Happy Valentine's Day - BBTB2 Contest

Hey there, if you've been on my blog in the last week or so then you've already seen this card in the post below, as I also used it for Taylored Expression Sketch Challenge #98. It started off to be my entry to the Bitten By The Bug 2 contest but thought I would combine it with another challenge.

The BBTB2 contest was to make any valentine's project, using any cut from any Cricut cartridge but you had to add purple in the color theme. I really liked that idea because it's the color theme in my downstairs bathroom and a little bit in my bedroom but with much more latte color. For some reason I've liked that color combo for home decor for awhile.

Since this will Scott's Valentine's card I made a matching box using the Stationary Box with a Frame Top from The Cutting Café designed by the very talented Regina Easter. Her set comes with 4 different tops, the frame (the one I used), circle opening, rectangular opening and a solid top.

So here's my entry in the BBTB2 contest:


Scott's favorite candy bar is Snickers, just in case you were wondering ;p




With masking tape I used the same stamp as the inside of the card, I just stamped each word separately on the tags (also, those really pretty diamond pins were given to me by a friend of mine, Tracy Gough all the way from England, thanks again Tracy!):


Inside of the card:


Most of you know that I love to embossing my stamping images:


Back of the card & envie:


The greatest stamp for card makers!


Love Mix:
Most of it is listed in the post below, but here are a few extras:
-Stamps: Inkadinkadoo "Happy Valentine's Day", MSE! "Love Postage" and MSE! "Back of Cards Set"
-FCI: Colorbox "Warm Violet"
-The Cutting Café Stationary Box cutting template
-Misc: Pigment Ink, Embossing Powder, Heat Gun

Wine Thank Yous

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a great and safe New Years!

I'm finally getting around to some thank you cards after the holidays. Here are two that I made for some friends that gave me some wine for Christmas. Actually when I was making them I realized one of them I didn't get a bottle of wine from, but she's a big fan of wine so I thought the card would be appropriate for her anyway.

The other one I was making for I receive an excellent bottle of wine! It's a CA wine which I'm not usually a fan of but it's from Napa Valley. And it's a strange mix of Zinfandel, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. I was REALLY surprised at how good it is as I've never been a Zinfandel fan at all! I highly recommend it...It's Ménage à Trois bottled by Folie à Deux Winery in St. Helena, Napa County, CA (www.menageatroiswines.com). The friend that gave it to me came across it from friends of his that live in CA and discovered this very delicious combination for a red wine. So now we are on a quest to find it at a local liquor store here in New England. ;p

So it was definitely appropriate to make them a wine bottle shaped card that I got from The Cutting Café designed by the very talented Regina Easter. I love working with her designs. This particular set comes with 5 circle sentiments, 2 regular sentiments, 6 toppers and an envelop.

I decided to go a step further and make the envelop a very very thin wine bottle gift bag, perfect size for a card. I'm actually very pleased with myself in designing it and got some great use with the Scor-Pal. I'm very sure I'm not the 1st person to figure out how to make one but I was just impressed how quickly I did it.

So here they are:


The Thank You images used as the bottle labels are stamps by Hero Arts from their Collage and CardArt collections:




A little spot for the personal note:


It's just a very thin wine bottle gift bag:




Grape Blends for the guy's card:
-CS: TPC "Sable" & "Espresso", Mi-Teintes "Stygian Black" and Nicole Crafts Natural Stock Paper
-PPs: DCWV "Gold Script Designer" & "Olive Script"
-Stamp: Hero Arts Collage Thank You
-Ink: Versafine Vintage Sepia
-Fluid Chalk Ink: Colorbox "Creamy Brown", "Chestnut Roan" and "Dark Brown"
-Misc: Ribbon, adhesive, eyelets, Crop-A-Dile, Scor-Pal


Grape Blends for the girl's card:
-CS: Bazzill Basics "Mocha Devine" and Nicole Crafts Natural Stock Paper
-PPs: DCWV Once Upon a Time "Palace Throne"
-Stamp: Hero Arts CardArt Thanks Phrase
-Ink: Versafine Onyx Black
-Fluid Chalk Ink: Same as above plus "Merlot" (appropriate, huh?)
-Misc: Same as above

TFL!! And off to make my other thank you cards...

More Twelve Days of Christmas

Hi, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and about to have a very Happy New Year!

