Merry Christmas and some handmade gifts

I will try and keep this post short sense there are so many pictures.  I got the bird house ornament template from A piece of Craft.  Marion issued a challenge for people to decorate the bird houses on You tube and I thought it was such a pretty ornament.  You could make this ornament in any color or theme and it would still be lovely.  I used paper from My Minds Eye for mine.  Love love love this little bird house ornament.

The altered charger plates was also an idea that I got from the lovely ladies on You tube.  I got the idea from "Lovemyella".  I used paper from Basic Grey and some floral picks I got from Michael's and a photo of Brian and I from a couple of years ago.  I didn't have a more recent pic of the two of us as I am always behind the camera. I made two of these plates just like I did the bird houses, one for each of our Mothers for Christmas.  I hope they like them.

I made these charms for my mother.  She saw one of mine in the car the other day and mentioned that she would like to have some of her own.  I made each of these charms on lobster clasp so that she could easily add them to her key chain or to her purse.  Just where ever she would like to add them.  Okay, that's all for now, I've got gifts to wrap and desserts to make.  I hope you and yours have  a very Merry Christmas this Holiday season as you spend time with family and friends. Keep in mind the real reason for this season and keep the Savior in your heart.

More Christmas Cards

Here are a few more of the Christmas cards I made this year.  I was going for more of a vintage Christmas theme this year.  I love these images that I got off the Internet.  I love going to graphic sites like "The Graphics Fairy" and "Magic Moonlight free Images" to find these kind of images and they are free!  Gotta love that!  The first card at the top was especially made for my good friend, Robin, and her family.  I used the flowers I got from Wild Orchid Crafts for that card.  I made almost 50 cards this year, and some handmade gifts for family members so I have been very busy every sense Thanksgiving.  I'm ready for the new year to get started so that I can possibly get some rest! lol. I hope you enjoy these and thanks for stopping by.

Que Sera Sera birthday card

I made this card for my lovely Sis in law, Jennifer. Her birthday was a few days ago and true to form, I was late with mailing her card. lol. I wanted to do something special for her card anyway because she loves art too and I thought that she might really enjoy it. First of all, it's a huge card. It measures 8.25 x 5.5 inches.  I put some really dimensional embellies on this card with all the flowers.  I figured I could go all out sense I was going to send it to her in a padded envelope anyway.  The large flower and the lighter colored small one are some made by me.  That's a button in the center of the large one.  I just cut off the shank on the back and addhere it to the center.  I also used some Primas and Recollections flowers for this one.  I used some of that new yummy flower ribbon too.  Loving it! The paper and die cut is from K & Co., the sentiment is a stamp from Inkadinkado.  Hope you enjoy it=> 

Christmas time decorated bag

My family hosted an ornament exchange this past weekend and I decorated this bag to go along with mine. I used a plain bag from Michael's and an older Basic Grey paper line, Mistletoe & Pear, that I've had in my stash for a couple of years now. I just love the paper too much to throw out for something new. I'm working on slowly using it up and enjoying every minute that I get to play with it. I used the Lacy Labels cartridge for the cricut to make the top note die shape on the background. I used the Winter Woodland cartridge for the snowman and the sentiment. I added some bling and some white lace to finish it off. Hope it gives you some ideas for decorating your own. I'm off to get back to work, got lots more of these type bags to decorate. Thanks for stopping by.

My swivel clasp for the swap hosted by emoradesigns

This picture shows all the charms laying out flat so you can better see each one of them. We were supposed to make at least 10 charms for the swivel clasp but as you can see, I used a lot more. In fact the swap was for the Tim Holtz swivel clasp to be completed with charms but I wanted my swivel clasp to be bright shiny silver and so I made my own. I also made mine to be a bit longer than the ones from Tim H. I hope my swap partner doesn't mind.

