do not have this cartridge but we can select a fence from any cartridge so.... I grabbed up my Happy Hauntings cartridge which has a cute little fence with a black bird sitting on it.

I had the little bird house already cut, sitting in my famous scrap bin so I added it to the page. Surely the little blackbird must live there...!!!!
Thanks for stopping by and I always love it when you leave a comment. Have a wonderful week.

BBTB2/Heart

It's February 4th and I have a winner of the Heart Tote. Congrats to JustYolie. Please email me quickly with your address, Yolie, and I will get this in the mail to you. Thanks to all for leaving sweet comments and joining in on our BBTB2 blog hop candy fun.
BLOG HOP BLOG HOP BLOG HOP

Our BBTB2 hostess this week is the very talented Maria. She asked us to design from Love Struck 2010 cartridge and we were to use more than one of the hearts on the cartridge. I don't have that cartridge, and since we can select a heart from any other cartridge, I went to my wonderful very first cartridge, Basic George. I cut 5 sizes of hearts, I embossed each heart and pop dotted them into layers. I added a red ribbon on the shadow cut in white before I began to stack the red hearts. Finally, I added a red heart jewel.

The reverse side of this heart hanger has been duplicated with all 5 layers. I must admit, if the frame opening was a wee bit larger, then the pretty double sided heart would twirl within the opening. However, I didn't have 12x12 black paper so I had to make a smaller frame.

I had the welded word LOVE (from Opposites Attract) laying around so I added it to the corner of the frame. I used a spare heart die to place in the upper right corner of the open frame. The open frame is cut from Live Simply cartridge. I cut four....I cut 3 in white, glued those together to create a sturdy backdrop, then the black frame was pop dotted.

I've added a heart pin to accommodate the ribbon for the hanging heart display. The sentiment is a rubber stamp and that was embossed to add texture.

For my blog hop offering, I have a cute little tote that has been sewn with pillow ticking fabric and small red hearts. There is a red embroidery fancy heart in the center of the tote, and a red ribbon added for decoration. Please leave a comment and on February 4 I will do a draw for a winning name. Please check back after 2:00PM that day for the announcement and if you are the winner, please email me quickly so I can mail the tote to you. If I do not hear from the winner by February 7, I will do another draw.
Thanks for your visit. I appreciate you very much. I hope you came to visit from Lori's blog and in the tradition of a blog hop, please hop over to Sandi's blog and see what wonderful wonders she has in store to see.

BBTB2/Butterfly

Lori, the oh so talented Lori, is our hostess for this week's BBTB2 challenge. Lori selected the Once Upon a Dream cartridge and we were to design using the butterfly cut. I don't have that cartridge, but we can select a butterfly from any cartridge that we do have. I love love love the butterfly on Indie Art. I actually bought this cartridge just for the ice cream cone and butterfly die cuts...... Here is my card.

Recipe: Cricut Cartridge Indie Art - Butterfly

Opposites Attract - LOVE

Scalloped Circle Mount - Nestabilities

Cuttlebug Embossing Folder - Swiss Dots

I cut the Indie Art butterfly in four sizes, distressed the edges, embossed the 4 cuts and layered them. Topped it off with a pink heart jewel.
Hopefully you have come to my blog by way of the BBTB2 blog where all the designers have showcased their most wonderful talents. You can see those right here.

BBTB2/Bird

The oh so talented, sweet and beautiful Krista is our BBTB2 hostess this week. Krista asked us to design from Birthday Bash and we could use the Armadillo cut or a Bird Cut. I don't have BB, so I went to my Give A Hoot cartridge and selected a pretty bird to work with. I found some lovely Creative Memories paper with soft colors, I created some fancy edge punching with my EK Success punches. I cut the bird twice so I could lift up the wings. I just felt this soft and gentle card should become a Sympathy card so I used one of Regina's circle sentiments from her Cutting Cafe printables. This is one of Regina's sets from 2009 and you can see the sentiments right here.

I hope that you have come my way by way of the Bitten By The Bug2 blog. I am so proud to be part of this talented design team. Thanks for your visit, and I always appreciate it when you leave a comment.