Here are some boxes that hold 12 miniature Hershey candy bars that I made using Regina's The Cutting Café's Candy Box.

I made a bunch of each of these to sell as Christmas favors or gifts for people to buy. My finance's mother owns a cut your own Christmas Tree Farm, so every year we go up to help out and she suggested that I bring some of my stuff to see if it will sell. I did sell a few...not including the ones she bought. ;p

Here's a picture of us getting our freshly cut tree:


I had made a couple of these boxes last year for myself to give as dinner favors and gifts to friends and colleagues.

Regina's boxes are always fun to work with and with this particular box there also comes templates to cut out the candy wrappers if you want to use them to cover the Hershey wrappers to make it more custom.

So here they are...

This paper is gorgeous, huh? It's from SEI in their Alpine Frost collection (glitter stack):








I went a little Americana on this set (paper from DCWV The Fall Stack 2007):








I really like this music paper I got in a stack from My Mind's Eye "Festive & Frost" Short Stack with Glitter:






Other materials:
CS: Bazzill Basics: "Tropical", "Capers" and "Mocha Divine"
Glitter CS: DCWV
Fluid Chalk Inks: Colorbox "French Blue", "Celadon" and "Olive"
Punches: Cuttlebug Ice Crystal Die & Embossing Combo and MS Alpine Snowflake
Cricut Cart: JOTS for the Holly cut at 1 1/2"
Misc: Red Rhinestones, Red Ribbon, Adhesive

TFL and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Birthday for my brother...AND THE WINNER OF THE BBTB BLOG HOP...

Hi, I'm sooooo sorry that I haven't announced the winner of the Bitten By the Bug Blog Hop with one of Regina's printable stamps from The Cutting Café.

But 1st, of course I have to show you the card I made for my brother for his b-day. As you all know it can be very difficult to make a card for a guy as we all like to embellish our cards with pretty stuff. I think I may have done an OK job in keeping it guy like:









Recipe:
-CS: Bazzill "unknown color name" and Bazzill Basics "Mocha Devine"
-PPs: 7 Gypsies "Savannah Collections - Telfair"
-Stamp: Inkadinkadoo "Happy Birthday Flourish"
-Fuild Chalk Inks: Colorbox "Amber Clay" and Chestnut Roan"
-Blossoms: Prima Fleur "Nursery Tales Collection - Vintage Style"
-Cuttlebug: D'vine Swirls
-Cricut Cartridge: Storybook cut @ 1 1/2" using the Shorty feature
-Misc: Black Pigment Ink, Embossing Powder, Heat Gun, Adhesive


OK, so now onto the winner!

JILL is the winner!!!. You have just won the Big Holiday Words printable stamp set. Please leave me a comment to this post with your email address so I can send you the files or send me an email at nikkiduey@yahoo.com with your email address.

Please respond by Sunday, June 7th or I will have to pick another winner.

Using random.org here are the results:

4th of July LO...another BBTB Blog Hop

Hey there! I've gotten a bit of a jump on the summer holidays and getting some LOs done for my future in-laws. I used this week's Bitten By the Bug challenge which was to use the Frame from the Storybook cartridge (page 56 of the manual). Also, as part of the challenge, Regina has so generously sponsored the Blog Hop we are having this week. For my challenge I used the 4th of July from her Holiday Big Words printable stamp set from The Cutting Café. And this set is what you could win for the BBTB Blog Hop!! Lots of stuff you can do with this set!

For those that have never done a Blog Hop, it's a piece of cake! All you have to do is leave me a comment on this post and I'll enter you in the contest to win the Holiday Big Words printable stamp set. And then you can go onto to the next blog, which you will see who, later on in this post, who is also giving away something from The Cutting Café. Have your posts into me by Saturday, May 23rd (midnight EST) and I will announce the winner on Sunday by using random.org.