This picture shows the charms as they hang on the swivel clasp as a whole. I am sorry that the photos didn't turn out to be of the best quality but hopefully you can get a good idea of what it looked like. I really liked it and found it hard to stop adding charms to it.lol. I just wanted to keep adding more and more but it looks pretty full to me so I think maybe I picked the right time to stop. I liked the little Christmas light charms. I found them at wal mart. I tried to make the swivel clasp to have a combination of big and small charms on it. I like the long beaded charms but too many of them on one swivel clasp kinda looks off balance to me anyway. I tried to do a mixture of both. My swap partner said she liked the classic Christmas theme and I hope I was able to give her what she was looking for. I really hope she likes it. Thanks for stopping by and please feel free to leave me a comment. I love to hear from you guys.

Happy Anniversary card

This card is for a couple of folks who really make me feel like they enjoy my cards. I mean, everyone that I send my cards to are always very thankful for them and they all tell me  how much they enjoy them.  It's just that a few people really seem to appreciate them and enjoy getting one of my cards more than others. I like to do special cards for these people. I hope this one falls into that category.
 I used the Paris Nights paper line from g.c.d. studios, and the "love... " stamp is from Autumn leaves. I used black embossing powder to emboss it. I made the flower out of Bazzill Basics Paper.  For the flower center I used a button,  removed the shank from the back and glued on a brad in it's place. The trim is from an unknown source, the sentiment is a rub on from making memories and its on a die cut from tags, bags, boxes and more for the cricut. I added some bling to match the button. I hope you enjoyed this card today.

More Christmas cards

These are my most recent attempts at finding the card that I will be making this year for Christmas. I thought I would put them up here and give you guys a chance to let me know what you think. Which one is your favorite? I think the last two are pretty much the ones that I'm leaning toward going with. I've changed paper stacks from the My Minds Eye stack that I started out with to an older Anna Griffin designer mat stack for the die cut images. I knew that I wanted to use the Cricut to do alot of the work on these cards for me so when I thought to use the patterned paper for a die cut image it seemed like a good fit. I thought that die cutting the patterned paper was a great way to bring the pattern into the card design. It's something more than just cutting your patterned paper into the regular square or rectangle shapes that we often fall back on in card designing, I like the smaller bow too. I really do like the plaid, wired ribbon but it would have really taken alot of it to make 40 cards. It was taking, on average, using about a foot per card so that would have been 40 feet of ribbon! I think the average roll of ribbon has about 6-9 feet on it. lol. I wasn't looking forward to buying that much ribbon or tying that many bows. lol. So, If you don't mind, leave me a comment and let me know which one is your favorite. We'll call them 1, 2, 3, & 4 starting at the top. I'd love to hear what you think. I'd also like to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving today. Take the day to love and cherish the loved ones around you. They are precious know matter who they are to you. They love you enough to spend this special day with you and that is enough to make them special to you.=> "The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man." anonymous.

This year's Christmas card? (maybe?)

I've been working on the design for what will be our Christmas card this year and this is one of the ideas that I've had so far. Now keep in mind that I've got to make almost 40 cards. Yep, 40. In the years past It's been 30 something but I'm quiet sure that it will be about 40 this year considering all the new friends that I've made online. I'm happy to make them every year. I love giving my handmade cards. I know you've heard me talk about this in the past but there are a few things that you must consider when you have to make multiples of a card. First, you must be mindful of the amount of supplies that you will need to complete many cards. If your design calls for an embellishment it must be one that is easily replicated. I like to keep it simple when designing these type cards. I like to use stamps because they don't run out and other supplies like ribbon and buttons and cricut cuts. I don't usually have to worry about not having enough of these supplies.

For this card that I've come up with, it uses mostly those type of supplies. There are a couple of things that I may change. For starters, the size of the card. This card is 5x7 and the problem with that is that when I went to purchase the Kraft card stock the only size I could find was 8.5x11. If I keep the card at the current size then I will only be able to get one card out of a piece of card stock. That's and important thing to consider. How much waste will making this many cards create? The other thing that I may change is the bow. As much as I like it and think it is an important element to the cards' design, it takes almost 12 inches of ribbon to make and if you do the math, that's 40 feet of ribbon! If I cant figure out how to make the bow with less ribbon then I will have to rethink using it. As far as the patterned paper goes, I'm not too concerned about all of the cards having the same one. I think that if you have a 12x12 stack that you like and want to make your cards from that It's fine to use different patterns. When you use one pad of paper they all usually have the same feel to them so they will probably all work with your design even if the pattern itself is different.

