When life gives you lemons...

If you thought I was going to say "make lemonade" you couldn't be more wrong. :)

A week or so ago a fellow blogger (Paula from Stamford, CT) was sharing some of her word art digi stamps and asked if anyone had any favorite quotes that she could use for inspiration. I gave her my favorite and today she emailed me that she had created a digital stamp from my quote. She is so amazing and made both a black and white and a colored stamp. To see her original post and to download a copy for yourself, click here.

Here's my take on her awesome stamp.

I printed the colored stamp 3 times on cardstock. The first one I cut out with a thin white border around it and mounted on a 3"x3" brown square. The second copy I cut out around the frame of the quote and mounted it with dimensionals above the original. The 3rd one I cut out only the chocolates, which I then inked with an embossing stamp and melted with my heat gun. I repeated this step 3 or 4 times until it was perfectly smooth all over. I then attached it over the chocolates on the top layer. I recently purchased some ribbon that I've been dying to use and it perfectly matched her colored stamp. I also embossed a piece of white cardstock with my favorite Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder.

I loved this stamp so much I decided to make a one layer card for the Less is More challenge this week where the sentiment is the focal point. I liked this one equally well.Thanks for stopping by.

WooHoo!!! I'm getting a new toy!

As soon as I can get verification that this awesome machine works with SCAL, it will be mine!!!! I'm so excited, I can't wait!!!!

I'm Guest Designing for Birthday Week at Inking It Up Crazy

Kassidy, over at Inking It Up Crazy, is celebrating Birthday Week,  and no it's not her birthday. She thought it would be fun to spend a whole week designing around birthdays and so far her designers have done a fabulous job. On Monday, she featured invitations; Tuesday was decorations; yesterday was party favors and she has asked me to help with today's topic of gift wrapping/packaging. I was super excited to be included in Kassidy's project!!! Be sure to check out her blog and see all the great creations by clicking here.  I wanted to create a gift bag larger than a 12"x12" piece of printed cardstock could make. I've looked at the 12"x24" cardstock and there isn't much out there, so I created this giftbag using 2 sheets of printed cardstock instead, but you would never know it to look at it. Here are some pics along with a few quick instructions so that you can make your own. Cardstock is from DCWV Cotton Bloom Stack, ribbon is 1.5" Celebrate It Sheer Creations from Michaels, Cricut cartridge is Tags, Bags, Boxes and More on my Gypsy.

I used the 12"x24" mat and matched up my cardstock lines. It is essential that you line up the cardstock carefully for it to line up properly when assembled. I was using a new mat and my pattern had lots of lines to match up so I put my cardstock face up. I also inked the edges while I had it on the mat. If you want, you can certainly put it facedown, which will make it easier to tape the two pieces together. I taped the two pieces together once it was already cut out, so either way works.

 When sizing my bag on the Gypsy I made it as large as would fit on the mat, which in this case was 21.75"x11.62". I then lined up one of the score marks exactly on the 12" line so that my seam would be right on the fold.

 Once I cut the design, I taped the seam with clear, extra strength packing tape. Then scored all the score lines and prefolded them to make it easier to assemble. I love the hole cutout for the ribbon. It worked great.

 I took pics on my Martha Stewart Scoreboard so you can see the dimensions, a full 9"x7" bag that is 2" deep!!!

Hope you enjoyed my first tutorial and my first time guest designing. Thanks to Kassidy for giving me this fun opportunity. Please feel free to leave me a comment and if you like this and my other creations, please follow my blog. If you leave me your blog address, I'll check out your blog also. Thanks for stopping by.

Who needs a Bow Easy when you have a dinner fork?

Last week there was a tutorial on bow making over at OWH Stars and Stamps using a simple dinner fork. Well, I had to try it out because my bow making leaves a lot to be desired. This was super easy and I think  it turned out great. I liked it so much I made another one with spring flowers for challenge 2 over at Birthday Sundaes. The cardstock is all from the K&Company Tim Coffey Designer Mat Pad. The tag was made from my stash using my new Just Right Happy Everything Tag Making Kit and the  brown ribbon is Celebrate It Basic Narrows from Michaels and the blue ribbon is Offray. Thanks for stopping by.