So here is my creation:


Here's the frame from Storybook:


And this is one of the printable stamps from the Holiday Big Word set. I printed the larger print on colored card stock and adhered it on top:




And a spot for some journaling:


Fireworks:
-CS: Bazzill Basics "Ruby Slipper" & "Mocha Devine", The Paper Company "Primary Blue" and DCWV Glitter Stack
-PPs: ProvoCraft "Juniper Stars on Fossil" and DCWV The Summer Stack (2008)
-Fluid Chalk Inks: Colorbox "Blue Iris", "Chestnut Roan", "Merlot" and "French Blue"
-Stamps: Stampers Anonymous Teresa Collins "Memories" and The Cutting Café "Holiday Big Words"
-Stickers: Jolee Boutique Photo Corners "Blue Daisies"
-Cricut Cartridge: Storybook for the decorative frame cut at 7"
-Misc: Adhesive, Dew Drops

OK, now leave me a comment, then go on to the OH so very talented lady, Enfys, and see her amazing creation and then enter in her Blog Hop contest and see another link to another blog. Hop away!!!

Mother's Day Cards

Time just flies doesn't it! Mother's Day is this weekend and I'm finally finishing my cards for my mom and my Grandmother. One of them was using this past weeks Bitten By The Bug challenge which was to use the Vase and the word Mom from the Beyond Birthdays cartridge. You should see all the beautiful things the girls did with this challenge!

Here's mine, which I kind of made it into a shaped card:


I also used a printable stamp from The Cutting Café from Regina's All About Mom set. It's a really great set with a BUNCH of great stamps (you'll see a few more that I used on my Grandmother's card:


I cut out a butterfly and some of the flowers from the gorgeous SEI paper:


Here's the back where you can see I welded the Vase, Mom and a rectangle together using the CDS:


I really like this stamp, I'm not sure who it's by, I used at my LSS during a workshop. I stamped it a bunch of times on different papers to have a few on hand ;p:


And as always with the matching envelop. The leafy ribbon was left over from the workshop I took, it's really pretty but doesn't photograph well.



And here's the card I made my Grandmother, using 2 more printable stamps from the All About Mom set at The Cutting Café.

These are actually two separate printable stamps that I imported into Inkscape so I could print them together on the same paper:


I just love anything scrolly!:


Using Inkscape again I was able to delete everything except the blossoms so I could print those on a separate piece of paper without wasting to much of it:


And of course I always have to jazz up the inside:




Mother's Love:
-CS: Bazzill Basics "Guacamole", "Fussy", "Piglet"
-PPs: SEI Chocolat Cherie and Basic Grey Porcelain "Chintz" and "Chatsworth"
-Printable Stamps: All About Mom from The Cutting Café
-Cricut Cuts: Beyond Birthdays for the Vase cut at 5 3/4" with a shadow and the word Mom cut at 1 1/8" with a shadow all welded with a rectangle from George. And the scallop is from AE cut at 1 3/4" with a shadow

-CS: Bazzill Basics "Palo Verde" and "Tropical"
-PPs: K&Company "K-Ology Peabody" Scrap Pad to Go and MM "Noteworthy Audrey"
-Printable Stamps: All About Mom from The Cutting Café
-Rubber Stamps: Inkadinkado "Handmade with Love"
-Misc: Pigment Ink, Embossing Powder, Heat Gun, Satin Ribbon

TFL and Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there!!!

Easter special at The Cutting Cafe!!

Happy Easter everyone!!! I hope everyone has a very special Easter with your friends and families!

I just wanted to let you know about a great Easter special going on over at The Cutting Café.

Go on over and see all the great things you can make with Regina's awesome designs and at an amazing prices!

Finished Easter Card Set & Gift Box

Well I finally finished the 4th card and gift box for the set 4 Easter cards with Gift box that I put on my Etsy store.

I used my favorite gift box to make using Regina's Box for Quarter Fold Cards from The Cutting Café.

Here's the 4th card:


I had already used this theme on a pillow box that you can see here.

Just love this kitty that can be a bit devilish:


And of course a matching envelop:


And here's the gift box that would be perfect for some very yummy Easter candy and/or chocolates...and then give to someone as a gift.


The 3 other cards are here (they are the 1st 3, the 4th one I made for my Grandmother).

If you would like to purchase this set, click here.

Easter Candy:
-CS: DCWV Green #1 and White Texture, Bazzill Basics Ruby Slipper
-PPs: BoBunny Ella Dot
-Fonts: LDJ Jester at 24 pts and DB Critter Doodles @ 175 pts character "C" for the kitty
-Prismacolor Pencils: PC939 Peach, PC928 Blush Pink, PC1051 Warm Grey 20% and PC1052 Warm Grey 30%
-Misc: Adhesive, ric rac, blossoms from stash, q-tip, chipboard, mini pop dots