So, I hope this has helped you in making your own choices in making multiples of the same card. It's really not hard to make a lot cards once you get the first one done. After that first one it's all cake!
Hope you enjoy this card and have a happy Holiday season.

Gift card holder

I made this gift card holder for my BFF, Wendy. She's the cheer leading coach for the pee wee cheerleaders. I'm not sure if that's what they are called technically..Pee wee? Its just what they remind me of. All 20 + or - one or two, girls got a gift certificate to Wal mart. Knowing that they card holders would probably get tossed after they removed the card, we decided to keep the design simple. Wendy and I worked on them together and this is what we came up with. We used the Cindy loo cart. for the cricut to cut out the card holders and then just layered the silver holographic paper with red bazzill and gp white that we stamped with an alpha stamp set from close to my heart with black soot distress ink from ranger. Hope you enjoy and, as always, thanks for stopping by.

Happy Veterans Day!!!

Every year I make a Happy Veterans day card for my hubby, Brian. He is a Veteran of a foreign war and I am very proud of him and the time he served in the Marine corps. So this year I made this card for him to show my thanks for his selfless service to his country. Thank You Baby, you and your service will never be forgotten.
I used some K & co. papers and die cuts, the sentiment is a stamp from close to my heart that I embossed with red embossing powder from Ranger. It's stamped on a label cut from the lacy labels cartridge for the cricut. I also added a flag button that I cut the back from and a ribbon charm. I also used distress ink to alter the color of the paper and on the label.
That's all for my Veteran's Day card. I hope that you will tell a Veteran that you know, "thank you" today too.

More pictures from Berry College

The campus is HUGE and it has a complete working dairy farm and lots more. We didn't go all over the campus, I don't think we could have in just an hour or two. It's got tons of trails thru the wooded campus for hiking and biking. This bottom picture is of the island. They have a ton of wild life including ducks, swans and deer. It was so beautiful to just walk around out there. Hope you enjoy these pictures.

Trip to Berry College

Brian and I took a trip out to Berry College campus, which is right near our home, and took these pictures of the water wheel. Its an old grain mill that was once used by the college. Built in 1930, it's one of the largest in the world and was used to grind corn into meal and grits. It's still fully operational and is now used on special occasions. It's so very beautiful up there on the mountain side this time of year

Grrrrrrr!

I just had to share this photo with you all though it's not a paper craft subject matter. I came across this pic while pulling pics off the pc to print for scrapbooking and I thought you guys might enjoy it. As those of you who know me well know, I also enjoy photography along with scrapbooking and I took this picture of Kit Kat back in the summer at about 2-3 months old. I love this picture because it shows the true nature of the cat, "always pawing at something", lol. Anyway, I hope it makes you smile today,=> enjoy.

Get well card for Wendy

My friend, Wendy, is recovering from surgery she had on Monday. I wanted to make her a card to let her know that I was thinking of her and wishing her a speedy recovery. Wendy is currently learning about scrap booking and paper crafting in general and is also my best friend. So that just rocks for me! To have my best friend have an interest in and want to participate in the same hobby as me! Woo hoo!! I love it. So I can't ever pass on the opportunity to make her something crafty. Hope you enjoy it, Wendy and I love you girl. Get to feeling better soon.
Im also entering this card into a challenge hosted by Sandy over at Sandy's Space.  She's got some  wonderful g.c.d. studio goodies up for grabs.  I'm entering on the home girl frame and the insperation is the paper line, homespun chic.  So go over to Sandy's blog and check out the challenge. http://angsandy.blogspot.com/2010/11/sandys-challenge-1.html
Now for the details... I used the Melody Ross Homespun Chic, paper pad from g.c.d. studios for the background. I used the dress form stamp from the girl's paperie's paper girl stamp set. The flowers are from Recollections; the Boutique Fleur. I get them at Michael's. The sentiment stamp is from Close to my Heart. Its from the Say it in style stamp set. I used chalk ink from Clearsnap in Charcoal for both stamps and the bookplate label is a Cricut cut from the Fabulous Finds cartridge. I added some crystals for a touch of bling and that's it for this card. Hope you enjoyed it! thanks for stopping by.