Lid Lovelies

Still At It Phase 4: A Lid Lovely is something created out of papers, sentiments, die cuts all tossed in a lid. I've been diligently working at getting these 5 lids emptied out by making simple cards. I've gone through a whole box of A2 size envelopes so that tells me so far I've made over 250 cards. I had emptied out a previous envelope box before I opened the new one. These cards are so simple they almost make themselves. Many of the cards feature printables from Regina's Cutting Cafe because there just isn't anything like a sentiment from her line of wonderful sentiments and images. The cards are mostly done in groups of themes like Birthdays, Sympathy, etc. Here are a few. Hope you like my little Lid Lovelies. I love the edge punches and I use both Martha Stewart and EK Success for those.

JOY is from Opposites Attract Cricut cartridge. There are several welded joy words available on many of the carts. I think the flowers are from Basic George but all of these words and die cuts were ones tossed in box lids and I don't know a lot of sources.
This style of card is so simple and packs a nice whallops. It's a gate fold, the card base is 4-1/2 inches long, scored at 2-1/2 and 2-1/2 at each end with those flats folded to the center. I use a decorative EK Success Punch in the center of one flap. On the inside of the card I pop dot a die cut...in this case a cute little MS punched flower with a jewel. A lot of the cards have been embossed and the sentiment is one of my favorite rubber stamps.
Two oval sentiments from Cutting Cafe and I've used a scalloped round Nestie for the shape. The brackets were grabbed up from a lid. Jewels added for some oomph to these simple cards.
Another gate fold style, both flaps have been embossed, the sentiments are once again Cutting Cafe printables. Punched flowers and butterflies.
Just a few of my endeavors. Thanks for stopping by. I always appreciate your visits.

BBTB2/LyricalLetters/Hummingbird

Our design team sister Karen is the hostess for this week's challenge and she selected the Hummingbird cut from Lyrical Letters. I love LL, it has such wonderful sentiments and lettering. Not to mention the extra options like this darling Hummingbird.

This card is a stand-up card I like to name "A Zig Zag Design".. .... It has an open square window on all three card layers. The first layer has the Hummingbird looking over the

flowers (on the inside of the card)... The sentiment is from Beyond Birthdays cartridge.

This is the first inside page ...it has a flower and a "hugs to you" sentiment from Beyond Birthdays.

This is the last page of the card with the final flower and leaf.
I hope that you've taken a peek at the wonderful creations on our Bitten By The Bug2 blog...we do so love our visitors. Have a wonderful week.

Pretty Flowers

I am still at it.... "it" being a massive tidy up of all things laying around...lids of embellishments and sentiments and papers. I found this wonderful paper that I kept putting on the bottom of stacks because I loved it so and hated to use it up. Today was the time to create with it. The flowers were cut long ago and I've forgotten which cartridge I used....the flowers were altered a bit by trimming the flower petals. I cut away the leaf that was attached and I fussy cut a longer leaf. The center of the red flower is a sunburst punch in black. The sentiment and flowers have been embossed with Cuttlebug Swiss Dots. The sentiment Blessing is a rubber stamp and the small "Love U" is from Cutting Cafe's "Fun with Valentine's Day" printables. You can see that wonderful set here. I am on sort of a hiatus from the Cutting Cafe Design Team but I will certainly keep using Regina's wonderful printables. They make my cards what they are!...

Thanks for stopping by and if you leave a comment, I will appreciate it because I love hearing from you and knowing you have visited.

Sister

THIS N' THAT RATTA TAT TAT...

Over the months as I worked on this n' that, I would toss extra things into box lids and the end result is about 5 lids overflowing with extra die cuts, snippets of pattern papers, embellishment, stamped and printed sentiments. For this past week I have been on a mission to empty all of these lids. I think to date I've slammed together about 100 cards that will go into my "sell these" trays. Each tray has a divider for the card theme. These cards are not the cards I do for design teams or cards that have been published.

Here is a picture of the various trays.

This is a close up of just one tray that has the Baby cards in it. I seem to make a lot of baby cards because I get such joy out of designing them with the cute die cuts available, topped off with the wonderful embossing folders. Some cards are very detailed and decorated while others are simple cards.

This "Sister" card was laying out so I grabbed it up to photograph. The sentiment was a rubber stamp, Sister is from Don Juan. Everything that created this card was pulled from one of those box lids....so it was basically a "grab it up" kinda card. I love making them. They go together quick.

So, here we are in the new year...2011. Imagine that. Thanks for visiting...