Altered wall hanging for Robin.MPG

Here I show the wall hanging I made for my friend, Robin. I used paper from K & co. and g.c.d. studio and a ton of my hand made flowers. thanks for stopping by and watching. Don't forget to leave a comment. tfw. Hugs, amy K.

Halloween in Wonderland card.MPG

Halloween in Wonderland card

I made this card for my nephew, Dylan and his family to have for Halloween this year. I don't make too many Halloween cards generally but I do like to make them for the special children in my life. I was able to get this paper line from Graphic 45, a month or so back, for free! Can you believe it? They had it up on their web site that you could down load the entire paper line for free. How awesome is that! I don't have a wide format printer so 8x8 is the biggest that I can print it but that works out great for cards and minis. I think this paper is just too cute and I know that Dylan enjoyed the new Alice in Wonderland movie this year with Johnny Depp so I felt like he would really like the card. I just wanted the card to really showcase the paper. I just used a Tim Holtz texture fade for the back ground and some Pumice stone distress ink over the raised areas. The flowers are from recollections and the rest is from the paper line. Hope you enjoyed this little card. And thanks for stopping by.

Pink Hello, with flower, card

Whenever I participate in swaps I generally like to send some kind of Thank You to the hostest. I usually send a card along with my swap for the month. I think its important to remember how hard these people are working to make things come together smoothly for all involved to have a good time. I made this card for Reagan, the hostest for the Tim Holtz swivel clasp charm swap. I really do enjoy the swap and I want her to know that and to also know that I appreciate all the work that she has to put into it.
So, to make this card I went into my paper scraps, I try and use them up as I can so they don't overrun the scrappy spot. lol. I used this patterned paper from an older Basic Grey collection and I'm sorry, I am not sure which one it's from. I used a strip of Bazzill Basics card stock along the bottom under the ruffled eyelet lace, which is from my vintage stash along with all the buttons on this card. I used the Lacy Labels cartridge for the Cricut to make the label on Georgia Pacific white card stock and I made the shadow in brown Bazzill card stock. The sentiment stamp is from the Gracious Greetings stamp set from Close to my Heart and I stamped it with Berrylicious chalk ink from Clearsnap. The large flower is a white silk flower I had and I used the Berrylicious on the petals and I used Glimmer Mist in Wheat field over the whole thing then added a pink prima flower and the brown vintage button in the center. The stick pin is one that I made. Okay, I think that covers it. I hope you enjoy and, as always, thanks for stopping by.

Butterfly birthday card

I made this card for my wonderful aunt, Shelia. She has been a special person in my life sense before I was born. I wanted to make an especially beautiful card for her. I know that she likes butterflies so what better paper line than the Mariposa line from DCWV. I didn't even have to do much to this card because the paper is so beautiful. I made the large butterfly with a Martha Stewart stamp and I used my colored pencils with mineral spirits to color it in. The mineral spirits makes the pencils easy to blend. You should use the odorless mineral spirits whenever possible and If you cant then make sure to use it in a well ventilated area. I used the Cindy Loo cartridge for the Cricut to make the frame and the swirls. I added a metal butterfly charm to the frame. That's about it. Like I said, the paper is so pretty that I didn't have to do much to the card. I hope you enjoyed this card and thanks for stopping by.

Charms for the November swap

These are my charms for the Tim Holtz swivel clasp charm swap hosted by Regan at Emoradesigns. The theme for this months swap was fall colors and to use Copper hardware. I JUST LOVE doing this swap! I've really enjoyed making the charms for the swap. Thanks again to Reagan for hosting it. Hope you enjoy these and thanks for stopping by.